Cinderella Six Feet Under (32 page)

Ophelia's belly sank. “Once you knew I was prying, you pointed fingers at Grant, Malbert, Madame Fayette—by delivering Miss Stonewall's gown to Hôtel Malbert. Pierre placed Professor Penrose and me in that trap in Colifichet's workshop in an attempt to have us arrested.”

“Yes. And you, foolish lady, went off in the direction of each of my tricks like a cat after a clockwork mouse.”

“I may have gone round and round a little, but each time I was getting a bit closer to the truth. Would you have come here tonight if it weren't for the professor and me?”

Josie's eyes shone with pure loathing. She puckered her mouth as though about to spit, but two gendarmes trotted down the steps, heaved Josie to standing, and hauled her away.

*   *   *

“That was by
far your best performance,” Ophelia said to Prue.

“Think so?” Prue forked a huge bite of cake into her mouth. “Never played a ghost before. That was the best scheme you've ever cooked up, Ophelia Flax. Where's Ma? Are you sure she's here?”

“I spoke to her.”

“Probably met a new feller tonight.” Prue's voice was careless, but her eyes were damp with hurt as they darted around the ballroom, searching.

Ophelia longed to tell Prue that her mother wasn't worth all that sadness, but how could she? After all was said and done, you only got one mother.

Prue wore the Cinderella costume that Ophelia had doctored with greasepaint and scissors to have a bullet hole and blood, but she didn't seem to mind. Neither did Dalziel, who had taken it upon himself as his sole mission in life to gaze at Prue while feeding her sweets.

“This cake is scrumptious, Dalziel,” Prue said. “Hey, I never realized your grandparents only wanted me to get to the ball on time.”

“They wished you no harm. They only hold some rather peculiar beliefs about fairy tales—a sort of typology of fairy tales, if you will.”

Prue chewed and blinked.

“They believe that the tales in those stories happen once every generation.”

“But why were they acting so
pushy
about it? What's it to them?”

“It is shocking to say it, but to Grandmother and Grandfather, fairy tales are almost a religion. Making certain you arrived at the ball on time tonight was tantamount to acting as high priest and priestess at a sacred rite.”

“
Nuts
,” Prue muttered.

Dalziel looked hurt.

“I mean to say, I sure wish this cake had nuts in it.”

“Oh,” Dalziel said. “Shall I fetch you some cake with nuts?”

“Sure.”

Dalziel hurried away.

“Are the police still questioning Josie?” Prue asked Ophelia

“I'm not certain.” Ophelia looked around the ballroom. The crowd had thinned out and the orchestra had gone. A few determined merrymakers drank and ate, but when the host had been murdered it put a damper on things.

“Here comes Professor Penrose,” Prue said.

Ophelia's belly sank. She hid her hand, with its cargo of ruby ring, behind her back. Thank goodness Griffe had gone off somewhere.

Penrose's face was taut. “Inspector Foucher has finished questioning Pierre and Josie—for now, at least. Pierre is silent and sullen, but all the strength seemed to have quite gone out of Josie once the stomacher was confiscated.”

Penrose had gotten to listen in on the prisoners' questionings, since Inspector Foucher credited him with the trap. Never mind that it had actually been
Ophelia's
trap.

“Sugarplum!” someone said. Henrietta.

Prue shoved her cake plate and fork into Ophelia's hands, threw herself upon her mother, and started bawling.

Ophelia and Penrose inched away.

“Henrietta seems overjoyed,” Penrose said.

“Don't forget she's an actress. She's about as maternal as a garter snake.”

Penrose told Ophelia what he had learned in the police interrogation of Josie and Pierre. “Prince Rupprecht is—or, I should say,
was
—utterly fascinated by the story of Cinderella and more specifically, the character of Cinderella, who he took to represent the very pinnacle of female perfection. A beautiful girl ostensibly doomed to poverty and work, but lifted up by the love of a prince.”

Not too loving, if you asked Ophelia.

“After Josie killed Grant, things began to come undone for her and her brother. They became desperate, and that is when Pierre began with his attempts to do you in. That was Pierre pedaling about on the velocipede and attempting to shoot us. It was he who pushed you at the exhibition hall, too—he knew you would be there because he'd followed you after delivering a parcel to Hôtel Malbert. And you do realize now, after seeing Pierre's trick this evening, what was in
that
parcel?”

“Pickled automaton's feet?”

“Yes. That little ruse killed two birds with one stone: it drew your attention away from Josie and once again towards Malbert, of whom you'd confessed to being suspicious to Josie, and it also gave Pierre a neat way to dispose of the feet he'd removed from the Cinderella automaton, to be replaced with larger feet.”

“My sainted aunt.”

“Indeed. The episode on the lake earlier this evening was their last-ditch attempt to stop us. After all of this, I daresay that we are fortunate to be alive.”

“What about the lawyer, Cherrien? Why did Prince Rupprecht enlist him to locate the stomacher? Didn't Prince Rupprecht know that Josie had it?”

“Josie told the prince that she didn't know what had happened to the stomacher after they left Sybille in the garden. He assumed, it seems, that someone in the Malbert household, or one of the other guests, stole it.”

“And where is the stomacher now?”

“Foucher confiscated it. It will be returned to the marquis.” Penrose paused. He adjusted his spectacles. “Miss Flax, would you come out onto the terrace with me? I have something else, of a rather different nature, that I would like to say to you.”

O
phelia and Professor Penrose walked outside in silence, stopping at the marble balustrade overlooking the dark gardens and park.

“Miss Flax, you did not allow me to finish earlier,” Penrose said, “and I insist that you hear me out before I—before I go. My students, my studies, await me in Oxford.”

“I've heard quite enough of the charming Miss Banks, if you don't mind awfully. So you just go on back to your ivory tower and—”

“That's just it. Miss Banks is
not
charming. She is, in point of fact, somewhat horrid.”

Ophelia frowned. “That's not very charitable, Professor.” A wisp of hope arose.

“I oughtn't have spoken of her at all. She is really—well, it does not matter what I think of her. She will have her pick of suitors.”

“Plucks them from the orchard, does she?”

“Miss Flax, I may not have been entirely accurate when I said that Miss Banks and I have an understanding.”

“
What?”

“I have never asked her to marry me.”

“You scalawag! I've been tied up in knots on account of that I—that we . . .”

“I am very sorry. Please. There is something I must tell you.”

Ophelia couldn't meet his gaze. She simply waited for him to continue.

“I cannot say why, or how, this happened,” Penrose said. “How this has occurred. The revolution that has taken place in my mind—or, really, it is not my mind, for I find that the greater part of my mind rebels against the very idea of you. No, the change has occurred in my soul.” He paused. “In my heart.”

She felt his gaze upon her cheek. She couldn't move. She stared out into the star-studded horizon.

He continued. “I never could comprehend what people were going on about, speaking of their hearts in circumstances of sentiment. But I comprehend it fully, now. When I see you, Miss Flax—God, even in one of your preposterous disguises, that is how far this has gone—my very heart gives a wrench. When I attempt to sleep at night, haunted by fragments of your voice, the gestures of your hands, the singular gleam of your lovely dark eyes—my heart goes out of me, trying, I suppose, to find you. To bring you close. And when I try to think how I will live without you when I return home to England, well then, it is my heart that aches.”

Ophelia noted, with great sensitivity, the way a breeze fluttered a tendril of hair across her forehead. Still more acutely, she felt the ruby ring on her hand. Cold. Heavy.

“I love you, Miss Flax. That is what I wished to tell you earlier, bumbling like a fool. It is really quite simple. But I see that you have nothing to say. That you cannot look at me—well, I daresay that speaks volumes, does it not? So. Good evening.”

“Wait!” Her lungs were tight. “Wait.”

He stood over her, looking, for the first time in her memory, vulnerable.

Why, oh why, did it have to unfold, to unravel, like
this
?

She brought out her ruby-ringed hand, stretching her fingers along the balustrade. “I might have made a mistake. But I must behave honorably.”

Penrose stared down at the bloodred glitter in disbelief. “Griffe.” His voice was ragged. “You will be a countess.” He made a stiff bow. “I wish you and the count all the best.”

Ophelia watched Penrose stalk away down the long, long terrace, pulling fragile threads of her behind him. His tall shape melded into the black night, leaving her alone, shivering, with her icebox of a heart.

*   *   *

In the blue
light of dawn, Ophelia dressed in her fine, forest green visiting gown, which stank of lake water and was only half dry. She drew on her black velvet paletot, laced up her battered brown boots, and carried the turtle out into Château de Roche's park. She found a path that wound through misty woods and fields towards the river.

A turtle ought to be asleep in November, beneath dead leaves and mud in shallow, still water.

Ophelia took her time, despite how chilly she grew in her damp gown. At last, she found a stagnant little backwater sheltered by overgrown brambles, at the edge of a tributary stream. She crouched on the bank and held the turtle out. He flopped into the water and disappeared.

*   *   *

Two hours later,
Château de Roche's front drive was a carnival of horses, trunks, coaches, footmen, and groggy guests. Ophelia and Prue descended the front steps. They would ride with the Count de Griffe back to Paris. After that, Ophelia wasn't exactly sure what would happen.

“Guess we aren't the only ones who want to clear out,” Prue said.

“I allow, the ball did not end on an especially festive note,” Ophelia said.

“I reckon your long face is about the professor?”

“The professor? What? No. Why would I think of him?”

“Maybe on account of you look like your hopes and dreams was just run over by a steam tractor?”

“He has gone,” Ophelia said. “Last night, I was told.”

“He's a mutton-head to leave you.”

“He has his pride. Can't blame him for that.” It was also true that if a lady was responsible for breaking her
own
heart, she really had no right to complain. “Sybille's killer has been brought to justice. That is the most important thing. And we've found your mother.”

“Don't sound so
glum
about it, darling,” Henrietta said, sailing down the steps behind them. She wore a smart traveling costume and a plumed hat, and her eyes darted about from guest to guest. Tallying up their titles and economic wherewithal, no doubt. “Go on. Look at that ruby on your finger. Doesn't
that
cheer you up?”

No. It did not.

“Hey!” Prue said. “Ain't that Seraphina Smythe? Over there. Getting into that wagon-looking thing.”

“Goodness. I fancied she was a prim and proper English rose,” Henrietta said, squinting. “Whatever is she doing in that rattletrap?”

It
was
Seraphina. But she'd removed her spectacles, and her cheeks were flushed. Driving off in a hay wagon with—

“
Henri
,” Prue said. She whistled. “I'll be. That's why the carriageway gate was always open. On account of Seraphina and Henri and their amorous rendezvous.”

“Prue!” Ophelia said.

“What? I'm learning French.”

“What about the lost key?”

“I reckon Beatrice really
did
lose it at the market. Don't know how she could see straight half the time, what with all that wine she glugs.”

They were helped up into Griffe's carriage by a coachman. Griffe bounded down the steps and climbed into the coach, all smiles.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said. “Mademoiselle Stonewall, how lovely you look this morning. I am most glad to convey your friends to Paris. The friend of Mademoiselle Stonewall is the friend of mine, eh?”

This was going to be an awfully long journey.

They set off.

About half an hour later, Griffe was snoring with his head thrown back against the seat, mouth open.

Prue piped up. “Ma, I've got something to tell you. I ain't going back to America with you.”

“I had no intention of going back to America, sugarplum. The grass is
so
much greener here in Europe. The gentlemen are more innocent, somehow.”

Not wise to Henrietta's tricks, more like.

“I'm going to be a nun, Ma.”

Henrietta burst out laughing.

“It ain't funny.”

“What about that young gentleman, Dalziel? He's smitten with you.”

“I'm through with fellers. I already mailed off a good-bye letter to Hansel this morning.”

“You did?” Ophelia said.

“Who is Hansel? Sounds like a peasant,” Henrietta said.

“I'll say good-bye to Dalziel when we get to Paris,” Prue said. “I couldn't do it last night on account of he was in a stew trying to help Lord and Lady Cruthlach find their stolen spell book.”

“It was stolen?” Ophelia asked.

“Right out of their château chamber last night.”

Professor Penrose would be mighty interested in that. Come to think of it, maybe
he
had stolen the spell book himself . . . but Ophelia realized she ought never think of the professor again.

“After I break the news to Dalziel,” Prue said, “I'm shutting myself away.”

“What has gotten
into
you, Prudence?” Henrietta turned to Ophelia. “Prudence never made a peep as a baby. I put her in a drawer in the corner of my dressing room—”

“A
drawer
?” Ophelia said.

“Well, of course I
cracked
it. And it was filled with old bits of costumes and such, and she would sleep through everything.
Such
a little bonbon.” Her eyes went hard, and she poked Prue with the toe of her shoe. “Allow Mommy to take care of things, all right?”

Prue sighed.

Griffe snorted himself awake.
“Quelle heure est-il?”

“Count,” Ophelia said. “I've got something important to tell you.”

“Eh?”

“Don't you
dare
muddle up my plans,” Henrietta hissed in Ophelia's ear. Henrietta smiled sweetly at Griffe.

Griffe beamed at Ophelia. “I have been meaning to say, Mademoiselle Stonewall, I do hope your delightful aunt, Madame Brand, might come to our wedding. I have just had a dream of her, all in white.”

Mercy.

The coach joggled along. Ophelia looked out at the stretching brown fields and rows of bare trees, and wondered exactly how she was going to pry herself out of
this
one.