As they got into their carriage and drove off, Augusta recalled vaguely that the marriage of Henry II and Eleanor had been stormy. She hoped Emily would not give Edward too much trouble. Since the wedding Edward had been bad-tempered, and Augusta suspected there was something wrong. She had tried to find out by questioning Edward delicately, but he would not say a word.
However, the important thing was that he was married and a partner in the bank. He was settled. Everything else could be worked out.
The ball began at half-past ten and the Pilasters arrived on time. Lights blazed from every window of Tenbigh House. There was already a crowd of onlookers outside, and in Park Lane a line of carriages waited to enter the courtyard. The crowd applauded each costume as the guests descended from their vehicles and mounted the steps to the door. Looking ahead as she waited, Augusta saw Anthony and Cleopatra, several Roundheads and Cavaliers, two Greek goddesses and three Napoleons enter the house.
At last her carriage reached the door and they got out. Once inside the house there was another queue, from the hall up the curving staircase to the landing where the duke and duchess of Tenbigh, dressed as Solomon and Sheba, were greeting their guests. The hall was a mass of flowers and a band played to entertain them while they waited.
The Pilasters were followed in by Micky Miranda — invited because of his diplomatic status — and his new wife Rachel. Micky looked more dashing than ever in the red silk of a Cardinal Wolsey outfit, and for a moment the sight of him made Augusta’s heart flutter. She looked critically at his wife, who had chosen to come as a slave girl, rather surprisingly. Augusta had encouraged Micky to marry but she could not suppress a stab of resentment toward the plain girl who had won his hand. Rachel returned Augusta’s stare coolly, and took Micky’s arm possessively after he kissed Augusta’s hand.
As they slowly mounted the stairs Micky said to Rachel: “The Spanish envoy is here — be sure to be nice to him.”
“You be nice to him,” Rachel said crisply. “I think he’s a slug.”
Micky frowned but said no more. With her extreme views and forceful manner, Rachel would have made a good wife for a campaigning journalist or a Radical member of Parliament. Micky deserved someone less eccentric and more beautiful, Augusta felt.
Up ahead of them Augusta spotted another pair of newlyweds, Hugh and Nora. Hugh was a member of the Marlborough Set, because of his friendship with the Greenbournes, and to Augusta’s chagrin he was invited to everything. He was dressed as an Indian rajah and Nora seemed to have come as a snake charmer, in a sequined gown cut away to reveal harem trousers. Artificial snakes were wound around her arms and legs, and one lay its papier-mâché head on her ample bosom. Augusta shuddered. “Hugh’s wife really is impossibly vulgar,” she murmured to Joseph.
He was inclined to be lenient. “It is a costume ball, after all.”
“Not one of the other women here has been so tasteless as to show her legs.”
“I don’t see any difference between loose trousers and a dress.”
He was probably enjoying the sight of Nora’s legs, Augusta thought with distaste. It was so easy for such a woman to befuddle men’s judgment. “I just don’t think she’s fit to be the wife of a partner in Pilasters Bank.”
“Nora won’t have to make any financial decisions.”
Augusta could have screamed with frustration. Evidently it was not enough that Nora was a working-class girl. She would have to do something unforgivable before Joseph and his partners would turn against Hugh.
Now there was a thought.
Augusta’s anger died down as quickly as it had flared. Perhaps, she thought, there was a way she could get Nora into trouble. She looked up the stairs again and studied her prey.
Nora and Hugh were talking to the Hungarian attaché, Count de Tokoly, a man of doubtful morals who was appropriately dressed as Henry VIII. Nora was just the kind of girl the count would be charmed by, Augusta thought biliously. Respectable ladies would cross the room to avoid speaking to him, but all the same he had to be invited everywhere because he was a senior diplomat. There was no sign of disapproval on Hugh’s face as he watched his wife bat her eyelashes at the old roué. Indeed Hugh’s expression showed nothing but adoration. He was still too much in love to find fault. That would not last. “Nora is talking to de Tokoly,” Augusta murmured to Joseph. “She had better take care of her reputation.”
“Now, don’t you be rude to him,” Joseph replied brusquely. “We’re hoping to raise two million pounds for his government.”
Augusta did not care a straw for de Tokoly. She continued to brood about Nora. The girl was most vulnerable right now, when everything was unfamiliar and she had not had time to learn upper-class manners. If she could be brought to disgrace herself somehow tonight, preferably in front of the Prince of Wales …
Just as she was thinking about the prince, a great cheer went up outside the house, indicating that the royal party had arrived.
A moment later the prince and Princess Alexandra came in, dressed as King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, followed by their entourage got up as knights in armor and medieval ladies. The band stopped abruptly in the middle of a Strauss waltz and struck up the national anthem. All the guests in the hall bowed and curtsied, and the queue on the staircase dipped like a wave as the royal party came up. The prince was getting fatter every year, Augusta thought as she curtsied to him. She was not sure whether there was any gray in his beard yet, but he was rapidly going bald on top. She always felt sorry for the pretty princess, who had a great deal to put up with from her spendthrift, philandering husband.
At the top of the stairs, the duke and duchess welcomed their royal guests and ushered them into the ballroom. The guests on the staircase surged forward to follow them.
Inside the long ballroom, masses of flowers from the hothouse at the Tenbigh’s country home were banked up all around the walls, and the light from a thousand candles glittered back from the tall mirrors between the windows. The footmen handing round champagne were dressed as Elizabethan courtiers in doublet and hose. The prince and princess were ushered to a dais at the end of the room. It had been arranged that some of the more spectacular costumes should pass in front of the royal party in procession, and as soon as the royals were seated the first group came in from the salon. A crush formed near the dais, and Augusta found herself shoulder-to-shoulder with Count de Tokoly.
“What a delightful girl your nephew’s wife is, Mrs. Pilaster,” he said.
Augusta gave him a frosty smile. “How generous you are to say so, Count.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I detect a note of dissent? No doubt you would have preferred young Hugh to choose a bride from his own class.”
“You know the answer to that without my telling you.”
“But her charm is irresistible.”
“Doubtless.”
“I shall ask her to dance later on. Do you think she will accept?”
Augusta could not resist an acid retort. “I am sure of it. She is not fastidious.” She turned away. No doubt it was too much to hope for that Nora would cause some kind of incident with the count—
She was suddenly inspired.
The count was the critical factor. If she put him together with Nora the combination could be explosive.
Her mind was racing. Tonight was a perfect opportunity. She had to do it now.
Feeling a little breathless with excitement, Augusta looked around, spotted Micky, and went over to him. “There’s something I want you to do for me, now, quickly,” she said.
Micky gave her a knowing look. “Anything,” he murmured.
She ignored the innuendo. “Do you know Count de Tokoly?”
“Indeed. All we diplomats know one another.”
“Tell him that Nora is no better than she ought to be.”
Micky’s mouth curled in a half-smile. “Just that?”
“You may elaborate if you wish.”
“Should I hint that I know this from, let us say, personal experience?”
This conversation was transgressing the boundaries of propriety, but Micky’s idea was a good one and she nodded. “Even better.”
“You know what he will do?” Micky said.
“I trust he will make an indecent suggestion to her.”
“If that’s what you want….”
“Yes.”
Micky nodded. “I am your slave, in this as in all things.”