he’d do anything for.’
Daisy wondered briefly where her mother had got this wisdom, having spent her life in a cold marriage. Perhaps she had done a lot of thinking about how her husband, Lev, had been stolen from her by his mistress, Marga. Anyway, there was nothing Daisy could offer Boy that he couldn’t get from another girl, was there?
The women were finishing their coffee and heading to their bedrooms for the afternoon nap. The men were still in the dining room, smoking their cigars, but they would follow in a quarter of an hour. Daisy stood up.
Olga said: ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll think of something.’
She left the room. She was going to go to Boy’s room, she had decided, but she did not want to say so in case her mother objected. She would be waiting for him when he came for his nap. The servants also took a break at that time of day, so it was unlikely that anyone would come into the room.
She would have Boy on his own, then. But what would she say or do? She did not know. She would have to improvise.
She went to the Gardenia Suite, brushed her teeth, dabbed Jean Nate cologne on her neck, and walked quietly along the corridor to Boy’s room.
No one saw her go in.
He had a spacious bedroom with a view of misty mountaintops. It felt as if it might have been his for many years. There were masculine leather chairs, pictures of airplanes and racehorses on the wall, a cedar wood humidor full of fragrant cigars, and a side table with decanters of whisky and brandy and a tray of crystal glasses.
She pulled open a drawer and saw Ty Gwyn writing paper, a bottle of ink, and pens and pencils. The paper was blue with the Fitzherbert crest. Would that one day be her crest?
She wondered what Boy would say when he found her here. Would he be pleased, take her in his arms, and kiss her? Or would he be angry that his privacy had been invaded, and accuse her of snooping? She had to take the risk.
She went into the adjoining dressing room. There was a small washbasin with a mirror over it. His shaving tackle was on the marble surround. Daisy thought she would like to learn to shave her husband. How intimate that would be.
She opened the wardrobe doors and looked at his clothes: formal morning dress, tweed suits, riding clothes, a leather pilot’s jacket with a fur lining, and two evening suits.
That gave her an idea.
She recalled how aroused Boy had been, at Bing Westhampton’s house back in June, by the sight of her and the other girls dressed as men. That evening had been the first time he had kissed her. She was not sure why he had been so excited – such things were generally inexplicable. Lizzie Westhampton said some men liked women to spank their bottoms: how could you account for that?
Perhaps she should dress in his clothes now.
She stared at the row of suits on hangers, the stack of folded white shirts, the polished leather shoes each with its wooden tree inside. Would it work? Did she have time?
Did she have anything to lose?
She could pick the clothes she needed, take them to the Gardenia Suite, change there, and then hurry back, hoping that no one saw her on the way . . .
No. There was no time for that. His cigar was not long enough. She had to change here, and fast – or not at all.
She made up her mind.
She pulled her dress off.
She was in danger now. Until this moment, she might have explained her presence here, just about plausibly, by pretending that she had lost her bearings in Ty Gwyn’s miles of corridors and gone into the wrong room by mistake. But no girl’s reputation could survive being found in a man’s room in her underwear.
She took the top shirt off the pile. The collar had to be attached with a stud, she saw with a groan. She found a dozen starched collars in a drawer with a box of studs, and fixed one to the shirt, then pulled the shirt over her head.
She heard a man’s heavy footsteps in the corridor outside, and froze, her heart beating like a big drum; but the steps went by.
She decided to wear formal morning dress. The striped trousers had no suspenders attached, but she found some in another drawer. She figured out how to button the suspenders to the trousers, then pulled the trousers on. The waist was big enough for two of her.
She pushed her stockinged feet into a pair of shiny black shoes and laced them.
She buttoned the shirt and put on a silver tie. The knot was wrong, but it did not matter, and, anyway, she did not know the correct way to tie it, so she left it as it was.
She put on a fawn double-breasted waistcoat and a black tailcoat, then she looked in the full-length mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door.
The clothes were baggy but she looked cute anyway.
