A Kiss at Midnight

“True,” Mariana said, taking a hard draw on her cigarillo.

“I’ll even give you my Circassian Scalp,” Victoria said.

Kate wrinkled her nose.

“No, it’s lovely, an elegant pale blue wig that goes beautifully with gowns in blue and green. Plus there’s a jeweled bandeau to wear with it, which will help it stay on your head.”

“Fine,” Mariana said. “Now the doctors are going to lance your lip, Victoria, and that is the last I want to hear from either of you for the rest of the day.”

Victoria screamed and cried, but at last the grim deed was done.

Mariana retired to bed with a headache; Victoria retired to bed with a weeping fit; Kate took the dogs with her on a visit to the Crabtrees.

Seven

Pomeroy Castle

S o what’s the matter with the lion?” Gabriel asked Wick, walking quickly across the outer courtyard toward the makeshift menagerie that graced the back wall.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. He can’t seem to stop vomiting,” Wick replied.

“Poor old thing,” Gabriel said, coming to the lion’s cage. The beast was crouched against the back wall, its sides heaving painfully. He’d had ownership of it for only a few months, but its eyes used to be full of light, as if it were longing to spring from the cage and eat a bystander.

It didn’t look like that anymore. Its eyes were glazed and miserable. If it were a horse, he would have . . .

“It’s not old enough to die,” Wick said, as if he heard Gabriel’s thought.

“Augustus told me it wouldn’t last more than a year.”

“The Grand Duke no longer wished for his menagerie so he may have exaggerated the beast’s age. The lion is only five years old and should live many more, as I understand it.”

“How are the rest of them?” Gabriel walked past the lion’s cage toward that of the elephant, and found Lyssa swaying placidly in her cage. She had a sweet temperament; at the sight of him she blew some straw in a companionable sort of way. “What’s that monkey doing in there with her?”

“They became friends during the ocean passage,” Wick said. “They seem happier together.”

Gabriel walked closer and peered at the monkey. “Damned if I know what kind that is. Do you?”

“As I understand it, she’s called a pocket monkey. The Grand Duke was given her by a pasha.”

“And the elephant came along with that Indian raja, didn’t she? I wish people would stop giving animals as gifts. This courtyard smells.”

Wick sniffed loudly. “True. We could move them to the gardens behind the hedge maze.”

“Lyssa would get lonely out there by herself. I don’t suppose we can let her out of her cage now and then, could we?”

“I could ascertain whether we might build an enclosure in the orchards,” Wick said.

Gabriel stared at the unlikely pair for another moment. The monkey was sitting on the elephant’s head, stroking a big ear with her knotty-looking fingers. “Have you had any luck finding someone to care for the animals who actually knows something about elephants and the like?”

“No,” Wick said. “We tried to lure a man from Peterman’s Circus, but he refused to leave his own lions.”

“We can’t have Peterman’s lions along with our own, the poor sick bastard.” He walked back to the first cage. “What the hell could be the matter with it, Wick?”

“Prince Ferdinand suggested that it might be accustomed to a diet of human flesh, but I thought it best to ignore the implications of that comment.”

“In lieu of that, what have we been feeding it?”

“Beefsteak,” Wick said. “Good stuff too.”

“Maybe it’s too rich. What does my uncle eat after a bad night?”

“Soup.”

“Try that.”

Wick raised an eyebrow but nodded.

“On that charming topic, where is my uncle?”

“His Highness is working on the battle of Crecy this morning. He has commandeered the pigsty, which is happily free of occupants, and renamed it the Imperial War Museum. Forty or fifty milk bottles represent the various regiments and their leaders. His exhibit,” Wick added, “is very popular with the servants’ children.”

“He’s happy then,” Gabriel said. “I suppose—”

He was interrupted as a tall man with storklike legs trotted into the courtyard. He had hair like thistledown, which stood straight in the air and waved slightly every time he moved. “Speak of the devil,” Gabriel said, bowing.

“Same to you, dear boy,” his uncle Prince Ferdinand Barlukova said vaguely. “Same to you. Have you seen my poor dog anywhere?”

Wick moved slightly behind Gabriel’s shoulder and said quietly, “There is some belief that the lion ate him.”

“Fur and all?”

“It might explain the beast’s current plight.”

“I have not seen your dog,” Gabriel told his uncle.

“Just yesterday he ate a whole plate of pickled crab apples,” Prince Ferdinand said, looking a bit tearful. “I have him on a pickled diet, everything pickled. I think it’s much better for his digestion.”

The pickled apples might not have agreed with the dog—or, secondhand, with the lion. “Perhaps he ran away,” Gabriel said, turning toward the great arch that led back to the inner courtyard. “He may have not appreciated your dietary innovations.”

“My dog adores pickled food,” Ferdinand stated. “Adores it, especially pickled tomatoes.”

“Next time, try pickled fish.” From the corner of his eye, Gabriel could see two aunts approaching, out for a perambulation, waving their fingers in his direction, smiling archly. He started moving more quickly, avoiding the cook’s child at the last minute, striding finally into his chamber with a feeling of having narrowly escaped.

The problem with having a castle was that a castle filled with people. And they were all his people, one way or another: his relatives, his lion, his elephant, his servants . . . even the pickle-eating dog was his responsibility, though it sounded as if it might have escaped to the great hunting ground in the sky. Probably gratefully.

“I’ll take a gun out and look for birds,” he told his manservant, a lugubrious man named Pole, who had been jettisoned from his brother’s court because he knew far too much about the sexual proclivities of every courtier.

“Excellent,” Pole said, putting out a riding coat and breeches. “Young Alfred could do with some fresh air. Mr. Berwick is training him in service à la française and he’s not taking to it easy-like. He will do to carry back the birds.”

“Right.”

“May I suggest that you ask the Honorable Buckingham Toloose to accompany you?” Pole said, placing a pair of clean stockings precisely parallel to the breeches.

“Who in the world is that?”

“He arrived yesterday, with a note from Queen Charlotte. You would have met him this evening, but I gather the meal will be en famille , given the imminent arrival of your nephew. So it would be polite to greet the gentleman now.”

“And he is of what sort?”