outside. “Hanver Street is just on the other side of Hanver Park.”
The little park was at the end of the road. A tiny place, just a stretch of greenery, a few swings and a little wood, it was an unexpected delight in this dingy neighborhood. It lay on a gentle slope, and as they descended the broad steps Randolph's attention was taken by two figures on the grass verge. They wore black jeans and sweaters. Their hair was completely covered by black woolly hats, and their faces were painted dead-white. Silent and mysterious, they were gravely miming a little scene. Their manner was gentle, and occasionally they smiled at the odd passerby who stopped to regard them. They might have been young men or young women. It was impossible to tell.
Randolph took out some coins, but the two performers threw up their hands in horror, seeming genuinely shocked.
“You don't want money?” Randolph asked.
As one, they laid their right hands over their hearts and bowed graciously, as if to say that it was their pleasure to give. Randolph was charmed. He would have watched them longer but Dottie had seen their cab at the far gate, and seized his hand.
Her eyes widened when he gave the driver their destination.
“I can't go to The Majestic,” she said, scandalized. “It's posher than the Ritz. I've never been anywhere like that before.”
“Then it's time you did.”
“Don't be daft, I can't go like this.”
“Get in,” he said, taking her arm and urging her into the cab.
It swept them away from the dreary surroundings and off to central London, where the store windows shone and the restaurants glittered. Dottie pressed her nose to the window, eyes shining in a way that made Randolph wonder how often she had any kind of treat.
He'd discovered so many new things that day that he regarded his horizons as fully enlarged, and was beginning to think there was no more for him to learn.
He was wrong.
The Majestic offered him an experience that he'd never known before and if he never knew it again until his last day on earth it would still be too soon.
As they pulled up before the luxurious restaurant the cab door was opened by a doorman in an extravagant livery. He bowed, his face wreathed in obsequious smiles that vanished when he saw Dottie.
“I am very sorry, sir,” he said, addressing Randolph as if Dottie wasn't there, “the restaurant has a dress code. Ladies must wear skirts.”
The habit of years made Randolph say impatiently, “Nonsense.”
“I'm afraid the rule cannot be broken, sir.”
Only a lifetime of thinking before he spoke stopped him announcing who he was. Prince Randolph went where he pleased and restaurant owners groveled for his patronage. Now he was being told that he wasn't good enough, or rather, his friend wasn't good enough. The sight of Dottie's face gave him a nasty shock. She was smiling, but not in her normal joyous way. This smile had a forced brightness that told him she was hurt.
He was suddenly full of anger but it was directed at himself. She'd tried to warn him and he'd ridden roughshod over her.
“Come on,” he said, taking her arm gently. “This place doesn't suit our requirements. We'll find somewhere better, that does.”
That made the doorman swell like a turkey.
Dottie walked along the street in silence. Randolph was about to say something comforting when she began to laugh. “His
“It was worth seeing,” he admitted. He was thinking of some women he knew who would have said, “I told you so,” and sulked until they thought he'd been punished enough.
Being offended was the last thing on Dottie's mind. She was in seventh heaven, enjoying the first fun outing she'd had in years. She recalled the last time she'd been in London's glamorous West End, as a child, when Grandad had brought her to see Santa Claus in one of the stores.
This felt much the same. The way her companion had whisked her away and brought her to this glittering street gave him much in common with Santa. Of course he was young for the part, and far too handsome, but she clung to the analogy because it left her free to admire him without feeling guilty about Mike.
They found somewhere a little farther along, different from The Majestic in every way except for its prices, which were even higher. This was an emporium of nouvelle cuisine, bright, modern, chic, sexy.
“All right for us to come in?” Randolph asked the man in jeans and shirt leaning against the door.
“You got the bread, man?” He indicated the exorbitant prices.
“He's got the bread,” Dottie said, seeing Randolph's baffled expression.
“Bread?” he asked as they made their way to the table.
“Money.” A horrid thought struck her. “You
“I think I can manage a loaf or two.”
The waiter led them to a table by the window, through which they could catch a glimpse of the River Thames. He pulled out a chair for Dottie, who seemed disconcerted.
“I can't sit down,” she protested to Randolph. “He's holding it too far away.”
“Just sit,” he advised. “Trust him, he'll move it into place as your legs bend.”
She tried, and seemed relieved when she landed safely.
“Obviously you don't know the story of the Empress Eugenie,” Randolph said, amused.
“Who was she?”
“She lived in the middle of the nineteenth century, and married the French emperor Napoleon III. But she was a
“A
“An upstart. She wasn't born royal. She had to learn. In her memoirs she told how she and her husband once shared a box at the opera with Queen Victoria, and when they sat down she looked behind her to see the chair. But Victoria didn't look back. She
“I know how she feels,” Dottie said. “Life's always waiting to kick the chair away. Now me, I'd just fall straight on my ass.”
Randolph winced.
“You sound like Brenda,” Dottie continued. “She's got a thing about royalty. Just now she keeps on talking about Elluria and how they've lost their king 'cos he's illegitimate, or some such thing.”
“How did she know that?” Randolph asked quickly.
“This magazine she reads,
And the magazine would certainly have contained a picture of himself, he realized. He could only be grateful for the plastic palm in the cafe that had prevented Brenda from seeing him well enough to blow his cover.
“Do you also read
“Not me. Well, it's all cobblers, isn't it?”
“Cobblers?” he asked, his eyes starting to glaze.
“Rubbish. Royalty! Who needs it these days?”
“What about the British royal family?”
“Oh look, I don't mean them any harm,” Dottie explained hurriedly. “I don't want to see them exterminated or anything-just pensioned off.”
The waiter was hovering expectantly. After study ing the menu with bafflement Dottie accepted Randolph's suggestion that he order for her.
“Do you have any preference about wine?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“A half of beer will do me,” she said.
“I'm not sure that they do beer. How about-?” He named a French wine, not telling her that it cost nearly one hundred pounds a bottle, and Dottie smiled and said she guessed that would do.
When the food arrived she made slow progress because she seemed unable to talk without gesticulating, and
