“God blind me!” he said softly, as the groom and the father of the bride began to climb the steps toward them. “Pity poor Catherine Middleton. With such a Caesar, would for her sake these were the Ides of March and not his wedding day!”
“Shhh!” hissed Kemp, elbowing him in the ribs. “Mock this Caesar at your peril, fool,” he whispered. “They will club you down, stuff you in a weighted sack, and toss you in the river!”
Smythe fell silent, but not so much as a result of his companion’s admonition as from the sight that greeted him as the next passenger lightly stepped off the boat and pulled back the hood of her long, dark blue velvet cloak with a languid, graceful gesture.
Blanche Middleton was all of sixteen, tall for her age, raven-haired, buxom and small-waisted, with grayish-blue eyes that looked like cracked diamonds. She wore a crimson velvet gown over a cartwheel farthingale, which could not have been very comfortable for sitting in a boat, and her puff-sleeved, black velvet bodice was heavily embroidered in gold and stiffened with a pointed stomacher that accentuated a very ample bosom that was displayed even more boldly than the current fashion dictated. She looked around and her gaze settled upon Smythe with such a frank, smouldering directness that it made him look around, thinking that she must have been looking at someone else behind him on the steps, someone quite familiar to her. But when he turned, he saw that there was no one there. When he looked back, her gaze met his once again and she smiled with a sultry, mocking sort of amusement. It struck Smythe that, unquestionably, she was looking straight at him, and he looked back with a frank, appraising stare to see if she would drop her gaze. But she did not.
She came straight up the steps towards him, her eyes never leaving his, save for one moment when they flicked briefly up and down, taking his measure with a boldness that Smythe had never before encountered in a girl.
“My, my,” she said in a low and throaty voice, as she drew even with him. “You are a big one.”
Feeling flustered and not quite knowing how else to respond, Smythe bowed slightly and said, “Your servant, ma’am.”
“Indeed?” she replied, archly. “How lovely. I trust that you shall serve me well then.”
“Come on, then, Blanche, stop dawdling!” her father called to her, from further up the steps. “We must hurry up and take our places. The flotilla is approaching!”
“Coming, Father!” she called, without taking her eyes off Smythe. And then she cleared her throat slightly, took a deep breath, enhancing her already ample cleavage, lowered her eyelids, and pursed her lips before continuing on her way up the steps with a lingering backward glance over her shoulder.
It took Smythe a moment to find his voice, and when he did, all he could say was, “Good God!”
“Neither God nor goodness has anything to do with that, my dear boy,” said Kemp, dryly.
“Was I imagining things?” asked Smythe. “Kemp, did you hear? Did you see?”
“I have ears and I have eyes,” Will Kemp replied. “And I have a very great concern for the integrity and preservation of my bones, which faculty I would most heartily commend to you, my lad. Yon saucy baggage is even more trouble than that Darcie wench. If that fire she has just ignited in your loins needs cooling, then may I suggest you jump into the river now and quench the flame post haste, before it burns you and all the rest of us, besides.”
A crowd had gathered at the top of the steps behind them, drawn by the arrival of their host and their anticipation of the wedding flotilla bearing the bride. Many of the men were also doubtless drawn by the arrival of Blanche Middleton, who was certainly worth looking at and who seemed to delight in the effect she had on any male within viewing distance. Smythe noticed that all of the young aristocrats he had marked earlier were there, vying for her attention and trying to elbow one another out of the way. If this sort of thing kept up, he thought, there could well be trouble brewing before the day was through.
What concerned him more, however, was that he had as yet seen no sign of Elizabeth. Where could she be? Catherine was due to arrive at any moment. It puzzled Smythe that while Catherine Middleton had spent the night in London, at the residence her father maintained there, Elizabeth had been here, at Middleton Manor. Why? One would think that the logical place for her to have been was at her friend’s side as she got ready for the wedding. And why was Elizabeth not part of the wedding party that was arriving on the barge?
The specter of suspicion rose up in his mind once more. There was no reason in the world that Smythe could think of why Elizabeth should not have been in London with Catherine, so that she could arrive with her on the “royal barge,” unless of course, coming out early to Middleton Manor would have given her an opportunity to meet with someone. And that someone could only be another man. Nothing else made any sense. And as his thoughts returned to that once more, it again struck him how convenient it was that they had quarrelled the last time they had seen each other.
So… where, was Elizabeth? He knew where she had been last night. Where was she now? Why was she not here, with everybody else?
Someone called out that the wedding flotilla was approaching, and in moments, everyone was pointing and shouting excitedly. Indeed, the wedding party was approaching in a fleet of boats accompanying the royal barge, just as he had seen them rehearsing the previous day. This time, however, it all seemed to be going smoothly, and despite the “wretched wind” and “frightful chop” that Godfrey Middelton had complained of, the flotilla was approaching in perfect formation, albeit spaced out a bit more widely than before, no doubt in order to avoid the sort of collision that had occurred yesterday.
Smythe had to admit that it certainly looked impressive. The rivermen were an independent and often surly lot, but somehow Middleton’s man had succeeded in getting them to work together and take direction in this waterborne pageant. The smaller boats stayed more or less in line and relatively equidistant from one another, forming an escort for the wedding barge that was being drawn by the larger boats in the center of the formation.
The crowd oohed and ahhed as the flotilla drew near and the details of the barge could now be seen. The elaborate, fringed purple canopy waved in the breeze, luffing and cracking like a sail as the “slave rowers” manned their oars, which were really more ornamental than functional. Some of them were actually dipping into the water, and perhaps providing some small amount of motive force, but most of the oars were simply waving in the air. On the flat deck of the barge, Egyptian maidens and high priests waved at the onlookers and tossed flower petals into the water from baskets. On the “upper deck,” which was really no more than a wooden platform erected on the barge, Cleopatra sat regally upon her massive throne.