him at home, alone. Caroline had been there at the end; she’d patted my face with a cool cloth and sung to me. Labor had been long and painful. But when I’d held him in my arms, none of that had mattered. I’d have done it all over again for him. My Daniel. I felt the tears welling up again. I will not cry. I will not let this woman see me cry.
“I see you’ve had children,” the woman said disapprovingly, strapping a beige corset around my ribs.
I nodded. “Yes,” I said quietly. “Just one. A wonderful little boy who—”
“It’s good you gave him up,” she said. “No sense raising a bastard child.”
“How dare you?” I said, taking a step back.
The woman shrugged. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said, perhaps more worried about losing the commission from Lon’s account than hurting my feelings. “I only meant that it’s hard to raise a child these days in any circumstance, let alone out of wedlock.”
She stepped closer and pulled a white silk slip over my head, inching it snugly over my body. She folded her arms as she gave me the once-over. “You do know what happened to the last one, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “The last what?”
“Mr. Edwards’s last girl.”
I shook my head, remembering Susie, the former maid.
“She got pregnant,” she said. “The little fool. He was forced to let her go.”
I didn’t want to share Lon’s bed any more than I wanted to share his dinner table. But I would do anything to find my son. Lon was well connected. Gwen had seen him lunching with a senator. If anyone could get the police to search for Daniel, he could.
“Pull in your stomach,” the woman said. “This corset needs tightening if we’re going to get you into a gown tonight. Mr. Edwards will want you to look stunning on the dance floor.”
I took a deep breath and sucked in my stomach. I closed my eyes and thought of the last time I’d gone dancing. With Charles. I let the memory comfort me like a warm blanket.
Four Years Prior
A horn sounded outside. Caroline squealed. “Charles is here!”
I smoothed my hair before running to the window of the apartment I shared with three friends. I looked out to the street, where he sat in the front seat of his shiny gray Buick, dark hair slicked back, a quiet smile on his face. Dashing. It had been a month and a half since we’d met at the hotel. He’d walked me home that night and promised to call after his holiday in Europe. I thought about him often, despite my attempts to purge his memory from my mind—and my heart. He was wonderful, yes, but he belonged with the type of women I’d seen at the hotel—refined, dripping in jewels—not with someone who had a hole in her shoe and nary a nickel to her name. And yet when he phoned the apartment the week before, I couldn’t help but wonder, despite what he’d said at the Olympic Hotel, could a man from privilege really love a woman from poverty?
Georgia folded her arms. “It’s not fair,” she whined. “Does he have a brother?”
“Don’t distract her, Georgia,” Caroline snapped. “She has to get ready!”
I looked down at my dress, hardly what you’d call fancy, with its simple pleats and a hem I’d mended only that morning. I hoped the cobalt blue thread I’d used—the only I had—didn’t look glaringly obvious against the light blue of the dress. “Do I look all right?”
Caroline frowned. “Honey, you want to impress him, don’t you?”
I nodded.
Caroline began unfastening the buttons on my dress. “Of course you do, which is why you’re going to wear my red dress.”
“Caroline, I couldn’t,” I said. “It’s so…”
“Low cut?”
I nodded.
“Well, yes, my dear, that’s rather the point. We’re going to get you out of this potato sack.”
After Caroline had the final button undone, my dress fell to the floor, where it rested around my ankles. She walked to her closet and returned with the red dress. She held it up proudly. “He’ll love you in this.” Caroline had spent a month’s wages on it after seeing it in the window at a boutique in Pioneer Square. “Here,” she said, inching the frock over my head. It clung to my body like a tight bandage, and I tugged at the bodice self-consciously.
“There,” she said, taking a step back to gaze at me. “Stunning.”
“I don’t know, Caroline,” I said hesitantly. “Do you