Prince of Secrets

by Paula Marshall

  Dinah did appreciate a little time to herself. She took out her tapestry and began to stitch. Presently Cobie rose and picked up his sketch-book. ‘You will excuse me, I know. I have a mind to draw the house in the background,’ he said, and walked away.

  She watched him until he disappeared from sight before resuming her work. He was aware of her gaze on him, but it was to escape it that he had left her. He stopped when the house lay plain before him, and he began to draw it carefully…but not because of its aesthetic interest. He took from his pocket the internal plan of the wing where all the guests were accommodated, and which he had drawn from memory after Kenilworth’s land agent had shown it to him earlier.

  Sir Ratcliffe’s bedroom was there, three windows away from his own, accessible both from the ground by way of the orangery roof and the balcony, and by the balcony from his own bedroom.

  Cobie began to turn plans over in his mind.

  He was still turning them over that evening when, to escape from everyone, he left the vast drawing room where tables had been set out for baccarat to be played when the Prince so ordered. He wandered into a dimly lit octagonal room, known as The Cabinet which had one window looking out on the gardens. The other walls were covered with cases of dead butterflies, pinned down in all their fragile glory.

  Another guest was inspecting them desultorily through her lorgnette: she was Lady Heneage.

  Cobie bowed, and began to retire. ‘I had not meant to interrupt you.’

  ‘No matter,’ she said, almost curtly. ‘I would value your opinion on these,’ and she waved her hand at the cases.

  She was beautifully dressed, and was wearing the famous Heneage diamonds, a necklace, ear rings, two rings, and a brooch. Far from enhancing her, they added in some odd way to her insignificance—the most important thing about her being them, and them only.

  ‘Oh, I can have no opinion on such things,’ he said coolly. ‘I am not qualified to judge.’

  Her sad face broke into a watery smile, ‘Which means, I think, that you do not like them.’

  Because Cobie thought that, like him, she didn’t, he murmured, truthfully for once, ‘Admiring scenes of carnage is not one of my favourite occupations, Lady Heneage.’

  She took his point, and nodded slowly, saying, ‘You have a way with words, Mr Grant. I have been listening to you. Do you admire my diamonds more? I hear that you have been investing in them.’

  Neither was she a fool, although many thought her so.

  ‘A Heneage heirloom, I understand. Always owned and worn by the current Lady Heneage. They are extremely beautiful, without a flaw. If they were to come upon the market I think that the price they would fetch would be little less than astronomical.’

  She made a savage gesture with her hand. ‘That is nothing to me. They are a brand I wear, nothing more. A millstone around my neck, Mr Grant. I wish them at the bottom of the sea. Do I shock you?’

  He pitied her.

  There was something so forlorn and lost about her. Her husband was busy chasing someone else’s wife—perhaps his own—whilst his wife, whose fortune gossip said that he had thrown away on the gaming tables, walked alone and unhappy.

  ‘No,’ he said gently. ‘But I should tell you that very little does.’

  ‘I thought not. Look after your wife, Mr Grant. Protect her from the wolves—which you are well able to do, being one yourself. You see I am being frank with you. I was once like her, until I married. Leave me, please. I grow maudlin. I know that you will say nothing of this to my husband. He dislikes you intensely. Perhaps that is why I like you. What he dislikes must be worth knowing.’

  Cobie took the hand which lay lax at her side, lifted it and kissed it. ‘To say that you have my deepest sympathy would be presumptuous, Lady Heneage. I thank you for your interest in my wife. If there is ever anything I can do for you…’

  She interrupted him. ‘No one can do anything for me. I married him with, as I then thought, my eyes open. But a young woman’s knowledge of life is limited. One pays for that, Mr Grant, more bitterly than one deserves.’

  Oh, yes, he knew that to be true, none better. He thought of the dreadful price which he had once paid for innocence, and pitied her the more. He said nothing further, merely bowed again, and left her staring at the holocaust of damaged beauty which gathered dust upon the walls of a little-visited room.

  The Prince was one of the bankers at baccarat, Cobie found when he returned to the drawing room. He was using his own cards and counters fashioned from red leather with his Prince of Wales feathers on one side and the denomination on the other. The counters were worth from five shillings to ten pounds. The game was played as solemnly as though they were at a casino—to the shock of some of the party who were strait-laced.

  Sir Ratcliffe was winning consistently. His luck was in these days, he proclaimed jovially. He had backed the favourite that afternoon and it had romped home. He helped Susanna, who sat beside him, and who had never played before. She won quite a large sum, too.

  Cobie, watching him carefully, was not sure how much luck had to do with it, but never mind, he thought that Sir Ratcliffe’s luck was soon going to change for the worse in other areas of his life.

  The Prince called him into the game. Lady Heneage came to sit by him, to be advised as her husband was advising Susanna. Dinah had refused to play. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she had asked him earlier. ‘But I find it tedious.’

  Cobie found it tedious, too, but had his reasons for playing. One of them being that watching Sir Ratcliffe carefully seemed reasonable when he was part of the game. He won a little himself. Lady Heneage won more until she announced that she was tired and needed an early night—which gave the Grants the opportunity to excuse themselves as well.

  They had a suite of rooms, which included a small drawing room as well as two bedrooms, and a rather stark closet of a bathroom off Cobie’s bedroom, nothing like the luxurious one in Park Lane to which Dinah had grown accustomed.

  ‘What a boring way of passing the time,’ she exclaimed of the baccarat game.

  ‘True,’ said her husband. ‘I can think of a much better way, can’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she told him fervently, inviting him into her bed.

  Well, at least if he were pursuing an affaire with Susanna here, at Markendale, she would soon know, since everyone knew of the amorous adventures of everyone else. It seemed as though Susanna had taken up with Sir Ratcliffe again, which was a great relief, and long might it last, she thought naughtily, before Cobie leapt into her bed, and thought disappeared altogether, and sensation was all…

  Later on, in the small hours, sleepless, his wife on his arm, Cobie lay on his back and thought about Lady Heneage, Sir Ratcliffe, two dead children, and a diamond necklace which was hated by its owner—or temporary owner—for heirlooms were ambiguous things, their owner being unable to do anything but allow them to be passed on to the next Lady of the Heneage household when her husband died.

  He had once read Trollope’s novel, The Eustace Diamonds. He remembered that Lizzie Eustace, who, unlike Lady Heneage, had loved her diamonds fiercely, had refused to hand them over when her husband died, and had carried them around with her in a small safe. She then stole them herself, claiming that someone else had.

  Sir Ratcliffe was sure to carry the diamonds in a safe—and did he also hide the Prince of Wales’s letters in it? One might suppose so. Where else could be better? He would need to know that they were secure. How strong would the safe be? Could a man who had mastered the art of cracking safes, not only by using dynamite, but by more subtle, criminal means, crack Sir Ratcliffe’s?

  Cobie had reconnoitred to some purpose that afternoon, and now knew the exact lay-out of the floor on which he was sleeping. The thing would be to arrange matters so that it looked as though an outsider was the thief—that is, if he managed to steal anything.

  Chance, chance, he said to himself, be my friend again.

  Dinah stirred as th
ough she had heard him. He looked down at her fondly. After all, by chance, he had acquired a wife who pleased him in bed, unlikely though that had seemed when he had decided to marry her. He would have to be sure that she was sleeping peacefully in her own room when he carried out the plan which had taken shape in his mind. He slept at last, knowing ruefully that, for his plan to work, Sir Ratcliffe would have to be in Susanna’s bed, not his own.

  For that, as well as for Lizzie and the other dead child, Sir Ratcliffe would lose more than his letters… Meantime, he would watch the swine enjoy himself, knowing the day of reckoning was coming, and soon—the next night, if all went well.

  All did go well. He even enjoyed watching his intended victim win again at the races on the following afternoon and at the baccarat table at night. The grey man, Beauchamp, stopped him on the stairs on the way to dinner, ostensibly to admire a painting by Richard Wilson which hung above them, actually to say conversationally, ‘Have you thought over what we discussed at Sandringham, Mr Grant? Have you come to a conclusion yet?’

  Cobie, watching Dinah talking to Lady Heneage in the hall below, said, apparently idly, ‘Oh, yes, indeed, Mr Beauchamp,’ and then fell silent. Playing cat and mouse was a game he excelled at.

  There was a hint of exasperation in Beauchamp’s tone. ‘And?’

  ‘And?’ Cobie’s smile was as sweet as he could make it. ‘Why, as to that, Mr Beauchamp, sir, you will have to wait and see. It should add interest to your stay here. And, yes, the Richard Wilson is superb, one of his best, don’t you think.’

  With that he walked lightly down to join Dinah and Lady Heneage who did not appear to be sharing her husband’s happiness at his constant winning. Indeed, the one person Sir Ratcliffe wasn’t happy with was his wife. When she went to her room that night, he caught her up, and followed her in.

  ‘A word with you,’ he said, his face ugly, his hand on her arm. She tried to shake it off, but couldn’t. ‘What are you doing, toadying up to that swine, Grant? I won’t have it, do you hear me? Keep away from him.’

  Still trying to shake herself free she said defiantly, ‘No, indeed. I do not interfere with your pleasures, none of which is innocent. My pleasure in talking to Mr Grant is innocent. I shall do as I please.’

  ‘That you won’t,’ he snarled, and twisted her arm cruelly. ‘You’ll do as you are told, or it will be the worse for you.’

  She tried to pull away from him, but failed again. ‘I won’t do as you bid me. You have forfeited that right.’

  This time he let go of her arm only to give her a backhanded blow across the face. ‘You heard what I said, woman. You grow a deal too bold these days.’

  ‘My life is pure,’ she told him, still defiant. ‘Can you say as much?’

  He struck her again, knocking her to the floor. He bent down and carelessly stripped her of her diamonds.

  ‘Damn you, woman, you don’t deserve these. Perhaps one day I might have a woman I should be proud to see wearing them. May it soon come.’

  He turned and left her. She struggled to her feet. He was doubtless going to Susanna Winthrop, and she wondered whether he was as cruel to her as he was to his unconsidered wife. Not yet, perhaps.

  Slowly, she prepared for the night, not ringing for her maid. She climbed into bed painfully; there were bruises on her wrist and on her arms and legs where she had fallen heavily. Pain and shame kept her from sleep, as it did on many nights.

  Some time after midnight, she dozed lightly, but a slight sound woke her. It seemed to come from her husband’s room, which she had thought to be empty. Moved by curiosity, wondering who could be there, for it was not Sir Ratcliffe’s habit to return from Susanna’s room until dawn, she rose, walked to his bedroom door to fling it open and switched on the light to see—what?

  A man, all in black, wearing a kind of muffler which covered his head and face except for his eyes. He had Sir Ratcliffe’s small safe open before him on the dressing table in the window to take full advantage of the moonlight and was lifting out of it the leather cases in which the Heneage diamonds were kept. The necklace had already been abstracted and glittered on a large black silk handkerchief spread out on the bed.

  For some reason she wasn’t frightened, although beforehand she would have thought that she would have been paralysed by fear. The burglar, for he was a burglar, calmly continued to pull out the cases. She now saw that a pile of papers, removed from the safe, also lay half-folded in the handkerchief, ready to be taken away.

  For a moment she and the burglar stared at one another. She thought of giving the alarm, and then she thought of the misery which her life with Sir Ratcliffe had brought her, how the diamonds lay like fire on her skin, burning it, and that she hated them and him.

  Slowly, slowly, she turned around, switched off the light, so that now only the moon illuminated the room, and returned to her bed, leaving the intruding thief to do his work.

  Lady Heneage slept well for the first time in months. The thought of her husband’s face when he found his safe pillaged brought a smile to her lips as consciousness faded.

  When the door had opened Cobie’s first thought was that it might be Sir Ratcliffe returning early from Susanna’s bed. And if so, what should he do then?

  But it was Lady Heneage, ghost-like in a long white nightdress, her greying hair in a plait down her back, her eyes fearless, looking straight at him. He could have applauded her—he might have expected hysterics or wild screaming, either of which would have brought all the inhabitants of Markendale at the run, leaving him to escape…if he could.

  Cobie decided to do nothing, simply to continue calmly unpacking the diamonds from the safe. To move towards her, to say anything, might only serve to destroy her unnatural calm.

  She hesitated. She put up a hand to switch off the light, before walking silently from the room. The whole episode had taken only one nerve-shattering minute. From wondering sardonically what would follow if he were caught, he moved to understanding what her inaction, her refusal to arouse the house, told him of her relations with her husband.

  Her intrusion also told him that the tightrope on which he was walking was higher above the ground than was usual, even for him. He didn’t think that he had been recognised. He did think that it behoved him to move as speedily as he could, which he did. At the end he took a card from his pocket and put it into the empty safe which he left, prominent in all its rifled glory on the dressing table.

  The last leg of his dangerous odyssey lay before him. His booty in his pockets, he wriggled through the sash window, leaving it open. It was the work of a moment to walk briskly along the balcony to enter his bedroom through his own open window. Earlier, he had placed a ladder, fetched from the garden, to lean against the orangery wall, giving the impression of an outsider having gained entrance.

  Luck had been with him again, but for how long? One day the horse beneath him would fall at one of the fences he was trying to take, and that would be the end—but not yet, please. He laughed noiselessly at the thought of the brouhaha the rifled safe would cause in the morning.

  He parcelled up the Prince’s letters, to place them in a large and expensive envelope of white hand-made paper which he sealed with an elaborate and meaningless seal, bought from a pawnbroker’s in a dingy part of London, sinking it deep into the hot wax.

  The envelope was addressed as to the personal attention of HRH the Prince of Wales. In the morning he would set out for his pre-breakfast ride—he had been taking one for the last week, so that his being up at such a time would cause no comment, and on his way out he would slip the envelope on to the table where the incoming mail was placed.

  His last act after hiding the diamonds was to take a bath and dress himself for bed. Angelic in pure white, his newly washed and dried hair clustered in curls about his head, he offered the world the impression of a cinquecento saint. He opened the communicating door between Dinah’s room and his, to slip quietly into her bed where she lay sleeping, a small smile on
her face, to be discovered by her in the early hours and to celebrate with him not only his presence, but his unknown skulduggery.

  Sir Ratcliffe Heneage lay in bed with Susanna Winthrop in the curve of his arm. It was almost dawn, time for him to leave. He began to move; she protested against him in half-sleep. Waking fully, she said, a little fretful, ‘I really—can’t think what I’m going to do.’

  He tensed a little, and asked, ‘About what?’ He was a trifle apprehensive. It was always dangerous when women began to think. Best if they only ever felt.

  ‘About the fact that I’m having a baby.’

  ‘What is there to do? Your husband knows, and hasn’t made anything of it.’

  He could really do without this sort of thing to trouble him. Yesterday’s letters from his bankers and his creditors were enough trouble for a fellow without a woman having second thoughts when he was in bed with her. He was sure she was having second thoughts. He knew the tone of voice she was using only too well.

  ‘He knows the child can’t be his, but he’s prepared to accept it, it gives him an heir, keeps the money from his cousin, but I’m frightened that he might find out that it’s yours.’

  Sir Ratcliffe gave a coarse laugh. ‘Never tell me that he thinks it’s Apollo’s!’

  Susanna put her face into the pillow, said in a muffled voice, ‘For some reason he took it for granted that it was. I suppose he thought that it happened just before you and I became friendly. He thinks Cobie’s my lover.’

  She fell silent, then raised an agonised face.

  He said, brutally, ‘I’d have thought that it would have disturbed him more for Grant to be the father than myself. After all, Grant’s an illegitimate nobody, I’m the possessor of an illustrious name.’

  Susanna said tearfully, ‘I know, but since he’s always believed that I’ve been unfaithful to him with Cobie, he didn’t mind a child by him—he half-welcomed it. But if he knew that it was yours he would be enraged. It would mean that I’d been unfaithful with two lovers, not one. He couldn’t stand that.’