A Perfect Way to Heaven Read online

  Serge’s expression, meanwhile, darkened and he said no more.

  An icy rain was falling when they finally set out that morning. The driver sat hunched on his box, looking forward to the end of this journey. By noon the rain had ceased and the sun was out, setting the drenched fields asparkle.

  It was afternoon before the carriage turned in at the gates of the Courel demesne.

  Despite her determination to remain aloof, Elvira could not repress a cry of appreciation when the Palace came into view.

  Built of yellow stone with long elegant windows, white shutters and tendrils of vine wreathed round its doors, it had an enchanted air about it. It was not as grand as Baseheart, but neither was it as forbidding. It was more like a fairy tale castle.

  Serge glanced sideways at her seeming pleased by her response. For the first time that day the atmosphere between them lightened.

  He handed her down and she stood staring up at the delicate spires of the towers that graced each wing of the Palace.

  “W-where are our quarters?” she asked tremulously, hoping that she was to live in the Palace itself and not in some outbuilding.

  “You will soon discover.”

  The footman who answered the door was dressed in yellow livery and to Elvira’s surprise he greeted Serge with the deference of a servant. He and Serge exchanged a few words in French before the footman turned to Elvira. She in turn gave a polite curtsy, which seemed to astonish the footman and amuse Serge.

  A pretty middle-aged lady in a lace cap came hurrying up to them. Greeting Serge warmly but again deferentially, her eyes took in Elvira’s coarse brown dress before coming to rest on her face. Then she threw up her hands in seeming wonder.

  “Trés belle, trés belle”, she cried.

  Serge introduced her to Elvira as the housekeeper, Madame Gossec.

  “She will show you to your room and I expect you to join me for supper in two hour’s time.”

  “Is there a choice in the matter?” asked Elvira coolly.

  “None,” responded Serge.

  Elvira gave a nod and, turning, followed on Madame Gossec’s heels.

  Expecting to be led through to the servant’s quarters, Elvira became increasingly puzzled as Madame Gossec led her up sweeping marble staircases and along highly decorated passageways. At last she opened a pair of double doors and stepped aside.

  Elvira stood dumbfounded on the threshold.

  It was a sumptuous room with blue silk drapes, blue brocade on the canopied bed and a gold frieze running below the ceiling and painted panels depicting cupids and roses on the walls.

  A silver-backed hairbrush and comb and a variety of crystal perfume bottles were laid out on a gilt-edged dressing table.

  Surely this was not meant for the wife of a mere valet?

  Madame Gossec crossed to a large rosewood armoire and flung open the doors. There hung an array of gowns in silk, satin and muslin.

  Beaming, the housekeeper indicated that these were all for Elvira.

  Elvira moved wonderingly to the wardrobe and touched one of the gowns.

  “F-for me?”

  Madame Gossec nodded.

  “Lettre, lettre.”

  Elvira remembered the letter Serge had written the day before, but it would only have reached the Palace that morning. Hardly time to create a whole wardrobe for her.

  Besides – how could a mere valet have such authority? And how would a mere valet pay for it all? He had dispensed with all the gold en route.

  Suddenly she understood.

  This room and these clothes were for Delphine! Serge obviously intended that he and Elvira play at being Master and Mistress of Courel until such time as the real Prince and Princess returned.

  She recalled the strange hold the valet had always seemed to exert over his Master. Perhaps the Prince expected Serge to temporarily adopt his role. He would not know, of course, that his valet now had a wife, who he would wish to participate in the grand game.

  “Ici, ici!”

  Madame Gossec was beckoning Elvira to sit down at the dressing table. In a daze, Elvira obeyed. Madame Gossec then began to unpin Elvira’s hair.

  “Trés belle,” she intoned again, softly this time.

  The doors opened and three maids entered with jugs of hot water. They disappeared behind an ornate screen and Elvira heard the water being tipped into what she assumed was a bath tub.

  Madame Gossec seemed to wish to take it upon herself to brush Elvira’s hair. She then helped Elvira undress.

  The three maids came in and out with their huge jugs and when the bath was deemed to be full, Madame Gossec took Elvira’s hand and led her behind the screen.

  Soaking in the scented bathwater, rose petals floating on its surface, Elvira thought she must be dreaming.

  It was inconceivable that Madame Gossec and the maids would behave in this way unless Serge was of higher standing in the household than Elvira had supposed. Perhaps a valet in France was a more distinguished position than it was in England.

  By the time Elvira stepped out of the bath into a velvet peignoir the maids were laying out stockings, garters and jewellery.

  At a clap of Madame Gossec’s hands the maids came fluttering towards Elvira. Removing her peignoir, they proceeded to dress her.

  Garments seemed to float down around her. She was turned this way and that until the maids and Madame Gossec were satisfied. Then she was manoeuvred to a stool where blue velvet shoes were slipped onto her feet.

  At the dressing table, a maid arranged her hair, twisting it up into a coil on top of her head.

  Elvira submitted mutely. She had never been waited upon in this manner and did not appreciate that the maids and Madame Gossec took genuine pleasure in dressing up this beautiful young lady who had arrived in strangely ugly clothes.

  She could not believe her eyes when at last she stood arrayed before the mirror. In a bright powder-blue gown, sapphire necklace around her neck, hair caught up in silver clasps, she looked every inch a – a Princess.

  What would Delphine think if she saw her now!

  A gong sounded far below to announce supper.

  Elvira gave a start. Had two hours passed already? Glancing at the window, she saw that the sun had almost set. She had indeed been in a dream.

  Holding the hem of her dress, Elvira descended.

  Footmen stared as she approached the hall. She could not mistake the expression of admiration on their faces.

  For once in her life, she was the centre of attention. She could not pretend that she did not like it. She did and guiltily wished it might last forever.

  The same footman who had greeted her arrival with Serge bowed and opened the dining room door.

  “La Princesse,” he declared as she passed through.

  Elvira could not believe her ears. Even the footman had agreed to be a part of this charade!

  Inside the dining room a long table was laid with silver cutlery and Venetian glass. Winter roses glowed in tall vases and myriad candles flickered in the sconces of four candelabra.

  Beneath a marble mantel-piece flames twisted and leaped through large cedar logs. The dancing light was reflected in the blades of two silver swords hanging on the wall near the head of the table.

  A gentleman standing by the fireplace turned. Elvira looked his way and blinked.

  Surely this was not Serge?

  He was arrayed even more luxuriously than herself. Plum-coloured velvet breeches and jacket. Epaulettes and white gloves. Gleaming calf leather boots. Diamond rings flashed on his fingers. A decoration of some sort sparkled on his breast.

  “Elvira,” this creation breathed, and she knew his voice.

  His transfixed gaze seemed liquid and Elvira fought a sense of drowning in its depth.

  “You look every inch a Princess,” murmured Serge.

  Elvira flinched.

  “But I’m not, am I? This is just a game, isn’t it? To be played only until the Prince comes home.”

>   Serge regarded her, a strange smile hovering on his lips.

  “Madam,” he said softly, so softly she barely heard him. “You are mistaken. The Prince is home.”

  “He is home?”

  Her eyes flew searchingly round the room and came back to rest wonderingly on the figure of Serge.

  The strange smile was still on his lips and at last she understood.

  The man before her, the man she had married, the man she had known only as Serge, was in fact none other than Prince Charles de Courel!

  *

  She sank onto a sofa, hands to her face.

  “I see that you understand, madam.”

  Elvira’s voice trembled as she spoke,

  “If you are the Prince,” she asked, “then who is – who is the other?”

  She meant of course the man who had posed as the Prince – the man who had fooled her and everyone else.

  Including Delphine.

  At the thought of her cousin, all blood drained from her cheeks. Raising her head from her hands, she stared in anguish at Serge.

  “For the love of Heaven,” she whispered, “who has Delphine eloped with?”

  The Prince – the real Prince – gave a deep sigh.

  Elvira watched him with a mixture of loathing and awe. He looked so very distinguished, so authoritative, standing there before her. But he had tricked her and tricked her, though for what reason she could not fathom.

  He was in love with Delphine! She had no dowry, she had nothing in the world to offer a Prince. And it was not as if he ardently desired her, as recent events had all too painfully proved.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  He moved to a red wing chair opposite the sofa and sat down.

  “I had better begin at the beginning,” he said dully.

  “Begin wherever you like,” put in Elvira tartly. “As long as it is the truth you tell me.”

  “Oh, you shall have the truth, madam,” he promised, his voice tinged with bitterness.

  He told Elvira that he was at first amused when she mistook him for a servant at the White Doe Inn. He had been one of those fighting the fire at the inn and realised with his torn shirt and blackened face that he did not present the picture of a nobleman.

  He was on his way to Baseheart Castle to meet the girl his uncle wished him to marry – Delphine.

  He planned to arrive unannounced as he wished to determine for himself whether he might fall in love with his uncle’s choice of wife.

  “And if you decided you could not –” ?” probed Elvira weakly.

  “I should have refused my uncle’s wishes even though my very inheritance depended on it,” he replied firmly.

  He had stopped at the inn for refreshment when the fire broke out. Most of his belongings had been burned so, when he continued his journey later, he was still in his torn clothes.

  He had intended to stay in Gloucester that night, but had taken the wrong road in the blizzard and so happened to come upon Elvira, struggling away from her stranded coach.

  He had rescued her and taken her to the old woman’s cottage. His valet, who had accompanied him throughout, was sent to fetch the doctor.

  “And your valet’s name?” queried Elvira, although she half guessed the answer.

  “Serge Lacombe,” replied the Prince as he drained his glass.

  He had not meant to deceive Elvira, but it was refreshing to be treated as an ordinary citizen rather than the nephew of a Prince.

  “The effect of such status on a woman,” he told her dryly, “is not to be underestimated.”

  Elvira blushed and lowered her head as the memory of her night at the cottage came flooding back.

  It was true that if she had known who he was, she would not have behaved in so natural a manner.

  He continued his story.

  His discovery that Elvira was bound for the same destination as himself and her confession of reservations about the cousin she had not met for some years, caused him to further delay revealing his true identity.

  If she knew that he was Charles Rowland, the proposed fiancé of her cousin, he would learn nothing more about Delphine from her lips.

  “Besides –” he added and then fell silent.

  Elvira looked up and met his eyes. His gaze was so full of a sudden strange fire that she was bewildered.

  “Besides?” she prompted.

  “I was bewitched,” finished the Prince and reached again for the decanter.

  “B-bewitched by what?” ventured Elvira, her heart beginning to beat a little faster.

  The Prince filled his glass. Without looking at her, he gave a shrug.

  “By the blizzard – the never-ending howl of the wind – the firelight – the candlelight and the drink in my flagon –”

  “Oh,” sighed Elvira, a dull disappointment stilling her heart. She leaned her head against the sofa and closed her eyes.

  News of his uncle’s death had reached him the very morning Elvira had left the cottage. He had wheeled his horse straight round and returned to France to settle his uncle’s affairs.

  It was no longer an imperative to pursue his uncle’s choice of bride, but he felt obliged in all honour to do so.

  At the same time, Elvira had unwittingly alerted him to aspects of Delphine’s character that alarmed him.

  He decided that he would visit Baseheart as planned, but not as himself.

  He would change places with his valet, Serge, so that he might observe Delphine at a distance. He would thus discover how she treated someone she considered an inferior – himself.

  “But how could you be sure your valet would pass as a Prince?” exclaimed Elvira.

  “I had time on the journey to instruct him,” he smiled. “Luckily, he spoke only French, so if he made a social faux pas, it might not be noticed. And then – he had the costumes. The meanest actor can assume the mantle of a King. Most people do not see beyond the outer show.”

  Elvira bit her lip. She felt he was chiding her and it was certainly true that she had been dazzled by the image the valet had presented.

  As had Delphine.

  She moaned in commiseration as the real import of her cousin’s flight assailed her.

  The proud vain Baseheart heiress had unknowingly fallen in love with a servant!

  She shook her head helplessly, barely hearing the Prince’s next few words.

  “It was my intention, meanwhile, to woo Miss Baseheart by default,” he was saying.

  “I beg your pardon – ?”

  “I intended,” he repeated patiently, “to woo Miss Baseheart by default.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “That I planned to shower her with attention, do her every bidding in such a way that would surely have won her, had she not proved so overawed by the mere trappings of Princehood that my valet affected. I did not for one moment believe she would be so blinded that she would fail to detect the nature of the man beneath.”

  Elvira remembered the man she had thought of as Serge – the man who was before her now as the Prince and her husband – kneeling in the snow to find stones at Delphine’s bidding.

  “You did not come to know my cousin well enough,” she remarked sadly.

  The Prince set his glass down and leaned forward.

  “On the contrary, I did come to know her. As time passed and I observed her frivolous, cruel, vain nature at close hand, my dislike for her intensified.”

  Elvira’s head snapped up.

  “Your – dislike?”

  The Prince stared gloomily into the fire.

  “At first sight of her, my heart quailed. I saw what she was, in her face, her stance. I had determined to carry out my uncle’s wishes, though he was dead and buried. But I could not imagine taking her in my arms, let alone taking her to my heart.”

  Elvira could not believe her ears. She had been so convinced that Serge – the real Prince – was head over heels in love with her cousin.

  “What I had not bargained fo
r was that my foolish valet should fall in love with Miss Baseheart and that he should precipitate the announcement of their betrothal at the ball.”

  The ball! Elvira relived that night in her mind.

  The music wafting out from the ballroom. The moon casting a ghostly light. Serge’s finger – the Prince’s finger – detecting her unhooked dress. The way her heart had begun to pound –

  Then she remembered his fist clenched at his side as Lord Baseheart informed the assembled guests of his daughter’s engagement.

  “You were angry – that your valet – actually proposed to my cousin?”

  The Prince grasped the stem of his glass so tightly that it snapped. With a growl he tossed it into the hearth, where it shattered into a hundred pieces.

  Elvira now cowered before this evidence of his simmering rage.

  “I was ready to kill him!” he fumed. “I forced him to meet me later that night in the garden, where I demanded that he reveal his true identity to Delphine. If she truly loved him for himself alone, then it would surely make no difference. She could still marry him, despite her father’s opposition – which opposition I could well anticipate!”

  Elvira shivered, reminded of the scene she had witnessed, unbeknown to the two protagonists.

  “And – did he agree?” she asked. It would be some comfort to learn that Delphine had not eloped in total ignorance of her fiancé’s rank.

  “He prevaricated,” he replied through gritted teeth. “He loved Miss Baseheart, but he was not blind to her character. He was afraid he would lose her if he admitted the truth.

  “By the next night I realised he had not confessed, so at supper I prompted him to request a meeting with Lord Baseheart. I would have attended with him and we would have revealed the whole matter to our host.”

  The Prince frowned before continuing.

  “Had Lord Baseheart not been otherwise engaged, the story might have ended differently. As it was, the delay gave Serge time to think of a way out of the impasse.”

  Elvira groaned. The way out had been to gamble all on elopement and once Delphine discovered who Serge was, it would be too late! She was bound to him forever, if only to avoid ruining her reputation.

  Elvira had no doubt that Serge would insist on his conjugal rights!