Splendor: A Luxe Novel by Anna Godbersen Read Free Book Online

her unseemly red gown with an air of European haughtiness, no doubt, but their expressions were irrelevant just then.
    As she waited, her confidence, as well as the excitement of being in the middle of a room, at the center of attention, of having done something slightly irregular, grew. Then the prince reached for her hand and planted his lips on the other side of the gaudy engagement ring that she had had to buy herself.
    “Allow me the pleasure of being the first,” he replied in English just slightly inflected with a foreign sophistication.
    Neither she nor the prince glanced at the Frenchwomen as he lifted his arm so that her hand could remain rested against his and aloft while he led her into the adjoining room. Several of Miss Broad’s guests were still dancing, but they parted for them with reverent interest. A hush fell over the couples. They were all watching her now, Penelope realized, and she smirked a little to think how easy it was to win their attention, even after everything.
    The prince’s eyes darted once more to her hand before he circled her firmly with his other arm, and moved her backward into a waltz.
    “What a pity you’re married,” he said, in a voice that implied a greater familiarity than could possibly have been justified by their few minutes of acquaintance. He was dancing very close to her, closer than an American boy would have—but then she was not shy of holding his gaze.
    “Well, you see, my husband is at war,” she replied with a broad flash of smile. “In such situations, you never know who will be coming back, and who is gone forever, and a lady must always be hedging her bets.”
    For a moment she feared that she had gone too far, that the prince would find her cavalier assessment of Henry’s soldiering and possible death unseemly and leave her standing alone on the dance floor. But then he tossed his head back and laughed heartily, until she too laughed, emitting a twinkling bell-like noise in the direction of the coffered ceiling. Then he moved closer and went on dancing her across the floor in a way that made all those people who had so recently snubbed her stop what they were doing and stare at her gape-mouthed. The prince of Bavaria was still laughing, a little smugly now, and this indicated to Penelope that he had a rather perverse sense of humor and also that, over the course of the evening, they were going to have a very good time.
    The skirts of the women all around them brushed up against one another to form a solid wall of fine pastels; their mouths, and whatever they were whispering, disappeared behind their fans. Light twinkled from the jewels that sat on Penelope’s wrists and neck and waist and hair. The fearsome Mrs.
    Schoonmaker had been away for some months, but it had only taken a few hours, and not especially much of her patience, to once again captivate an entire room.

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    Six

    A gentleman travels to become hale and experienced; a lady travels to complete her hat collection, and must be mindful she does not rub up against too much of the world.

    ——MRS. L. A. M. BRECKINRIDGE, THE LAWS OF BEING
    IN WELL-MANNERED CIRCLES

    “DRINK UP NOW, BOYS!” CRIED DIANA HOLLAND, IN a brassy tone that would have made her mother shudder, from a location that would have made the old lady weep. “Because it might be a hurricane tomorrow….”
    Out of doors the winds were loud and full of bluster, but there was no rain yet. The air inside Señora Conrad’s was hot and festive, and the barmaid with the curly wisps of short brown hair pinned away from her face could hardly see through the crowd of soldiers, from her post behind the long wooden bar, to the open shutters of the saloon and whatever weather lay beyond. The fabric of the white button-down shirt she wore fell away from her lightly sweating skin. The sleeves were pushed up to her elbows and tucked into the long, plain