was anxious to get out of there and find out what was happening with Nicholas and Darcy. I was also uneasy in Matty’s presence. “I will, if you like,” I said.
The dress was fitted with nods of satisfaction. “This young lady has no curves, like a boy,” our couturiere said to her assistant in French. “On her the dress will look right.” I wasn’t so sure that having no curves and looking like a boy was a compliment but I took it for one, especially as she had very little to do in the way of pinning and altering. When I glanced at myself in those walls of mirrors a tall, elegant creation stared back at me. I noticed that the room was suddenly quiet and saw that the other girls had stopped talking and were now watching me.
“Georgie, I did not think that you would grow up to be so chic,” Matty said. She came to stand beside me and put her arm around my waist as we stared at ourselves in the mirrors. “Wouldn’t Mademoiselle Amelie and the other teachers be surprised if they saw us now. What a shame we are wasted in a remote castle in Romania. We should be on the French Riviera, or in Hollywood, flirting with all the men-about-town, don’t you think?”
I laughed with her but my cheeks were very pink. It was the first time anyone had ever suggested that I might be elegant one day. Maybe there was some of my mother’s blood in me after all.
I had just been unpinned from my dress and was retrieving my more practical jumper and skirt when there was a tap at the door. One of the seamstresses was directed to go and returned with a letter. Matty looked at it, then handed it to me. “From one of your admirers.” She gave me a knowing look.
I glanced up at the door as I recognized Darcy’s firm black scrawl. I need to speak to you immediately, it said.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“A midmorning tryst. How romantic. Siegfried will be jealous.” Matty wagged a finger and the other girls giggled as I went to the door. I hoped she was just joking. For a second I felt a stab of a different kind of fear—had I been brought here to be bride of this particular Frankenstein after all? Frankly if it was a choice between life with Siegfried and a bite from a vampire, I think I’d prefer to be undead. But I didn’t have long to consider this as Darcy was waiting outside the door for me.
“Ah, there you are,” he said, drawing me to one side. “Look, something has come up and I have to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“We’ve run into a complication,” he whispered. “Nicholas’s father demanded to be taken straight to see Pirin.”
“Oh, Lord, so I suppose the game’s up.”
“Not yet. We kept the curtains drawn so that it was pretty dark. The firelight actually made his skin look reddish. I slipped into the room and hid under the bed, then I snored loudly to make it sound as if he was still breathing.”
I started to laugh, it was so absurd.
Darcy smiled too. “It worked once, but the king is very concerned. He wanted to send one of the cars to bring his personal physician from Bulgaria immediately.”
“How did you stop him from doing that?”
“Nick persuaded him that there was a good hospital with modern equipment in the nearest city and it would be better if Pirin were transported there immediately.”
“Oh, no, what are you going to do?”
“I’ve volunteered to go to the hospital with him, since Nicholas can’t leave his bride.”
“But what good will that do? They’ll pronounce him dead as soon as he arrives.”
“If he arrives,” Darcy said. “I’m also going to be driving and unfortunately the car is going to go off the road into a snowdrift somewhere up on the pass. By the time I’ve gone for help poor Field Marshal Pirin will have died, so there will be no point in summoning the personal physician. And the news of the tragic death won’t reach the castle until after the wedding.”
“So you’re not going to be here for the wedding either?” The disappointment in my face must have shown.
“I have to do this, my love,” he said. He raised his hand to my cheek. “I’m the only one who can do it, but I want you to help Nick and Anton in any way you can.”