Splendor: A Luxe Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

come see it again soon, at a quieter moment, when we can talk more intimately,” Carolina replied, in a studiously refined voice. “Now that you are going out again.”
    “I would enjoy that.” Penelope smiled crisply. A sharp quality came into her round blue eyes; when she spoke again, it was with counterfeit concern. “But now tell me—whatever is it you’re gazing at? You can’t afford to grow distracted during your first big party.”
    “No.” There was irony in Carolina’s tone, even though on the surface she pretended to agree. Still she itched to swivel and glance again at Leland’s empty house. “I cannot.”
    “I myself would not have invited Agnes Jones,” Penelope went on, turning to assess the other wealthy New Yorkers who packed the corners of the rooms and jammed the doorframe. “Although I was relieved not to see that divorcée Lucy Carr in attendance. Pity Leland Bouchard was not returned in time….” She paused portentously. “But, oh, look, the lights have just gone on in his house.” Now Carolina felt her mouth grow dry and her lips part. For a moment she insisted to herself that she would not be obvious, and so continued to meet her friend’s archly knowing gaze. But the desire was too great. She turned her whole body and looked across the street. This scene, which she had seen so many times since moving into No. 15, had suddenly undergone a transformation. The lights were now on, and the windows had been thrust open. Many pieces of luggage were being carried from a motorcar, up the steps and into what appeared all of a sudden to be a very warm place.
    “Excuse me,” she whispered. She did not pause to gauge Penelope’s reaction. She did not care what it was. She had to find her butler, immediately, and send him to summon Leland.
    Now, hurrying back across the floor, her body had be come unusually light. The humid air was nothing to her, nor was the weight of her skirts. She was stopped only once en route to the second-floor landing, by a garish face she recognized a few seconds later as belonging to Mrs. Portia Tilt. That lady was wearing acres of green satin and sticking out among members of Manhattan’s best families like a fly on fondant; file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009

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    she had been the hostess’s employer for a few days during late winter, and had dismissed her then-social secretary after an episode of unforgivable insubordination. Of course, since then, Carolina had come into more money than the Tilts could ever dream of, and had been seen out with all the people Mrs. Tilt had hoped to get in with. Carolina stared at her for a moment, and then smiled in a partial way that did not really communicate hospitality—the invitation had served its purpose, and Mrs. Tilt now knew which of the two was the more consequential lady.
    They exchanged careful smiles, and by the time Mrs. Tilt’s began to fade Carolina was already moving past her, onto the crowded staircase landing. She felt a surging agitation, because she feared the butler would be impossible to find just now, when she needed him so. The din was too loud for her to call for him, and meanwhile he was probably on some useless errand, trying to replace the melted ice under the oysters long after everyone had stopped caring about food. But in the next moment it became clear that she wasn’t going to need him at all. There, below her, Leland Bouchard stood in front of the door, glancing about him at the giddily shrieking partygoers, with their lit cigarettes and drained champagne flutes, looking adorably just a touch out of place.
    “Mr. Bouchard!” she called, before pushing past the bodies crowding the stairs. None of the subtly dishonest ladylike quality that she had mastered over the previous season had been evident in her voice.
    The lavender silk and chiffon of her dress fit her tightly in some places, holding her upright and imperious; in others it bloomed, as