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Back One Enchanted Evening Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. The Grand Masquerade Ball
  5. Five Months Earlier . . .
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. September 1936
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. October 1936
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-one
  29. November 1936
  30. Chapter Twenty-two
  31. December 1936
  32. Chapter Twenty-three
  33. Chapter Twenty-four
  34. Chapter Twenty-five
  35. Chapter Twenty-six
  36. Chapter Twenty-seven
  37. Chapter Twenty-eight
  38. Chapter Twenty-nine
  39. Chapter Thirty
  40. Chapter Thirty-one
  41. Chapter Thirty-two
  42. Chapter Thirty-three
  43. Chapter Thirty-four
  44. Chapter Thirty-five
  45. Epilogue
  46. A New Year
  47. Extract from Anton Du Beke’s next novel’
  48. Acknowledgements
  49. About the Author
  50. Letter from Author

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-six

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THE GLITTERING LIGHTS OF THE chandeliers were like exploding stars. She gazed at them and the room spun and all was music and all was dance.

The ballroom might have been thronged, but Vivienne Edgerton was in a world apart. She knew some of the socialites were staring at her, but what did she care? Her lips were sweet and sticky from the cocktails they’d brought her. Her nose and throat burned from the powders she’d imbibed. She danced.

Then, suddenly, she was up and away. A pocket of time had been snatched from her. Where it had gone to, who knew? She heard someone calling her name and looked up to find herself in the great reception hall, gazing up at the enormous Norwegian fir, decorated with a thousand burning candles. The tree seemed to throb, growing bigger and then fading as she stared. She heard her name again, looked around and saw the faraway face of Mr Simenon considering her zealously from the reception desk. She gave him a dainty little wave, threw back her head –

– and then, suddenly, she was in the guest lift, draped over the arms of the attendant in his royal blue suit with golden brocade. He stood still as a statue, because to touch the daughter of Lord Edgerton was a crime punishable by immediate expulsion. She decided she would test it. She ran her arm up his arm. She touched the line of his jaw. She picked herself up, just enough that she might plant her lips on his unmoving cheek – and then she was in some other hallway. She could feel her heart pounding in her breast. She had a big heart, didn’t she? She did. She knew that she did, because she could hear it drumming louder and louder and louder. So loud was it beating as she staggered up the hall – where was her suite? Wasn’t she on the right floor? She raked her hands along the other doors as she stumbled along.

Then, the world turned again. This was her room. She was certain of it. She reeled around the four-poster, past the doors of the open armoire, and sank to her knees to upend the contents of the very bottom drawer in her dresser. Her heart was as loud as the oceans now. Its beating was all she could hear.

She threw the undergarments from her drawer aside. And there, at the bottom, her little vermillion pouch, the one she kept for nights just like these, where somehow she just couldn’t get enough. Inside were two more little phials. She emptied both into the palm of her hand and, cupping it gently, lifted the powder to her face.

Her heart beat with the strength of a thousand thoroughbred horses. Then the world exploded in a fountain of colour and light.

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