by Rhys Bowen
“Perhaps somebody wants the title,” I suggested. “It’s rather fun to be Your Grace, isn’t it?”
“If you want to know the truth, it’s damned embarrassing to be a penniless duke,” Binky said. “I’d rather be just a plain farmer on a prosperous farm, like our cousins.”
I left him soon after and went to bed. I had always thought of my room as friendly and cozy, but as I lay there and listened to the moan of the wind around the castle walls, I decided I was downright chilly. I’d have given anything for a hot water bottle, but of course it would be letting the family down to admit to being cold and asking for one. Four months of London living had made me soft.
So I curled into a tight little ball and pulled the quilt over my head. But sleep wouldn’t come. I had forgotten the country could be so noisy. The lapping of the loch, the creak of the pine trees in the night wind, the shriek of a rabbit as it was taken by a fox, the baying of a distant hound all kept me from slumber. Those and my racing brain. Somebody had wanted to kill or maim Binky, that was obvious. And he was an heir to the throne—albeit only thirty-second in line. Which would rule out both Murdoch and Lachan. They came from the nonroyal side of our family and all they’d inherit was the dukedom. But they’d have to finish off little Podge first. I shivered. If I did anything at all, it would be to protect him.
Chapter 12
Castle Rannoch
August 18, 1932
I woke with first light. Dawn comes early in the Highlands and the slanting rays of sun were painting a bright stripe on my wall. The dawn chorus in the forest was deafening. Falling back to sleep was impossible. Besides, such a morning made one want to be up and out, and I wanted to see for myself where that trap had been set.
I washed and put on my jodhpurs and hacking jacket. Nobody else was stirring in the house, apart from the occasional maid who bobbed a curtsy and shyly whispered, “Welcome home, my lady,” as she went about her early duties. I made my way to the stables and a great surge of happiness shot through me as I saw my horse, Rob Roy, his face poking over the door of the loose box. He gave a whicker of surprise at seeing me. I’d always thought he was particularly intelligent. When I tried to put on his saddle, however, it became obvious that he hadn’t been ridden for some time. He was incredibly skittish and I had to calm him down before he’d let me tighten the girths.
When I mounted he danced like a medieval charger until I gave him his head and then he took off like a rocket. For a while I let him run, feeling the exhilaration of speed as we shot across the parkland behind the castle. When the manicured lawns turned to springy turf and a path wound through pine forest, I reined in Rob Roy and we slowed to a walk. I didn’t want him stepping on another trap! As we emerged from the woodland and the path started to climb through the heather and bracken, I looked down at the castle and grounds below me. The loch was hidden in early morning mist, which curled up the shoreline, making the castle look as if it was floating on a cloud. Then through the mist I saw a movement and heard the soft thud of hooves on a dirt trail and the clink of bit and harness. Another rider was out early. I noted the graceful movement of horse and rider, fluid as if they were one being. Who could it be? The rider, a young man with dark hair, resembled nobody staying at the castle. Then of course my suspicions were roused. Was this the trap setter, returning to inflict more damage?
I swung Rob Roy around and plunged down through the heather to cut him off. He was moving too fast and had passed by the time I reached the path on which he was traveling. I spurred Rob Roy into a flat-out gallop, trying not to lose the other rider in the mist that now swirled around us.
“Hey,” I shouted. “You there. Hold up a minute.”
He reined in and spun the horse around so that it danced like a medieval charger, rising on its back legs.
“This is private land,” I shouted as I closed in on him. “What do you think you are doing here?”
“As to that, I might ask you the same question,” he said. “Last time I saw you it was in a sleazy London nightclub.”
“Darcy!” I exclaimed, recognizing him as the mist parted. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, and his dark hair was windblown even wilder than usual. On that dancing horse, against the backdrop of heather and mountains, he looked like a Brontë hero and I felt my heart hammering. “Don’t tell me you’re staying at the castle and nobody told me.”
“I’m not actually.” He urged his horse toward mine. “I’m staying with a group of friends a couple of miles away. They’re renting a house on Lord Angus’s estate. They’re testing a new speedboat. They want to break the water speed record. And I didn’t realize that I’d strayed off Lord Angus’s land, so for that I apologize. I was just enjoying the speed of a good horse after all that time cooped up in the city.”
“I know, it feels glorious, doesn’t it?” We exchanged a smile. I couldn’t help noticing how Darcy’s dark eyes lit up when he smiled and I felt a little flutter in my heart.
“But what about you?” he asked. “When did you get here?”
“I arrived last night,” I said. “I decided to come and help Fig with her party of Americans.”
“I see. I must say that was noble of you.” He looked amused and suddenly I remembered what I had deduced on the drive from the train. He knew why I was here. Someone must have tipped off Scotland Yard or the Home Office or the special branch or whoever they were to my misdeeds at the nightclub. That constable had come too early in the morning for this to have been reported in a normal fashion during normal office hours. So it had to have been a late night or early morning telephone call. Who else but Darcy himself could have made that call? If he was, as I suspected, a spy of some sort, he’d be chummy with those shadowy people in the special branch.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I blurted out.
“What was me?”
“You tipped off Scotland Yard about my embarrassing evening at the nightclub. You betrayed me. You tricked me into coming up here so that I could be a spy for Sir Jeremy Whatever-His-Name-Is.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, my dear.”
“I’m not your dear,” I said, feeling my cheeks burning now with anger. “Obviously you don’t care a damn about me. You only show up when I’m useful to somebody in the government. I’m fed up with being used.”
“I’d volunteer to use you more often, but you don’t give me the chance,” he said, that wicked smile spreading across his face and his eyes flirting.
“Oh, most amusing,” I snapped.
“Just trying to make you see that you are upsetting yourself over nothing,” he said.
“Over nothing? I like that. You pretend to be interested in me one minute, then you disappear for weeks on end with no communication whatsoever, then you betray me to Scotland Yard. Well, I’ve had enough. I can’t trust you, Darcy O’Mara. I don’t want to see you again.”
I spun Rob Roy around and urged him into a gallop. I knew we were going too fast for the twists and turns of the path, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to go fast enough to obliterate all thoughts and feelings.
I didn’t once look back, so I don’t know if he attempted to follow me or not. Probably not. What was one girl less to a man like Darcy? As I neared the castle I decided to pay a call on Nanny. She had now retired to a little cottage on the estate and I was pretty sure she’d be up at this early hour. Of course she was, and she greeted me with a beaming smile and open arms.
“I had no word that you’d be coming, my dove,” she said in her soft Scottish voice, hugging me to her ample bosom. “Well, this is a lovely surprise.”
She had shrunk, I noticed. I’d always thought of her as a big woman but she now only came up to my shoulder. She bustled about, pouring me a cup of tea and ladling out a big bowl of porridge.
“You came because of your poor brother, I suppose,” she said. “We were all stunned to hear it. Who could have done such a wicked thing?”
“Who indeed,” I said.
“Some lad on the estate trying to make an extra shilling or two by catching the occasional rabbit, maybe,” she suggested.
“Rather a big trap if he was after rabbits,” I pointed out.
“I’d hate to think it was someone who bore a grudge against His Grace,” she said.
I looked up sharply. “Do you know of anybody who bore a grudge?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He’s well liked around here.”
“Has anyone been dismissed recently?”
She thought. “The head gillie did have to let a boy go for helping himself to shot,” she said. “Young Willie McDonald. Always was a nasty piece of work, that one.”
Willie McDonald, a nasty piece of work, I thought. Of course, that made much more sense then any conspiracy theory against the royal family. I should have a chat with Constable Herries at the local police station and suggest he put the fear of God into young Willie to get him to confess.
“So how is your poor brother faring?” Nanny asked, as I tucked into the porridge.
“He seemed cheerful enough last night. Of course I haven’t taken a look at the wound.”
“The gamekeeper’s wife has been dressing it for him. She said it looked verra nasty.” (She rolled her r’s in the true Scottish manner.) “We’re just praying it doesn’t turn septic. And your poor brother, laid up when he’s got a houseful of people he should be entertaining.”
“I think he’s rather glad to avoid some of them,” I said and she chuckled.
“I saw that American lady going off with the prince the other morning,” she continued. “My, but she gives herself airs and graces, doesn’t she?”
“Some people are already worrying that she sees herself as queen someday.”
“But she already has one husband, doesn’t she? And to think that the British people would stand by and let a woman like that be queen. They’d never allow it.”
“Let’s hope it never comes to that. I’m sure the Prince of Wales will do his duty in the end and not let us down. He’s been raised to be king, after all.”
She nodded and sat, staring into the fire.
“So how have you been keeping?” I asked her.
“Not too bad, thank you. A touch of rheumatics now and then. And lonely sometimes, stuck away out here. Your brother visits me, but apart from that . . .”
“What about your neighbors?”
“Gone,” she said. “The cottages on either side of me both stand empty now. They’ve cut back on estate workers since all that land was sold off, you know. And your brother only employs a handful of gillies on the estate too. The old men are retiring and there’s no young men to fill their shoes. They don’t want this type of hard work anymore. They’re off to the cities. Not that there are many young men now. Not since the Great War took them away.”
While she was speaking my brain was racing. Empty cottages on either side of her. Suddenly I had a good idea about who could fill one of those cottages, at least for a while. My grandfather could come up here to get the fresh air he needed and he could help me with my current assignment. I resolved to write to him immediately.
As soon as I left Nanny I checked out those empty cottages and decided that one of them would do very nicely. It appeared to be fully furnished and not too dusty. It also had a pleasant little kitchen that looked out over the lake. I could picture my grandfather sitting there with his cup of tea. I closed the door carefully then mounted and rode back to the castle. I left Rob Roy in the hands of the groom and went in to see about breakfast. All that Highland air had given me a marvelous appetite. There was only one occupant in the dining room—a young man sitting at the long table, tucking into a large helping of kedgeree and scrambled eggs. He rose as I came in, then his eyes lit up.
“Well, hello there,” he said. “We meet again, I see.”
It was the objectionable young man from the train.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I think I mentioned that I had an invitation to stay,” he said.
“You also mentioned that the castle was positively medieval and the hosts boring, if I remember correctly,” I said coldly.
“Yes, well, that was rather crass of me, wasn’t it?” he said. “I’m sorry that we got off on the wrong foot. You see, it never occurred to me that you were Binky’s sister. I mean, dash it all, he’d always talked of you as a skinny, mousy little thing. So I never dreamed that this gorgeous creature could be associated with Castle Rannoch.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere with me,” I said.
“Really? It usually works rather well, I find. But I should introduce myself. I’m Hugo. Hugo Beasley-Bottome.”
“Dear me,” I said. “I bet you were teased about that name at school, weren’t you?”
“Beaten to a pulp, constantly. Your brother was one of the house prefects when I first arrived and he was rather kind to me, so I’ve always, y’know, looked up to him.” He gave what he hoped was a winning smile. “And I only know you as Binky’s sister.”
“I’m Georgiana,” I said, not prepared to give him the more familiar form of my name.
He held out his hand. “Delighted to meet you, old bean. I understand poor Binky is laid up with a mangled foot. Rotten luck, what? But I look forward to being shown around by you.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” I said. “It’s positively medieval.”
His fair skin flushed at this. “Oh, look here. Couldn’t we forget that disastrous first meeting and start all over?”
I had taken an instant dislike to him but upbringing won out and forced me to say graciously, “Of course.”
“You’ve been out riding already.” He looked me up and down again in that frankly appraising way I found disturbing. He was mentally undressing me again.
“No, I always sleep in my jodhpurs,” I said.
He laughed. “Oh, très droll. I like a girl with wit. I say, do have some breakfast and join me. I hate eating alone.”
I remembered how those words had brought nothing but trouble to me. It was because Belinda had told me that men who came to London hated eating alone that I had come up with my stupid idea of an escort service in the first place. I was tempted to say I wasn’t hungry and leave him to it, but the thought of a good breakfast, after months of austerity, toast and tea, was too enticing.
“Please do sit down,” I said. “Your kedgeree is getting cold.”
I went over to the sideboard and helped myself to kidneys, bacon and fried eggs. If this was economizing, then Binky and Fig weren’t doing too badly.
“So where do you live, Mr. Bottomly-Beasley?” I asked.
“It’s Beasley-Bottome,” he corrected. “And my family has a place in Sussex. I have a pied-à-terre in London.”
“And do you work?”
“Oh, rather. Boring desk job, actually. Pencil pusher. My older brother will inherit the estate and there’s not much money in the family, so I was cast out upon the cruel world.”
We actually had a lot in common and he was attractive in a film-starrish sort of way, so why couldn’t I warm to him? After all, he had been to the right sort of school. He was one of us and I did need a husband. But there was just something about him—the exaggerated cut of his jacket, maybe, and the brilliantine in his hair, and those bedroom eyes, and the way he called me gorgeous when I wasn’t. Healthy or “not bad looking” at best.
Fortunately before I had to make more polite conversation with Hugo Beasley-Bottome animated voices down the hall heralded the arrival of the Americans.
“And I had just got myself lathered up nicely when the hot water gave out,” came a voice. I think it must have been Babe’s. “I had to finish my shower in freezing cold water. My dears, it was not a pleasant experience, I can tell you.”
“Positively primitive,” Mrs. Simpson said, “but I understand from a certain person that Balmoral is even more so. And they have a bagpiper at dawn there every morning—can you imagine?”
“
Bagpiper at dawn?” I said brightly as they came into the breakfast room. “Oh, we do that here, as well. In fact, it’s done at all the Scottish great houses.”
“Well, I’ve never heard him.”
“No, I gather he’s been laid up with bronchitis and hasn’t had the wind to play the pipes for the past week. We really miss him.”
They stopped as Hugo rose to his feet yet again and introductions were made all around. Hugo was almost oozing charm and the Americans were easily won over.
“How nice that you’ve joined us, Mr. Beasley-Bottome,” Babe said. “You’ll liven up our little party no end.” And her eyes held his for longer than was socially acceptable. I began to think that bed hopping might well be a national sport across the Atlantic, until I remembered my very correct man from Kansas.
“So what do we have planned for today, Wallis honey?” Countess Von Sauer asked.
“I believe I’m going on a little jaunt in an automobile. You’ll just have to amuse yourselves,” Wallis said.
“I tell you what,” Hugo announced brightly. “Why don’t you come with me down to the loch? My friends are testing a new speedboat and may be going to have a go at the world water speed record. It should be ripping fun.”
“That does sound like a good idea, doesn’t it, Earl?” Babe said. Anything to be with Hugo, I suspected. “We could take a picnic. I just adore picnics. It looks as if it’s going to be a fine day.”