Cinderella Six Feet Under(101)

“They were invited, but no, they will not attend. They are at home in Paris. You have not met them, Miss Flax, but it is rather difficult to picture them on a dancing floor.”

Prue laughed. “Hume would have to do all the work. All right, Dalziel. Time for you to hook it. Ophelia needs her privacy. But won’t you come back later and keep me company till midnight?”

“Of course, Miss Prudence. And I shall bring you something to dine upon.”

“You’ll make certain nothing happens to Prue, won’t you?” Ophelia asked.

Dalziel studied her. “I shall guard her with my very life, Miss Flax.”

Ophelia had no choice but to trust him.

“Quite a puppy dog, isn’t he?” Ophelia said to Prue, once Dalziel had gone.

“It’s only fair, Ophelia. You’ve got two.”

*

After the incident at the lake, Gabriel bathed, tended to the bump on his head from Hume’s wooden spoon, the other bump on his head from the automaton’s champagne bottle, and affixed a fresh plaster to his bullet-nicked ear. Then he changed into evening clothes and went down to Prince Rupprecht’s opulent gaming room, along with about half of the chaps in the chateau. After nine o’clock chimed, he went out to the ballroom to find Miss Flax. He brought his glass of Bordeaux with him.

What he meant to say to her would not be easy. But it had to be done.

At first, he did not see her. He was just about to wonder if he’d been foolish to leave her unguarded with Lord and Lady Cruthlach on the loose, when he saw her.

His heart wrung itself.

Miss Flax stood against a wall beside a row of glum wallflowers in gilt chairs. But Miss Flax was no wallflower. She wore a ball gown of eggshell blue, with an embroidered cream satin overskirt and a snug bodice with tiny tulle sleeves. Her hair was swept behind a cream satin band. Her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes flashed.

She did not resemble the woman he’d been fretting over in the gaming room. The woman who would hang nappies out on a clothesline across Harrington Hall’s rose garden, or instruct their children how to do the horseshoe-toss in the portrait gallery, or serve Indian pudding and molasses to aristocrats. No, Miss Flax looked like . . . a gentlewoman. And that was, oddly, a bit dismaying. Because for some reason, Gabriel did not wish for Miss Flax to be a gentlewoman; he wished for her to be simply herself.

He swallowed the last of his wine, set aside the glass, and waded through the crowd towards her.

“Miss Flax,” he said when he reached her.

She lifted her brows. “What’s the gruff voice on account of, Professor?”

“Truth be told, I’ve a blinder of a headache. Would you . . .” He swallowed. He felt like a bloody schoolboy. “Would you kindly come outside with me please, Miss Flax, and desist in peering into my mug as though you were looking through a spyglass?”

“You certainly do seem as though you require a breath of air.” She took his proffered arm, but gingerly.

This was off to a dismal start.

*

Outside the ballroom, a terrace overlooked the formal gardens and, beyond, a great, shadowy park. A strip of starlit river shone behind black trees. Hanging paper lanterns lit up the gardens, a fairyland of topiaries, fountains, gravel walks, and white stone stairs.

Ophelia slipped her arm out of the professor’s as soon as they got outside. He was acting shirty and she hadn’t a notion why. Things had seemed fine enough when they’d parted after their dip in the lake.

Ophelia walked silently at Penrose’s side down a few flights of steps and into the formal gardens. Ladies and gents were already up to some naughty tricks in the maze and behind statues. Ophelia and Penrose both pretended not to notice. A string quartet sat on a platform in the middle of a marble pool. The musicians sawed away—Mozart, maybe—by the light of candelabras.

“Feel better?” Ophelia asked Penrose. “Your headache, I mean.”

He stopped, pushed his hands in his pockets, and scowled into the distance.

“Well. Perhaps you ought to be by yourself, because you seem mighty testy,” Ophelia said. “I think I’ll just go—”

“Miss Flax,” Penrose said. He didn’t look at her. “There is something I must say to you. Something rather important.”

Her innards flip-flopped. “Oh?”

He paused. Gathering his thoughts. That didn’t bode well. When folks had to gather their thoughts, it usually meant they were scrambling around for the nicest way to say something rotten.