by Rhys Bowen
“Yes, but—”
“No buts,” Darcy said angrily. “What were you doing in that man’s car in the first place?”
“I didn’t realize he was the murderer until I was in the car with him. I tracked down Jeanine—the one who looked like me—and someone started shooting at us and . . .” I looked up at the marquis. I still wasn’t completely sure that he hadn’t fired that shot.
“Jeanine is dead,” he said flatly. “That brute shot her. I wish I could have caught up with him. I’d have strangled him with my bare hands.” He handed me a silver flask. “Drink that. It’s cognac,” he said. “And we should try to move you. The fire is getting rather too close.”
Other people had gathered around us—the carter from that farm wagon, and various inhabitants of the cottages. At a word from the marquis they picked me up between them and trundled me across the street into the nearest open door.
“I’ll go for help,” Jean-Paul said.
“I’m sure you don’t have to,” Darcy replied, looking up at him coldly. “There will be a telephone somewhere around.”
“I don’t want to risk those flames coming too close to my car,” Jean-Paul confessed. “And Georgie needs a doctor right away.”
He came over to me and bent to kiss me gently on the forehead. “Adieu, ma petite,” he whispered. I didn’t take in until later that he had not said au revoir. He was not planning to see me again.
People fussed around me, tucking a rug around me, offering coffee, soup and hot water and a cloth to clean up my wounds. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the extent of my injuries. My arms and legs looked as if I had been wrestling with a tiger. Blood was trickling down my face. But I moved my hands and feet experimentally. Nothing appeared to be broken. The warm water stung as an old woman dabbed at the worst of the cuts and scrapes, making clicking noises with her tongue at what she saw.
“What happened to her?” someone asked.
“She fell out of a motorcar,” Darcy said.
“I jumped out,” I corrected. “I had been kidnapped by a murderer. He was taking me as a hostage. When the horse and cart came out in front of us he had to brake. I took my chance and flung myself out. I thought those bushes would break my fall. I hadn’t realized they were growing over the edge of the cliff.”
Darcy shook his head as if nothing I could say would surprise him.
“Who was that man?” he asked.
“Sir Toby’s valet. He called himself Johnson, but his real name was Sherman. His father was the one Sir Toby cheated out of his share in the design of the Fearless Flyer. He came to get revenge. Did he get away?”
Darcy shook his head. “His car went over the cliff,” he said. “That was what caused the fireball. He lost control, swerving to miss that horse. Ironic, isn’t it? He has no qualms about killing people but he wasn’t about to hit a horse. How typically English.”
I was shivering. I pulled the rug up around me and accepted the coffee someone was offering. Another thought struck me. “What were you doing with the marquis?”
“As you knew, I’d been keeping my eye on him for a while. We finally thought we had enough to bring him in, but just as I caught up with him, someone was shot. He’d been coming to spirit her away, apparently. He saw me and yelled that you were in danger so we hopped into his car and gave chase. Another irony, don’t you think? Life seems to be full of them these days—like the man you chose over me turning out not to be a marquis but a slick international thief and forger.”
“I didn’t choose him over you,” I said hotly. “I chose him because I was flattered that he’d be interested in someone like me. . . . And because I knew I wasn’t exactly number one in your affections.”
He frowned now. “What made you think that?”
“I found out about your secret family—well, not so secret, since I saw you playing with the child on the beach. And I heard two women talking on the train about how much you adored him.”
“Well, of course I adore him. He’s the only nephew I’ve got so far and he needs a man in his life.”
I stared at him. I don’t think I fully took in the words for a moment. “Your nephew? That woman with you . . . ?”
“My sister, Bridget. Her husband was an officer with the British army in India. He was killed last year in the North-West Frontier. Bridget’s had a hard time of it—suddenly having to cope with life in England on a small pension after having had all those servants in India. So I’ve been helping out when I can. Since I had to come to the Riviera on a small matter of business, I suggested she come along too and give the little chap a holiday.”
“Your sister.” I stammered the words. “Of course.”
“You saw her once with me in London, didn’t you?”
“I only saw her back.” I felt my cheeks burning.
Darcy was looking at me strangely. “Wait, you didn’t think—?”
“I thought she was your mistress and that he was your child,” I said. “I feel so stupid.”
“You could have asked me,” he said quietly. “Do you think I wouldn’t have told you about something as important as a child?” Then that wicked grin spread across his face. “Besides, I don’t make enough money to keep a mistress. They’re an expensive proposition.”
“My father had one,” I said, staring at the steam rising from the cup of coffee. “Here on the Riviera. And we never knew. I had a half sister I never knew about until today. We looked so alike, Darcy. We might have become friends, but she was shot.”
I felt the tears welling up again. Darcy nodded and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Maybe it was better that she died,” he said. “Better than spending years in prison.”
“Will the marquis spend years in prison?” I asked.
“If we can make any of his crimes stick,” Darcy said. “That’s why I was sent over here—that, and to recover a few valuable pieces of artwork that had vanished from British stately homes.”
“Then we were sent on similar missions.” I actually laughed. “I was sent by the queen to recover a snuffbox that Sir Toby took from her.”
“Sir Toby? Then they were all as bad as each other, weren’t they?”
I nodded.
“And we’re well rid of them.” A long pause followed in which he looked at me with those dangerous bright blue eyes. “And you and I—well, should we start over from square one, do you think? If you can trust me not to have more mistresses hidden away.”
“All right,” I said slowly. “Let’s start over at square one.”
He held out his hand. “How do you do? I’m Darcy O’Mara, or rather the Honorable Darcy O’Mara, since your type cares about such things.” He took my scratched and battered hand in his and then slowly brought it to his lips. “I’d kiss you properly, but I don’t want to do more damage to such a bruised and battered face.”
There was a squawking outside as chickens scattered at the arrival of a big black car. The police had come.
The next hours were an unpleasant mixture of interrogation by the police and examination in the hospital. Luckily I came out of both unscathed. No serious injuries, miraculously, and the police interview was made easier by the arrival of Jacques Germain and my grandfather.
“Too bad that car went over the cliff,” he said, looking at me with concern. “I’d have liked to wring his ruddy neck for him. Doing that to my little girl.”
Later that evening I was safely back at my mother’s villa, my wounds cleaned and still feeling sore but relieved. Queenie made an awful fuss of me. She insisted on standing at the foot of my bed and looking at me with those big cow eyes as if I were about to expire.
“Please don’t go and die on me, my lady,” she said. I was rather touched until she added, “If you go and die, nobody else will employ me, as you bloody well know.”
I hadn’t seen Darcy again since he left me at the hospital. I lay back and closed my eyes. I wondered if Jean-Paul had been arrested or if he’d managed to slip away. I sort of
hoped the latter. In fact, I learned next morning that he was nowhere to be found. Much later it transpired that he’d taken the choicest pieces of his art collection, chartered a yacht and gone to America, where presumably he’d do very well for himself.
Chanel and Vera moved out to Coco’s own villa, and Jacques Germain went with them. Granddad, Mummy and I spent some pleasant days together as I recovered. Darcy stopped by to visit every day. When I had sufficiently recovered he brought Bridget and little Colin. As I lay there, I thought a lot about Jeanine. I grieved for her and for what might have been. She and I shared the same father, but had led such different lives—mine full of hope and expectation, hers full of disappointment and the struggle to survive. Would I have fared as well if our situations had been reversed? It simply didn’t seem fair. Our father could have done more, I thought. He could have brought her to stay with us. We could have become friends. But even as these thoughts passed through my mind, I knew that they could never have happened. In our world, a piece of paper made all the difference, dividing the legitimate from the illegitimate.
At the end of the week, Granddad came to sit beside me on the terrace and told me that he was thinking of going home. “If you’re well on the road to recovery, that is,” he said.
“How about you?” I replied. “You seem a lot better already. Why not stay until you’re completely well?”
“Don’t you worry about me, ducks. And it’s not that I don’t like it here. Smashing, isn’t it? But it’s like living in a dream world, and I miss my little house, and I like to keep busy, and I don’t feel right here. This is a place for posh people and their servants. So I don’t really fit anywhere, if you understand.”
“I do,” I said. “Do you need me to come home with you, so that you find the way?”
“Find the way?” He chuckled and gave me a pretend punch. “I’ve found my way through plenty of London fogs and a person who can do that can get around anywhere. No, you stay and recuperate properly, ducks. I’ll be just fine.”
“I’ll miss you, but I’ll never forget that you came to help me when I needed you.”
“I didn’t do much, did I?” he said. “Didn’t exactly earn my keep.”
“Yes, you did. You were the one who told us to look at the photos and that was the first time I realized that the marquis had to have taken the necklace.”
He stared out the window, out to a blue, choppy sea. “I just wish I’d spoken up sooner about that young man,” he said.
“Which young man?” I asked sharply.
“The valet. The one what bashed Sir Toby over the head. I saw it, you see.”
“Saw what?”
“In his face. When we were taken to the house I took one look at him and I knew right away he was guilty about something. Well, after all my years on the force you learn to pick up little signs like that. He had that look about him—wary but cocky that he’d got away with something. At the time I thought he’d probably nicked something from the house after the bloke was killed, and it didn’t seem worth mentioning. If only I’d spoken up. Trust your gut instincts. That’s what my old inspector used to tell us.”
“We’d never have suspected him of the murder, even then,” I said. “We thought he had a cast-iron alibi. And he didn’t seem to have any motive.”
“Always the quiet ones,” Granddad said thoughtfully. “And we never found out how your marquis managed to spirit the necklace out of that room, did we?” he asked.
I shook my head. “He was very clever. All that talent wasted.”
“Hardly wasted. He was a bloomin’ millionaire, wasn’t he?”
“But you know what I mean—turned in the wrong direction.”
Granddad nodded. “I know what you mean. You and I, we were both raised with a conscience. We could never be happy doing what was wrong. But other people just aren’t made the same. They take what they can, and if they get away with it, then they give themselves a pat on the back.”
That reminded me of one task I still had to do. I decided to approach it straightforwardly and went to visit Lady Groper. When I’d told her the story she sniffed.
“Frankly, I’m not a bit surprised,” she said. “That was the sort of man he was. Not the easiest to live with, made more enemies than friends. Now it’s my job to make sure that Bobby doesn’t turn out like him. He was sent down from Oxford, you know. I’m going to take a firm hand with that young man from now on. Keep him on a tight rein.”
I felt a little sorry for Bobby as I returned to the villa holding the precious snuffbox.
As Granddad prepared to go back to England I considered how long I’d like to stay and of course my thoughts turned to Queenie. I didn’t really need a maid and Mummy’s Claudette could help me in a pinch, so the kind thing to do would be to send Queenie back with Granddad. I broached the subject as she brought in my morning tea, miraculously on time.
“Queenie, my grandfather is going back to England,” I said. “I know you haven’t been happy here, so I wondered if you’d like to go back to England with him.”
She looked shocked. “Oh, no, my lady. I wouldn’t dream of it. My place is here with you. You need me to take care of you and help you on your road to recovery. . . .”
“Queenie!” I interrupted sharply; but she went on, “I know I haven’t been up to scratch in the past, but now I’m going to work bloody hard to be like a proper lady’s maid . . .”
“Queenie!” I said again; but she still kept talking, “and you’ll be so proud of me and . . .”
“Queenie!” I said for a third time. “You’re slopping the tea onto my bedspread.”
“Oh. Sorry, miss,” she said, looking down at the brown splashes. “Well, never mind. It blends in all right with the flower pattern, don’t it?”
I sighed. I was stuck with her whether I liked it or not.
So Granddad went home and a few days later Mummy announced that she was going back to Germany. She’d had a letter from Max. “Such a lovely letter,” she said. “All about how much he misses me and that life has no meaning without me. He wants us to get married. He promises that if I don’t like living in Germany we can have a château in Switzerland instead. On a lake. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? And he’s even hired a tutor to give him English lessons so that we can talk to each other more.”
“But you said he was boring,” I reminded her.
“I know, but one does want so much to be adored, and he does adore me,” she said. “And all that lovely money is rather nice too.”
“And will you really marry him?”
She wrinkled her pretty little nose. “I’m not quite sure about that part. We’ll have to see how it goes, won’t we?”
“So I presume that means you want to close up the villa and turn me out.”
“Madame Chanel says she’ll be delighted for you to come and stay with her,” Mummy said. “And I understand that the Duke of Westminster has said you’re always welcome on his yacht.”
Darcy came up with the best suggestion. “I have to go off again,” he said, “but the hotel suite is booked through the end of the month. I wondered if you’d like to take my place and keep Bridget and Col company.” When he saw my face light up he added, “It might be a good idea if you got to know the rest of my crazy family—just so that you know what you’re in for.”
It was the closest he had come to hinting that we had a future together. I thought it wise not to pursue it. “So you have another little assignment to carry out?”
“Something along those lines.”
“Darcy, will I ever find out who you work for?”
“Whoever’s willing to pay me, my darlin’ , ” he said in a broad Irish brogue. “And you know what your grandfather would say, don’t you? Them that asks no questions don’t get told no lies.”
He put his finger to his lips, then to mine. Then without warning he drew me into his arms and was kissing me hungrily.
“Darcy,” I protested feebly as things began to heat up,
“I already have enough bruises for now.”
“Then we’ll save the next installment for when you’re fully recovered,” he said. “So hurry up and get well, or I might have to take a mistress.”
Then he dodged as I flung a cushion in his direction.
Chapter 35
March 2, 1933
Back to jolly old England. Sad to leave France but actually
keen to be home.
At the beginning of March I took the Blue Train back to England. Belinda came with me. It turned out she hadn’t run off with the marquis that night, but had developed a simple headache. And, being Belinda, she had made the most of her time on the Riviera. She’d struck up a friendship with Chanel and gone to stay at her villa. She’d plucked up the courage to show Chanel her dress designs and Coco had said she had talent and had given her tips on running her own design business in London.
“She’s helped me to overcome my biggest obstacle,” Belinda confided. “How to make society women pay for the gowns. You know the trouble I had collecting money from them.”
“And the secret is?”
“I make myself look absolutely stunning and threaten to go to their husbands to collect the money.” Belinda laughed. “And if that doesn’t work, I make sure I’ve acquired a juicy tidbit or two about them that I might just let slip at the wrong moment.”
“That’s blackmail.” I laughed.
“Done very discreetly, of course. But Coco says it works every time.”
The crossing was smooth. The white cliffs of Dover looked welcoming. There were snowdrops and early primroses growing along the rail embankment and white clouds scudding across a blue sky. Binky and Fig had returned to Rannoch House ahead of me, since Fig wanted to be back in England in good time for the birth of the new little Rannoch.
“There’s a package waiting for you, my lady,” Hamilton said as he helped me out of my coat and hat. They were, incidentally, a new fur coat and matching hat, courtesy of my mother, and in my cabin trunk were several Chanel gowns. I’d no longer be the worst dressed at any social gathering. Jean-Paul would have been proud of me.