“It’s been three years, Edwina.”
“Has it really? But here we are.” She turned to look down at Spencer. “I don’t know your friend, though he paid us a visit this morning. I was expecting you would be with Henry Crowder, Nancy. Or so your mother said.”
“He’s gone off somewhere. This is C. Jamieson Spencer. Lieutenant C. Jamieson Spencer, a flier in the war and now a man of Paris. Lieutenant Spencer, this is Lady Edwina Mountbatten. She’s rich, and her husband’s a commander in the navy, so I suppose you’re outranked.”
Spencer started to rise, but Edwina waved her hand in disapproval and then sat down on his deck chair beside him. He could see small lines about her face, but she was quite pretty. She seemed even more British in her speech and manner than Nancy. He found himself enormously attracted to her, and guilty again. Nancy was charity. This woman was lust.
“Why are you here, Edwina?” Nancy demanded.
“Because I’m your friend, Nancy. Because your mother has failed to persuade you to join us, which you simply must. I know she’s been beastly to you, and most especially to Henry. But she does love you, and you can’t continue on your separate ways. On board ship, it’s quite absurd. If Henry doesn’t want to deal with your mother, that’s certainly understandable. But you should come. Come along with me now. Perhaps Lieutenant Spencer would like to join us. He’s a friend of Chips’s you know. Did you know Chips Channon is with us?”
She leaned back slightly, pressing the curve of her left buttock against Spencer’s hip. He was reminded of Whitney, but he chased her from his mind.
“Chips is an odious little snob,” Nancy said.
“Quite,” said Edwina. “But also your mother’s closest friend, and indispensable to our party.”
“The hell with your party, Edwina. If you were true to yourself, you’d have nothing to do with any of them.”
“I’m true to Dickie,” Edwina said, “and so I must have to do with them. They’re everything to him.”
“True to Dickie?” Nancy’s voice was shrill.
“In a sense, an important sense.”
“True to Dickie?” Nancy stood, clasping her arms and her bracelets. She laughed, the sound like ice shattering, then turned and walked away, her arms still folded, her head tilted back, as if she were talking to God. “True to Dickie?”
God did not answer her. When she was gone, Edwina turned around, her hip and thigh now pressed fully against Spencer.
“Poor dear,” she said. “I’m really quite fond of her, but I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done.” She smiled, this time with warmth and friendliness and interest. “I do think you should join us, though. We can’t have a friend of Chips’s locked away back here in second class with all the bourgeoisie, now can we?”
“Tout le monde sont bourgeoisie. It’s the human condition.”
“Don’t be vulgar. Now come along, Lieutenant Spencer. I’m going to stand you to a drink.”
“I’ve not been a lieutenant since 1919.”
“Well, we have to call you something, don’t we? Now come along.”
She led him, with some haste, to a bar just off the second-class lounge where they each had a quick pink gin, a Royal Navy drink for which she seemed to have developed a marked fondness. Edwina said very little, while talking constantly, conducting a monologue about the rigors of air travel from Australia. She was nervous now, impatient.
“Can’t stand traveling, really,” she said. “But then I can’t stand not traveling either. Mine’s a very frustrating life.” She gave him a neat but mischievous smile. “What is your cabin number, Lieutenant Spencer?”
He hesitated, then told her. She took a small gold notebook and gold pen from her handbag and made a notation in it, with much satisfaction.
“Now,” she said, rising. “Let us have a tour of it.”
“Of my cabin?”
“Yes. I want to see if it’s suitable. To see if I can’t make you agree that you’ll be much happier in first class. Come.”
Holding his hand tightly, Edwina took him down the passageway as a jailer might a prisoner, demanding his key as they approached his door. Inside, she noticed the photograph of Whitney and went up to it, studying it as if it were an interesting painting.
“French?” she asked.
“American. Her husband’s French.”
“Rather too young for you, don’t you think?”
“Sometimes.” He frowned.
“No substitute for experience,” she said, setting the photograph face down. She came up to him and kissed him, urgently and hungrily, both arms around his neck. Then she pushed him gently down into a chair and stepped back, slipping off her sweater.
“You will find me quite beautiful,” she said. Her skirt followed, falling almost silently to the floor. Gracefully she removed her blouse and then the satin slip beneath. She was wearing no brassiere. Her breasts were small and lovely. She lifted them gently with her hands.
“Not bad, Lieutenant?”
“Exquisite, your ladyship.” He was not merely abandoning Whitney; he was plunging recklessly away from her, out of their relationship into a maddening unknown.
All that remained were Edwina’s stockings and lace underdrawers. She turned her back to him. Bending forward, she gracefully pulled the stockings down and off, draping them on a chair. Then with a slight wiggle, she lowered the last garment to the floor, stepping out of it and then standing motionless. Her body was very firm and trim, her buttocks white and smooth, her arms, legs, and back very tan, her skin lustrous in the hazy sunlight from the porthole.
“Now you, darling,” she said, still with her back to him. “I hate to watch men undress. You look so silly taking off your socks.”
He rose, competing urges compelling him to choose between doing as she commanded and fleeing out the door.
“I’m ready,” he said, when he was.
“Come to me, then,” she said, still facing away. “Come close.”
He went up to her and reached around her arms to cup her breasts and kiss the back of her neck. He felt her shiver, happily.
“Come closer, darling. Very close. I want to feel you.”
He did as bidden, pressing against her, blood racing.
“Oh, lovely lovely lovely, my dearest darling Lieutenant Spencer.”
He slid his hands slowly down her belly, but suddenly she pulled away. She turned to face him, taking his hands but stepping back.
“Why, you’re beautiful, as well,” she said, and glanced down. “Perfect. Perfect, my darling.” She touched a rough, disfigured patch of flesh on his thigh. “From the war?”
“Yes. A burn.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“No.” He was breathing rapidly. “Just the memory of it.”
“I won’t make you hurt, darling.” She pulled him gently toward the bed. “Now show me all the things that you know. And I’ll show you all I know. We must know many, many things, you and I, my darling perfect aviator from the war.”
Afterward, eyes closed, he savored the memory of the scent of her neck and cheek and hair and the driving, muscular grasp of her loins and the silkiness of the small of her back. He rolled over, breathing slowly now, and deeply. Never in the war, never in the singsong houses of Shanghai, had he experienced anything like this. He still loved Whitney—he told himself this almost angrily—but Whitney had never given him what this woman had just done.
Lady Mountbatten moved on top of him, leaning on her elbows, looking dreamily into his eyes.
“Not bad, Lieutenant?” she said.
“No, ma’am.”
“Bloody marvelous?”
“Bloody marvelous.”
“Better than crazy Alice?”
“Than who?”
“La Comtesse Alice de Janzé.”
“How in hell do you know about Alice de Janzé?”
“Anyone who’s been to British East Africa knows about Alice de Janzé.”
“How do
you know about Alice and me?”
“Your chatty friend, Chips Channon, darling. He told a most amusing tale. Of sweet, young love, in some place called Lincoln Park.”
“My chatty friend, Chips, is a rotten son of a bitch.”
“Quite, and common as dirt. But don’t be offended. He spoke of it rather proudly. After all, Alice is rather a legend.”
“Is that why you sought me out?”
“That begs the question. Was I better than Alice de Janzé?”
He remembered a dusk and distant traffic moving along the lake shore in a migration of pale yellow headlights. He remembered a face little more than a child’s and wide, wild, excited eyes, underclothing pulled down and the midwestern air cold against their partial nakedness. He remembered clumsiness, and pain. Afterward she had laughed, but also cried. He had felt like doing the same. He had felt so sorry for her, and for himself. It had been worse than shame.
“It is a silly question, your ladyship. Of course you are.”
She stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers.
“You dear, dear thing.” She smiled. “We shall have dinner together tonight, you and I. Here in second class. And afterward I’ll have a surprise for you. A marvelous surprise.”
As Captain van der Heyden permitted, Major Metcalfe and Lord Brownlow went through the wireless messages in Signal Officer Brevoort’s cabin, under his stern supervision. Those in Dutch they automatically disregarded. Their last-minute, almost random choice of this ship virtually precluded any involvement by ship’s crew or the Wilhelmina’s initial passenger complement in any action against the prince.
The others included one from Lord Mountbatten, who, ignoring their agreement, had sent a signal to his fleet headquarters on Malta advising them he could be reached on this ship. There were some American and English messages apparently relating to commercial business. Emerald Cunard had sent one to her butler regarding the cancellation of a social event. A French woman had informed her husband in Lyon that all was well, and there were a number of signals in German. Two, sent on separate days, repeated the same message: “Ein gut Reise. Ich bin gar nicht seekrank.” “A good trip. I’m not at all seasick.”
It was sent by a Herr Braun.
“Who is Herr Braun?” Metcalfe asked.
Signal Officer Brevoort shook his head. “A male passenger. First class. That’s all I know.”
“Was he on the original passenger list, or one of the later ones, like us?”
“I will inquire,” said Brevoort.
“Discreetly,” said Metcalfe.
Brevoort’s cabin telephone rang. To his surprise, and apparent displeasure, it was for the major.
It was Runcie, rather upset. “More trouble, Major. You’d best hop it back here.”
“The intruder again?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s Commander Mountbatten, sir. He’s trying to organize a game of tug o’ war with the crew for His Royal Highness.”
“Tug of war?”
“Something they did on the Berengaria, on His Highness’s first crossing to America. You’d best hop it, sir.”
The distance was not far. Metcalfe ran, with Brownlow puffing after. They found a small group on the boat deck. It included five Indonesian crewmen, Mountbatten, Duff Cooper, and Edward—His Highness wearing dark glasses and stripped to the waist. He was very fond of going about half naked. His father had insisted on absolute power of decision over his heir’s dress from the time Edward was an infant until he went to the front in the war. Edward now flouted him whenever possible.
“Thank heavens you’ve come, Metcalfe,” said Mountbatten. “We’ve only the three of us for the British team. Chips won’t play. Afraid he’ll hurt himself, no doubt.”
Metcalfe shook his head. “Lord Mountbatten. Can it really, possibly, actually be true that the Royal Navy has seen fit to give you command of a destroyer? Do you really think this sort of spectacle on the first-class deck is what His Royal Highness needs at this juncture?”
“Now, Fruity,” said the prince. “We’re just trying to have our bit of fun.”
Olga heard them coming down the passageway, knocking on doors, a terrifying thing to hear—in her country. She heard them at the cabin next to her, surprised to learn it was occupied. The voices were amazingly clear. They included that of a ship’s officer, who sounded both young and familiar.
She was surprised by this search. Another mistake, a dangerous one. The pistol was under her pillow. The maid’s uniform was in her laundry bag. She should have long ago found a secure hiding place for both outside her cabin.
Olga had to act, at once. There was no place to put the revolver. She had to keep them away from her bed.
Hearing the young officer’s voice again, recognizing it, she knew at once what to do.
Kees and his search party, consisting of a steward and two seamen, moved on to the next cabin. Kees was weary, yet there were many more to go. None could be passed up. He had two other search parties working other decks of the ship but this would take the entire day. They had yet to finish interviewing all the servants on the ship.
He rapped on the door with some insistence. He desperately wanted to get this ordeal over with.
There was no answer. He knocked again and then again. He knew for certain this was an occupied cabin. As they had been ordered to do, he then opened the door with his pass key, hearing someone murmur just as he flicked on the light.
A young woman was on the bed. As she opened her eyes, he recognized her and remembered what cabin this was. She was the girl he had moved down from second class. She was completely naked, lying atop the sheets of her bed, legs sprawled.
Kees stammered an apology and backed quickly away, closing the door tightly behind him.
“It’s all right,” he said to the steward. “I know her.”
The Parkers had been dressing for dinner when the knock came from the messenger bearing the invitation from van Hoorn. Young Parker, still, inserting his shirt studs, took the envelope from the crewman with anticipatory pleasure. Not only would they be at the captain’s table for the captain’s dinner, but were probably being invited to a private party, as well—likely hosted by the British aristocrats they had met the night before. Somehow, he and his lovely, dark-haired wife had impressed them. He’d gotten sick, to be sure, but they’d had a swell, happy time beforehand.
He tore the envelope open, read it twice, then angrily crumpled it and threw it against the wall.
“Is something wrong, Chris?” Chasey asked. She was standing in her slip in stocking feet, brushing her hair.
“Everything is wrong. Damn it all!”
“Did you get a message from home?”
“No, damn it. It’s an invitation to dinner. The wrong invitation.”
There were tears in his eyes. She studied him a moment, then retrieved the note from the floor.
“It’s from that Mr. van Hoorn,” she said. “He’s asked us to dine with him and his wife. What’s wrong with that?”
“It means we won’t be sitting at the captain’s table.”
“I suppose it does, but so what? Van Hoorn is a director of the Lage Lander Line. He’s one of the captain’s bosses.”
“You don’t understand.” The tears were flowing now. “We were at the captain’s table. Now we’re not. We’ve been rejected.”
“Oh, Chris. Stop it.” She put her arms around him. “We’re having a wonderful time. It was wonderful on the boat going over, it was wonderful in France and Spain. It’s been wonderful coming back. It doesn’t matter where we sit. We’ll dance. We’ll meet some new people. It’ll be lovely.”
“No, it won’t.” He held her tightly. “Damn it, Chasey. What’s wrong with us?”
With the customary assistance of his sister Dagne, Count von Kresse had completed his dress for dinner, looking as impressive a figure in civilian black tie as he did in his dress uniform. He had spent much of the afternoon lying down and afterward had done s
ome exercises. He felt better.
Dagne was wearing a long, white satin dress with a plunging back. A stunning woman, his half sister. If they could purge her brain of its vile chemistry, she would be one of nature’s more beautiful creations.
The count tapped the invitation card against his cheek.
“Solch Grobheit,” he said. “I’ve never seen such English rudeness. It is captain’s night and instead of taking part in the generous hospitality, Lady Cunard dines in her cabin and invites other passengers to join her.”
“Invites us, liebchen.” Dagne smiled, handing him his glass. She seemed almost merry. “It means our success. This is better than the Coopers.”
“Vielleicht. Vielleicht nicht. We don’t know who else might be coming. It might be only her, pining for that ass Ribbentrop and wanting to talk with us about him. I can’t think of anything more nauseating.”
She hovered close. If it weren’t for his old injuries, she would have sat upon his lap.
“Despite your grousing, we might very well be dining with the prince himself tonight. At all events, it is a handsome start. We shall be insinuating ourselves into the royal traveling party. And so early in the voyage.”
“It will require that you be your most charming. National Socialist diatribes are not in order.”
She gave a quick laugh, tossing back her head. “If the Reichscommissioner is correct, it will require only that we be German.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Edwina stopped, looking up abruptly. The second-class dining room had been rapidly filling with passengers, all of them in evening clothes.
“My God,” she said. “We’ve forgotten to dress.”
“Should that matter to an aristocrat?” said Spencer.
“I am not an aristocrat. I am a socialist.”
“You are a socialist.” He repeated the phrase as if she had just said she was a hippopotamus.
“Bien sûr. I despise our government. And your government. And the French government. I positively loathe the German government. I think Nancy Cunard is the sanest person on this ship—about politics. The monarchy is vile. The aristocracy, essentially, is vile. The bourgeoisie is very, very vile. In a way, you know, you quite seem dreadfully middle class yourself. But I know better, my dear sweet cynical aviator. I think you, too, are a socialist.”
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