As the Crow Flies

“You’re not supposed to find it funny, Charles Trumper, you’re meant to show some sympathy. There’s still so much you have to learn.”

Becky watched Charlie as he danced smoothly round the floor. “That Daphne’s a bit of all right,” said the man sitting next to her, who had introduced himself as Sergeant Mike Parker and turned out to be a butcher from Camberwell who had served alongside Charlie on the Marne. Becky accepted his judgment without comment, and when he later bowed and asked Becky for the pleasure of the next dance she reluctantly accepted. He proceeded to march her around the ballroom floor as if she were a leg of mutton on the way to the refrigeration room. The only thing he managed to do in time with the music was to tread on her toes. At last he returned Becky to the comparative safety of their beer-stained table. Becky sat in silence while she watched everyone enjoying themselves, hoping that no one else would ask her for the pleasure. Her thoughts returned to Guy, and the meeting that she could no longer avoid if in another two weeks…

“May I have the honor, miss?”

Every man round the tab

le shot to attention as the Colonel of the Regiment escorted Becky onto the dance floor.

She found Colonel Hamilton an accomplished dancer and an amusing companion, without showing any of those tendencies to patronize her that the string of bank managers had recently displayed. After the dance was over he invited Becky to the top table and introduced her to his wife.

“I must warn you,” Daphne told Charlie, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the colonel and Lady Hamilton. “It’s going to be quite a challenge for you to keep pace with the ambitious Miss Salmon. But as long as you stick with me and pay attention we’ll give her a damned good run for her money.”

After a couple more dances Daphne informed Becky that she had more than done her duty and the time had come for them all to leave. Becky, for her part, was only too pleased to escape the attention of so many young officers who had seen her dance with the colonel.

“I’ve some good news for you,” Daphne told the two of them as the hansom trundled down the King’s Road in the direction of Chelsea Terrace, with Charlie still clinging to his half-empty bottle of champagne.

“What’s that, my girl?” he asked, after a burp.

“I’m not your girl,” Daphne remonstrated. “I may be willing to invest in the lower classes, Charlie Trumper, but never forget I’m not without breeding.”

“So what’s your news?” asked Becky, laughing.

“You’ve kept your part of the bargain, so I must keep to mine.”

“What do you mean?” asked Charlie, half asleep.

“I can now produce my shortlist of three to be considered as your front man, and thus, I hope, solve your banking problem.”

Charlie immediately sobered up.

“My first offer is the second son of an earl,” began Daphne. “Penniless but presentable. My second is a Bart, who will take the exercise on for a professional fee, but my pièce de résistance is a viscount whose luck has run out at the tables in Deauville and now finds it necessary to involve himself in the odd piece of vulgar commercial work.”

“When do we get to meet them?” asked Charlie, trying not to slur his words.

“As soon as you wish,” promised Daphne. “Tomorrow—”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Becky quietly.

“Why not?” asked Daphne, surprised.

“Because I have already chosen the man who will front for us.”

“Who’ve you got in mind, darling? The Prince of Wales?”

“No. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Danvers Hamilton, Bt., DSO, CBE.”

“But ’e’s the bleedin’ Colonel of the Regiment,” said Charlie, dropping the bottle of champagne on the floor of the hansom cab. “It’s impossible, ’e’d never agree.”

“I can assure you he will.”

“What makes you so confident?” asked Daphne.

“Because we have an appointment to see him tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock.”

CHAPTER

11