The Ivory City

by Emily Bain Murphy

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Amateur Sleuth

Synopsis

The Devil in the White City meets Pride and Prejudice in this romantic historical murder mystery set at the 1904 World’s Fair.

The St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904:

A miniature city of palaces and pavilions that becomes a backdrop for romance, betrayal—and murder.

Cousins Grace and Lillie have been best friends since birth, despite Grace’s vastly inferior social status ever since her mother married for love instead of wealth. When Lillie invites Grace to the biggest event of the century—the legendary World’s Fair, also known as “The Ivory City”—Grace hopes her fortunes might be about to change.

 But when a member of their party is brutally killed at the fair, and suspicion falls on Lillie’s brother Oliver, Grace must prove Oliver’s innocence before her beloved cousins’ family is ruined forever. Along the way, she'll discover that the city’s wealthy elite—including Oliver’s handsome but irritable friend Theodore—aren’t quite who they appear to be. And amidst the glitz, glamor, and magic of the Ivory City lurks a danger that just may claim her life.

Release date: November 4, 2025

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 384

Sample

NOVEMBER 28, 1903

Approximately Five Months and Five Days Before the Murder

GRACE CARTER COVINGTON was dressed in layers of clothing—a fur coat and muff surreptitiously stolen from her aunt, a satin gown spun from her dreams, and even silk undergarments that didn’t belong to her—but she hadn’t realized quite how naked she would feel without her cousin Lillie there.

The mansion in front of her was intimidating, its carved limestone ablaze with lights against the winter night sky. Lit paper lanterns and rose-filled votives floated in two pools that flanked the entry walk like outstretched wings. Beyond it, warm strains of ragtime music beckoned them forward. A light snow was beginning to fall.

Grace took a step out of the carriage with her cousin Oliver at her side. He was utterly at ease, but this was his world, not hers, and it made her feel even more out of place. He must have felt her suddenly stiffen because his hand found hers within the fur muff.

“You’re understandably nervous,” he said sympathetically, squeezing her hand. “Given how the rich in Chicago select a guest at every party to be pecked to death by their pet geese.”

“Your attempts to relax me are alarming,” she muttered. But he laughed and the sound did make her calmer. She felt the tension melt a little from her shoulders as she tugged at the slip beneath her dress, one that Lillie had lent her before collapsing back onto her bed that evening. Lillie, Oliver’s sister and Grace’s best friend in the world, was normally at her right hand, but she had suddenly come down with a fever and had insisted Oliver and Grace go without her.

“We didn’t come all the way to Chicago for you to sit at home with me,” Lillie cried. “Especially not in that dress.” Lillie had ordered two gowns for herself but, unbeknownst to her mother, had one modified to meet Grace’s measurements instead. It fit Grace like a glove: pale blue satin with panels of embroidered flowers and a curve of wisteria vines trailing down her arm.

It was without question the most beautiful thing she had ever put on her body.

“It’s the party of the century,” Lillie had said. She waggled her eyebrows, her face flushed with fever. “That is, of course, until the Ivory City next spring.”

And so Grace had given her cousin’s fevered cheek a kiss and arrived with Oliver on her arm.

“Mr. Oliver Carter and Miss Grace Covington,” the butler announced.

The grand foyer was filled with Chicago’s most elite society members, all of whom now turned to examine them.

Oliver whispered in her ear. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to share that I’ve never forgiven you for squashing that orange down my pants.”

She snorted as he bowed to the crowd. “Nor I you,” she whispered, “for the melted chocolate in my bed.”

“You really were a formidable eleven-year-old,” he said.

She curtsied to the crowd, and for a moment she thought of her older brother Walt, and what it might have been like to arrive on his arm. But that was a dream for another life. She no longer knew where Walt was, a thought that pinched like too-tight shoes. She hoped he was somewhere warm tonight. Saying a small prayer under her breath for him, like she always did, she brushed the trailing wisteria along the skin of her arm and handed her borrowed fur coat to the butler.

“The Chicago rich pecking you to death was actually a bit of a metaphor,” Oliver said as they moved to join the crowd. These were the people that Oliver and Lillie belonged to, as heirs of the Carter Merchant Company their shared great-grandfather had built. Once, in a different world, these would have been Grace’s peers, too. But her mother Nell had chosen the shame of falling in love with a working-class man and the disinheritance that came along with it. As it turned out, all manner of heinous sins could be forgiven a person, except for the deliberate rejection of her own class.

“You don’t say,” Grace said, as Oliver took a flute of champagne from a passing tray. She followed his line of sight to a young stage actress she recognized from back home in St. Louis.

“Is that—?” she asked.

“Harriet Forbes,” Oliver said. “Yes.”

“Ah,” Grace said with a wry smile. “And here I thought you’d brought me along for my scintillating company and sparkling conversation.”

“Well that, of course, darling,” he said, suavely turning away from Harriet, “but if people are talking about you they won’t be talking about us.”

“Thank you, cousin,” she said. “I love being used as a decoy. Please remind me to decline your next hunting invitation.”

He laughed. “Let me reward your invaluable service with a punch.”

“And a petit fours, please, at the very least,” she called after him. He raised his right hand in acknowledgment without looking back, shaking his head as though he were smiling. And she, without being asked, made her way through the crowd toward Harriet Forbes. Grace loved her cousins better than anyone and would do anything short of murder to help them.

“Hello,” she said warmly to Harriet as she approached. Outside of situations like this one, Grace normally had no problem making friends—she wasn’t the person concerned about her status, or lack thereof. And perhaps because she wasn’t doing this for herself, but for her cousin, she found that her nerves were suddenly gone. “I’m Grace Covington,” she said, curtsying.

“Harriet,” the woman said. “Forbes.” She wore her hair pulled up with ribbons, and earrings that were a cluster of dangling garnets. Her cream dress spilled over with dark roses.

“Yes, I saw you in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House last year,” Grace said. Harriet had played the titular role and they had all been smitten with her—apparently none more so than Oliver—even though Grace knew that her aunt would rather burn off her own fingerprints than welcome an actress into the family. “You were luminous.”

“You’re too kind,” Harriet said. She had a deep, sultry voice, and Grace’s own heart lifted when Harriet took her by the arm and led her around the party. She stole glances at the walls gilded with patterns of gold, the intricately painted ceilings, and the vibrant Gobelin tapestries. Real, cascading flowers were strung in lines of blooming lace around the ceiling like crown molding.

“Are you from St. Louis, then?” Harriet asked. “I don’t remember seeing you at the last Governor’s Ball.”

Grace’s eye caught on a handsome man who was standing on the staircase landing, surveying the crowd as though he were observing a distant experiment. Chandeliers hung above his head like webs strung with heavy water droplets of crystal. When he turned his face to the side, she glimpsed a port-wine stain stretching along the length of his jaw, curling up toward his mouth like a shadow. She thought his dark eyes were striking, even though his mouth remained clenched, and he didn’t smile. It was as if a cloud hung around him, a concentrated rainstorm in the middle of a spring garden. She stole another look at him as the guests took to the marble floor, dancing, and wondered what made him look so unhappy.

“No, I’m not from St. Louis,” Grace said to Harriet. “But I have family there.” She subtly guided Harriet toward Oliver. “Please allow me to introduce my cousin, Oliver Carter.”

Grace had been to all manner of parties before—backyard jigs with whiskey, harmonicas, and fiddles, and late-night after-hours piano concerts at her father’s restaurant (“shameful—it’s little more than a speakeasy,” her aunt had scoffed). She was surprised that the electric energy she felt here was almost the same, even though the black-and-white checkered floor of her father’s restaurant had been traded for a marble ballroom overflowing with orchids and potted palms. It was a philanthropic event for a new botanical garden, and half of St. Louis’s elite society had traveled to Chicago for the verdant party amid a deep winter.

And yet Grace’s eyes kept sliding back to the sullen young man on the stairs.

His gaze met hers and she immediately looked away.

“Oliver,” a young woman called, parting the crowd toward them. She wore a ball gown made of silk and golden metallic thread, with an intricately embroidered front panel and a fan to match. Her dark red hair glittered with pins as she eyed Harriet with unmasked disapproval.

Harriet was undeterred, instead staring boldly back.

“Where’s Lillie tonight?” the red-haired woman asked, turning to Oliver.

“Under the weather, I’m afraid,” Oliver said. “Lillie is my sister,” he hurriedly clarified for Harriet. And then he offered her his hand. “Miss Forbes, would you care to dance?”

Harriet smiled.

“Grace,” Oliver said, shooting his cousin a look of apology over his shoulder. “This is Miss Allred.”

The woman snapped open her fan with a sharp twist. “Frannie,” she said.

But Oliver was already gone.

Grace bit back a sigh. If only Lillie were there, they would be eating chocolates while pretending to use the lavatory and secretly evaluating all of the women’s fashions and the eligible bachelors.

“Are you well-acquainted with Mr. Carter?” Frannie asked, delicately fluttering her fan. “I’m quite good friends with his sister, Miss Lillie Carter. Very close friends. Do you know her?”

“I do,” Grace said. We share blood, she wanted to add. In fact, at this exact moment, I’m wearing her undergarments.

Her eye caught again on the man who was standing above the crowd as if he owned the house, observing them all.

“Excuse me, but who is that gentleman over there?” Grace asked.

“Well, that’s Theodore Parker, of course,” Frannie said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “This is his family’s manor.” She seemed surprised that Grace didn’t know. It was exactly the sort of detail Oliver wouldn’t care enough to mention, which was why despite his spoiled nature, she liked him as much as she did.

Frannie’s green eyes narrowed. “What did you say your surname was?” she asked.

“I didn’t,” Grace said. She hesitated. “It’s Covington.”

“Covington,” Frannie repeated primly, thinking. She fanned herself as if the fan itself was frantically trying to escape her grasp. “Where were you educated? Woodlawn? One of the Sisters?” she asked.

“No,” Grace said. “My mother taught me herself.”

A slight frown creased Frannie’s face. “Were you living abroad, then?”

Grace shook her head. She smiled, determined to stay at ease despite the line of questioning.

“Oh.” Frannie’s own smile was falling. “Are you part of the New York Covingtons, then?”

“No. I live in Kansas City.”

“And how have you come to be acquainted with Oliver Carter, then?” Frannie asked, tilting her head.

Grace’s voice never wavered. “He’s my cousin.”

Understanding flitted across Frannie’s face, and her pretense of politeness fell away. She recoiled.

“I’ve just seen someone calling to me,” she said flatly.

She curtsied, and Grace dipped into a pointed curtsy of her own.

It seemed that her family’s reputation had preceded her. Perhaps her mother’s slight of choosing a common, working-class man over the future governor of Missouri could be forgiven. But Grace’s older brother Walt was whispered about from Kansas City all the way to the grapevines of St. Louis society, solidifying opinions about how far Grace’s family had fallen. It would be all but impossible for any of the Covingtons to be welcomed back into this kind of society again—regardless of how Grace’s cousins felt about her.

Grace bit her lip. She knew she didn’t fit here. She didn’t know why she kept attempting to try. But—yes she did. Because she loved Lillie and Oliver and wanted to be in their lives, to be allowed in their world. And because she wanted to help assuage her mother’s guilt. Grace couldn’t stand the thought that her mother might regret marrying her father. Not that she regretted having them, per se—but Grace had watched the way the guilt ate away at her mother over Walt. Nell blamed herself for her children’s reduced position in life, for the unfortunate choices Walt had made, the way St. Louis society had shut them out and their social circles in Kansas City had recently shunned them. But if Grace could somehow find a way to be accepted—if she could make a good enough match despite their circumstances—her mother might stop blaming herself. And then Grace wouldn’t have to see the hollow way her mother’s skin was beginning to hang at her neck, the bruise-like circles beneath her eyes. Perhaps her parents would dance at night in the kitchen again when they thought no one was there. Maybe she would stop finding her mother in Walt’s room, staring at the faded drawings he’d made when he was seven.

Grace sighed. Frannie had left her standing awkwardly and alone on the fringes of the party. She turned away, cursing Oliver less for his abandonment and more for forgetting the petit fours he’d promised her, when a man with an aggressively oiled mustache suddenly stepped into her path.

“Hello,” he said. His eyes were slightly unfocused. “Would you care to dance?”

He looked at her neckline lasciviously and she tried not to shudder.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said. “But thank you.”

“Can’t,” he said, subtly moving to block her way. His face hardened. “Or won’t?”

He seemed alarmingly angry about the slighted invitation, and she tried to catch Oliver’s eye, but he was completely enraptured with Harriet. Once again, she wished desperately for Lillie. The only two people she knew at this party were completely wrapped up in one another, oblivious to the outside world, and to her sudden pre-dicament.

“I’m afraid I have to—” she began to say, stepping back, when someone came up beside her.

“Dance with me,” the man beside her finished. “No need to take offense, Alexander. It’s just that she already promised her hand to me.”

She looked up to see Theodore Parker looking down at her. He still had a slight frown on his face, but even so, he was infinitely more agreeable than the man who seemed unable to take no for an answer.

“Yes,” she said gratefully to Theodore. “I was just looking for you.”

They pushed past the scowling Alexander and Theodore swept her out onto the dance floor, his hand on her waist.

“Thank you,” she said as the music began, just as he brushed her foot with his own.

“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time.

She smiled.

“You should know I don’t usually dance,” he said, looking pained. “Especially with women I don’t know.” His hand adjusted on her waist. “That is, if I can help it.”

“Thank you for making an exception to assist a woman in distress. You should know I don’t make it a habit of needing rescues by strange men,” she said. “If I can help it.”

The shadow of a smile crossed his face, and her heart strangely fluttered.

She was very aware of the weight of his hand on the curve of her waist, the grip of the other holding her gloved palm.

“The next time you’re approached by an unwanted suitor, perhaps you could say you’ve drunk too much wine and are on the way to being sick,” he offered dryly.

She laughed and secretly sent up thanks to Lillie for making her practice dancing with Oliver, so that at least this felt natural, and she didn’t have to concentrate on counting steps. But she wasn’t used to the shoes, and she wobbled a bit in them.

“That’s not actually true, is it?” he asked, suddenly looking at her closer.

“No,” she said, amused. “I don’t really drink.”

He nodded. “Nor do I. Though I find it helpful when I’m forced into parties I wouldn’t otherwise choose to attend.”

“Would this be one of those parties?” she asked.

He twisted his mouth wryly and cleared his throat instead of answering. She liked the smell of him, deep cedar and fall leaves and tobacco.

“Do you reside here in Chicago?” he asked. “Surely not. I’ve never seen you before.”

“Just visiting,” she said. “But I’d like to see more of the city someday. Which I will now always associate with this kindness.” She curtsied to him as the song came to an end.

“I don’t know your name,” he said, bowing to her.

“Grace,” she said.

“I’m Theodore,” he said.

She loved that he wasn’t conventionally handsome, the way the port-wine stain skimmed along his right jaw line and curled up toward his mouth.

He caught her staring at it just as Oliver approached.

“May I cut in?” Oliver asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said, catching Theodore’s eye. “But I’ve drunk too much wine and I was just on my way to being sick.”

Theodore imperceptibly snorted and for a moment tightened his grip on her.

“I’m kidding,” Grace said, laughing, and she felt his hand relax. “Mr. Parker, this is my cousin, Oliver Carter of St. Louis. Oliver, while you were otherwise engaged, this kind gentleman saved me from a ghastly fate, and I’m forever indebted to him.”

“Then so am I,” Oliver said, extending his hand. “Mr. Parker.”

“Theodore,” he corrected, taking Oliver’s hand with a solemn expression. His dark eyes had a depth to them, his jaw like cut glass.

She felt a lightning bolt in her belly as he looked at her. There was a weightiness about him that suggested he didn’t smile much, but that when he did, it was a prize worth the effort it took to win.

“Thank you for the dance,” he said, bowing to her. “It was a lovely diversion, and now I’m afraid I’ve been promised elsewhere.”

She felt the disappointment settle in her body as he left them and made his way over to a group of ladies, including Frannie Allred, who had been staring in their direction. She immediately glanced away.

“And are we making any inroads with the talented Miss Forbes?” Grace asked Oliver, falling into step with her cousin easily. They’d been dancing together for twelve years, since she was ten and he was nearing thirteen. Being with him was like coming home.

He groaned. “Somehow I turn from my handsome charming self into an uncontrollable blathering oaf whenever I’m near her.”

“She must have a penchant for blathering oafs, then,” Grace said, glancing over his shoulder, “as she’s coming this way now.”

He flushed a little and she found it endearing. With his name, wealth, and good looks, he’d always erred dangerously close to becoming a rake, and she’d never known him to be this nervous around a lady before.

“And what of you, cousin?” he asked. “No one has pecked you to death yet?”

“Miss Allred certainly tried.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I’ve never understood why Lillie deigns to be friends with her.”

“Lillie is an angel who is friends with everyone,” Grace said.

“Even us,” Oliver said, dipping her.

“Even us,” Grace said, laughing. He twirled her, and her dress spun at her ankles, and she decided that she was glad that she had come. Perhaps someday she would meet a man who saw her for who she was, without the trappings of the family name her mother had thrown away, her father’s honorable hard work that somehow made him pitiable, her cousins’ elevated reputation, the tragic choices her brother had made. Perhaps someone would simply see her—passionate and loyal and sharp-tongued, with a strong nose she’d never particularly liked and aristocratic cheekbones she’d inherited from her late grandmother.

She was secretly glad to feel beautiful in her own skin tonight. For the dress Lillie had made for her, and the flowers she had pinned in her honey-plaited hair. Almost nothing she wore that evening belonged to her, but she felt a pleasant confidence finally returning that was all her own.

Which is why she was surprised by the way her stomach dipped just a little when she observed the intimate way in which Theodore was speaking to Frannie Allred. Glancing over at her, then sharply looking away.

Grace stiffened. So Frannie would tell him who she was. She suddenly felt nervous, her warm confidence draining away as if a door had swung open and let in a draft. She worried about the expression she would find on his face when she looked up again. But she needn’t have. By the time she did, he was gone.

If only Lillie were there. Grace suddenly couldn’t wait to return to her cousins’ rented Chicago home, tuck herself into bed, and tell her beloved cousin everything over warm biscuits and morning coffee tomorrow.

“Don’t mind her,” Harriet said as she appeared beside them, her eyes cutting from Frannie to Grace. “Miss Allred’s never spoken to me before tonight. My family name only goes back two generations, and her minimum requirement is three.”

Grace laughed, and when Oliver began to stammer something almost incomprehensible again, Grace excused herself, taking a champagne flute merely to have something to hold. She climbed the stairs. Wound silently through the maze of hallways that coiled through the back half of the grand house, hearing the party fade. Through the magnificent arched windows, she could glimpse the balconies overlooking a lawn of green topiary mazes and lit lanterns floating in the pond. What would it be like, she wondered, to have this sort of wealth at one’s fingertips? To never be questioned as to whether you deserved to enter a room? She thought of what awaited her back in Kansas City. Finding a nice working-class man, like her father. Perhaps even needing to work herself.

She tightened her grip on the champagne glass. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She didn’t think herself above it. But she did fear losing Lillie and Oliver the way she had already lost Walt—a thought she almost couldn’t bear. She stepped out onto the balcony to escape it. The frigid wind was a shock, and she hadn’t considered how little protection the dress would offer from the cold, when she ran into something—someone—solid. She felt the moment of shock when she realized it was the body of a man.

“Excuse me,” she said with a mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment. She barely missed splashing her glass down the front of Theodore Parker’s high, white-starched collar. He caught her wrist and rescued the glass from her in one smooth motion.

She caught a whiff of his scent again, stormy smoke and leaves, and a wide smile leapt to her lips before she could help it. He was staring at her with an imperceptible look, and her smile faded.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Did you follow me out here just to ruin my suit?” he asked coldly, brushing away the drops of champagne that had apparently found their mark. He sniffed the glass she’d been holding and narrowed his eyes. “Not a drinker, you said?”

Her heart instantly sank as he continued to look at her cruelly, all his warmth from a few minutes ago gone. What a fool she had been. So this was who Theodore Parker truly was—a completely different man than when he had believed she was a woman of high society. Someone who pretended that snobbish airs bothered him, when he had been putting them on more than anyone. The wind stung her, but the way he was looking at her hurt more.

She braced herself in her ill-fitting shoes. Her ego was already smarting after the probing looks from the crowd, after her interactions with Frannie. She’d never had much patience for simpering to begin with, and whatever allotment she had was long gone at this point. These people were no better than she was, or her mother and father, or perhaps even her disgraced brother. Her eyes flashed.

“I was just in search of some pleasant company,” she said, curtsying low. “I guess I’ll have to keep looking.”

To think she had found him devastatingly handsome a handful of moments ago. She almost relished the way his face darkened with surprise. She was about to turn away when he caught her arm.

“And what do you consider to be pleasant?” he asked. “A rich man in want of a wife?”

She almost laughed. She had never been good at hiding her emotions, something she heard far too often from her mother and Lillie, and she felt the amusement and pity for him plainly cross her face.

“I wish your future wife the best of luck, and most patience,” she said. “For I find that many riches tend to dull the most promising men into petulant boys.”

He dropped her arm, looking confused, and she continued. “However, I, as I’m sure you’ve heard, come from a line that marries for partnership rather than purse strings—a legacy I fully intend to continue. Good evening, sir,” she said.

He didn’t need to know how her heart had sped up at the sight of him, or that his criticism of her pierced straight to the bone. After all, was it wrong of her to want to make a desirable match, to marry above her station? To ease her mother’s worry, to stay in her cousins’ lives? She still wanted love above all else—but she was ashamed nonetheless. Face burning, she delicately took her champagne glass from his hand and went in search of Oliver.

“You look positively radiant tonight, cousin,” Oliver said when she found him. “How did you find the fresh air?”

“Invigorating,” she said curtly.

With a pricked heart, she drained the rest of her glass and promised herself she would never speak of Theodore Parker again.

APRIL 30, 1904

Three Days Before the Murder

GRACE HAD SPENT many of her summer days growing up within the elegant oak-paneled walls of the Carter mansion on Forest Park, despite the best intentions of her aunt. Grace resented the way her aunt Clove had cast out her mother, but her uncle Reginald had insisted that civilized people did not punish the innocent for the mistakes of their forbearers. So Grace and her brother Walt were to be given a fresh start and a chance to redeem their family line for the next generation.

Walt had squandered his chance in spectacular fashion and threatened to tak. . .