married?”
“Indeed,” Irene said. “And now I am permitted to meet your Royal Highness again, and to hope to do you some small service in repayment for the favor of a royal audience so long ago.”
“Tut, my dear. It is I who owe you a royal favor for sharing your beauty with the world. Do you still perform? I mean, er, sing, was it?”
“Alas no, Sir. I am now kept busy with private inquiries. As you may imagine, the great have need of protection.”
“Imagine nothing! I am plagued by the Paris police, who follow me everywhere, or everywhere they can. But you were a clever girl, I recall. Was there not some unpleasantness involving a peer of the realm and a chorus girl?”
“An unpleasant murder, Your Royal Highness, as there is here.”
The reminder pushed him away from her as from a bad omen. “Yes. Again. That was a trifling affair, that operetta instance. We were able to hush it up. This—”
“This is too gruesome to hush up,” Irene agreed.
“And how did you know that I was here?”
“At the Baron’s residence? In the chair? In Paris?”
“Any or all of it?”
“I knew you were in Paris to inaugurate the Eiffel Tower at the opening ceremony; the papers were full of it. From there it was but a skip and jump to guessing the extreme concern you would feel over the terrible murders that occurred so near to Your Royal Highness’s . . . neighborhood. How may I be of service, other than interviewing the American girl who discovered the atrocity?”
“You have heard what the Baron fears,” the Prince said, sounding like a prince concerned with issues larger than his own interests for the first time.
“Yes, but I was not in London during last autumn’s Whitechapel events. Does Your Royal Highness also fear that fresh murders will raise fresh fury against the Jews?”
“I do.” He spun away from us to pace to the fireplace, then turned and addressed us as a group. I was amazed to see those lazy eyes pass over me as well as the Baron and Irene. It was as if he addressed an audience.
“I am sure you know that I am not held in the public’s highest regard—oh, they are fond of me,” he hastened to say, as if any one of us had argued with him, “but I am merely tolerated. They love my mother and admire my wife. I am tolerated. ‘Good old Bertie.’ ” His massive shoulders shrugged. “I enjoy good food, good company, good gaming, good sailing, good hunting, good friends, good cigars, good women.”
Irene waited politely, as must all who wait upon a prince, but I was possessed of an unexpressed restlessness I could only quench by pushing a hand into my pocket and squeezing my fingers shut on the many sharp angles of my chatelaine.
No wonder the Prince of Wales was merely “tolerated” by his subjects, as he put it! He was a careless pleasure-seeker, and that was all.
“I am criticized for my love of foreign climes,” he went on, “Paris, Vienna, Baden-Baden, Marienbad. I am as liable to associate with jockeys as with Jews, commoners as with nobility. These are modern times, Madam, and I move with them.”
You move with the money , I heard a wicked voice I did not know I possessed answering him. And who had more money than the Rothschilds? Of course, Irene and Godfrey and I had benefited from their patronage ourselves, but we worked for it.
And, of course, the Jews whom the public turned on from time to time included both the wealthy and the powerless. I had to admire Baron Alphonse for responding to attacks on the most humble and helpless of his kind.
Apparently, he had also won the sympathy of the Prince of Wales, not an insignificant achievement.
“Sir,” the Baron said now, “do not doubt that my family is most grateful for your support.”
“And I for yours,” the Prince said, chuckling again. “You rascally bankers know you have rescued the crowned heads of Europe from fiscal and political ruin time and again. Not to mention that you offer such splendid hunting
“Indeed,” Irene said. “And now I am permitted to meet your Royal Highness again, and to hope to do you some small service in repayment for the favor of a royal audience so long ago.”
“Tut, my dear. It is I who owe you a royal favor for sharing your beauty with the world. Do you still perform? I mean, er, sing, was it?”
“Alas no, Sir. I am now kept busy with private inquiries. As you may imagine, the great have need of protection.”
“Imagine nothing! I am plagued by the Paris police, who follow me everywhere, or everywhere they can. But you were a clever girl, I recall. Was there not some unpleasantness involving a peer of the realm and a chorus girl?”
“An unpleasant murder, Your Royal Highness, as there is here.”
The reminder pushed him away from her as from a bad omen. “Yes. Again. That was a trifling affair, that operetta instance. We were able to hush it up. This—”
“This is too gruesome to hush up,” Irene agreed.
“And how did you know that I was here?”
“At the Baron’s residence? In the chair? In Paris?”
“Any or all of it?”
“I knew you were in Paris to inaugurate the Eiffel Tower at the opening ceremony; the papers were full of it. From there it was but a skip and jump to guessing the extreme concern you would feel over the terrible murders that occurred so near to Your Royal Highness’s . . . neighborhood. How may I be of service, other than interviewing the American girl who discovered the atrocity?”
“You have heard what the Baron fears,” the Prince said, sounding like a prince concerned with issues larger than his own interests for the first time.
“Yes, but I was not in London during last autumn’s Whitechapel events. Does Your Royal Highness also fear that fresh murders will raise fresh fury against the Jews?”
“I do.” He spun away from us to pace to the fireplace, then turned and addressed us as a group. I was amazed to see those lazy eyes pass over me as well as the Baron and Irene. It was as if he addressed an audience.
“I am sure you know that I am not held in the public’s highest regard—oh, they are fond of me,” he hastened to say, as if any one of us had argued with him, “but I am merely tolerated. They love my mother and admire my wife. I am tolerated. ‘Good old Bertie.’ ” His massive shoulders shrugged. “I enjoy good food, good company, good gaming, good sailing, good hunting, good friends, good cigars, good women.”
Irene waited politely, as must all who wait upon a prince, but I was possessed of an unexpressed restlessness I could only quench by pushing a hand into my pocket and squeezing my fingers shut on the many sharp angles of my chatelaine.
No wonder the Prince of Wales was merely “tolerated” by his subjects, as he put it! He was a careless pleasure-seeker, and that was all.
“I am criticized for my love of foreign climes,” he went on, “Paris, Vienna, Baden-Baden, Marienbad. I am as liable to associate with jockeys as with Jews, commoners as with nobility. These are modern times, Madam, and I move with them.”
You move with the money , I heard a wicked voice I did not know I possessed answering him. And who had more money than the Rothschilds? Of course, Irene and Godfrey and I had benefited from their patronage ourselves, but we worked for it.
And, of course, the Jews whom the public turned on from time to time included both the wealthy and the powerless. I had to admire Baron Alphonse for responding to attacks on the most humble and helpless of his kind.
Apparently, he had also won the sympathy of the Prince of Wales, not an insignificant achievement.
“Sir,” the Baron said now, “do not doubt that my family is most grateful for your support.”
“And I for yours,” the Prince said, chuckling again. “You rascally bankers know you have rescued the crowned heads of Europe from fiscal and political ruin time and again. Not to mention that you offer such splendid hunting
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