The American Heiress Read online

  Cora had smiled at this but all she could think of was Ivo’s horrified start when she had embraced him in the Customs Hall in front of the photographers. She knew that the roar that greeted her as she got out of the coach would be heard inside the church. The thought of Ivo wincing had almost ruined the moment but then she had seen the little girl from the milliner’s sitting on a policeman’s shoulders whistling and waving for all she was worth and she had felt buoyed up by the girl’s enthusiasm. These people were here for her, why should she feel guilty? As she walked up the aisle she could just make out the back of Ivo’s head through her veil. She thought of their first meeting and how he had shown her his neck. She willed him to look round at her but he kept his eyes straight ahead. She remembered that moment in the gallery at Lulworth when he had seen her but had pretended not to. At last she drew level with him and caught a glimpse of his face. His profile was hard and set and Cora wondered for a moment if this had all been a terrible mistake Then her father took her hand and placed it in Ivo’s and she felt him hold it fast. His touch, as always, reassured her. All she had to do was hold on.

  The dinner gong sounded. Cora put out her hand for the pearls. Bertha took them from her bodice where she had been warming them so that they would be at their most lustrous. It was a trick she had learnt from the Double Duchess’s maid, who had been amazed at Bertha’s ignorance. ‘Ladies are always cold in their evening things, so you need to warm the pearls so they shine – cold pearls on cold skin, spittle on a turkey gizzard.’

  Bertha fastened the necklace round her mistress’s long white neck. Their dark iridescent sheen made the skin glow. The Duke had given them to Cora in Venice on their honeymoon, and Cora had worn them every night since.

  Cora’s hands went straight to her throat. She loved the smooth weight of the pearls against her skin. She knew that white pearls would be more usual with her dress but she liked the contrast between the white and the black, it made her feel worldly, brazen even. Every time she put them on she remembered the first time she had worn them: naked but for the necklace under the sheets of their canopied bed in the Palazzo Mocenigo. It was the fourth week of their honeymoon and they had been in Venice for three days. Cora had not known what to expect of married life. She had some inkling of the physical side of things from Ivo’s more fervent embraces, but she had not realised that her old self would be so completely obliterated. After their first night together, when he had got up from the bed, she had felt the parting of their flesh as pain, it was if she had lost a skin. And that feeling had only intensified with every passing day and night; she only felt at peace when he was in her arms, when his skin covered hers. Never in her life had she been so aware of all her senses; every morning she smelled the sweet dark smell of his skin and was glad. When she was with him she had to touch him, when he was apart from her she would hug herself so as not to let the flesh that had been warmed by him grow cold.

  That morning in Venice he had disappeared after breakfast. It was too hot to go out and Cora had wandered about the palazzo aimlessly. She tried to read her Baedeker but she could not concentrate on anything while he was gone. He didn’t come back for lunch and Cora had gone for her siesta in a frenzy of impatience. She had undressed completely, feeling that only the cool white linen sheets would dampen the heat coursing round her body. But the sheets, too, began to twist and grow hot, so she had thrown them off and had lain there with the warm air on her skin and the sounds of the Grand Canal floating in through the open window. She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she remembered was Ivo’s hand on her breast. She put up her arms to draw him to her, but he had held back. ‘Wait, my impatient darling, there is something I want you to wear for me.’ And he had taken a worn leather box out of his pocket. ‘Open it.’ Cora had leant over him and had squeezed the lid of the box open. Inside were the pearls, as big as quail’s eggs and all the colours of the night from bronze to midnight purple. She picked them out of the box and held them to her throat, where they had lain, as they lay now, heavy with promise. She lifted her arms to reach for the clasp, half expecting Ivo to take over, but he simply watched her as she tried to fit the golden hook into its sprung clasp.

  He leant back a little from her to admire his gift.

  ‘Black pearls are so rare that it can take a lifetime to collect enough to make a necklace. I thought they were a fitting tribute.’ He reached forward and ran his fingers along the pearls and then put his mouth on hers.

  Later, he had whispered in her ear, ‘I wanted you to have them, only you.’ And she had kissed him and put his hand to her throat.

  ‘Feel how warm they are now. Every time I wear them I will think of this.’

  Cora felt the warmth of that remembered afternoon sweep through her body. It had been hard coming back to England after the honeymoon, not just because she now had a title and a great house to run, but because she could no longer be with Ivo all day and night. Lulworth had eighty-one servants and even though they had not begun to entertain, it felt as if they were never alone. She was no longer as certain of Ivo as she had been when they had sailed around the Mediterranean on her father’s yacht. Then they had both been loose and shapeless, constrained by nothing but the weather. The occasional dinner they had taken with ambassadors and minor princes had been adventures that they had dressed up for, laughing and complicit, catching each other’s eye throughout the evening, longing for it to end so that they could be alone together again. But now when Cora looked up hoping to exchange a glance with Ivo, she could not be certain that his eyes would be waiting for her. Only at night could she be sure of him. It had been quite a shock to discover that here at Conyers they had been given separate bedrooms. Ivo had laughed at her evident dismay.

  ‘Darling, you will never pass as a duchess if people think that you actually want to share a bed with your husband.’

  Cora had made him promise that he would spend the nights with her.

  ‘But I will have to leave at crack of dawn or the servants will talk.’

  Cora had pouted but Ivo had laughed her out of it.

  Now she was waiting for him to take her downstairs. Where was he? Maybe she should go to him, his room must be on the same corridor. But Conyers was so cavernous that she might get lost. She thought of that poem where the bride hid in a chest and was never found, until much later when a skeleton with a veil was discovered. Not that the Double Duchess would look very hard, she thought. Her mother-in-law was invariably charming to her but Cora was not deceived. She knew that Fanny was making the best of what she considered a bad job. Fanny’s ideal daughter-in-law would have been a girl she had chosen, a girl of good family, pretty but not spectacularly so, wealthy but not too rich, a little bit dowdy, who would defer to her mother-in-law in all things. Instead she had Cora who was not only American, but beautifully dressed, indecently rich and only erratically deferential. Cora suspected that the Double Duchess had organised this royal party at Conyers to remind her daughter-in-law just how much she still had to learn.

  She opened the door of her room and looked down the corridor. The door had a card inserted into a brass holder on which was written ‘The Duchess of Wareham’. Cora looked at it stupidly. It was still hard for her to connect this edifice with herself. But if her name was on the door then surely it would not be too hard to find Ivo. She walked down the corridor, which for an English house was almost warm. She could hear muffled voices through the door that said ‘Lady Beauchamp’ and then a peal of laughter. Cora moved on in search of her husband. She found his room right at the very end of the corridor (really, Duchess Fanny might as well have put them in separate buildings). There was the name card, ‘The Duke of Wareham’ in the same spidery hand. She turned the handle.

  ‘Ivo, are you there, darling? I want you to come and put me out of my misery. If I wait around any longer practising my curtsy I will turn into a pillar of salt. Ivo?’

  But the room was empty. Ivo had evidently dressed, his collar case was empty o
n the dressing table. Cora saw that Ivo had brought the travelling case from the Beauchamps; she felt irrationally annoyed that Ivo should be using it. She remembered the dress studs that had also been in the drawer, they had been black pearls too. She opened the drawer where they had lain, and found it empty. She felt suddenly desolate without her husband. On the bureau lay a shirt that he must have taken off before putting on his evening clothes. She picked it up and buried her face in it, finding reassurance in that familiar scent.

  ‘Darling, what on earth are you doing?’ He was standing in the doorway, laughing at her.

  ‘I was missing you!’ said Cora defiantly. He went over to her and kissed her on the forehead. She put her face up to his.

  ‘Why didn’t you come and get me? I got so bored of waiting I came to find you.’

  ‘Oh, I got waylaid by Colonel Ferrers the Prince’s equerry, some very tedious question of protocol. Can’t think why Bertie puts so much store by all that stuff. But because he’s here we will all have to play by the rules. Which means that you, my little savage, are the senior duchess present and will go in to dinner with the Prince.’

  ‘But surely your mother is more qualified. I shouldn’t take precedence over her,’

  ‘Oh, infinitely more qualified, but sadly the Buckinghams are an eighteenth-century concoction whereas the Warehams go all the way back to James the First, so you are number seven and poor old Mama is number twelve. Ferrers has looked it up in Debrett’s so there is no getting around it. Everyone has their number and those are the rules. The only person who can play around with precedent is the Prince, which I suppose is what Mama was counting on.’

  ‘Oh Lord. Well, you had better kiss me for good luck, I feel as if I am going into battle.’

  ‘You are, Cora, you are.’

  The Double Duchess was in the Chinese room. Conyers had been built in the 1760s when the fashion for chinoiserie was at its height. This octagonal room with its lacquered furniture and hand-painted silk wallpaper was so famous that it had never been modernised. Every detail – the faux bamboo window frets picked out in gilt, the dragon’s head sconces, the pagodas on the octagonal silk carpet – had been perfectly realised. Even Cora, who took splendour for granted, was impressed. Each wall showed a different scene from life in the Imperial Court. The Duchess Fanny was standing in front of a wall that showed a group of exquisitely dressed courtiers grouped around an empty throne. Buckingham, her husband, stood slightly behind her, ready and waiting to obey his wife’s every whim.

  ‘Cora, my dear, how fresh you look. Is that your wedding dress remodelled? How charming. So few of Ivo’s friends were there for the wedding. I am sure they will all be delighted to see you in your bridal finery.’ The Duchess’s words were warm, yet it was evident to Cora that wearing the wedding dress would not ‘do’. But it was too late to change.

  The Double Duchess introduced her to the assembled guests. Everybody had been told to be there at seven thirty as the Prince of Wales would arrive promptly at a quarter to eight. There was no social crime more heinous than arriving after the Prince.

  ‘Lord and Lady Bessborough, my daughter-in-law the Duchess of Wareham. Colonel Ferrers, my daughter-in-law the Duchess of Wareham, Ernest Cassel…Sir Odo and Lady Beauchamp, my daughter-in-law the Duchess of Wareh—’

  ‘Oh, but we’ve met the Duchess before,’ said Sir Odo, his face gleaming rosily over his white tie, his large pale blue eyes sparkling with malice, ‘when she was still Miss Cash. We were hunting with the Myddleton, the day that Your Grace had your accident. We feel almost responsible for the match.’ Odo giggled and Cora looked around for Ivo but he was on the other side of the room talking to Ferrers the equerry.

  She turned to Charlotte Beauchamp, who gave her a small tight smile and dropped the very faintest of curtsies. ‘Your Grace,’ she said ever so slightly, inclining her smooth blond head.

  Cora nodded, doing her best to smile. Unconsciously she put her hands to her throat, seeking reassurance from the glowing pearls round her neck.

  Odo noticed. ‘But what a magnificent necklace, Duchess Cora! You hardly ever see pearls of that colour and size. And such a charming contrast to the dress.’

  ‘Ivo gave it to me when we were in Venice on our wedding tour.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a necklace with pearls that colour, Charlotte, that your aunt gave you? You and Duchess Cora must be careful not to wear your black pearls at the same time or people will think that you both belong to some secret society.’ Odo was almost squeaking with pleasure at his conceit. But Charlotte did not rise to his bait.

  ‘My necklace is far inferior, Odo. Anyway it is broken, so there is no danger of duplication.’

  Odo did not reply. Cora was struck by the evident tension between the couple.

  There was a sudden dip in the hum of conversation and a rustling sound that spread through the room like the wind through dry leaves. Cora turned and saw the Prince of Wales standing in the doorway. He was of average height but even the immaculate tailoring of his evening clothes could not disguise his enormous girth; she understood now why his nickname was Tum Tum. He looked older than the photographs she had seen of him and they did not convey his florid complexion or the coldness of his pale blue eyes. She realised that the rustling had stopped with her, and then she caught her mother-in-law’s scandalised eye and realised that the whole room was waiting for her to curtsy. But her knees refused to bend. It was only when she saw the slow smile on the face of Charlotte Beauchamp that the spell was broken; her knees obeyed and she sank into the most graceful curtsy she could manage.

  ‘Your Highness, may I present the Duchess of Wareham.’ Duchess Fanny stopped short of a full endorsement of her daughter-in-law.

  Cora was conscious of the Prince’s heavy-lidded eyes looking her over with the scrutiny of experience.

  ‘I think your son has made a very wise choice, Fanny. I’ve always liked Amerrricans.’ The Prince had an almost French habit of rolling his ‘r’s.

  Cora wondered whether she could safely rise from her curtsy, or was she meant to hover in obeisance while the Prince inspected her? She decided to stand up. This meant that she now stood an inch or two above the Prince. He smiled at her, revealing uneven yellow teeth.

  ‘I have very fond memories of your country. I saw Blondin walk across the Niagarrra Falls, you know. My heart was in my mouth the whole way.’ The Prince nodded at the memory.

  Cora had no idea who Blondin was, but smiled back. She guessed that the Prince must be in his late fifties; if Blondin had been famous in his youth then she knew better than to remind him of his age.

  ‘You have the advantage of this American then, Your Royal Highness. I have not yet visited the Niagara Falls.’

  ‘But that is a shocking omission. You must make a point of going there when you return to your country.’

  ‘Is that a royal command, sir?’ Cora said as pertly as she dared.

  The Prince laughed and turned to the Double Duchess. ‘I hope I am sitting next to your daughter-in-law at dinner, she can amuse me.’

  The Double Duchess smiled and nodded, not betraying by a flicker her dismay at this casual destruction of her carefully considered placement.

  The Prince moved on and Cora felt Ivo’s breath tickling her neck.

  ‘You’ve made an impression on the Prince. Mother must be thrilled.’

  ‘But where were you, Ivo? I shouldn’t have to face all these people alone,’ Cora said sharply. Her heart was still pounding from her encounter with the Prince.

  ‘Nonsense, Cora, you are quite indestructible and besides, the Prince likes to have the pretty ones all to himself.’ He bent down and whispered into her ear. ‘But remember that I shall be watching you.’

  Cora blushed and looked down in confusion. When she dared to raise her gaze, she caught a glimpse of Charlotte Beauchamp staring at them.

  ‘Ivo, why does Charlotte Beauchamp stare at me like that?’

  Ivo hesitated, then he took
her hand and kissed it. ‘Cora, my love, you must be used to staring by now. Poor old Charlotte is probably feeling put out that she is now no longer the reigning beauty. Don’t worry about her.’

  Ivo’s tone was breezy but Cora felt there was something out of place that she couldn’t quite identify. She noticed that he did not look over at Charlotte but kept his eyes on her.

  Cora had no time to puzzle over her husband’s evasions during dinner. She was fully occupied with entertaining the Prince, who had the most disconcerting habit of changing the subject the moment he grew tired of it. Cora was in the middle of describing the alterations that she was making to Lulworth when the royal eyelids flickered and he interrupted her with a question about the hunting in her native country. It was only during the serving of the fish course, when the Prince turned to talk to the Double Duchess on his other side, that Cora was able to look down the table and see that Ivo was sitting next to Charlotte Beauchamp. They were talking not to each other but to the people sitting on either side of them. Cora wanted to see how they spoke to each other but here was the ptarmigan and the Prince was turning back towards her.