Page 71 of Death at the Dower House
“—so you’ll be the only bright spot we’re likely to get.” She nodded decisively. “Wear the yellow.”
I’d wear the yellow, then, with her permission. It was probably a good thing, since Crispin had spent all afternoon thinking of something witty to say about it. It would serve him right if I showed up in something else, and forced him to come up with another backhanded compliment—as Christopher had put it—on the spot, but if the yellow didn’t bother Constance, then it certainly didn’t bother me.
And St George rose to the occasion beautifully. “Why, Darling,” he caroled when I entered the parlor for before-supper cocktails, “don’t you look—”
“If you say, ‘good enough to eat,’ I shall pummel you, St George.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Crispin said, with the air of someone who would absolutely dream of it, and had, in fact, said exactly that just yesterday. “Although there is something quite—”
He looked me up and down, “—quite banana-like about it, isn’t there? So very yellow. And also something—je ne sais quoi—something almost uncultured and practically savage about the color.”
The phrase dropped from his lips in melodic, unaccented French. I stared at him blankly, wondering what on earth he was going on about. There’s nothing uncultured or savage about yellow, is there? There was certainly nothing uncultured about my very pretty dress, which wasn’t even French, but which had come from Norman Hartnell’s studio on Bruton Street in Mayfair.
And then Crispin smirked evilly. “If the gramophone comes out after supper, will you favor us with your owndanse sauvagetonight, Darling?”
And that was when the penny dropped, and my jaw did too, and my cheeks flooded with color.
For those of you who didn’t catch the reference—both the mention of thedanse sauvageand the emphasis on the yellow fruit—let me call to your mind the scandalous AmericandanseuseJosephine Baker, with her famous banana skirt and bare breasts, who was causing a sensation on the other side of the channel practically as we spoke. She had taken Paris by storm last year, in La Revue Nègre at theThéâtredesChamps-Élysées, and now she had moved on to the Folies-Bergère, where she was dancing with a ring of bananas on a string around her hips, and precious little else. She was a spectacle, the costume was unutterably risqué, and the comparison between that and my yellow dress was… appalling, to say the least.
“Oh,” I choked, “youbastard.”
Constance gasped, and so did Laetitia. Francis practically strangled on a laugh. In the background, Marsden muttered something to Peckham, who sniggered.
“Now, now, Darling,” Crispin drawled. “You know very well that I’m a Sutherland through and through.”
Yes, he was. There was, unfortunately, no denying that. He had his mother’s hair, and her gray eyes instead of the Astley blue, but in every other respect he was a perfect replica of Christopher. There was no denying his heritage. Nor had I been trying to.
“You know that wasn’t what I meant, you deplorable cad. How dare you compare my perfectly modest dress to—”
“Darling.” He snatched up my hand, and it was enough to stop my tirade mid-sentence. “I apologize.”
He raised it… not to his lips, which was what I expected.
No, he pulled it to his chest, where he held it against his heart. I could feel the beat against my palm. My mouth dropped open, and it took me a second too long to pull my arm back. My voice might even have been a touch breathless, although if anyone asked—Christopher, for instance—I was fully prepared to chalk it up to my brilliant acting. “Whatever are you doing? Keep your hands to yourself, St George.”
I took a step back, just in case he might be thinking of making another assault, and added, “Whatever’s gotten into you?”
“Perhaps I feel bad for upsetting you,” Crispin said, with a soulful expression that certainly made him look as if he felt terrible. He even went so far as to put his own hand over his heart this time.
I blinked—it looked real enough to give me pause for a second, and of course he knew it, because the smirk made another appearance. “Will you forgive me, Darling?”
“As long as you promise not to do it again,” I told him. “I can’t go through life thinking you care, St George. I’d never get a good night’s sleep again.”
He nodded solemnly. “Of course, Darling. Complete and utter disinterest from this point on, I promise.”
“Thank you, St George,” I told him, and waved a hand dismissively. “As you were, then.”
He clicked his heels together and gave me a bow before he turned his attention back to Lady Laetitia. She gave me a slightly longer look before withdrawing her attention. Searching my face for something, unless I misread her expression.
Christopher tucked his hand under my arm. “Come on, Pippa.” His voice was uneven with laughter. “Let me get you a cocktail.”
“Thank you, Christopher. After that display, I could use a stiff drink.”
I let him tug me away from Crispin and Laetitia in the direction of the bar cart, and of Marsden and Peckham, who were standing there with glasses of something that didn’t look like cocktails. Bourbon or brandy, most likely. They both looked me up and down as I came closer. Trying to mentally replace the yellow dress with the banana skirt Crispin’s words had conjured, no doubt.
Damn him.
I planned to treat him to a piece of my mind about it later, but there was no denying that it had been effective. Both men eyed me speculatively, and Lady Laetitia’s examination had been a clear case of sizing up what she thought might be competition. The piece of my mind I planned to offer needed to include a compliment on a job well done too, it seemed, much as I would hate to convey it.
