by Лорен Уиллиг
Speaking of peeing . . . there was a convenient little hallway just off the end of the bar, with the traditional male and female signs prominently displayed. I took a step back from the bar, hitching my bag higher up on my shoulder in the universal gesture of “I’m just going to the bathroom.” It’s like opening your mouth when you’re putting on mascara. Everyone does it without realizing it.
“If you’ll excuse me for just a moment . . . ,” I said, nodding towards the bathrooms. “I’ll be right back.”
The bathroom was much cleaner than those I’d been to in city bars, presumably because the clientele knew exactly to whom to complain if it wasn’t. There were four stalls all in a row, and the row of sinks and mirror across from them. Going for the stall on the far end, I was just zipping up my pants when I heard a flurry of feet barging through the bathroom door.
“ — bring her here,” Joan Plowden-Plugge’s voice shrilled through the air like an electric drill.
There was a rustle of hair and a sighing noise that sounded like, “Oh, Joan.”
I slunk back against the wall of my own stall, desperately hoping that neither of them would notice an extra pair of feet in the last loo. Fortunately, they were too preoccupied with their own conversation to notice me — or if they did see my feet, they didn’t recognize them.
I could hear Joan’s voice, smug, even through the stall door. “I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when she finds out what he does.”
“I don’t think you could fit into her shoes,” commented Sally casually, and I could hear the bolt of her bathroom stall sliding home.
Joan’s stall door banged shut with considerably more force.
As I heard the rustle of a skirt being raised, I realized that this was the ideal time for me to make good my escape, while they were both incapable of exiting to investigate. But I stayed, like a rabbit in a hedgerow, frozen by my own curiosity. And probably just as likely to get mown over by a Range Rover. I didn’t think Joan was the sort to brake for fluffy bunnies.
Joan’s cut-glass tones sliced straight through three stalls. “That’s not what I meant. I just think it’s disgraceful, a grown man who had a perfectly respectable career — ” A forceful stream of pee drowned out the rest of her words.
“That’s you,” said Sally. “Not everyone would feel the same way.”
Joan clearly had little patience for relativism.
“I wouldn’t want my boyfriend” — the gurgle of the toilet flushing all but extinguished the rest of the sentence, right up until — “spies.”
Wait. She hadn’t really said “spies,” had she?
Maybe she had said “sties.” As in pigs. I couldn’t see Joan Plowden-Plugge having any truck with livestock that couldn’t be ridden.
I tamped down on a betraying giggle at the thought of Joan Plowden-Plugge riding pig-back in her immaculate Country Life riding gear.
It did make sense, though, that she would look down on farming. For all her lady of the manor pretensions, everything I had seen of Joan Plowden-Plugge implied that it was the money rather than the land that counted with her. Oh, she wanted the land, too, but only if it came with designer gardens and the latest in fashionable topiary. Someone who did something in the City, eventually ending up on the honors list for dodgy financial favors done to his local MP, would be much more in her style than the gentleman farmer who actually farmed. I was reminded a bit of Hyacinth Bucket from the old comedy Keeping Up Appearances , forever pushing her husband, Richard, to be more posh, even though Hyacinth’s view of posh was decidedly naff. Did anyone even use the word “naff” anymore?
As I pulled myself back from that fascinating byway, the other toilet finished hiccuping. “ — rather interesting, really,” Sally was saying.
Presumably not sties, then. I doubted even kindhearted Sally could find much to ooh and aah over in a sty. But spies? No. Too silly. I just had spies on the brain, courtesy of my dissertation research. It was one thing to have gentlemen spies running around in the nineteenth century, quite another in the twenty-first.
“If you like that sort of thing,” said Joan pettishly. I heard a rustling sound, like a purse being excavated none too gently.
“I like that shade,” said Sally, in a conciliatory tone.
Oh Lord, they were putting on makeup? I began to wish I had run for it while I still could. Of course, then I would have missed all that about Colin. It had been about Colin, hadn’t it? And me.
It seemed like forever that they tarried in personal grooming, Sally drawing a brush through her hair, Joan frowning critically at her own reflection in the mirror, twitching a hair in place here, adding a dab of lipstick there. But then they were gone, and I sagged against the pink and white papered wall, my trousers going lose at the waist as I let out all the breath I’d been holding in a long sigh of pure relief at not having been caught.
As I let myself out of the stall, I grimaced at the thought of what Colin must be thinking. I just hoped he didn’t mention to the others that I’d been in the loo. Well, only one way to forestall that. Washing my hands in the sink, I dried them briskly on a paper towel and headed purposefully for the door.
It was time that the Plowden-Plugges and I were better acquainted.
Chapter Six
In her usual spot, on a small gilt chair by the wall, Charlotte could have pinpointed to the second the moment the Duke of Dovedale nodded farewell to Sir Francis Medmenham and set off across the ballroom — directly for her corner.
Charlotte immediately sat up straighter, a move that did not escape the attention of her best friend.
“Hail, the conquering duke approacheth!” exclaimed Henrietta, who didn’t need wine to make her dangerous.
“Shhhhh!” hissed Charlotte, making an ineffectual batting motion. “He might hear you.”
“I,” said Henrietta, enjoying herself altogether too much, “am not the one your duke is here to see. Or hear.”
Charlotte decided it would be a waste of time and breath to reiterate that she did not, in fact, have a duke. Besides, her — er, the Duke, was already upon them, looking painfully dashing in the light of the mirror-backed sconces.
He was wearing the same sort of evening kit as everyone else, with a garnet-toned waistcoat adding color to an otherwise starkly black and white ensemble, but on him, it looked different. It wasn’t just that his cravat was simply tied rather than being teased and creased into whatever the latest fantasy of fashion demanded. It wasn’t just that his breeches stretched against genuine muscles rather than padding when he walked. Charlotte knew she wasn’t supposed to notice such things, but after years of Penelope, one did, and a very nice view it was.
There was something alive and vital about him that made the glittering stretch of the gallery seem small and fusty. He needed a horse beneath him, a spear in his hand, an expanse of muddy battlefield, with trumpeters following along behind to sound out a triumphant peal as he passed.
“Charlotte?” whispered Henrietta. “Are you all there?”
“No,” admitted Charlotte. “Do you think it’s quite normal that whenever I see Robert, I hear trumpets?”
“I’ve heard of violins, but . . . trumpets?”
“I know,” sighed Charlotte. “It’s all the fault of Agincourt.”
There was no time for Henrietta to demand that she explain herself; Robert was already upon them, and the trumpets flared to a final, triumphal fanfare in her head.
It was rather odd to reflect that she had known him even before she had known Henrietta, whom she always thought of, in all capital letters, as her best and oldest friend.
Henrietta, however, seemed determined to make Charlotte rethink that designation.
“Hello!” Henrietta popped out of her chair, ignoring protocol with the blithe unconcern of one to the marquisate born. “You must be Charlotte’s duke.”
At the moment, Charlotte didn’t want a duke; Charlotte wanted a hole to open in the parquet floor and swallow her up.
“I am Lady Henrietta Sel — um, Dorrington.” Henrietta hadn’t quite gotten into the habit of her married name yet. She smiled winningly. “Charlotte’s oldest and dearest friend.”
“In which case,” said Robert, bowing over her hand, “I am doubly honored to make your acquaintance.”
Over his bowed head, Henrietta pushed up her eyebrows as far as they would go and pursed her lips in the general direction of Robert’s head. After years of Henrietta’s facial expressions, Charlotte was able to correctly translate it as, “I like this one! Keep him.”
As Robert straightened, Henrietta returned her features to their normal positions, assuming an expression of exaggerated innocence. At any moment now, she was going to start whistling.
“Henrietta and her husband are here for Twelfth Night,” said Charlotte primly.
“Twelfth Night,” agreed Henrietta, her eyes flicking back and forth between Robert and Charlotte. “It’s . . . on the twelfth night.”
“I had hoped to trouble you for a dance,” said Robert to Charlotte. “But if you’re otherwise engaged . . .”
Behind his back, Henrietta made enthusiastic shooing gestures.
Charlotte swallowed a smile. Henrietta was so dear, and so un-subtle.
“I would be delighted,” said Charlotte, placing her hand on his arm. It looked rather nice there. She was very glad she had thought to wear fresh gloves.
It was not until they were lined up with the other couples and the first couple was galloping enthusiastically down the line that Charlotte realized that Robert was only about one quarter there. He said all the right things at the right time. He complimented her dress and twirled her in the appropriate direction and made the requisite snide comment about Turnip Fitzhugh’s execrable taste in waistcoats, but he did it all by rote, with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. He also appeared to have developed a twitch that involved frequent glances over his shoulder at the left side of the room.
“Is something wrong?” Charlotte asked as they pranced down the center of the long row of clapping couples.
“Have you promised anyone the next dance?” he asked abruptly.
“No.”
“Would you mind if we get some air?”
“No, not at all,” said Charlotte, although the air in the gallery seemed perfectly fine to her, and the Fairy Queen was one of her very favorite country dances. Charlotte sank into a curtsy as he bowed. “It is a little close in here.”
Rising from her curtsy, she saw Robert looking grimly over his shoulder again. “Close is just the word for it.”
Charlotte looked quizzically at him, but Robert made no offer to explain, and she didn’t press him. Whatever reason he might have for suddenly finding the gallery too close, she had no objection to anything that led them together to a quiet corner. One might even call it a tête-à-tête. Penelope certainly would.
Charlotte hastily got her visage under control before a very silly smile could break out.
She was, she realized, being exceedingly silly. She had managed to pass eight days in her cousin’s company behaving like a perfectly normal and rational human being — well, no more irrational than usual, at any rate — and there was no reason that being translated from their usual routine onto a dance floor should make her all fluttery and tongue-tied, even if Robert himself was behaving exceedingly oddly. Charlotte would have liked to think it was because he was nobly battling his passion for her, but it seemed far more likely that he was having the usual reaction of the healthy male to being made to mince around in circles in the center of a ballroom. Henrietta’s Miles tended to react in much the same way, and could usually be found fleeing for the card room sometime after the first quadrille.
Either way, she would far rather be not dancing with Robert than dancing with anyone else. For the first time, she began to understand what drove Penelope to seek out secluded balconies — although she still had extreme difficulty understanding why Penelope chose the men she did to accompany her.
“Shall we go that way?” Charlotte suggested, pointing towards the far end of the gallery.
The rooms along the garden front had all been pressed into service for the party, with one salon set up as a supper room, and another as a refuge for gentlemen looking to play cards. But on the far side of the gallery, effectively blocked off behind the musicians, the remaining rooms of the West Wing lay dark and still. It wasn’t quite a balcony, but it would be warmer, and just as quiet. Quieter, probably. Penelope had disappeared with Freddy Staines a good quarter of an hour ago.
“Wherever you lead,” Robert said, and then gave the lie to his words by hustling her along beside him at a pace that forced her to take two steps to each of his one.
It wasn’t until she stumbled over the long hem of her skirt that Robert noticed she was having trouble keeping up. Righting her with one hand beneath her elbow, he made a penitent face. “Sorry,” he said, slowing down. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”
“If you really didn’t want to dance, you could have just said so,” Charlotte teased.
Robert looked at her blankly.
“Never mind,” said Charlotte. Wherever he was, it wasn’t someplace jokes could follow.
The entrance she sought was blocked by a cunningly hung tapestry featuring a stirring representation of the second Duke of Dovedale welcoming King William III as he stepped off his ship, the Den Briel, at Brixham Harbor. Certain tactful license had been taken with the historical scene, such as adding an extra six inches to the King so that the second Duke wouldn’t tower over him quite so badly. The Lansdownes did tend to run to height. That was another way in which Charlotte had taken after her mother’s family.
Her lack of inches was, however, very convenient for ducking through small doorways. Charlotte gestured Robert through the gap behind the arras, into a curious octagonal room with three-sided windows on either side and delicately carved stone arches that rose to meet around an elaborate rosette in the center of the ceiling. The fabric swished back into place behind them, sealing them away as effectively as a medieval maiden barricaded into a tower.
They might be only just on the other side of the gallery, but the thick stone walls and heavy fabric made it feel a world away. The only light came from the torches flickering in the grounds outside. Filtered through the thick glass panels of the leaded windows, the light made pretty shadows on the stone benches beneath the windows, like fish beneath the waters of a pond. It was also dramatically cooler, shrouded in thick stone, away from the light and press of bodies in the room beyond.
Away from the ballroom, Robert looked considerably more cheerful. Stopping in the precise middle of the room, he linked his hands together and stretched up towards the ceiling. Tall as he was, his arms didn’t come near the center of the roof.
“Where are we?” he asked, examining his surroundings with interest. “I don’t remember this from my last stay.”
“This is the anteroom to the old chapel,” Charlotte explained, resting one knee on the stone window seat as she leaned over to unlatch one of the leaded windows for the promised fresh air. There had been cushions once, but the Duchess had ordered them removed, pointing out that penitence ought to be as hard on the bum as it was on the soul. In reality, Charlotte suspected that it was just that her grandmother hadn’t wanted to go to the trouble of having them replaced. “There’s a theory that the room was designed this way as an allegory of the Trinity, which each of the three-sided window embrasures representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Propping one elbow against a carved niche in the wall, Robert appraised her knowingly. “But
you don’t believe it,” he said.
It gave her a warm and cozy feeling to know that he knew her that well already, like hot tea on a rainy day.
“But I don’t believe it,” Charlotte admitted. “I think it’s more likely that Vanbrugh just liked the way the curve of the wall looked from the outside. He used a similar technique at Blenheim. Don’t mention that to Grandmama, though. She likes to think that we’re unique.”
“You are,” said Robert fondly.
Before Charlotte had time to bask in the compliment properly, he added, in an entirely different tone, “And so is your grandmother.”
“Every fairy tale needs a witch,” said Charlotte unthinkingly, and then hastily added, “not that Grandmama is a witch, of course. Just a bit . . .”
“Witchlike?” contributed Robert.
“Set in her ways,” finished Charlotte.
The draft from the window was going right up the back of her neck — there were some disadvantages to upswept coiffures — so she turned to shut the window. Having once tasted freedom, the panel didn’t want to close again. Robert’s large hand settled over hers, pushing the latch capably back into place.
“The Duchess isn’t very kind to you,” he said, so close that she could feel his breath warm against the back of her neck.
Maybe upswept hair wasn’t such a very bad thing after all.
“She doesn’t mean any of it unkindly,” said Charlotte, addressing herself to the windowpanes in the hopes that if she stayed very, very still, he wouldn’t move away. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable sensation. Every inch of her body felt gloriously alive and aware. She wondered what would happen if she turned around. Would he stay where he was, close enough to kiss?
Charlotte’s voice was slightly breathless as she added, “It’s just the way she is. Would you condemn a tiger for biting?”
“I would, actually,” said Robert, stepping back. “Especially if it lopped off part of my anatomy.”