by Nic Saint
“I think your voice has all the oomph it needs,” said Brutus. He’d finally decided against jumping on top of the high shelf. A wise decision, I thought, as those little knickknacks contained a framed picture of Silvy and a portrait of the Queen, and if Brutus knocked them all to the floor, there would be hell to pay, or at least a stern rebuke from the Duke.
“Maybe we should take this outside,” said Harriet after careful consideration. “There are too many sensitive ears in here to be subjected to the kind of racket you call singing. I’m thinking about the baby.”
I should probably have felt insulted but strangely enough I wasn’t. I was touched that Harriet would want to protect me from the ire of the humans. Most of them are, after all, cultural barbarians, everybody knows that. So I tripped to the door, only to find it closed again, with no pet flap in sight.
“So how do we get out of here?” I asked Fluffy, lounging languorously in her pillow-covered basket.
“You have to ask one of the humans,” she said. “I usually yap loudly, and that does the trick. If that doesn’t work, I jump up and down someone’s leg.”
I wasn’t going to lower myself to jumping up and down someone’s leg. Cats are better than that. But the meowing could work. So I licked my lips, opened my mouth, and let my larynx do the talking. And when that didn’t produce results, Harriet, Brutus and Dooley joined in for an impromptu recital.
“It helps if you stand in front of the door,” Fluffy advised. “That way they know exactly what you want.”
We all moved to the door and restarted our mini-concert for an audience of one: Fluffy, who was holding her paws to her ears, grimacing generously.
I guess dogs are cultural barbarians, too.
The meeting was still in full swing, so those inside couldn’t be bothered with our plight. Luckily there’s always staff members and security people flitting about a royal home like this, and one of them now stuck her head around a corner. I recognized her as Suzy, the maid. When she saw what was going on, she approached hesitantly.
“Um... I guess you want to go out, right?”
We all meowed in confirmation, happy at her acumen.
“The thing is, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to open the door. What with the whole kidnapping thing and all.”
We meowed a little louder, singing with panache and vigor.
“Nature calls, lady,” said Brutus. “And if you don’t let us out right now, we won’t be held responsible for the consequences, if you know what I mean.”
“He means we’re going to leave a permanent mark on the floor,” I said.
“Oh, dear,” said Suzy, bringing a hesitant hand to her face. “Don’t you have, um, litter boxes to do your business in?”
“We do, but we’re rough-and-tumble cats,” Brutus continued the negotiations. “We like to do it in the bushes.”
“I guess you really need to go, huh?” she said finally, darting uncertain glances in the direction of the office. “Oh, I guess it’s fine,” she said, convincing herself. “Just don’t tell anyone it was me that let you out, all right?” Then she laughed. “How silly of me. Who are you going to tell? You’re just cats. You can’t talk.”
So she opened the door. Outside, a burly guard turned his head.
“It’s all right, Phil,” she said. “It’s just the cats wanting to go for a walk.”
“Of course,” said Phil with an indulgent smile. “We don’t want those precious little furballs to do their business on the couch, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Suzy said a little shyly.
“So how are things with you, Suzy?”
“Oh, can’t complain,” Suzy said conversationally. “This kidnapping thing has got us all on edge, though. Who would do such a horrible thing?”
“The world is full of monsters, Suzy,” he said indulgently. “Which is why it’s good to have a guy like me around, to protect you and yours.”
“And I’m ever so glad for that, Phil,” she said with a little giggle.
We decided to let the two lovebirds explore their budding affair, and moved off into the wild—or at least the perfectly sculpted gardens that surrounded the cottage.
There were no other humans in sight, not even a pesky reporter trying to snap Tessa’s picture, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized it before, but the atmosphere inside the house was rife with tension. So it felt great to be away from that for a moment.
“I’ll bet Harriet is going to make a great singer out of you yet, Max,” said Dooley encouragingly.
“Thanks, Dooley,” I said. “I certainly hope so.”
“When I’m through with you, you’ll be ready to sing at the Royal Albert Hall,” said Harriet.
“What’s the Royal Albert Hall?” asked Dooley.
“It’s like Madison Square Garden, only British. And royal, obviously. You’re going to turn heads, Max. Just you wait and see.”
“Max doesn’t need to turn heads,” said Brutus. “He just has to open his mouth.” And he gave me what I thought was a very insensitive grin.
“I’m at a very difficult time in my life right now, Brutus,” I said. “I’m feeling vulnerable, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to give me some much-needed encouragement.”
“You mean you’re traumatized, Max?” asked Dooley.
“I think there’s every chance that I am,” I said. “Being ridiculed for wanting to be a better singer is the stuff of trauma.”
“You need a shrink,” said Brutus.
I shivered. The last time shrinks were mentioned was when Brutus was having doubts about his sexual orientation. He’d suddenly gotten it into his nut that he might be a female deep down inside. Luckily the moment had passed, and now he was his usual obnoxious self again.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” said Harriet, clapping her paws.
We’d found a nice little clearing behind the cottage, where we wouldn’t be disturbed and where we wouldn’t disturb anyone either.
“Now simply repeat after me, Max,” said Harriet, and started singing a nice, simple scale. “La la la la la la la la laaaah. Now you.”
“Lar lar lar lar laaaaar laaaaar lar laaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr,” I warbled.
Harriet pressed her paws to her ears, and so did Brutus and Dooley.
Mh. Looked like I wasn’t ready for the Royal Albert Hall yet.
Chapter 30
The meeting was over and the participants all walked out of Tessa’s office. And as they did, Nesbit fell into step beside Odelia and said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Odelia, if you have a moment.”
“Yes?” she said encouragingly. She liked the young security man. To come to his cousin’s aid like this meant a lot to Tessa, especially as the rest of her family had behaved a little despicably towards her in recent months.
“It’s probably nothing, which is why I didn’t want to bring it up in there,” he said apologetically. “But I found this.”
He handed her his tablet. “What am I looking at?”
“It’s a letter from a reader. Posted when Tessa and Dante had just started dating. It was posted in The Sun, the UK’s biggest tabloid.”
She quickly read the letter. ‘It’s outrageous that a foreigner like Tessa Torrance can just come in and sweep our prince off his feet. Aren’t there enough nice English girls? Why an American? I can promise you this, Dante: the people won’t forgive you. They’ll do whatever they can to break up this match made in hell. I know I will.’ Signed, ‘A concerned English rose.’
She looked up, and Nesbit gave her a meaningful look.
“So who is this English rose?” she asked.
“That’s just it, one of the editors came forward after he heard about the kidnap attempt. This so-called English rose wrote a bunch of these letters. One of them threatening Tess’s dog. She seemed to take umbrage to the fact that Tessa brought her dog Fluffy to England. Said there are plenty of perfectly good dogs right here and she shouldn’t have broug
ht in an American bitch.”
“Nice. So who is she?”
“Suzy Boots.”
“Suzy wrote this?” asked Odelia, shocked.
“Apparently. And about a thousand comments like this. She’s very active. What some people would call a troll. I searched some more, and found that she comments freely on her Facebook page, too. And that she’s left hundreds of comments on Dante and Tess’s Instagram. All of it extremely vitriolic.”
He scrolled through a few of the comments from Suzy’s Facebook page. ‘The Duchess of Essex is a classless gold digger,’ was one of the nicer ones.
“And here’s the clincher,” he said.
‘I happen to work for Tessa,’ she’d written in response to a comment by someone else, ‘so I know what she’s like as a person. And while I agree with you that we should give her a chance, I’ve given her plenty of chances, and she’s let me down every single time. The woman is a fungus to be got rid of.’
“We need to talk to her,” said Odelia. “Right now.”
“She could simply be one of those poison pen people.”
“She posted threats, Nesbit. Actual threats. Why didn’t you tell Tessa?”
He mussed up his hair, looking sheepish. “She’s in such a state—I didn’t want to make it worse by bothering her with unfounded accusations against a member of her staff. Which is why I decided to run it by you first.”
“You did well,” she said, giving his arm a grateful squeeze. “But I think this is a genuine threat, and Tessa needs to know.” She took the tablet and looked around for Tessa. She found her in the nursery, cradling Silvy. “There’s something you need to see, Tessa,” she said, handing her Nesbit’s tablet.
When Tessa was confronted with the evidence, her expression darkened. “I think we just found our assailant.”
“Where is she?” asked Odelia.
“Cleaning,” said Tessa curtly.
Dante, who’d noticed something was going on, joined them. Without a word, Tessa handed him the tablet. As he read the comments, his eyes went wide. “Suzy wrote this?”
“This and a whole lot more,” said Odelia.
“See!” he cried. “I told you to put in stricter background checks!”
“This is not the time for ‘I told you so’s,’ Dante,” she said, stalking off. The others all followed her into the living space. “Suzy!” she snapped when she caught up with the maid, who was turning down the bed in Gran’s room.
“Yes, Ma’am?” said Suzy deferentially. She looked as mousy and reticent as ever. Hard to imagine she wrote the kind of stuff she did, Odelia thought.
“What’s going on?” asked Chase, attracted by the sound of shouting voices.
“I think we’ve found our guy, and it’s a girl,” said Odelia.
“Suzy? Impossible,” said Chase.
Suzy, who’d been handed the tablet, had turned as white as the sheets in her hand.
“Why did you do it?” demanded Tessa.
“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.
“It’s obvious you hate my guts,” said Tessa. “So why work for me?”
“I just figured—I…” She broke down in tears, but Tessa wasn’t placated.
She took her by the arms and shook her. “You’re the one who’s been trying to kill me, aren’t you? Answer me, dammit!”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Kill you? No, I swear I would never—”
“Of course you would. It’s obvious from the stuff you wrote that you hate me so much you wouldn’t hesitate to take matters into your own hands.”
“No, I would never do you harm, Ma’am—never. For the baby and... and the Duke…” She directed a shy look at Dante, whom she obviously idolized.
“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit. You decided to come and work for me so you could remove me from the equation and save Dante and the country.”
“It’s true that I was very upset when you and the Duke first started dating. And it’s true I wrote all these things. But I’ve since changed my mind. Now that I’ve met you in person, I can see how wrong I was. How kind you are. And how good you are to the Duke and how much he loves you. And since the baby was born, I think you’re the most wonderful mother and…”
“These comments—they were all written on your Facebook,” said Tessa. “They paint a completely different picture. A very hateful, disgusting picture.”
“I wrote those comments a long time ago. Since I started working for you I’ve stopped writing them—I swear,” she said, directing her words to Dante.
“You wrote at least one comment after you started working here,” said Odelia.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I-I didn’t know the Duchess the way I do now. I’m so ashamed of myself. I-I feel like…” She gulped. “I almost feel as if a different person wrote all these things. Not the real me but someone else entirely.”
“You tried to kill my wife, Suzy,” said Dante. “You have to understand there will be consequences. That we have to hand you over to the police now.”
“But I didn’t do it! I would never—”
“I’m very disappointed in you, Suzy. I really am.”
“But sir!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes.
Odelia almost felt sorry for the girl. She was obviously delusional, to write the stuff she had—to do the things she did. She was also an accomplished liar.
“We can’t involve the police,” said Tessa. “It will create the biggest fuss.”
“We have to, sweet pea,” he said. “She needs to be punished to the full extent of the law, and that’s something we can’t do ourselves.” He smiled as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Or did you think I was going to play judge, jury and executioner and sentence her all by myself?”
“No, of course not. I just…”
“This isn’t the Middle Ages, darling. We don’t lock people up in the Tower anymore. We let the police handle things—and the justice system. We’re citizens of this country, just like every other person.”
Tessa nodded. “Of course.” She then directed a look of relief at Odelia. “You got her. You finally got her.”
“Actually your cousin did,” said Odelia. “Your real cousin.”
Tessa threw herself into Nesbit’s arms and the big guy actually blushed.
“It’s over,” said Angela with a smile. “It’s really over.”
It was, and Odelia sighed with relief. The ordeal was finally over.
Chapter 31
I was just about to break into song again, on Harriet’s instigation, when voices drifted in our direction, interrupting my practice session.
“This place is infested with humans,” Brutus grumbled, quite harshly I thought. After all, humans have a right to walk around free and untethered.
“England is a lot smaller than America,” Harriet said. “Which is probably why there are humans everywhere.”
She was right. Even though Hampton Cove isn’t exactly the countryside, it’s much more peaceful than the parts of England I’d seen so far.
“There are quiet parts,” said Dooley now, much to my surprise. “In fact there are whole swaths of countryside where not a single person lives.”
“And how would you know?” scoffed Brutus.
“I’ve seen it on TV,” Dooley said. “Marge had a British kick for a while, and watched all things British. Crime shows, the news, and a show called Countryfile where they show the countryside. It’s quite beautiful.”
“Quite,” Brutus mimicked with an eyeroll.
“No, it is. Very green, with pretty little villages dotting the rolling hills.”
“Sounds like you wouldn’t mind living there,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’ll live wherever my humans live. I’m easy that way.”
I was the same way. If my human decided to move to Antarctica, I’d probably move there, too. Though I’d really prefer if she didn’t. I don’t like the cold all that much. Or the heat, for that matter.
I guess I’m fussy that way.
The male voice drifted closer, and so Harriet decided to press pause on our practice session for the time being. She didn’t want to spook people, she said.
I wondered if I should feel insulted but a man had come walking into the clearing, talking into his phone.
I immediately recognized him as the reporter who’d created such a fuss the night before, insisting he had every right to take pictures of Tessa and the baby. He put his phone away and lit up a cigarette. I had the impression he was waiting for someone.
“Isn’t that the reporter from last night?” asked Harriet.
“Yup, that’s him,” I said.
“I don’t like him,” said Dooley.
“I don’t like him either.”
“What is he doing here? I thought he was told to stay away?” said Brutus.
“Looks like he’s meeting someone.”
“This should be interesting,” said Harriet.
“I wonder who he’s here to meet,” said Dooley.
“Probably someone who works at the cottage,” I said.
“But why?”
“Oh, Dooley, isn’t it obvious?” said Harriet.
“No, it’s not.”
“He’s a reporter, dying to write a juicy story about Tessa and Dante. And if he can’t get near the cottage himself, either to interview them or to snap pictures, he needs other people to do it for him. And what better person than someone working there?”
“Um…” said Dooley, clearly not following.
“Someone who works for Tessa and Dante. Someone who can dish the dirt.”
“Can’t wait to see who the rat is,” grunted Brutus.
“Rats!” Dooley cried, jumping a foot in the air.
“He means the informant,” I said. “Not an actual rat.”
“An informant ratting out his employers,” Brutus grumbled. “Sounds like a rat to me.”
So we waited patiently for the rat who was ratting out Tessa to show up, so we could rat the rat out to Tessa ourselves.