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Authors: Elisabeth Kidd
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annoyance.
Fortunately, duty had obliged him to accompany the Prince of Wales to today’s race meeting; otherwise, he might not have prevented her from doing something entirely foolish, if not actually destructive to his own plans. He wished he knew what she was up to with Kropotkin.
He was not particularly concerned that Kropotkin might be up to anything. The old man was a theorist, not an agitator, and although Grant might not agree with his theories, he had no quarrel with Kropotkin’s largely social, and always open, activities. It was the people Kropotkin knew, and to whom he might introduce Madeleine Malcolm, that gave Grant reason for concern.
Oddly enough, it had been the prince’s latest joke about Devin’s conscientious adherence to his duty that brought Mrs. Malcolm’s meeting with the anarchist to his attention. He had accompanied the prince’s party from Sir Ernest Cassel’s country house near Newmarket to the racecourse, ostensibly as escort to Mrs. George Keppel, his employer’s new mistress. It was not an unpleasant duty; Grant genuinely liked Alice Keppel, who had a remarkable gift for knowing exactly what to say and how to behave toward anyone, and who always looked delightful. Devin supposed that she had spent hours that morning having her soft brown hair styled and being dressed in that becoming pink silk gown, which seemed to have lace trailing from every seam.
The prince liked to have beautiful women to look at, and most women were flattered enough when he looked at them to feel beautiful. Having once left her maid’s hands, however, Alice seemed to give no further thought to her appearance, and she turned her remarkable turquoise eyes to her escort with no need to see her beauty reflected in his own eyes. She even commented on Grant’s own clothing, declaring dark green to be very à la mode this season. This made the prince laugh.
“My dear Alice, you cannot have said anything more likely to make Grant send that jacket straight back to his tailor. He much prefers to be inconspicuous, indeed, invisible if at all possible. Although how he contrives to disguise his six feet, two inches never fails to amaze me.”
“I dare not reveal my methods, even to you, sir,” Devin replied, falling in with the prince’s customary light-hearted banter. He was always in good humor at the racecourse. Much to Grant’s relief, he had agreed not to drive onto the course this time to give the lesser enclosures a better look at him, but he still wandered about from viewing box to paddock and back again, his field glasses hanging from his neck and his protuberant blue eyes sparkling like a child’s. People who never saw “our Bertie” except at such jolly social occasions sometimes thought the prince less than bright, but Devin knew how very clever he could be when the occasion warranted, so at other tunes he went along with whatever his prevailing mood might be.
#
Grant had originally come to work for the prince by chance. Most of what had happened to him in his life had come by chance, he realized, but chance had always been good to him, so he did not complain. Still, he did not take his good fortune for granted. He had joined the army at eighteen, mostly to get away from home and the strict supervision of his widowed father. The army, Devin thought, couldn’t be half so regimented as his life up to then.
What he hadn’t expected was that it would be boring. He never saw active service and was never even sent abroad; his regiment moved out of its headquarters in the south of England only to see the old queen home from her summer sojourn on the Isle of Wight, to accompany one of the royal princesses when she launched a new ship at Plymouth, or to parade itself on the Salisbury Plain, usually in the heat of summer, in front of the prince and any foreign dignitary who might be impressed by red uniforms. So when Lieutenant Grant, quite by chance, was on the spot to rescue a female member of
Fortunately, duty had obliged him to accompany the Prince of Wales to today’s race meeting; otherwise, he might not have prevented her from doing something entirely foolish, if not actually destructive to his own plans. He wished he knew what she was up to with Kropotkin.
He was not particularly concerned that Kropotkin might be up to anything. The old man was a theorist, not an agitator, and although Grant might not agree with his theories, he had no quarrel with Kropotkin’s largely social, and always open, activities. It was the people Kropotkin knew, and to whom he might introduce Madeleine Malcolm, that gave Grant reason for concern.
Oddly enough, it had been the prince’s latest joke about Devin’s conscientious adherence to his duty that brought Mrs. Malcolm’s meeting with the anarchist to his attention. He had accompanied the prince’s party from Sir Ernest Cassel’s country house near Newmarket to the racecourse, ostensibly as escort to Mrs. George Keppel, his employer’s new mistress. It was not an unpleasant duty; Grant genuinely liked Alice Keppel, who had a remarkable gift for knowing exactly what to say and how to behave toward anyone, and who always looked delightful. Devin supposed that she had spent hours that morning having her soft brown hair styled and being dressed in that becoming pink silk gown, which seemed to have lace trailing from every seam.
The prince liked to have beautiful women to look at, and most women were flattered enough when he looked at them to feel beautiful. Having once left her maid’s hands, however, Alice seemed to give no further thought to her appearance, and she turned her remarkable turquoise eyes to her escort with no need to see her beauty reflected in his own eyes. She even commented on Grant’s own clothing, declaring dark green to be very à la mode this season. This made the prince laugh.
“My dear Alice, you cannot have said anything more likely to make Grant send that jacket straight back to his tailor. He much prefers to be inconspicuous, indeed, invisible if at all possible. Although how he contrives to disguise his six feet, two inches never fails to amaze me.”
“I dare not reveal my methods, even to you, sir,” Devin replied, falling in with the prince’s customary light-hearted banter. He was always in good humor at the racecourse. Much to Grant’s relief, he had agreed not to drive onto the course this time to give the lesser enclosures a better look at him, but he still wandered about from viewing box to paddock and back again, his field glasses hanging from his neck and his protuberant blue eyes sparkling like a child’s. People who never saw “our Bertie” except at such jolly social occasions sometimes thought the prince less than bright, but Devin knew how very clever he could be when the occasion warranted, so at other tunes he went along with whatever his prevailing mood might be.
#
Grant had originally come to work for the prince by chance. Most of what had happened to him in his life had come by chance, he realized, but chance had always been good to him, so he did not complain. Still, he did not take his good fortune for granted. He had joined the army at eighteen, mostly to get away from home and the strict supervision of his widowed father. The army, Devin thought, couldn’t be half so regimented as his life up to then.
What he hadn’t expected was that it would be boring. He never saw active service and was never even sent abroad; his regiment moved out of its headquarters in the south of England only to see the old queen home from her summer sojourn on the Isle of Wight, to accompany one of the royal princesses when she launched a new ship at Plymouth, or to parade itself on the Salisbury Plain, usually in the heat of summer, in front of the prince and any foreign dignitary who might be impressed by red uniforms. So when Lieutenant Grant, quite by chance, was on the spot to rescue a female member of
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