Naughty In Nice (33 page)
Authors: Rhys Bowen
“Belinda!” I exclaimed, not knowing whether to laugh or be shocked.
“It’s too much boarding school,” Belinda said. “It makes them all strange. I’m on the lookout for a nice Continental type with oodles of money, like your marquis. He’s still in pursuit, is he?”
“He appears to be.”
“Great catch, darling. I’m mad with jealousy.” She leaned closer. “So do tell, how far have you got with him? Is it positively blissful?”
“Not very far yet,” I said. “I might have had more to tell if I hadn’t been hauled off to a police station last night.”
“Is he here? Perhaps you can carry on a little later from where you left off.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I haven’t seen him yet, but I’m sure Mummy invited him. She fancies him herself.”
“Oh, Lord.” Belinda grabbed my arm suddenly. “Isn’t that your brother just coming in the door? Don’t tell me the dreaded Fig is going to be here.”
I spotted him through the crowd and his face broke into a big smile. “What-ho, Georgie. It’s good to see you, old thing.” And he barged his way toward me.
“Where’s Fig?” I asked cautiously as he put his arm around me.
“Sends her apologies. Doesn’t think that the noise and all the standing would be good for her. But Ducky and Foggy are here.” I turned to see Ducky in an outfit even more dreary looking than mine. In fact, she looked as if she might have knitted the evening gown herself from an unwashed brown sheep. She nodded a greeting to me. Foggy came up, and he greeted me more effusively. “Hello, old thing. Splendid to see you again. I must say, you’re looking rather pretty. And what a splendid place this is. You must give me a private tour later.” He gave me a little nudge, and was that a wink?
Yes, I know what your idea of a private tour is, I thought, and I directed them toward the champagne while I made my escape.
“Where does the money come from for all this?” Ducky’s brittle voice carried as they moved away. “I mean, it’s not as if she’s an actress anymore, is it?”
“Talk about biting the hand that feeds you,” Vera muttered in my ear. “How are you surviving, old thing?”
“I’m all right,” I said.
“It can’t be easy, knowing that dreadful inspector is lurking,” Vera said.
“Or that a murderer is lurking,” I said.
“That too, of course. I wish they’d find the blasted man so that we can go home. We’ve got work to do. It’s not good for Coco to sit idle. She smokes and drinks too much. She’s the type of person who needs to be busy all the time or she selfdestructs.” She looked up just then. “I think your marquis is just arriving.”
Chapter 28
The night of January 27, 1933
Party at the Villa Marguerite.
Party at the Villa Marguerite.
I felt my pulse quicken as I saw him scanning the crowd. He spotted me and came over. “You don’t have anything to drink,” he said. He snatched two glasses of champagne from a tray and handed me one. “If you don’t mind my saying so, that is a perfectly terrible dress. It does nothing for you and makes you look about ten years old.”
“I know,” I said. “My wardrobe is positively hopeless. Everyone’s so smart here.”
“I thought Madame Chanel was designing you a dress,” he said.
I shrugged. “Things became a little crazy around here. First a stolen necklace, and then the murders. She’s probably forgotten.”
“Then we must remind her again.” He looked around, then spotted Belinda hovering just behind me.
“Hello,” he said, his eyes traveling over her. “I believe we’ve met before, but I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.”
“It’s Belinda. Belinda Warburton-Stoke,” she said.
“Delightful. Another English rose.”
“In full bloom,” Belinda said in a way that only Belinda or my mother could say it.
“And are you enjoying all the delights the Riviera has to offer?”
“I’ve yet to experience all the delights,” she said, with an emphasis on the word “all.”
“I’m sure you will experience them all, given time.”
I watched this exchange, feeling uneasy and angry. Were they flirting, or was this normal fashionable society talk? Jean-Paul turned back to me. “You two are friends?”
“We were best friends at school,” I said.
“Ah. But I think that this young lady has led a more adventurous life than you since leaving school,
ma petite
.”
ma petite
.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I agreed. “My life has been rather dull.”
“Until now,” Jean-Paul said. “At the moment you must agree it is far from dull.” And he smiled at me, removing some of those fears. Neville joined Belinda, putting a protective arm around her shoulder and thus making sure that the flirtation with Jean-Paul didn’t continue.
“Awfully glad to see you here,” he said to me. “The last time we met you’d just fallen off a stage and been robbed. I was frightfully worried about you.”
“I’m fully recovered, as you can see,” I said. “I wish I could say the same for the necklace.”
“Lots of thieves and crooks on the Riviera,” Neville said. “Damned foreigners don’t have the same moral code as we do at home.”
“If you’ll excuse me, I should greet our hostess,” Jean-Paul said and melted away.
I was about to follow him, but a thought had been nagging at the back of my consciousness. I remembered Neville saying that he’d seen me before. And Coco and Vera thought they’d seen me too. Even Belinda. I needed to locate this mysterious double who had been seen entering Sir Toby’s house.
“‘Remember you said you’d seen me before?” I asked Neville.
“Riding your bike up near our villa,” he said.
“Where exactly is that?”
“Up in Cimiez, very near where Queen Victoria used to stay when she came here.”
I had never known that my austere great-grandmother enjoyed the delights of the Riviera. “She came here?”
“Every winter during the 1890s, I believe. Rented a whole wing of the hotel. They even changed the name to Regina to make her feel at home.”
“Goodness,” I said. “She must have been awfully old then.”
“Oh, she was. She thought sea bathing was good for her rheumatism.”
This went against the picture I had of the spartan life she led and the palace more freezing even than Castle Rannoch.
“So how does one get to Cimiez?” I asked.
“There’s a little bus that takes you up the hill from the Place Massena—you know, the big square in the middle of town? There are Roman ruins at Cimiez, and the view is delightful, so people take picnics up there.”
“I must go and see for myself,” I said.
“Do come up and visit anytime,” Neville said. “We’re on the Boulevard Edouard VII. Villa Victoria—aptly named, what? I’m sure my aunt would be glad to receive you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I hope to.”
“And thank you for hitching me up with Belinda,” he said, squeezing her shoulder as if testing a ripe melon. “She’s a corking girl. Absolutely spiffing. Even my aunt likes her.”
Oh, goodness, I thought. He sees Belinda as a future wife. I didn’t see her staying with him beyond the end of the week. In fact, I noticed she was watching Jean-Paul’s back as he joked with Coco and my mother. This time she’s not going to get him, I thought, and I was just moving to join him when a stir went through the crowd. It parted as if Moses had just arrived at the Red Sea, and there was Mrs. Simpson, with—miraculously—Mr. Simpson in tow and no sign of the Prince of Wales. I watched, absolutely bewitched, as Mummy came forward to greet her. As these two had been involved in mutual loathing since they had met, I couldn’t imagine what might happen next.
But Mummy, ever the actress, held out her hands. “Wallis, how simply sweet of you to come.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, honey,” Mrs. Simpson said and the two ladies kissed, about four inches from each other’s cheeks.
“How nice to see you, Mr. Simpson,” Mummy said, holding out her hand to him. “Do help yourself to a drink.”
This suggestion was met with a grunt, which was about all I had ever heard Mr. Simpson say. As he moved off, Mummy asked, “So might we be expecting a visit from a special friend later this evening?”
Mrs. Simpson gave an annoyed little shrug. “One never knows which friends will turn up,” she said. “I have so many friends.”
“You know the friend I am referring to,” Mummy said. “I just wondered . . .”
“Was summoned home to England unexpectedly,” Mrs. Simpson snapped. “Apparently his daddy wasn’t happy that he was enjoying himself on the Med while his subjects were suffering. I told him it was nonsense. His subjects would still be suffering whether he’s in England or not. But he said his father’s health hasn’t been the best lately, so he felt he should be a good little boy and run home.” She smoothed back her hair, which was not out of place to start with. “And how about you? I don’t see any burly Germans in evidence.”
“Making money back in Germany,” Mummy said. “Germany’s simply too depressing, so I escaped.”
“Things should be looking up there soon,” Mrs. Simpson said. “I understand this new guy, this Hitler, is a little firecracker. David says he’s got lots of splendid ideas to put Germany back on its feet.”
“I’m not so sure I want it back on its feet,” Mummy said. “I’m fond of Max, but it’s hard to forget that Germany was the enemy and all the awful things they did . . .”
“That was just the old Kaiser,” Wallis said. “This new regime will be more forward-looking. David thinks we’ll get on splendidly.” She looked around expectantly. I thought she might have been seeking out a particular person, but then she said, “So I understand you can actually see the swimming pool where the dead man was found.”
“Yes, from our terrace,” Mummy said.
So it was only morbid curiosity that had made her sink to attending Mummy’s party. How screamingly funny. I couldn’t wait to tell Belinda.
“I must take a look for myself,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Dying of curiosity. Such a strange murder, don’t you think? Personally I’d put money on his wife. A sour-faced creature if ever there was one. These English aristocrats are so repressed—all that bottled-up tension and not enough sex. It’s not healthy.” She smirked as she looked at my mother. “I suppose you should be glad you’re lower class.”
“Ditto,” Mummy said. “Although I was a duchess, which is more than you can say.”
“Ah, but who can say what the future may bring?” Mrs. Simpson replied with an enigmatic smile. “Come and show me the murder scene. I find murders most fascinating, don’t you?”
Others followed them out to the terrace, talking excitedly about murder. I stayed behind. I had no wish to be reminded. In fact, I wondered if I would be missed if I slipped away. So the Prince of Wales had left Mrs. Simpson to return to England. It was encouraging to know that he did still feel the call of duty and she didn’t have a complete hold over him. But for me it meant that I didn’t have a royal relative in the vicinity should Inspector Lafite decide to proceed with prosecuting me. I wondered if the Duke of Westminster would appear at the party and whether I was actually related to him.
I jumped when I heard what sounded like gunshots from outside the open French doors, until I realized that the guests were already letting off fireworks. I happen to love fireworks, so I went outside and watched rockets and Roman candles shooting up into the night sky to fall sparkling over the dark sea, while the sophisticated crowd greeted each firing with oohs and aahs.
The fireworks obviously put everyone in a party mood. They started playing parlor games, harmless ones at first, but then progressively more risqué.
“Let’s play statues,” someone suggested. There were giggles as ladies were selected to stand as statues in the middle of the room. A male volunteer was called for and Foggy Farquar stepped forward. He was blindfolded, spun around and then put among the statues. The object of the game was then revealed—he had to feel the statues and guess the womens’ identities. What followed was a lot of groping and bawdy comments. I was so glad I hadn’t been picked as a statue; I’d have died of embarrassment. But the women actually seemed to enjoy it. I noticed Jean-Paul standing in the doorway, chuckling. His eyes met mine and he winked at me.
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