Silver in the Blood (9 page)

“Aunt Kate, so good to see you,” Lou said, and let go of Dacia's arm to hug and kiss their aunt.

Aunt Kate looked like she was going to say something more, but then Lou's parents entered with the twins. In the ensuing babble, Dacia led Lou upstairs. Dacia, seeing Lou's pallor and remembering how grimy she'd felt when she arrived, went past her own room to the adjacent one, which was to be Lou's. Her cousin looked around briefly, set her reticule and hat on the dresser, and then collapsed into a chair.

“I can't speak of it all just now,” Lou said. “You had better go first. What has happened since your last letter?”

“It's been awful,” Dacia blurted out. “I feel like I've been put in prison, and all because a young man likes me!” She leaped to her feet and paced back and forth. “All Prince Mihai wants to do is take me to the opera one night. But Aunt Kate is acting very strange, and so is Uncle Horia, and you are going to be appalled when you meet Lady Ioana!”

“Who is Lady Ioana?” Lou asked, looking even paler.

“The most unnatural grandmother the world has ever known,” Dacia said.

“You mean Grandmother Florescu?” Lou's brow puckered in anxiety.

“Whatever you do, don't call her Grandmother Florescu,” Dacia said in a dark voice. “No one warned me, which is beyond rude, but it seems that everyone calls her Lady Ioana, even Aunt Kate—her own daughter! And everyone is terrified of her. Even Aunt Kate!
Especially
Aunt Kate!”

Lou looked shocked, and Dacia made a face. She hadn't meant to terrify her cousin the moment she arrived, but Dacia sensed that it couldn't be helped. Lou was so much more sensitive than Dacia was, and it would do Lou no favors to have her run afoul of Lady Ioana, who was expected for dinner. Dacia looked carefully at Lou's face, to make sure she was ready for the next bit of news. She saw the puckering of her cousin's forehead: a sure sign that Lou was upset. Dacia drew in as deep a breath as her corset would allow. She knew that what she was going to say next would make Lou upset for certain.

“Let me tell you about meeting Lady Ioana,” she began, proceeding to tell Lou about her less-than-fortunate introduction to their grandmother, followed by Lady Ioana's strange words.

“The Wing? She said that she was the Wing?” Lou's pallor had gone waxy, and her voice hardly a whisper. “She said that
I
was the Wing?” Her dry lips barely made any sound at all on this last question.

Dacia knelt in front of her cousin and took her hands. “Yes. And that I was the Claw,” she said softly. “But I don't know what
it means any more than you do. I tried to ask Radu, but he said that Lady Ioana would kill him if he told me before she gave her permission. And Lou, he really meant it. There's something going on here, only I don't know what. Everyone's acting like there's a reason for us to come here, beyond just meeting our cousins.

“The worst part is they make it sound like we're never leaving.”

A soft knock came at the door, which made them both jump, but it was only a footman with Lou's luggage. Dacia remained at Lou's feet, both of them frozen in a strange tableau as he brought in her things, trying hard not to gape at them.

“I met your Lord Johnny, Lord John Harcastle that is, on the train,” Lou said, changing the subject after the footman had gone. She opened the lid of her trunk and began to remove an array of beautiful new gowns.

Dacia felt a warm flush start up her neck and cheeks. “He's not
my
Lord Johnny,” she said, but couldn't keep a faint smile at bay. “What did he say?”

“He—he was very kind,” Lou said. “I accidentally wandered into the smoking car, and he offered to let me sit in his compartment for a while and catch my breath.”

“Why was he on the Express?” Dacia found that now she was smiling, she couldn't stop, thinking of Lord Johnny. “Did he say? Did he mention me?”

“Of course,” Lou told her, laying out her new gowns. Dacia gasped appreciatively at the pale pink satin evening gown. “Well, I brought you up first, because I recognized him from the
clippings you had sent me. But he appeared to be very excited to talk about you.”

“Did he say where he was going? Istanbul? Or somewhere even more exotic?” Dacia held a blue gown to her shoulders and looked at herself in the long mirror, trying to be nonchalant.

Lou was looking at her with raised eyebrows and a faint smile. Despite being totally guileless herself, she was exceptionally good at reading Dacia. “Bucharest,” she said.

“What?” Dacia dropped the gown, then scrambled to pick it up, face burning. “Here? Does he know I'm—Did he say why he's—He's in Bucharest right now?”

Lou laughed her bubbly little laugh, which Dacia had tried to tell her over and over again made every man in the room look at her. Lou just never would believe that any man was paying her notice, which was probably a good thing, since it made her less self-conscious and freer with her smiles and laughter.

“He said that he had business, and he did seem startled that you were here,” Lou told her. “But he was blushing almost as badly as you are.” Another little laugh.

“Oh, really?” Dacia laid the gown on the bed, trying not to twitter like one of those silly girls who suddenly acts like a flitting, brainless sparrow whenever a young man is in the room. Or even mentioned. “That's . . . nice.”

Lou shook her head. “Ah, Dacia, you're going to get into trouble. I've heard about your other suitor as well. Mama has been fussing over it since she got Aunt Kate's telegram. We have trunks of new gowns for you as well.”

Dacia goggled. “Your mother . . . she
wants
me to keep company with Prince Mihai?”

“From the sound of things, yes,” Lou said, puzzled. “Why wouldn't she? He's Romanian, and a prince!”

“Uncle Horia is firmly against it,” Dacia said. “That's why they were fighting when Radu and I listened in and were caught by Lady Ioana. Lady Ioana is supportive, but that makes me highly suspicious. I feel like I'm being ‘handled,' you know?” Dacia picked the gown up again, then hung it in the wardrobe before her nervous fingers plucked off all the ornaments.

“And then there's the fact that Lady Ioana and even Aunt Kate act as though an invitation to the opera is a proposal of marriage, which I must accept!”

“But he's some kind of royalty,” Lou said, her eyes wide. “They always take their connections very seriously. For him, it might be as good as proposing.”

“Oh, hardly!” Dacia threw up her hands. “I mean, to say he's a prince sounds thrilling, but it's one of those older titles that are traditional, not political. He's no relation to the king, you know. It's like the Russians, who have princes simply everywhere.”

“Well, your mother doesn't think that it's a lesser title,” Lou said. “She and Mama have exchanged a dozen telegrams; they are both so excited about a prince courting you!”

“Mother is?” Dacia tried to keep the squeak out of her voice, and not look too eager to ask her next question. “What did she say?”

Lou put a soft arm around Dacia's waist and gave her a little squeeze. “I don't know the details, only that she wanted you to have the best of everything from Paris,” Lou said. “Let's go in your room and you can see what we've brought you.”

The cousins went into the next room, neither of them
needing to talk about Dacia's disappointment that her mother hadn't sent
her
a telegram over the matter. Dacia wouldn't want to embarrass herself if tears leaked out or her voice shook, but Lou understood, and nothing needed to be said.

The gowns that the maid was spreading out on her bed took Dacia's mind off her mother completely. They were in the latest mode and utterly gorgeous. Not even the shops in London could deliver that elegant drape to the fabric, that certain something that was so completely French that it could never be mistaken for anything else. Long used to putting her mother out of her mind, Dacia gave herself over to the new clothes: trying on gloves and hats, holding up gowns and posing in the long mirror while Lou laughed and admired them.

But Dacia could still see the faintest traces of a pucker on Lou's forehead, and there was a little twist of sourness in her own stomach that the tea and biscuits the maid brought could not wash away. She picked up her own new evening gown, a white confection with lavender accents, and held it to her shoulders.

Then she nearly dropped that gown, but this time in sheer excitement.

“Lou! I know what we can do!” She whirled around and put the gown on the bed so that she could take her cousin's hands. “We'll
both
go to the opera!”

“What do you mean? Of course we will, Papa said he would—” Lou's eyes widened. “Do you mean with Prince Mihai?” Her voice lifted on the name.

“Yes!” Dacia twirled around, pleased by her solution. “Aunt Kate said I might, but Uncle Horia is being such a bear about it
that I've put Mihai off. If we went together—I'm sure Mihai wouldn't mind! He's terribly persistent and he says he'll do anything to make me happy—and if we both went, it wouldn't be quite so serious!” She gave Lou's hands an extra little squeeze, but Lou looked dubious.

“I don't know,” Lou said. “What if Prince Mihai doesn't want me there? He's never even met me.” She hesitated, looking around the room as though not sure how to go on. “And don't you think it's rather forward of him to keep asking, when you've been putting him off?”

“Not at all! It will be perfect,” Dacia announced, brushing both concerns aside. Another idea lit her up. “He really is so eager to please, you know, that I wonder if he'll send you an opera cloak, too!”

This didn't seem to entice Lou, but all the same Dacia immediately went to her desk to write Prince Mihai a note while Lou took a bath. Dacia accepted the prince's invitation to the opera, writing that she had at last brought the family around to her way of thinking. Feeling even more clever, she wrote that now that her cousin was in residence, she was sure Mihai would want to help her show Lou the sights of Bucharest. She summoned a footman at once to deliver the note, watching to make sure that he got out of the house before anyone could intercept him.

“And now if I could just find out where Lord Johnny is staying,” Dacia mused, “things would be very exciting indeed!”

 

THE DIARY OF MISS MARIA LOUISA NEULANDER

25 May 1897

Being with Dacia has not assuaged my fears, but rather added to them. Aunt Kate has become a stranger, and I worry that Mama will also. Dacia is obsessed with a minor prince whose interest has polarized the family and caused many arguments. Papa is busy keeping the twins out from underfoot, and Mama seems to find excuses for him to take charge of them, so that he and I never get a chance to speak. I long for his reassurances, but none are forthcoming.

The afternoon after our arrival in Bucharest was the worst yet. I met in private with Grandmother Florescu, whom I must remember is never to be called Grandmother, but to be addressed always as Lady Ioana, a title I did not know she held. She is not merely stern, but threatening, and everyone is afraid of her. She looked me over, gave me a smile that made me cold inside, and told me that I was the Wing as predicted. It seems that even my own mother knows this strange thing and did not say a word to me!

Lady Ioana also told me that I had a less defiant face than Dacia, which was good, because the Claw always thought too much of themselves. She joked that she had nearly had Radu killed three times. At least, I chose to think of it as a joke. Then
she congratulated me on not having a beau, saying that it was for the best, because when the time came, she would find me a suitable mate of my own kind. I felt my face getting redder and redder, and at these words I nearly fainted. So shockingly crass, but she seemed quite unaware of it! I wanted very much to lie, to claim that I had a fiancé waiting for me in New York, but I couldn't do it.

And now I am to attend the opera with Dacia and Prince Mihai. My mother, who would have been shocked by the very idea of Dacia attending the opera with a young man alone in New York, has sided with Aunt Kate and wants Dacia to find every possible chance to be with Prince Mihai!

I just wish that the very idea of meeting this prince didn't fill me with terror.

Despite her misgivings, Lou discovered that Prince Mihai did not at all mind taking her to the opera along with Dacia. He seemed delighted, in fact. He had even sent an opera cloak for her, just as Dacia had said he might. It was lined with pink satin that perfectly matched her gown, though how he could have guessed what color her gown was she would never know. She brushed it aside as a lucky guess, pale pink being eminently suitable for a young lady. All the same it gave her a shiver, as though he had been watching her.