My Last Duchess, стр. 28

It was as if Bartholomew Fair had set up shop on the ice with drinking booths, games to play, food for sale, a bowling alleyopen to the sky, a skating rink. Red-cheeked Londoners were scrambling about on wooden skates or sliding in their boots, laughingand shouting. Strings of paper lanterns in bright colors were draped between the little shops, or strung between the polesmarking the skating rink.

“There’ll be some ruffians in the mix,” Bisquet said. “I’ll send a groom with you to hold your purse, madam. The carriagewill be here waiting for you. I’ve brought along blankets for the horses and nice warm mash in case we’re here more than anhour or two.”

“We’ll be more than an hour,” Ophelia said happily. In front of her, a line of small wooden shops wove their way across theice, creating a curvy road. Bright flags were flying from the roofs, and a lovely smell of mingled pig roast and mulled winedrifted their way.

“On this side, there’s a road for carriages,” Bisquet pointed out. “There are sleigh rides as well, going all the way fromTemple to Southwark.”

The ice was dotted everywhere with glowing bonfires constructed inside great metal burners, around which people stood warmingtheir hands. Some burners were outfitted with elaborate spits and one even held an entire roasting pig.

“Aren’t they afraid the fires will melt the ice?” Ophelia asked, turning back to the carriage to pick up a very excited Viola.

“Oh, goodness, no,” Bisquet said comfortably. “I heard as the ice is twenty fathoms deep. Look over there, madam, a horseand six, just as safe as if they were going down the cobblestone of our own street.”

“Where are the sleighs?”

“Beyond the ice-carving palladium,” her coachman said. “There, where you see the crimson awning? Supposedly the finest icecarvers in the kingdom are at work, and the king himself will judge them on Friday . . . if the ice lasts. Yet people aresaying it might last two months, just as in the cold snap of ’40.”

Viola was waving her red-mittened hands. “Snow!” she crowed.

Behind them, the horses were stamping their feet.

Followed by Peters, the groom, Ophelia walked down the gentle slope and stepped onto the ice. It was covered by a trampledlayer of snow, so it wasn’t slippery, and they set out happily for the row of stores.

They stopped at every stall, Viola clapping at the sight of hot cider, carved wooden horses, gingerbread men . . . Whateverwas for sale, she applauded. Since she was an extremely pretty little girl, her sweet face encircled with a halo of whiterabbit fur, even the most hard-bitten of London merchants found himself smiling at her and offering free samples.

Ophelia couldn’t allow people to give away their wares for free, so she kept nodding to Peters, following her with a purse.Before long he was festooned with string bags containing everything from apples to a carved dolly and, over his shoulder,a hobbyhorse with a red ribbon.

Now and then Ophelia and Viola met people whom they knew: the vicar and his wife, cheerily walking arm-in-arm; one of hercousins somewhat-removed who told her that he’d just eaten the best roast beef of his life; one of Peter’s school friends,Lord Melton.

He was a robust man with a neatly trimmed beard that turned his chin into an exclamation mark.

He greeted Ophelia with a smile and bow, while she racked her brain trying to remember whether he was married or not. Shecertainly didn’t want to be courted by Lord Melton. All the same, her arm was beginning to ache, and when he offered to carryViola, she gratefully agreed.

Viola cheerfully went to him, patting his cheek with her red-mittened hands by way of greeting.

They strolled over together to sample a hot chocolate drink imported from the continent, and then headed toward the ice-carvingpavilion. Lord Melton was so obviously admiring that Ophelia felt her spirits, dented by Maddie’s news about the Duke of Lindow,rise.

She might not have been desirable enough to ensnare the Duke of Lindow for more than one heady night, but Lord Melton wasshowing every sign of considering himself ensnared.

Once they reached the ice-carving pavilion, they began walking about, admiring the carvings taking shape under the busy chiselsof master carvers. She rounded a six-foot lump of ice—destined to be a reproduction of St. Paul’s Tower, or so the carverinformed them—and ran straight into the Duke of Lindow.

Not just the duke either, but Lady Woolhastings beside him, looking remarkably elegant in a sable-lined pelisse with exquisitebutter-yellow gloves with long fringes at the wrist. No one would say that Lady Woolhastings was beautiful, but anyone fromthe Queen to a scullery maid would have known she was a lady with impeccable bloodlines. Her long face and limpid eyes hadthe unmistakable stamp of the peerage.

Ophelia realized instantly that her unpowdered hair had freed itself from the braided knot her maid had fixed in the morning.Red curls were waving around her eyes. Her rabbit fur hood, while warm and certainly economical, was hardly fashionable.

Edith Woolhastings’s eyes passed over it and then over Viola’s little face, framed in the same fur. She didn’t sneer; shewas far too well-bred for that. But she looked indifferent, which was somehow even worse. “Is this your daughter, Lady Astley?”she inquired, as politeness compelled her to say something. “She has the look of your late husband, Sir Peter.”

Ophelia registered that Lady Woolhastings likely considered her final remark to be a compliment. She dropped a curtsy, noticingin turn that the lady graced her with no more than a nod of the head. Well, Lady Woolhastings was a lady-in-waiting to thequeen, and likely took her position very seriously. Ophelia suddenly remembered Peter describing the lady as vexed by a joke,as is often the case with someone who has no sense of humor.

How terrible to marry someone with no sense of humor.

She turned to the Duke of Lindow, but he bowed abruptly and their eyes didn’t meet.

“We’re on our way to a sleigh ride,” Lady Woolhastings said languidly. “Lindow has arranged everything so that we will takesleighs up to the Thames to my