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before.” The woman’s lip seemed to curl.
    The girls started to titter again and the older lady clapped her hands sharply, her gold and diamond rings glittering in the gas lights. “Behave yourselves, girls, and remember, tonight we are presenting the most eligible young ladies in the Lone Star State to the cream of Austin society. Now, each of you have your escorts? We will practice the presentations.”
    “Escort?” Turquoise asked. “My uncle will be here later—”
    “No, no.” The lady frowned and the girls giggled again. “Don’t you know anything? You are supposed to have arranged for a young gentleman to escort you down from the stage.”
    “I—I’m afraid I don’t have an escort,” Turquoise said.
    She heard whispering from the girls. “What do you expect from a Mexican girl?”
    “Haven’t you heard? She’s the ward of the Durangos and he’s got enough money to buy her way in.”
    Turquoise wanted to turn and run out but decided she would not let these vicious girls defeat her. She tried to stand straight and tall, as diminutive as she was.
    “All right,” Mrs. Van Hooten said with a sigh. “You girls, don’t one of you have an extra brother or cousin here who might escort Senorita Sanchez in the ceremony?”
    The silence was deafening. Turquoise felt like the lonely child who was always chosen last in games.
    She heard a girl whisper, “She doesn’t belong here. We don’t have Mexicans at our balls.”
    The older lady clapped for silence again. “Doesn’t any young man want to escort this young lady?”
    What was she going to do? Turquoise felt her face burn with humiliation. It wasn’t only the gaudy dress; now she was without an escort.
    The silence seemed to echo and then, just as she was ready to turn and run out of the grand ballroom, a man’svoice said, “I would consider myself lucky to be the escort of such a beautiful young lady.”
    She heard the shocked sighs and saw the faces of the girls before she turned to look behind her. A handsome, mature man stood there smiling at her. He was tall and elegant, with light hair turning slightly gray at the temples and eyes as pale as her own. He bowed before her, wearing the finest of evening clothes with a white rose in his buttonhole. “That is, if the young lady is willing.”
    He took her numb fingers in his and kissed the back of her hand. The way the girls were staring at him, they were in awe.
    “Ah, Senator Forester,” the older lady gushed, “we would be so honored to have a member of such a prominent family and our fair city’s most eligible bachelor take part in our presenting of the debutantes tonight.”
    He stared into Turquoise’s eyes, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the crowd. “No, it is I who is honored. What a pretty dress. May I ask where you bought it?”
    The dress was all wrong and she knew it now, knew that Mrs. Whittle had deliberately sabotaged her. The girls snickered again, but she took a deep breath and stammered, “
Gracias,
sir. The dress came from La Mode.”
    He smiled at her. “It makes all the others look like hens beside a peacock,” he murmured, but Turquoise noticed he said it loud enough for the other girls to hear and they all seemed to sigh as if the wind had been taken out of their sails. Then he lowered his voice and whispered, “I have been standing in the back, watching all the drama.”
    Turquoise could only nod gratefully.
    “All right, let’s get on with this,” the lady said, obviously relieved that someone had stepped in to solve the problem. “The guests will be arriving soon. Now all of you go behind that curtain on the little stage and the young men will line up next to me on the podium.As I announce eachgirl, her escort will step forward, bow, hand her a rose, and then escort her out into the ballroom.”
    Senator Forester winked at her and let go of her hand. She walked toward the stage with the rest of the girls, but now they were crowding around her. “Why