A Kiss at Midnight

Page 14

“Well, miss,” Rosalie said, “one of the seamstresses spent four hours altering that gown, and I shaped the wax inserts myself, and that’s what you’re wearing.”
Kate gave her a swift hug. “I’m being a beast, and I apologize. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? I just need to simper at the prince, so that he will approve Victoria’s wedding.”
“And go to the ball,” Rosalie said. “I brought three ball gowns, but I hadn’t yet—”
“We’ll discuss that when the time comes,” Kate said firmly. She’d already made up her mind there would be no wax breasts at the ball. But why give Rosalie a sleepless night worrying over it?
Ten
I saw Dimsdale’s Golden Fleece this afternoon,” Gabriel told Wick just before the evening meal, “and we can forget the idea of trading my Cossack Fleece for his English one.”
“Really?” His majordomo cocked an eyebrow. “After meeting your esteemed relative, I cannot help but think that the young lady may succumb to your charms, impoverished though they are.”
Gabriel gave him a wry smile. “I’m not that desperate. My uncle nearly ran down their carriage because he thought he heard his dog barking. The yapping came from a pack of mongrels the size of fleas. And the Fleece was as unattractive as her dogs: overdressed, overly bold with her eyes, and overly gaunt. I have minimal standards, but I have them.”
“I like her,” Wick said thoughtfully. “And she has only three dogs.”
“They’re the kind that spin in circles and bite their own tails. Which is what I would do if I had to spend much time with her. She looked at me as if I were a disreputable banker. I think she didn’t like my hair.”
Wick grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Disapproved of you, did she?”
“Soundly.”
“Well, you’ll have to get through dinner with her, because I’ve put her at your right and I’m not switching places at this point. I have you dining in the morning room and the rest of the horde in the dining room proper. There are more arriving tomorrow, so I’ll have to switch to the great hall for meals.”
“You don’t mind all of this, do you?” Gabriel asked, looking at the boy he’d known his whole life, now grown to a man.
“I was made for it.”
“Well, I’m glad I got a castle for you to muck about in.”
“You should be glad for yourself,” Wick pointed out.
“I’m not,” Gabriel said. “But I have a brotherly pride in the fact I spared Augustus the sight of you.”
“Not very nice of the Grand Duke,” Wick said, pouring himself a small glass of brandy and tossing it back. “Throwing out his own brothers like that.”
“Augustus would prefer to forget that our father left quite so many counterfeit coins with his own face around Marburg.”
“I don’t look like Augustus,” Wick said, revolted.
“That’s because he resembles my mother, whereas the two of us take after the old devil himself.”
Wick’s mother was a laundress, and Gabriel’s a Grand Duchess, but the distinction never bothered either of them much. They were born mere days apart, and their father had promptly brought Wick into the nursery to be raised with his legitimate children, not to mention a pack of other assorted half siblings.
“He was a ripe one,” Wick said. “I always liked our papa.”
“Did we see him enough to judge?” Gabriel asked. “Here, give me some of that brandy.”
Wick handed over a glass. “We saw him the right amount, I’d say. Look what happened to Augustus, after he had to spend every day with him.”
It was true. Gabriel and Wick shared a bone-deep conviction that being the last son and an illegitimate son were far better fates than anything closer to the crown.
“I know why you’re brooding over Dimsdale’s fiancée,” Wick said. “It’s because you’re nervous about the impending arrival of your own.”
“She’s got the look of a shrew,” Gabriel said. “I’ll admit, it gave me a qualm about Tatiana.”
“I know,” Wick said, “you want beddable and biddable.”
“It’s not as if you’re looking for anything different,” Gabriel said, stung by something in Wick’s voice.
“I’m not looking for a wife at all,” Wick said. “But if I were, I wouldn’t want biddable.”
“Why?”
“I’m easily bored.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of shrewishness,” Gabriel said. “But the Fleece has no figure. I could tell, even though she was bundled in a shaggy traveling costume. She doesn’t look as if she’d be fun.”
“Wives aren’t supposed to be fun,” Wick said, putting down his glass and straightening his neck cloth. “Time to go down and jockey everyone into the proper places. The cook that we brought over is threatening to leave. Plus I had to hire three more downstairs maids. Thank God your bride is on the way; I don’t think we can afford another such event.”
“We’ve got enough money without her,” Gabriel said, stung.
“More or less. I have a bad feeling that repairs to this castle won’t come cheap.”
After Wick left, Gabriel sat for a while, staring at his desk. It was inestimably better in England than in Marburg. There he was in constant danger of being dragged into some sort of political intrigue, or any of the other military frivolities that kept his brothers’ eyes bright and shining.
It was wonderful to own a castle. It really was.
Without really noticing, he pulled over the copy of Ionian Antiquities that had arrived two days before and started reading it. Again. Which was foolish because he had the whole issue memorized.
Of course he couldn’t run off to Tunis. He tried to wrench his mind back to the present. He had to go to his chambers and submit to Pole’s ministrations, put on an evening coat, and greet his absurd nephew. He should be happy to have an estate, and be able to house the menagerie, and his uncle, aunts, illegitimate half brother, the court jester . . .
If only he could stop dreaming of being in the heat of Tunis, finding out for himself whether that dig truly held the remains of Dido’s city. He had loved the story of Carthage as a schoolboy, caught by the determination of Aeneas sailing away to found Rome, leaving Dido behind, and then living with guilt after she threw herself on a funeral pyre.
Ionian Antiquities would publish again in a mere . . . in a mere twenty-three days.
He got up with a sigh.
Time for dinner.
Eleven
W e’re eating with the family,” Algie said nervously. “ ‘In family’ they call it.”
“ En famille ,” Kate corrected him.
“I suppose that’s the language they speak over in Marburg. I probably won’t understand a word.”
“Actually, that’s French,” Kate said.
“French? I learned that at Eton.” There was a pause. “More or less . . . do you suppose that’s what they speak at the table?”
“I shall translate, if need be,” Kate told him, thinking that it was a good thing she had come rather than Victoria, who didn’t speak a word of French. Thankfully, she herself had learned the language before her father died. “Do you know anything of the prince’s entourage?”