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"Has Victoria met anyone exciting here? I haven't paid much attention to
any prospective suitors." He had noticed that Charles Dawson seemed to
be somewhat fascinated by her, but he was probably intrigued by both of
them. Most people were, it was hard not to be overwhelmed by such doubly
extraordinary beauty.

"I don't think so, Father, " Olivia lied, as always, for her, even now,
worded about the abominable Toby. We haven't really met anyone yet.

I mean .. . not really .. ." They had of course met everyone who was
anyone in New York, at the theater when their father took them out, at
dinner parties, at concerts they had gone to. But no one had
specifically introduced them to any young men with the intention of
marrying them off. In some ways, Olivia correctly guessed that some
people were intimidated by them, or viewed them as freaks, or thought
they would never agree to leave each other. Most people had no concept
of how different they were, how divergent their tastes and interests.

They just saw them as one very pretty girl, seen double.

"Victoria is behaving, isn't she? " her father asked with a look of
amusement. He had finally heard, through indirect means, that his
daughter had learned to dave and had actually stolen one of his cars,
and had gone somewhere with it in Croton. He had never heard of her near
arrest, fortunately, and the escapade with the Ford struck him as
harmless and somewhat silly. Her mother might have done the same thing
at her age, and driven right over his favorite flowerbeds in the
process.

She had actually walked her horse into their living room once, on a bet
with a friend, and everyone had been horrified. But Edward had thought
it was very funny. He was actually surprisingly tolerant for a man his
age, and had never been particularly upset by Victoria's high spirits,
in fact, he had indulged them, because she reminded him so much of her
mother.

"Will you be all right down here? " Olivia asked when she left him to
dress for the party at the Astors'. She poured him another glass of
port, and left him sitting next to the fireplace, comfortably reading
the evening paper. He said he was going upstairs in a few minutes
himself to dress, and told her that time to be ready for the party.

And as she walked upstairs, she thought of the questions he had asked,
about Victoria meeting any men in New York, and either of them finding
husbands and getting married. And she thought too about what she'd said
to him. She really couldn't imagine leaving him and getting married.

What if his health failed? Or he became ill? Who would take care of him?

It would have been different if her mother had been alive, they would
have had the luxury of normal lives then. But now Olivia felt that at
least one of them should stay and take care of him, and she was the
obvious one to do it. But as she thought of it, she let her mind drift
to Charles, and she suddenly asked herself what would happen if a man
like him ever asked her to marry him. What would she do then? It made
her heart beat faster just thinking of it. She couldn't imagine a man
like Charles ever pursuing her .. . but if he did .. . if ..

. she couldn't even allow herself to think of it. She had obligations
here.

Charles had absolutely no interest in her. He was only being kind to her
whenever he came to see her father.

When Olivia reached her bedroom, she could hear her sister dressing in
the bathroom beyond. They had closets and mirrors there, and when she
walked in to run a bath, she saw half a dozen dresses on the floor,
among them the pink one she had selected for them to wear to the
Astors'.

"What are you doing? " She looked at Victoria in surprise, and then
quickly understood what had happened.

"I'm not wearing that thing you picked out for tonight, " Victoria said
viciously, throwing another reject on a chair. "We'll look like a couple
of country bumpkins, although I suppose that was your intention."

"I think it's very pretty, " Olivia said noncommittally, admitting
nothing to her overwrought twin sister. "What else did you have in mind?
" She had obviously already been through half their closet.

And at the moment she was holding up a dress Olivia had never liked.

She had tried copying a dress by Beer, in deep crimson velvet with tiny
jet beads, and a long beaded train behind it. Olivia had always thought
it was far too low cut for them, and other than at a Christmas party at
their father's house in Croton-on-Hudson, they had never worn it. "I
don't like that, and you know it, " Olivia said to Victoria as soon as
she saw what she was holding. It had a black satin beaded cape that went
over it, lined in the crimson velvet. "It's too low cut, and too showy.
We'll look vulgar."

"This is a ball, not a tea party in Croton, Olivia, " Victoria said
coldly.

"You're trying to show off for him, Victoria, and I won't help you do
it. In that dress, in this town, we'll look like harlots. And I won't
wear it."

"Fine, " Victoria said, pirouetting on one heel, and Olivia didn't want
to admit to her how sensational she looked. The dress was a lot better
than she remembered, but it also seemed far too d'ring.

"Then why don't you wear the pink, Ollie dear, and I'll wear this one.

" Much to Olivia's surprise, she sounded as though she meant it.

"Don't be stupid." They never went out in different outfits. All their
lives, they had matched every single thing, right down to their
underwear and their hairpins. It was simply what they did, and going out
in something different than her twin would have made Olivia feel naked.

"Why not? We're grown-up. We don't have to wear the same thing anymore.

Bertie always thought it was sweet when we were children. But we don't
have to be sweet anymore, Olivia, in fact, I refuse to. That pink thing
is sweet, it's so sweet' it makes me sick to look at it. This is what I
want to wear, what I'm going to wear to the Astors' tonight, and if you
don't like it, feel free to wear something different."

"That's spiteful of you, Victoria, and I know precisely what you're
doing and so do you. And let me tell you, last night was not the most
important evening of his life, but it may have been of yours, if you
choose to ruin it for Tobias Whitticomb. You're a damn fool if you do
that." Olivia spat the words at her, yanking the identical red velvet
dress out of her closet. "I hate this stupid dress, and I'm sorry I had
it made, particularly if you're going to make fools of us, forcing me to
wear it to the Astors'."

"I told you, " Victoria said, having laid the dress aside again, while
she brushed her hair. "You don't have to wear it." But this time, Olivia
didn't answer.

The two never spoke to each other again, as they bathe and dressed, and
powdered and perfumed. And Olivia looked surprised when she saw Victoria
put on the merest hint of lip rouge. Neither of them had ever worn it
before, and Olivia thought her sister suddenly looked very different.

She looked not only beautiful, but more than a little racy.

"I'm not wearing that, " Olivia said sullenly as she finished doing her
hair, and watched Victoria put on the lip rouge in the mirror.

"No one said you had to."

"You're in over your head, Victoria, " Olivia said darkly.

"Maybe I swim better than you do."

"He'll drown you, " Olivia said sadly, as Victoria left the room,
dragging the satin-and-velvet beaded cape behind her.

As the two girls came down the stairs a few minutes later, their father
stared up at them in total silence. Everything about the way they looked
that night told him they were no longer little girls. They looked like
truly dazzling women. Victoria came down the stairs first, and even the
way she moved spoke of worlds she knew nothing about, and yet was
instinctively a part of. It was Olivia who looked considerably less at
ease in the highly visible outfit. Their figures suited it, and the
dress showed off their creamy skin and lithe young bodies.

They both had tiny waists and high breasts, all of which were shown off
to full advantage in the low-cut crimson velvet.

"Good Heavens, where did you get those dresses? " their father asked,
surprised to see them in something so fashionable and almost exotic.

"Olivia had them made for us, " Victoria said sweetly, "I think she
designed them."

"I had them copied actually, " Olivia said unhappily as the butler
helped them put their capes on, "but they didn't come out the way I
wanted."

"I'll be the envy of every man there, " their father said generously and
led them both outside to the waiting limousine. There was a chill in the
air, and he looked at both girls as they stepped into the car ahead of
him. He'd been right that afternoon, they were certainly no longer
children. And it would be a miracle if every man there didn't propose to
them that night. He was almost sorry to take them out looking like that,
they were far too sensuous looking and too appealing.

But he wasn't nearly as sorry as Olivia, sitting pressed into the corner
of the car, hating the dress she'd been forced to wear, and furious with
her sister.

When they arrived at the Astors' palatial home on Fifth Avenue, it was
ablaze with light, and inside and out, it looked like a palace.

There were four hundred people there, and faces and names that the girls
had only read about or heard of. The Goelets and the Gibsons were there,
Prince Albert of Monaco, a French count, an English duke, and an
assortment of minor nobles from other countries. All of the available
New York "Astocracy was there, some who hadn't been out in years, like
the Ellsworths who had been in seclusion for two years, since the death
of their eldest daughter. A handful of survivors from the Titanic
disaster the year I before were there, and some said it was literally
the first time they had been out, which made Olivia think immediately of
Charles Dawson.

She nodded to Madeleine Astor, who had lost her husband John when the
ship went down, and she was looking exceptionally pretty. The baby she'd
had after his father died was almost a year old now, and it saddened
Olivia to think that he would never know his father.

"You're looking exceptionally well tonight." She heard a familiar voice
and turned to see who it was, and was surprised to see Charles Dawson.

And then he laughed, "I know you're Miss Henderson, and I could pretend
to know which one you are, but I'm afraid I don't, so you'll have to
help me."

"Olivia, " she said with a slow smile, with a sudden mischievous
temptation to pretend she was her sister, just to see if he would say
anything different. "What are you doing here, Mr. Dawson?

" she asked with a smile. He had told her the night before he never went
to parties.

"I hope you're telling me the truth, " he said, as though he knew what
she had just been thinking about tacking him. "I shall just have to
believe you. Actually, I was related to the Astors by marriage.

My late wife was the niece of our hostess, and she was very kind and
insisted that I come. I'm not sure I would have, if it hadn't been for
last night. You broke the ice for me, but I'm afraid this is rather more
serious than I expected. It's an absolute madhouse, " not like their
elegant little soiree of the night before, with a mere fifty people.

But the Astors' home accommodated the glittering crowd easily, and in
fact Victoria had vanished the moment they entered.

Charles stayed and talked to Olivia for quite a while, they chatted
about his son, and the few people Olivia knew there, and some she
recognized, and then he said something about Madeleine Astor having been
on the ship with his wife when it went down. He always looked so
desperately sad when he talked about her, that it tore at Olivia's heart
to see it. She had no idea what to say to him, and she suspected that it
was a grief from which he might never recover. He seemed to be
functioning, but there was a piece of him which was clearly so torn
apart that it appeared as though it could never be mended.