the serfs at long trestles which were put up in the baronial hall, the Royal party in the dining room. Formal dinner with the King and Queen was not fun. There were rules about when you could eat and when you had to stop. Twice Bella had her plate whisked away from under her nose before she had finished. Practised courtiers like Lady Pansy, she realised, hoovered their food in as soon as possible, to avoid exactly that.
‘You could have warned me,’ she said to Richard, on her left.
He grinned, unrepentant. ‘My father hates long meals. He wants to get this over with and go back to his engines. You watch. He’ll be out of the hall at midnight plus a nanosecond.’
‘Really?’
‘Maybe not quite a nanosecond. We all have to sing Auld Lang Syne and give three cheers for the King. But after that he legs it as fast as he can.’
‘So the party ends at midnight?’
He looked startled. ‘In practice, the King goes, the party gets going. Two parties, usually. The reeling will carry on till dawn but there’s an alternative gig in one of the barns for anyone under thirty. George is usually involved. Dodgy lighting, crazy music, that sort of thing. Do you want to go?’
Bella smiled straight into his eyes.
‘Do you want to?
‘Maybe for half an hour or so,’ he said, his voice suddenly thickened.
He took her hand under the table and held it so hard she could feel the pulse in his fingers.
She said softly, ‘Any chance of seeing you tonight?’
He looked so astonished that she caught herself saying, ‘No, of course not, I’m sorry. Silly thing to say. Not under your parents’ roof. Not with all those rules about when and where you can walk in the corridors …’
‘What do you think all those rules are about, for God’s sake?’
‘Um – tradition?’
‘Yup. A tradition that grew up so that everyone could get back to the right bedroom in the morning without being seen by anyone who could tell on them.’
‘What?’
‘Think about it. You spend the night with the lady of your heart. She may, or may not, be married. But anyway, you shouldn’t be there. So what happens if someone sees you creeping back to your own room? Well, they shouldn’t be there either, so it’s mutual blackmail. Works like a dream.’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘Trust me. No servant will set foot above the ground floor until eight o’clock, on express orders. Apparently, in my grandfather’s heyday, it could get like the rush hour. Mind you, he had a particularly libidinous set of friends.’
Bella shook her head. ‘So all these rules are just so you can behave disgracefully?’
‘Behave disgracefully and not get found out, yes.’
She looked severe. ‘It’s not very honest. Not sure I approve.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Tell me that and I’ll go back to my own room, I promise.’
He silenced her by carrying their clasped hands to his lips and feathering a quick kiss along the knuckles of hers, before tucking them back under the table again.
Bella gasped.
But the servants were removing the plates and she felt someone’s eyes on her. When she looked up, she saw Chloe Lenane staring down the table at her with an expression almost of hatred. It was so unexpected that Bella blinked. Yet when she looked again, the previous ditzy vague expression was back. It was unsettling.
At a signal from the Queen, the ladies retired. Bella would have missed it if Richard hadn’t hissed, ‘Off you go, follow my leader.’
In the boudoir set aside for the female guests, Lady Pansy came up to Bella.
‘I see you found a different dress.’
She murmured something about the difficulties of packing when you were coming by train.
Lady Pansy gave her a sweet smile that made her eyes glisten like flaming arrows. ‘I do hope you’re enjoying yourself, dear. Just a word to the wise.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do be careful not to put yourself forward too much. This is the big event of the year for these people. They look forward to it for twelve months. The young girls, and not just the young ones –’ she tittered in a way that Bella suddenly found rather unpleasant ‘– all hope to dance with the Prince of Wales. Like a fairytale. Something to tell the children. It would be very selfish of you to monopolise him and spoil their evening.’
Bella was not going to tell her that it was Richard who had decided how many times they would dance together.