A Perfect Way to Heaven Read online

  “He told me,” continued Lady Cruddock, “that the stranger who you passed a night with in a peasant’s cottage has turned out to be none other than the Prince’s valet. No doubt you were rather taken aback yourself when you saw him?”

  Elvira let out her breath.

  “Yes, Lady Cruddock. I was.”

  “You had no prior knowledge of his position?”

  “None.”

  “I suppose I have no choice but to believe you. Strange, though, that you did not also encounter the Prince that night.”

  Elvira said nothing and Lady Cruddock walked to the door and paused.

  “Delphine, the noodle, has prevailed upon her father to allow you to join us at supper. Against his better judgement and mine, I might add.”

  She sailed out of the room.

  Elvira sat down again and picked up her sewing, but she was unable to work.

  She was torn between excitement at the thought of sitting at supper with the Prince and reluctance to witness his inevitable attentions to Delphine.

  *

  It was the custom for Delphine and Elvira to take tea together at three o’clock each afternoon. Today the tea table was set up before a roaring fire in Delphine’s room. Elvira was surprised to discover Lady Cruddock present as well.

  She was further surprised when Lord Baseheart joined them, although he did not sit at the table, but paced the room as if agitated.

  “Odd request from the Prince via his valet,” he blurted out at last. “Seems His Highness wants the valet to dine with us tonight.”

  “It’s probably the custom in France to appease one’s inferiors,” snorted Lady Cruddock. “After all they might still cut off your head as soon as look at you!”

  Lord Baseheart glanced irritably at his sister.

  “Quite. Though this is not so much a case of custom as of practicality. It appears the Prince speaks barely a word of English, while his valet is fluent.”

  “A nation has come to a pretty pass when valets are better educated than their Masters!” sniffed Lady Cruddock.

  “It seems the valet was brought up in England.” Lord Baseheart made an impatient gesture. “And, contrary to our previous understanding, the valet informs us that the Prince was brought up by his mother in France.”

  Lady Cruddock set her lips.

  “Whatever the case, we must nip this notion of His Highness in the bud. We cannot have servants sitting with us at table.”

  “I daresay.” Lord Baseheart looked uncomfortable.

  “The Prince is your guest and should observe the social proprieties of England whilst he is here,” went on Lady Cruddock firmly. “He must fend for himself at supper, and after all Delphine has been taking French lessons. As long as she is able to converse with her fiancé, what do the rest of us matter?”

  “I haven’t been studying that hard, aunt!” Delphine looked alarmed.

  “I don’t think the Prince will mind how hard you have been studying,” smiled Lord Baseheart.

  “No,” simpered Delphine, a dreamy look entering her eye. “He’s smitten already, isn’t he, Papa? And I do rather like him. He is so handsome!”

  Lord Baseheart rubbed his hands together.

  “I wouldn’t care if he looked like a water butt! He brings a highly desirable title into the family!”

  Elvira, who had been listening quietly all this while, bit her lip. It was terrible to hear the Prince discussed in such an irreverent tone.

  The conversation had enlightened her on one point, however. She had been correct as to why it was the valet who remained with her during the snowstorm and not his Master.

  She and the Prince would have been unable to exchange a single word!

  *

  “Seems this snow is never going to melt!” grumbled Beth, as she laid out a fresh petticoat for Elvira. “Over a month now it’s lain there and more falls every day.”

  “I am used to it,” admitted Elvira. “It makes everything seem – dreamlike.”

  Beth, smoothing out the petticoat, threw her a glance.

  “I’ve no time for dreamlike. I like to know what’s real and what’s not. And what’s real is that I’m going to have to go and live in France or find a new place.”

  “Live in France, Beth?” Elvira gave a start. “Why should you have to do that?”

  “You haven’t been putting your mind to what’s about to happen, have you, miss? Miss Delphine’s like as not going to marry this Prince, right? And he’s going to take her back to France to live. Right?”

  “I – suppose so, Beth.”

  “Suppose so? Bless me, you couldn’t have thought they’d live here at Baseheart? No. Miss Delphine will go to France and she’ll want her companion – that’s you – to accompany her. And I should hope her companion would want her maid to accompany her.”

  Elvira had raised her head and was staring at the frosted window. She had simply never considered the matter, but it was true – she would go to France. Neither Lord Baseheart nor his sister would have any use for her at Baseheart after the departure of Delphine.

  Beth regarded her curiously.

  “Don’t you want to go to France, miss? I do. I’ve heard it’s beautiful and the people sing a lot and dance on grapes to make wine. I’d like to do that. Miss?”

  Elvira looked round slowly.

  “I daresay I should like to go to France, Beth.”

  She was thinking of the globe in the study at Aunt Willis’s and the hours she had spent tracing a finger over its surface, exploring the world in her imagination.

  Yes, she would like to visit France. But to live there as a companion? To see every day the burgeoning happiness of her cousin and the Prince? To be so close to the man she loved and to never be important to him in any way? What torture that would be!

  “Come on, miss,” urged Beth. “You must hurry. Supper is sharp at six.”

  “Which dress shall I wear, Beth?” she asked with a rueful twist to her lips. “Which is the – the least ugly?”

  “I’m afraid, miss, it’s not in our hands to decide,” said Beth looking unhappy. “Lady Cruddock told me that she’s sending up a new garment. I’m surprised it hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “Perhaps,” put in Elvira hopefully, “perhaps she has decided that I should have something a little more fashionable, since it is a supper in honour of the Prince.”

  “Perhaps – ” muttered Beth, but she looked very doubtful.

  Her doubts were confirmed a minute later when a housemaid tapped at the door.

  “Lady Cruddock sent this up,” said the maid with a bob and a barely suppressed grin.

  Beth and Elvira regarded the latest addition to her miserable wardrobe. It was grey of a coarse cloth with a high stiff neck.

  “I might as well wear sackcloth and ashes,” commented Elvira with more bitterness than Beth had yet heard in her voice.

  “It’s a shame, that’s what it is!” muttered Beth. “But never you mind, miss, even in sackcloth you’re much more beautiful than Miss Delphine.”

  “Am I really, Beth?”

  “Everyone thinks so,” added Beth indiscreetly.

  “Except – except the Prince.”

  “The Prince?” Beth regarded her Mistress sharply.

  “He’s so very handsome, isn’t he?” sighed Elvira.

  “He’s good looking enough,” shrugged Beth, “but that valet of his, Serge, he’s the handsomer by far.”

  “Serge?” Elvira was astonished.

  “Yes, miss,” said Beth. “All the kitchen maids are quite soft on him! Put a red coat on his back and rings on his fingers and he’d look more of a Prince than the Prince!”

  “What silly nonsense!” retorted Elvira, mortally offended. “He’s handsome enough for a valet, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  She had quite forgotten how enraptured she had felt clasped against Serge’s breast that night at the cottage and how she had relaxed in his strong and tender arms before mounting the ladder to
the loft under the stars.

  The Prince had vanquished the potency of such memories from her mind and the only sentiment she nursed towards Serge was displeasure.

  Beth said nothing more. She helped Elvira into the grey dress and stood back while she regarded herself in the mirror.

  If she ignored the dress and looked only at her face, she might feel a little more confident. After all, her eyes were large and lustrous and wide apart and as blue as an azure sea. Her hair had a burnished sheen and fell to her waist like a mantle. Her skin was the colour of the snow, but translucent with just a faint flush.

  Surely, surely the Prince must notice her tonight?

  She leaned close and pinched her cheeks until they glowed with colour. Then she took a blue ribbon and tied up her hair, revealing her long graceful neck.

  Beth looked after her as she departed. Something had changed in her Mistress, but she had as yet no idea what it was!

  Elvira, her head full of fancy, descended the first narrow stairway as if the Prince was waiting for her. She held her head so high and proud that the grey coarse dress was almost an irrelevance.

  On the first landing a figure stepped quietly out of the shadows.

  “Elvira!”

  She gave a start, her hand to her breast.

  “S-Serge.”

  He regarded her wryly.

  “Ah, I have just been wondering whether you remembered me at all. You barely looked my way when my – Master and I arrived.”

  Elvira regarded him coldly.

  “And I have just been wondering why you did not see fit to inform me of the identity of your Master when we were marooned in that cottage. You deceived me, sir!”

  “Deceived you?” Serge stood very still.

  His look was so stern, his eyes so dark, that Elvira looked away.

  “You knew I was en route for Baseheart,” she complained, but with a less confident vehemence. “Why did you not tell me that you and your Master were bound for the same destination?”

  Serge was silent for a moment and then gave a sigh.

  “Think of it as the natural reticence attendant on anyone connected to – the world of Royalty. We must learn to hold our tongues.”

  “You did not instruct me to hold mine!” parried Elvira.

  The shadow of a smile hovered on Serge’s lips.

  “No. I was too enchanted by your voice.”

  “What could possibly enchant you about my voice?”

  Serge leaned an elbow on the banister and regarded her with amusement.

  “Good heavens, madam, do you have so little knowledge of your charms? Not only did you once inform me that you had no beauty, you are now professing astonishment that your voice should give pleasure.”

  “It d-does? Why?” Elvira felt herself reddening.

  Serge half closed his eyes as he answered,

  “Because it is as musical as the song of a lark and as sweet as the rush of a sparkling stream. It would please any man.”

  With an unthinking innocence, Elvira caught her breath.

  “Would it please – a Prince?”

  Serge was silent a moment and when he spoke it was with a certain sad gravity.

  “Yes, indeed, madam. It would please a Prince.”

  Elvira felt instant alarm that he had guessed her secret and she tried to lighten her tone for her next remark.

  “Well, I am relieved that I can at least please our guest’s ear tonight, for I shall certainly not please his eye!”

  Serge now looked her up and down, taking in her unattractive dress and guessing that it was no choice of her own, he softened.

  “Believe me, you will please his eye, too, madam.”

  Elvira blushed again. Her eye strayed restlessly to the stairway, which she must descend to reach the dining room and the Prince. Serge stepped aside with a bow.

  “But I must detain you no longer.”

  Elvira put her foot onto the first step and then turned,

  “I am sorry that you will not be at supper,” she said with great sincerity.

  Serge smiled down at her.

  “Oh, but I shall be. Not at table, I admit, but I am to serve the Prince and act as his interpreter. Your uncle agreed to it.”

  Before Elvira could make any comment the gong sounded in the hall below.

  “I must hurry!” she cried and set off as Serge watched her slender form trip lightly down the stairs.

  Elvira was placed at the extreme end of the table. She had a gouty old Count on one side and a grizzled old Peer on the other, neither of whom seemed inclined to address a single word to her.

  She didn’t care. She barely registered the presence of Serge, who stood dutifully behind his Master’s chair and helped serve him from the dishes that arrived one after the other.

  She only had eyes for the Prince. She watched enviously as he and Delphine fully engaged with each other.

  Indeed it began to seem as if there was nobody else in the room. Their eyes were locked on one another, their hands touching at regular intervals.

  Soon the Prince was holding wine-drenched bread to Delphine’s lips, while she in her turn took a morsel of plump goose flesh on her fork and held it out to the Prince.

  Lady Cruddock almost dropped her lorgnettes at this sight, while Lord Baseheart looked most disgruntled.

  The gouty old Count next to Elvira gave a grunt.

  “Funny sort of behaviour for a Prince.”

  “Indeed,” agreed the grizzled Peer. “And did you notice how he used the wrong spoon for the soup?”

  “Probably doesn’t even own a spoon himself,” cackled the Count. “He’s only marrying Miss Baseheart for the family silver.”

  Elvira was scandalised.

  “You are speaking most disrespectfully of your host’s future son-in-law!” she stated stiffly.

  The Peer and the Count looked across her at each other, but seemed to feel it beneath their dignity to reply. They moved on to other topics, leaving Elvira free to her own interpretation of the Prince’s behaviour.

  ‘It is part of his Gallic charm,’ she decided, ‘to be so natural and informal.’

  Nevertheless, when the Prince plucked a rose from a flower bowl to present to Delphine, she saw Serge lean down and speak in his Master’s ear. The Prince listened and shrugged, but straightened up in his chair.

  Serge seems to have some hold over him, Elvira thought in amazement.

  After dessert, Lord Baseheart rose to propose a toast welcoming the Prince to Baseheart. Glasses clinked.

  The Prince glanced at Serge and stood to make a response.

  “Mesdames et messieurs, je vous remercie tous, “ he said with a most dazzling smile and, head tipped back, dispatched a full glass of champagne.

  Elvira gazed on in rapture. How wonderful his voice sounded, so deep and romantic.

  How his gold hair glinted in the light of a hundred candles. How his eyes gleamed and there was a daredevil cast to his expression. If he was not a Prince he might have been a – a pirate on the high seas.

  If only, for one moment of that entire evening, he had cast his eye her way!

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was an icy afternoon and Delphine, wrapped in furs, was strolling in the garden with the Prince. She clung on his arm and giggled at his every remark, although it was doubtful if she understood a single word.

  Following them Elvira eyed the train of Delphine’s cloak trailing in the snow. How she would have liked to tread on it – oh, so lightly – and see it slide from her shoulders!

  Anything to interrupt the extravagant display of courtship that went on daily under everyone’s nose.

  Since protocol demanded that Delphine and her suitor should never be left alone together, Elvira had been forced to spend many hours in their wake.

  Serge usually joined them to aid the Prince in his halting attempts at conversation with Delphine.

  As the days passed, however, eyes and hands began to do the work of translation. Serge becam
e redundant, yet still he accompanied his Master.

  Elvira would glance at the valet and find his eyes fixed so broodingly on the couple ahead that at last a wondrous thought struck her.

  ‘Serge has fallen in love with Delphine, just as I have fallen in love with the Prince!’

  She heard the crunch of Serge’s boots on the snow behind her and imagined him feeling as desolate as herself at the constant display of the lovebirds.

  Then she almost blushed as if he could read her thoughts. She was sure he would not relish knowing that she had guessed his secret nor would he welcome her sympathy.

  Ahead of her Delphine and the Prince stopped in front of the frozen lake.

  The Prince drew even closer to her and murmured something in her ear. Delphine let out a peel of laughter that sounded to Elvira like the cracking of thin ice.

  She shivered and drew her cape tight about her shoulders glad of its thick folds.

  That it was the cape Serge had given her at the old woman’s cottage did not escape her awareness.

  She did offer to return it to Serge the very day after his arrival, but he seemed to guess that it was her only protection against the bitter cold.

  Since that polite exchange, neither she nor Serge had alluded to the night they passed together at the cottage.

  It was as if it had never occurred.

  She started as she heard Serge’s soft voice at her elbow.

  “The air is more than usually icy this afternoon.”

  She stared down, stirring the soft snow with the toe of her boot.

  Before Serge could say any more, Delphine turned at the lake and called to him.

  “Find us some stones to skim over the lake, will you?”

  Elvira flinched at her cousin’s imperious tone, but Serge did not hesitate. Taking his cap from his head, he knelt to scour the ground.

  Delphine’s eyes met Elvira’s for a moment and flashed with something like amusement before turning to link her arm again with the Prince.

  Elvira had already seen this look in her cousin’s eye. Delphine treated the valet with little courtesy and was often downright rude to him, knowing that the Prince could not understand what she was saying and seemed oblivious to her tone.

  She confessed to Elvira that it was a game she enjoyed, particularly as the more unpleasant she was to Serge, the more attentive he proved to her requests.