Carola Dunn (13 page)

 “You did not let me say goodbye properly,” he said indignantly.

 His mother exchanged a complicitous glance with the Jinnee. “I thought that was what you were doing,” she said. “Five minutes seemed to me long enough.”

 “It wasn’t anywhere near five minutes.”

 “To be precise, seven minutes, forty-seven seconds,” the Jinnee confirmed blandly.

 “Well it seemed more like just forty-seven seconds.” Alan lapsed into a daydream in which Bea’s warm, supple body was still in his arms, her sweet lips still soft as satin on his own.

 He emerged from his dream to sign the papers which added his name to Mrs. Dinsmuir’s various bank accounts, and others which ordered the purchase of Government Bonds. He was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Yet all the wealth of the Indies—which was, in fact, at his command through the Jinnee—meant nothing to him if it did not win him Bea’s hand. And all the wealth of the Indies counted for nothing in Lord Hinksey’s eyes if his daughter’s suitor had no title to lend it legitimacy.

 “Mother, suppose the Prince won’t accept my gifts?”

 “They say he is constantly at Point Non Plus, dearest.”

 “Suppose he considers me unworthy of being ennobled?”

 “My own grandmother was the daughter of a baron, though the line has died out. You are a gentleman and the son of a gentleman.”

 “The son of a schoolmaster and grandson of a clergyman.”

 “Who was the younger son of a baronet.”

 “Back in the mists of time.”

 “The mists of time?” the Jinnee cackled. “A century or less! When you have existed for millennia, young man, you may speak of the mists of time.”

 Abashed, Alan gave voice to a fear he had scarcely acknowledged to himself: “Suppose everyone laughs at our entertainment?”

 The Jinnee swelled with wrath until his turban touched the carriage roof. “Laugh?” he said awfully. “At my entertainment? I’ll turn them into cockroaches!”

 “That certainly would land Alan in the Tower, Mr. Jinnee,” said Mrs. Dinsmuir, patting his huge brown hand soothingly. He subsided a little. “Miss Dirdle and dear Bea agree that the Prince Regent takes his oriental palace very seriously. If he chooses to stage an oriental pageant in his music room, not the slightest titter will be heard, you may depend upon it.”

 “All the same,” Alan said with fervour, “I wouldn’t go through this for anyone but Bea. I had rather slay any number of dragons.”

 “Is that a command, O Master?” asked the Jinnee, and rumbled with laughter at the horrified face Alan turned to him.

 The carriage stopped. The Jinnee whisked Mrs. Dinsmuir home, and returned to transport Alan and his equipage to a lonely spot on the South Downs above Brighton. Sheep scattered, bleating, as the coach and four materialized in their midst. A shepherd rubbed his eyes and stared again, while his dogs barked and nipped the wheels in an effort to drive off the intruder.

 It took the hint, rolling away along the chalky track, down into the wooded hollow where the London road descended towards the town.

 Mr. Dinsmuir and his secretary took rooms at the first respectable inn they came to. It was no part of Miss Dirdle’s plan for him to make a display of his vast wealth to anyone but the Prince Regent. Alan was relieved, but it had taken the combined efforts of Mrs. Dinsmuir and Bea to persuade the Jinnee of the necessity for reticence on the subject. He was still disgruntled.

 Once settled at the inn, Alan and the Jinnee strolled into the centre of Brighton. The first sight of the Royal Pavilion stunned Alan. Studded with onion domes, spires, and minarets, the façade all slender pillars and arched windows topped with lacy stone fretwork, it looked like something straight out of the Arabian Nights.

 The Jinnee was delighted. “By the Great Roc, that’s what a royal palace should look like,” he approved. “Something of the Muscovite, something of Hindostan, a touch of Baghdad and a hint of China. Not your square, solid English piles, with the rows of square windows, and square chimneys, and columns strong enough to hold up a mountain. The prince who built this will certainly appreciate my entertainment.”

 “No scantily-clad dancers,” Alan reminded him anxiously. “We are still in England. There will be ladies present.”

 “A strange custom,” the Jinnee mused with a sigh, brightening as he continued, “though not without its advantages.”

 They found the side door to which they had been directed, and enquired for Colonel McMahon. The Regent’s trusted personal aide came to them, rather than having them brought to him, and he greeted them with rather affected courtesy. Alan wondered just what his beloved’s cousin had told the ugly little man in the blue and buff uniform to lead to such complaisance.

 As McMahon led them into the Pavilion, Alan was too apprehensive to pay much heed to the apartments they passed through. He was aware of the Jinnee’s approving grunts, but he concentrated on what the colonel was saying.

 “I have been given to understand that you propose to offer an entertainment for His Royal Highness and his guests, Mr. Dinsmuir? And that in the course of the pageant, a number of... ah...
objets d’art
will be presented to His Highness?”

 “Yes,” Alan affirmed, continuing as tutored by Miss Dirdle, “I can think of no one who is more capable of appreciating the beauty and value of the oriental treasures in my possession. It will be a pleasure to add to the magnificent collection for which His Royal Highness is famous.”

 McMahon nodded, with a cynical smile. “His Highness will assuredly find a way to express his gratitude, assuming the gifts are bestowed in a suitably...ah...decorous fashion. I shall need to know the details of your pageant in advance.”

 “For that, you must consult my secretary, Mr. Jinnee, who has arranged the whole. If any part of his plans seems to you inappropriate, please tell him and he will be glad to alter it.” As he said this, Alan fixed the Jinnee with a stern eye.

 The Jinnee’s black eyes gleamed in response, but he bowed respectfully. “I am at your command, Colonel.”

 “Very good,” said McMahon. “I take it, Mr. Dinsmuir, that you will wish to be present?”

 Alan felt he had far rather be a thousand miles away, but Miss Dirdle had been unequivocal and Bea inflexible. “Yes, I should like to attend,” he said, suppressing a sigh, “but on no account do I desire a public acknowledgment of my presence.”

 “Excellent,” the colonel said smoothly. “Though naturally I cannot answer for His Highness’s...ah...eagerness to show his appreciation, I shall advise him that you would prefer a private audience.”

 A private audience with the Prince Regent? All too easy to make some shocking mistake in etiquette! Though Alan wanted to turn tail and run, he did not dare demur. He managed to squeak out something which sounded like thanks.

 “This is the Music Room, where the entertainment will take place,” announced the colonel as they entered a huge chamber.

 Alan stopped dead, dumfounded. The walls were painted with Chinese landscapes in gold on crimson, framed by gigantic
trompe l’oeil
serpents and winged, fire-breathing dragons. High above was an octagonal cornice, richly carved and gilded, and still higher, elliptical windows of coloured glass and then a tier patterned in blue and gold. Over all, a dome formed of gilded scallop-shells rose to an elaborate centerpiece from which hung a huge chandelier, with four gold dragons in flight below the glass lustre, presently unlit. There were several more chandeliers, only slightly less elaborate, their glass panels painted with Chinese figures.

 Developing a crick in his neck, Alan lowered his gaze. Between the landscape panels stood porcelain pagodas some fifteen feet tall. The floor was covered with a vast blue carpet spangled with gold stars and fabulous oriental creatures. Even the furniture was all gilt, with mythical beasts holding up the arms.

 Surely the Emperor of China himself could not boast more splendour! Alan began to fear even the Jinnee could not provide gifts to match such magnificence, not without falling into vulgar ostentation.

 “Just between us,” said Colonel McMahon, regarding him with sly amusement, “there are those who decry the place as mere vulgar ostentation, and shockingly extravagant besides. Of course, almost everything here is of English provenance. His Highness wishes to support our own manufactories. But on the other hand, he is always delighted to acquire genuine artifacts from the East, to be properly displayed in the more...ah...restrained apartments.”

 Alan seized his chance. “The cost to display, guard, and care for such valuables must be high,” he said. “I shall be happy to help defray the expense.”

 The colonel nodded approvingly. “I shall so inform His Highness. No doubt his gratitude will increase commensurately.”

 With luck that meant no mere baronetcy, Alan hoped. Lord Hinksey would scarcely be impressed by anything less than a peerage. He had to win the marquis’s favour. Bea, the darling girl, was quite willing to marry him without, but only a blackguard would let her cut herself off from her family for his sake.

 Nothing must go wrong, and all depended on Colonel Sir John McMahon, Private Secretary and Keeper of the Privy Purse. In accordance with Miss Dirdle’s instructions, Alan said, “I should not wish you to be out of pocket, Colonel, in making arrangements for our spectacle. You must let me have an account of your expenses.”

 The colonel bowed.

 “This apartment will be the perfect setting for what we have in mind,” rumbled the Jinnee. “I am at your disposal, Colonel, to discuss the details.”

 McMahon took the Jinnee off to his office to consult, leaving Alan at liberty to wander through the public rooms, as the Prince was in his private apartments.

 The Banqueting Room was even more extraordinary than the Music Room, with a huge silver dragon supporting the central chandelier. The other rooms, galleries, and passages were somewhat more modestly decorated, the Chinoiserie muted. Here, aesthetically refined gifts from the Jinnee might be better appreciated.

 However, the whole left Alan uncomfortable. Unable to imagine actually living there, he wondered uneasily whether Bea would feel at home in these luxurious surroundings.

 She was used to the sort of splendid mansions he had only viewed from the outside. For all he knew, the interior of Hinksey Hall was not so very different from the Royal Pavilion’s drawing rooms and saloons. With the Jinnee’s help, Alan could provide whatever she wanted, but he doubted he would ever be truly at ease with such unaccustomed grandeur.

 Was her father right? Would she be happier in the end if she found a husband in her own world? Perhaps Alan was being selfish, and it would be the act of a blackguard to marry her even with the marquis’s blessing.

Chapter V

 When her beloved vanished from her arms, Bea went out with Miss Dirdle to the barouche, to return to Hinksey Hall.

 “I wish I could have gone with him,” Bea sighed as the carriage rolled through the village and turned down Headington Hill. “If I was at his elbow to give him the hint, there would be no chance of his making any faux pas.”

 “Mr. Dinsmuir is far too intelligent to blunder,” Miss Dirdle reassured her.

 “Etiquette is so complicated, even if one is brought up to it. Suppose Alan somehow offends the Prince Regent, or Prinny simply fails to grant a patent of nobility? Without Papa’s permission to wed, we should have to elope, and Alan refuses to contemplate such a drastic action.”

 “My dear Bea, you would be banished from Society for ever! Mr. Dinsmuir shows great good sense and a true gentlemanly instinct.”

 “Fustian! I should not mind, whereas without him I shall never be happy again,” Bea said passionately.

 She moped all the way home, but her megrims turned to dismay when she was met with a summons to her mother’s sitting room. Could Mama have discovered that her frequent outings were not mere jaunts about the countryside, but calls at a certain cottage on the other side of town? As long as Miss Dirdle was with Bea, Lady Hinksey never enquired. Surely Reuben and Coachman would not betray her!

 The marchioness’s grave demeanour was not encouraging. “Sit down, Beatrice,” she said. Bea sank into a chair. “I regret to tell you that I have been unable to persuade your father to permit you to accompany us to the Orfords’ house party. In my opinion, an engagement contracted over the summer would go far to eliminate the disgrace of your earlier behaviour.”

 “An engagement, Mama?” Bea asked, startled. “To whom?”

 Her mother waved a careless hand. “There are bound to be a number of eligible gentlemen staying with the Earl and Countess. However, Hinksey considers it best for you to remain in seclusion until the Little Season, when one may hope your misconduct will have been forgotten. He and I leave at the end of the week. I trust you will employ the fortnight of our absence in reflecting upon the reason for your papa’s displeasure.”

 “Yes, Mama.” Bea hoped she sounded sufficiently submissive, for her heart sang.

 A whole fortnight! Tom must invite Alan to stay, she decided instantly.

 Tom had returned from London just two days earlier, with Lord Wendover in tow. They spent the two days riding, shooting, fishing, and racing their curricles, seldom seen in the house except for meals. Bea had no chance to speak to them privately until the following evening, after dinner, when she ran them to earth in the billiard room.

 “Want to play?” asked Tom. “M’cousin’s a dab hand with a cue,” he told his friend.

 “Not now,” said Bea. “I am sure Lord Wendover can give you a better game. You must enjoy having someone to keep you company.”

 “Yes, Windy’s a great gun. I’ll be sorry when he has to leave.”

 “Mother expects me at home by the end of the week,” Lord Wendover explained sadly. “Otherwise, be happy to stay forever.”

 “You ought to invite someone else, Tom. Alan Dinsmuir, for instance.”

 “No, I say!” Tom exclaimed in alarm. “Dash it, Bea, I daresay the fellow don’t even know how to sit a horse.”

 “Then you shall teach him,” Bea proposed.

 Tom’s jaw dropped. “Me?”