A Kiss at Midnight

Though she was terribly pretty and, apparently, fertile. Fertility was always a good thing in a woman. Look how much her own father had despaired over his lack of a son. Her mother’s inability to have more children apparently led to his marriage a mere fortnight after his wife’s death . . . he must have been that anxious to start a new family.

Presumably he thought Mariana was as fertile as her daughter had now proved to be. At any rate, he died before testing the premise.

“So you’re asking me to visit the prince and pretend to be Victoria,” Kate said.

“I’m not asking you,” Mariana said instantly. “I’m commanding you.”

“Oh, Mother,” Victoria said. “Please, Kate. Please. I want to marry Algie. And, really, I rather need to . . . I didn’t quite understand, and, well . . .” She smoothed her gown. “I don’t want everyone to know about the baby. And Algie doesn’t either.”

Of course Victoria hadn’t understood that she was carrying a child. Kate would be amazed to think that her stepsister had even understood the act of conception, let alone its consequences.

“You’re asking me,” Kate said to her stepmother, ignoring Victoria for the moment. “Because although you could force me into the carriage with Lord Dimsdale, you certainly couldn’t control what I said once I met this prince.”

Mariana showed her teeth.

“Even more relevant,” Kate continued, “is the fact that Victoria made a very prominent debut just a few months ago. Surely people at the ball will have met her—or even just have seen her?”

“That’s why I’m sending you rather than any girl I could find on the street,” Mariana said with her usual courtesy.

“You’ll have my little doggies with you,” Victoria said. “They made me famous, so everyone will think you’re me.” And then, as if she just remembered, another big tear rolled down her cheek. “Though Mother says that I must give them up.”

“Apparently they are in my bedchamber,” Kate said.

“They’re yours now,” Mariana said. “At least for the visit. After that we’ll—” She broke off with a glance at her daughter. “We’ll give them to some deserving orphans.”

“The poor tots will love them,” Victoria said mistily, ignoring the fact that the said orphans might not like being nipped by their new pets.

“Who would accompany me as chaperone?” Kate asked, putting the question of Victoria’s rats aside for the moment.

“You don’t need one,” Mariana said with a hard edge of scorn, “the way you careen about the countryside on your own.”

“A pity I didn’t keep Victoria with me,” Kate retorted. “I would have ensured that Dimsdale didn’t treat her like a common trollop.”

“Oh, I suppose that you’ve preserved your virtue,” Mariana snapped. “Much good may it do you. You needn’t worry about Lord Dimsdale making an attempt at that dusty asset; he’s in love with Victoria.”

“Yes, he is,” Victoria said, sniffing. “And I love him too.” Another tear slid down her cheek.

Kate sighed. “If I am pretending to be Victoria, it will create a scandal if I appear in a carriage alone with Dimsdale, and the scandal will not attach to me, but to Victoria. In short, no one will be surprised when her child appears on an abbreviated schedule after the wedding.”

There was a moment of silence. “All right,” Mariana said. “I would have accompanied Victoria, of course, but I can’t leave her, given her poor state of health. You can take Rosalie with you.”

“A maid? You’re giving me a maid as a chaperone?”

“What’s the matter with that?” Mariana demanded. “She can sit between you in case you lose your head and lunge at Lord Dimsdale. You’ll have the rats’ maid as well, of course.”

“Victoria’s dogs have their own maid?”

“Mary-Downstairs,” Victoria said. “She cleans the fireplaces, but she also gives them a bath every day, and brushes them. Pets,” Victoria added, “are a responsibility.”

“I shall not take Mary with me,” Kate stated. “How on earth do you expect Mrs. Swallow to manage without her?”

Mariana just shrugged.

“This won’t work,” Kate said, trying to drag the conversation back into some sort of sensible channel. “We don’t even look alike.”

“Of course you do!” Mariana snapped.

“Well, actually, we don’t,” Victoria said. “I—well, I look like me and Kate, well . . .” She floundered to a halt.

“What Victoria is trying to say is that she is remarkably beautiful,” Kate said, feeling her heart like a little stone in her chest, “and I am not. Put that together with the fact that we are stepsisters related only by marriage, and there’s no more resemblance between us than any pair of Englishwomen seen together.”

“You have the same color hair,” Mariana said, dragging on her cigarillo.

“Really?” Victoria said doubtfully.

Actually, Mariana was probably right. But Victoria’s hair was cut in pretty curls around her head, in the very newest style, and fixed with a delicate bandeau. Kate brushed hers out in the morning, twisted it about, and pinned it flat to her head. She had no time for meticulous grooming. More accurately, she had no time for grooming at all.

“You’re cracked,” Kate said, staring at her stepmother. “You can’t pass me off as your daughter.”

Victoria was frowning now. “I’m afraid she’s right, Mother. I wasn’t thinking.”

Mariana had a kind of tight look about her eyes that Kate knew from long experience signaled true rage. But for once, she was rather perplexed about why.

“Kate is taller than I am,” Victoria said, counting on her fingers. “Her hair is a little more yellow, not to mention long, and we don’t have the same sort of look at all. Even if she put on my clothing—”

“She’s your sister,” Mariana said, her mouth tight, as if the copper pipe had been hammered flat.

“She’s my stepsister,” Kate said patiently. “The fact that you married my father does not make us blood relatives, and your first husband—”

“She’s your sister .”

Two

Pomeroy Castle

Lancashire

Y our Highness.”

The prince in question, whose given name was Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld, looked up to find his majordomo, Berwick, holding a salver. “I’ve got this unguentarium all in pieces, Wick. Speak quickly.”

“Unguentarium,” Wick said with distaste. “It sounds like a salacious item one might buy in Paris. The wrong side of Paris,” he added.

“Spare me your quibbles,” Gabriel said. “This particular jug was meant for the dead, not the living. It used to hold six small bones for playing knucklebones, and was found in a child’s grave.”

Wick bent nearer and peered at the pieces of clay scattered across the desk. “Where are the knucklebones?”

“The knuckleboned Biggitstiff threw them out. In fact, he threw this little jug out too, since the child was poor, and he is only interested in ravaging the tombs of kings. I’m trying to see whether I can identify how the top, which I don’t have, was attached. I think there were bronze rivets attached to both these pieces.” He pointed. “And the rivets were mended at least once before the unguentarium was put in the tomb, see?”