Coronets and Steel (43 page)

Dinner was . . . weird. Not the food. P. G. Wodehouse’s great Anatole could not have surpassed the superb offerings Pedro sent up for Aunt Sisi’s guests. I was seated between Percy and Robert, who looked like a Russian emperor in his fur-edged velvet tunic and elaborate bearskin cap. Both men seemed to have made liberal inroads into Aunt Sisi’s liquor supply before we had arrived, and during the dinner they kept Aunt Sisi’s butler on the hop with demands for refills.

The butler topped my nearly untouched goblet so many times I felt a silent reproach, as if my manners were lacking because I wasn’t downing wine like most of the rest of them. And they shouldn’t have. Robert kept patting my hand every time his wife and Alec, who were dinner partners, were exchanging small talk, and his pouchy dark gaze rested frequently on the low neck of my gown. I longed for his former rudeness.

The von M’s ignored Madam A so I leaned over and talked to her until I noticed Robert leaning out to look down my dress. Ew ew
ew
.

On my other side, Percy seemed nervous. I wondered if this was his first masquerade, too, the way he chortled and rambled on about the clever mask he had ordered. He was costumed as a buccaneer, in a black velvet pirate coat with huge gold-edged cuffs. Under that was a front-laced white shirt, tied with a crimson sash through which he’d thrust a long-barreled toy pistol. Black velvet loose pants were stuffed into wide-cuffed buccaneer boots with high square heels and dashing buckles on the uppers.

Three or four times toward the end of the dinner he pulled the pistol from his sash and waved it around growling “Arrrr!” until Aunt Sisi finally asked him, in the nicest way, to zip it.

We seemed to have fifty courses before that horrible dinner was
finally
over. As soon as everyone rose from the table to adjourn for coffee Alec promptly excused himself.

“You’re leaving me here?” I sidled up. “Tell me you’re not.”

“Have to,” he said, sending a flick of a glance toward Aunt Sisi that revealed suppressed anger. “I’m already late.”

So, more of the subtle game playing—the dinner had been deliberately dragged out? Talk about grade-school, I thought, but I kept my social smile firmly in place. Nothing was going to ruin my night, I vowed. “You rat,” I muttered to Alec out of the side of my mouth. “Cowardly rat.”

Alec flushed and hid a laugh behind a cough.

Aunt Sisi turned, clasping her thin hands in consternation. “I fear I was not prepared for you to leave alone like this. I already have five to be fitted into my car.” She indicated my miles of puffy skirt. “We do not have the space.”

“I thought we arranged this,” Alec said to her, smiling and polite, but I sensed every line of him radiating tension. “I must get there early. The council is waiting for me right now.”

“My dear.” She met his steady gaze with hand-folded composure, “I did offer to convey your ladies to the ball, but when I discovered you were bringing them here yourself I assumed you had arranged to transport them from here as well.”

So Alec had to send for Kilber; as soon as he got hold of him through Aunt Sisi’s telephone, he took off. I hadn’t known she had a phone—all her messages to me had been written on scented notepaper. I wondered what she used the phone for as Alec picked up his gloves and departed.

This was a matter of maybe ten blocks they were talking about, on a pretty night; I would have loved nothing better than to walk, without any more von M company than necessary, but I knew Madam A would not wish to walk, and my buckle shoes were tight. So I kept quiet.

Percy touched my arm. “What do you think of my mask, eh? Isn’t it handsome?” He slipped it over his face, clapped his hat on, and posed. “Savvy?”

The Captain Jack Sparrow reference made me like him a lot more, even if he’d obviously drunk too much. I smiled at his mask, which was full face, with leering pirate features. Over the back he wore a long black wig, and on top a tricorn hat with plumes held in place by a rhinestone buckle. “Like the feathers?” His voice was muffled. “They were my own idea.”

His cousins stood around and smiled and uttered fake variations of, “Oh how clever!” as he postured and flourished.

When he caught his cutlass in the curtains, Cerisette and Honoré (who looked more like a sinister Bertie Wooster than ever in his elegant Oscar Wilde evening dress) rushed to help, Cerisette disentangling the brocade from the steel, and Honoré thrusting his cousin’s sword back into the baldric, then muscling Percy in the direction of the coffee service.

After all those parties, I still didn’t know any of them—but the way they cooed over Percy, who’d obviously had about a gallon too much of whatever had been in those crystal glasses, I wondered if he was the richest of them, as he wasn’t the most titled. Or the smartest, I added mentally when he staggered and nearly trashed a cloisonné lamp on an ancient Chinese table.

Aunt Sisi joined Honoré. “Coffee, Parsifal?” was the last thing I heard before the butler announced, “The automobile is here for Madam and Mademoiselle.”

By which were to understand that Kilber had arrived at last.

I couldn’t get out of that house fast enough. Madam A looked like an escapee from a gulag as we climbed into the Daimler.

I’d scarcely settled my billowing skirts across three quarters of the back seat when we pulled up at the palace in front of a rolled out red carpet.

There was no announcing, not at a masquerade. But an army of liveried servants came out to take wraps, offer drinks, and escort us inside the ballroom. We blended into the arriving guests; Madam A found some old friends and seemed to relax.

After some self-conscious or laughing introductions (“Queen Maria Sofia, may I present Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine?”) and smiles all around, I excused myself to walk about and see the sights. Madam A seemed to think that was all right, so I took off, feeling like a ship under full sail in my miles of tulle, brocade, and satin, the diamonds bobbing gently against my collarbone.

The ballroom had four huge doors, all thrown open as the air was balmy; the vast chamber was made of white marble, the fixtures of gold, which scintillated with the brilliance of a zillion candles in sconces and chandeliers. That much candlelight has a silvery sheen, flattering people with golden warmth as they strolled up and down the marble hallways.

I cruised the entire perimeter, but didn’t see Alec anywhere. His secret meeting had to be in an antechamber, probably behind closed doors.

To my surprise (and relief) it was a good twenty minutes later that Aunt Sisi and co. crossed the mile or so that lay between Mecklundburg House and the palace. I assumed that the time had been spent in attempting to sober Percy up, for he walked a lot straighter. I zipped around a corner before they spotted me.

People dressed in historical costume thronged the ballroom in graceful groupings, chattering and laughing. Jewels flashed and glittered, brocades and velvets hushed by in graceful swirls. I was tickled by a glimpse of two young guys who, resplendent in barbaric Cossack garb, were practicing clicking their heels and bowing before the long mirrors set into the paneling of a small anteroom.

I had slipped on my mask, but everyone seemed to know who “Queen Sofia” was: I heard a few muted “Lady Aurelias” and everywhere I went crowds parted, deferring with bows, smiles, nods, and “good evenings.”

Then the orchestra in the overhead gallery struck up. A footman in eighteenth-century livery, complete to white wig, rapped on the marble floor three times and announced sonorously,
“Avec la permission de sa Majesté, la bal commence! Promenade royale!”
Interesting that German had been replaced as the language of government, but French lingered on at events such as these.

Alec appeared with Aunt Sisi on his arm. As they took their positions, people converged into partnerships; I was paired with an eighteen-year-old scion of the House of Trasyemova who peered at me with such shy and awkward admiration that I spent most of that first dance cracking jokes in French-laced Dobreni to get him to relax. This dance, the royal promenade, was a simplified minuet. The slow, dignified steps and the poses and bows were easy to pick up.

With the second piece of music the rococo gave way to the nineteenth century. As the orchestra began an introduction in waltz time, Aunt Sisi guided Alec toward Phaedra. Alec bowed slightly, said something polite, and left them. They watched as he crossed the room to my side.

My young partner backed away, eyes wide, making me smother a laugh. Alec bowed to me, his face solemn, except for his eyes.

I smothered a laugh behind my fan. As I placed my gloved fingertips on his gloved wrist, I muttered, “This is political, isn’t it?”

“A reminder to Aunt Sisi that though she can manage the masquerade, it’s best not to attempt managing me. Do you mind?”

“Not a bit. The sooner I get to waltz in this dress, the better.”

The betraying smile in his eyes intensified, then his expression smoothed as he guided me to the center of the room.

I minced on my toes so that my wide skirts floated and did not swing like a bell. As we took up waltz position other couples formed up and joined us, the floor soon so crowded that when the music began we were hardly dancing so much as moving in a circle. After we’d been bumped two or three times, and my hem nearly stepped on, I took my hand off his shoulder and scooped up the back part of my skirts.

Alec was no more romantic than the dance—he seemed absent, his gaze flicking about the room over my head.

After a round of the entire room, he smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to ignore you—thought you wouldn’t mind while I do a reconnaissance.”

“No problemo. You’re managing real well with that pig-sticker. No livers cut out yet, and in this crowd that’s a feat. You said once you know how to fence. Did you compete?”

“I had a few bouts here and there.” A hint of grin. “It’s my grandfather’s blade. Family legend has it he fought a couple of duels with it.”

“I wouldn’t mind trying a few passes with it.”

“Oh yes. The trophies—I take it those are real?”

“Real,” I repeated in mock horror. “I’ll have you know I was picked to try out for the Olympics, but Gran’s illness intervened, cutting short what surely would have been a gold medal career.”

He laughed.

I told him about Percy, the cutlass, and the curtains. Alec enjoyed that, and as a space momentarily opened up he maneuvered us deftly into it. His clasp was light and his leading seemed effortless—but my following was effortless as well. That physical awareness was there again, but less intimate in these surroundings, and therefore less demanding. I know how trite it sounds, but I truly did feel as light as a feather, and we whirled and turned as if we had practiced together all our lives.

Then the music ended and I was besieged by hopeful partners. I didn’t sit down for a long time, and never noticed the need. The shoes had stretched, or my feet decided to cooperate.

Not that it was all joy. Far too frequently for my taste I found my hand summarily claimed by von M’s, mostly Robert and Percy. Rank was supposedly relaxed, but when any of that gang approached me, would-be partners always deferred. I was determined to be polite—but Robert gave me no chance for a polite “no.” He’d take hold of me and start dancing, sticking me with another long session of cigar breath and his clammy hands getting chummy, especially during what I decided would be our last waltz, when his alcohol fumes were almost as strong as the cigar.

Then there was drunken Percy, who wasn’t a letch, but they hadn’t been able to sober him up completely. Liquor made him even more awkward than usual, and his pirate boots threatened to smash my feet until I started dancing with my toes turned outward in first position.

After a couple of hours the white-wigged, liveried servants opened up a punch room, serving iced wine punch out of cut crystal bowls, along with coffee and tea. Percy thanked me sweetly for the latest dance and wandered over to take up a station there. Relief!

But I would have rather had him as a partner than Robert, who bulled aside a nice-looking fellow my age coming toward me. I pointed meaningfully at the restroom, from which I peered out until Robert got tired of waiting and vanished into the punch room.

The ballroom had gotten warm by then. The footmen threw open the doors to the terrace that aproned out into the garden, which was lit by hanging paper lanterns. With almost a collective sigh the guests began spilling out into the cool night air. People danced on the terrace, from which the orchestra could be heard splendidly, and others strolled out into the balmy darkness along the ordered paths.

Safe from Robert, I had slipped out again and was claimed for the last of that dance by my eighteen-year-old Sergei. Shyness now banished, he began telling me eagerly about engineering studies, and how if the Stadthalter got his way over the old dodderers on the council, the wind turbines plus the hydroelectric plant would soon guarantee even the meanest Dobreni house would have electrical lights, if they wanted them. Many didn’t, he explained. So many of the old folks thought electricity mere foolery—

He stuttered to a stop, his gaze riveted over my shoulder. His head moved as he tracked someone, and I noticed two young and only superficially demure Victorian ladies strolling close by, bustles undulating either side of cinched-in waists. Languishing looks were cast at my partner, followed by giggles; one of the girls was fanning herself so hard her friend’s hair was blowing. The advantages of modern electricity? Gone with the wind.

I used my trusty restroom excuse, freeing him up to join a friend his age. From the safety of the inner door I watched in amusement as he gestured briefly and violently, then both young men started off in the direction the girls had taken.

It wasn’t until he was gone that I wondered if Ruli would have handled the encounter the same way.