– Lady Jeune,
Daisy was overwhelmed by the grandeur of Claridge’s. Lord and Lady Hadshire’s homes in London and the country, magnificent as they were, did not have the same modem luxuries as the hotel, which boasted electric light, lifts and en suite bathrooms. At the Hadshires’, when she wanted a bath, footmen had to carry a coffin-shaped bath up the stairs and then fill it with water brought up from the kitchens.
“It’s a world away from the convent,” she said. Daisy, brought up in poverty in the East End of London, could never get over marvelling at the vast gulf between rich and poor.
Rose was at that moment allowing the duchess’s lady’s maid, Benton, to strap her into the long corset which was considered necessary to produce the fashionable S-figure. She was still upset with Harry. She felt sure he had enjoyed a liaison with Dolores Duval. “What would my lady like to wear tonight?” asked Benton.
“You choose something,” said Rose.
Benton went to the tall wardrobe and selected a blue chiffon gown embroidered with tiny rosebuds. It was low-cut and the layered chiffon sleeves covered the tops of her arms. All Rose’s jewels had been brought over from the town house. “I think the rope of pearls, my lady,” said Benson, “Now, the hair.”
Rose’s long brown hair was piled up on top of her head, pouffed out, and ornamented with little silk rosebuds.
“You look like another girl,” said Daisy, who was already dressed and was watching the toilette. “Sister Agnes wouldn’t recognize you now.”
Rose normally detested wearing a long corset, but for once she did not mind. She felt she needed to be armoured in fashion before she saw Harry again.
“This is a very beautiful gown,” said Benton. “Is it one of Mr Worth’s?”
“No, my seamstress, Miss Friendly, designed it and made it for me.”
“Then this lady is more than a seamstress!”
Daisy scowled. She was still furious at Becket for having turned down her idea of setting up a salon with Miss Friendly.
At last Rose was ready. She and Daisy descended to the dining room to join the others. Daisy thought it was a shame that Becket could not join them, but in the duchess’s eyes he was nothing more than a gentleman’s gentleman.
The duchess, already seated at a dining table, flashed and glittered under the weight of diamonds. She had a large diamond tiara on her head, a collar of diamonds around her neck, and diamond brooches pinned haphazardly on her dark blue velvet gown.
“My dear Rose,” she said, “how beautiful you look. Don’t you think so, Captain?”
“Very fine,” said Harry.
“We will have you married off to some dashing French comte, you’ll see. Can’t you just see our dear Rose on the arm of some handsome Frenchman, Captain?” The duchess’s eyes twinkled like her diamonds.
“Alas,” said Harry, “I have no imagination.”
Had it been left to Harry and Rose, it would have been a silent dinner, but various aristocrats kept interrupting their meal to chat to the duchess.
At last, when the duchess was engaged in another animated conversation with an old friend, Harry whispered to Rose, “Truce.”
“What truce?”
“Between us. We cannot go to Paris glaring and staring silently at each other. If it makes you feel any better, I did not have an affair with Miss Duval.”
“That means nothing to me!”
“Oh, Rose, please.”
Rose sat with her head bowed for a moment. Then she raised her blue eyes and looked into his black ones. “Very well,” she said with a little smile. “Truce.”
“Thank God for that,” chirped Daisy. “All this heavy silence. It was like being back in the convent.”
The duchess finished speaking to her friend and turned her attention on Daisy. “Do I detect a certain Cockney accent there, Miss Levine?”
Daisy looked wildly at Rose. “Miss Levine,” said Rose repressively, “is a distant relative of mine from a branch of the family which fell on hard times. She has not had my advantages.”
“Really?” said the duchess, unabashed. “I had such a business ages ago when Warnford fell for a chorus girl at Daley’s. He even had her invited to a house party where she pretended to be a lady. I saw through her little act and sent her packing.”
“I do not see what your husband’s amours have to do with my companion,” said Rose angrily. “Pray talk of something else.”
The duchess raised her lorgnette. “You know, animation suits you. You should cultivate it.”
The duchess turned her attention to her dinner. She was a messy eater and the front of her gown was soon decorated with the detritus of her meal. Rose, who had been taught to eat ortolans by dissecting them with a sharp knife, wondered what her mother would make of the duchess’s table manners as the little duchess picked up the small bird and crammed it in her mouth and then began to pick out the bones.
The pudding was a meringue confection and soon the duchess’s gown was liberally sparkling with meringue dust.
“Where shall we stay in Paris?” asked Rose.
“I have reserved a floor at the Crillon. We could have stayed with an old friend of mine, but I decided it would be as well to keep our mission discreet. Society does gossip so. We should retire now because we need to make an early start.”
“How early?”
“We catch the nine-o’clock to Dover. Ladies, wear your motoring gear when we set out.”
¦
A
He went up to the doorman. “Who’s leaving?”
The doorman stared impassively ahead. The reporter pressed a guinea into his hand.
“The Duchess of Warnford,” said the doorman. “Her Grace is going to Paris.”
“Who goes with her?”
Again that impassive stare. The reporter sighed and fished out another guinea.
“Captain Cathcart, Lady Rose Summer and Miss Levine.”
The reporter grinned. Lady Summer was news. Nobody had heard of her since that murder. He retreated a little way down the street, waited for the party to emerge and began to make notes.
¦
It was an uncomfortable journey to the station. A gale tore at the ladies’ hats and plastered their thick veils against their faces.
At the station, the footmen ran off and returned with porters. They followed their luggage to where it was being loaded onto a private carriage on the train. Daisy was enchanted by the duchess’s private carriage, which was like a drawing room on wheels, complete with comfortable armchairs, the latest magazines and vases of fresh flowers.
The servants were told to make their way to a third-class carriage farther down the train, but as Benton, the lady’s maid, was to stay with them in the duchess’s carriage, Harry requested the company of Becket as well.
Becket tentatively sat down next to Daisy. He felt he could not bear her coldness a moment longer.
“Daisy,” he whispered.
“Ye-es?” drawled Daisy in a good imitation of a haughty Mayfair hostess.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Becket. “I was too hasty in turning down your idea of setting up a dress
