by A Royal Pain
Belinda entered the room, deep in conversation with his lordship. From the chatty way that they parted, I found my suspicions running riot. She saw me and came straight over.
“Darling, what a lovely surprise. I had no idea you’d be part of this bun fight.”
“Belinda, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“Darling, have you ever known me to turn down a free meal? I told you I was going to the country. One simply can’t stay in London when the weather turns warm.”
“How is it that you know absolutely everybody?” I asked.
“One works at it, darling. It’s a matter of survival. With the amount I’m making from my fashion business at the moment, I’d starve, so it’s a question of going where the food and wine are good. And after all, we were at school with Fiona.”
“We loathed her,” I said under my breath. “Remember when she first arrived and would follow us everywhere? You told her awful stories about the upstairs lavatory being haunted so that we could have some peace and quiet there.”
Belinda laughed. “I remember.” She looked around the room. “I say, it’s rather a jolly party, isn’t it? Quite a few people you know, including Lunghi Fungy.”
“I’ve just heard he’s engaged to Fiona.”
“Been promised to each other since birth, darling. Nothing will come of it. Who could be married to someone who gushes about little woolly lambs?”
“She seems to think something will come of it. She even asked me to be a bridesmaid.”
“Then perhaps Lunghi is doing the sensible thing. After all, Fiona is an only child and she’ll inherit all this someday. Lunghi’s own family situation is precarious.”
“Aren’t the Fotheringays an old family?”
“But flat broke, darling. Old man lost everything in America in the crash of ’29, just like your father. Lunghi’s been out in India working for some trading company like a common clerk, so one understands.”
“I see.” I wondered if my mother knew this. Usually her instincts were spot on. Maybe his youth and extreme good looks were too much of a temptation.
With tea over we went upstairs to change for dinner. It’s funny how life at country houses is centered around one meal after another. And yet those who live such lives don’t seem to become overly fat. Maybe it’s all that tramping around the home farm, not to mention other energetic forms of activity around the estate. I let Mildred select a dress and jewelry for me and even attempt to make my hair look fashionable. The result was not displeasing. I came down again to find that the French doors in the drawing room were still open and Pimm’s and cocktails were being served on the terrace. It was a balmy evening. Swallows were swooping wildly overhead. A peacock was calling from the copse nearby—that unearthlyshriek that sounds like a soprano being killed with a saw. Groups of guests were already standing together, chatting. The three Misses Hedley were now talking with their cousin Fiona, all wearing almost identical green flowered dresses, which made them look like a living herbaceous border. Another group of younger guests, including Gussie and Belinda, were standing to one side, smoking and drinking cocktails, while the older set was clustered around Lord Cromer-Strode. I picked out Mrs. Simpson standing apart, hands on painfully thin hips, staring out across the park and looking displeased. Maybe she had expected a dinner partner who had been detained at Sandringham!
“Ah, here is the delightful young Lady Georgiana.” Lord Cromer-Strode came to meet me and put an arm around my waist as he steered me toward the company. “I’m sure you know the young folk, but you may not have met Colonel and Mrs. Horsmonden, just back from India, and Sir William and Lady Stoke-Podges, also old friends from colonial days.” He kept his arm firmly around my waist as he said this and, to my shock, his fingers strayed upward until they were definitely making contact with the underside of my breast. I didn’t quite know how to react, so I stepped forward to shake hands, thus freeing myself. A glass of Pimm’s was pressed upon me. We made pleasantries about the seasonably fine weather and the possibility of rain before the first Test match. Lord Cromer-Strode talked of getting together an eleven to play the village cricket team and there was heated discussion on who should be opening bat.
“Young Edward has a good eye and a straight bat,” his lordship said. “Ah, here he is now. Wondered where you had got to, young man.”
Edward Fotheringay came onto the terrace with Princess Hanni. He had a slightly guilty look on his face. She was looking pleased with herself. Baroness Rottenmeister was nowhere to be seen.
“So you’ve found our visiting princess, have you, my boy? Splendid. Splendid. Come along, everybody, drink up.”
Fiona broke away from her cousins and rushed to greet him. “Edward, my sweet, sweet pet. You don’t know how I have been pining for you all day. How was Cambridge? Terribly, terribly hot and nasty?”
“Quite pleasant, thank you, Fiona. It’s finals week. The place is like a morgue. Everyone studying, you know.”
Guests continued to arrive, most of them older people I didn’t know. Baroness Rottenmeister appeared, head to toe in black as usual and with a face like thunder.
“I called for the princess, but she had already gone ahead without me,” she said to me. “You have taught her bad habits.”
After a while the first dinner gong sounded.
“Everyone know who they are escorting in to dinner?” Lady Cromer-Strode fluttered around us, ushering us toward the French doors like a persistent sheepdog.
Mrs. Simpson appeared at her shoulder. “It appears that my dinner partner isn’t here, Cordelia. Do I take it that your husband will escort me to table?”
“My husband?” Lady Cromer-Strode looked flustered. “Why no, Wallis. That wouldn’t be proper. Lord Cromer-Strode escorts the highest-ranking lady. And that would be Lady Georgiana, surely?”
“Her mother was a common tart,” Mrs. Simpson said loudly enough for her voice to carry.
“A well-known actress, Wallis. Be fair,” Lady Cromer-Strode muttered in answer. “And her father was first cousin to the king. You can’t argue with that.”
“I also happen to have royal connections,” Mrs. Simpson said in a miffed voice.
“Yes, but not official ones, Wallis. You know very well that everything in England is done by the book. There are protocols to be followed. I’m sure that Sir William Stoke-Podges will be happy to escort you, won’t you, William?”
She thrust them together before she fluttered over to me. “Lady Georgiana, I think that maybe you should go in to dinner with my husband.”
“Oh no, Lady Cromer-Strode.” I gave her an innocent smile. Mrs. Simpson paused, waiting for me to concede that she was indeed the ranking female. “Her Highness the princess outranks me. She should go in with your husband.”
“Of course. How silly of me. Princess Hannelore, honey, over here.” And she was off to grab Hanni while I was paired up with Colonel Horsmonden.
“And what about me?” The baroness appeared at my side, still looking seriously out of sorts. “I appear to have no escort.”
“Oh, dear.” Lady Cromer-Strode clearly hadn’t put her into the starting lineup. “You see, nobody told us that the princess would be bringing a companion. I’m so sorry. Now let’s see. Reverend Withers, can I ask you to do me a favor and escort this lady into dinner? What was your name again, honey?”
The baroness flushed almost purple. “I am Baroness Rottenmeister,” she said.
“And this is Reverend Withers. Your wife isn’t here, is she, vicar?”
“No, she is visiting her family in Skegness.”
“Then you’ll be kind enough to take this lady in to dinner, will you?”
“Delighted, my dear.” He offered her his arm.
The baroness stared at him as if he was something a little higher up the evolutionary scale than a worm. “You have a wife? And you are priest?”
“Church of England clergyman, my dear. We’re allowed to marry, y’know.”
“A
Protestant!”
“We are all children of God,” he said, and steered her into the line. I went to take my own place beside the colonel.
“Now we seem to be one man short.” Lady Cromer-Strode glanced down the line of couples. “Who could that be? Who is not here?”
As if on cue, Darcy O’Mara came up the steps onto the terrace. He looked dashing in his dinner jacket, his dark hair slightly tousled and his eyes flashing. My heart did a flip-flop as he fell into place with Belinda. What on earth was he doing here?
Before I could see if he was going to look my way there was a stir among the guests and the butler stepped out to announce, “His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, my lady.”
My cousin David, looking dapper as only he could look, came striding out with that jaunty air of his.
“So sorry I’m late, Lady C-S.” He kissed her on the cheek, making her flutter all the more. “Got held up at Sandringham, you know. Hope I haven’t put you out at all. Ah, Wallis, there you are.” He made a beeline for her. Wallis Simpson shot me a triumphant smile as she slipped her arm through his and she pushed past me to the front of the line.
I hardly noticed the insult because David’s speech had triggered some sort of memory. Those two big initials lying on a sheet of paper in Hanni’s room at Rannoch House. C.P., wasn’t it? Who had sent her a sheet of paper with only two letters on it, and what did they mean? And why did they have a big red X slashed through them the second time I saw them?
Chapter 26
The banqueting room was aglitter with chandeliers dangling from a ceiling painted with cherubs. Many-branched candelabras were set along a mahogany table that extended the full length of the room. Light sparkled from silver cutlery and reflected in the highly polished surface. I was seated near the head of the table, between Colonel Horsmonden and Edward Fotheringay. The Prince of Wales sat on one side of Lord Cromer-Strode and Hanni on the other. Mrs. Simpson was directly opposite me.
“Still no escort of your own, I see,” she said. “Time is marching on, you know. You won’t have that youthful bloom forever.”
“I’m waiting for one who doesn’t officially belong to someone else,” I said, and gave her a sweet smile.
“You have a sharp tongue, young woman,” she said and promptly turned her attention to the prince and Lord Cromer-Strode. On one side of me, I overheard Lord Cromer-Strode telling what was obviously a really bawdy anecdote. “So the farmer said, ‘That’s the biggest bloody great pair of . . .” The end of this sentence was drowned out with Mrs. Simpson’s shrill laughter and the prince’s chuckle. Hanni looked bemused. I suspect she didn’t get the double entendre, although Lord C-S’s gesture had been plain enough to me. But then, as I watched, I saw that Hanni’s attention was not directed to those directly around her. She was busy casting come-hither glances at first Edward and then Darcy.
I thought again about those strange letters. Had they been some kind of threat? If so, why hadn’t she shared her fears with me? Who knew she was in London and where she was staying?
The meal began with lobster bisque and went from strength to strength from there. Colonel Horsmonden launched into accounts of his life in India—tiger shoots, maharajas’ palaces, mutinies in the bazaars, each tale made boring as only an old colonel can make it, peppering them with names of people I had never heard of.
In the spirit of self-preservation I mentioned to him that Edward had also just come back from India and suddenly they were talking across me.
“I’m surprised we’ve never met, my boy,” the colonel said. “I thought I prided myself in knowing everyone in the service over there.”
“Ah, but I wasn’t in the service,” Edward said. “I was in trade, sir. Import-export.”
“Stationed where?”
“All over the place. Never in one place for long, you know. And I also did a bit of mountain climbing in the Himalayas.”
“Did you, by Jove. Then you must know old Beagle Bailey. Ever climbed with old Beagle Bailey?”
“I can’t say that I have, sir.”
“Don’t know old Beagle? Institution in the Himalayas, is old Beagle. Mad as a hatter, of course. So who did you climb with?”
“Oh, just some chaps from Cambridge.”
“And where did you pick up your sherpas?”
“We didn’t use sherpas.”
“Didn’t use sherpas? How did you manage? Nobody climbs without sherpas. Dashed foolish. They know the country like the back of their hands.”
“They were only small climbs that we undertook,” Edward said quickly. “Just weekend stuff. A bit of fun, you know.”
“Not much fun if a storm comes down in the Himalayas,” Colonel Horsmonden said. “I remember once we were in Kashmir. Going up a glacier on Nanga Parbat. Do you know Nanga Parbat? Damned fine mountain. And within ten minutes the storm had come down and we almost got blown off the dashed mountain.”
They talked on. I was conscious of Hanni’s eyes moving from Edward to Darcy, and of Darcy eating unconcernedly. The Prince of Wales chatted with Lord Cromer-Strode but his eyes never left Wallis Simpson. So much for being captivated by Hanni, who looked as innocently voluptuous as anybody could possibly look. Certainly Lord Cromer-Strode was aware of her charms. He kept turning to pat her hand, stroke her arm, and, I suspect, grab her knee under the table, judging by the amount of time only one hand was visible. Hanni didn’t seem to be objecting, whatever he was doing.
Gussie was also chatting away easily as he ate, regaling the American girls with tales of English boarding schools and making them shriek with laughter.
“A fag master? What on earth is a fag master?” one of them demanded. “It sounds just terrible.”
And I found my thoughts straying to the events of the past week. If Gussie was indeed supplying his friends with cocaine, and if Tubby and Sidney Roberts had somehow fallen foul of him, how could he sit there behaving as if nothing had happened? Surely that was a stupid idea on my part. Gussie was one of those affable, not too bright young men I had danced with during my season. I could picture him trying drugs, even selling drugs to his friends, but not killing anyone. It just didn’t make sense.
Dinner ended and Lady Cromer-Strode led the women into the drawing room while the men lit up cigars and passed around the port. Mrs. Simpson hogged the best armchair, and Belinda started chatting with the American girls. The baroness and Hanni had obviously had words. I heard the baroness say in English, “It is unpardonable insult. Tomorrow morning I shall telephone your father.” Then she stalked to the far side of the room and sat down, away from the rest of the company.
I wandered across to the open French doors. The scent of roses and honeysuckle wafted in from the gardens. A full moon was reflected in the pond. A perfect night for romance and the man with whom I wanted to stroll in the moonlight was in the next room, only he was showing no interest in me. Maybe Mrs. Simpson was not wrong. Some of us just didn’t flirt naturally. Perhaps my mother could give me some pointers, but I doubted it. She oozed sexuality. It came naturally from her pores. I had inherited the blood of Queen Victoria, who was not amused by much and, in spite of producing umpteen children, could never have been dubbed as sexy.
Hanni came to stand beside me. “It is real swell, ja?” she said. “Darcy is here. And Edward too. I can’t decide which one I like better. They are both hot and sexy, don’t you think?”
“They are both good looking,” I said, “but one of them happens to be engaged to Fiona.”
Hanni grinned. “I do not think he loves her very much. During dinner he looked at me and he winked. That must mean that he likes me, yes?”
“Hanni, you are to behave yourself. We are guests of Fiona’s family.”
“Too bad.” She paused. “Her father is a real friendly guy too. But he pinched my bottom on the way in to dinner. Is that old English custom?”
“Certainly not,” I said.
“And on our walk he asked me if I liked to roll in the hay. Hay is w
hat you feed to animals, no? Why should I want to roll in it?”
“Lord Cromer-Strode is a little too friendly, I believe. Please watch out when you are alone with him. And especially if he suggests a roll in the hay.”
“Why? Is this bad thing?”
“It is not the sort of thing that visiting princesses do.” Again I found myself staring around the room, wondering just who had been with him in the rhododendrons earlier. Belinda saw me looking at her and beckoned me over. “So I see Darcy O’Mara is here,” she said. “Do you think he was officially invited or is he party-crashing again?”
“Lady Cromer-Strode seemed to be expecting him.” I tried to sound disinterested.
“I wonder what he is doing here. These people certainly aren’t his usual crowd. I didn’t even realize he knew the Cromer-Strodes. Which can only mean one thing.” She gave me a knowing smile. “You see, he is still interested in you.”
“I don’t think I’m the one he’s come for,” I said as I watched the men drift into the room amid lingering clouds of smoke. Hanni looked up expectantly and then turned and walked deliberately out onto the terrace. Edward went to follow her, then thought better of it. Darcy gave me a look that I couldn’t quite interpret, then did follow her. I stood watching them go, trying not to let my face betray any emotion.
“Maybe I should go after them,” I said to Belinda.
“You shouldn’t run after him,” Belinda replied. “Not a wise move.”
“Not for myself,” I said. “For Hanni. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her and she is awfully eager for sexual experiences. I’m sure Darcy will be only too willing to oblige.”
“He probably will,” Belinda agreed. “No man would refuse what that innocent little miss is offering so obviously and freely, and Darcy is certainly more hot-blooded than most men.”
I sighed. “I’ve wrecked my chances with him, haven’t I? If I hadn’t been so stupidly moral and correct, he wouldn’t have looked elsewhere.”
“You can’t change the person you are,” Belinda said. “All that history of family honor instilled into you—you’d have felt wretched if you’d gone to bed with Darcy and then he’d still dumped you.”