‘I am not sure I would be entirely happy if Fred was having dinner with the most beautiful woman in Europe,’ Augusta said.
‘How fortunate then, Augusta, that the Empress did not invite him. And now, if you will excuse me, I must see to my packing.’
Charlotte swept out of the room, her cheeks pink. She knew it was a mistake to engage with Augusta, whose reserves of spitefulness were far greater than her own, but she could not resist the feeling of satisfaction that for once she had had the last word. But now she would have to go to London and leave Bay behind, or Augusta would think that she had changed her mind because the Empress had invited him to dinner.
On the Chocolate Side
As the footman opened the double doors of the Great Hall, Bay felt a surge of relief that he had, after all, decided to wear his dress uniform. It had meant hiring a chaise to get here, an expense he could ill afford after his losses at billiards the evening before; but as he took in the scene before him, he knew that, sartorially at least, he would do. Esterhazy and Liechtenstein were standing by an enormous carved mantelpiece, both wearing the white and gold uniform of the Austrian cavalry, their chests emblazoned with campaign medals and jewel-encrusted orders. Bay wondered how much active service they had seen. Perhaps they had been part of the imperial army that had been so roundly beaten by the Prussians three years ago. All he had was an ADC’s ribbon, but he would rather have that, than a chestful of campaign medals from an infamous defeat. He was glad that he belonged to a regiment with the most splendid uniform in the British army – the Hussars were called the Cherry Pickers on account of their red trousers, ornamented with a gold stripe down the outside leg. Bay hoisted his jacket to sit at exactly the right angle on his shoulder and practically marched into the room.
Liechtenstein and Esterhazy did not look round as Bay was announced. Only a slight bristling of the gold-braided shoulders betrayed their awareness of his presence. At the other end of the room there were two women sitting on a sofa talking. Bay could barely see them across the cavernous room, but he knew at once that neither of them was the Empress. He hesitated. The two men clearly meant to snub him, and while he felt confident of a warmer reception by the ladies, he did not know quite how to cross the room to them, imagining the echo of his spurs tapping against the hard floor. In desperation he looked up as if to admire the frescoes on the ceiling. He tried to appear absorbed by the goddesses and cherubs floating above him, but he found it hard to disguise his own awkwardness. He wished now that he had had the courage to refuse the invitation. He should have stayed at Melton and spent the evening being attentive to Charlotte, who had never seemed more attractive to Bay than she did at this moment. But just as his neck was beginning to ache from his scrutiny of the ceiling, he heard the doors open and the footman announcing the Spencers.
‘Middleton, what a splendid surprise!’ The Earl was clearly delighted to see him. ‘Glad to see that you have made yourself indispensable to the Empress.’
Middleton stiffened at the Earl’s tone, but a second glance reassured him that Spencer meant nothing particular by his remark. He bowed to the Countess, who gave him a look which suggested that Bay’s presence had rather devalued the occasion. She had, Bay noticed, made an unusual effort with her appearance. Her dress was made from a bright magenta silk over which she wore a slightly dingy diamond stomacher. There was a tiara in her fading blond hair. Middleton had never seen her wearing so many jewels, even when presiding over the vice-regal balls in Dublin. The gems were at odds with her weatherbeaten English looks. In her large, beringed hands she carried a fan which she tapped on her skirt like a riding crop.
Her husband, though, betrayed no such nervousness. He surveyed the Great Hall, nodded briefly to the Austrians and clapped Middleton on the shoulder.
‘You didn’t tell me it was the Empress who shot poor old Postlethwaite’s horse. Quite the Amazon. Remarkable horsewoman, too. I don’t think anyone but you could keep up with her, Middleton.’
Bay was saved from having to answer by Countess Spencer. Ignoring her husband, she said to Bay, ‘Edith Crewe must be so relieved that Augusta is finally to be married. I felt such a weight lifted from my shoulders, when my Harriet was settled, and she was only twenty-two. And Baird is really quite a good match. But then I don’t need to tell you that, Captain Middleton – I hear that you have quite an affection for the Baird family.’
Bay spread his hands in a gesture of submission. He knew from experience that the Countess would not be deflected. She addressed her husbands’s ADCs in the same tone as she used with her dogs, and she expected the same level of obedience.
‘And if you are successful, you can tell Miss Baird that I shall be happy to call upon her.’
Bay bowed again. He sensed that Charlotte might not be overwhelmed with gratitude at this sign of the Countess’s favour and that thought made him glad.
‘But mind you make sure of her, Captain Middleton. You can’t afford to…’ But the Countess did not finish her thought as at that moment the doors were opened and the Empress entered the room.
Bay made his deepest bow, although he did not click his heels like the Austrians. As he straightened up, he saw the Empress glance at him and then immediately look away. She was wearing a dress of green velvet that exposed her shoulders and décolletage. In her hair she wore several diamond stars, arranged randomly as if they had been sprinkled there by some divine hand.
Her naked shoulders were startlingly white against the forest green of her gown. He found himself almost shaking as she offered him her hand. As he bent over to kiss it, touching her skin with his lips, he had to fight to compose himself. Looking up, he caught her eyes for an instant, but then she had immediately moved on to greet the Spencers.
Her hand had been dry, the skin a little rough, the hands of a horsewoman. But it was something to remember, the first touch of a woman’s skin; it was the delicious forerunner of so many things … but there he checked himself. He forced himself to think of Charlotte’s small, serious face, and the way she had trembled when he had kissed her. It had been her first kiss, he felt sure.
As he stood up he saw that there was another woman following the Empress. This, Middleton realised with an unpleasant lurch of his stomach, was her sister, the ex-Queen of Naples. And for the second time that night Middleton wished himself back at Melton Hall.
He felt a fool for not guessing that this ordeal lay ahead of him. The Queen would, of course, remember the man who had refused even to meet her at the Spencer ball. It had been unwarrantably rude, Bay could see that now, and for a moment he regretted his action. The woman before him was beautiful but everything about her was a little less splendid than her sister. Her face was longer, her lips were thinner, her eyebrows were straight while her sister’s rose in graceful curves. She had the same heavy mass of hair, but as she was a couple of inches shorter it seemed to dwarf her. Tonight she wore it in the same diadem of plaits as the Empress, but on her the style looked more like an imposition than a crown.
Baron Nopsca made the introduction. ‘Your Majesty, may I present Captain Middleton? He has been acting as the Empress’s pilot.’
Once again Bay bent to kiss the hand that was offered to him. The Queen’s hand was softer than her sister’s but, he noticed, slightly moist. He hoped that the Queen would pass on at once, but she was frowning at him, making an elaborate pantomime of remembering something.
‘Captain Middleton, I believe I remember the name.’ She looked at him directly and Bay saw that she knew precisely who he was.
‘My sister tells me that you are invaluable to her. She says she can’t imagine how she could have managed without you.’ The Queen smiled with her mouth only. ‘I told her that she was very lucky to have secured your services. The famous Captain Middleton is not to be hired as easily as a hackney carriage. He is a man who follows his own inclinations. Sisi has no idea how lucky she is.’
The Queen glanced over at her sister, who was standing now betw
een Liechtenstein and Esterhazy, listening to some story of Spencer’s.
Bay wondered if he should make some apology to the woman in front of him, but he sensed that nothing he said could make a difference. Maria would always be the runner-up, in looks, in position, in everything. Instead he said, ‘I hope I will have the honour of riding out with the Empress and her sister.’
‘That will be for my sister to decide. We may be in England, but we are all her subject to her will.’
At this, Baron Nopsca, who had been hovering at the ex-Queen’s elbow, looking for a moment to interrupt this worrying conversation, stepped forward and murmured in her ear, ‘May I present you to Countess Spencer, Your Majesty,’ and to Bay’s relief they moved on. The rest of the royal party included the ex-King, a small man with a waxed imperial, who spoke no English and who looked surprised when Nopsca described Bay to him as ‘le chef d’équipe de l’impératrice’. The King looked at Bay and shook his head, as if pondering what the world was coming to when monarchs sat down to eat with their grooms.
Bay was assigned one of the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting to take in to dinner. The Baron introduced her as Countess something, but the name sounded thick and foreign to Bay and he stumbled as he repeated it.
‘I apologise for my German pronunciation. The only languages I learnt at school were dead ones.’
The Countess, who was a thin woman some years older than the Empress, gave an unexpectedly charming smile.
‘I will forgive you, Captain Middleton. My name is Festetics. It is not German but Hungarian, which is famously the most difficult language on earth.’ She had a deep voice and spoke with a strong accent, her words coming out fitfully in little staccato gusts.
‘Thank goodness then, that you speak such good English,’ Bay replied.
‘We Hungarians have no choice but to become linguists. We never expect people to speak Magyar. The only person I know who has learnt to speak it fluently is the Empress.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, the Empress is like a parrot. Sometimes when we are talking, if I am to close my eyes, I am thinking that I talk to one of my own people.’
Bay, whose knowledge of Hungary did not extend much beyond some notion of gypsy violins and Tokay wine, wondered why the Empress had bothered to learn such an esoteric tongue.
‘But Captain Middleton, she is Queen of Hungary as well as Empress of Austria. And such a Queen! We Hungarians are for ever thankful that she has married the Kaiser. He is not learning Hungarian, beyond saying “My loyal subjects”, but my mistress she wants to understand us. The people say that she has a Hungarian soul.’
The Countess’s eyes were shining and she looked over to the Empress, who was seated in the middle of the table between Earl Spencer and her brother-in-law, the little King. As she turned her head to the Earl, the candlelight caught one of the diamond stars in her hair and the refracted sparkles danced across the table, stippling the faces of the other diners.
Bay and the Countess were seated at the end of the table, firmly below the salt as protocol dictated. Bay had not expected anything else and yet he felt uncomfortably aware of his lowly status. In the field, the difference in rank seemed irrelevant; what counted was horsemanship, and in that department he felt the equal of anyone. But here in this vast, coffered dining room, where he had nothing to recommend him but his looks and his cherry picker uniform, he felt awkward. At least he could make himself agreeable to the woman beside him.
‘Are you enjoying your stay in England, Countess?’
‘It seems to me that it is, how you say, a splendid country,’ Bay nodded his approval of her linguistic foray, and the Countess continued, ‘if you are a horse or perhaps a dog. The Empress she does not care about food, but I am not so fortunate. Even when we have visited your Queen at her palace, the food was grey like stones, and tasting very much the same way.’
Bay had to laugh at her vehemence. He gestured at his plate, at the perfectly cooked Sole Veronique.
‘Not all English food is bad, Countess.’
Countess Festetics leant over to him. ‘My point exactly, Captain Middleton. The chef is Hungarian. He comes here with the Empress. Of course, I have to give him the menus. The Empress, she would live on bouillon and pumpernickel if I was to permit it. You are very fortunate that I am here. Because of me you do not have to eat grey food.’
Bay smiled. ‘Your presence would be a boon, Countess, whatever the menu.’
The Countess laughed. ‘You are very gallant, Captain. The Empress has mentioned to me how fine a rider you are, but she did not tell me that you could also talk so…’ she searched for the word, ‘delicately.’ She turned to look at Bay directly as she said this and he felt a prickle of sweat on the back of his neck.
‘There hasn’t been much time for conversation on our rides together. The Empress likes to ride at the front of the pack. I spend most of my time trying to keep up with her.’
‘We are all trying to do that, Captain. But she likes you … I am glad, because when she is happy, I am happy.’
‘I am not sure all the Empress’s party feel the same way,’ Bay said.
The Countess saw Bay glance over at Liechtenstein and Esterhazy.
‘Max and Felix? No, they are not happy at all to be eating with the stable boy.’ The Countess pointed at him and smiled. ‘But you must remember that they are Viennese and nobody is good enough for the Viennese. And, of course, they do not like to have a rival. For three years they have been everywhere with the Empress, to Bad Ischl, to Gödöllő, and in Vienna, of course. They are a fine pair of cavalieri serventi. The Emperor calls them Castor and Pollux. But now the Empress is talking about you, and asking you to dinner. You have made their noses … crooked.’
The footmen came round with the entrée. There was no one sitting on Bay’s other side, so when the Countess turned to the man on her left, he was left alone. He tried to make conversation with the woman opposite him, but as she spoke no English they could do little more than smile at each other. He took a surreptitious look at the Empress. She was, as the Countess predicted, not eating, but her wine glass was half empty and there were two spots of colour in her pale face. She turned her head and caught Bay’s eye. To his surprise she called out to him.
‘Captain Middleton, I should like to hear your opinion of my horses.’ She gestured to Spencer. ‘The Earl says you are the arbiter of these things. Are they as good as your English hunters?’
The table went silent. To be addressed like this directly was a definite sign of royal favour. Bay felt the shift in atmosphere as the other diners reassessed his status. He hesitated before saying, ‘Your horses are magnificent, Ma’am. I would be proud to be seen riding any of them.’
He paused, and wondered if he should continue, but then he saw the expression on Esterhazy’s face and decided he would say what he really thought.
‘But a great hunter needs more than good looks. To ride out with the Quorn and be in at the kill, you need more than breeding, you need heart. I mean the kind of animal who will ride twenty miles at a gallop over open country and still be ready for more. Your horses, Ma’am, will do anything you tell them, but a great horse doesn’t need telling, it will give you everything it has without you asking, and when you think there is nothing left, it will find the legs for that last jump.’
There was a moment before Liechtenstein said, ‘Are you really suggesting that Her Majesty’s thoroughbreds, the product of five hundred years of breeding, are inferior to the grey mare you were riding yesterday?’
‘You may not like her looks, sir, but you have to admit that she covered the distance as well as any in the field,’ Bay said, aware that Liechtenstein’s horse had refused a gate the day before.
‘And these horses, the ones with heart that you speak of, I suppose they are English.’ As Liechtenstein turned his head, Bay saw the faint gleam of a duelling scar on his cheek.
‘I am sure that there are horses with spirit and courage everywhere, but so far I have only found them in
England.’
Liechtenstein was about to answer but the Empress broke in, ‘Earl Spencer, I must have one of these English horses. Will you help me find one?’
‘Middleton’s the man for that, Ma’am. No better judge of horseflesh in the country.’
The Empress turned her head towards Bay. He bowed and murmured that it would be an honour. The Empress clapped her hands and turned to her brother-in-law, the King of Naples, and translated the exchange for him into rapid Italian. As he listened the ex-King turned to stare at Bay and shook his head again, still baffled by his presence.
The conversation around the table picked up again, and as the footmen brought round the pudding, the Countess leant over to him and said in a low voice, ‘Well, Captain, you are, as they say in German, on the Empress’s chocolate side – the one where everything is sweeter. It is where every courtier wants to be.’
‘But I am not a courtier,’ said Bay, a little too loudly.
The Countess smiled and Bay saw the glint of a gold tooth.
‘Perhaps. But you are a man, I think.’
Having made her point, she carried on, ‘This is a Hungarian cherry torte, Captain. Even the Empress likes this.’
Bay, who did not really care for sweet things, felt himself obliged to finish every crumb.
After dinner the Empress led the ladies out of the room, but to Bay’s relief the men did not stay behind to drink port. The King of Naples left first, followed by the other men, in strict order of precedence, which meant that Bay was the last to leave the room. His face was aching from the effort of appearing agreeable. Alone for a moment in the dining room, he let out a silent scream, stretching his mouth as wide as it would go.
There was a noise behind him, a discreet clearing of the throat. Bay composed his face and turned around. Baron Nopsca was standing in the doorway, his hands clasped together in front of him.
The Fortune Hunter Page 16
