The Shadow Queen (25 page)

Spinning around on her heels, she stormed away from him, out of the room, out of the house, slamming the door behind her so hard it was a miracle it didn’t rock on its foundations.

White-hot fury roared through her veins as she made her way back to her mother’s. She was going to have the wedding she had planned. A grand extravaganza of a wedding. And one day Solomon Warfield was going to eat the words he had so cruelly spoken to her, for, much as she loved her mother, Wallis knew she had too much Warfield blood in her to be like her mother.

Iron determination followed hard on the heels of her fury. The day would come when her Uncle Sol would eat his heart out to be publicly recognized as being her relation—and when it did, she wouldn’t even give a nod in his direction.

Chapter Fifteen

I
n her letter to Win, telling him of how exciting it was waiting for the Baltimore papers to publish the news of their engagement, she didn’t mention one word of Sol’s refusal to pony up for the costs of the wedding.

Win didn’t know about the legacy she had received from her grandmother—not because she had been keeping the money secret from him, but because nothing financial had ever been spoken of between them. The question of finance was most definitely not a romantic topic, and the first time it had vulgarly been brought into a conversation had been by his parents—and Win had immediately indicated how out of line he had felt it to be.

That she was paying for their extravaganza wedding was a secret she was determined to keep.

Alice Maud Van Rensselaer was unable to accept her invitation to be a bridesmaid, as she was to be a bridesmaid at a cousin’s wedding on the same day, but when Wallis resorted to Phoebe Schermerhorn instead, Phoebe accepted the invitation ecstatically. Ellen Yuille was also happy to accept, and it went without saying that both the cousins she had invited to be bridesmaids and Win’s sister also accepted with alacrity. To be the attention of all eyes as a bridesmaid at a Baltimore high-society wedding was an opportunity not to be missed.

Edith, when she received her invitation, was completely bowled over.

“It was so unexpected, Wallis,” she said, her plain face rosy with pleasure when they met up for lunch at the Baltimore Country Club. “I never realized you thought of me as being such a close friend. What is your fiancé like? Is he very handsome?”

Wallis opened her purse and took out a photograph of Win in his full-dress naval uniform. “Judge for yourself,” she said proudly, handing Edith the photograph across the dining table.

Edith looked down at Win’s devil-may-care image, and the roses in her cheeks deepened. “Oh, he’s
very
handsome, Wallis.” There was wistful envy in her voice. “I wish I had a beau like that. I did, once, but he came from a family with no money, and Papa said he was a fortune hunter and that he would prove it. He told my beau that he could marry me, but that on our marriage he would cut me off without a penny.”

“And?” Wallis asked, already knowing what the outcome of the story would be.

“And Papa was right.” Edith looked so sad Wallis was tempted to rise from the table and put her arms around her. “My beau lost interest in me immediately.”

For the first time in her life it occurred to Wallis that there could be drawbacks to being as wealthy an heiress as Edith. How, if you were one day to inherit a vast fortune, could you be sure that the person you loved and who said he wished to marry you really loved you in return, or just wanted to marry you for your money?

Edith handed her the photograph back, and as Wallis slid it into her purse, the newspaper clipping of Edward, Prince of Wales, fell out onto the table.

Edith looked startled. “Do you still keep the prince as a pinup, Wallis? I know you did at Oldfields, but I’m surprised Lieutenant Spencer allows you to still do so.”

Wallis shot her a sunny smile. “Lieutenant Spencer is
not
privy to the contents of my purse, Edith.” She smoothed the cutting and looked down at it. “Truth to tell, I don’t know why I still keep it. Habit, I guess.”

Edith, putting her sadness behind her, giggled. “You’ll never guess what I have in my purse.”

The purse was lizard skin with a solid gold clip fastener. Edith snapped the clip open, took out a photograph, and laid it by the side of Wallis’s newspaper cutting.

It was the most sensational photograph of Prince Edward that Wallis had ever seen and had obviously been mass-produced for a royalty-loving public. He was in full-dress uniform—though of what regiment Wallis couldn’t tell. Gold braid was draped in double loops on the right-hand side of his chest; on the left was pinned a row of glittering medals with two huge medals of a different kind pinned beneath them, both of which looked to be diamond encrusted. In his right hand the headgear he carried looked like a huge black fur ball, and his left hand was resting on a sword.

In the posed, studio shot, the prince wasn’t looking directly toward the camera. His glossy fair hair was parted crisply on the left, and his fine-boned face was as resolute as if he were about to ride into battle to slay a dragon and rescue a princess.

As they looked at the photograph, not only was Edith no longer thinking of the beau who hadn’t wanted her when he’d known she would come to him penniless, but Wallis was no longer thinking of Win.

“The headgear he is holding is called a busby and is made of bearskin,” Edith said helpfully. “And I have another photograph just like this at home, so if you would like this one, I can give it to you if you would like.”

“That’s very kind of you, Edith. I would like that very much.”

In all the years she had known Edith, Edith had never surprised her in any way, but she was surprising her now. She picked up the photograph. “How is it you are suddenly so knowledgeable, Edith? And how come you have not only one photograph, but two?”

“Pamela sent me them.” Ignorant that John Jasper had once been Wallis’s beau, Edith never had the slightest compunction about bringing Pamela’s name into their conversations. “The prince is serving in France at the moment, but when he is home on leave Pamela and John Jasper are part of the circle of friends he likes to spend time with. She knows what an admirer of his I am.”

Wallis let out a long, slow breath. Hearing John Jasper’s name linked with Pamela’s no longer had any power to hurt. She no longer even ever thought about him.

Pamela, though, was different.

She missed the very special kind of affinity she and Pamela had shared. She was close to Corinne—but there were things she could never tell Corinne, such as the way she had kept Win sexually satisfied throughout their courtship. As for telling Edith such a thing … The very thought made her want to burst into laughter. Edith would be so deeply shocked; she’d probably die of it.

She could have told Pamela, though.

She had always been able to tell Pamela anything.

Edith broke into her thoughts, saying with a dreamy expression in her pale blue eyes, “I wonder who Prince Edward will marry? I suppose it will be a princess. Princes always marry princesses, don’t they?”

Wallis didn’t know but presumed they did. She’d certainly never heard of one who hadn’t. She liked the thought of it, though. It would be so much more romantic—just like the story of Cinderella.

“Pamela once had high hopes of becoming the Princess of Wales,” she said, tucking the photograph safely in her purse. “She was certain that if she could meet him socially often enough, he would fall for her big-time.”

“Oh, but that must have been ages ago—when we were at Oldfields. She won’t have thoughts like those now she’s a happily married lady with a darling little baby boy.”

Not wanting to put thoughts she knew Edith would find distressing into her head, Wallis merely smiled and changed the subject to that of bridesmaids’ dresses and bouquets. Inwardly, though, she was wondering just how Pamela must be feeling, having lots of opportunities to charm Prince Edward. She couldn’t now become the Princess of Wales, but she could become the Prince of Wales’s mistress. Knowing Pamela as she did, Wallis was certain that if given such an opportunity, Pamela would take it—John Jasper or no John Jasper.

The thought didn’t fill her with outrage. Instead she felt something close to amusement. John Jasper didn’t deserve a faithful wife when he had treated her, Wallis, so badly. As for Pamela—Pamela had always been outrageous. It was one of the reasons Wallis had always found her such good company.

She suddenly became aware of Edith asking, “When is it I have to go to Madame Lucile’s for my first fitting, Wallis?”

“In a month’s time. Phoebe is coming down from New York that weekend and Ellen is coming up from Virginia, as is my cousin Lelia, so you will all be being fitted for your bridesmaids’ gowns at the same time.”

Every week was now huge fun—though Wallis took care not to sound as if it were when writing to Win, in case he got the impression that he wasn’t being very badly missed. It was hard, though, to pine, when there were so many family celebratory luncheons and dinners to attend.

Many were luncheons and dinners she had known would be given for her, but some, such as a lifelong friend of her mother’s, Mrs. Aubrey Edmunds King, giving a splendid luncheon for her, and Aunt Bessie’s sister-in-law, Emily McLane Merryman, giving a luncheon for her at Gerar, her home near Cockeysville, were quite unexpected.

Montague relations held parties for her in Virginia; distant Warfield relations held a party for her in Washington, D.C.; and Edith’s mother hosted a lavish tea for her at the country club. Along with all the celebrations came wedding presents. An elaborate silver cutlery service and a matching silver tea service, all in the Repoussé pattern of the famous Kirk silver-works; an engraved large silver fruit bowl; china settings and crystal; exquisite bed linens and table linens and so many vases and ornate picture frames Wallis couldn’t imagine how they would all fit into the small bungalow at Pensacola that she and Win would be moving into.

There were many fittings for her bridal gown, and the fittings for the bridesmaids’ gowns turned into a giggly, girly affair with Madame Lucile, Wallis’s dressmaker of choice, dispensing champagne—though only when the gowns were once again safely under wraps.

The only thing marring Wallis’s happiness was that Win, in one of his many letters to her, wrote that despite President Wilson’s being recently reelected on the slogan
He Kept Us Out of War
, Henry, and every other high-ranking military man, believed that war was coming.

It was a prospect that elated Win.

It didn’t elate Wallis.

She didn’t want to marry and possibly become a war widow in the space of a year or so.

“Don’t look on the black side, honey,” Alice said chidingly when she confessed her fears to her. “If President Wilson says we’re not going to war, we’re not going to war—and even if we did, there’ll be no one can look after himself better in a tight corner than Win. He’ll be here soon for the wedding and you’re just goin’ to look the most beautiful bride that ever walked down an aisle.”

I
n the late afternoon of November 8, Wallis stood perfectly still as her mother and Corinne slid her wedding gown over her head. The white velvet and the pointed bodice encrusted with seed pearls gave the gown a lyrically lovely medieval look.

“Now for Grandmother Warfield’s tulle veil,” Alice said, so overcome by how beautiful her daughter looked that tears glistened on her eyelashes.

With infinite care the veil, attached to a delicate coronet of orange blossoms, was secured to Wallis’s glossily dark hair.

Her bridesmaids, already dressed and carrying their bouquets, crowded into the room to look at her.

“It’s a gown fit for a queen.” Phoebe wasn’t being merely flattering; she meant every word. The gown, with its court train falling from Wallis’s shoulders, most definitely had a royal look about it, helped enormously by the regal way her friend effortlessly held herself.

“Here’s your bouquet, Skinny.” Corinne handed her her wedding bouquet of white orchids and lilies of the valley.

“It’s five o’clock, honey.” Alice wiped away the tears of happiness and pride that were threatening to fall. “Only an hour to go. Win’s friends will already be escorting family and friends into the pews.”

“All the ushers are naval flight officers,” Edith whispered to Phoebe. “And they will all be in full-dress uniform.”

Phoebe gave a shiver of delight. With war the topic of the moment, men in military uniform had taken on extra glamour. Being as fabulously rich an heiress as she was, her parents would never allow her to marry a naval air officer, but she was determined to have one as a secret beau.

As her bridesmaids crowded around her dressing table to primp and preen for the last time, Wallis, anxious about a host of details her bridesmaids didn’t have to worry about, said to Alice: “I hope the church flowers are arranged just as I asked. Aunt Bessie has checked them, hasn’t she?”

“She surely has, and she says they are magnificent. The altar is banked with Annunciation lilies, just as you insisted on, and there are bowers and sprays of white chrysanthemums decorating the aisles and every pew. Bessie says the scent is glorious.”