“What did your aunt want to speak to you about at Cliveden?” Dinah asked, pushing close to her as they pressed through the men and women crowded around the edge of the dance floor, all of them stiff-necked from gaping at the grandness.
“I can’t tell you here, but it isn’t good.” She shouldn’t say anything but if she didn’t talk to Dinah about the worries filling her, she’d come out of her skin. Dinah would keep her secret, she was sure of it, and she’d understand better than anyone the uncertainties piled on an already shaky future.
“I didn’t think it was, but we’ll have a good chat about it, I promise.” Dinah squeezed her arm in comfort before the approach of John Miller took Christian out of the group. It wasn’t long before Katherine, Eunice, and Dinah were snapped up for the dance.
“Are you all right standing out?” Dinah asked when Johnny Dalkeith asked to lead her out, concerned as always about their pledge to one another.
“I am. I need a chance to take it all in.” The palace and everything that’d happened beforehand.
“Steady on, old girl,” Dinah encouraged before following Johnny onto the dance floor.
For someone who’d spent the entire Season working to not be alone, she very much wanted a touch of solitude tonight, but it wasn’t to be had. Like Aunt Anne, she had her role to play, and she must do it well. If she did, then she might forget everything for a while until it was all foisted back on her tomorrow.
“I see you made it to the ball in one piece.” Richard’s voice came from behind her.
She turned, nearly stumbling to see him dressed in a red shell coat instead of his usual white-tie. “You’re in uniform.”
“Dashing, don’t you think?”
“There’s nothing dashing about you dead or wounded on a battlefield.” Uniforms were de rigueur tonight, but with him in one the cold grip of war and all the horror and destruction it meant crept closer than ever before.
“I’m not charging into battle just yet.”
“But you might someday.” And die. They all could, including Uncle Neville.
“Not tonight.” His soothing voice eased the tension tightening her neck. He held out his hand and she took it, his fingers closing over hers solid and reassuring. She followed his steady steps onto the dance floor and he swung her around to face him for the waltz, his hand on her back a strong support in the midst of so much shifting sand.
“Not ever, I hope.” He’d do his duty to England as readily as she’d do hers when the time came to take up her position with the Personal Service League. At present, this was her world and she must embrace it the same way he and Aunt Anne did. “I didn’t think the waltz was your dance.”
“I had to nab you when I could. With this crowd I don’t expect you to be free forever.”
“Good, because there’s something I must ask you.” If anyone could give her hope or knowledge of what to expect, it was him. “What do you know of cancer?”
He jerked back, clearly not expecting this.
“I don’t mean to be gloomy, but is it always fatal?” Her voice cracked and he drew her closer, offering what comfort he could in the middle of the ballroom. She longed to lay her head on his chest and wrap her arms around him and cry out her anxiety, but she couldn’t. Rules, always the rules.
“Did someone close to you receive a diagnosis?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate. It wasn’t necessary, the pity in his eyes told her he’d guessed, but he’d never betrayed her confidences before. He’d keep this secret too.
“Everything depends on how early it’s caught. Surgery can remove small tumors, but if it’s too far advanced or has metastasized to other areas of the body there isn’t much that can be done.”
“I see.” Limbo was becoming a permanent state in England and her life.
“I’m sorry, Valerie. If there’s anything I can do . . .”
“I’ll be sure to tell you.” It wasn’t only Valerie who would lose someone close to her if Uncle Neville passed away. He’d be a loss to all of England. The country he’d worked so hard to serve would be left to others to see it through whatever waited for them, and it was war. With all the men in uniform surrounding them, there was no denying it was coming, it was simply a matter of when. “Will you join your regiment soon?”
“I don’t know.”
Another limbo. “Until then, imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
“Lewis Carroll.”
“Yes. Let’s find something more imaginative than this.”
They left the dance floor, winding their way through numerous rooms to the Long Library, with the massive organ at one end and walls covered in antique books behind decorative screened doors. She wished she could select one and escape from everything troubling her, but the long, rectangular tables covered in candelabras and food stood against the bookshelves, leaving an aisle in the middle for guests to peruse the tarts, sandwiches, and champagne. Black marble pillars supported the short gallery above the entrance, and the arched roof curved above the remaining length of space. The light wasn’t as bright in here, with flickering candles giving a warm hue to everything and a soft contrast to the massive floodlights brightening the rest of the palace.
Richard plucked two glasses of champagne off a passing footman’s tray and handed her one. She took a sip, wanting to drink it down and have another three or four more until the darkness inside her disappeared, but that was Father’s way, not hers. She wasn’t about to act like him, even if she understood for the first time why he’d turned to the bottle. It was easier to drift into wine than face difficulties sober. She wished she could fade into the fog for one night, but she couldn’t. She had to keep acting the perfect debutante.
“There you two are.” Elm slid toward them, his uniform as red as Richard’s but the insignia different in ways she didn’t understand. That it might become familiar to her very soon made her finish her glass of champagne in one discreet gulp. “You’re empty, girl, have another.”
He grabbed a glass off a nearby table and pushed it into her hands.
“Trying to make me forget myself?”
“If it works for me, it’ll work for you.” He clinked his glass against hers and she wondered how many he’d already had. Elm could hold his liquor a well as anyone here, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t be drunk.
“Slow down, old chap.” Richard clapped Elm on the back. “I want to make it home in one piece.”
“Then you can drive.”
“Letting me behind the wheel of the Bentley. You must be deep in your cups.”
“You will be too by the time this ridiculous display is over. My mother is all but fawning over the Duchess, as if I have an interest in that gangly daughter of hers.”
“You shouldn’t be so nasty.” Valerie bristled at his mother’s preference for Sarah over Valerie. “She’s never done anything to you.”
“Except exist, along with her family. If I have to hear one more time from my mother what a dutiful son Sarah’s brother is, how devoted he is to the family estate and lineage, I’ll be sick. I’ve done everything asked of me, but it isn’t enough. It never is.”
“I’ll say.” Valerie snorted into her champagne. “My cousin sounds a great deal like your mother.”
“Dreadful bores, aren’t they?” Elm clanked his champagne glass against hers again, making the crystal ring.
“Dr. Cranston, what a pleasure to see you.” Sir John Simon approached Richard and vigorously shook his hand. “I wondered if I might trouble you for a moment. That irritation on the back of my hand has been bothering me something dreadful. Would you mind?”
“Of course not.” Richard, gracious as always, threw Valerie an apologetic look, then followed Sir John toward the organ, where the light was brighter.
“Richard should tell that old toady to sod off. This isn’t St. Thomas’s.”
“He cares too much about patients to do that.” Even the ones who should know better than to ask him
about their rashes at a dance.
Elm sipped his champagne before he caught sight of something over the rim of his glass. “Bloody hell. There’s my darling mother, no doubt searching for me.”
He was off in a flash, leaving Valerie to catch Lady Fallington’s eye. She didn’t wave or acknowledge her, looking through her as if she were one of the Greek goddess statues. She was probably searching for Elm to make sure he wasn’t talking to her or to drag him into conversation with some other debutante she thought far more worthy of him.
“Lord Elmswood bade you adieu already?” Vivien’s snide remark carried over the hum of conversation drifting up to the arched ceiling.
Not this cow. She and Priscilla Brett, who was standing beside her, were the last people Valerie wanted to see tonight. That Vivien had managed to wrangle an invitation to this dance spoke more to her aunt’s standing than her father’s, and proved that politics was indeed kept separate from society. “I don’t blame him. Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t claim a connection with you.”
“Isn’t there a Blackshirts rally for you to attend, or doesn’t your father want you at those either?” She didn’t have the patience to be more subtle with her insults. If this cat wanted a fight, she’d give it to her.
“Girls, please,” Priscilla begged, but, hackles up, they both ignored her.
“Don’t play the high-and-mighty with me, Miss de Vere Cole, daughter of the impoverished Horace de Vere Cole and that slut Mrs. Wheeler. The Chamberlains may foist you off on everyone, but I know the truth about you.”
“Do you?” Valerie crossed her arms over her chest to hide the slight tremble in her fingertips. The chit knew something more about Valerie’s family than old hoaxes and crude pencil drawings and she was burning with a fever to tell it.
“While my aunt and I were in France, we met a lovely gentleman at a dinner at the French embassy, a Mr. Shoedelin, the British Consul in Bayonne. I believe you know him.”
Valerie didn’t answer, silently willing her to shut her stupid mouth before anything vile poured out of it to stoke the panic building inside her.
“He had quite a lot to say to Aunt Irene about how he found you living in squalor, riddled with lice, your father half-drunk and you dressed in rags. He told Aunt Irene how he stepped in to keep the creditors from arresting your father and stashed you away in a convent school because he believed poverty had weakened your morals. The Chamberlains told everyone you were in finishing school in France, but it wasn’t that at all. It was an orphanage for unwanted girls.”
Valerie stared at her gloating smile, every student in the convent school mixed into that wicked look. Not one of those girls had thought to comfort her, to say they knew what it was to be forgotten or abandoned. Not even the nuns, with all their pretenses to tenderness and mercy, had offered her more than “It’s God’s will,” and other hollow platitudes. It’d taken everything in her not to let them or the depredation of Ascain destroy her, the truth hidden from everyone except Dinah, and here was this witch throwing it in her face.
“Rosalind, Priscilla, and I had a good laugh when we heard your French finishing school was nothing more than a papist orphanage, didn’t we?”
“You aren’t being nice, Vivien,” Priscilla chided, but Vivien scowled at her before turning her fury back on Valerie.
“You should’ve seen Lady Ashcombe’s face when she heard the news, but of course she knew what you really are, she said she recognized it the moment she saw you at court. The Chamberlains are trying to foist you on everyone like those pathetic girls Lady Clancarty sponsors. I’m surprised the Chamberlains aren’t insisting we call you honorable, like Lady Dunford does with that lot of hers. Wait until the rest of society discovers it. Between this and that stepmother of yours parading herself in front of everyone, you’ll be the talk of every debutante ball for the rest of the Season, assuming the mothers don’t rescind their invitations, afraid of tainting their daughters with your cheapness. Better scurry back up north before the Chamberlains decide you aren’t worth the bother and send you packing, wouldn’t you say?”
No, she wouldn’t say a thing. She wouldn’t cry or curse or beg Vivien to see reason and keep this to herself. Mr. Shoedelin had opened his stupid mouth, but he hadn’t told them everything. Not that it mattered; he’d told them enough. She didn’t take her gaze off Vivien, but her ears pricked up for the conversation around them, wondering how many people had heard the tale and learned the truth about her. “Tell whoever you like. It makes no difference to me.”
Feigned bravado was all she had. She wasn’t about to cry at Blenheim and make this gossip more delicious than the story of the thief who’d snuck into Rosalind Cubitt’s coming-out dance and stolen a mass of fur coats. She didn’t have the excuse of an eccentric relative this time either. It was Valerie who’d been in France, Valerie Mr. Shoedelin viewed as no better than a fallen woman, adding her story to the already sordid ones circling her. She turned on her heel and strode away from Vivien and Priscilla, careful not to stumble or try to outrun the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. Sobs squeezed her chest but she kept her head high and her shoulders back.
Curse Father and Mavis. Curse them both to hell. She’d done everything she could to place distance between the Valerie in France and the debutante in Downing Street and it didn’t matter. Despite how much she tried to raise or improve herself, there was always someone or something waiting to pull her down.
Valerie pressed between the groups of girls and their chaps chatting together, trying to find a way through the maze of long hallways and old antiques to the garden. She reached the door at last, racing past a group of laughing girls, wondering if they were talking about her. She stopped outside and raked in a deep breath of the cool country air, the voices of the hundreds of guests filling the walks between the illuminated topiaries and fountains mixing with the music from inside. It was magical and gorgeous, like the pictures of Versailles she used to see in Madame Freville’s magazines, a fantasy land come true. This was the life she’d longed to live for years and it was finally hers, and it didn’t matter. Her past would see her banishment from it, if German bombers didn’t swoop down to destroy it first.
No one wants to associate with crass young ladies and they certainly don’t want their daughters or sons befriending them either. You’ll find yourself quite the outcast if you carry on like this. Dorothy’s voice rang out like the laughter from the people near the serpent fountain. She’d overcome her father’s foolishness and Mavis’s brazenness, but in the end she couldn’t escape the realities of France. Once everyone heard about it, they’d know her for the impostor she was and they’d close ranks on her as they had Pamela Digby. No, Their Excellencies would stand by her, unless their families told them not to, the way Elm’s had. Wouldn’t Mavis gloat then? She’d never done anything to deserve any of this and yet it was being piled on her by everyone and everything.
“Cheeky of you to join me.” Elm slid up beside her.
“I needed some fresh air.” She fought to keep hold of herself. Richard might tolerate her tears, but she wasn’t sure Elm would.
“All the elegance inside stifling you?”
“It’s been stifling me since I came to London. No matter what I do or how I behave or follow the rules, it doesn’t matter.”
“Never were truer words spoken.” He handed her his glass of champagne and she took a hearty sip, tasting the rich brandy added to it. “Let’s get out of here, go someplace where we can be ourselves.”
“That sort of place doesn’t exist. You said it yourself, once you’re in society there’s no escaping it.”
“It doesn’t mean we can’t be free for a few hours.” The scent of brandy and champagne on his breath was strong, but not nearly as much as his words. Freedom. She’d sought it from Father and his troubles, from her past, her desperation and loneliness, the convent, all the things haunting her. With him she might enjoy a few heady hours of carelessness, like the brief holidays
with Aunt Anne when she’d experienced the comfort of a real home and love and food. Those few weeks had carried her through so many dark times. This was her chance to create a few more precious memories before Vivien’s gossip left craters in the life she’d built. “Yes, let’s get away.”
He took her by the hand and pulled her to one of the paths leading around the side of the house to the Great Court. They dashed from shadow to shadow, startling more than one kissing couple risking respectability to grasp a moment together before war swept them apart. The end of this world was as strong in the air as the scent of the summer flowers.
They sprinted across the Great Court to the Bentley, the lights of Blenheim glinting in the high-gloss paint. Elm pulled open her door and she dropped onto the leather seat, the car fitting her like a fine mink wrap. Elm climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine, the sound throaty and deep compared to the Rolls and Chryslers surrounding them. With a flurry of kicked-up gravel that pinged off nearby cars, he turned the Bentley toward the main drive and wherever he was taking them. Valerie didn’t care, relishing the darkness of the country road lightened by the chrome headlamps, little visible in the darkness except what was directly ahead of them.
He guided the sleek car over the winding turns, the windows rolled down to let the wind rush around them with the ever-increasing speed. The faint flash of headlights from somewhere far behind them caught in the small side mirrors mounted on the swooping front fenders, but she didn’t care. There was no one here to wag a reprimanding finger at her, only the two of them and the night.
“Shall we go faster?” Elm gripped the black steering wheel with both hands, the wind whipping his hair around his forehead like it did hers.
“As fast as you like.” They could take off and fly over England and she wouldn’t care, eager to outrun everything and everyone waiting for them at Blenheim, Cliveden, and No. 10.
He pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the car leapt forward, the engine humming harder and louder. He jerked the wheel right, then left, guiding the car around the sharp bends and corners, the trees caught in the light of the headlamps blurring as they passed. Coming out of one turn, the car’s tail slid and Elm jerked the wheel to keep it straight. The near-slide into the field made Valerie’s heart race faster. She should tell him to slow down, but she was tired of being careful. There was nothing outside of them but this speed and the road. No demands, no rules, only this glorious freedom.
The Last Debutantes Page 27