India Black And The Widow Of Windsor Part 6

"It's Robbie Munro. The marchioness is asking for you."

"d.a.m.n and blast," I said. I put my feet on the floor and yelped at the cold. "I'll dress and be right there."

"Can you find her room, or should I wait and accompany you?"

Not even the prospect of roaming the halls with the dazzling Robbie Munro excited my interest. At this hour, nothing could excite my interest, except the warm bed I'd just left.

"I'll find it. Thank you, Robbie." I scrambled into my uniform (which looked a bit worse for the wear, since I'd dropped it in a heap on the floor) and began the long trek back to the marchioness's room. I found her sitting up in bed, with a log fire blazing and all the candles lit.

"Took ye long enough," she said by way of greeting. "Where've they put ye, out in the stables?"

"I'm sorry, Your Ladyship. The castle is so large, and I haven't learned my way around it yet. I shall endeavor to improve."

The marchioness thrust a book at me. "I canna sleep. I want ye to read to me."

Well, I suppose if you spend the day napping, a good night's sleep is hard to come by. I sighed resignedly, settled myself comfortably in a chair near the fire (at least it was warm in here) and looked over the reading material the marchioness had selected. Troilus and Criseyde. I groaned. Possibly one of the most boring stories I'd ever read. I couldn't see why people made such a fuss about Troilus, raving about the purity of his love for Criseyde, his decency and goodness, his honour, and all those other qualities that supposedly make up the perfect gentleman. Personally, I found him cloying. There's nothing the least bit manly about crying and mooching about, feeling sorry for yourself. And the fellow is deuced stupid, in my view. If you're thick enough to get taken in by a woman, then it's your own fault when things go pear-shaped. And Criseyde? There's another sore point with me. She's supposed to represent the fickle nature of women, betraying Troilus by going off with that hairy Greek ape Diomedes, but what was she supposed to do, eh? Her scheming father Calchas had engineered her removal from Troy because he was sure the city would fall to the Greeks, and he wanted her out of harm's way. And what woman wouldn't throw in her lot with a virile chap like Diomedes, instead of that sheep Troilus? I know I would. (And as for Troilus throwing himself frenziedly into battle after learning of Criseyde's choice and getting himself skewered, there's only one thing to say about that: how typical of a man.) I suppose it's plain by now how much this particular fable annoys me, but I digress.

"From the beginning, my lady?"

The marchioness nodded and snuggled down in her blankets, snuffbox in hand, while I launched into the tale of star-crossed lovers and tried not to wretch. The marchioness nodded and snuffled, smiling gently whenever Troilus demonstrated his love for Criseyde by weeping like a schoolgirl and begging his friend Pandarus to stay with him through the long, lonely night (something fishy about that, I tell you). Her Ladyship frowned at Criseyde's perfidy while I silently cheered her on, and we read the whole d.a.m.ned story from start to finish. Thank G.o.d it's short, but even with that my voice was getting husky and my lids felt like iron bars near the end. The marchioness, d.a.m.n her eyes, stayed awake for the entire performance. When I'd finished the book, it was nearly dawn. The c.o.c.ks were crowing in the stables and the darkness was beginning to fade.

The marchioness gave me a gap-toothed grin as I closed the book. "There ye are. The perfect lesson in the power of women to deceive."

"And of men to be deceived," I added sourly.

She cackled. "Credulous idiots, most of 'em. On the other hand, many a maid has been taken in by the charms of men." She gave me a stern look through the rheumy eyes. "Ye would do well to remember that."

"That most men are credulous idiots?"

She laughed again and then yawned, her spa.r.s.e teeth winking in the candlelight. "When it comes to lyin', neither s.e.x has the advantage over the other. Now off ye go. I always breakfast in bed, so I won't need ye again until it's time to dress for luncheon."

I was grateful for the opportunity to catch a few winks, but the marchioness's parting words had roused a nagging doubt in my mind. Usually, I'd agree quite readily with the a.s.sessment that women were skilled in the art of deception; I just hated having it pointed out to me while I masqueraded under false pretenses in the royal household. I cast my mind over the hours since I'd met the marchioness, but I'd be d.a.m.ned if I could remember any incident or word that might have revealed that I was not what I pretended to be. Oh well. Having not slept much over the last thirty-six hours, I was probably seeing dragons where none existed. A few hours sleep would see me right.

Which I was destined not to get, as shortly after I tumbled back onto my lumpy mattress (Flora still snorting like a grampus in the other bed), an eldritch screech poured through the window, shattering my slumber and jolting me upright, panting in panic. Good G.o.d. It sounded as though an entire platoon of felines was being run over by a mail coach. Slowly. And repeatedly.

Flora stirred, then stretched lazily. She glanced at the clock. "Och, time to rise." She didn't seem the least bit concerned with the unearthly wailing that filled the room.

"What on earth is that noise?"

She scratched her b.u.m unconcernedly. "Why, it's only William Ross, the Queen's piper. He always pipes at dawn when Her Majesty's in residence. And he'll play again at sunset tonight."

The sound was fading, as the piper worked his way around the building.

"You mean we have to listen to that thing twice a day?"

"Every day the Queen's here," said Flora cheerfully. "Beautiful music, isn't it? The voice of the Highlands."

The voice of the Highlands sounded a great deal like a wagon wheel in need of grease, but one doesn't hope to have a rational discussion with a Scot about the Great Highland War Pipe. Sane people do not make musical instruments out of a sheep's bladder and a bundle of reeds. What prompts a bloke to pick up an internal organ from ovis aries and squeeze it in the first place? The mind boggles. "Great Highland War Pipe" indeed; I'm sure the Scots only charge in battle to get away from that horrible caterwauling. With luck, they'll be taken prisoner and never have to listen to the b.l.o.o.d.y thing again.

Flora was splashing water on her face. "That handsome toff I told you about? The one with the black hair? Turns out he's quite the devil."

Fleetingly, I wondered if French had paid a visit to Flora while I had been reading that vapid claptrap to the marchioness. Surely not. I shook my head vigorously. I was obviously befuddled from lack of sleep and being wakened by the dulcet tones of cats expiring.

"I had a cup of tea last night with Rosie. She's one of the other housemaids, and she tidies his room. Last night before dinner, she brought him some hot water and he made lewd suggestions to her and pinched her bottom." Flora laughed. "What a rogue! I may have to see if I can switch rooms with Rosie and clean up after that fellow. I'd give him a run for his money."

"And Rosie won't?"

"Not Rosie. She's a mouse. Scared her to death, he did." Flora drew her hair back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck and pinned on her cap. "But he doesn't scare me. After all, if you can work at Balmoral and stay a virgin while the Prince of Wales is visiting, your common, garden-variety swell is no challenge at all. Apparently, they've become fast friends."

"French and the Prince of Wales?"

"Rosie says they spent most of the night getting sozzled, gabbing about horses and flirting with the young ladies in the party. Princess Alexandra was in a right old state by the end of the evening. She practically dragged the prince off to bed by his ear."

I chewed on this for a bit, trying to summon up a mental image of French boozing and carousing with the lost souls, and found it hard going. Not the mannerly Mr. French, Public Schoolboy of the Year.

Flora put the finishing touches on her toilette. "I'm off. Breakfast on the table in fifteen minutes."

An hour later I had breakfasted well, drunk a half-dozen cups of tea and learned quite a lot about the events of the previous evening from the gaggle of maids and footmen who had been in attendance. Most of the conversation centered around the Prince of Wales, who was stiff as a plank in the presence of his mother and wife, but turned into Falstaff as soon as the old biddy and the ball and chain were out of the room. The prince had been joined in the festivities by French and a few of the male guests. Several bottles of champagne had been consumed, a large amount of the ready had changed hands at the card table, and the merits of Thoroughbreds and actresses had been discussed in clinical detail. One of the footman at the table had blushed at the memory of the conversation. I didn't hear the gory details as Miss Boss bustled in at that moment, and everyone at the table turned a guilty face to their plate and started gulping bacon and eggs as the housekeeper ran over the day's a.s.signments.

I had hoped to spend some time cozying up to some of the other servants and pumping them for information, but Miss Boss had interfered with my plans, barking instructions to her staff and sending them off in a flutter to attend to their various duties. I was left to my own devices, and so I wandered off to the wing where the guest rooms were located. If I found a lad or la.s.s shirking their duties, I could always enjoy an idle gossip, and if anyone questioned my own activities, I could retreat to the safety of the marchioness's room.

I sauntered along casually until I encountered a guest, and then I a.s.sumed an air of purposeful intent and quickened my pace until I was around a corner (there's always a corner to turn in Balmoral) and out of sight. Then I reverted to my slow perambulation. Once I found a wide-eyed girl mooning about the corridor, eyeing herself in a hideous gilded mirror and arranging a curl on her cheek while the stack of linen on the table went undelivered. I struck up the usual conversation between working stiffs, moaning about wages and hours and only having off Sunday evenings, and we commiserated awhile, but as she had all the intelligence of an aspidistra, I wrote her off as a possible a.s.sa.s.sin and ended our discussion as soon as decently possible. Yes, I know, every army needs its foot soldiers, but the girl wasn't even mentally equipped to be cannon fodder. You can't feign stupidity of that caliber. Would have made a good wh.o.r.e, though.

I turned my back on another recruiting opportunity lost and worked my way through the maze of hallways, chatting up a forbidding Scottish footman (hard going, that-no one does forbidding like a Scot), who had better things to do with his time than chat with the likes of me, and chasing down the girl emptying the chamber pots (on the whole, not the best move on my part), who professed to thoroughly enjoy her job at the castle. There's just no accounting for what some people are willing to do for money. I should know.

By midmorning I had given up my quest (temporarily) to find a talkative Balmoral servant, having decided that my best opportunity to chat up my fellow employees would be between the time I packed the marchioness off to dinner and when she retired. Truth to tell, I was feeling a bit f.a.gged, having had so little sleep last night. I thought I might just have time to s.n.a.t.c.h a catnap before tarting up the old girl for luncheon and was making my way back to Flora's room when the door I was pa.s.sing opened and a hand shot out, s.n.a.t.c.hing my wrist.

Unlike most other members of the fair s.e.x, I was not disconcerted. I've spent a goodly portion of my youth being grabbed unexpectedly by loathsome gents, and I've learned the simplest of maneuvers to escape. Instead of trying to pull away, one merely pushes forward, throwing the a.s.sailant off balance with this unexpected movement and, with luck, causing him to fall backward onto his a.r.s.e. I would note that this tactic almost always works if one charges into the fellow with the intensity of a rugby forward with a wicked hangover, which I invariably do, planting my head in the fellow's stomach for good measure. Life is nasty and brutish, as Tommy Hobbes likes to say, but if India Black has anything to say about it, her life won't be short. Hence, I sometimes overreact.

As I did in this instance. I barreled into the bedroom at full speed, head lowered like a charging Hereford bull, only to find myself standing over French, who was sprawled on the floor and glaring up at me with those cold grey eyes.

"Oops," I said. I extended a hand, which he brushed away impatiently.

"Dash it all, India. Why can't you look before you leap?" He rose gingerly and brushed his coat.

"If you insist on getting my attention by accosting me, then you'll have to take the consequences. Next time, I suggest a simple 'Psst, India, in here.'"

"Next time, I'll send an engraved invitation." He hurried to the door, glanced up and down the hallway, and shut the door softly.

"Sit down, India. I don't expect us to be interrupted, but people have a way of wandering about here, blundering into rooms just when you think you've found some privacy."

"Are you referring to the servants or the guests?"

"Both. And the Queen. If she wants to sit in a room, she'll turf you out without a second thought."

"It is her house," I pointed out.

"Quite. Now, what have you learned?"

"Most of the servants have been at Balmoral since Methuselah was a boy. They seem content, for the most part, but I haven't really had a chance to dig below the surface. There are two things you may want to check, however. All of the arrangements for the Queen's visit are handled by the master of the household, who accompanies her from Windsor. But the master couldn't come this time; he's supposedly ill, and he's been replaced by James Vicker, his deputy. Vicker looks like a man who just had a game pie for luncheon that's been in the larder too long: white as sheet and sweating buckets. That could indicate a guilty conscience."

"Yes," French mused. "Or merely food poisoning."

I punched him in the bicep. "It might be worth verifying that the master really is down with something. And perhaps a review of Vicker's background would be useful: his length of service at Windsor, political views, that sort of thing."

"I agree. It's worth checking. Anything else?"

I told him about Robbie Munro and his recent hiring. "According to Flora, he's only been here a few days and came on his uncle's recommendation. That should be easy enough to confirm."

"I'll let Robshaw know immediately, and he can get a man on it right away."

"Your turn, French. The staff is agog at your behavior; apparently, you're giving the Prince of Wales a run for his money in the scoundrel stakes." Bit of an exaggeration, but how was French to know?

He grinned. "Good. Exactly the impression I hoped to make."

"You want to be seen as a dissolute Don Juan?"

"I do. People are much more inclined to let down their guard if they think they're talking to a dim-witted fool whose only interests are ponies, maids and cognac. No one would think that a brainless peer of the realm addicted to the racing sheets would have a political thought in his head."

"And you hope to lure someone into an indiscretion with that act?"

"I already have," he announced smugly.

"Not the bloke on the platform at King's Cross?"

"Oh, good Lord, no. That chap is as straight as they come. No, I've made a new friend here: Hector MacCodrum, seventh Baronet of Dochfour."

"Never heard of him."

"No reason you should have, until now. He's the favorite nephew of the Earl of Nairn, one the Queen's favorites among the Scottish peers. The earl is sober, circ.u.mspect and completely loyal to the Crown. His nephew is not."

"What's he doing here? The baronet, I mean."

"Call him 'Red Hector.' Everyone else does. He's got ginger hair and a fiery temper."

"He doesn't sound like a pleasant fellow."

"He's not. Whinnies like a horse when he laughs, shouts abuse at the servants and is pickled most of the time. He's only here because the earl has made a bit of a project of him, trying to damp down Red Hector's impetuosity and teach him the art of diplomacy. The earl is trying to impress upon the young man the importance of the Queen's patronage, so he w.a.n.gled an invitation to Balmoral to introduce Red Hector to the prime minister and Her Majesty's other advisors."

"Sounds as though the earl is taking a risk he may regret."

"Oh, I think he already does. Red Hector doesn't care a fig for the Crown or the Queen or anything to do with England, for that matter. And he made that quite clear at dinner last night and afterward over the port." French looked modest. "Encouraged by me, of course, who spent a fair amount of time egging him on."

"What did he say?"

"Just that England should shed its slavish allegiance to the royal family and send them packing. And the Scots could do very well without being tied to England's ap.r.o.n strings."

"Did the Queen hear those comments?"

"Thankfully, no. It's a very large table at dinner. But everyone within ten feet of Red Hector did. There was a scandalized silence, as you can imagine, while the diners tried to conjure up some response to this heretical point of view, and then the whole party broke into conversation at once, pointedly ignoring the baronet."

"Which he no doubt found satisfying."

"Indeed. Even drunk as an Irishman on Sat.u.r.day night, he still had the indecency to look proud of his statement. Apparently, he's known for dropping conversational bombs such as that."

"He might be saying such things for effect. He sounds a bit of rascal."

"He is that. But I have to determine if he's just stirring up controversy for its own sake or if he means what he says."

"If he intends to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Queen, statements like that will guarantee he doesn't get anywhere near her. He should be fawning over Her Majesty, instead of slinging verbal arrows for everyone to hear and drawing attention to himself."

"I had thought of that myself, India. But it's possible he's merely running a bluff, counting on being so conspicuously antimonarchical that if something happens to the Queen, he'll be dismissed out of hand as being too obvious a candidate. You know, the idea that only an idiot would so openly disparage Her Highness and then attempt to murder her. He could in fact be a red herring, sent by the Sons of Arbroath to draw attention away from the real a.s.sa.s.sin."

"What do you plan to do?"

"Red Hector and I are going to become fast friends. It means I'll have to drink like a fish and feign an interest in studs and bloodlines, but so be it."

"And here I thought I had the worst of it, wiping down the marchioness every time she takes a bit of snuff and staying awake all night reading the Holy Scriptures to the old trout. Lord, it must be hard work for you, French, quaffing champagne and discussing brood mares."

"Every man must do his duty." He smirked. "How are you getting on with the marchioness?"

"She's a pleasure to work for, if you don't mind sitting up most of the night and dodging a wall of spray every time she takes snuff, which is frequently. I was expecting someone a bit more elegant. The marchioness would be right at home with the fellows in the merchant marine."

French nodded. "I knew you two would have something in common."

I chose to ignore this ill-mannered comment. "I see you buckled under pressure from Vincent and brought the little blighter along with you. Has he had a bath, or have they had to remove the horses from the stables because they couldn't stand the odor?"

"He had a bath, of course. I made that a condition of his being allowed to come. He's actually going to be quite useful. Neither you nor I can penetrate the world of the outside servants-the grooms, the gardeners and so on. He can. He'll be snooping around the stables and the grounds to ferret out any disloyalties in the staff."

I had to agree that made a certain amount of sense, but I wasn't about to admit that to French. Besides, there was another matter I needed to take up with the man and our time was limited.

"How's the sire these days?"

"Sire?" French looked puzzled. Probably still had his mind on the nags.

"Your father."

"Ah." French had located a particular thistle on the wallpaper and was staring at it with single-minded concentration. "He's, ah, fine, of course. In blooming health."

"And the rest of the family?"

The thistle lost its attraction; French's eyes ricocheted around the room while he rummaged distractedly in his pockets. Luckily for him, salvation appeared.

The door to the room swung open, and before I knew what was happening, French had seized me roughly in his arms and planted his lips on mine. Normally, that can be a pleasant experience with a man, but in bundling me tightly into his arms, French had squeezed all the breath from my body and then, having attached himself to my mouth like a giant squid, had cut off my only means of replacing the air in my lungs. I struggled valiantly to breathe, but French had a vise-like grip on my body and my lips.

I heard a throaty chuckle, and the Prince of Wales said, "Well, well. Sorry to interrupt, old boy. I didn't think anyone was in here, and I was hoping to have a little snooze before luncheon."

By this time the lack of oxygen to my brain was beginning to tell. I felt a warm drowsiness stealing over me. My knees were beginning to sag, and I found myself leaning into French for support. He wrapped his arms tighter around me. His lips seared mine. I felt myself begin to swoon, a not uncomfortable feeling, if I'm to be honest. Oxygen deprivation will have that effect, I'm told.