“Come on, let me show you the ballroom. That’s my favorite place in the whole house,” Annaleigh said excitedly.
When they entered the ballroom, Michele’s prickly sensation grew stronger, and she hugged her goose bump–covered arms to her chest. She moved away from Annaleigh, wandering slowly around the room. It was like something out of an Edith Wharton novel, with its romantic white-on-ivory decor, gleaming dance floor, bronze and crystal chandeliers, and tall Roman columns. A Steinway grand piano stood at one end of the room, with a gilded balcony above.
“The most honored ball guests would sit up in the balcony and watch the dancers,” Annaleigh said dreamily. “Isn’t it incredible?” Michele didn’t respond and Annaleigh seemed to notice her strange expression. “What is it, dear?”
“It’s just”—Michele swallowed hard—“I keep feeling like I’ve been here before. But I know that’s impossible.”
“That is strange. Maybe you’ve seen ballrooms like this in a movie?” Annaleigh mused.
“Maybe.” But Michele knew it wasn’t that.
Annaleigh led Michele past the ballroom into a space she called the Moorish billiard room. It looked masculine and foreign, with walls covered in colorful Moroccan tiles and a glass dome ceiling.
“This is where the men would come smoke their cigars and play pool during parties,” Annaleigh said, gesturing to the large billiard table in the center of the room.
“Are there a lot of parties here?” Michele asked.
“Well … no,” Annaleigh admitted regretfully as she led her out of the room. “Not in the ten years that I’ve been here. But the Windsors were once famous for the society balls they hosted. I think once it was just your grandparents living here, they didn’t have much use for parties.” She broke off as they reached the covered patio, with a view of the back garden. “Now, this is where your grandmother plants her beautiful flowers and palms.”
Michele shook her head in amazement. “This place … it’s unreal,” she blurted out. “It’s like … it doesn’t belong in the modern world. It almost seems … enchanted. You know what I mean?”
“I do know what you mean,” Annaleigh agreed. “It’s all the history here. You can almost see the spirits of Windsors past when you walk through the halls.”
Michele stopped short, thinking of her mom. “Really?”
Annaleigh winced. “Oh, Michele, I’m sorry. That was tactless of me. I just meant … well, there’s so much history here is what I meant.”
Michele dropped her gaze. “It’s okay. I know.”
“Anyway,” Annaleigh continued nervously, “I would show you the dining room, but since you’ll be there in an hour for dinner, we can save that. I’m sure you must be curious to see your room.”
Michele nodded and followed Annaleigh up the grand staircase. They stopped on the second landing (the mezzanine, Annaleigh called it) for Michele to look into Walter’s study and Dorothy’s parlor, which were on opposite ends. Michele shivered as she stepped into the parlor, realizing that this was the very room where Marion had left her fateful goodbye note.
Upstairs, the marble walls were light rose, matching the red-carpeted hallways. A railing bordering the third floor allowed one to lean over and gaze down at the mighty staircase and the Grand Hall below.
“Now, this is a very special room,” Annaleigh said with girlish enthusiasm as she led Michele to the French double doors. “Most of the Windsor daughters had this room when they were growing up, from the early 1900s to, most recently … Marion.” Annaleigh opened the doors, and Michele drew in her breath.
The room was lilac, with white antique French furnishings that looked more appropriate for the court of Versailles than for a teenage girl. The sumptuous double bed was set on a raised platform, with an elaborate carved cream headboard and snowy white bed curtains. A floral Aubusson carpet added to the effect. There was even a large fireplace of gray and white with gold candelabra on either end. A gold mantel clock and a large mirror sat atop the fireplace.
“It’s like going back in time,” Michele murmured, fingering the lilac curtains on the tall windows. “To a time where no one wore denim.”
She wandered around the room, taking in the delicate white mahogany vanity table and desk. She stopped short, a shiver running down her spine, at the sight of the accessories covering the vanity: china brushes, mirrors, and perfume bottles, all bearing the monogram MW.
“These … were my mom’s?” Michele asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Annaleigh nodded. “Your grandparents have always kept her room just as it looked when she was living here.” She paused. “Is that all right?”
“Of course,” Michele murmured, picking up her mother’s hand mirror. There was something comforting about being surrounded by her mom’s old things, as if Marion could walk in the door any minute to claim them. But it was also so hard to imagine her bohemian mother living in this formal princess bedroom, using a brush made of china. Michele felt that Marion Windsor the heiress was an entirely different person than Marion Windsor the mom.
“This is the only room in your suite that has almost all its original furnishings,” Annaleigh continued. “Your grandparents asked me to add some modern touches to your adjoining rooms. I hope you’ll approve!”
“My rooms?” Michele echoed, bewildered. That was when she noticed a single door on each side of the room. Annaleigh gestured for Michele to follow her.
The first door led to a huge dressing room—which Michele hardly had enough clothes to justify—and a marble bathroom. The opposite door led to a spacious sitting room, which featured an antique glass-enclosed bookcase (filled with recognizable books like the Harry Potter series and Jane Austen’s tomes) as well as a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, and a state-of-the-art sound system. In the corner of the room was a round oak table with a place setting for one and a matching dining chair.
“Why do I have a dining set in my room?” Michele asked.
“For meals, of course. We’ll have a dining cart sent up here for you at mealtimes, and every morning, you and I will go over your menu together. Look, the TV tilts at whatever angle you choose, so you can watch comfortably from your dinner table!” Annaleigh beamed, but her smile faded as she saw Michele’s mystified expression.
“So you’re saying my grandparents want me to eat all my dinners alone?” she asked incredulously. “After everything …?”
“Oh, please don’t misunderstand me,” Annaleigh said anxiously. “It’s just that your grandparents eat at such odd hours, often skipping dinner and just having a late lunch, so we thought this would be best, so you could be on a regular meal schedule.”
“It’s okay, I guess. Whatever,” Michele murmured. Sounds like it’s going to be even lonelier than I thought in this gigantic old house. She glanced at the portraits decorating the sitting room walls, which were of several different young women. Michele looked more closely at one of the portraits and felt a shock of recognition.
“Hey, that’s my great-grandmother, the singer Lily Windsor!” Michele exclaimed. “But she looks so different with that hair.”
“Well, yes, because she was just sixteen years old in this painting,” Annaleigh explained. “It was 1925, the time of the flapper haircut.”
Michele peered at the portrait. Her great-grandmother looked glamorous far beyond her sixteen years, with her sassy short hair, eyes rimmed in black, and a slinky sequined dress highlighting her figure. Michele’s heart constricted as she thought of all the days her mom had played Lily’s records in the house. Even though Marion had hardly been able to carry a tune, Michele always loved to hear her singing along to Lily’s records. She had seemed happiest when music was on. And Lily was the only Windsor who Marion spoke of proudly. Lily had died in her eighties, when Marion was fifteen, but they’d been close throughout Marion’s childhood.
Michele turned to the next painting, of a girl who could not have looked more different from Lily. While Lily wore full makeu
p and a confident, bold expression, this girl had a fresh-scrubbed face and a timid demeanor. She was dressed in an old-fashioned ball gown like those worn by Disney animated princesses, and her hair was a poufy red cloud atop her head, bedecked in jeweled hairpins.
“Who’s that?” Michele asked.
“That’s your great-great-aunt Clara. She was actually the only Windsor to be adopted into the family, and by Mr. George Windsor himself,” Annaleigh said. “She had this very suite of rooms when she was growing up, and this portrait was painted on the occasion of her debut in society, in 1910. She would have been about your age then.” Annaleigh’s eyes glimmered. “Did you know that in those days, the wealthiest American girls were often married off to British royalty? So Clara’s younger sister, Frances, became the Duchess of Westminster! In fact, you, my dear, are related to both a duchess and a countess.”
Michele gaped at Annaleigh. “Jeez. This family sure doesn’t hold back.”
The next portrait was of a girl who looked a lot more accessible: a smiling dark-haired teenager wearing a pearl headband and a chic navy blue short-sleeved dress.
“How about her?” Michele wondered.
“That’s your great-aunt, Stella, in 1942. Like the other portraits, it was painted for her society debut when she was still a teenager living in these rooms,” Annaleigh said.
“Wait—so all these portraits are of the girls who had this room before me?” Michele clarified.
Annaleigh nodded.
“So then … where’s my mom?” Michele was suddenly breathless.
Annaleigh silently gestured to a corner on the opposite wall, and Michele ran to it. There was her mom, alive in this painting in a way that Michele had never seen her in a photograph. Her eyes were full of sparkle and mirth, and her mouth was stretched into a huge grin, as if she and the painter were sharing a great joke. Her normally straight hair was curled, and she wore a bright cocktail dress. Around her neck was a delicate jade and gold butterfly necklace. It was gorgeous, yet understated. Just like Mom, Michele thought.
“It’s so hard to imagine Mom sitting for a portrait,” Michele said, a lump in her throat. She was struck by the thought that Marion looked like the happiest of all the Windsor girls—but had been dealt such a tragic fate.
Tears welled up in Michele’s eyes as she gazed at the portrait. She must have been staring at it for a long time, because when she finally tore herself away, she saw that Annaleigh had left her alone.
Just before seven-thirty, Annaleigh arrived at Michele’s bedroom door to show her to the dining room. Michele’s stomach felt queasy as she wondered what the conversation with her grandparents would be like.
She was nearly struck dumb by the sight of the Venetian-style dining room. Ten towering columns of rose alabaster flanked the room, and two Baccarat chandeliers sparkled above the carved oak dining table. The dining chairs were made of heavy bronze upholstered in red velvet, matching the crimson window draperies and the marble rose walls.
“Michele, welcome.” Dorothy smiled. She and Walter were already seated, and Michele dropped into the chair facing them. Almost immediately, a kitchen maid circled the table to serve the first course, a salad. Michele watched guiltily. She and Marion had always cooked and served their own meals at home.
“Can I help with anything?” Michele asked. The maid gave Michele a startled look, nearly spilling the salad she was heaping onto her plate, as Dorothy made a sound somewhere between a cough and a gasp. As soon as the maid had left for the kitchen, her cheeks blazing, Walter gently chided, “Michele dear, you shouldn’t say things like that to the staff. It’s not proper.”
Michele stared at him, bewildered. “But … this is the twenty-first century!” she blurted out.
“Of course,” Dorothy quickly interjected. “But since their job is to serve you, when you offer to help, it makes them feel embarrassed, as though they’re not doing their job correctly.”
Michele gave her grandparents a wary look. Something seemed very wrong with a world where offering to help “the staff” garnered a scolding.
“Now then,” Walter said in a lighter tone, clearly eager to defuse any tension. “What do you think of your new home?”
“I—well, it’s amazing, of course, like something out of a fairy tale. But I can’t think of it as home when it’s so different from everything I’m used to,” Michele said honestly. “I mean, it’s almost impossible to imagine Mom growing up here. She wasn’t a fancy heiress, she was just … Mom. I would think that she didn’t fit in here, but then, she looks so happy in that portrait in my room.”
“She was very happy here,” Dorothy said intently. “If it hadn’t been for—” She broke off at a look from Walter, and then she seemed to recover herself. “Anyway, dear, you’re looking much too thin. Do try to eat something.”
Michele frowned, taken aback by Dorothy’s sudden change in tone. After a few moments of silence, while her grandparents ate and Michele looked at the floor, Walter cleared his throat. “Dorothy, are we meeting the Goulds before or after Carnegie Hall tomorrow?”
As the conversation steered away from Marion and turned to some concerto performance her grandparents were attending the following night, Michele felt herself begin to heat up with anger. Who were these people, with their strict snobbishness and total inability to communicate normally with her? Michele stirred the salad greens around her plate with her fork, fuming silently. She knew what her grandmother had been about to say—that her mom would have continued to be happy here if it hadn’t been for Michele’s father. It occurred to her that her grandparents, wishing her mom had never met Henry Irving, must wish that Michele had never been born.
Suddenly, she heard Walter speak her name. “Michele, you’re not eating. What’s wrong?”
Michele felt something inside her snap. She dropped her fork, which fell to her plate with a clatter.
“What’s wrong? How can you expect me to eat? My mother is dead. But you don’t really care about either of us, do you? You sent my dad away, even though you knew it would break my mom’s heart. You didn’t even bother coming to Mom’s funeral! And since you hate my dad so much, I can’t imagine why you would even want me living here.” Michele paused mid-rant to take a breath, and she stopped short at her grandparents’ expressions. They both looked like they had been slapped.
“You are completely mistaken,” Walter said, his voice grave. “Yes, we made a lapse in judgment when we offered to pay Henry to leave, but you can never imagine the grief and panic we felt after finding out our only child had run away from home. Besides, we wouldn’t have gone through with it, and we didn’t. To this day, we still don’t understand what happened to Henry. But let me say this: while your grandmother and I were made out to be the villains, there are things about Henry Irving that you don’t know, that no one would have—”
“Walter!” Dorothy interrupted sharply.
Michele stared at the two of them. Walter’s face had turned red, while Dorothy looked … fearful. What in the world was going on?
“What do you mean?” Michele felt her heartbeat quicken. “What do you know about my dad?”
Walter cleared his throat. “I only meant that he was never the person Marion thought him to be. Like we had expected, he was probably only in the relationship for the Windsor millions and took off when he realized he wouldn’t be seeing any.”
Michele flinched at his words. Dorothy opened her mouth as if to stop Walter, but he continued, his eyes clouding over.
“We made every effort to resume a relationship with Marion, and to be in your life. But she wouldn’t take our calls, and all the letters and cards and checks that we sent to you both were returned, unopened. She broke our hearts a long time ago. And of course we would have been at the funeral if we had been notified in time. We didn’t hear about the accident or the funeral until the week after, when the news appeared in the Times.” He reached for Dorothy’s hand. Her face was as ashen as his.
Mic
hele was at a loss for words. Could Walter be telling the truth? It was unimaginable that her mom could have been so wrong about her parents. She didn’t know what to think, or what to believe.
“Why did Mom name you as my guardians, then?” she demanded. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Dorothy smiled sadly. “We’ve been asking ourselves the very same question. It’s the only bit of silver lining we’ve had in years. It shows that we must have done something right by our Marion, doesn’t it?”
“I … I guess so,” Michele said awkwardly.
“We know how painful a transition this must be,” Walter said, his tone gentler. “But we hope you will manage to find happiness here in New York. Now, what do you say we try to forget this conversation and start over?”
Michele nodded uncomfortably. But as she looked at these strangers in front of her in this obscenely grand room, she felt a fresh wave of grief for her old home, for her mom.
“I don’t feel well,” she said suddenly. “Can I be excused?”
After a pause, Dorothy nodded silently.
“Thank you for dinner,” Michele said quickly before hurrying out of the room.
On her first night in her new bedroom, Michele slept fitfully, her mind swimming with black-and-white images of the Windsor Mansion’s former inhabitants. But then a smile lit her sleeping face as she succumbed to a new dream.
It was the most overwhelming feeling she had ever known. Like she was so happy she could burst, but at the same time, there was a constant, insatiable hunger inside her.
She was nestled in his arms under a dark night, at the foot of a tall elm tree. Miles of moonlit grass stretched out in front of them. He played with her hair as they laughed together, relishing a private joke.
“I can’t believe this is real,” Michele whispered as she stared into his sapphire blue eyes. “I don’t want to be anywhere but here with you.”
And suddenly Michele was awake, breathing heavily as she struggled to discern where she was. She almost expected her handsome stranger to still be beside her. But as her eyes registered the grand bedroom furniture through the darkness, Michele was reminded that she had just been dreaming. That happiness hadn’t been real. None of it was real.