Mirror Image (13 page)

"I assume your sister must be here tonight, " he said pleasantly.

"I haven't seen her."

"Neither have I. She disappeared as soon as we arrived. She's wearing
the same awful dress, " Olivia said woefully, but at least in this crowd
it didn't stick out, there were others like it, or even far more daring.

But Charles laughed at what she'd said.

"I take it you don't like it. It's very handsome though. Very, " he
looked slightly embarrassed as he said it, "is grown-up' the wrong word
to use with a young woman your age? "

"Inappropriate might be better.

I told Victoria I feel like a harlot.

She chose it, but I had it made in the first place, so she can blame me,
and has. Worse yet, my father thinks it was my choice."

"Did he object? " Charles asked, amused, and she watched his eyes as
they spoke. They were so deep and so green and so intriguing. And
without meaning to, the crowd pushed her gently against him.

"No, he liked it." She made a face, referring to her father liking the
dress she detested.

"Men always like women in red velvet, " Charles informed her. "I think
it gives them the illusion of something wicked." Olivia nodded, hoping
that in her sister's case it would be nothing more than an illusion.

Charles took her in to dinner eventually, and after a while he left her
with a group of young ladies. He introduced Olivia to all of them, and
hoped she was comfortable with them, when he went in search of his
wife's cousins. He had already explained that his little boy was ill and
he didn't want to stay late at the party. She was sorry to see him go,
because the music had just started. And a few minutes later, she saw
that her sister was one of the first on the floor, far too predictably
in the arms of Toby. She watched them circle slowly around the floor in
a slow, easy waltz, and then was shocked a little while later, to see
them still there, and doing the brand-new foxtrot.

"Good lord, it's like seeing two of you, " one of the girls said,
staring at her, fascinated by how much she looked like her twin sister.

She said she'd never seen anything like it. "Are you totally, totally
alike in every way? " she asked, consumed with curiosity while Olivia
smiled. It was always like this for them, people wanted to know what it
was like being identical twin sisters.

"Pretty much. We're mirror twins. Things I have on the right, she has on
the left. My right eyebrow goes up a bit, her left one does. My left
foot is bigger, her right one is."

"What fun it must have been growing up, " another of the Astor cousins
said. And two of the Rockefeller girls had joined them to listen.

Olivia had met one of them on the old Gould estate, and she had seen the
other at a tea the Rockefellers had given in the music room at Kykuit.

All Olivia could remember about it was the incredible organ. Since the
Rockefellers neither danced nor drank, they seldom gave grand parties
the way the Vanderbilts and Astors did, but they often had small musical
soirees, or lunches at Kykuit.

"Did you switch all the time? " one of the girls asked.

"No, " Olivia laughed. "Only when we wanted to get into mischief, or out
of it. My sister hated taking exams in school, so I always took all of
them for her. When we were very little, she kept talking me into taking
her medicine for her, and I'd get very sick taking it for both of us,
until the lady who took care of us caught on to what we were doing.

She usually knew, but sometimes she'd have one of the maids give us
castor oil, or things we really hated. And we could always fool them."

"Why would you do that? " One of the girls made an awful face at the
thought of a double dose of castor oil. It was a hideous prospect.

"Because I love her, " Olivia said simply, always at a loss to explain
the lengths to which she would have gone for her twin sister. The bond
between them was beyond severing, beyond challenging, beyond explaining.

"I did a lot of silly things for her, and she for me. Eventually, our
father took us out of school because we caused so much trouble. We had a
lot of fun though." Olivia smiled at them, and they marveled at her
stories. But talking to them had distracted her, and an hour later,
Olivia realized that Victoria was still dancing with Toby. They had
never left the floor, and Victoria looked as though she were molded into
his arms as they circled slowly around the floor, lost in each other's
eyes, and oblivious to the hundreds of people around them.

Olivia excused herself from among the young ladies then, and went to
look for Charles, and she was relieved when she found him nearly at the
front door, with his coat on.

"Will you do me a favor? " she asked quietly, with pleading eyes that he
found hard to resist. They matched the tone he'd heard in her voice the
day she'd called him and asked him to come to the Fifth Precinct with
her.

"Is something wrong? " he asked, concerned, and surprised at how
comfortable he was with her. In some ways, she was like a little sister.

It was nothing of what he felt when he was in the presence of her twin
sister. And yet side by side, ignoring his instinctive feelings for
them, he would have been unable to determine who was who. It was only
when he talked to them, when he stood with them for a while, and felt a
strange stirring in his soul, that he knew. He liked to think he could
have told them apart instantly, if he'd known them better. "Is our
friend up to some mischief again? " he asked, concerned. It always
seemed to be Victoria who was in trouble, and Olivia who was rescuing
her. He had long since understood that much about the relationship
between them.

"I'm afraid so. Will you dance with me, Mr. Dawson? "

"Charles .

.

. please. I think we've gotten past Mr. Dawson.

" He took off his coat, handed it to the butler again, without a
complaint to her that it had just taken him half an hour to get it, and
he was anxious to get home to Geoff. He followed her dutifully through
the next two rooms and onto the dance floor, and then he saw instantly
what her problem was. Toby and Victoria were dancing closer still by
then, and Olivia looked extremely unhappy when she saw them.

Charles led her onto the dance floor and danced as close to them as
possible, but Toby was artful at avoiding them, and Victoria appeared to
be oblivious to her sister's glances and pointedly disapproving faces.

Finally, she turned her back on them, and whispered something to Toby,
until at last they left the dance floor, and disappeared into the next
room. And Olivia couldn't see them as soon as the crowd closed around
them.

"Thank you, " Olivia said, looking very grim, and Charles smiled down at
her.

"That's not an easy job you've set yourself. She's a very headstrong
girl." He still remembered how annoyed she had been not to be arrested,
and how ungrateful for her sister's succor. "That was Tobias Whitticomb,
wasn't it? " He knew all the stories too. All of New York did. But they
had more meaning now, if he was planning to make Victoria his next
victim. Charles hoped he would tire of her before he did any real
damage. Or perhaps the Hendersons would step in before it went any
further. Olivia certainly looked as though she meant to. And she thanked
Charles again for his help in chasing her sister off the dance floor.

"She's been making a spectacle of herself for the past hour, " Olivia
said with eyes full of blue anger.

"Don't worry about it. She's pretty and young, there will be lots of
roues running after her until she finds a husband. You can't worry about
all of them, " he tried to reassure her, but he had to admit
Whitticomb's reputation was worth worrying about, and he couldn't tell
Olivia she was wrong to watch them.

"Victoria says she is never marrying. She is going to live in Europe and
fight for women's suffrage."

"Oh dear. She'll grow out of it, I'm sure. When the right man comes
along, she'll forget all that. Just don't tell him she wants to get
arrested, " he teased, "and don't worry about her so much. You deserve
to have some fun, " he said, as he said good-bye to her finally and left
a few minutes later.

Olivia went to the ladies' room then, and looked in the mirror as she
smoothed down her hair. She had a terrible headache, the argument with
Victoria had gotten the evening off to a bad start, and seeing her glued
to Toby for the past hour hadn't helped it. But before Olivia could turn
around, she saw Evangeline Whitticomb in the mirror, bearing down on
her, and within an instant, she was standing directly behind her, as
Olivia turned slowly to face her.

"May I suggest, Miss Henderson, that you play with children your own
age, and at the very least confine yourself to bachelors, rather than
married men, with three children." She looked Olivia right in the eye,
without wavering, and Olivia felt a hot flush hit her cheeks, as she
realized that she'd been mistaken for her twin.

And Toby's wife was livid, and Olivia didn't blame her.

"I'm terribly sorry, " Olivia said quietly, tacitly agreeing to be
Victoria, and hoping to pour oil on troubled waters. It was a golden
opportunity, and she hoped to convince his wife that it was nothing more
than friendly conversation. "Your husband has had several business
dealings with my father, ma'am, and it was purely a matter of discussing
our families. He has done nothing but speak of you and the children
while we were dancing."

"I doubt that, " Toby's wife said angrily. "I'm surprised to hear he
even remembers he has us. Just be sure that you do, or I can assure you,
" she looked pointedly at her and lowered her voice but not her venom,
"you'll regret it. You mean nothing to him, you know. He'll play with
you like a toy, for a while, and then he'll drop you, and wherever you
fall, you'll lie broken.

He'll come back to me in the end .. . he has to." And with that, she
turned on her heel and left, and Olivia felt as though all the air had
been squeezed out of her. Fortunately, there had been no one else in the
room at the time, and she had to sit down after the other woman left,
she was so dizzy. And she was right of course.

Evangeline Whitticomb knew her husband well, she had seen his
performance dozens of times, and he always came back to her, because of
who she was, what she represented, and because he was far less foolish
than the women he played with.

Most of them were young and inexperienced, many of them were virgins.

They were dazzled by him, by his good looks and smooth ways, the
breathtaking things he said to them, and their own girlish illusions, or
even ambitious aspirations. But whatever they thought, and whatever he
told them, in the end, it made no difference, he always left them.

Just as Olivia had tried to warn her. She hoped that she had at least
assured his wife of her respectability, or rather Victoria's, but she
doubted it, and when Olivia left the powder room again, she saw Victoria
back on the dance floor in Toby's arms, and this time they looked a
great deal more intimate, their bodies pressed close, their lips almost
touching.

Olivia wanted to scream looking at them, but instead she did the only
other thing she could think of. She went to tell her father that she had
a terrible headache, and he was instantly solicitous, sent a maid to
find her coat for her, and went to get Victoria himself. He found her
dancing with young Whitticomb, and although he didn't seem pleased, he
thought nothing serious of it. He knew they had met in his home, and he
hadn't seen them together since then. He did make a comment though on
the way home that he had been surprised, after all he'd said, that
Olivia had seated Toby next to her sister. But he said rather pointedly
that he was sure no harm had come of it, and Victoria was wise enough
not to let him woo her. He hadn't seen Toby watching her as they left,
or the look they exchanged that only confirmed everything they'd said
that evening.