The Luxe by Anna Godbersen Page A

would question your use of the word my ,” Henry said sharply. Then he winked, which made Diana even more aware of her heart’s rapid tempo.
    “What are you going to do?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip and lifting her chin proudly. “Call the police on me for trying on your hat?”
    Henry’s mouth opened with a rejoinder, but he was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps within the parlor, which reminded Diana that despite the quiet, there were still people all over the house, listening and breathing and thinking in rules. And according to the rules, she was not at all where she was supposed to be.
    Diana was about to slip quickly away when she looked at Henry and decided that she wasn’t done with him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the parlor on the east side of the house. The lesser parlor, her mother called it, because it was where they kept the lesser art. It used to be the ballroom, back when their father was alive and they still gave entertainments that involved dancing, but it had been rechristened sometime last spring. All the nice things had been moved to the parlorwhere they received guests, leaving this room with a vaguely shabby appearance. Diana took a mental note of the fade on the upholstery so that she could give her nightly diary entry a touch of ambience. When they were on the other side of the oak door, she reluctantly let go of his hand. She looked up at the great canvases above, with their dark, roiling seas. They seemed to Diana like an approximation of her own feelings at the moment.
    “What are you doing in my house, Henry Schoonmaker?” she whispered. Diana could hear her sister in the hall. She was using her stuck-up, authoritative voice, asking Claire how she could possibly have misplaced Mr. Schoonmaker’s hat.
    “I’m not entirely sure that’s your business,” Henry told her.
    She frowned at his answer. It was possible, though unlikely, that he had come to see Elizabeth. Perhaps he had taken that bit about her beauty in the papers for the advertisement it was. Or, Diana wondered, perhaps he had caught a glimpse of the younger Holland sister over the summer and his curiosity had been building ever since. That would be something. And then it occurred to her that he was likely here, and looking so serious, because her family owed his family money, which was dreary, but—she had to admit—more realistic. Noting again the worn cushions, Diana realized that she was now in a rather vulnerable position facing someone as wealthy as aSchoonmaker. Then she realized something else: He was admiring her with his eyes.
    “The famous Henry Schoonmaker,” she said, bravely holding his gaze. “The one who can’t sit still and breaks hearts all over the place. Well, that’s what they say, isn’t it?”
    “Why do you girls always love gossip so much?” he asked in reply. She was close enough to smell him. He smelled like hair pomade and cigarettes and just slightly of women’s perfume, or so it seemed at that moment. She looked up at his amused face, and he whispered, “Do you think all the stories about me are true?”
    “If the stories are true, then you are a very interesting person.” She smiled, tucking her lower lip under her teeth.
    “Well, I deny them all categorically.” He shrugged before continuing: “Except the one about me liking pretty girls, which is more or less true. But how old are you, anyway? You can’t have been out in society very long at all. Look at you, you’ve probably never even been kissed, and you’re—”
    “I have too been kissed,” she interrupted, the way a child would. She felt her cheeks flush, but was too thrilled at being right where she was to really mind.
    “Not very well, I’d bet,” Henry replied with an arch of his eyebrow.
    Out in the hall, Claire was reporting to Elizabeth that Mr. Schoonmaker’s hat was indeed quite gone, and then Elizabeth was expressing her displeasure at the poor quality of service in the