There was a light in the library, not from the coals in the fireplace, but from the brackets on either side of the door on the far side of the room. They illuminated, with pitiless clarity, the man lounged at the door connecting to the King’s personal chambers.
“No visitors!” barked the man, before Charlotte could say anything at all.
From behind her, Robert could see Charlotte’s back go very stiff.
“May I ask by whose authority?” she asked, in a dangerously polite tone.
The guard made no such attempt at civility. “No,” he said insolently.
Charlotte regarded the guard thoughtfully. Robert recognized that expression quite well. Without another word, Charlotte simply walked straight past him and reached for the door handle.
“Don’t,” said Robert, grabbing the guard by the scruff of the neck before he could make a move to stop Charlotte. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were ’er!” whined the guard, but it was too late. Charlotte swept regally through the door, walking with all the assurance of four centuries of semifeudal power. The Dowager Duchess herself couldn’t have done better.
“Too late,” said Robert genially, letting him down as their small party bustled into the King’s chamber behind Charlotte. The guard, assessing the odds, wisely decided not to argue, shuffling in meekly behind. Robert doubted he was being paid anything sufficient to warrant his cutting up a fuss. Judging by the man’s slovenly attire, he was not on the ordinary palace payroll.
From inside the room came a low, keening moan, followed by a rustling that reminded Robert of snakes in the sand. Robert pushed his way through to Charlotte, who had come to an abrupt halt in the center of the room. There, in the royal bed, lay the figure of a man. He looked scarcely a man, twisted into a fetal position, slithering against the bed linens in a manner more animal than human. But, even bloated and ill, his features were still, Robert fancied, recognizably those that had been reproduced on thousands of coins across the realm.
“Oh,” said Charlotte.
The King was a pitiful sight, unshaven, sweat-stained, his limbs rapped around him like a baby in swaddling. “Help poor Tom,” he crooned, glaring at them through bloodshot eyes. “Poor Tom’s a-cold.”
“Ah,” said Miles, stopping short so suddenly that Henrietta and Tommy racketed into him.
There, thought Robert, went the kidnapping theory tossed into a cocked hat.
The attendant crossed his arms smugly across his chest. “His Majesty ain’t in no fit condition for visitors.”
Charlotte’s wide gray-green eyes roamed from the bed to the attendant and back again. “I know what visitor His Majesty would most like,” she said quietly, in a voice that didn’t sound quite like hers.
“Visits from Her Majesty are stric’ly forbidden!” barked out the attendant. “Order of the Prince.”
“Not Her Majesty,” said Charlotte, in the same singsong voice. “The Princess Amelia. The King is always calling for her, the poor thing.”
Miles shot her a puzzled glance. Robert hoped he had the sense not to let his own confusion show on his face. What in the devil was she about? That she was up to something, he had no doubt. Robert regarded her closely, but her placid countenance provided no clue. She exuded serenity. It made Robert distinctly nervous.
“That’s what His Majesty did last time,” Charlotte said conversationally, never removing her eyes from the King. “He called and called for Princess Amelia. It broke the heart to hear it.”
As if on cue, the figure on the bed began to thrash back and forth, bleating, “Amelia! Amelia!”
The attendant stumped forwards, thrusting out his jaw belligerently. “Now look what you’ve done!”
Robert hastily moved between them, prepared to intervene for his lady’s honor, but Charlotte appeared entirely unperturbed. There was something almost fey about her, as she tilted her head at the guard, staring him down with her wide, nearsighted eyes.
“Not me,” she said enigmatically. “At least, not that way.”
She gestured towards the pathetic figure on the bed, and Robert noticed that, for all her appearance of calm, her hand was trembling.
But there wasn’t the slightest quaver in her voice as she announced, with complete conviction, “That man is not the King.”
Even the King forgot to croon as everyone stared, open-mouthed, at Charlotte.
“Is she—?” The attendant jabbed one finger at his temple in the universal gesture for “absolutely barmy.”
Miles rested a brotherly hand on Charlotte’s shoulder, although whether for support or restraint was unclear.
“He does look like the King,” Miles said awkwardly. “Sounds like him, too.”
“But he isn’t.” Charlotte quite literally dug her heels into the floor, setting her chin at an angle that brought back memories from that summer all those years ago. Charlotte, Robert remembered, was the most accommodating creature in the world—until she wasn’t. She never fought; she never screamed; she just refused to budge. When something touched her stubborn streak, nothing in heaven or earth could move her. Not even the Dowager Duchess. A mere hospital orderly didn’t stand a chance.
“This isn’t the King,” Charlotte repeated. “If he were, he would have called the Princess by his pet name for her. He would never have called her Amelia like that.”
Was it Robert’s imagination, or had the creature on the bed modulated his thrashing in order to listen?
“But you don’t know that, do you?” Charlotte continued gently, addressing the pathetic figure on the bed. “They never told you.”
“Poor Tom’s a-cold,” whimpered the creature that might be King, reverting to King Lear.
Miles, who had been squinting down at the King, suddenly jabbed a finger at him. “Prendergast!” he exclaimed.
“Prendergast?” Robert echoed. Was that like “eureka!”? He really had been away from England far too long.
Miles rubbed his hands together happily, his hair flopping all over the place. “Horatio Prendergast! I thought you looked familiar. I saw your Edgar at Drury Lane,” he informed the thing on the bed. “Brilliant! For what it’s worth, I think you ought to have wound up with Cordelia in the end rather than that King of France chappie.”
“Help poor Tom?” ventured the creature on the bed, but it lacked conviction.
“So what you’re saying,” Tommy said slowly as the attendant backed away towards the wall, “is that this man is an actor.”
“A very good one,” declared Miles, scrupulously awarding credit where credit was due.
“Which is why,” said Charlotte, never taking her eyes from the squirming creature on the bed, “he was chosen to play the King. Tell me, Mr. Prendergast, how did they persuade you to take the part?”
“The foul fiend doth bite me in the back!” whimpered Mr. Prendergast, who did, indeed, look greatly afflicted, mostly by Charlotte.
Not, however, nearly so greatly afflicted as he pretended to be. “Has anyone else noticed that those blisters on his forehead are lip rouge?” chirped Henrietta, leaning forwards to swipe out one of the offending splotches.
The “madman” jerked indignantly away from her hand, but not before she had managed to create a long, red smear across his forehead, effectively proving her point.
A good actor knew when it was time to bring the curtain down. Dropping the mad act, the false king struggled to swing into a sitting position, but his straight waistcoat made him flop about like a fish on a hook. Ever the gentleman, Miles put out a hand to help him up.
“Many thanks, sir.” Prendergast inclined his head, the one part of his body he could move freely, in gratitude. “Both for your aid and for your good notices for my performance. My other performance,” he added, with a wry glance around his audience.
“Well, you were rather hampered in this one,” Miles said generously.
Henrietta waved her husband to silence. “Then you are an actor
?” At his nod, she asked intently, “Why?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I was in prison for debt. Rather large debts,” he admitted. “It is not always easy to live in the style to which one would prefer to be accustomed. A man came to me. He told me the King was ill.”
“Yes?” urged Charlotte, like a child being told a bedtime story.
The actor smiled wryly at Miles. “Like you, sir, he had seen my Edgar. He told me he wanted . . . a proxy of sorts to stave off speculation that might undermine the government and compromise the war with France. I was told,” he added, “that it would only be for a few weeks, while the real King recovered elsewhere, free from the baneful influence of prying eyes.”
“So you agreed to play the King,” Charlotte summarized.
“For the good of the country,” the actor said piously, before adding, “and my debts paid in full.”
“Who hired you?” demanded Robert.
The actor shrugged, nearly overbalancing himself in the process. “A doctor. Dr. Simmons.”
“Who was as much a doctor as you are a King,” murmured Robert. “Was there no one else?”
Having learned the dangers of shrugging, the actor shook his head. “Not that I saw. The doctor came alone.”
“When did all this happen?” Charlotte broke in, moving around Robert to address the actor directly. “When did you come here?”
The actor smiled at her as winningly as a man could when strapped into a straitjacket. “Yesterday evening. I had just been given my supper when Dr. Simmons came for me.”
“Yesterday?” The cause of Charlotte’s distress was equally apparent to all of them. Wrothan had had more than enough time to conceal the real King.
Charlotte turned to Henrietta. “The false Simmons must have made the substitution while we were talking to the real Simmons.”
“Or later that night,” countered Henrietta, looking equally shaken. “If we’d only known—”
“How could you have?” interrupted Robert, not liking the stricken expression on Charlotte’s face. He turned back to the man on the bed. “Did you hear where he was being taken?”
The actor affected a rueful expression. “Simmons said something about his recuperating at Kew.”
Charlotte touched a hand tentatively to Robert’s arm. “Kew is where the King recovered from his last illness. Simmons—the false Simmons, I mean—wouldn’t have taken him there.”
“No,” agreed Robert abstractedly, “he wouldn’t.”
Where would Wrothan, newly returned to England, stash a kidnapped king? Wrothan had to find someplace where he could hide the King from the French and English alike. It was no small matter outwitting the secret service of not one but two nations. The King’s face was well-known, not only from his own peregrinations across the country but from thousands of loyal prints and far less loyal caricatures. It was no easy matter to hide a King. Wrothan would need someplace secluded, someplace entirely cut off.
Someplace like the Hellfire caves.
“I think I know where he is.” Robert scarcely recognized his own voice. “And I’ll be willing to wager our Frenchie does, too. He would never have killed Wrothan otherwise.”
Wrothan always had been more cunning than wise. If the answer was obvious to Robert, it would have been obvious to the Frenchman as well. Robert made a note; the next time he kidnapped someone and held them for ransom, he would not hide them in the same place where he had held his secret meetings. It was a distinct gaffe.
“Killed?” The man on the bed looked distinctly unhappy.
No one paid the least bit of attention to him. Miles stampeded towards the door like a one-man cavalry charge, one arm upraised. “There’s no time to lose! To—er.” He skidded to an abrupt halt just shy of the door. “Where are we going?”
“Wycombe,” announced Robert with grim finality. “West Wycombe.”
“Why Wycombe?” Miles demanded.
“Hellfire Club,” said Robert succinctly. Now that the club was out of the bag, so to speak, there was no point in hiding it. “We can leave the ladies at Loring House—”
“Oh, no,” said Henrietta. “You’re not leaving us anywhere.”
Charlotte sidled up beside her. “I’m the only one who knows the King. If we find him, I should be there. So he won’t be alarmed.”
Robert hated to tell her that the King was probably already alarmed—or so deeply drugged that he couldn’t be alarmed if they tried. From the set of Charlotte’s chin, he knew that if he didn’t agree, nothing short of a straight waistcoat would keep her from following. And, so far, her instincts had been better than his.
“Fine,” he said shortly. “We may find nothing at all, you know.”
Charlotte looked up at him as though trying to decide whether to hire him to bear her standard off into battle. “But we still have to try.”
Feeling subtly rebuked, Robert got down to business. “Can we hire a boat?” Medmenham Abbey was on the Thames, a much faster trip by water than by land.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Miles said, barging towards the door. “Bloody good thing the Thames hasn’t frozen.”
Robert didn’t miss the longing look Charlotte cast at the dwindling embers of the coal fire as she disappeared through the door. It was going to be a long, cold trip. But, hopefully, not a fruitless one. Robert didn’t let himself dwell on what would happen if the King wasn’t at Wycombe.
In that case, he could only hope that the Frenchman would be as stymied as they were.
“What about me?” Horatio Prendergast called after them.
Robert spared a glance over his shoulder. “You stay right where you are and play your role as though your life depended on it.” He paused for the maximum effect. “It does.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the light of morning, my midnight adventures appeared more than a little bit absurd.
To call it morning might have been pushing it a bit. It was more like noon. What with all my midnight meanderings, by the time I woke up, Colin was long since gone, leaving only a rumpled patch on his side of the sheets and the traditional dent in the pillow. I was wrapped like a mummy in the entirety of the comforter, having apparently taken his departure from the bed as a moment of personal triumph in the quilt war.
There was a note waiting for me on the bedside table, propped against the phone. Groping for my glasses, I squinted at it through a fringe of hair that had decided to take on a new life as a porcupine.
“Didn’t want to wake you,” it read. That probably translated as “Tried to wake you; didn’t get far.” I’m a night person, not a morning person. The rest of the note read a bit like a very modern poem. “Food in fridge. Water in kettle. Happy hunting. C.”
Happy hunting? Oh, right. My death grip on the sheet relaxed. He meant the archive. As far as he knew, I was only hunting historical spies.
And for all I knew, I reminded myself, they were the only spies on the premises. So to speak, that was.
I brushed my teeth and washed my hair and put on clothing and managed to find my way to the kitchen with only one or two wrong turns along the way.
The door to the study was closed.
I wondered what Colin was doing in there. Had he discovered that fragment of paper beneath the desk? Had he wadded it up and tossed it away? Or shredded it with his special Captain Kangaroo Secret Spy Docu-Shred Ray?
Rolling my eyes at myself, I set about making coffee in the decidedly prosaic mustard yellow kitchen, breathing in the fumes from the French press as though the magical whiff of caffeine might clear my foggy brain.
After all, what had I really seen in there last night? Leaving aside all the atmospherics of the dim light of the single lamp, the long nightgown swishing around my bare feet, the decidedly House of Usher shadows cast by unfamiliar objects. Just some dictionaries, some travel guides, some newspaper clippings, and a scrap of a larger piece of paper that would probably read entirely differently when plugged into the missin
g three quarters of the page.
I filled my mug with coffee, looked at it critically, and snagged the French press in my other hand before making my way carefully up the stairs to the library. Refills would undoubtedly be necessary.
Henrietta’s journals and correspondence were just where I had left them, open to a very cold boat ride on the Thames in the middle of the night. I, apparently, wasn’t the only one seized with odd impulses during the wee hours of the morning. In their case, though, Charlotte had a bit more to go on I did. I still couldn’t quite believe someone had had the nerve to substitute an actor for the King.
Wiggling my way into a comfortable position in the squashy old armchair, I flipped open my laptop and prepared to transcribe the salient bits of Lady Charlotte’s pursuit of the captured king. As far as I could tell, the Pink Carnation wasn’t involved—at least, not yet—but it was still unclear whether or not the Black Tulip, the Pink Carnation’s French nemesis, was really out of the picture. Drugging the King to effect a simulation of madness didn’t really seem his sort of thing, but who really knew? If the Black Tulip had survived the conflagration that had foiled his previous plot, an attempt to blow up the royal family with a three-foot-high plaster bust of George III crammed with explosives, his agenda might have altered.
But no matter how I tried to concentrate on England in winter, on a cold palace, on a mad King, on the icy Thames, my mind kept straying to blazing desert sands, to gold souks and to semiautomatic something-or-others and to unexplained trips to Dubai. Even the fascinating possibility that George III had been replaced by a decoy king failed to hold my attention. For once in my life, the present seemed a good deal more arresting than the past. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. At least, not for the sake of my dissertation.
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