A Kiss at Midnight

Fourteen

T he next morning Kate took the dogs down for a constitutional, this time accompanied by Rosalie. It was only just after dawn, but she was used to waking up early and couldn’t seem to sleep in, even when Freddie whined and tried to hide under the covers. The moment her eyes opened she remembered the evening before—and that was that.

“Come on,” she told them. “You three are going out without a leash. We’ll visit the lion in daylight; if you don’t behave, you’ll be down his gullet, so keep that in mind.”

The courtyard echoed emptily as she and Rosalie walked across the flagstones. Last night it had been a warm, velvet enclosure. This morning it looked hundreds of years old, chilly, and capable of existing far past their lifetimes. Kate shivered and walked a little faster.

The lion was awake. He yawned at the sight of them and padded forward. She fell back a respectful step.

He was far shaggier than she would have thought. She had a vague idea that lions were glossy, but this lion looked time-worn, like a battered hearth rug. He gave them a disgusted look and walked to the rear of the cage, turned around, and walked forward again, shaking his mane as if his head was too heavy.

“Oh, miss!” Rosalie squealed.

Caesar had pranced forward and was sniffing the bars. Kate snapped her fingers and he moved back, so she gave him some cheese.

“All the servants are talking about that lion,” Rosalie said. “The beast has eaten half the household pets, they say. We’ll be lucky to leave with all three dogs.”

“I expect he’ll get Caesar first,” Kate said ruthlessly.

The lion came to the bar and looked hungrily at the dogs, so she threw him some cheese instead. He sniffed disdainfully but ate it up.

“That animal gives me the shivers,” Rosalie said. “Just look at Freddie. He’s scared to death. We’ll visit the elephant. Come on, Freddie; let’s get away from this nasty cat.” She headed around the corner to the other cages, but Kate stayed where she was, staring at the enclosed lion.

“Good morning, Miss Daltry,” came a voice at her shoulder. She turned to find the prince’s majordomo smiling at her.

“Good morning, Mr. Berwick,” she said. “I do believe we’re the only people awake in the whole castle.”

“I came out to see how the lion’s holding up. He seems better.”

Berwick didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so Kate ventured a question. “Would you mind if I asked you some details about the castle?”

“Not at all,” he said, leaning against the bars of the cage.

“I estimated last night that you must be taking in at least two hundred wax candles a week. So does the castle have its own chandler? I know you must have a baker, but what about all the sort of things one usually finds in a village, such as a smithy?”

Berwick wore beautiful livery with frogged buttons and a high collar. He looked precisely like the very best sort of servant, but just for a moment, his eyes twinkled at her and she felt . . .

Absurd. As if she knew him, or had at the least met him before.

“The castle does include its own chandlery,” he replied. “But you’ve underestimated the candles, Miss Daltry. In a normal week, I have more than three hundred burning throughout the castle, and we also employ Argand lamps in some rooms. With the ball, of course, I’ve ordered quite a lot more to make sure that the candelabra are fully lit till dawn.”

“Fascinating,” Kate said. “What about servants? How many are there, overall?”

He paused for a moment, obviously calculating. “I just hired four and let go one, so with a net gain of three, we currently employ one hundred thirty-seven in and around the castle.”

“Does most of the income come from rents?” she asked, before she thought. Then she colored. “I do apologize; that was a remarkably improper question.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “The English are more prudish than we are about matters of money. The castle is surrounded by farms, of course, and they bring in rents, which support the castle in a minimal fashion. The prince doesn’t feel they are sufficient, given the number of people living here.”

Kate felt pink rising in her cheeks. “I certainly didn’t mean to inquire about the prince’s financial situation!”

“Why not?” he said, shrugging. “Impecunious princes are thruppence a dozen in Marburg, I assure you. Prince Gabriel is singular in that he has a castle to oversee.” Berwick’s hair was tied back in a proper queue, but as he shrugged, part of it fell over his brow.

Then, as if a mirror appeared before her, she saw the prince’s face—in Berwick’s. Cast in the same mold, as it were. Twin sides of two coins.

Her mouth fell open.

The majordomo met her eyes and clearly diagnosed her stunned look. His sideways smile was a precise copy of his master’s.

“Ump,” Kate said, recovering herself.

“Today we will have a picnic al fresco in the gardens behind the castle,” Berwick said, without flickering an eyelash. “Several ladies have expressed an interest in seeing the rest of the menagerie, which is housed behind the hedge maze. Punting on the lake can also be very enjoyable.”

The lion had gone back to sleep. “Don’t you think that that beast needs a bigger cage?” she asked. The realization that Berwick must be intimately related to the prince made him somehow easier to speak to.

“How much bigger would you advise?”

“Well, think about pig enclosures. You could put a large sow and all her piglets in a six-by-six enclosure, but I believe most farmers consider a larger space preferable. This lion has less space than a fallow pig. That can’t be right.”

She looked up at Berwick to find that he was blinking down at her in a puzzled sort of way. “I shouldn’t know the size of a sow’s sty,” she said, sighing.

“Who is to say what one should and shouldn’t know?” Berwick murmured. “But I will admit that the few English ladies I encountered during my time at Oxford appeared to find an extraordinary number of topics indelicate.”

“Oh, were you at Oxford as well?” she asked. “Or were you there as the prince’s attendant?”

“As myself,” Berwick said cheerfully. “And myself attends the prince, so it worked out very well for both of us. I studied philosophy and he studied history and we both studied women. We were very young, you understand.”

Kate grinned at him. “Does philosophy help you in your current position?”

“You can have no idea,” Berwick said. “I resort to philosophical reasoning on a daily basis when things get sticky.”

“Matters of precedence and such?”

“The prince’s relatives,” he said with some vehemence, “are an unruly lot. Did you meet Mr. Tippet last night?”

Kate frowned. “Rather pale and a bit plumpy?”

“That’s he. Mr. Tippet is a reader attached to one of His Highness’s aunts. You might remember Princess Sophonisba by her penchant for wearing plumes.”

Kate brought to mind a fierce-looking woman with a bosom like a plow. “How nice that she has someone to read to her,” she said politely.

“Tippet reads palms. Or so he says,” Berwick added with an elegant touch of doubt. “At any rate, he is being driven quite mad by Prince Ferdinand, who demands that he read his palm over and over, searching for a better answer.”