Conflagration (25 page)

Raphael did his best to digest this unexpected and unverified piece of news. “Why are you telling me this?”

Before Country Man could answer, he was distracted by a young woman with her hair arranged into a thick black pompadour, and semi-dressed in a short skirt, long boots, and a loose military-style evening coat over a gold brassiere. As she walked past, Country Man sighed. “Man, will you look at her.” The girl had derailed the whole conversation, and Raphael could have cursed. Country Man finished his drink and rose to his feet. “We gotta to talk some more, man, but this ain’t the place. Are you all going to Madame de Wynter’s party later?”

“I don’t know. I was invited but I hadn’t made up my mind.”

“You gotta, man. No one should live their life without having gone to a de Wynter party.”

Raphael was bemused. “People keep telling me that.”

“You be there, man, and maybe we talk some more.”

JESAMINE

Jesamine didn’t want to be at this reception at the Palace of Westminster. She didn’t want to be wearing the same blue dress that she had worn to her tryst with Jack on the
Ragnar
. She wished she could just leave quietly, without telling anyone she was going. Cordelia and the others—especially Cordelia—could cope with the social whirl. They hardly needed her in a situation like this. As it was, she seemed to be drifting round in the wake of Jack Kennedy like some tremulous love-starved stalker. She looked at Kennedy and the mob of dignitaries around him. Now they were in this city of the Norse, how could he possibly have a moment of time for someone like her? Okay, so there had been the night on the ship, under the moon, in the middle of the Northern Ocean. She was a woman of the world. She understood it could not go anywhere. He was the Prime Minister, damn it. She had fucked him, and it would stay with her, probably for all of her days, but, practically, that was that. Even if he did see her again, it would only be a matter of time before they were forced to go their separate ways.

She was also aware that beyond the glittering gowns and spectacular uniforms, beyond the ancient walls of the Palace of Westminster, was the whole city of London. On the drive to the reception, the automobile had passed through an area of bars and restaurants, wide pavements, and sooty urban trees. She had seen the electric façade of one of the new photoplay theatres that actually featured recorded sound that was synchronized with the flickering images. The moving picture being shown was apparently an historical epic titled
Hengist
. She wanted to see a moving picture, and walk on those streets that were softened by the mist that rose from the river Thames. She had seen warm public houses with yellow light shining from the windows, and sounds of music from within. She wanted to drink in those pubs instead of at this overbearing reception. From both the crowd at the reception, and the faces she had seen in the streets, she could tell that London was a cosmopolitan city that provided a home, in some cases a refuge, for people from all over the world. Out there were Africans and Caribbeans, Chinese and the strange, brown-skinned Maya and Aztecs from the Southern Americas. She wanted to get away from all the pomp and ceremony and mingle with the ordinary and the exotic. She suddenly realized that was what was troubling. She was a prisoner of a timetable, and every moment of her time, for as far ahead as she could possibly see, was planned out and preordained. Most of all, deep inside, she wanted to be free. For once in her life, Jesamine wanted to drift, to be free of duty and responsibility, and just go where her fancy might take her. And yet, how could she be free when she now found herself carrying this ridiculous torch for Jack Kennedy.

“From the way you are staring after Jack, I have to assume you must be Jesamine.”

The voice, that was soft but commanding, and had the slightest trace of a Frankish accent, took Jesamine completely by surprise. At the same time, Jesamine felt a tingle, as though brushed by a powerful psychic presence. She turned quickly and found herself facing a tiny woman, timeless and slight, verging on an ancient transparency, but who made up for her lack of physical substance with an overstated flamboyance. Her hair was dyed an implausible shade of purple that, even partially concealed by her wide plumed hat, would have looked absurd on most other women, but, on her, it only added to her commanding intensity. A gold-embroidered black velvet cape was thrown over her shoulders with the attitude of a swashbuckler. Her dress was constructed of multiple falls of weblike black lace that seemed to best serve as a background for her considerable complement of jewelry. The emerald collar at her throat and the falls of chains and pendants, the pendant earrings, plus the mass of bracelets, rings, pins, and clips all contributed to an aura of material vehemence and a sense that she was unstoppable. The left hand was covered in a soft red leather glove, with rings on the outside, and she carried a silver falcon-topped cane, but seemingly had no need of its support.

“I…”

“You are Major Jesamine?”

Jesamine’s mind flashed back to the conversation with Colonel Windermere on the train. Something he said resonated.
“Anastasia de Wynter is always hard to understand.”
Jesamine quickly gathered her wits. “You must be…”

“I am Madame Anastasia de Wynter, my dear. Don’t look so alarmed. If I didn’t make it my business to know everything, I would never have survived this long.”

Behind Madame de Wynter stood a huge man who could only have been her bodyguard. His face was flat with slanted eyes and broad cheekbones, his head was perfectly shaved, and he was built like an Ottoman wrestler with shoulders that seemed too big for his black footman’s coat. Jesamine was surprised and a little awed. De Wynter gestured with a smile. “This is Garth. He looks after me.”

This Garth would have looked more at home in the ranks of the Mosul than in a diplomatic hotel in central London, but, right there and then, he was the least of Jesamine’s worries.

“You said ‘Jack’?”

“That’s right, darling. Jack.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Madame de Wynter brushed aside Jesamine’s dissembling. “Of course you do. Don’t be silly. I was right where you are twenty-five years ago. Jack is old and he’s been doing this for all of his life. You’re not the first; you’re probably not even the hundredth.”

“You’re taking about Jack Kennedy? The Prime Minister of Albany.”

“Don’t be deliberately dense, girl. You know I’m talking about Jack Kennedy.”

Jesamine was starting to feel extremely uncomfortable. “But how can you know so much?”

“If for no other reason than I can read the patterns.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“Enough to know that right now you are completely infatuated with Jack Kennedy and his power. Just as I was all those years ago. Here you are now, all on your own and casting adoring glances in his direction when you think no one is looking. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condemn you for feeling the way you do. Jack Kennedy is glorious. He is a natural force.”

Jesamine noticed that a number of people were looking curiously in their direction. “Does everyone know about Jack and me? Is it public gossip?”

De Wynter shook her head. “Of course not. That’s just me. I seem to have that effect on people. Aside from the ever-present Dawson, and a few of his personal bodyguard, no one knows. Jack Kennedy is too much of a gentleman, and also too secretive, to have word of his affairs bandied around. I only really know because he told me.”

“He told you?”

“In fact, he gave me a message; that’s why I’m coming up to you now, unannounced and without formal introduction.”

“A message? You talked to him?”

“Of course I talked to him. We are very old friends. In some respects, more than very old friends.” De Wynter laughed. “Be assured he likes you, Major Jesamine.”

Something inside of Jesamine leaped in exultation. “He does?” She knew immediately that she had given herself away and eased back, reasserting control. “He wants to see me?”

“When this is over, he has a meeting with General Giap. He isn’t sure when it will end, but he said that I should take care of you until he’s free.”

“I thought you were throwing a party tonight?”

“I am. It was Jack’s suggestion that you should come there with me until either he arrives there himself, or sends a car for you.”

Jesamine looked uncertain. “Maybe I should just go back to the hotel and wait for him?”

De Wynter shook her head. “Rushing back to the Asquith and waiting for him is the last thing you should do. Jack’s a selfish bastard. You could wait there all night while he’s debating philosophy and drinking cognac with his old pal Giap. Once upon a time they used to play chess, but the general was too predictably brilliant.”

“He said I should go with you?”

“That was his suggestion. That’s if you want to see him.”

Jesamine exhaled hard. “Of course I want to see him.”

“Then stick with me, my dear. I assure you that you won’t regret it.”

CORDELIA

“You look like the principal boy in a pantomime.”

“What’s a pantomime.”

“It’s a comic musical play that’s performed around the Winter Solstice.”

“And I look like a boy?”

“The principal boy is never a boy.”

Having finally found him, Cordelia would have liked nothing better than to climb all over Colonel Gideon Windermere right there and then, press herself against him, and feel him indecently instead of bandying cultural quips from a culture she knew very little about. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“In the pantomime, the women are played by men and the men are played by women.”

“More English decadence?”

“Pantomimes have been going on for hundreds of years. The principal boy is a comely, sometimes even buxom young woman playing the leading man, often costumed in a uniform not unlike yours.”

“Are you calling me buxom?”

“No, but you’re definitely comely.”

“Finally a compliment?”

“That outfit is really something.”

“I’m entitled to wear it. I’m a Major in the Royal Albany Rangers, and I hold the order of the Golden Bear.”

“It’s a man’s uniform.”

Cordelia knew that she was a little drunk, but Windermere couldn’t condemn her for that. He had introduced her to the concept of the martini in the first place. “Don’t be so damned conventional. What you have on is hardly regulation issue.”

Windermere’s dress uniform was clearly his own invention. The exquisite Rick Blaine tuxedo with small military tabs on the collar, and an assortment of medals above the breast pocket, was about as civilian as one could go without being out of the Army altogether. She had spent over an hour waiting for him to arrive at the reception, tensely consuming martinis, and now he was there, he seemed amused to hold her jokingly at arm’s length when she unashamedly wanted to throw herself at him. Of course, Cordelia was not about to make a drunken spectacle of herself in the Palace of Westminster, in front of everyone who was anyone in the Norse Union. She was too much of an aristocrat for that, but that did not stop her becoming increasingly frustrated at both his attitude and the situation in which they found themselves, surrounded by people, most of whom Windermere seemed to know and who kept distracting his attention away from her. Cordelia decided she needed to get him focused on something that involved her, but was connected with his own mysterious agenda. “Is Madame de Wynter here?”

Windermere nodded. “I saw her a while ago. She was talking to Major Jesamine.”

“Jesamine?”

“I think it was her. She was wearing a blue, somewhat see-through dress.”

“That’s her.”

Windermere turned and scanned the crowd. “I think that’s them over there. They seem to be leaving together.”

Cordelia looked where Windermere was pointing. He was right. Jesamine was walking beside a small woman with purple hair in a black velvet cape and wide plumed hat, and they appeared to be making an exit. “Maybe we should go after them?”

Windermere shook his head. “I don’t recommend running after Madame de Wynter.”

“No?”

“No. And why bother? We’ll see her at the party, and, in any case, your friend Jesamine seems to have everything under control.”

Cordelia snorted. “Yes, Jesamine seems to have everything under control.”

“If Anastasia is leaving, we might also move along in a while.”

Cordelia decided that it was maybe the time to be totally brazen. She coyly lowered her eyes and deliberately made her voice soft and low. “I was hoping that you and I could slip away someplace on our own.”

“Madame de Wynter’s party is close to a duty. We’re expected.”

“I know, but…”

“I thought you liked parties. You seemed like the party girl.”

“I am, only…”

Windermere leaned close and spoke quietly. His expression was both gentle and knowing. “My dear Lady Blakeney, there will be plenty of time for all the slipping away you could desire.”

Cordelia pretended to look sheepish. “I’m just afraid that, after the party, I’ll be too drunk. It’s all your fault. You got me onto martinis. I was a martini-virgin before I met you.”

Windermere straightened up and laughed. He felt in the pocket of his white tuxedo jacket, and then opened his hand with a conjurer’s flourish. A capsule of yellow powder lay on the palm of his hand. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“A remedy for the cold gin. It’s a benodex capsule. Everyone who strains under the cruel yoke of high society takes them to keep going.”

JESAMINE

“I don’t know what I’d do without Garth. He is my constant protection.”

“You need that much protection?”

Madame de Wynter moved forward. “These are desperate days, my dear.”

The huge, shaved-headed Garth was now behind the wheel of Madame de Wynter’s vast yellow automobile, and they were moving with rapid authority through the streets of nighttime London. Yellow gaslight bathed everything in a soft and deceptively comforting glow, and the streets were still crowded, despite the late hour, with what seemed to Jesamine like crowds of very good-looking people. The big automobile was of the kind in which the passengers sat enclosed in the back, separated from the driver by a safety glass screen, while his section of the vehicle remained open to the elements. It seemed less than egalitarian, but Jesamine had already surmised how that was probably the way of all things with Anastasia de Wynter. Jesamine, however, could not worry too much about de Wynter and how she treated her servants. She was finally feeling as though she was really in London. Maybe it was being away from the other three, but she at last had some sense of being her own woman. Of course, she might just be de Wynter’s woman. The small Frankish aristocrat needed to command everything and everyone, as she immediately proved when she asked Jesamine, “Do you mind if we talk frankly.”