and better room prepared for you,” the housekeeper said. “Tonight this is the best we can do. I made a mistake in the room I told the men to carry your trunk to. I will find them and send them here immediately. Is there anything else you wish?”“No, thank you and I am very grateful to you for the trouble you have taken.”
“It is no trouble at all, mamselle, I will get her Grace’s personal maid to tell you in the morning when Her Grace is awake. She will not wish to be disturbed before midday at the earliest.”
“I can quite understand that after a party,” Gardenia commented.
“The housekeeper gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
“Here it is always a party,” she said and then went from the room.
Gardenia sat down on the bed. She felt as if her knees were too weak to carry her any further.
“Here it is always a party.”
What did that mean?
Would she be expected to live at this high pressure, to join in with the laughing crowds whose noise seemed to increase rather than diminish although it was past two o’clock in the morning?
Had she made a mistake? So should she not have come?
She felt as though a cold hand clutched her heart. It was almost physical in its intensity. But what else could she have done? Where else could she have gone?
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
“Who is there?”
She did not know why she was frightened. It was just that for a moment the fear of all that laughter downstairs seemed to bring her uncertainly to her feet, her voice trembling and her heart leaping in her breast
“Votre baggage, mamselle.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Gardenia breathed to herself.
She had forgotten that her trunk had been sent to the wrong room. She opened the door. Two footmen carried in her shabby trunk and, setting it down at the end of the bed, they undid the worn straps and with respectful bows left the room.
“Bonne nuit, mamselle,” they chorused as they went.
“Bonne nuit et merci,” Gardenia replied.
As the door closed behind them, she rose to her feet. Crossing the room, she turned the key and locked the door. It was something that she had never done in her life before.
But now she locked herself in and locked out whatever might be outside. Somehow only with the door fastened did she feel safe. Only with the key held tightly in her shaking hands did she know that the laughter and noise downstairs could not encroach on her and not come near her.
CHAPTER TWO
“So this is where you have moved to,” Bertram Cunningham commented as he entered the large sunny room in the British Embassy where, at the far end, Lord Hartcourt was seated at a desk writing.
“I forgot to tell you I have been promoted,” Lord Hartcourt answered.
The Honourable Bertram Cunningham seated himself on the edge of the desk and tapped his shiny black riding boots with the tip of the leather switch he held in his gloved hands.
“You will have to be careful, my boy,” he said in a jovial tone. You were always a bit of a swot at Eton. If you don’t look out they will be making you an Ambassador or something.”
“There is no fear of that,” Lord Hartcourt replied, “Charles Lavington went off ill and decided to chuck in his hand so I have taken his place.”
“If you want my opinion,” Bertram Cunningham said, “his illness was entirely due to too much Maxim’s and the expenses of that little ladybird he was always taking to Cartier the morning after.”
“I should not be surprised,” Lord Hartcourt replied to him in a somewhat bored tone.
He disliked conversation that verged on gossip and it had never interested him.
“Incidentally,” Bertram Cunningham chatted on, while we are talking of ladybirds, what is this story André de Grenelle has been telling me? I met him riding in the Bois de Boulogne. He was full of a sensational denouement at Lily de Mabillon’s last night.”
“Never, never listen to anything the Comte has to say,” Lord Hartcourt said coldly. “It is inevitably inaccurate if not entirely invented.”
“Oh, don’t be stuffy, Vane,” Bertram Cunningham said. “There must be something in the story. Why, de Grenelle told me that the Duchesse had imported a new turn from the Moulin Rouge, who looked like a nun or even a schoolgirl. But before she could appear upstairs she collapsed into your arms and you carried her away into another room and locked the door!”
Lord Hartcourt laughed briefly, but the sound had no humour in it.
“Well, is it true?” Bertram Cunningham persisted. “I just cannot credit de Grenelle with having made all that up.”
“It has a slight element of truth somewhere, lavishly ornamented with the Comte’s very vivid imagination,” Lord Hartcourt said drily. “Mind you, I do like de Grenelle up to a certain point. He is amusing when a trifle foxed. But the morning after he is a dead bore. Personally I avoid him and I advise you to do the same.”
“Now stop evading the question,” Bertram said, slapping his whip down on the polished desk. “I want to know what happened and by Jove, Vane, you are going to tell me!”
And if I don’t?” Lord Hartcourt enquired.
“Then I shall go straight round and demand to see Her Grace and find out what really went on.”
Lord Hartcourt laughed again.
“You will get very short shrift at this hour of the morning. Besides I can imagine nothing more depressing than to see the debris after one of the more spirited parties chez Mabillon!”
“Then who was the charmer? André was extremely flowery in his description of her. Fair hair, grey eyes and heart-shaped face combined with an air of real or assumed innocence. It sounds most intriguing to me.”
“De Grenelle was drunk!” Lord Hartcourt pointed out.
“I should not imagine any of you were very sober,” Bertram Cunningham chaffed, “but it is just my luck to have to escort the Ambassadress to a party when all those excitements were going on. Very dull it was too. Would you believe it, we sat on gilt chairs for over two hours listening to some long-haired Pole playing the piano and afterwards we danced. There was not a woman in the room under fifty!”
This time Lord Hartcourt laughed without reservation.
Then he rose from the desk and put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder.
“Poor Bertie. You really do earn your salary at times like that.”
“I
