MRS. HENRY SCHOONMAKER WAS PERFECTLY content to step outside the gothic church on lower Broadway and into a brilliant afternoon. She wore a pert little smile, despite the whispering and hissing that followed her everywhere, and a hat that was as broad as her shoulders and festooned with cloth roses and other delights. The wedding of Carolina Broad had been called off most abruptly and unusually, but it was just as well, for the outfit she wore—a fitted ivory bolero with gold stitching, and a dress of pomegranate-colored crepe de chine, cut to best display her naturally tiny waist—was too flattering to waste on God. Although there was something faintly disappointing about having a girl whose reputation she had allowed to be associated with her own make such an embarrassment of herself, she wasn’t particularly bothered. Nor was she ruffled by the unkind stares of women who, a week ago, had considered her the wronged party in the Schoonmaker scandal. Soon she wouldn’t need any of their friendship, or even that hard-won surname, which had in the last few days begun to chafe.

They had been intoxicating days. She and the prince had dined together every night, and stayed up long past supper dancing wherever the champagne was cold and expensive. How many aspects of herself had she recognized in this strong, sparkling nobleman! For he was tall, like her, dark-haired and blue-eyed, and he knew with great certainty that his life should be about having the best of everything. She had dreamt of meeting her match in looks, in taste, in wealth—she’d thought Henry had been that match, but Henry didn’t have her vision, and anyway it didn’t matter anymore because even if he got it, at this late date, he still couldn’t make her a princess. Not a real one.

“Now that old Schoonmaker is dead, the whole household has gone to pieces…,” said Gemma Newbold, exiting the church behind Penelope on the arm of her older brother, Reginald, and using a speaking voice that, despite its decorous quiet, was not meant to go unheard.

Penelope exhaled noisily, and shrugged in a way that ensured that Miss Newbold, who had not yet received any marriage proposals, despite her supposed beauty, would not miss it. Europeans, she had discovered in a few days’ time, were flashier in the way they cut their rivals, and did not fall all over themselves when a married woman had a little fun on the side. Let them talk, the prince had said to her whenever she put on a little modesty, and by Sunday she was beginning to think as he did. That was how she was going to live from now on.

Without turning back, she descended the Grace Church steps and let her driver help her into her polished phaeton. Then she told him to take her to the New Netherland.

Late last night, Frederick had been telling her about his family’s winter castle in the Alps, where he planned to spend that Christmas, skiing and exchanging rare gifts with his many cousins, and he suggested that it would be far more enjoyable if she were there at his side. December was soon, she’d thought, as the idea of how much bigger and fancier her life was going to be started to settle in; but then, she had never been a girl who was shy of working fast. On the ride to the hotel, she composed a note to Henry.

“Peter,” she said, once her driver had helped her down to the street, “please deliver this to Mr. Schoonmaker.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. They all referred to him as a boy, even though he was practically her father’s age. “When would you like me to come back for you?”

“Oh—that won’t be necessary.”

There was only one piece of her seduction left. Her dramatic red lips pressed up into a smile, as she passed Peter a fifty-cent piece. She was telling him good-bye.

The prince’s suite overlooked the park, and was decorated with exquisite antique furniture that, taken together, suggested a British hunting lodge of a hundred years ago. It was a room that Penelope had come to know well over the last week, but she had never been there so early in the day. The heavy drapes were mostly drawn, and a diffuse light did only a little to illuminate all the sturdy mahogany furniture and brass fixtures. She paused, feeling the slow tick of a mild irritation as she realized that the setting was not the ideal one to display herself—her skin would seem too phosphorescent, her dress would appear not nearly red enough.

“The prince is still in bed,” said his valet. He was British, his age impossible to determine, and his manners were impeccably unfriendly. “Shall I wake him?”

Penelope descended the four steps into the sitting area, on her way to the window. “By all means,” she said, as she disengaged her hat and tossed it onto an armchair upholstered in green and gold jacquard. She made her way through end tables and carved ashtrays as though these sundry pieces belonged to her already, and pushed aside the drapes.

“This is more like it,” she heard the prince say from behind her, as the light of midafternoon flooded the room. “I’d like to wake up to you more often, Mrs. Schoonmaker.”

She turned and parted her lips suggestively. Frederick was wearing a silky wine-colored robe, tied at the waist, and his hair had not been combed into place. It rose above his forehead in a robust, chestnut brush. The robe had been tied indifferently, and this afforded her a greater view of his chest than she had ever had before. As she stood, staring at him, feeling her heartbeats increase despite her specific intentions to the contrary, he put on the cockeyed grin that she had begun to think of as just for her.

“Does it please you?” she replied slowly and purposefully.

“Very much so.”

The valet reappeared, and without letting his eyes stray to either the prince or his visitor, he placed a tray with croissants, coffee, orange juice, and a bottle of champagne on the low, carved table in the middle of the room. Frederick thanked the valet and instructed him which clothes would be needed for his and Mrs. Schoonmaker’s evening revelry. The valet bowed and absented himself, and then Frederick walked to the center of the room and took up the bottle of champagne. The corked air was still wafting over the mouth of it, as though just opened. He poured himself a glass, sat down on the sofa by the table and reclined.

“To things that please me,” Frederick said, raising his flute and taking a sip.

Penelope’s fingers moved to the delicate buttons of her little jacket. One at a time she undid them, and then dropped the garment on the floor. Frederick’s eyes were fixed on her now. She strolled across the floor and paused, standing over him, holding his gaze. She reached for his glass and drank until it was empty. Then she sank down to her knees in front of him, throwing her arms forward around his waist. The blue lakes of her eyes, she knew, were at their most persuasive when viewed from above.

Before she became Mrs. Schoonmaker, she’d only been kissed by three boys, and Henry was the only one of those who she had allowed to do anything more. But already she felt a kinship with Frederick, like she too was one of those debauched Europeans who took lovers as they pleased, and she wanted him to understand how completely they were two of a kind.

She blinked at him innocently. Then she pressed up, between his legs, putting her face close to his and inviting his kiss. There followed an exquisite moment of hesitation. He reached forward, as though he might cup her face with his hand, but instead pulled the pins one by one from her hair so that it fell, in a glossy, dark ribbon, and burst upon her shoulder. Only then did he put his mouth against hers. There was such size and warmth to him, and she felt a surge of desire to burrow in against that. His firm fingertips moved from her hair way down her back, and then he gripped her, pulling her up.

“There,” he said, when she was situated on top of him and his hands were deep in her ruffled underskirts. “I don’t think I will be needing those clothes tonight after all, do you, princess?”