Julia London – The Princess Plan (страница 3)

The judge had read that it was the crown prince who was pushing for modernization in Alucia, and who was the impetus behind the proposed trade agreement. Prince Sebastian envisioned increasing the prosperity of Alucia by trading cotton and iron ore for manufactured goods. But according to the judge’s daughters, that was not the most important part of the trade negotiations. The important part was that the prince was also in search of a marriage bargain.

“It’s what everyone says,” Hollis had insisted to her father over supper recently.

“And how is it, my dear, that everyone knows what the prince intends?” the judge asked as he stroked the cat, Pris, on his lap. The cat had been named Princess when the family believed it a female. When the houseman Ben discovered that Princess was, in fact, a male, Eliza said it was too late to change the name. So they’d shortened it to Pris. “Did the prince send a letter? Announce it in the Times?”

“Caro says,” Hollis countered, as if that were quite obvious to anyone with half a brain where she got her information. “She knows everything about everyone, Pappa.”

“Aha. If Caro says it, then by all means, it must be true.”

“You must yourself admit she is rarely wrong,” Hollis had said with an indignant sniff.

Caro, or Lady Caroline Hawke, had been a lifelong friend to his daughters, and had been so often underfoot in the Tricklebank house that for many years, it seemed to the judge that he had three daughters.

Caroline was the only sibling of Lord Beckett Hawke and was also his ward. Long ago, a cholera outbreak had swept through London, and both Caro’s mother and his children’s mother had succumbed. Amelia, his wife, and Lady Hawke had been dear friends. They’d sent their children to the Hawke summer estate when Amelia had taken ill. Lady Hawke had insisted on caring for her friend and, well, in the end, they were both lost.

Lord Hawke was an up-and-coming young lord and politician, known for his progressive ideas in the House of Lords. He was rather handsome, Hollis said, a popular figure, and socially in high demand. Which meant that, by association, so was his sister. She, too, was quite comely, which made her presence all the easier to her brother’s many friends, the judge suspected.

But Caroline did seem to know everyone in London, and was constantly calling on the Tricklebank household to spout the gossip she’d gleaned in homes across Mayfair. Here was an industrious young lady—she called on three salons a day if she called on one. The judge supposed her brother scarcely need worry about putting food in their cupboards, for the two of them were dining with this four-and-twenty or that ten-and-six almost every night. It was a wonder Caroline wasn’t a plump little peach.

Perhaps she was. In truth, she was merely another shadow to the judge these days.

“And she was at Windsor and dined with the queen,” Hollis added with superiority.

“You mean Caro was in the same room but one hundred persons away from the queen,” the judge suggested. He knew how these fancy suppers went.

“Well, she was there, Pappa, and she met the Alucians, and she knows a great deal about them now. I am quite determined to discover who the prince intends to offer for and announce it in the gazette before anyone else. Can you imagine? I shall be the talk of London!”

This was precisely what Mr. Tricklebank didn’t like about the gazette. He did not want his daughters to be the talk of London.

But it was not the day for him to make this point, for his daughters were restless, moving about the house with an urgency he was not accustomed to. Today was the day of the Royal Masquerade Ball, and the sound of crisp petticoats and silk rustled around him, and the scent of perfume wafted into his nose when they passed. His daughters were waiting impatiently for Lord Hawke’s brougham to come round and fetch them. Their masks, he was given to understand, had already arrived at the Hawke House, commissioned, Eliza had breathlessly reported, from “Mrs. Cubison herself.”

He did not know who Mrs. Cubison was.

And frankly, he didn’t know how Caro had managed to finagle the invitations to a ball at Kensington Palace for his two daughters—for the good Lord knew the Tricklebanks did not have the necessary connections to achieve such a feat.

He could feel their eagerness, their anxiety in the nervous pitch of their giggling when they spoke to each other. Even Poppy seemed nervous. He supposed this was to be the ball by which all other balls in the history of mankind would forever be judged, but he was quite thankful he was too blind to attend.

When the knock at the door came, he was startled by such squealing and furious activity rushing by him that he could only surmise that the brougham had arrived and the time had come to go to the ball.

CHAPTER TWO

Kensington Palace was the site of a masquerade ball held in honor of the Alucian Court, Thursday past, at seven o’clock in the evening. The Duke of Marlborough hosted in Her Majesty’s stead. The Alucians wore black masks, indistinguishable from one to the next, so that the identity of the crown prince would not be readily apparent, a ploy that might very well have succeeded had it not been for the long line of young Englishwomen who desired an introduction to the prince.

A certain English Kitty, much admired for her Wednesday salons, was so enthralled with the punch cups that a notable fox was on hand to help in any way he might, and thereby took unfair advantage of her in the King’s Cloakroom. When the kitten realized what the fox was about, she demanded satisfaction, and was awarded the assistance of three liveried footmen to escort her out to a waiting carriage, which required such maneuvering around her gown and her ample person as to have knocked the peruke from the unfortunate head of one of the lads.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

WHEN ONE LIVED as simply as Eliza Tricklebank, one did not expect to gain an invitation to a ball, much less meet a prince. And yet, she had somehow managed to put herself in the receiving line to be introduced to a prince, without the slightest bit of assistance other than a wee bit of rum punch.

She couldn’t even say which prince she was waiting to meet, or how many of them there were in total. She’d heard there were at least two of them presently in England, but for all she knew, there could be scores of them roaming about.

It seemed amusing now to think that this evening, and this moment, and the idea that Eliza might make the acquaintance of an actual prince, had all begun only days ago when Caroline had called at Bedford Square where Eliza lived with her father.

Caroline had news about the ball, gleaned from the revered Mrs. Cubison, the modiste from whom she’d commissioned masks for the three of them. “Mrs. Cubison offered that she’d been retained a month ago to provide masks for the Alucians, and that she and her ladies had worked for days to fulfill their wishes.” She’d spoken quickly, with much excitement, even as she lazed on Eliza’s bed.

Hollis had gasped and reached for paper. “Not another word until I have my pencil—”

“You won’t believe what I tell you,” Caroline had said.

“I will.”

“The truth will be known soon enough, I suppose—”

“Caro, by all that is holy, if you don’t tell us, I will squeeze it from you with my bare hands,” Hollis had warned.

Caroline had laughed gaily. She enjoyed provoking Hollis, which Eliza had pointed out to her sister more than once. Hollis stubbornly refused to accept it.

“All right, here it is. Every single mask is black and identical.”

Hollis and Eliza had stared at their best friend, who very calmly pillowed her hands behind her head and crossed her feet at the ankles.

“Why?” Eliza had asked, only slightly curious about this mask detail.

“So you can’t tell the crown prince from the others!” Caroline had cried triumphantly.

Looking around her now, Eliza thought that was very forward thinking by the Alucians because it had worked—she could hardly tell one Alucian from the other. There were scores of tall men dressed in black and identical plain black masks—just like the one she’d encountered in that narrow passageway a quarter of an hour ago.

What a strange encounter that had been. Gentlemen were such odd creatures to her, now that she was at a remove from them by a spinster’s arm length. They could be so presumptuous. She realized now she wouldn’t be able to pick out that man in this crowd of identically dressed men even if she wanted to encounter him again. Which she did not. And while the Alucian women were distinguishable by their beautiful gowns, even they wore the same black mask.

It appeared as if she would have time to inspect them all, sandwiched as she was between ladies adorned in silk and muslin embroidered with perfect stitching, and topped with elaborately constructed masks for this masquerade ball. Eliza knew her gown was not as beautiful as any of the other garments here. It was rather plain in comparison, really. She and Poppy had created it from two dresses. Poppy was quite talented with a needle, as it happened.