by Rhys Bowen
“Thank you,” I gasped. “That was so embarrassing. I’m sorry,” I looked back at the water sprite, who was now smoothing out her damaged dignity. Then I turned to my rescuer. It was the devil himself.
He was tall and slim. That was really all I could see of him. He wore a tight-fitting black outfit and a long black cape lined with red. His hair was hidden by a black cap that sprouted neat little red horns, and his eyes were behind a slim red mask. He was smiling at me revealing a strong jaw and a mouth of perfect teeth. He looked quite dashing and very scary.
“We meet at last,” he said in a low voice.
“It was kind of you to come to my rescue,” I stammered.
“We inhabitants of the nether regions have to stick together,” he said. “I take it you are a fallen angel? But you really have to learn to control those wings or you’ll be hopeless at flying.”
The music changed to a slow waltz. “Shall we?” he asked.
His hand that slid onto my bare back was firm and strong and elicited an unexpected shiver as he drew me close to him.
“I’m not supposed to know who you are, but I do,” he said. He spoke with a refined English accent, but so properly that I sensed he was working hard at it.
“I think I know who you are too, sir,” I said.
He laughed then. He had a wonderful laugh, rich, genuine. “Do you? I wonder.”
We danced. He glided me effortlessly across the floor. I felt as if I were floating. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. At the end of the dance he stayed at my side and escorted me to my seat. Then he pulled up a chair beside me. “Is this your first visit to the Merrimans’?” he asked.
“It is. I don’t know them at all,” I said.
“Neither do I.” He laughed again. “In fact I’ll let you into a secret if you promise not to tell. I’m a complete gate-crasher.”
I laughed now. “No you are not.”
“Oh, but I am,” he said. “I make a practice of it. How else would I dine and wine well?”
“You’re making fun of me,” I said.
“I assure you I’m not,” he said. “During this time of depression it makes so much sense to eat someone else’s food and drink someone else’s wine, don’t you think? Especially when the ‘someone else’ is as rich as the Merrimans.”
A hag with long white hair and a white mask came up to us. “So you’ve got together. Splendid,” said Lady Merriman’s voice. “I’m going to have them send over some champagne for you.”
“That would be most appropriate,” my companion said. I saw dark eyes flash beneath that mask as he looked back at me.
Champagne arrived in a silver bucket and was opened with a satisfying pop. Two glasses were poured and my companion held up his glass to me. “To the future. May it be everything you dream of,” he said and our glasses clinked together. As I took a sip my heart was beating very fast. He was tall and from what I could see he was handsome. He had a lovely voice and a terrific smile and a wonderful sense of humor. He seemed to be considerate. Oh, and he was a prince. What more could I want in a man?
The music began again and he held out his hand to me. He held me very tight as we danced and I could feel his heart beating against my chest. During the balls of my season I had danced with a variety of chaps, but mostly they had been clodhopping and awkward, stepping on my toes and trying to make stilted conversation about hunting and shooting—the only subjects they knew. With this man there was nothing awkward at all. It felt as if we belonged together. I had never been close to a man before, conscious of his body against mine, the warmth of his breath on my cheek, two hearts beating as one. It was heady and exciting and I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.
“So what will you do now that your season is over?” he asked me.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ll have to go back to Scotland with the family when they close up the London house, I suppose. I wish there was something I could do. I’d love a job, but I have no qualifications and no skills except to walk around with a book on my head and know where to seat a bishop at the dinner table.”
He laughed. “Do you know a lot of bishops then?”
“None.”
“Then I agree it’s not the most useful skill in the world. But never mind. You’ll marry a prince or a duke or a count and live happily ever after, I expect.”
“I’m not sure that I’m ready to get married yet,” I heard myself saying. “Nineteen is so awfully young, isn’t it? And I haven’t seen anything of life. How can I make the right choice? I know debs are supposed to find their future husbands during this year, but it seems rather frightening to make a decision about spending the rest of one’s life with someone one hardly knows.”
“I agree,” he said. “But aren’t young ladies in your position supposed to make a good match, with no regard for your personal feelings about the chap?”
“I’m not about to inherit any kingdom,” I said. “I’m only thirty-fourth in line to the throne so how can I be of any importance in international affairs?”
“Any link to the House of Windsor is valuable these days. You won the war, remember.” I noticed that he said you.
“Anyway, I plan to marry for love,” I said. “I don’t want to spend my life being miserable.”
“Quite right,” he said.
“But if I happened to fall in love with the family’s choice for me, that would be marvelous,” I added.
“Then let us drink a toast to that.” He raised his glass again and his eyes met mine.
The champagne tickled all the way through my body. I wasn’t used to drinking and I’d already had several glasses of that lethal punch. When my partner took my hand again and drew me up to dance I felt the room swing around and I had a strange feeling that my feet weren’t touching the floor.
“Shouldn’t you offer to dance with some of the other ladies?” I asked as his hand came around my waist again. “I wouldn’t want to monopolize you all evening.”
“Haven’t you noticed?” he whispered. “We are the only couple under forty. I heartily dislike dancing with older women. Too bony and bitchy.”
I laughed then. He smiled too. “That’s more like it. You looked like a scared rabbit when I first spotted you. You belong here. You have a better pedigree than all but one. They should be honored by your presence.”
“I don’t feel that way,” I said. “I see them as rich, confident, sophisticated and me as a girl just out from school with no experience of the world.”
“Then we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” he whispered in my ear and drew me close to him. “So tell me—have you even been kissed?”
“Sort of,” I said. “A few chaps tried it at the various balls but I don’t think they were very good at it.”
I hadn’t noticed that he had steered us toward an alcove dotted with huge potted palm trees. He pulled me to him. “Let me show you what you’ve been missing.” And then he kissed me. Gently at first, his lips teasing mine, and then more hungrily as he felt me responding to him. I had never known that a kiss could feel like this. I had never known what desire felt like, but I was feeling it now, and as I yielded to his kiss, the thought flooded through my mind that I might be spending the rest of my life with this man. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
At last we broke apart breathlessly. I noticed he was breathing as hard as I was. “I don’t think we better take it any further tonight,” he said as he gazed down into my eyes, “or I might not be responsible for my actions. I must say I’m glad you chose such a simple little mask, otherwise kissing would have been impossible, or I would have been forced to remove the mask—which is not allowed until midnight.”
I realized that midnight was not far away and felt a thrill of excitement about looking at his face for the first time. I hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed when he saw me unmasked. As I glanced across the room to the ornate gold clock on a sideboard I saw something I couldn’t quite believe.
&nbs
p; “That man just put something in your drink,” I said indignantly.
He stiffened and I felt his hand tense on my shoulder. “Are you sure? What man?”
“See, that one. Sort of white and formless, like a ghost. But I’d swear I saw a hand come out from under all that flowing fabric and it tipped something into your drink.”
He dragged me rapidly back to the table, picked up his glass and sniffed at it.
“They don’t play around, do they?” he said. “Cyanide, if I’m not mistaken.” He picked up my glass. “They obviously wanted to finish you off too. There’s some in yours.”
“But who would want to do that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There are plenty of anarchists’ groups who are sworn to do away with royalty, and of course Russia is reaching out communist tentacles, hoping to topple all Western governments.”
“That’s horrible.”
“But a fact, nonetheless.” He picked up both glasses. “Now do what I say. Stay put and do not move. And don’t eat or drink anything unless you’re sure it’s safe. Understand?”
“Where are you going?”
“To find the bastard who did this.”
“Don’t go.” I touched his arm. “Tell Lord Merriman. They have policemen around the house.”
“That will be too late,” he said. “Stay with the crowd. You’re safer here.”
I watched as he forced his way through dancing couples and out of one of the French doors. Just as he exited a deep bell started tolling. Then the sweet chimes of the ormolu clock were added to it.
“Midnight, everybody,” Lady Merriman’s voice called. “Come on through to the gold salon for the grand unveiling of masks, and then we’ll all go in to supper. Come on, come on. No lagging.”
She drove us out of the ballroom like a diminutive sheepdog, through to a lovely white-and-gilt room where we took our seats in a circle of chairs. I looked around the circle but didn’t see the wraithlike figure who had tried to kill us. I kept glancing across at the French doors, wondering whether my dancing partner had found the man and when he’d be back.
“You probably all know by now who we are so we’ll go first,” Lady Merriman said. “Come on, Podge, take your mask off.”
“About time.” Lord Merriman wrestled with his monster head. “I was just about suffocating under this thing. Somebody help me off with it.”
One of the footmen rushed forward to help him and soon a distinguished gray-haired head appeared, his face a little flushed. Lady Merriman had taken off her mask and fluffed out her hair. “There, that’s better, isn’t it? Who is going to go next? Order of precedence, Your Royal Highness? “
“Very well,” my cousin’s voice said and an extravagant birdlike Venetian mask was removed to reveal the Prince of Wales.
Before any more masks could be removed there was a deep boom outside the building. The French doors blew open, a great gust of wind rushed in and the whole house shook. People jumped to their feet, alarmed. A couple of women screamed.
“What is it? What’s going on?’ a woman shrieked.
“Stay put, everyone,” Lord Merriman said in a commanding voice. “Nobody go anywhere. We’ve got police around the building. I’m sure we’re quite safe in here if we stick together. I’m going to see what’s happening.”
“Do you think they’ve bombed Broxley, Podge?” Lady Merriman asked. “Bombed our lovely house?”
“I’m sure everything’s all right, Dottie. You keep our guests entertained.”
“All right, but take care, won’t you?” Lady Merriman called after him. She turned back to us and tried to manage a bright smile. “On with our game and off with the motley. Who is next, Prince Otto?”
“Where is Prince Otto?” a woman’s voice said. “I don’t see him. Oh my God. They haven’t killed Prince Otto, have they?”
My heart had almost stopped beating. That blast had come from outside the French doors and that was exactly where Prince Otto had gone. It was all I could do to force myself to stay seated.
“I’m sure Prince Otto is just fine,” Lady Merriman said.
“Here I am. Quite safe. No cause for alarm,” said a voice by the door, and a man in a devil’s costume stepped out among us. “Please do not worry. I am sure your excellent police will soon have apprehended the man who tried to harm us.”
He came into the light and I stared hard at him. It was the same costume all right, but there was something different about him. Even the voice was different—higher and with a slight foreign accent.
“It is my turn to remove the mask, nicht wahr? Very well. I shall have a devil of a time doing it.” And he laughed as he pulled off the red mask and black cap. I found myself looking at a chubby and rather silly face with a weak chin. He had fair hair and blue eyes that drooped a little at the corners. He was definitely not the same person I had danced with.
“Go and sit next to lady Georgiana, Otto,” Lady Merriman said. “She looks quite upset.”
She led Otto to the seat beside me. “Your turn, I believe,” he said. He reached across and removed my mask. “Ah, yes,” he said. “My dear cousin Georgiana. I am so sorry you were frightened by the explosion. But you have had a pleasant ball so far, I hope. You enjoyed the dancing?”
“Yes, thank you,” I mumbled. I could hardly get out the words. My mind was reeling. My partner had told me he was an interloper, a gate-crasher, and obviously it was true. But who was he, and why had he gate-crashed the ball disguised as Prince Otto? And then my brain took this supposition one stage further. Was it possible that he was perhaps the anarchist himself, in cahoots with the man who put poison in a drink intended for me? After all, the explosion had happened soon after he went outside, through those French doors. I didn’t want to believe that of him. It was breaking my heart, in fact.
Otto was chatting on. “I am so sorry that I missed the reception that the king and queen gave for me the other day. I understand that you were there. I was unavoidably detained with friends in the country. A spot of motorcar trouble, you know.”
His English was fluent but clipped and Germanic.
The company had recovered from shock and other people were now removing masks to expressions of surprise and laughter. Lady Merriman had just suggested that we go in to supper when the French doors opened again and Lord Merriman came in, accompanied by a young bobby.
“It’s all right,” he said. “They caught the blighter. Some foreign chappy trying to bump off Prince Otto, from what we can gather.”
“Really, it is too bad that one can’t feel safe in England anymore,” Lady Merriman said. “Did he do any damage to our house?”
“No, luckily the bomb was wrenched away from him and hurled away from the house before it could explode,” Lord Merriman said. “It has blown a crater in one of the lawns, that’s all. Easily remedied. So sorry, everyone. Let’s put it out of our minds and go in to supper, shall we? We’ll show these foreign blighters that they can’t scare us.”
Prince Otto rose to his feet and offered me his arm. I took it and allowed myself to be led through double doors to a dining room where a magnificent spread awaited us on long, white-clothed tables. We ate very frugally at home, as Fig was in full economy mode, so on any other occasion I would have been thrilled to see whole smoked salmons, cold chickens, plates of oysters, mounds of caviar, lobsters, cold venison and all the foods I dreamed of when we were forced to face baked beans yet again. But I wasn’t used to eating this late and my stomach was tied in knots. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mystery man. I wondered if I should say anything to Lord Merriman, to tell him that my dance partner had been a gate-crasher at the party and had claimed that someone tried to poison our drinks. But if they had already caught him, his fate was sealed anyway. A wave of overwhelming sadness enveloped me. For the first time in my life I had met a man with whom I could really fall in love, and he had turned out to be a fake. Perhaps his kisses had been fake too—a pleasant way to pass the time until he went out
side to detonate the bomb that would have killed us all.
“You do not eat,” Prince Otto said. His own plate was piled high. “Not good to starve yourself. You need more meat on your bones. Here, let me give you this good venison.”
I looked at the small foreleg in horror. All I could picture was a fawn standing in the forest. When Otto wasn’t looking I put down that plate, picked up another and served myself a little caviar and a fruit jelly. Otto escorted me back to the gold salon where he procured two chairs in a corner. “Zis is cozy, ja?” he said. “Now we get to know each other better and you tell me amusing stories of your royal relations.”
There was no way I wanted to tell him amusing stories. Actually, I didn’t want to sit beside him, so I said, sweetly, “You were a little late in coming to the party, weren’t you, sir?”
“Me?” he gave me a long look of innocence. “But I have been here all the time. You must be remarkably unobservant because I believe I danced with you.”
I didn’t feel like taking this any further. I wanted to get away, to be among people with whom I felt safe. “Oh, yes,” I said. “So you did.”
“And I hope I was a good dancer?” he teased.
“The best,” I said.
The Prince of Wales, with the Simpsons in tow, came up to join us.
“Ah, so you’ve finally met young Georgie, have you, Otto?” The prince pulled up a chair beside us and Mrs. Simpson sat in it, giving him a dazzling smile of gratitude. Mr. Simpson grunted and loitered in the background.
“I have, and your mother was right. She is quite charming,” he said.
“Then at least one of us had better do the right thing and get married,” my cousin said.
“So my father keeps telling me,” Otto replied. “But I do not see why I have to do the right thing any longer. It is not as if we have a dynasty to continue. We are no longer in power. We are passé, has-beens. So why not just amuse ourselves and to hell with duty?”
Conversation was broken off as a plainclothes officer stepped into the room. “You will be pleased to know that the man who tried to commit this heinous act is currently being driven to Southampton in a police motorcar. Our men have searched the grounds and found no accomplices, so I’m happy to tell you that it is quite safe to carry on enjoying your evening.”
