What a delightful man. We were so sorry when he died. Has your season been fun? No proposals yet, I hear. Or at least none that you’ve accepted. Never mind. There’s always tonight. Come along in out of the cold. Tea is being served in the long drawing room.”
I realized one wasn’t required to speak much when Lady Merriman was around. We were escorted into the house, where servants took our overcoats and luggage. Then Lady Merriman ushered us in through a doorway to our right. It was a large comfortable sitting room with groups of sofas and armchairs and in the middle a roaring fire blazed in a big marble fireplace. The room was amazingly warm for one who has grown up in a Scottish castle and I realized that they must have had central heating installed. No fireplace could heat that well. An elegant company was assembled, many of them standing around the fireplace. I recognized several faces from glossy magazines and at the center of the liveliest group was my cousin, the Prince of Wales.
Lady Merriman stepped into the throng. “Everyone, I want you to meet our latest arrivals, Lady Georgiana Rannoch and Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, old chums from America.”
My cousin David’s face lit up. “What ho, Georgie.” He held out his hand to me.
I took it and bobbed the required curtsy. “Hello, sir.” (One always has to call royals
“So you’re out in society, are you?” he said, still beaming at me. “Splendid. Glad to see you all grown up and looking so pretty.”
David had always been kind. I was sure I didn’t look pretty compared to all those Chanel outfits and cashmeres I could see in that crowd.
Mrs. Simpson gave an annoyed little cough. The Prince of Wales turned his attention to her. “How do you do. Welcome to England.”
Mrs. Simpson dropped a gorgeous curtsy. “I can’t tell you how I’ve been longing to meet you, Your Highness,” she said.
“Have you, by Jove.” And David’s fair skin turned bright pink.
Tea included every scrumptious sandwich, scone, cake and pastry in creation. I observed that the rest of the company seemed to be much older than I and frightfully smart. Worse still, they all seemed to know each other. So I was allowed to eat undisturbed, which was a good thing actually as eclairs are not always easy things to manage and I hate to have to talk with cream on my nose. I heard snatches of conversation around me about people and places that meant nothing to me, and then I heard something that made me pay attention. “So tell me, is the rumor correct? Is Prince Otto really going to grace us with his presence?”
“He’s promised to. He’s driving down and will join us later,” Lady Merriman said.
“My dear, you manage to snag such a glittering company of guests,” another woman said. “How do you do it?”
“Simple. Good food, good wine, beautiful women. Who can resist that combination?” And Lady Merriman laughed. I sat poised with a slice of walnut cake halfway to my lips.
“Oh, golly,” I muttered. So that was why I had been invited—they were determined to get me together with Prince Otto, one way or another.
“It’s all right,” I told myself. “I don’t have to like him. They can’t force me to marry him. It isn’t the Middle Ages.”
“So that’s why there are policemen hiding in the bushes around the house,” another of the women said. “I thought they were to protect the Prince of Wales.”
“I don’t need protecting,” David said. “Who’d want to bump me off? I’m not worth assassinating. Besides, everyone adores me.”
“Of course we do.” Lady Merriman smiled at him fondly.
“I thought they were to keep out your husband, Pauline,” someone said, getting a good laugh.
“We have been warned that we can’t be too careful,” Lady Merriman said. “There are anarchists and communist agitators everywhere these days and Prince Otto is a guest of His Majesty.”
When tea was over and more guests had arrived, Lady Merriman clapped her hands. “Those of you who didn’t bring a costume—now is your chance to take your pick from our selection upstairs. I’ll lead the way. And you need to keep up. It’s easy to get lost in this house. We once found a guest who’d been gone for a week.” She gave a melodic peal of laughter.
As we followed her out of the drawing room I noticed that Mrs. Simpson had moved closer to the Prince of Wales and whispered something into his ear. He blushed again and laughed. The queen wouldn’t be happy to hear about her, I thought. She would definitely not be considered a suitable companion. Thank heavens she was already married.
In a guest bedroom upstairs there were racks of costumes and by the time I arrived women were already fighting over them—in well-bred fashion, of course. I had no idea what I wanted to be. The first dresses I looked at seemed rather provocative with exceedingly low necklines. Certainly not for me. I didn’t fancy being a lady vampire either. I was looking for something innocuous when Lady Merriman grabbed my arm and drew me aside. “I’ve the perfect costume for you, Georgiana—here you are, honey.”
She lifted a long black dress from a hanger. It appeared to have some sort of wings.
“What am I, a harpy?” I asked.
She laughed. “No, honey. You’re a fallen angel. Such a cute little dress that I thought of you immediately.”
I took the outfit, not sure why she thought of me as a fallen angel. Or . . . an uneasy thought crossed my mind . . . was she planning that I was going to lose my virginity tonight? And if so with whom?
“And do go next door to pick out a mask,” she was saying. “We’ve a splendid array of Venetian masks that we brought back from Venice for this ball.” She clapped her hands. “Pay attention, everyone—it’s essential that nobody recognize you so choose wisely. We’ll have the guessing of identities and stripping of the masks at midnight.”
If this was the rule, I wondered why she had let everybody know who I was going to be.
“You’ll find rooms to change in all along this hallway,” she went on. “One thing we haven’t in this house is a shortage of bedrooms. There are a hundred and one to be precise, so take your pick. And anyone who didn’t bring a maid, just ask.”
As I was leaving in search of a room I heard Lady Merriman’s voice saying, “No, Rodney, you can’t be the devil. I’ve been asked to reserve that costume for a rather special person.”
“Who could possibly be more special than I, my love?’ the man called Rodney asked in a peeved voice.
“You’re not a prince, honey.” She patted his cheek.
I felt the color draining from my face. I saw clearly now. It really was a conspiracy. The devil’s costume was for Prince Otto. He and I had been assigned our costumes so that we were a pair and would recognize each other at the ball. We were supposed to meet and fall in love and all would be well. He might not be too bad, I thought. Some members of our family are quite good looking. But I kept hearing Fig’s voice in my head: “Wasn’t Otto the mad one? Didn’t they have to lock him away?”
I found an empty bedroom and almost immediately a maid arrived to help me dress. I had to admit that the costume was rather gorgeous and oh so sophisticated: a long black dress, beautifully draped (and a little revealing at the cleavage), with a low back and the sort of wings one sees on angels in Renaissance paintings—only black instead of white. It was topped with a strange, spiky halo that one wore at an angle and long black gloves. It fit as if it had been made for me. When I put on my golden mask I didn’t look at all like Georgiana Rannoch, naive country girl fresh from the schoolroom. I looked like a svelte woman, like one of those other women who were the Merrimans’ guests.
That didn’t stop me from feeling so horribly nervous that I wanted to be sick as I went downstairs. Music was spilling out of the ballroom and couples were already dancing to a lively two-step. At the ballroom doorway I stopped short, alarmed. Great spiderwebs were strung from one chandelier to the next. Skeletons and ghosts and hanged men dangled from the ceiling. A strange cauldron bubbled in one corner. Smoke curled across the floor. The whole room was bathed in red light so that the masks on the dancers glowed in an unearthly fashion. It was a strange sight to watch witches and vampires and other creatures dancing and chatting happily and I hesitated at the door, scared to go in.
When Frankenstein’s monster lumbered up to me and grabbed my hand I had to stifle a scream. But he said in a perfectly ordinary voice, “Don’t worry. I’m your host Lord Merriman and I was instructed by my wife to look out
