Uneasy Lies the Crown

by Tasha Alexander

  * * *

  If William’s wound troubled him, he showed no sign of it. As soon as possible after the king’s physician had extracted the arrow from his face, he was back with his fellow men-at-arms, ready to march across France. For that seemed to be the king’s plan. Harfleur had surrendered, yes—Henry had sat on a magnificent throne and accepted the keys to the city—but a single victory was not enough to win all of France, and the king had no intention of returning to England without the prize he came for. The majesty with which he had taken control of the city would leave the citizens in no doubt of his power. He alone could offer and revoke mercy. He alone should rule France. And, in that vein, he wrote to the dauphin, challenging him to trial by combat, the victor winning the crown of France.

  The dauphin never replied, proving to William and his compatriots that the man was nothing but a common coward, while King Henry was a model of chivalric honor. What better way to resolve the question of the throne? The soldiers might not comprehend the intricacies of Salic law, but they needed no other proof that their king had the divine right to rule.

  But there was no trial by combat. Henry could not force the challenge and, hence, could not secure the crown of France in that way. Around him, he saw that the tattered remains of his army left much to be desired. The illness that had plagued them during the siege had thinned the ranks and had not yet run its course. Men continued to die daily. The king had no choice but to send home the sick and the weak, leaving him with a much-reduced force. Undaunted, he ordered those strong enough to march with him to Calais.

  William heard grumblings that the king’s advisors did not approve of this decision. They believed their numbers were too small to face the French. But Henry would brook no criticism and insisted they push forward. He told his men to prepare for an eight-day march and to abandon all superfluous supplies. They must travel quick and light. And then he told them they must behave with honor. Nothing was to be stolen, no woman would be violated. They would not destroy the land they crossed. The French army was his enemy, not the French people.

  The latter he would govern; the former he would gladly annihilate.

  1901

  19

  I admit to being frustrated by my lack of success with reforming Mary, but the knowledge that two more murders might happen at any time prevented me from brooding. All too aware that the wretched Inspector Gale and his colleagues at Scotland Yard were unwilling to share information with me, I embarked on an unorthodox method of research—unorthodox, that is, in the realm of police work. I set off for Fleet Street and the offices of The Times.

  The newspaper kept a famously thorough index of its articles, and I hoped that I might be able to find some reference to any of the parties caught up in our investigation. If nothing else, there must be some mention of Lizzie Hopman’s death. It could not have gone entirely unreported. The clerk sent to assist me was a congenial man, tall and wiry, sporting a bright turquoise pocket square. I explained to him what I sought and handed him a list of the names of every person connected to the case.

  I waited, impatiently, as he searched the archives, distracting myself by reading The Infidel.

  “That sort of book is literature at its worst,” he said when he returned. “If one can even call it literature.”

  “You don’t approve of Braddon?” I asked, readying myself to give him a stern lecture on the merits of her work. Not everything, after all, must be an exercise in the intellectual. One does require entertainment on occasion.

  “Quite the contrary, Lady Emily,” he said. “She’s my absolute favorite. There’s nothing I’d rather do than spend a fortnight in the gutter giving into guilty pleasure. I’ll never forget the first time I read Thou Art the Man. I’ve never encountered a more thrilling story.”

  We had a pleasant, though necessarily brief, discussion of the lady’s works, and then he handed me two back issues of The Times open to specific pages, explaining that he had found no other references to any of the people on my list beyond the current articles reporting on Mr. Grummidge’s and Mr. Casby’s murders.

  To start, I was distressed to find there was no mention of Lizzie’s death. That a life can be violently snuffed out and no one bothers even to report it, shocked me. I brushed aside the inconvenient feelings consuming me and looked at what the clerk had found. The first paper contained an article with a horrific description of a disaster in a coal mine in Wales. Ned Traddles was listed among the dead. The accident had occurred four months ago and explained why he had stopped walking with Lizzie Hopman. Had she known about the accident and his death, or had she been left to wonder why he never came to see her again?

  The report of the catastrophe was not directly pertinent to our case, but it gutted me nonetheless. Those poor men, working in abominable circumstances, doing their best to support their families! No one deserved to die like that. I swallowed hard, trying not to imagine what it must have been like in the dark tunnel after the collapse or to wonder how long they clung to the hope of rescue before the air ran out.

  I sat for some time in silence, consumed with sadness for the dead men, and only came back to the present when the clerk asked me if everything was all right. I gave him a weak smile and thanked him for his concern before looking at the other paper in front of me. When at last I picked it up, I nearly shouted. It looked innocuous on the surface—a simple wedding announcement. But I know, Dear Reader, you will react with as much enthusiasm as I, when I share it with you:

  Miss Violet Atherton to Mr. Edmund Grummidge on 15 December 1898 at St. Dunstan’s, Stepney

  Upon reading this, I thanked the well-read clerk and raced out of the offices of The Times. I hailed a hansom cab on Fleet Street and went directly to Marlborough House, where I expected to find my husband. Bertie’s butler—that is to say, the king’s butler—admitted me when I presented myself at the door, but rather than taking me to Colin as I had requested, he deposited me in one of Princess Alix’s—that is to say, the queen’s—sitting rooms, where I was left alone for nearly three-quarters of an hour. Twice I rang the bell; both times the liveried footman who presented himself to me apologized for not being able to assist me when I asked to see my husband. He seemed to think tea would rectify the situation. I am ashamed to say I disabused him of this notion in a rather unladylike fashion.

  When the door opened again, this time without my having pulled the bell cord, I leapt to my feet expecting to see Colin. Instead, the wretched Inspector Gale entered the room, looking none too pleased. His pinched features seemed even more pinched than usual.

  “Lady Emily, forgive me for keeping you waiting for so long.” There was no way his tone could have been more condescending. “I gather it is difficult for you to understand the delicacy of the situation into which you keep trying to insert yourself. The life of our sovereign leader, the King of the Britons, is being threatened. My colleagues and I, your husband included, are doing our best to protect him and to bring to heel the insolent fool bent on destroying him. The late queen may have allowed your interference in palace matters on occasion, but she is gone and your presence will no longer be tolerated.”

  He went on at some length in the same vein. I stopped listening well before he stopped talking. This was not the first time I had encountered resistance from ignorant male persons. I could tell him what I had learned about Mr. Grummidge’s widow, but he would pay it no heed. Furious that he was keeping me from seeing Colin, I weighed my options. It was obvious he wanted to upset me, so I decided the only way forward was to ignore the attempted insult. When his voice fell silent, I made no attempt to reply to him. Instead, without a word, I turned on my heel and exited the room.

  The footman descended on me as soon as I entered the corridor, but I brushed him aside with a quick gesture. I marched straight out the front door, past the guards, and into Pall Mall, holding my head high. Even though no one in the house could see me, I felt that I ought to continue walking with purpose, even if I wasn’t quite
sure what that purpose was. In the end, I turned into St. James’s Street and called in at Berry Bros. & Rudd. After asking them to deliver two particularly fine bottles of port to me in Park Lane, I felt much revived. I consulted my watch and determined it likely that I could find Jeremy in his club.

  I continued up St. James’s Street to Piccadilly, past the Ritz, and along Green Park until I reached Clarges Street. I had no illusions about being let into the Turf Club; the only place in the whole United Kingdom less likely to allow a woman to darken its hallowed halls would be White’s, which Jeremy had never joined because its membership was made up, so he claimed, of no one but his late father’s friends. The Turf Club suited him much better. I went to the entrance and asked the doorman to fetch the Duke of Bainbridge for me, explaining that it was a matter of some urgency. Jeremy appeared, pulling on his overcoat, in fewer than five minutes.

  “What a relief you came for me,” he said. “I’ve been bored out of my mind for hours, Em. You can’t imagine the worthless conversations that go on in these gentleman’s clubs.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” I said. “If it were so tedious you’d never go. Still, I do appreciate you tearing yourself away from whatever it is you were embroiled in. I don’t suppose you have your motorcar at hand?”

  He didn’t, but the doorman flagged down a hansom cab for us and soon we were on our way to Whitechapel to call on the newly widowed Mrs. Grummidge. En route, I caught my friend up with the latest developments in the case as well as the abominable treatment I’d received at Marlborough House.

  “I shall have words with Bertie over this,” Jeremy said. “I don’t care if he’s king or not. He will not be best pleased to hear what happened.”

  “That is far less important now than the conversation we are about to have with Mrs. Grummidge. I am convinced she holds the key to this mystery.”

  “Are you sure there’s just one key, Em?” he asked. “Seems to me the whole thing would require at least three or four.”

  The cab pulled up in front of the house and Mrs. Grummidge’s maid, who recognized me, admitted us without delay. Her mistress, who looked better composed than when I had last seen her, received us in the sitting room. I noticed she had removed the wedding photograph from her mantel.

  “I apologize for barging in again,” I said, after introducing Jeremy to her. As always, one could count on the good duke receiving a warm welcome wherever he went. “I have recently met a young woman with whom you share an acquaintance: Lizzie Hopman. I understand you were close?”

  She all but started. “Yes, of course. Lizzie and I were bosom friends throughout our youth. When her mother fell ill…” She paused. “Eventually, we lost touch.”

  “We’ve come bearing sad tidings,” Jeremy said. “I’m very sorry to inform you that Miss Hopman is no longer with us.”

  “What? You can’t mean—was she ill?”

  “Unfortunately, it was worse than that,” Jeremy said. “Her employer … there was a most heinous incident with him and … she lost her life.”

  “No!” Mrs. Grummidge’s thin face froze and all the color drained from her cheeks. “It cannot be. Lizzie?”

  “I offer my deepest condolences,” I said. “It is a terrible tragedy. It also appears that there is some connection between her and the death of your own husband.”

  “That is impossible,” Mrs. Grummidge said, stiffening. “They never knew one another. Edmund would not have—that is to say, he did not approve—I mean—”

  “We are all too well aware of the situation, both that Lizzie faced and that you did.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning,” she said. She was tugging at her cuffs again, just as she had done when I called on her before. This time, however, I could see no bruises on her wrists. I wondered how long it took for them to fade. “They never met, they weren’t acquainted. If you are suggesting that he saw her in…” She was turning bright red now. “… in a professional capacity, I can assure you that is absolutely unthinkable.”

  “My dear Mrs. Grummidge, we would not dream of suggesting such a thing.” Jeremy moved from his chair to the divan upon which the unhappy widow was perched. “All gentlemen have their faults, but no one believes your late husband frequented that sort of establishment. Can you imagine I would be calling if I thought otherwise?”

  She looked at him, rapt. He was talking to her as if she were the prettiest girl at a ball, and I could see at a glance his strategy for getting her to open up to him was succeeding wildly. I appreciated the result, but had to resist rolling my eyes. Truly, I would never understand the sway a title—particularly that of duke—holds over women of every rank. “I cannot begin to express how much that means, your grace,” she said, twisting a black-bordered handkerchief in her hands.

  “Do not balk then at my next question,” he said, his voice flirtatious, then serious. “It’s very bad of me, but I have already mentioned that all of us gentlemen have faults, and I cannot help but notice the signs of the way you, his wife, suffered at his hand. Do not deny it to me; I know it all.”

  “But how?” she asked. “I have spoken to no one of it. I have borne the shame alone.”

  “You no longer need do that,” he said, resting his hand on top of hers. “He never needed your protection, and especially doesn’t now. He ought to have been the one protecting you.” Very gently, he took her hand in his. “It must have been awful.”

  “It was no more than what I deserved,” she said. “I let him down in so many ways.”

  Jeremy’s cheeks darkened. “It is not at all what you—or anyone—deserves. No man has the right to treat his wife in such a manner. It is a sign of consummate weakness and vice.”

  “He wasn’t so bad, truly,” she said. “He tried to stop, but then I would provoke him again, sometimes without even realizing it.”

  Now I moved next to her as well. “You ought not take any share of the blame for his actions. The duke is right. What your husband did was cowardly and wrong, and he alone bears responsibility for it.”

  Mrs. Grummidge pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and pulled herself up straight. “I apologize for breaking down in such an undignified manner. It is so much to take in. First Edmund, now Lizzie. Do you know of the details of the funeral? I’d very much like to go.”

  “I shall get the information for you and take you there myself,” Jeremy said.

  “Thank you, your grace,” Mrs. Grummidge said. “I shall never forget your kindness. But, Lady Emily, you said Lizzie had a connection with my husband. What do you mean?”

  “The connection comes through your friendship with Lizzie. As you know, two men have been murdered. The first victim, your husband, harmed his wife.” I thought it best not to put it in any stronger terms. “The second victim is the man who killed Lizzie. Her death was murder, even if some might claim it to have been an accident. Can you think of anyone who knows both you and Lizzie who would have wanted to protect the two of you?”

  “This is more shocking than I could have imagined,” she said. “Of course, I haven’t the slightest idea of who would do such a thing. Further, I don’t believe there’s anyone who would. No one knew what Edmund did to me. I never breathed a word of it to a soul.” Her voice grew weak.

  “Someone might have known, Mrs. Grummidge,” I said, “even without you saying it. Your servants have probably noticed—”

  “They would never have laid a hand on my husband.”

  I pressed my lips together. “You may be right, but one of them might have spoken in confidence to a friend of their own, a person who also knew Lizzie.”

  “My servants would not be cavorting with murderers.” Tears pooled in her eyes. I could not help but notice she looked even prettier when she was upset, and I wondered if that was a quality much appreciated by her late reprobate husband.

  “I am not suggesting they would,” I said. “I believe that our murderer doesn’t view his actions as a crime. He is seeking
justice for the meek, lashing out against men doing violence to women.”

  She shook her head. “No, it can’t be that. It’s a coincidence, that’s all.”

  “Did you know Ned Traddles?” I asked.

  “Ned? Yes, when I was a girl, but I haven’t seen him in years. He was killed not long ago in a coal mining accident. I hadn’t thought about him in ages and was shocked when I read the story in the paper.”

  “Lizzie knew him as well,” I said. “Who were your other mutual friends?”

  “Please, this is very difficult for me. I must ask you to leave me in peace. I cannot take any more tragedy and horror. Forgive me, but I—”

  Jeremy rose. “I know what we have said today was upsetting, and I offer my apologies for that. You need not say another word today. I shall send you a note with the details of Miss Hopman’s funeral, and as promised shall escort you there. Until then, I do hope that you are able to find some measure of comfort in these onerous times.”

  1415

  20

  Disguising was a popular evening entertainment, and although no one doubted that the masked figures who swarmed into the great hall were members of the baron’s household, that did not lessen anyone’s delight at their game. Tonight, a tall man in a unicorn mask was pursued by six ladies, also wearing masks and dressed like fairies. Their impossibly tall headpieces swayed as they danced in a circle around the unicorn. Then, one more lady entered, her face hidden by a heavy veil fashioned from gilded netting. She approached the dancers, who, upon seeing her, fell to the ground as if playing a children’s game. Thus freed, the unicorn took his rescuer by the hand and danced with her. When the music finished, he bowed over her hand, giving it an exaggerated kiss.

  Cecily, seated next to Father Simon, laughed with the others who were debating the meaning of the scene and trying to figure out the identities of the masked performers. The joyful atmosphere in the hall was enhanced by servants bringing out more and more spiced honeyed wine, but that had far less of an impact on the guests than had the official news that came before they dined: King Henry had defeated the French at Harfleur. There was still no word from William, but that was to be expected. He would hardly be able to send messages at such a time, but his name had not been listed among those reported dead. Grateful relief consumed Cecily. She had room for no other emotion, which was probably why she paid so little attention to Adeline that night.