The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (296 page)

“It will give boils to any boy whose hands wander too far,” Alice said mischievously.

“Oh. I like the sound of that!” Lavender put in. They all gathered around the coffee table where Alice had already laid out the small tubs and satchels of herbs, petals, and roots they had been collecting around campus over the past few days.

“It looks as though we have everything,” Alice said. “Dandelion, mushroom, poison oak . . . But we need someone with gloves to handle it.”

“I’ll do it,” Theresa offered, holding up her gloved fingers.

Theresa’s dress was of a modern style, with sleeves that opened wide over her shoulders, exposing the sides of her arms, before the fabric came together again just above her elbow. The bodice was white, with a black bolero-style vest, and the skirt was made of several layers of black and white fabric draped one atop the other. She looked like a
Harper’s Bazaar
illustration come to life, and Eliza noticed more than one of the other girls eyeing her enviously.

“But what about the Smitten Potion?” Genevieve asked as Theresa got to work, measuring out the ingredients into a glass bowl. “I thought that sounded interesting.”

“Turns out, it only lasts for twenty-four hours,” Alice said dismissively.

“Good riddance, then. I have no interest in twenty-four hours,” Genevieve said with a sniff, turning toward the mirror on the east wall to add a purple feather to her hair. “What I need is a potion that will win a husband for me forever!”

Eliza laughed as she and Catherine returned to their vanity table.

“See that? That’s where I would draw the line,” Catherine said.

“You can’t make a boy fall in love with you for all eternity.”

Suddenly, the double doors opened.

“Shhhh!” Alice said, slamming the book and tucking it behind her.

Eliza turned, expecting to see the headmistress hovering at the door with a severe expression on her face. Instead, Helen hovered in the doorway, carrying a tray laden with a glass pitcher of water and a set of glasses.

“Hello, Helen,” Eliza said in a welcoming voice, even as her heart fluttered with nervousness. After having caught Helen watching her so many times, she felt constantly on edge around the maid. “How are you this evening?”

Helen placed the tray on the side table near the door and walked up to Eliza and Catherine.

“Well, thank you,” she said quietly, looking Eliza directly in the eye.

“We haven’t had a chance to properly thank you for keeping us out of trouble,” Catherine said, turning in her chair to face Helen. “You could have told on us, but you didn’t. We’re all very grateful.”

“You’re welcome, miss,” Helen said tonelessly.

Eliza wasn’t sure what to make of the girl’s complete lack of personality or inflection.

“Here. Would you help me fasten my necklace?” she asked, hoping to get the girl to warm up a bit. She sat before the vanity, placed her compact down, and lifted the gold locket from the table. Helen reached for it, but hesitated when she saw the pendant. Her skin looked almost gray.

“What? What is it?” Eliza asked, alarmed.

Helen blinked, tearing her eyes from the etching in the pendant’s surface. “It’s nothing, miss.” She took the clasp and worked it in one try. “It’s beautiful, Miss Williams,” she added politely. “Yours as well, Miss White.”

Catherine touched the gold fleur-de-lis that dangled from a simple chain around her neck. “My mother gave it to me,” she said, smiling. “And please, Helen, I must have told you a hundred times in the past, you can call me Catherine.”

“And me Eliza,” Eliza added. “We’re all the same age, aren’t we?” She turned to look up at Helen. “How old are you?” she asked when the other girl didn’t answer.

“Seventeen, miss,” Helen replied. Her eyes flicked to Eliza’s locket again, but just as quickly flicked back to her face.

“Then you are our senior and should certainly call us by our first names,” Catherine said warmly.

Helen seemed about to respond when Theresa interrupted from across the room. “Well, I look stunning tonight, if I do say so myself,” she announced turning this way and that in front of the full-length mirror. “I’m going to have a tough time keeping Harrison’s hands from wandering.”

“Would you like some of . . . what we were making?” Alice asked, glancing warily at Helen.

“No, thank you.” Theresa smirked, then looked across the room at Eliza. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

This brazen statement was met with gales of laughter. Eliza, however, saw Catherine glance sympathetically at her. Eliza immediately looked down at the surface of the table, pretending to be preoccupied with the many colors of rouge laid out before her. Did Catherine suspect something? Did she know how Eliza felt about Harrison?

But you feel nothing, remember?
she told herself.
He’s just another boy, and he’s engaged.

She took a deep breath and held it, driving out the awful feelings of disappointment and guilt. In the reflection of the mirror, she saw Alice slip the book of spells out from hiding again, and a few of the girls bent over its pages, whispering now so that Helen wouldn’t hear.

Avoiding Catherine’s eyes, Eliza smiled brightly at Helen. “So tell us about yourself, Helen,” she said, patting the stool next to her chair, opposite Catherine. “How did you come to be at Billings?”

Helen glanced around warily at the girls before taking the offered seat. She tucked her ankles and laced her fingers together in her lap.

“I used to live here, Miss Wil—I mean, Miss Eliza,” Helen said. “When it was an orphanage.”

Eliza felt the color rising in her cheeks. “Oh, my . . . well, then . . . your parents are not with you?”

“They were both taken by the measles. As well as my little brother, when he was just a baby,” Helen replied matter-of-factly.

“That’s horrible, Helen. I’m so sorry,” Eliza said.

“There’s no need to pity me,” Helen said, meeting Eliza’s gaze. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s that. I was the lucky one. When the Billings family bought this house to turn it into a dormitory, Mr. and Mrs. Billings were kind enough to take me in and give me room, board, and wages. I owe a world of debt to them.”

“What was this place like when it was an orphanage?” Catherine asked, looking around at the plate glass windows, the scrolling wall sconces, the gleaming floors.

“Nowhere near as nice as this,” Helen said. “This room was used as our classroom, though not many learned a thing in here. It was loud and crowded, and there were too many young ones running around.”

Eliza gazed across the busy, bustling chamber—at the gloves and evening bags strewn about, the fine jewelry being exchanged and borrowed, the rouge and lipstick being applied—unable to imagine the life Helen had experienced here.

“Here, Miss Eliza,” Helen said suddenly, lifting something off the dressing table. “Don’t forget these.”

In the palm of her hand were Eliza’s garnet earrings. Eliza smiled gratefully and fastened them in her earlobes.

“My mother always says that if I keep daydreaming, I’m going to miss out on my real life,” Eliza said with a laugh. “She says May didn’t get engaged by sitting around thinking.” She looked at her reflection wistfully, imagining May seated right in the very same place the year prior. Had she been excited to see George at the welcoming dance? Had they already had some kind of understanding then, or was it just a new flirtation like the one she’d thought she had with Harrison Knox?

Instantly, Eliza’s gaze flicked to Theresa, who was busy checking her hair.

Stop thinking about him,
she reminded herself.
Stop, stop, stop.

“You look beautiful, Eliza,” Catherine said, startling her.

“She’s right,” Helen added. “I’m sure your dance card will be fuller than anyone’s tonight.”

Eliza laughed under her breath. “You don’t have to humor me, you two,” she said, dropping her gold compact into her evening bag. “I know I’ll never be a true beauty like my sister.”

“May?” Catherine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, you’re far more beautiful than May.”

Eliza was incredulous. “No one is more beautiful than May.”

Helen shook her head. “Miss Catherine is right.” She reached over and plucked a satin ribbon from the dressing table, running it through her fingers. “Your sister . . . Miss Williams’s beauty is expected,” she said, frowning thoughtfully. “Yours, Miss Eliza, is far more exotic . . . unique.”

The blush rose through Eliza’s chest, up her neck, and into her face. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, wondering if it could
possibly be true. The shape of her eyes, their deep green color, her gleaming brown hair . . . she supposed these features
were
rather exotic next to May’s blue eyes and blond hair.

Eliza glanced at Helen again. She was gazing, her head tilted, at Alice and Viola in the reflection of the mirror as the two of them practiced waltz steps in the center of the floor. The silk ribbon still slipped through her fingers methodically, over and over again. Eliza was clearly not the only daydreamer in the room. Perhaps she had misread Helen from the beginning. Perhaps the maid wasn’t always staring at Eliza, but merely daydreaming.

“You should come along to the dance,” Eliza offered.

“Oh, yes! I’m sure one of the girls has a dress you could borrow,” Catherine agreed enthusiastically.

Helen’s tilted head snapped upright, and she blinked down at the ribbon in her hands. “Oh, no.” She quickly replaced the ribbon and stood, smoothing the front of her plain gray skirt. “Thank you, but the headmistress would never allow it.”

“Perhaps there’s a way we could convince her,” Eliza said pointedly, looking at Catherine.

Catherine smiled, immediately understanding Eliza’s meaning.

“No,” Helen said again, more firmly this time. Eliza could have sworn the maid glanced at her necklace once again. “No, thank you, Miss Williams. Please don’t.”

Eliza’s face fell as she looked at Helen. “But you don’t understand. We may be able to—”

“No,” Helen snapped, taking a step back.

Stunned, Eliza was about to ask her what was wrong, but at that moment the headmistress walked into the room, her evening dress of old-fashioned black crepe nearly filling the doorway. Alice slammed her book shut and shoved it under her seat, perching on top of it. The room became so suddenly and deathly silent, Eliza was certain the headmistress was going to suspect something.

Quickly she stepped forward and threw her arms wide to block the view of the parlor. “Good evening, Headmistress Almay!” she said gaily. “My, how lovely you look.”

Miss Almay glared down her nose at Eliza’s sapphire blue dress. “As do you, Miss Williams.” Eliza could tell it pained her to say the words.

Eliza reached for Helen’s hand, intending to ask the headmistress if the girl could come along to the dance, but her fingers caught only air. When she glanced around, Helen was nowhere to be seen.

“Well, ladies,” Miss Almay said, lifting her chin to look past Eliza’s shoulders. “Shall we?”

Alice clapped gleefully. Eliza looked at Catherine, a sizzle of anticipation rushing right through her, pushing all thoughts of Helen out of her mind. The men of Easton Academy awaited!

The dance was held in the solarium of Mitchell Hall on the Easton Academy campus. The marble floors had been freshly waxed, and gleaming floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the gorgeous green vistas of eastern Connecticut. The sun was just starting to set behind the trees, dyeing the sky outside a romantic shade of pink, as Eliza and her friends entered the hall. A string quartet played in the corner, and tuxedoed waiters proffered refreshments in crystal glasses.

As soon as Eliza stepped through the door, her eyes met Harrison’s. It was as if he’d been waiting for her all night long. But then Theresa emerged from the throng of girls and greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, forcing Eliza to face the awful truth that Harrison belonged to another.

“Come, Eliza,” Catherine said, slipping her arm through her friend’s. “Let’s go get some punch and watch Alice flirt.”

Eliza squeezed Catherine’s arm. The two girls helped themselves to raspberry ice punch from the tray of a passing waiter and, along with Lavender, spent the first half hour of the dance people watching, giggling, and wondering whether Miss Almay would take a turn on the floor with Headmaster Crowe of Easton.

“Theresa and Harrison make a handsome couple, don’t they?” Catherine said, eyeing Eliza in a knowing way.

Eliza blinked and blushed. She’d been caught staring.

“I don’t think so,” Lavender said baldly. “She’s very severe and dark, and he’s so boyish and blond. I don’t think they go together at all.”

Eliza pushed away from the wall and, feeling suddenly lighthearted, bestowed a quick kiss on Lavender’s soft cheek. “I knew I liked you, Lavender Lewis-Tarrington!”

Lavender touched her cheek with her gloved hand and laughed uninhibitedly for the first time since Eliza had met her. Grinning, Eliza turned around and, not caring for propriety or decorum at the moment, grabbed the arm of the first boy she could catch hold of, which turned out to be Jonathan Thackery.

“Well, Miss Williams!” he said, his eyebrows raised. “You look lovely this evening.”

“Thank you,” Eliza said. “Do you fancy a turn around the floor?”

Jonathan laid his crystal cup of punch aside and offered his arm. “We may as well start practicing. I’m sure we’ll be expected to dance together all night at the wedding.”

“How very conscientious of you, Mr. Thackery,” Catherine joked.

“I’m nothing if not conscientious,” he replied, teasing in return. “But don’t go anywhere, Miss White. You’re next.”

Catherine laughed as Jonathan squired Eliza to the center of the floor. They danced a waltz together, followed by a quickstep. Before long, Jeff Whittaker cut in, then a dark-haired boy who introduced himself as Cooper Coolidge, which, Eliza thought, was an unfortunately alliterative name. As she danced, Eliza managed to forget all about Harrison Knox. She was truly having a good time. She didn’t even look for him over the shoulders of her many partners. Not more than once or twice, anyway.