A Kiss at Midnight

“Kate?” Effie suddenly said, glancing over her shoulder. “Are you calling Miss Daltry Kate? How sweet; is that a family name?”

“Absolutely,” Henry said, smiling at her with tigerish emphasis, all her teeth showing. “I am her godmama, after all. I have pet names for all my dear ones.”

“She calls me her sugarplum,” Leo said.

Effie was tripping down the steps again, so he added: “But I made her stop: altogether too soft and pillowy for, ahem, someone like me.”

Kate couldn’t help laughing.

“Too small too,” Henry added proudly.

They had reached the bottom of the steps and were greeted by Berwick. “You are fortunate to have arrived so promptly; you needn’t watch from the shore but can actually join the entertainment,” he said. “If you would follow me.” He took them a short way around the lake and stopped before a gilded boat whose elaborately carved prow arched high in the air. The seats were padded luxuriously and set at an angle; presumably they would all recline.

“That looks like a very, very small Viking ship,” Leo said.

“I’m fairly sure the Vikings were an industrious lot,” Kate said, basing that on a book she’d read from her father’s library. “This looks more like Roman decadence to me.”

“The Vikings?” Henry asked. “Who on earth were they?”

“Your ancestors,” Leo said. He whispered something in her ear and she gave him a little slap.

“What did he say?” Kate asked, following Henry into the boat.

“Something about rape and pillage,” Henry said. “As if any of my partners ever lacked the proper enthusiasm!” She sat down in the carved seat that made up the stern of the boat and snuggled Coco onto her lap.

“If I didn’t know you better,” Kate said, “I’d think you were in love with that dog.”

“She and I understand each other,” Henry said loftily. “Besides . . .” She scratched Coco under one ear. “She’s quite affectionate, isn’t she?”

“She wasn’t with me,” Kate said. “You’re making me miss Freddie. He looks at me with those same eyes.”

“I’m very fond of unquestioning adoration,” Henry said. “One can’t have too much of it, from dogs or men.”

Lord Hathaway scrambled onto the boat and sat down next to Kate on one side of the boat. Algie, following him, sat next to Effie on the other side. Leo would have taken to the life of a Roman statesman; he dropped next to Henry, stretched his legs out, and said, “I like this kind of military entertainment. So different from what one expects, i.e., violence and general hardship, not to mention hardtack.”

“What are we doing in this boat?” Effie asked, sitting bolt upright rather than reclining on the padded seat. “Wouldn’t it be better to watch from shore? The lake is so black at night.”

At that moment a footman leaned forward and lit a torch on the shore before their boat, and then a torch actually attached to the prow of their ship. They both leaped into flame—blue flame. Effie screamed.

“Don’t worry, Miss Starck,” Algie said. “It can’t hurt you.”

“Why is it blue?” she whimpered.

That stumped Algie, leaving Leo to drawl, “They’ve put some powder in with the oil. See, some boats are flaming red and others blue. There appear to be four of each.”

Algie was busily patting Miss Starck’s arm. “My fiancée is just the same,” he said. “Ladies are delicate and frighten easily.”

“Your fiancée doesn’t look frightened in the least,” Effie pointed out, narrowing her eyes at Kate.

Kate realized that was her cue to look timid, but couldn’t manage. “I do believe that we are part of a naval flotilla,” she said. “Look! We’re the blues.”

“What I can’t figure out,” Lord Hathaway said, “is how we’re going to take our places on the lake. Unless we’re meant to—”

But at that moment the boat rocked, very gently, and began to pull away from the shore, as if drawn by an invisible hand. Naturally, Effie screamed again. Algie had taken her hand now, and was patting it madly.

“You’re going to give her a bruise,” Kate said.

“It’s magic!” Effie cried.

Hathaway was craning his neck around the side of the boat. “Though magic sounds very delectable, in fact, we’re attached to a rope,” he reported. “There must be a man on the other side of the lake, drawing us over.”

“And look,” Kate said, “the other boats are all coming out too.”

From around the perimeter of the lake, boats flaming red or blue were slowly moving toward the center.

Effie asked the obvious. “What if we all crash? I wish we weren’t going backwards. I don’t like sitting backwards in a coach either. I always make my maid do it.”

“I can swim,” Algie announced.

“Obviously we’re not going to crash,” Henry said. “Although, Leo, remember that if you have to tow me to shore, you’d better not forget my darling Coco or you’ll wish you’d sunk.”

It was a good thing that Victoria had never appeared to care overly much about her dogs; it seemed likely that Coco would never darken the door of Mariana’s house again.

A boat slid by them, red flame dancing over the excited faces inside the boat. The prince wasn’t among them, though it was a weakness of Kate’s that she even noticed.

“About an inch to spare,” Leo said coolly.

“It’s designed like clockwork,” Lord Hathaway said. “The boats are all slipping past each other; it must look amazing from the shore.” In a few minutes all the boats had crossed the lake and reached the opposite side.

A grinning footman reeled them in. “Well done,” Lord Hathaway said. “You must have practiced for days to carry this out so well.”

“Weeks,” the man said.

“Why don’t the boats collide?” Hathaway asked.

“I can answer that,” Leo said. “The ropes are presumably just at the water’s surface, so boats glide over each other’s attachments. And the boats aren’t going directly across the lake, because in that case a boat might crack into one coming from the opposite direction. They’re going catty-cornered, and the lake’s an oval, so they all just miss each other.”

The footman nodded. “Now you’ll be pulled back the other way, my lord, and this time you’ll be able to see where you’re going, so it’ll be even better.”

It did look splendid. Kate stripped off her right glove and trailed her fingers in the water, silently scolding herself for wondering where Gabriel was.

“Have you taken off your glove?” Effie asked, sounding rather awed.

“Yes,” Kate said. She raised her fingers and flicked water into the blue light thrown off by the torch. “Isn’t it lovely?”

The boats were all moving slowly out from shore again, recommencing their orchestrated water ballet.

Effie looked at her gloves but folded her hands in her lap.

“Go on,” Henry said rather kindly, for her. “I won’t tell your mother.”