Lily Fairchild. Don Gutteridge

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СКАЧАТЬ only a vague horizon of mixed blue, sky and water, as if the elements were permitted to blend their irreconcilable properties. Behind them and to the west the shoreline grew faint. She left off staring out at the water and turned back to catch Dowling engaged in an animated monologue with His Highness. A few feet away Lady Marigold, her luxuriant sensuality limned by a white hat and dress, observed his gestures with cunning impassivity. While the debutantes and duennas fought against dishevelling lake-breeze, Lady Marigold removed her hat and hair-pins and let the wind have its way. Lily remarked with some satisfaction that the Prince took every opportunity to glance over at the bereaved widow, though she gave no signal to either man.

      Dowling suddenly turned away from the Royal Guest and came over to the Templeton clique. “His Highness has had a long day,” he proclaimed. He’s going to rest in his quarters.”

      No one would have been terribly surprised if Cap had trailed His Royal Highness and joined him in his nap, but he did not. The Prince moved alone but briskly towards the cabin deck. There was a flutter and rearranging of plumage among the ladies, fresh cigars and configurations appeared amongst the men, and the ship – almost beyond landfall – circled and headed south-east towards civilization. Mrs. Templeton took the opportunity to excuse herself to the ladies facilities.

      Lily stayed back to see if Lady Marigold would make her move, when someone touched her sleeve. She turned round to find the Prince’s valet: “His Highness would like to see you in his suite,” he said as if announcing supper. It took a few seconds for the import of the message to dawn. When it did, she glanced about, saw that Mayor Templeton was engaged and Mrs. Templeton nowhere in sight, and she made a decision.

      She followed the valet’s trails to the royal rooms, actually the captain’s quarters hastily re-tailored in Detroit to fit the Royal Personage. When the man-servant opened a diminutive varnished door with brass knobs, Lily entered what would normally have served the skipper as office and sitting room. A large desk, brocade settee and purplish Queen Anne chair struck Lily’s eye immediately.

      “This way, miss,” the valet said, using his usher’s voice.

      Lily stepped through a second door and entered a small chamber. The Prince was seated on an undersized, embroidered chair before an escritoire. Smoky light poured through a porthole window, falling across a twin to the Prince’s chair. an oval Oriental rug, and a vermillion-and-white scrolled quilt which made no pretense of hiding the silk sheets beneath it. This was, incontestably, a bedroom.

      Set up on the escritoire was a table cloth on which had been placed a silver bucket sprouting a bottle of champagne and two crystal glasses that would sing at the merest hint of a fingernail. A black cigar, cut but unlit, lurked in a gold ashtray.

      “Please, come in,” said the Prince rising and extending his hand casually towards the unoccupied chair. “It’s Lily, is it not?”

      Lily was so struck with the English orotundity of his voice, at once formal, distant and ingratiating, that she did not immediately reply. “Yes, Your Highness,” she said. Then: “Lily Fairchild.” As she said it, her father’s face came into view.

      The Prince hesitated for a moment. “Please, sit down. Let me take your gloves and hat.”

      Lily sat on the edge of the chair. When she peeled off her elbow-length gloves, she tried to keep her palms down. In removing her bonnet, she pulled out not only the hat-pin but the barrettes that held her hair in check. It tumbled forward. She heard the royal breath indrawn. She didn’t look up again until he said, “Will you join me in a glass of champagne?”

      “Yes, please, Your –”

      “Call me Albert,” he said. “My mother does.”

      Lily laughed. “I don’t think I could,” she said.

      “Please forgive my informality,” he said, referring, Lily assumed, to the fact that he had removed his tunic, vest, collar and ties, and was seated in evident comfort in his trousers and open shirt. “Uniforms, I’m afraid, offer more pleasure to the adulating crowds than to the objects of their worship.”

      Lily smiled, quite aware that this was a quip used on many an occasion. Though his practised delivery disguised shyness, perhaps even uncertainty, she was sure she detected in his demeanour when she herself grew brave enough to look directly at him. He was popping the champagne cork efficiently, but when he came to pour, Lily saw his hand shake a little.

      “Damn!” he said when the bubbly slopped over the glass, fizzing and exuberant. He was about to apologize for the damnwhen Lily’s giggle cut him off. He grinned boyishly, then stared at her, puzzled but powerfully attracted.

      “What do we toast?” Lily said.

      “Well, that Dowling fellow told me they’re going to name the village where the station is after me: Point Edward. In my honour.”

      “Some honour, since it’s not even your first name,” Lily said risking boldness but lifting her glass.

      He laughed in delight. “To Point Albert, regardless!” he said merrily.

      They clinked glasses and drank deeply. The Prince, a bit hastily perhaps, filled the glasses again. Lily rose and took a step towards the door.

      “Please don’t go,” he said. “I just wanted to talk,” he added. “I get so sick of all that polite chatter, all that hypocritical handshaking and endless palaver about the weather and the crops and the engines of progress, and –”

      Lily made a decision before he could finish his sentence.

      “Will you help me?” Lily asked quietly, lifting her arms slightly.

      She took a step backwards and the Prince, summoning all eighteen and three quarters of his years to maintain his composure, began to unhook her dress. “Thank you,” she said when he had finished. She drew her arms out of the liberated sleeves, then let the vast folds descend gratefully over the layered crinolines. “Help me get these cages off,” she laughed, and he eagerly hoisted them over her head and let them clatter to the floor where they rolled away like lopsided tankards.

      “I hope you don’t mind the informality, Your Highness,” she said, allowing him to take in her full-length muslin slip, stockings and camisole. The Prince was obviously unaccustomed to such unbridled beauty – the burned-flaxen hair irreconciled to ringlets, the rough-tender hands, the freckled buff of cheek, the flecked hazel-green eyes, the unawakened wonder of poised womanhood. He reached for the cigar. “Shall I open the window?” he offered.

      “No, please. Smoke don’t bother me none. I like it.” He puffed and temporized, casting sideways glances in her direction, like a puritan at a peep show. Lily finished her champagne, and poured herself a third glass, emptying the bottle. The second the valet had touched her arm she had known what was expected of her. She had followed him in full knowledge.

      She put down her empty glass, rose, and pulled the cigar from between the Prince’s teeth. She dropped it in its gold ash tray, the live end white-hot. Grasping the young man’s hands in her own, she lead him to the bed where she stretched languidly across the comforter.

      Lily closed her eyes. Yes, she thought, it’s time to act, to make something happen, anything. She heard the rustle and clink of His Highness at the extreme edge of dishabillement. She reached down and drew her slip, then her camisole over her head, feeling the rush of air on her nakedness like a lover’s breath.

      The Prince was arched СКАЧАТЬ