Tea was laid out on a table in the round bay windows flanked by elegant Louis XV chairs with watered silk upholstery. The china was English, though bearing the Herzoslovakian crest, Royal Stafford at a guess (confirmed by looking at the bottom of the saucer); but the tea was distinctly Slavic, so strong it could pass for coffee and intensely flavored with orange-peel and rose-hips, accompanied by large richly-spiced biscuits covered in confectioner's sugar.
We chatted in a thoroughly English fashion about the weather, which had been dramatic enough of late to see us through a first cup of tea, but it was cut short by the appearance of the Ambassador just as we were contemplating a second cup.
"Lord Foxbridge, how delightful!" he caroled gaily into the room, neat and handsome in a Poole morning suit as sharply tailored as my own, the dim light flashing in his inkblack eyes and over his pomaded hair and curled mustache, "I only just learned of your arrival, naughty Kiro keeping you to himself."
"An honour to meet you, Your Excellency," I rose and formally greeted the man; though not as handsome as Radovanovich, he was rather more attractive to me with his merry liquid black eyes and that scintillating mustache (it's a weakness of mine), and his Slavic accent was more pronounced under a mere surface glaze of Eton, adding an exotic charm to his words.
"Count Plamenatz, if I may present to you Viscount Foxbridge," Radovanovich stepped forward as I shook the Ambassador's hand to effect formal introductions, "Lord Foxbridge, his Excellency Count Mirko Plamenatz, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Herzoslovakia to the Court of Saint James."
"Oh but you must call me Mirko," Count Plamenatz insisted, still holding my hand and rubbing his thumb along mine discreetly, "We are all Old Etonians, are we not?"
"Of course, then you must call me Foxy," I had intended to ask the Embassy folk to call me Sebastian, if we graduated to Christian names, as this was a grown-up sort of occasion with me representing my family; but so many mentions of Eton had me offering up my school nickname instead.
"Kiro, please," Radovanovitch bowed a little with his hand to his chest when Plamenatz looked at him expectantly for a long moment; he seemed surprised to find us at this stage of acquaintance so soon, but following his chief's lead, broke the tension with a graceful gesture, "Would you care for tea, sir?"
"No, thank you, I've already had my tea," Mirko hooked his arm through mine and pulled me from the room into the corridor, "I'd love to look over the house with Foxy and hear about what it was like to grow up here!"
"Oh, I never really lived here," I explained as I was swept up the main staircase to the first floor, "I was seldom brought to Town as a child, a few trips to visit museums and Parliament, and then Christmas shopping outings, visit my grandfather occasionally, and to see Mummy's annual ball in May. I wasn't allowed to come at all during the War. I'd be hard-pressed to remember which room was mine, to tell the truth."
"Well you can tell me about your mother," he patted my hand solicitously, "I have heard much about Lady Vere since I came here, her beauty and charm, a perfect hostess. My sincerest condolences on her loss, of course."
"Thank you, that's very kind," I smiled back but felt rather uncomfortable discussing my mother and flirting with a new friend at the same time; we'd come into the Blue Drawing Room, which was fairly sparsely furnished with delicate armchairs and settees grouped around small tables, easily rearranged into a ballroom or a theatre, "You don't seem to have changed anything, I'd have thought you'd make it more in the style of your homeland."
"Most of the paintings are from home," Mirko pointed to a few clunky-looking landscapes and dim portraits of dour nobles in peculiar dress that had replaced the St. Clair portraits, though all the still-life and landscape paintings I remembered belonging to the house were in situ, "But the aristocracy of Herzoslovakia have been so Anglophile for so long that Herzosolovakian style is just English style, though we tend more toward darker colours at home."
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