Naughty In Nice (8 page)

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Authors: Rhys Bowen

BOOK: Naughty In Nice
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“Thank you, that would be most kind,” I replied in the same language.
“And dinner will be served as soon as we leave the city,” he went on. “The dining car is to your left.”
A box was delivered for Queenie, who wasted no time in tucking into it. “Funny bread,” she said, “and this ham tastes of garlic, but it ain’t bad. My friend Nellie ’uxtable, what works down the Three Bells, said we’d have to eat frog legs and little birds. I told her not to be so ruddy daft. Just’cos she went on the day trip to Boulogne once, she thinks she knows about France.”
“It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full,” I pointed out as crumbs spattered over the seat of my compartment, “and I think you should take your meal in your space. I am going to get ready for dinner.”
I wasn’t sure whether one dressed for dinner on a train. We certainly hadn’t on trains I’d traveled on before, but then they hadn’t been this train. I was wearing a decent jersey dress, but I found my pearls and put on a little lipstick before I ventured to the dining car. In truth I felt a little shy about going alone to dinner. I know I’d been brought up to mix with the cream of society in theory, but in practice the cream of society rarely came to Castle Rannoch and I still felt schoolgirlish and awkward among the real social butterflies.
“
Bon appétit
, milady,” the attendant said as he held the door open for me. I passed through the connecting area and opened the door to the dining car. I looked down the rows of white-clothed tables, their silver and china gleaming in the glow of little lamps. From here I couldn’t see a table that wasn’t occupied and wondered what the protocol was about joining other diners and whether I could ever pluck up courage to do that.
Of course the first person I noticed was the handsome Frenchman, sitting alone with another bottle of champagne beside him. He looked up from his soup and caught my gaze. He didn’t smile or nod as would have been usual. Instead he frowned at me.
“You are English?” he asked in French.
I replied that I was.
“Curious,” he replied. He was about to say something else when a voice from farther down the car called to me, “I say. Aren’t you Georgiana Rannoch?”
It was a smartly dressed English lady, probably in her late forties. She was sitting with an exquisite and obviously French woman, dressed in what looked like a man’s black suit topped with a stunning necklace. I agreed that I was.
“Would you like to join us?” the first woman said. “It’s rather full at the moment but we have room, don’t we, Coco?”
The Frenchwoman nodded and smiled.
“Bien sûr,”
she said, waving a cigarette holder in my direction.
The Englishwoman stuck out a hand. “You look the spitting image of your father. I used to know him well. I’m known as Vera, by the way. Vera Bate Lombardi, and I believe we’re related, at least through marriage.”
I sat down on the chair she had pulled out for me. She waved imperiously and a waiter appeared. “My lady will be joining us, so set another place and you’d better bring us another bottle of Veuve Clicquot.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to dine with a rather bossy Englishwoman who claimed to be related to me, but it was better than standing like a wallflower.
“I actually stayed at Castle Rannoch when you were little,” she continued, “although I don’t suppose you remember me. We went out riding together once. You were a splendid little horsewoman.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t often get a chance to ride anymore and I miss it.”
“So do I,” she said. “I’m in Paris most of the year now, traipsing around behind Coco, and one can hardly get a decent gallop in the Bois de Boulogne.”
“You do not traipse behind me,” the woman she had addressed as Coco said in English. “It makes you sound like a dog on a lead. Since you take bigger strides than I, I am usually running to keep up with you. But you must introduce us, Vera. This very English young lady will not speak to me unless properly introduced.”
I laughed, but Vera said, “Sorry. Frightfully bad of me. Coco, this is Bertie’s daughter, Georgiana Rannoch. And this is my dear friend and business partner, Coco Chanel.”
My eyes opened wider at the mention of that name. “Chanel ? The couturiere?”
“The same.” She shrugged in that delightfully Gallic way. “I do not think you wear my clothes.”
“Can’t afford it,” I said. “I would if I could.”
“So you go to stay on the Riviera?” Chanel said, eyeing me critically, almost the way the handsome Frenchman had done.
“I think that’s where this train is headed,” I said and she laughed, a melodious and wonderfully sexy laugh.
“Delightful,” she said. “I will make you model for me. I am going to unveil my new collection at a special showing for the rich English on the Riviera and you will be my perfect model.”
“Oh, not me,” I said, my face turning bright red. “I’m frightfully clumsy, you know. I’d trip over my own feet and rip your gowns. I tried modeling once and it was a disaster. I put both legs into one half of a pair of culottes.”
This time both Vera and Chanel laughed.
“I am sure you would be splendid,” Coco said. “Wouldn’t she, Vera? Exactly the look we want to achieve—the English rose, but with naughty overtones.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have many naughty overtones,” I said.
“You will, once you are mixing with that crowd on the Riviera,” Vera said. “They are all frightfully naughty.”
“The English?”
“Oh, yes. Worst of the lot. They’re so repressed at home, after all those years in boarding school, that they become positively wanton the moment they hit Calais.” She leaned closer to me. “Your dear departed papa was no saint, I can tell you. Tell her what this collection is all about, Coco.”
“It is the mixing of masculine and feminine,” Coco said,
“of country and town, of day and night. I have borrowed some fine English tweed jackets from my friend the Duke of Westminster.”
“And some stunning pieces of jewelry from my aunt,” Vera added. “She mentioned that I might bump into you, by the way, when I saw her yesterday.”
“Your aunt?” I was confused, not being quite sure which branch of my family she belonged to.
“Queen Mary,” Coco explained.
“Queen Mary is your aunt?”
Vera made a face. “Not officially, of course. My mother was a Baring, of the banking firm, but I think everyone agrees that my real father was the Duke of Cambridge. Prince of Teck.”
“Oh, I see. The queen’s brother.”
“She was married to someone else, of course, but I must say he treated me like a daughter and the family has always acknowledged me.”
While I was digesting this the champagne was poured. I took a sip and remembered another item in the conversation. “You say the queen has lent you some pieces of her jewelry for your fashion show.”
Vera put her fingers to her lips. “I’d rather that news wasn’t broadcast too loudly. I promised her I’d take frightfully good care of them. You know what she’s like about her things.”
“I do. That’s why I’m surprised she lent you jewelry.”
“Ah, I usually get what I want out of people,” she said. “Don’t worry, we’re going to watch it like hawks. Besides, it’s well insured.”
“And these jewels will be worn with the gentlemen’s tweed jackets?” I asked cautiously.
They both laughed. “Of course. Isn’t it divine?” Coco said. “You know, I have always designed a masculine look for women. Like the suit I now wear. It is so freeing and very sexy too. This is the ultimate mixing of male and female. And you shall model it for me.”
“I really don’t think you’d want me,” I said. “I’d be a walking disaster. When I was presented at court I caught my heel in the train of my dress and when I stood up from my curtsy I went flying forward into Their Majesties. In the old days I’d have been hauled off to the Tower.”
They laughed again. The waiter appeared and handed me a menu. I glanced down it, reading one delicious item after another—coquilles St. Jacques, lobster bisque, duck breast, filet steak with truffles. . . . After Fig’s austerity it was like stepping into a dream.
“So where shall you be staying?” Vera asked when I had ordered.
“I’m staying with people called Farquar.”
“Foggy Farquar?” She gave Coco a horrified look. “You can’t do that. You’ll die of boredom.”
“My brother and sister-in-law are already staying with them. My sister-in-law is Ducky Farquar’s sister.”
“God forbid. I hope it doesn’t run in the family.”
“I’m sure it does,” I said gloomily, “whatever it is.”
“I always liked your brother,” Vera said. “Easygoing sort of chap. Good-natured.”
“And my sister-in-law is quite the opposite,” I said.
“When you get too bored, you must come and visit us,” Coco said. “We stay at delightful Villa Marguerite.”
I duly noted the name.
“Coco has a perfectly gorgeous villa of her own but she chooses not to stay there,” Vera said.
“Too far away from Nice, where I am putting on my collection,” Coco said. “Besides, Villa Marguerite is owned by one of my best clients. I expect her to order a lot of gowns while we are there.”
“Always the businesswoman,” Vera muttered to me.
Chanel ignored her. “And we shall work on turning you into my model,” she added.
While we had been talking I had a strange pricking sensation between my shoulder blades. I glanced around and saw that the handsome Frenchman was watching me as he ate his dinner.
“That man,” I whispered. “He keeps staring at me.”
Vera spun around. “It’s no good gazing at us wistfully, Jean-Paul,” she said. “We’re not going to invite you to join us. We’re having girl talk.”
“This charming young lady,” the Frenchman said, in English this time, “I do not think that she has been to the Riviera before?”
“This is Lady Georgiana Rannoch,” Vera said. “Bertie’s daughter.”
“How delightful.” He raised his glass to me. “I shall look forward to getting to know you better.”
“Watch out for that one,” Vera muttered as we turned back. “He eats little girls like you for breakfast and spits out the bones.”
“Who is he?”
“The Marquis de Ronchard. Old family. Loads of property in the colonies. Frightfully rich. Playboy, gambler. A little like your papa.”
It was startling to hear my father described in these terms, also to hear him called Bertie. I knew his name was Albert Henry, but I had only ever heard him called Rannoch by our equals and “Your Grace” by subordinates. I knew he had frittered away the last of the family fortune on the Riviera. I knew he had almost gambled away Castle Rannoch, but it was still a shock to hear him described as a playboy and a gambler. To me, on the few occasions I had seen him, he had seemed rather like Binky—affable, easygoing, inoffensive. I remembered that he had got down on all fours on the carpet to play at bears with me, and I had squealed with delight and terror. It was one of the few strong memories I had of him.
“I don’t think the marquis is too interested in a girl like me,” I said. “I’m not glamorous enough.”
“He likes virgins,” Vera muttered darkly. “Hunting runs in the blood, you know.”
“But of course he will have to settle down one day,” Coco said. “It is required that he produce the heir on the right side of the blanket. And then he will be a good catch. For someone who doesn’t mind the constant nocturnal straying.”
The meal was delicious and the conversation equally so. I felt the champagne bubbling in my head as I went back to my compartment. I found that my bed had been pulled out and made up for the night, also that the compartment now had a lingering hint of foreign cigarette smoke. Queenie, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
“Queenie?” I called.
I heard stirrings next door and she appeared. “Sorry, miss. I must have dozed off.”
“Queenie, did you watch my bed being made up?”
“Yes, miss—I mean, meelady.”
“Was the attendant smoking when he did it?”
“Oh, no, miss. Of course he wasn’t.”
“But there’s a distinct smell of French cigarettes. Has anyone else been in here?”
“Of course not.”
She had admitted to dozing. My first thought was my jewel case. I don’t have many jewels but the ones I have are family heirlooms. I climbed up to get it down from the rack and was relieved to find the jewels all there. Then I opened my big suitcase and stared at it in surprise.
“Queenie, have you been in my suitcase?”
“Why would I do that?” she asked. “I ain’t touched nothing of yours. Honest.”
“Haven’t touched anything,” I corrected.
“That’s what I said. Ain’t touched nothing.”
I stared at it again. “That’s distinctly odd. Someone has been through this suitcase. But it only contains my clothes and they’re not exactly valuable or high fashion. I wonder what they could have been looking for.”

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