A Kiss at Midnight

“Does she really have a beard?” Kate said. “Come along, Caesar. We’re going to walk this direction.”

“ Dogs ,” Henry said, noticing them for the first time. “Do tell me they’re part of the costume, darling, because I just can’t abide the beasts. I refuse to have them in London when you come to live with me.”

“They belong to Victoria,” Kate said.

“No!” Henry shrieked. “I forgot the animals that tried to gnaw your sister’s nose off!” She stared down with horror. “I have a jeweled dagger, you know. I can give it to you so that you can ward off a sudden attack. I generally stick it in my bosom to draw attention, but the end is quite sharp.”

Freddie was looking up at Kate with his usual expression of complete adoration.

“This is Freddie,” Kate said, “and that one with the jewels is Coco. And Caesar is that tough little customer there.” Caesar was growling at a sparrow, presumably keeping himself in practice.

“Well,” Henry said after a moment of peering at them, “they don’t look like ferocious beasts. I rather like that one.” She pointed to Coco. “She has a way about her. She looks as if she knows her own worth, and believe me, darling, that’s a woman’s most important asset.”

“Coco is utterly vain,” Kate said, laughing.

“Vanity is just another word for confidence,” Henry said, waving her fan in the air. “There’s nothing more enticing to a man. Is she prinked out in jewels or glass?”

“Jewels,” Kate said.

“And she belongs to the feather mattress herself, Mariana? Oddly enough, we seem to have more in common than just your father. I like the idea of a bejeweled dog. Perhaps I’ll get one of those great Russian dogs, the ones that the nobility have over there, and paste him all over with emeralds. Wouldn’t that be pretty?”

“Let’s try the maze,” Kate said, wanting to be out of earshot of the party. She moved toward the entrance.

“There’s no need to be quite so energetic,” Henry said. “I was only standing here to keep out of the sun. My heels are extraordinarily high, and not designed for prancing through shrubbery.”

“They sound very uncomfortable.”

“But they show off my ankles. It’s absolutely horrible getting older, so one simply has to make the best of what doesn’t change.”

“Ankles?”

“And breasts,” Henry said, nodding. “I expect they would have turned into sagging oranges if I’d been lucky enough to have a child. No baby, so I still have a fabulous bosom, while my friends are wrinkled like old prunes.”

“I don’t have one at all,” Kate said. “Just in case you’re wondering, these are wax.”

“As I pointed out last night, they are far too large for your figure. Mine are mostly wax too, of course. I call them my bosom friends.” She had an enchantingly naughty giggle. “Anyway, as far as men are concerned, it’s all about what shows on top. Now, I’ve found the perfect man for you.”

Kate stopped. “You have?”

“Yes, wasn’t that brilliant of me? He’s a second cousin once removed on the side of my second husband, Bartholomew, but then he’s connected as well somehow through Leo—who is already three sheets to the wind, by the way. I stowed him in one of those boats and told the footman not to bring him back to dry land until suppertime. That way he should be steady enough to take me in for the meal.”

“Do you mind?” Kate asked.

“Not particularly,” Henry said. “I knew he wasn’t perfect when I married him, but he’s perfect enough. He drinks a bit too much, but so far”—she cast a saucy look at Kate—“he manages to perform when required.”

Kate snorted.

“Well, thank God, you get a joke. One never knows with virgins.”

“I haven’t been very sheltered in the last few years,” Kate confessed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Henry said. “As long as you’re not as much of a fool as your sister, there’s no need to fuss about a bit of liberty before marriage. Just squeak loudly on your wedding night and your husband will never know.”

“Oh! I didn’t mean that ,” Kate protested.

Henry shrugged. “It’s fashionable to be a maid when you’re a bride, but if you actually bet the wedding cake on most of our ton nuptials, there’d be a lot of champagne and no cake.”

Kate thought that one through. Her mother used to tell her gently that a woman’s virtue was her only true possession. Henry certainly had a different point of view. “I wouldn’t want to end up like my sister.”

“Victoria is notable only for the fact that her mother was such a fool that she taught her nothing about babies,” Henry said. “Otherwise, she did quite well for herself, all things told. That gaudy young man of hers has a sweet estate. And he certainly is infatuated with her.”

“Algie didn’t offer marriage until my stepmother cornered him and told him of the baby.”

“Your sister was a fool to have given him what he wanted without getting a proposal first, but as it happened, she managed to tie him down anyway.”

“With my luck, I’d find myself in Mariana’s situation, raising a child in the country, pretending to have a dead colonel for a husband,” Kate pointed out.

“You have wonderful luck,” Henry said bracingly. “You have me . I informed Dimsdale a few minutes ago that I had recognized you, and he gave me an earful about how wonderful his Victoria is. I’m afraid you’re not living up to his fiancée, darling. He’s all fretful because you were out there on the lake blackening his future wife’s reputation. You should sleep with the pretty prince just to fret the man.”

“That’s going a bit far merely to annoy my brother-in-law.”

“Well, you can’t pretend that it would be indentured labor,” Henry said. “The man glitters like a hot day in Paris.”

“Too much,” Kate said. “He keeps saying he’s not seducing me, but—”

“Of course he is,” Henry said. “And why shouldn’t he? He’s a prince, after all.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to bed whoever crosses his path,” Kate said. “Caesar, get away from there!”

They had somehow come through to the other side of the maze without finding the center, and found the rest of the menagerie instead. There was a pen full of hairy, malodorous goats, and another that housed an ostrich.

“Just look at that bird,” Henry said. “It looks like a short man craning his neck to look down someone’s bodice. We really ought to get back to the lake and find the husband I picked out for you.”

“What’s his name?” Kate asked, pulling sharply on Caesar’s leash. “Come here, you miserable little beast.”

“Your future husband? Dante. Why don’t you let that dog go? The ostrich has an eye on him, see? It’s probably like those snakes, the ones that swallow rabbits. Caesar could feed it for days.”

“Caesar may not be lovable, but I’ve grown rather fond of him,” Kate said, hoping that saying it aloud made it true.