by Rebecca Dean
“There’s no point to it, Wallis,” he had said practically. “What’s the sense of you losing dough to me or me losing dough to you? This way we have a double chance of leaving the tables we’re at a darn sight better off than when we sat down at them.”
Over the months since they had been putting this game plan into action, Wallis had lost a lot of the popularity she had originally had with Win’s friends’ wives. They didn’t play poker and they didn’t like the fact that while they were in one room, embroidering or knitting and talking about domestic concerns, Wallis was in another room making their husbands roar with laughter at her sassy remarks and, more often than not, emptying their pockets for them.
That she wasn’t as popular as she had once been didn’t bother Wallis—not if the alternative was to sit talking about babies and recipes all evening. Men had always liked her and she, in turn, preferred men’s company to that of most women. Corinne was an exception, of course, as was Fidelia Rainey.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Wallis,” Fidelia said with genuine warmth as she and Win entered her home. “Archie is here. He wants to play at whatever table you’re at, and so you’d best look to your laurels. When it comes to poker, Archie is a hotshot, as you well know.”
It was a good evening. Interspersed with the seriousness of the game at hand, Wallis kept her fellow poker players entertained with her account of the movie she had seen that afternoon. Whereas the other two tables played in nearly complete silence, there were periodic gales of laughter from Wallis’s table, but then there always were, especially so when Archie was also seated at it.
As they said their good nights and began walking the short distance to their bungalow, she patted her purse in satisfaction. “I did very well tonight, darling. What sort of an evening did you have?”
“When we get home, I’m going to show you.” He spoke through gritted teeth, and her stomach tightened. Something—probably someone—had put him in a bad mood, and if she wasn’t very careful, she would be the one paying for it. At times like these she had discovered that silence was often the best method of keeping out of trouble, and so she merely gave his arm a loving squeeze and said nothing.
The second they stepped over the threshold of their bungalow he slammed the door behind him with such force the walls shook.
Seizing hold of her by her upper arms so hard she knew the imprint of his thumbs and fingers would be on her flesh for weeks, he dragged her in the direction of the bathroom.
“You think I don’t know what’s going on between you and Archie?” he yelled. “You think I’m stupid?”
He kicked the bathroom door open with his foot. “I bet it’s not so impossible for you to fuck when it’s Archie doing the fucking, is it?”
He kicked her legs away from beneath her, but not so that she was facing his crotch, but so that she had her head over the toilet bowl.
“No!” In terror she knew immediately what he was about to do. “No, Win! There’s nothing going on between Archie and me! Nothing! Noth—”
Seizing hold of her head, he thrust it down into the bowl so that her entire face was below the waterline.
She struggled against him with all her strength, certain he was going to drown her, certain her last moments had come. Just when she thought she couldn’t survive a moment longer, he released his hold of her.
Gasping for breath, her hair saturated, she collapsed on the floor by the side of the bath.
“And that’s where you’re going to stay!” he yelled down at her.
Swinging away from her, he took the key out of the bathroom door, yanked the door closed, and turned the key in the lock from the outside. Then, seconds later, Wallis heard the front door open and then slam shut.
It was after midnight, and where he had gone she neither knew nor cared.
She was alive. He hadn’t drowned her. For the moment, that was enough.
Juddering with shock, she struggled to her feet and reached for a towel. Then, as her legs still wouldn’t support her, she slid back down against the side of the bath and feebly began drying her face and toweling her hair.
Then, and only then, did she give way to dry, choking sobs. How had her life turned into this hideous nightmare? She needed to be able to talk to someone about it, but there wasn’t anyone. She certainly couldn’t distress her mother or her Aunt Bessie by telling them what a charade her marriage was, and if she told Corinne, Corinne would tell Henry and Win’s career would be over fast as light. If that happened, Win really would kill her.
As the hours ticked past, the bathroom grew colder and colder. She wrapped a dry towel around her shoulders, dreading what the next day would bring. What she needed was a girlfriend she could confide in, and she certainly couldn’t confide in anyone at Pensacola or any of her Baltimore friends.
There was only one person in the world she needed at a time like this, and that person was Pamela—and Pamela was thousands of miles away, married to John Jasper and very probably the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales.
Chapter Seventeen
“At long last it’s official! President Wilson has seen sense and announced that America is at war with Germany!” It was April 2, 1917, and in great excitement John Jasper burst into the master bedroom of his and Pamela’s London home, copies of the Times and the Daily Dispatch in his hand.
Pamela was still in bed, a bank of lace-edged pillows behind her, a breakfast tray in front of her.
“About time,” she said cuttingly, spreading marmalade on a thin slice of toast. “Britain has been at war for two and a half long bloody years.”
“I shall join up, of course.” He tossed the newspapers onto her breakfast tray and strode across to the large windows that looked out over Green Park. “I’m going immediately to the American embassy—I imagine the queue of Americans volunteering for active service will stretch all the way outside the embassy and halfway, if not the whole way, down the street.”
Pamela ate her slice of toast and picked up the Times. The headline read:
USA ENTERS WAR TO SAVE DEMOCRACY
The article beneath it began with the words:
April 6. America is at war. At 1.18 this afternoon President Woodrow Wilson, sitting in a tiny room in the White House, signed the declaration of war passed by Congress this week. The war resolution went through the Senate by 90 votes to 6, and the House passed the same measure by 373–50, following an emotional debate that lasted 17 hours.
It was a long article and Pamela, whose newspaper of choice was the Daily Dispatch, didn’t bother reading to the end of it. Lifting the breakfast tray to one side, she swung her legs from the bed.
“I’m not sure I want you to join up and go off to war.”
He turned away from the window to face her, his winged eyebrows raised. “What? After all the cracks you’ve made these last two and a half years about America not pitching in?”
“America not pitching in and you not pitching in are two very different things.”
She slid her arms around his waist, her head against his chest, not looking him in the eyes. “It’s professional soldiers America will be sending to Flanders—not volunteer conscripts—and I don’t want to be receiving a black-edged telegram telling me you’re dead.”
John Jasper closed his arms around her. Their marriage was such an odd assortment of highs and lows, turbulently passionate one moment, icily cold the next, that he never knew what emotion he was going to meet with from her, and this latest one—deep concern for his safety—came as a welcome surprise.
It wasn’t going to change his mind about joining up, though. If America was at war, he, as a young and fit American, was going to stand up and be counted, and he knew Pamela was wrong in assuming only professional soldiers would be being sent to Europe. The total strength of America’s regular army was only 5,000 officers and 123,000 men, plus the part-time soldiers in the National Guard. His country would need him, and he had no intention of letting his country down.
�
�I’m glad you feel that way about things, Pammie,” he said thickly, amazed at how much emotion she was now capable of arousing in him. “But I could never live with myself if I didn’t do my bit.”
Pamela kept her head on his chest. It was true that she didn’t particularly want John Jasper to die in a mud-filled trench—or anywhere else, for that matter—but it wasn’t the real reason she was trying to coax him out of volunteering for active service. The real reason was that in January, when the Prince of Wales had been home on leave and on the night before he had returned to France, she had finally achieved her ambition of becoming much more to him than just someone he was socially friendly with. Her new relationship with him was one she was hoping to solidify on his next leave and she knew that, as a soldier, the prince might have second thoughts about embarking on a full-blown affair with a woman whose husband was risking his life at the front.
“What about Oliver?” she said, contriving to sound as if she were on the verge of tears. “If you should be killed, how will I ever explain to him that his papa didn’t have to go to France—or wherever else you might be sent—but that you chose to go?”
He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head to his.
Swiftly Pamela banished the expression of frustrated crossness she knew was in her eyes, replacing it with one of loving, tear-filled concern.
He said tenderly, “How will I ever explain to Oliver—when he is older—if I don’t go?”
She knew by the determined set of his jaw that nothing she could say was going to make him change his mind. As far as John Jasper was concerned, his honor was at stake, and John Jasper, as she had come to know very well since even before their marriage, was an extremely honorable man.
That he was made living with him quite exasperating at times. It was an accepted code of conduct among British aristocracy that marriages were made for sensible reasons, such as allying one great family with another or combining one vast estate with another, and that after a son and heir had been born—and his paternity not doubted—not only could the husband seek excitement and romance elsewhere, but so also could the wife.
Discreet bed-hopping was an acknowledged pastime at all country house parties, and hostesses obligingly sited the rooms of guests in close proximity to the rooms of whomever they were known to be having an affair with. What was never done, of course, was to conduct an affair openly. Though the inner circle would gossip about who was currently sleeping with whom, for it to become public knowledge would be to court social death.
It was a game that everyone she and John Jasper mixed with knew the rules of—and that John Jasper adamantly refused to play. He might not have wanted to have had to marry her, but now that he was married, he was quite blunt about his intention of being a faithful husband—and of expecting her to be a faithful wife in return.
To her own very great surprise she had found being so no huge strain. There were very few men in society as handsome as John Jasper, and she knew from her premarital experience that as a lover, he rated very highly; so high, in fact, that she’d had no desire to look elsewhere for satisfaction in bed. And then, in January, had come a temptation she had found completely irresistible.
It had occurred when she and John Jasper had motored up to Norfolk to visit her mother and Tarquin at Tarquin’s country home near Sandringham and had arrived to find a party in progress.
“Prince Edward is here,” her stepfather had said, greeting her fondly. “Like you, he’s an unexpected guest, but he’s returning to London later tonight and off back to Flanders first thing in the morning. The poor boy wanted to spend the last few hours of his leave in a lively manner, not something achievable at Sandringham.”
Her interest had been immediate. Since the war, chances to socialize informally with Edward didn’t happen often enough, and she had been determined to make the most of what was a very unexpected opportunity.
“Is Portia here?” she’d asked as John Jasper headed for the drawing room.
Some months ago there had been rumors that Prince Edward was romantically interested in Portia Cadogan, one of Earl Cadogan’s daughters.
“No.” Knowing she would want to refresh her makeup in the bedroom she and John Jasper always stayed in, Tarquin had walked her to the foot of the central staircase. “The party only came into being when Edward drove up an hour or so ago and asked if I could throw one together. It’s not been easy, and you and John Jasper couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment.” He’d hesitated, then added, “And as I know you’re interested, Portia Cadogan is now being squired around by Edward Stanley, a friend of Edward’s from his days at Oxford.”
Pamela had pressed her fingers to her mouth and had then pressed them against his. “You’re a wonderful bearer of good news, Tarquin.” Her eyes had danced with elation. “I’ll be down in five minutes’ time to make an impression on him.”
The luggage she and John Jasper had brought with them was in her bedroom almost as soon as she and her maid were.
Swiftly, knowing she had no time to lose if she was to capture Edward’s attention before some other scheming little minx did so, she’d had the quickest bath of her life and had her maid remove the most daring of the evening gowns she had brought with her.
It was made of crystal beaded sea green chiffon; the color echoed the mesmerizing color of her eyes. The neckline plunged both front and back, fitted like a second skin over her hips, and then fell into a narrow swirl of panels that floated around her legs as she walked. She’d added pearl earrings and a waist-length rope of pearls, sprayed herself with L’Heure Bleue, and had made her way to the drawing room, pondering what she knew of Edward’s recent personal life.
Now that he was twenty-three, the only female his name had been linked with—apart from Portia Cadogan—had been Lady Coke, who was at least twelve years his senior.
“It can’t be a love affair,” she had said to John Jasper when gossip about Edward and Lady Coke had first been whispered to her. “She may be lively company, but she’s ancient. Nearly old enough to be his mother.”
“Perhaps a bit of mothering is what he wants,” John Jasper had said. “From what I’ve heard, he never received much as a child. It’s my guess that’s all there is to his relationship with Marian Coke. She’s far too smart to make Tommy look ridiculous by having an affair with someone so much younger than herself—even if the someone in question is heir to the throne.”
It was one of those moments when John Jasper surprised her. She hadn’t realized he was on such friendly terms with Thomas, Viscount Leicester.
When they first married she had imagined that his being an American would put him at a disadvantage socially, but that hadn’t proved to be the case. John Jasper exuded good breeding and was immediately well liked by everyone she introduced him to. He was also usually right about things, too, and she very much hoped he was right in believing that Prince Edward’s relationship with Marian Coke stopped at the bedroom door, for it meant that where romance and Edward were concerned, she was still in with a chance.
At her stepfather’s opulent country house, that chance had finally arrived.
She’d walked into the drawing room to find fifteen or so people gathered there, all friends of Tarquin’s and all people already known to the prince. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” had been playing on the gramophone, the carpet had been rolled back for dancing, and champagne had been flowing.
To her startled surprise, she had seen that Edward was in uniform. It had been a stark reminder that next morning he was to return to the front and a world of horrors so far removed from the evening now being enjoyed as to be unimaginable.
“Not that he’s often near enemy shellfire,” she’d heard someone say to Tarquin under cover of the music. “He tries hard enough, poor bugger, but the king insists on his only doing staff work. He must be the only sod out there disobeying his remit by going up to the front line every chance he gets.”
The poor sod in question had been ta
lking to her mother when she had walked up to him and dipped a curtsey.
That he’d been absolutely delighted to see someone of his own age, rather than his host’s age, and someone he had been meeting intermittently ever since he’d been a child, had been thrillingly obvious to her.
“Pamela,” he said, startlingly blue eyes lighting up. “How splendid. Now I have someone to dance with!”
Though she had been calling him Edward to his face ever since childhood, she now, whenever they met, always very correctly waited for him to invite her to do so.
“It’s ragtime, sir,” she’d said, laughter fizzing in her throat. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for something a little more respectable to be on the gramophone?”
“Bosh!” The lines of strain on his fine-featured face had been unmistakable. He might be restricted to staff work, but the nightmare of the bloodbath he was so shortly returning to had imprinted itself on him as clearly as it had every other serving officer she had met. “Tarquin won’t object if we dance to ragtime.” He put a hand beneath her elbow. “Can you do the Turkey Trot? Don’t you love all these American dances? They’re so outrageously hectic that when you’re dancing them you forget everything.”
She’d known from past experience that at any occasion where there was dancing, Prince Edward always courteously danced at least once with every woman present, no matter what her age or looks. A quick glance around the room had shown her that age- and looks-wise she had no competition and that, having arrived at the party late, she was fortunate in that all Edward’s duty dances had already been danced.
“Another ragtime number!” he’d shouted across to the friend of her mother’s who was tending the gramophone.
The sound of Irving Berlin’s “Everybody’s Doing It Now” filled the room.