"Tanya Huff - To Each His Own Kind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

open window was Edward, the Prince of Wales. Not from the newspaper photographs, for he found it
difficult to see the living in such flat black and gray representations, but from the nearly visible aura of
power that surrounded him. Like recognized like. Power recognized power. If the reports accompanying
the photographs were true, the prince was not allowed much in the way of political power but he was
clearly conscious of himself as a member of the royal caste.
He bowed, in the old way, body rigid, heels coming together. "I am honored to make your
acquaintance, Your Highness."
The prince's heavy lids dropped slightly. "Count Dracula? This sounds familiar, yah? You are from
where?"
"From the Carpathian Mountains, Highness," he replied in German. His concerns about sounding
foreign had obviously been unnecessary. Edward sounded more like a German prince than an English
one. "My family has been boyers, princes there since before we turned back the Turk many centuries
ago. Princes still when we threw off the Hungarian yoke. Leaders in every war. But…" He sighed and
spread his hands. "… the warlike days are over and the glories of my great race are as a tale that is told."
"Well said, sir!" the prince exclaimed in the same language. "Although I am certain I have heard your
name, I am afraid I do not know that area well—as familiar as I am with most of Europe." He smiled and
added, "As related as I am to most of Europe. If you are not married, Dracula, I regret I have no sisters
remaining."
The gathered men laughed with the prince, although the Count could see not all of them—and Mr.
March was of that group—spoke German. "I am not married now, Your Highness, although I was in the
past."
"Death takes so many," Edward agreed solemnly.
The Count bowed again. "My deepest sympathies on the death of your eldest son, Highness." The
report of how the Duke of Clarence had unexpectedly died of pneumonia in early 1892 had been in one
of the last newspaper bundles he'd received. As far as the Count was concerned, death should be
unexpected, but he was perfectly capable of saying what others considered to be the right thing. If it
suited his purposes.
"It was a most difficult time," Edward admitted. "And the wound still bleeds. I would have given my
life for him." He stared intently at his cigar.
With predator patience, the Count absorbed the silence that followed as everyone but he and the
prince shifted uncomfortably in place.
"Shall I tell you how I met the Count, your Highness?" March asked suddenly. "There was a bully
smash up on Piccadilly."
"A bully smash up?" the prince repeated lifting his head and switching back to English. "Were you in
it?"
"No, sir, I wasn't."
"Was the Count?"
"No sir, he wasn't either. But we both saw it, didn't we, Count?"
The Count saw that the prince was amused by the American so, although he dearly wanted to put the
man in his place, he said only, "Yes."
"And you consider this accident to be a gutt introduction to a Carpathian prince?" Edward asked,
smiling.
If March had possessed a tail, the Count realized, he'd have been wagging it; he was so obviously
pleased that he'd lifted the Prince of Wales's spirits. "Yes, sir, I did. Few things bring men together like
disasters. Isn't that true, Count?"
That, he could wholeheartedly agree with. He was introduced in turn to Lord Nathan Rothschild, Sir
Ernest Cassel, and Sir Thomas Lipton—current favorites of Prince Edward—and he silently thanked the
English newspapers and magazines that had provided enough facts about these men for him to converse
intelligently.
He was listening with interest to a discussion of the Greek-Turkish War when he became aware of