Francis was going to dodge this latest jab just as he had the others. Who knew what the doctor would uncover and how quickly his suspicions would be reported to the Binghams? But the truth was that Michael did need to see a doctor—and why not a rich man’s private physician? Wasn’t it exactly what he had told Martin he was planning to do? Michael’s well-being had to be more important than any ruse Francis was perpetrating on these most genial hosts. If this doctor could help Michael, could get him back to where he once was, then it was worth the risk of being exposed to a family of oddball millionaires. Francis had enough from the strongbox to reinvent himself again, if necessary. Now that he and Michael were in America, they could go anywhere, become anyone.
With the question of the appointment with Dr. Van Hooten settled, Mrs. Bingham again steered the conversation to their impending presentation to the royal couple. It was the first item on the monarchs’ agenda after their arrival at the Trylon and Perisphere: they were to be seated on a dais while members of New York’s elite were introduced. The Binghams had secured four spots—“Humbug to that!” Mr. Bingham reminded her—and in the absence of a male escort, which seemed quite, well, indecorous, Mrs. Bingham wondered if there would be any way that Sir Angus would do them the very great honor of accompanying them—that is Mrs. B, Anisette, and Félicité—through the receiving line?
Once he had unwound Mrs. Bingham’s syntax and saw plainly the question within, Francis smiled more broadly than any of the Binghams. What a lark this was! Dinner at a mansion, a besotted heiress, a millionaire’s private doctor, and now a meeting with the king and queen of England. They’d never believe a word of this at Mountjoy. He raised his glass to mark the occasion—to solemnize this contract he was making with the Binghams. “I would be delighted,” he said. “Absolutely delighted.”
Francis had his FC Plan, but Mrs. Bingham had her own plan in mind. Earlier in the day, she had thought it enough to be escorted to the royal visit by a cousin of the queen, a cousin the queen might even recognize and ask to come closer for a chat, after which she would ask, “And who are these lovely women accompanying you?” That would be enough, she believed, to burnish the social luster of the Bingham name. But now, to be the woman who effected a reconciliation between the Rose of Scotland—that’s what they’d called her in Life magazine—and her cousin, once the black sheep but now the protector of his wounded brother (also a cousin of the queen), why, this would be a triumph that would echo through the generations. It would rankle those society matrons—hags, every one of them—who still, after decades, talked about the cheap Canadian tart who had snared the Copper King, and who spoke coldly to her, if at all, and spread wicked gossip about her daughters. And if all went well—if it went extremely well—then these same ladies would soon beg for the chance to sit in her parlor and ask, “Will Anisette’s wedding be in New York, or will you go to Scotland?” She was getting ahead of herself, she knew, but she could sense something building between Anisette and Sir Angus, and the night hadn’t yet reached its final act.
THE FOOD AND the talk and the effort of being Angus MacFarquhar had left Francis both exhilarated and drained. And so when Mrs. Bingham escorted him from the dining room, he hoped that she was leading him out. Instead, she guided him toward a wide arcade that drew him deeper into the house. Anisette had preceded them through the door by a few steps but had disappeared. Félicité had loudly announced that she was retiring for the night, claiming a headache that was simply annihilating her. Mr. Bingham had remained at the table, waiting for some phantom final course that only he could see. Francis and Mrs. B passed through a vaulted gallery packed with milky, vacant-eyed statues. Amid the tangle, Francis caught sight of a huntress, a limbless Athena, a dying Gaul. Down another corridor, he spotted a billiard table as wide and green as a football pitch, while another door opened onto a cavernous ballroom with a floor like a mirror of black glass.
“We have a little treat for you,” Mrs. B said as she turned the knob on a final door, this one into a conservatory populated by a large wire-strung harp, a spinet, a cello, and a grand piano cut from the same brilliant stuff as the ballroom floor. A viola leaned skeptically in one corner, and he knew without being told that it belonged to Félicité. All around the room, music stands sprouted like thick, fat flowers and in front of one of them, arranged in a row, were three wingback chairs, one of which was already occupied by Mr. Bingham. Apparently there was a more direct route to the conservatory, one that didn’t include a winding tour of the treasures of Bingham Castle. Francis saw that he was being courted, enticed to say yes to questions as yet unasked. And if a bargain was in the offing, then one more jeweled coffer was about to be opened before him: Anisette reappeared, a violin in one hand and a bow in the other.
Francis now saw why Félicité had been so quick to call it a night. Here again was Anisette in the spotlight, though the spot being lit was beginning to look less like a stage and more like a sales floor. If the marble walls and pencil-point turrets and the gold leaf and the polished mahogany and everyone-gets-their-own-meat and right-this-way-Your-Lordship weren’t enough, then this latest exhibition would prove that the Binghams’ prize canary could sing and not just look pretty on her gilded perch. Somewhere deep inside his meat-stuffed and wine-glazed heart, Francis couldn’t help feeling sorry for Anisette. So much effort expended to catch the eye of a prince who was in fact a lowly pauper. Or was he? Francis had a bankroll; seed money, really, but it could be enough to get started. He had watched the way Mr. Bingham gripped his knife while he spoke of fat lords and their castles, and he surmised that Mr. Bingham himself had gone from nothing to this vast pile of something. And now Francis had only to endure the scratching of horsehair on catgut to move a step closer to—what?