Carolina Cromwell and The Mystery of the Grand Duchess (Part Two)

Part One is here:  https://www.abctales.com/story/airyfairy/carolina-cromwell-and-mystery-g...

In the elegant drawing room of a graceful Park Avenue town house, a young woman lay on a gilt and gold brocade chaise longue. Her long, shapely legs were crossed at the ankle under her red silk kimono.  Her immaculately manicured fingers flicked the pages of a fashion magazine. Beneath the sleek bob of her dark hair her features were enhanced by a graceful arch of eyebrow pencil and a muted kiss of lipstick.

A fair, slight man in his early thirties was sitting opposite her in an identically brocaded armchair.  The fabric of his immaculate grey suit hung smoothly from his broad shoulders, above the geometric peaks of starched white handkerchief in his breast pocket.

 A gold-faced grandfather clock in the corner chimed three.  The man shifted fretfully in the armchair.

‘Caro, I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take.’ He spoke in crisp, cultivated English tones, with just a hint of petulance.   

Carolina Cromwell turned a page.  ‘Of what, dear?’

The man took a slim silver case from his inside pocket.  He extracted a cigarette, and looked around irritably for a lighter.

‘Over on the cocktail bar,’ said Carolina, not raising her eyes from the magazine.

The man rose from his chair in one languid movement, and crossed the heavily fringed Persian carpet to the marble and glass counter.  His cigarette lit, he paced over to the picture window looking out on the avenue, quiet in the crisp, cold sunlight of a late afternoon. The scurrying humanity of morning and lunch time had abated to a moderate flow of leisured persons whose time was their own.  In an hour or so it would start to build towards the evening surge.

Freddie exhaled a perfectly defined curl of smoke.  ‘This isn’t what I signed up for, Caro.  I promised your father I’d escort you down the aisle, not spend my evenings schmoozing overfed matrons wearing overfed diamonds and prattling on about how their husbands managed to survive the Crash.  I’m a writer. I should be writing. Not bloody schmoozing.’

Carolina turned another page.  ‘You’re a writer without a publisher, at the moment.  Schmoozing gets you contacts.’

He examined his cigarette.  ‘My work speaks for itself.’

‘Yes, darling, but right now it seems to have just a touch of laryngitis.  I’m sure it will pass.’

He turned away from the window and scowled.  ‘You’ve never liked my work.’

She sighed and looked up at him.  ‘Freddie, I’ve never read any of your work.  Deep and meaningful perorations about the ego and the id and identity and the significance of the blossom on the tree are lost on me, dear, you know that.‘

The scowl deepened.  ‘Edmund understood my work.’

‘Well, what a pity he’s not here.’  She dropped her eyes back to the magazine.

Freddie squared his shoulders.  ‘Bloody insensitive, Caro, even for you.’

She glared at him.  ‘Insensitive?  You were the one who brought it up.  He was my brother, you know.’

‘And my lover.  My love.’

Carolina sighed again and lowered the magazine.  ‘I know.  Darling, I know.  We both loved him, and we both miss him.  And yes, he undoubtedly understood you and your work better than I ever will.  But I’m trying, Freddie.  I’m doing my best for you.’

‘I don’t need charity.’

Carolina squealed.  ‘Oh my God, writers.’  She drummed her heels on the chaise longue.  ‘To be honest, darling, I don’t know how Edmund put up with you.  If it makes you feel any better, look on it as payment for escorting me over here and giving me away.  You got Daddy off the hook at least, and he’s exceedingly grateful. Hence him brutally persuading poor old Osbert Cholmondley to let you use his apartment while they’re in Nice. The New York apartment is the Cholmondleys’ pride and joy.  Monica wasn’t at all pleased.’

Freddie turned back to the window. After a moment he said, ‘Don’t you think, sometimes, that Daddy deserves to know the truth about his son?  Don’t you think he deserves to know he’s grieving for someone who didn’t exist?’

‘And for a writer,’ said Carolina, rustling the magazine, ‘you can be incredibly stupid at times.  Sex isn’t everything, you know.  Of course Daddy’s Edmund existed.  I grew up with him.  He liked treacle tart and swimming and Fred Karno.  When he was six he fell out of a tree and broke his arm, and he never did learn to ride a bicycle.  Daddy’s Edmund – and mine – died in that bloody aeroplane crash, just as much as your Edmund did.’

‘But I’m not allowed to talk about my Edmund.’  Freddie’s voice caught.  ‘I used to tease him about Fred Karno, you know.  Load of rubbish, lowest common denominator and all that. He still loved it.’

‘I’m sorry.  I wish you could talk about your Edmund, but that’s the way it is.’ Carolina put the magazine aside and swung her legs down from the chaise longue.  ‘You would destroy Edmund’s name and Daddy’s heart, not to mention your future dazzling career, if you even hinted at it.  Daddy would probably invite you out for a duel or something.’

‘Are you sure Daddy’s that naïve?  He went to Eton too.’

‘Yes, but he didn’t go to Cambridge.  Don’t be a fool, Freddie.’

‘Don’t worry.  I’m not terminally stupid.’ He turned and gave her an almost shy smile, like a roguish boy reminded of his manners.  ‘I’m sorry, Caro.  I suppose I’m just not – not really Park Avenue material.’

She twisted a lock of hair round her right forefinger in a sudden, nervous gesture.  ‘Sometimes I’m not sure I am.  Oh Freddie, do you think that will be me, in twenty years’ time?  An overfed matron with overfed diamonds and nothing to talk about but her husband’s bank balance?’

He came and sat on the edge of the chaise longue, and took her hand between both of his.  ‘Caro, be honest.  Is this really what you want?  In two weeks’ time, do you really want to be Mrs Marenstern?’

She smiled, twisting the lock of hair tighter. Her wide, bright gaze darted from his face to the window, back again, then over his shoulder to the door behind him. ‘Of course.  Of course I do.  I’m going to marry one of the handsomest and richest men in the world.  How could I not want it?  I just…it’ll just be a different way of life, that’s all.  Park Avenue, not Kensington.  I’m not sure how I’ll adapt.  Or what will happen when I do.’

He laced his fingers through hers. ‘You could never end up as one of those silly, overfed matrons.’

‘Well, darling, if I do, I’ll sell all those diamonds and buy a publishing house and publish every word you’ve ever written.’

‘It’s a deal.’  He dropped a kiss onto her forehead and glanced at the magazine.  ‘What is this trash you’re reading?’

She relaxed slightly, as though relieved at the change of subject.  ‘I beg your pardon.  This esteemed publication has a picture of me in it.  At that ball at the Plaza last Thursday.  Page seven.’

He flicked the pages and studied the picture. ‘Do you know who you remind me of there?  That woman they’ve just locked away for saying she’s the Grand Duchess Anastasia.’

‘What?  I don’t look anything like her.’

‘Yes you do, just a bit.  Although I would imagine you look more like the actual Anastasia, seeing as you’re family’

‘Barely.  Anyway, I have no desire to resemble either a dead Romanov or a mad…what is she, exactly?  Russian?  German?’

‘Polish, I think.’

‘It hardly matters,’ said Carolina.  ‘Anyway, darling, you should be getting back to poor old Osbert’s apartment.  Dinner with the Vanderbilts tonight.  I want you to take lots of time to dress and make yourself utterly debonair and completely irresistible to everyone.  My devoted fiancé is picking me up at seven and we’ll collect you on the way.’

‘How absolutely wonderful,’ said Freddie.