Excerpt from A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He tosses his cigarette in the tray and turns to the bed. "She won't say no."

"You don't sound very confident."

"She won't say no. I'm sure of it. Her father's on my side, and she—well, she's a good girl, Sisser."

CertainAge_viii_328_1P_LS_0512.indd 19 6/12/15 11:00 AM 20 Bea t r i z Wi lli ams "Does as she's told?"

"Exactly. And she likes me, she really does. I pulled out all the stops for her, sis. Charmed her silly. She likes horses, I took her riding. She likes books, I . . . well, I—"

"Pretended to like books?"

"You know what I mean. I dazzled her! I took her into our library on Thirty-Fourth Street, Papa's old library, and you should have seen the lust in her face."

"So she's marrying you for your strapping great library?" He turns back, smiling, and flourishes an illustrative hand along his body, from brilliantine helmet to bunion toes. "And my own irresistible figure, of course."

As I said. Delusional.

I reach inside his overcoat pocket and draw out the cigarette case. There's only one left. I rattle it around and consult my conscience. "Of course, Ox. You're just as perfectly handsome as you were at twenty-two. In fact, I can hardly tell the difference."

Ox picks the gasper out of the case and hands it to me. "Go ahead. Take it. And in return, you're going to find me my ring bearer, aren't you?"

"Maybe.

" "Sweet old sis. Always count on you to help a fellow out in a pinch."

"Indeed you do." I strike a match and hold it to the end of the cigarette.

My brother watches me anxiously. The light's a little better now, the sun is rising, and the lines around his eyes grow deeper as the reality of daylight takes hold of them. The slack quality of his skin becomes more evident. And I think, Is this how I look, too? Despite the creams and unguents, the potions and elixirs with which I drench myself daily, has my face grown as shopworn as his?

When we'd been married a year or two, and Tommy was still a baby, my husband commissioned Sargent to paint my portrait. It's a gorgeous old thing, full-length, framed in thick gilt wood. It hangs in the middle of the gallery of our apartment on Fifth Avenue, the place of honor, where it's illuminated by a pair of electrified sconces and gazes down from the heights to a certain point in the marble center of the hall, the exact position where any human being would naturally come to a halt and gaze upward to pay worship.

Because—forgive me, let's be honest—the creature depicted in that portrait is a goddess. She is as beautiful and self-assured as they come. She's wearing a dress of pale pink gossamer that hugs her tiny waist—giving birth at eighteen has its advantages—and a diamond necklace arranged like a chandelier upon her sculpted white bosom. Her dark hair is piled in loose curls on her head; her eyebrows soar confidently above her opaque almond eyes. The smile that curls the perfect bow of her mouth proclaims such an extraordinary volume of youthful self-satisfaction you're inclined to smack her.

In fact, go ahead. I wouldn't blame you, really.

On the other hand, who can blame her for her satisfaction? My God, the world's at her feet. At the age of twenty, she's succeeded brilliantly in the one great career open to her. She married one of the wealthiest and most eligible bachelors in New York; she has already given him a son and heir. She's rich and beautiful and clever. The newspapers adore her. In fact, not a single genuine setback has ever dared to obstruct the ascendant path of her life.

And on the face of that young woman there hangs not the slightest doubt that she will remain ascendant forever. A world doesn't exist in which she will have to fight for her beauty, to guard against the slow thievery of time.

Excerpted from A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams. Copyright © 2016 by Beatriz Williams. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.