A Kiss at Midnight Read Free

never felt the same hatred for her stepsister. For one thing, Victoria was too soft-natured for anyone to dislike. And for another, Kate couldn’t help being fond of her. If Kate had taken a great deal of abuse from Mariana, the kind of affection that her stepmother lavished on her daughter was, to Kate’s mind, almost worse.
    “Well,” Victoria said heavily, sitting down on a pile of gowns about the approximate height of a stool, “you have to be me. It took me a while to understand it, but Mother has it all cleverly planned out. And I’m sure my darling Algie will agree.”
    “I couldn’t possibly be you, whatever that means,” Kate said flatly.
    “Yes, you can,” Mariana said. She had finished her cigarillo and was lighting a second from the first. “And you will,” she added.
    “No, I won’t. Not that I have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Be Victoria in what context? And with whom?”
    “With Lord Dimsdale’s prince, of course,” Mariana said, regarding her through a faint haze of smoke. “Haven’t you been listening?”
    “You want me to pretend to be Victoria? In front of a prince? Which prince?”
    “I didn’t understand at first either,” Victoria said, running her finger over her injured lip. “You see, before Algie can marry me, we need the approval of some relative of his.”
    “The prince,” Mariana put in.
    “He’s a prince from some little country in the back of beyond, that’s what Algie says. But he’s the only representative of Algie’s mother’s family who lives in England, and she won’t release his inheritance without the prince’s approval. His father’s will,” Victoria confided, “is most dreadfully unfair. If Algie marries before thirty years of age, without his mother’s approval, he loses part of his inheritance—and he’s not even twenty yet!”
    Very smart of Papa Dimsdale, to Kate’s mind. From what she’d seen, Dimsdale Junior was about as ready to manage an estate as the rats were to learn choral music. Not that it was her business. “The doctors will take a look at you tomorrow morning,” she told Victoria, “and then you’ll be off to see the prince. Rather like the cat looking at the queen.”
    “She can’t go like that !” Mariana snapped. It was the first time that Kate had ever heard that edge of disgust applied to her daughter.
    Victoria turned her head and looked at her mother, but said nothing.
    “Of course she can,” Kate stated. “This sounds like a fool’s game to me. No one will believe for a moment that I’m Victoria. And even if they did, don’t you think they’d remember later? What happens when this prince stands up in the church and stops the ceremony, on the grounds that the bride isn’t the bride he met?”
    “That won’t happen, if only because Victoria will be married directly afterwards, by parish license,” Mariana said. “This is the first time Dimsdale has been invited to the castle, and we can’t miss it. His Highness is throwing a ball to celebrate his betrothal, and you’re going as Victoria.”
    “Why not just postpone your visit and go after the ball is over?”
    “Because I have to get married,” Victoria piped up.
    Kate’s heart sank. “You have to get married?”
    Victoria nodded. Kate looked at her stepmother, who shrugged. “She’s compromised. Three months’ worth.”
    “For Christ’s sake,” Kate exclaimed. “You hardly know Dimsdale, Victoria!”
    “I love Algie,” Victoria said, her big eyes earnest. “I didn’t even want to debut, not after I saw him at Westminster Abbey that Sunday back in March, but Mother made me.”
    “March,” Kate said. “You met him in March and now it’s June. Tell me that darling Algie proposed, oh, say three months ago, just after you fell in love, and you’ve kept it a secret?”
    Victoria giggled at that. “You know exactly when he proposed, Kate! I told you first, after Mother. It was just two weeks ago.”
    The lines between