The Game - Laurie R. King [75]
I reminded myself to use the front door of the Lodge, where I nodded briefly to the regal chuprassi who held it for me, and was about to take to the road when I noticed the motorcar, its driver holding its door. You’re English again, Russell, I reminded myself, and climbed inside.
Nesbit and I had sketched out a plan to bring me back into the Goodheart circle, beginning with a chance meeting at the tea shop where he had taken the family the day before. As soon as he heard of their distressing abandonment by their porters, he would extend a breakfast invitation to the family matron, who would no more leave Sunny behind than she would walk the two miles to Viceregal Lodge. And indeed, when I happened to wander through the Gothic doors of that particular tea shop across from the band-stand, Mrs Goodheart and her Flapper daughter were seated opposite the eligible young British officer, all smiling merrily over their coffee cups. The other patrons of the shop watched Sunny from the corners of their eyes, as much, I thought, for the gaiety of her person as the extremity of her wardrobe. Mrs Goodheart’s smile faded somewhat when I came to their table with my exclamations of surprise, but then she remembered that I was safely married, and invited me to join them.
“My, Mary, haven’t you gone dark!”
You don’t know the half of it, I thought, and accepted the invitation to coffee with some remark about the strength of the sun at these altitudes.
It was Sunny who asked the question. “Where is your husband this morning?”
“Oh, nothing would do but that he had to go off and climb some mountain or another, can you believe that? So vexing, he’s simply abandoned me here at the end of the world. No offence meant, Captain Nesbit.”
“None taken; I agree there is not much to occupy a young woman in Simla at this time of year.”
“Come with us,” Sunny piped up. I forbore to look at my wrist-watch, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Nesbit pull his own watch from his pocket and note the time; I had to agree, even for me thirty seconds was something of a record for the manipulation of innocent victims. I beamed at dear, fresh, pretty, boring little Sunny.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. What do you call it, ‘crashing’ your party?”
“Oh baloney. Mama, tell her she has to come along. Tommy’s friend would think it was posalutely nifty.”
I blinked, but the phrase seemed to indicate affirmation, and although I couldn’t imagine having the temerity to invite myself to a maharaja’s house party, that is precisely what I seemed to be doing. I put on my most lost and wistful expression to say, “Well, it would be perfectly lovely. What do you think, Mrs Goodheart?”
Had I been an unmarried woman, she’d have abandoned me in the snow without a gram of compunction, but a matronly companion for her daughter might have its advantages. By providing contrast to the child’s looks and sparkle, if nothing else. “It does seem a bit forward of us, but . . . I know, I will ask Thomas to cable his friend, and see if we might bring another guest. Seeing as how we’re stuck here for the day, anyway.”
Sunny clapped her hands and I said, “That is very generous of you, Mrs Goodheart,” and to the disappointment of both women Nesbit took his leave, pleading the demands of work. Mrs Goodheart eyed the heaps of snow with no enthusiasm and declared her intention of returning to the hotel, but I suggested that Sunny might enjoy a walk through the town. The older woman hesitated, then concluded that I was capable of guarding her baby girl from harm in broad daylight, and agreed.
We began at the skating rink, hiring skates and edging out onto the uneven ice. It had been so long since I had been on blades, I clung to the rail like a child, but to Chicago’s daughter ice was a lifelong companion, and she sailed merrily back and forth, her cheeks pink as a china doll’s, her teasing laughter ringing across the trees. My ankles were watery when