Chapter 7 #3
Inez circled it, trailing her fingers along the curve of the bow, down the back of one metal leg. She marveled at the perfection of the piece and then wondered why she marveled, since the entire estate seemed devoted to perfection.
Diana’s gaze was turned outward, her lips smiling. Sunlight glanced along her figure in lean lines, the bronze dark, the gleam fiery. The coal tit darted close and landed atop a new trellis nearby, keeping Inez in sight.
“Is this your home, then?” she asked it. “I think it must be. I’ll go now. You needn’t worry about me.”
She traced her way back to the opening in the hedge.
After wandering aimlessly along a few more paths, she found herself at the green edge of a lawn that led back to the House, to an open pair of French doors she hadn’t seen before.
She paused, glanced around, but there was no one else nearby, not even the little bird, and it appeared she was no longer anywhere near the main entrance. So she crossed the grass to the doors.
The sudden plunge from daylight into shelter had her pausing again, blinking.
This must be—well, she didn’t know what.
A ballroom? Something splendid, something painted in ivory and marbled in pink and gray, but with so much gilt, so much golden scroll-work and carved garlands climbing up the walls and along the ceiling and dripping down to the floor itself …
she’d never seen so much gold in one room before.
And it was hushed, and empty. The flesh along her arms began to crawl; Inez had the unmistakable feeling that she should not be intruding here.
She moved quickly to the nearest door, finding herself in a wide hallway—still unfamiliar—which she followed at a slower pace, telling herself she was doing nothing wrong, no one had warned her against exploring the House, no one had restricted her to her room. She was allowed. She was fine.
She passed five footmen and a maid, none of whom would meet her eyes. After a few minutes, she began to realize that she was well and truly lost, and was going to have to accost the next servant she saw for directions, no matter how much she didn’t want to—
But then she found the saloon. Thank heavens, that huge hollow space where a few of her fellow guests sat chatting in the saffron satin chairs, turning toward her curiously as she entered, turning away again.
Inez composed herself. She tucked a loosened curl of hair behind her ear.
There was a minstrels’ gallery in here, high above her.
She’d noted it yesterday when she’d first arrived and wondered if that was where she’d be expected to perform.
If so, she needed to see it. Acoustics, temperature, the light.
The more prepared she was for all the variables, the better.
She ran a nervous hand once more along her coiffure, which seemed to be mostly holding up. She headed toward the steep stairs that led up, up to the gallery. Skirts lifted, her short train brushed the limestone steps behind her with a rhythmic swish, swish.
It wasn’t much of a space, just a long rectangular balcony hemmed with carved wooden panels barely as high as her hips.
There was a lone candelabra in a corner, no candles in the sockets.
The ceiling here was coved and loomed very close, so any sound would bounce downward.
It might work, if she figured out the best place to stand …
She was leaning over the railing, examining the space below, when someone walked directly beneath her and tipped up his face.
“Hullo,” George Vernon said, his hands poked into his pockets. He smiled. “Look how high up you are.”
“Oh! Mr. Vernon! Er, hello.”
“What are you up to?”
“Only looking. Only …” But she ran out of words to explain herself.
What on earth was he doing here? She hadn’t seen him since they’d met at Mrs. Cornwallis-West’s soirée months ago, and Rita had said he wasn’t fancy enough but was probably a spy, and Inez didn’t even care, because of the way he smiled at her then, just like now, right now—
“Shall I join you?” he asked. He disappeared into the stairwell before she could answer yes or no.
Inez raised a hand to her hair again, quickly lowered it. Then he was there, practically bouncing free of the old-fashioned open doorway.
“Miss Jolivet. Delightful to see you again.”
“And you.” She studied him more closely; he was wearing a gray pin-striped lounge suit with a navy tie, nothing appropriate for roaming out of doors. “Have you just arrived?”
“My party encountered some scheduling conflicts, I’m afraid, now thankfully resolved. We’ve been here an hour or so.” He looked around them. “Are you planning a concert?”
“No, not a concert. I only—I’m to play a bit, you see. And I thought it might be up here, so I wanted to take a look at it. Get to know it.”
“Very wise.” He faced her fully, ducking his head a little against the low ceiling. “I admire an artist who learns her ground. But I fear you won’t be serenading us from up here.”
“What?” she said, instead of Us?, which is what her tongue wanted to say.
“I heard a rumor that their majesties hoped to hear your violin in the splendiferous grace of the White Drawing Room.”
Inez felt a tingling begin along her spine that might have been fear, or anticipation, or both.
“Please, sir,” she said. “What room is that?”
“You know, I’m not certain. But between you and me, based on the looks of this place, I’d wager it’s far more cuivre doré than white.
” He stepped closer. His eyes were that same slaty green as before, the same dark lashes, the same slight smile.
The tingling turned into disquiet as he leaned his head to hers and lowered his voice.
“And I’m no sir, not by a long shot. You must call me George. ”
THE WHITE DRAWING Room turned out to be the ivory-and-gold chamber she’d stumbled across before, even more magnificent when lit by the sconces on the walls and the huge crystal chandelier that held no fewer than sixty tapers.
The chandelier was tiered, thick with droplets and pendants and hanging so low that if she passed beneath it and raised her hand, Inez might easily have sent the bottom ring of crystal daggers chiming through her fingers.
Dinner was concluded; Mr. Vernon had not been seated beside her.
In fact, he hadn’t been there at all, which was odd, and (she had to admit to herself) disappointing.
He’d mentioned he’d arrived with some group, but she hadn’t noted anyone new at the table from the night before.
There was the king still at the head of the table, the queen at the foot, and their merry band of fellow bird hunters all around, nearly everyone talking animatedly about the day’s success.
Her two table companions had settled in much as they had for their last dinner, ignoring Inez to concentrate on the consommé tortue, the filet de perdrix et foie gras, the geléees noyeau aux pêches.
Which was fine with her. She’d barely tasted any of it, so filled as she was with dread for what was to come.
She wore the gown of rose satin from the House of Worth, as her mother had commanded.
Thank goodness she had; it was the only dress she owned that was as sophisticated as her surroundings.
The rigid folds of it dragged at her, heavier than she liked, but if it slowed her steps and made her seem more deliberate in this space, made her more right, so much the better.
Monsieur Worth had embroidered the skirts with star bursts of silver diamantés and beading, and edged the bodice with a puff of sheer, metallic chiffon. The tiny paste jewels caught the light and scattered it in sprays whenever she moved.
As soon as the queen rose to end the meal, Inez had retreated upstairs to fetch her instrument.
By the time she returned downstairs (now guided by a footman in livery and a powdered wig; how embarrassing it would be to become lost in the warren of hallways and be late), nearly everyone had meandered into the White Drawing Room, standing and conversing in clusters with drinks in hand.
A few were beginning to take their seats in the rows of chairs arranged before the marble hearth at the end of the room.
George Vernon was nowhere in sight, despite his lofty use of us this afternoon.
The very first row of her audience consisted of just four scarlet satin chairs even larger, even grander, than the ones arrayed behind them. No doubt their majesties would occupy two of those, but who could the other two be for?
The king stood by the fire with one leg bent, in deep discussion with a trio of black-coated men. He caught sight of Inez lingering at the entrance, flicked away his companions with an easy left hand and beckoned her to him with his right. The men bowed and walked off as she approached.
She managed a credible curtsy without touching her skirts, since she was holding the violin and bow.
Edward smiled down at her, gray-haired, portly. He looked exactly like the official portrait of him hung in the parlor in Bloomsbury, one that had come with the lease. “How pleased we are to have you here, my dear.”
“It is my pleasure, sir.”
He was so familiar to her. Beyond portraits, beyond his face in the papers, she’d known him for years.
From a distance at least, sometimes less so.
One of his stays at Winter Queen had fallen on her ninth birthday, and he’d brought her a tissue-wrapped gift himself, cascading with ribbons.
It had been a china doll, with a painted porcelain face and a plush body, and she had loved it at once.
She’d hugged him then, hardly aware of how improper it was, but the king of England—at the time Prince Albert—had only laughed and smoothed a hand down her hair, and said he was glad she liked the dolly.
In her mind, he flipped from king to kindly uncle, back and forth, like that paper card trick of a bird in a cage, or a bird free, depending on how fast you twirled the strings on either end.
Right now, he definitely seemed more king than not.
“We’re awaiting a few more guests. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
“Shouldn’t be long, I wouldn’t think. They’ve been traveling for days, but I told them you were too special to miss.”
“Oh,” she said and swallowed the lump of trepidation in her throat. “I’m honored.”
He paused, his gaze drawn to something beyond her shoulder, and sighed.
“You must excuse me. I see the prime minister headed this way. He’s been determined to corner me all day.
I might as well indulge him now, as he’ll have to stop talking once you begin.
If not, I do hope you’ll play loudly enough to drown him out. Consider it a royal request.”
“Sir,” she said and managed her awkward curtsy again.
She retreated to the far end of the hearth as Edward’s guests settled and sparkled, observing her as she stood there and stared nervously down at her skirts.
She wished she had something to hold in her hands besides her violin and bow. She wished she had a glass of water, or that she could stand somewhere else, be somewhere else, anywhere else—
“I’m informed you go by Leigh now, for when you perform.”
She looked up. Mr. Vernon stood before her in proper evening attire, black jacket, white tie, a cream waistcoat and mother-of-pearl studs.
“No,” she replied, relieved to see him, sharply relieved, as if she’d just found her one friend amid a crowd of strangers. “I mean, yes. It was just something my sister and I were discussing. How did you know?”
His dimple flashed with his smile. “I hear things. Also, if I’m honest, your sister mentioned it an interview in the Times a few weeks past. Didn’t you read it?”
“Rita gives interviews all the time now. I can’t keep up.”
“Sometimes we adopt new names for the very best of reasons, don’t we? I like Leigh. But I think I like your real name better.”
Her lips parted; she couldn’t decide if she should remind him he didn’t have permission to use either name or not, but he was looking at her so warmly. She felt that strange, tremulous connection between them rise up once more, a fantasy surely, a wishful hope, but it felt so true.
She pressed the lower bout of her violin hard against her side, denting her skirts. “Mr. Vernon. You say the most extraordinary things.”
“George,” he reminded her. His eyes held hers, smoke and green. “Do I? Perhaps you bring out the extraordinary in me, Inez.”
She fought her smile. “And you’re very forward.”
“Forward is the best direction to keep moving.”
A stir took the room behind them, not quite gasps, not quite sibilation, but a sense of both, a hush that was not a hush that rose and expanded and settled again, lost against the priceless rugs and tapestries and the ceiling.
George turned his head and straightened, his smile widening. “At last, they’re here. Shall I introduce you?”
Inez looked toward the entrance of the room. The tsar and tsarina of Russia were approaching in slow, stately steps, trailed by an entourage of stiffly decorated lords and ladies. King Edward and Queen Alexandra rose from their chairs.
“You know them?” Inez murmured, shocked.
“I do. I’m part of the official delegation, in fact, at least for now.” He glanced back at her, grinned at her expression. “Lovely little Inez. You’re going to find that I’m full of surprises.”
Secret government work, Rita had said that cool spring night, not long ago.
George Vernon, dark-haired, green-eyed, so handsome, so in control, took her by the elbow as if he had every right, drawing her away from the hearth and out into the full brilliance of the drawing room.
SHE PLAYED FOR them, all of them. She played her best, piece after piece, Mozart and Vivaldi and something of her own, a dreamy, stormy partita she called “Map of the Sea.”
Inez received a standing ovation and accepted it with a bow at the waist, not a curtsy, her hair falling down in curls around her face, damp with perspiration.
Months later, in a far less public moment, George would inform her that her music had moved the tsarina to tears, which the lady had carefully concealed behind her lace handkerchief.