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Germany?”
    “Oh.” He glanced nervously about the room. “I had hoped not to be the one to tell you.”
    A sense of foreboding dimmed her earlier exuberance, still she maintained her countenance even though events were making it increasingly difficult. Never show emotion, or risk the scorn that follows, her mother had always counseled. “Not to tell me what, Mr. Whitby?”
    “Randolph has married a German girl. We’re hoping he will be instrumental in representing our client’s interests in that part of the world. Now that steam has made shipping more reliable, the world is becoming a smaller place.” His lips pulled tight in a sad smile.
    She stood still, her smile frozen on her face, her mother’s axiom pounding in her brain. Never show emotion. Appearances are paramount. Her heart screamed at the loss of her future, the loss of a quiet life as Mrs. Stockwell, the loss of children loved for themselves and not for the position they could bring her in society. All her hopes and dreams dissolved in six short words. Randolph has married a German girl. Her last foothold in a sane world crumbled, and she felt as if she had tumbled into a deep, black abyss. Still, she smiled and nodded as if she had known it all along.
    “You must pass along our congratulations, Mr. Whitby, when next you see him.”
    “Good day, Miss Winthrop.” The attorney tipped his hat and stepped around her to leave. She stood frozen with her smile, fighting back tears. Her mother would have been proud.
    She wasn’t sure how long she stood alone in the gold room, a devastating hole boring through her heart. The gilded mirrors surrounding her reflected so much glitter and gold, they managed to disguise the passing of time. Perhaps that’s how so many years had slipped away from her, she wondered. It had all been a trick of those mirrors.
    Had Randolph’s affections been a trick as well? Those mirrors made them all believe they had more time. She was twenty-six years old, abandoned and alone. Her mother planned upstairs, her hard-fought battle to gain admission to New York’s Four Hundred—the most elite group of American society—driving her to purchase a title by selling her daughter. It was all so worthless, so pointless.
    A tear plopped onto the sheath of papers in her hand, the sound amplified in the vast empty room. She rubbed the moisture from her cheek, unaware she had been crying. It would do no good for her mother to see her this way, and see her she must if only to gain her signature on these documents.
    As she left the room and began to slowly climb the winding staircase to reach her mother’s bedroom, she noticed a housemaid with a laden tea tray.
    “Sally,” she asked. “Is that for Maman?”
    “Aye,” she responded. “I’m taking this tray to her now. Is there something you’d be wanting?”
    She placed the sheaf of papers on the tea tray, thus eliminating the need to see her mother and evidence of a family’s betrayal.

Three

    “CHAMBERS, I DON’T THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA.” Percy glanced at his reflection in the mirror, twisting from side to side, admiring the fit of the military blue jacket with the gold braid trim of a Prussian prince. “This costume was meant for you. The note said as much.”
    “Ridiculous.” William picked up the brilliant green papier-mâché frog head that would ultimately complete his costume. “I much prefer wearing your costume. This headpiece will allow me the freedom to move throughout the crowd without the demands placed on a performing pig.”
    “So now I’m a pig, am I?” Percy laughed. “Seriously, why are you doing this?”
    The painted face on the frog held a ridiculous grin, the eyes much larger than those on a natural frog. It would certainly hide him completely. William slipped the hollow construction over his head until the neck opening rested on his shoulders.
    “Hiding in that mask won’t stop my questions,” Percy said. “We’ve gallivanted about Newport