One Enchanted Evening Read online




  Contents

  Prologue

  The Grand Masquerade Ball

  Five Months Earlier . . .

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  September 1936

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  October 1936

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  November 1936

  Chapter Twenty-two

  December 1936

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Epilogue

  A New Year

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Letter from Author

  Extract from Anton Du Beke’s next novel’

  Copyright

  To Hannah, George and Henrietta the loves of my life

  Prologue

  31 December, 1936

  The Grand Masquerade Ball

  FOR THE LORDS AND LADIES of London town, the dukes and duchesses of every English shire, the counts and countesses of the continent – and even beyond – there is only one place to be seen on this New Year’s night. The doors of the Buckingham Hotel are open, for this is a night to be remembered.

  It is an age of splendour. It is an age of magnificence. For some, it is an age of elegance and grace – and here in the Buckingham’s Grand Ballroom, crown princesses and sirens of the silver screen have come to toast the New Year, government ministers and landed gentry have come to forget, if only for a moment, this year of wars abroad and the increasing threat at home. The band is playing. The dancers are swaying. The hall is filled with the great and the good. Others watch discreetly from the sidelines . . .

  In the heart of the ballroom, the principal dancer, hidden behind his Venetian mask, twirls away from his partner and seems to glide as he crosses the dance floor. The orchestra prepares to strike up another serenade but not a soul in the ballroom notices the silence in between songs. They are transfixed, every eye trained upon the mysterious dancer who approaches the mahogany stairs and, lifting his hand to the Crown Princess of Norway, beseeches her to join him on the dance floor.

  ‘Your Highness,’ he ventures, in a rich, dulcet tone, ‘shall we?’

  Some of the faces around him flicker. There is surprise, even consternation, in their eyes.

  On the other side of the ballroom, the band strikes up their new number. It is time for the waltz to begin.

  The dancer takes off his mask . . .

  Five Months Earlier . . .

  August 1936

  Chapter One

  THE GRAND BALLROOM SEEMED TO lie under an enchantment on this balmy summer night. The ballroom’s wooden floorboards shimmered, as if beneath a haze; the guests bedecked in their pristine dinner jackets and lavish gowns of satin, rayon and ivory silk were open-mouthed in anticipation, and the silence was broken only by the scurrying of footsteps outside the doors – for, though the ballroom seemed frozen in time, life still went on inside the Buckingham Hotel. Guests still came and went, lovers still fought and made love in the hotel’s magnificent suites, the generators still turned, the kitchens still buzzed, old Maynard Charles – the hotel director himself – still paced the Buckingham’s opulent halls, waiting for the moment when he might be needed. Yet, once the ballroom doors were closed, the Grand was a world apart from the rest. The spell of silence held – until, finally, the Archie Adams Band began to play. Only then was the spell broken, and a completely different kind of magic woven in its place. The magic of music. The magic of dance.

  Listen . . .

  Raymond de Guise, lead demonstration dancer of the Buckingham Hotel, had been patiently watching the bandleader, waiting for the first note to strike. Archie Adams, a distinguished-looking man in his late fifties, with his bow tie and immaculate hair, had been playing in orchestras for all of his life and had picked up a thing or two about dramatic entrances. His orchestra was making one now. The first notes of ‘A Californian Serenade’ echoed across the ballroom, the trombones stabbing out the melody and bringing the guests to attention. Archie Adams himself led them on the ballroom’s grand piano, his twenty-strong orchestra made up of trumpets, trombones, saxophones, violins and even a double bass, with a single percussionist keeping the beat. Behind the double doors that led to their dressing rooms, the hotel dancers waited. Then, on Raymond’s cue, the doors flew open and they whirled, together, out onto the floor.

  Raymond, a man of imposing stature that belied his elegance on the dance floor, was the first through. His dinner jacket was midnight blue, his collar high and starched so that his black curls, which were rebellious and refused to be tamed by even the strongest pomade, came close to touching the fabric. Hand in hand with his partner Hélène – resplendent in her sea-green gown, hand-stitched with a million tiny pearls like scattered stars – he reached the centre of the dance floor and together they turned to welcome the rest of the company.

  ‘Shall we?’ he whispered, as he did before every routine.

  Hélène, who was always ready, smiled in return. ‘We shall, Raymond. Let’s show them how it’s done . . .’

  As ‘A Californian Serenade’ reached its climactic finale, they fanned out among the guests, nodding heads and clasping hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Raymond saw Hélène taking the hand of a regular guest at the Buckingham – a gentleman with slick black hair; Hélène said he came to London from his native California to make movies, and every time he graced the Buckingham he requested her hand on the dance floor. He was not, Raymond knew, the only one. Hélène oozed elegance; she was a beauty so classical that, in a different age, sculptors would have lined up to recreate her in marble and bronze. As her partner took her in hold, Hélène flashed a smile at Raymond; this man would be no match for her on the dance floor, few were, but she would dance with him all the same.

  The dance floor was already filling up, but Raymond had not yet met his own partner for the evening. As the Archie Adams Band struck up a Viennese waltz, he stood with his hands folded at the edge of the dance floor, awaiting his turn. Moments later, a finger tapped him on the shoulder. He glided around to see a familiar face peering back up.

  ‘Looks like you may have been let down, Mr de Guise.’

  The girl in front of him – because, at scarcely eighteen years of age, a girl she was – had rich auburn hair, cut short as a boy’s to spite her father, and spoke with the unmistakable accent of her native New York. Her green eyes had something almost feline about them, and she had evidently spent the afternoon in the hotel cocktail lounge, for her breath smelt sweet, of exotic pineapple and rum. Her ball gown set her apart from even the wealthiest patrons of the Grand Ballroom tonight. Wherever Raymond looked there were the most magnificent gowns, but this girl’s simply screamed ostentation. The golden satin silk was textured, the capelet around her shoulders trimmed with feathers, the brooch on h
er belt a mountain of pearls that glittered as if set with diamonds; perhaps it was . . .

  ‘I’m taken, Miss Edgerton. If you’re looking for a partner, you’ll find suitors aplenty everywhere you care to look.’

  ‘You made me a promise. Don’t you think you should keep it?’

  ‘I will. One day, my dear, I’ll show you the quickstep, or the foxtrot. I’ll have you waltzing around the Grand . . . but tonight I’m at the beck and call of our guests.’

  ‘Your guests, Mr de Guise,’ she corrected him. ‘The way I see it, if your partner is not here, then . . .’

  Raymond was about to resist further when another finger tapped him on the shoulder and, stepping back, he saw his partner for the evening. At seventy years old she was more than twice Raymond’s age, diminutive but elegant in a Madeleine Vionnet gown that flared gracefully to the floor.

  Raymond heard Miss Vivienne Edgerton saying his name, heard her repeat it – and after that heard nothing as, disgruntled, she retreated to her table and, with a click of her fingers, summoned a waiter in white and gold brocade.

  ‘Mr . . . de Guise?’ the lady ventured. ‘Raymond?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, smoothly, finding his voice at last. ‘Mrs . . . Adelman, I presume. Lovely to make your acquaintance.’

  Mrs Adelman held out a hand, as wrinkled as a glove but adorned with an emerald ring that glittered in the light of the Grand’s chandeliers.

  Raymond delivered her one of his most practised smiles. ‘Shall we?’

  As he swept her into hold, Mrs Adelman looked back and saw the eyes of the auburn-haired girl piercing her from the side of the ballroom. ‘That girl, is she . . . ?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Raymond, trying not to be distracted as he brought Mrs Adelman close and began turning into the waltz, ‘nothing of the sort, Mrs Adelman. The young lady has been staying in the hotel for the summer. Vivienne Edgerton. You know the name?’

  ‘The Edgertons?’

  ‘The same,’ said Raymond. ‘She has requested that I teach her to dance and . . . well, I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her father, our benefactor and lord . . .’

  ‘Can anyone dance, Mr de Guise?’

  ‘Anyone who desires it.’

  Soon, Raymond had given himself to the dance – and Mrs Adelman, more reluctantly, perhaps fearful that she might make a fool of herself in this most elegant of ballrooms, had done the same. Mrs Adelman must have danced before, because soon her feet were remembering the steps and Raymond loosened the way he was holding her, no longer directing her every movement. The music swayed, the chandeliers above shimmered so that, in moments, the ballroom seemed to be the surface of the ocean itself, ripples of light spreading all around. When the music stopped, the dancers seemed to carry on, filling the brief interludes between music with movements of their own. More than once, Raymond caught Hélène’s eye across the floor as her gentleman clasped her too tightly and awkwardly. With a single arched eyebrow, Hélène could tell Raymond everything: the man’s hand was too high and too tight, he held her like a mannequin in some expensive Knightsbridge boutique – afraid to drop her, determined to direct her every move, as if it was not Hélène Marchmont who had been crowned Queen of the Ballroom at the Royal Albert Hall two seasons past. But Hélène didn’t mind. As they twirled past each other, Raymond even saw the hint of a smile in the corner of her lips. A certain sort of man, she seemed to be saying, just needed . . . indulging. They needed to feel as if they were masters of the dancing arts. Hélène, Raymond knew, loved the evenings with the guests – giving them a glimpse of her and Raymond’s world. She didn’t mind if they couldn’t dance; just that they loved to dance. Yet, Hélène lived for the demonstrations they put on each day, when, together with Raymond, they could show the world their talent.

  Raymond danced on. At least Mrs Adelman was not trying to prove anything to him. She had no need to. She was here for the thrill of the ballroom itself.

  As the hours ticked by, the Grand Ballroom became more crowded still. A little champagne always brought more guests to the dance floor, but so too did the music itself. Somehow, it seemed to infect everyone who heard it with a desire to move . . .

  Mrs Adelman rose up on her tiptoes and put her lips to Raymond’s ear.

  ‘She’s still watching you, you know.’

  Raymond furrowed his brows.

  ‘That girl. Your Edgerton girl. Have yourself an admirer, do you, Raymond de Guise?’

  Raymond chuckled softly. ‘With these looks?’ he joked. ‘More than one, I shouldn’t wonder . . . It is, after all, part of the job . . .’

  ‘Part of your job to let them fall in love with you?’

  The music reached a climax, an explosion of trombone and tenor horn.

  ‘Perhaps we might find somewhere a little more private? To . . . talk,’ Mrs Adelman said carefully.

  Talk, thought Raymond. Mrs Adelman’s hand was on his arm. Yes, it would not be the first time one of the ballroom’s patrons had asked him to . . . talk. The hotel director almost demanded it: ‘Whatever our patrons require, Mr de Guise, you are here to provide.’ Perhaps it was the way he held them as they danced, or perhaps it was the way he worked to make them feel that, no matter what else was going on in their lives, in the Grand they could be themselves, just follow the rhythms of their bodies, but people felt . . . safe with Raymond de Guise. He had to admit that he liked that feeling.

  ‘I’m staying in the Trafalgar Suite. It would be a little more private. Shall we?’

  The music had died away. Archie Adams was up on his feet, ushering his orchestra off for their well-earned refreshments. In the quiet that followed, Raymond risked a glance over his shoulder. The unblinking eyes of Vivienne Edgerton were still on him. He was not sure whether they were accusing or pleading or worse, but perhaps it would not be a bad thing to escape the ballroom, if only for a time.

  He reached out and took Mrs Adelman’s hand.

  *

  Raymond tried not to catch the eye of Mr Simenon, the slippery head concierge, as he and Mrs Adelman strode, arm in arm, through the doors of the ballroom, past the grill room and cocktail lounge and up into the hotel’s lobby – where its celebrated bronze doors stood open to the balmy scents of Mayfair after dark. He did not answer when one of the hotel pages called out his name, nor break his stride when Maynard Charles himself appeared at the reception desk, his spectacles perched haphazardly on his nose as he scrutinised the day reports in preparation for the night manager’s arrival. Perhaps they thought less of him, thinking him little better than those ‘table dancers’ who haunted the booths of the hotel’s Candlelight Club, seeking a wealthy patron with whom they might spend the night for a fee. Let them think what they want, he thought. My business is my own. Not a word was spoken, even as he accompanied Mrs Adelman to the ornate gold cage of the guest lift and she instructed the attendant to take them to the third floor, where her suite awaited.

  ‘Are you staying here long, Mrs Adelman?’ he ventured, as they walked together along the burgundy hall.

  ‘Oh,’ Mrs Adelman replied, ‘it’s a one-night thing, Raymond. I’ll be gone in the morning.’

  A one-night thing, thought Raymond. Yes, he had heard this story before as well: a wealthy dowager, just flitting through, looking for somebody to . . . talk with, for the night.

  The Trafalgar Suite. It had been some time since Raymond last ventured in here. Inside, Mrs Adelman took a perch at the end of the great four-poster bed. She had spared no expenses tonight. The room was one of the Buckingham’s finest, with a rolling view over Berkeley Square and the great gothic spires of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Beside an ornate French armoire sat a glass-topped table, upon which a single orchid was presented – and, beside that orchid, a perfect statue of a turtle, cast in ivory and mother-of-pearl. Room service had obviously already been summoned, for a silver bucket was filled with ice and, rising from it, was a bo
ttle of the Buckingham’s finest champagne. Mrs Adelman gestured for Raymond and, with his heart beating fast, Raymond popped the cork and poured two glasses. A Moët et Chandon, 1921 vintage.

  ‘Mrs Adelman,’ he began, ‘I see you are a lady of means.’

  ‘Oh, means,’ she said, with a wry grin. ‘Yes, you’re a gentleman dancer, all right. You have the airs and expressions. I suppose you’ve danced with royalty. There are enough kings and queens and continentals said to stay in the Buckingham Hotel. I can quite imagine you hobnobbing with the gentry, Mr de Guise. But, no, consider this an old lady’s way of spending her late husband’s inheritance. I can’t take it with me, so I’m enjoying myself while I can.’ She hesitated. ‘You seem a little nervous, Raymond?’

  It had been many years since Raymond de Guise was last ner-vous, even when taking to the dance floor in front of the world’s finest ballroom dancers at the Hammersmith Palais the previous season, but yes, he had to admit, he was nervous tonight. There had been patrons like Mrs Adelman before, ladies of an older generation, who came to dance in the ballroom and wanted a little more of Raymond’s time. Perhaps they were widowed. Perhaps they had been cast off by their philandering husbands, and given an allowance which they sought to fritter away in the ballrooms and drawing-room dances of Mayfair and beyond. Mostly what they wanted was a good-looking younger man from whose arm they could hang, and perhaps speak a little about the gilded Mayfair world. But sometimes – well, sometimes they wanted more.

  Raymond caught a fleeting glance of himself in the mirror hanging over the dresser. Thirty years old, but there were still those who would mistake him for twenty. It was only when he laughed that the creases showed about his eyes, revealing his true age. He had curly black hair that was a constant battle to sculpt in time for the afternoon demonstration dances, and eyes that sloped ever so slightly downwards, giving him what a former lover had once called an ‘elegantly sad air’. The prominent cheekbones had been inherited from his father, God rest his soul, and his nose had been broken and reset so many times, thanks to the attentions of an unruly brother and events in his previous life, that it made his face appear somewhat crooked. He could see Mrs Adelman appraising him from beyond his reflection.