Rhys Bowen - Masked Ball at Broxley Manor

“So what will you do now that your season is over?” he asked me.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ll have to go back to Scotland with the family when they close up the London house, I suppose. I wish there was something I could do. I’d love a job, but I have no qualifications and no skills except to walk around with a book on my head and know where to seat a bishop at the dinner table.”

He laughed. “Do you know a lot of bishops then?”

“None.”

“Then I agree it’s not the most useful skill in the world. But never mind. You’ll marry a prince or a duke or a count and live happily ever after, I expect.”

“I’m not sure that I’m ready to get married yet,” I heard myself saying. “Nineteen is so awfully young, isn’t it? And I haven’t seen anything of life. How can I make the right choice? I know debs are supposed to find their future husbands during this year, but it seems rather frightening to make a decision about spending the rest of one’s life with someone one hardly knows.”

“I agree,” he said. “But aren’t young ladies in your position supposed to make a good match, with no regard for your personal feelings about the chap?”

“I’m not about to inherit any kingdom,” I said. “I’m only thirty-fourth in line to the throne so how can I be of any importance in international affairs?”

“Any link to the House of Windsor is valuable these days. You won the war, remember.” I noticed that he said you .

“Anyway, I plan to marry for love,” I said. “I don’t want to spend my life being miserable.”

“Quite right,” he said.

“But if I happened to fall in love with the family’s choice for me, that would be marvelous,” I added.

“Then let us drink a toast to that.” He raised his glass again and his eyes met mine.

The champagne tickled all the way through my body. I wasn’t used to drinking and I’d already had several glasses of that lethal punch. When my partner took my hand again and drew me up to dance I felt the room swing around and I had a strange feeling that my feet weren’t touching the floor.

“Shouldn’t you offer to dance with some of the other ladies?” I asked as his hand came around my waist again. “I wouldn’t want to monopolize you all evening.”

“Haven’t you noticed?” he whispered. “We are the only couple under forty. I heartily dislike dancing with older women. Too bony and bitchy.”

I laughed then. He smiled too. “That’s more like it. You looked like a scared rabbit when I first spotted you. You belong here. You have a better pedigree than all but one. They should be honored by your presence.”

“I don’t feel that way,” I said. “I see them as rich, confident, sophisticated and me as a girl just out from school with no experience of the world.”

“Then we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” he whispered in my ear and drew me close to him. “So tell me—have you even been kissed?”

“Sort of,” I said. “A few chaps tried it at the various balls but I don’t think they were very good at it.”

I hadn’t noticed that he had steered us toward an alcove dotted with huge potted palm trees. He pulled me to him. “Let me show you what you’ve been missing.” And then he kissed me. Gently at first, his lips teasing mine, and then more hungrily as he felt me responding to him. I had never known that a kiss could feel like this. I had never known what desire felt like, but I was feeling it now, and as I yielded to his kiss, the thought flooded through my mind that I might be spending the rest of my life with this man. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

At last we broke apart breathlessly. I noticed he was breathing as hard as I was. “I don’t think we better take it any further tonight,” he said as he gazed down into my eyes, “or I might not be responsible for my actions. I must say I’m glad you chose such a simple little mask, otherwise kissing would have been impossible, or I would have been forced to remove the mask—which is not allowed until midnight.”

I realized that midnight was not far away and felt a thrill of excitement about looking at his face for the first time. I hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed when he saw me unmasked. As I glanced across the room to the ornate gold clock on a sideboard I saw something I couldn’t quite believe.

“That man just put something in your drink,” I said indignantly.

He stiffened and I felt his hand tense on my shoulder. “Are you sure? What man?”

“See, that one. Sort of white and formless, like a ghost. But I’d swear I saw a hand come out from under all that flowing fabric and it tipped something into your drink.”

He dragged me rapidly back to the table, picked up his glass and sniffed at it.

“They don’t play around, do they?” he said. “Cyanide, if I’m not mistaken.” He picked up my glass. “They obviously wanted to finish you off too. There’s some in yours.”

“But who would want to do that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “There are plenty of anarchists’ groups who are sworn to do away with royalty, and of course Russia is reaching out communist tentacles, hoping to topple all Western governments.”

“That’s horrible.”

“But a fact, nonetheless.” He picked up both glasses. “Now do what I say. Stay put and do not move. And don’t eat or drink anything unless you’re sure it’s safe. Understand?”

“Where are you going?”

“To find the bastard who did this.”

“Don’t go.” I touched his arm. “Tell Lord Merriman. They have policemen around the house.”

“That will be too late,” he said. “Stay with the crowd. You’re safer here.”

I watched as he forced his way through dancing couples and out of one of the French doors. Just as he exited a deep bell started tolling. Then the sweet chimes of the ormolu clock were added to it.

“Midnight, everybody,” Lady Merriman’s voice called. “Come on through to the gold salon for the grand unveiling of masks, and then we’ll all go in to supper. Come on, come on. No lagging.”

She drove us out of the ballroom like a diminutive sheepdog, through to a lovely white-and-gilt room where we took our seats in a circle of chairs. I looked around the circle but didn’t see the wraithlike figure who had tried to kill us. I kept glancing across at the French doors, wondering whether my dancing partner had found the man and when he’d be back.

“You probably all know by now who we are so we’ll go first,” Lady Merriman said. “Come on, Podge, take your mask off.”

“About time.” Lord Merriman wrestled with his monster head. “I was just about suffocating under this thing. Somebody help me off with it.”

One of the footmen rushed forward to help him and soon a distinguished gray-haired head appeared, his face a little flushed. Lady Merriman had taken off her mask and fluffed out her hair. “There, that’s better, isn’t it? Who is going to go next? Order of precedence, Your Royal Highness? “

“Very well,” my cousin’s voice said and an extravagant birdlike Venetian mask was removed to reveal the Prince of Wales.

Before any more masks could be removed there was a deep boom outside the building. The French doors blew open, a great gust of wind rushed in and the whole house shook. People jumped to their feet, alarmed. A couple of women screamed.

“What is it? What’s going on?’ a woman shrieked.

“Stay put, everyone,” Lord Merriman said in a commanding voice. “Nobody go anywhere. We’ve got police around the building. I’m sure we’re quite safe in here if we stick together. I’m going to see what’s happening.”

“Do you think they’ve bombed Broxley, Podge?” Lady Merriman asked. “Bombed our lovely house?”