Dancing in Red (a Wear Black novella) (3 page)

“The prince is dead.”

No. Oh no.

Nellie swayed on her feet, catching
herself against the mantelpiece with one forearm. She winced as she hit it,
knowing she’d have a bruise. “How? He was fine two nights ago.”

“Not your prince,
the
prince.
Albert, the Queen’s husband.”

“Oh,” Nellie said, relieved. “I did know
he was ill. How tragic. It’s nothing that Bertie has caught, I hope?” The man
hadn’t liked her, that she knew. But she still wouldn’t have wished him dead.
If nothing else, he was Bertie’s father.

“The rest of the family is well. But you
must understand the Prince will be away for a time, and all your pretty holiday
amusements will be cancelled.”

“Of course,” Nellie said, forcing a
smile through her disappointment. She could do without the parties, but she had
looked forward to the theater and the symphony. The streetlights were so pretty
against falling snow as she rode in her carriage, especially since she didn’t
have to find shelter from it. Would Albert’s death mean anything financially
advantageous for Bertie? Would he have money to hire her a footman?

“I’m afraid you will be quite dependent
on me for the near future’s entertainment,” Ecton said, stepping quite close to
her.

She felt crowded. Surely Ecton wasn’t
going to make an inappropriate comment, or even a gesture. The prince was her
master, after all. Rubbing her aching arm, she let her fingers dance against
the cool tiles around the fireplace, wondering where the poker was. The prince
was her protector, and even away from Windsor Palace she knew that meant
something.

But she was no fool, and she recognized
the lust in Ecton’s dark eyes. Smiling politely, she stepped to the side,
attempting to go around him. “I’ll just ring for tea, shall I? You must be
chilled. Something spirited to go in the tea, I think. I don’t keep a bottle in
here, but the housekeeper will have something in her closet.”

“I would dislike it very much if you
started speaking the Queen’s English,” Ecton said, licking his lips. “That lilt
is so alluring. Very stirring.”

She had to control a shudder as she
reached for the bellpull, realizing belatedly she couldn’t grasp the
embroidered panel with her fingers already curled in a fist. Then Ecton’s hand
was on her shoulder, pulling her away.

“No tea, my dear. I have a flask if you
need a nip. Girls like you often do.”

She whirled around. “Girls like me? I’m
no gin-soaked whore, Mr. Ecton. I am a prince’s mistress.”

“Currently. His life will change now
with Albert dead,” Ecton said. “I suspect he won’t have time for you. And I
find myself unable to leave you alone. You’re too pretty to wind up on the
street. Why, you can’t even have learned your way around London yet. You need a
protector.”

She straightened. This couldn’t be. She
wouldn’t let it happen. “I have not been given my
congé
,” she said. Now
there
was a word she’d learned since she’d been in London—another example that the
English were clearly mad. A French word for something that was an English
happenstance. The Irish would yell and scream and throw things, but the
English? They had to go across the channel to describe the act of giving
someone their walking papers.

Not that she was going to let it happen
to her, not yet. “There is no chance you will have even spoken to the prince
under the circumstances.”

“My dear, you must be realistic.” His
finger went to her chin, lifted it. She didn’t like that at all, it made her
skin crawl. “The rent is only paid through the end of the month. Without word
from the prince I shall be unable to continue the expense of you. Unless we
come to some sort of arrangement.”

“My arrangement is with the prince.”

“Your arrangement was with Cornet Mills,
who transferred responsibility to me once you reached London. He is my cousin,
you know. The prince is merely the beneficiary of our arrangements, and is
quite ignorant of them.”

Nellie couldn’t believe it. “So he comes
to this pretty house, and sees my fancy dresses, and sends me gifts, and never
questions any of it?”

Ecton shrugged. “You never questioned
where any of it came from.”

She could have sworn there were scales
up and down his body that rippled when he did moved his shoulders like that.

“My dear, the prince was sent to Germany
this last September to meet Princess Alexandra of Denmark. It is a certainty
that the Queen will have him married off within the year. Your time with him is
short. You must make other plans.”

Nellie thought of the child growing in
her belly and panic bubbled. Did the prince have no money of his own? Was she
truly in thrall to the snakelike Ecton?

Was that why the prince hadn’t been to
visit her in days? Had Ecton been telling him lies about her devotion,
undermining her future?

Well, of course he hadn’t. Why should
he? She was only the rented poppet, making the prince happy for Ecton’s
benefit. Damn the English and their toadying to princes. How had she fallen
into this trap? Why had she thought the prince had funds of his own, had made
any of the decisions about her keeping? How had she been such a fool? She’d
been caged by this snake and hadn’t even noticed. Meanwhile the coming child
made her more vulnerable by the day.

“For that matter,” Ecton went on,
ignoring her attempts to evade his touch, “I have some ideas on the subject.”

Of course he did. “As do I,” she
answered. She just didn’t know what they were quite yet.

“My dear, I can name half a dozen things
to Sunday you could do.”

The serpentine sneer on the man’s face
repelled her, but she answered steadily, “I’m sure, but you do not know me well
enough to predict my decisions.”

She could have ignored the innuendoes
and the inappropriate touching, but what he did next left nothing open to
interpretation. Just as she was about to turn away, saying, “If what you say is
true, I do have plans to set in motion,” Ecton grabbed her by her throat.

For a second, she was paralyzed by the
man’s boldness, but instinct won out over caution. She slapped Ecton in the
face with as much strength as she could muster, scrambling away. “You take
liberties, sir!” she shouted. “I would not have you at any price!”

But if she was no lady, he was no
gentleman, for he slapped her back, sending her reeling. “I know your price,
and it is a pretty penny, madam!”

Then he seized her by the shoulders and
jammed his lips against hers. She took the opportunity to bite. He screamed and
tried to slap her again, but she was ready for him this time. Missing the
poker—where
was
it?—she slammed her foot down on his and when he howled,
she kneed him in his staff of life.

After that, it didn’t take more than a
minute or two for her to make sure she had the upper hand and keep it. She
grabbed the reptilian Ecton by the scruff of his neck and shoved him out, and
then had the satisfaction of slamming the door after him.

A momentary rush of triumph was eclipsed
by a flood of chagrin. What was she going to do?

She had plans. She just had to decide
what they were.

The first thing she had to do was learn
how to keep the likes of Ecton away from her. He could take away her pretty
home, he could send away her servants, but he was not going to lay a hand on
her again.

Thank the Virgin, she didn’t see the
reptilian Ecton again after that, and in the flurry of the activities following
Prince Albert’s demise—of the Irish flu, she found out, once more staining her
kind with an unwarranted brush—she didn’t see Bertie either. But she didn’t
really expect to. Even the English had to deal with death in some fashion, no
matter how odd they were.

The death of the husband of the reigning
queen, she found out, was observed with a funeral procession so that the people
could say one last good-bye to their beloved prince. Why they used a French
word—cortége—for the occasion, she didn’t know. But the English seemed to have
a love/hate relationship with their French neighbors, and she didn’t understand
that. And, she suspected, they didn’t either. But the one thing that the Irish
knew how to do was pay their respects to the dead, so she put on her nicest
black day suit—not really her shade, but it was appropriate, and the English
were big on what was appropriate—and went out to Windsor and did her best to
see the funeral procession.

Everywhere around her, Nellie saw the
English mourn. The old women were crying, dabbing their eyes with tiny
handkerchiefs, and they looked as though they were genuinely distressed at the
passing of the prince consort. But it was clear they were also taking this opportunity
as a social gathering, which she could understand, because the Irish did that
too.

The younger folk though…the younger folk
waiting at the sidelines of the prince consort’s funeral procession were there
for the sake of their curiosity, she could tell. The death of Prince Albert was
an occasion that they could tell their children and their children’s children
about in years to come. The gossip they could glean from others waiting for the
funeral carriage was priceless. So in that way, the English were no different
from the Irish.

Eventually, she wormed her way to the
second tier of those waiting on the street. It only took an hour, and waiting
for those who grew impatient or tired of standing to go away. It wouldn’t be
long before the procession came.

Across the street, she saw a
prosperous-looking toff dressed in proper English mourning attire, black suit
and hat and all. She noticed him because he looked vaguely Irish, with a great
reddish mustache and a small goatee, standing right on the first tier, next to
the street. On his shoulder was a small boy, his young son perhaps, with
reddish-brown hair. The child was dressed in similar mourning attire as his
father, but unlike his father, the boy was there for the spectacle.

“When will it be coming, Father?” she
could hear the child say, nearly jumping up and down in his excitement. “Will
it be soon?”

The man—the child’s father, as Nellie
assumed—shifted the boy a little. “Won’t be long now, Lucas,” he said. “Won’t
see the likes of this again. Only sorry your brother couldn’t be here to see
this.”

From the expression on the boy’s face,
the absence of his brother didn’t weigh on him one way or another. His head
swiveled and for a moment his gaze touched hers. Nellie felt a jolt deep inside
her, as if a giant had just stomped on her grave. Then the boy, an ordinary,
upper-class boy, shifted his gaze and the sensation was lost.

Would her own child have such memories,
she wondered, touching her waist again. Would she have her own recollections to
impart about the day that the child’s grandfather’s body was trotted out
through the streets of Windsor to his final resting place? Would she still be
in London as she told the tale? Or back in Ireland?

That weighed on her as she watched the
procession finally arrive and make its way through the crowds. The prince’s
body was in a hearse drawn by six horses. White-frocked priests, men dressed in
somber black coats, along with Life Guards and Scots Fusiliers, made up a crowd
of humanity alongside carriages. It was the end of an era. Whether it was the
end of hers, she couldn’t say yet.

As opposed to Ecton’s predictions, the
prince didn’t promptly put Nellie aside after his father’s death. She was
surprised to see him in her home pretty much on the same schedule after a week
without communication. She gave him her condolences, he accepted them, and
after that, the topic was rarely mentioned again.

The subject she wanted to introduce,
that of the slimy Ecton and his predictions, was too delicate to mention. But
one thing she could figure out was Bertie, while a good-natured sort, wasn’t
the cleverest man-child. He didn’t know or consider how she was being cared
for. In that, Ecton might have been telling the truth: she was there because
the prince wanted her to be, and the logistics weren’t his concern.
Royals
.
Did they know there was a world outside their own? Probably not. Bertie’s own
mother either didn’t know or didn’t seem to care that the Irish were starving,
and had been since the damned potatoes that she had decreed the Irish subsist
on had become poison.

As always, the Irish had to make their
own way in the world. She couldn’t ask her ma and pa for help; they had been
horrified when they’d learned that she had taken up with Bertie, and refused
contact with her. But she knew she could not stay dependent on Ecton. And the
prince still seemed to have no money of his own, though his intentions were
good.

When the theaters were up and open again
after Prince Albert’s death, she inquired of them if she could somehow finagle
a position in their repertories but she met with a wall. She had to find a
sponsor, someone like Ecton, who could twist arms and extort something from the
powers that were in the directorship of the theaters, but no one came to mind.
And she would die before she went to Ecton for help. The price was far too
high. One of the directors, recognizing her name, actually paid her a call at
her home, but because he was curious about her, not because he had any role in
mind.