“Yes.”
Penelope came back and grabbed his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Or I shall assume you’re standing me up.”
When Field looked back a second later, he saw Geoffrey moving in the direction of the door.
Penelope paused by a Chinese waiter in a white linen jacket holding a silver tray. She took one of the champagne glasses and drank its contents in one swift movement before placing it back in the same position, all the time keeping a firm grip on Field’s hand.
Then they were on the dance floor, and some—though not all—of the people around them were doing the Charleston. As he watched Penelope step back and begin to dance, he thought of the letter he had read in the
Field did not know how to do the Charleston. It was not as simple as it looked and Penelope was laughing at him.
“Come on,” she said, leaning forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got to put your heart into it.”
She moved her arms and her legs and he tried to follow, slowly understanding its jerky ritual, before being bumped from behind by a corpulent man with slicked-back hair.
Penelope moved closer. “You’re getting the hang of it brilliantly.”
Ten yards away, Charles Lewis was looking at him and smiling. He was dancing with a Chinese girl not much more than half his size. She reminded Field of the prostitute he had almost slept with the other night and he could hear again the screams from the other end of the corridor.
The rich, he thought, could get away with anything here.
Twenty-one
Field wanted to stop now. “I need a drink,” he said, smiling thinly and wiping the sweat from his forehead. He turned his back on Lewis.
“In a minute.”
Penelope danced more manically than ever, shutting her eyes, as if wishing to lose herself in the music and the movement of her own body. Her bangs swung across her forehead, like a pendulum, and her lips were pursed, as if offering a kiss. Her dress, like the one she’d worn last night, was loose, and with each movement, her small breasts thrust against the silk. Field found it hard to take his eyes off her and he wanted to stop dancing.
“All right,” she said, laughing. “All right.” She took his hand. Field felt uncomfortable again at the intimacy of this gesture and tried to free himself, but she would not let go, leading him to the big doors along the side of the room and out onto the balcony. “You know,” she said as they reached the rail and looked down over the track, “you’re too young and handsome to be a stick in the mud.”
“I don’t intend to be.”
“You could dance if you tried. You’re athletic enough.”
Field did not know how to respond.
Penelope clicked her fingers and a waiter he’d not seen appeared from the corner behind the door. Despite the throng inside, they were alone out here, save for a few small groups at the far end of the balcony, the racetrack illuminated like a frontier post beneath them.
Penelope took two glasses and filled them both with ice from the silver bucket on the edge of the tray. “Do you drink whiskey?” she asked, handing him one.
“Not often.”
“Do you have
“A few.”
“Hold on,” she instructed the waiter before he could move away. “Your health, Mr. Field.” She upended her glass and, as she had with the champagne, drank it in one go. He hesitated for a moment and then, before she could reprimand him, followed suit. “That’s better,” she said.
Penelope replaced the glasses on the tray and took two more.
“How long does this go on?”
She shrugged. “As long as we feel like.”
“We?”
Her glass dropped a fraction. “You don’t like me, do you, Richard?”
“You’ve both been charming to me—more than I could have expected.”
“Why more than you could have expected?”
“I’m sure you know the answer to that.”
“Oh, all that stuff about your mother marrying beneath herself . . . it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“It matters at home.”
“Not to me it doesn’t.” She lifted her glass and again drained its contents.
