Her Royal Spyness

by Rhys Bowen

  “He is rather dashing,” I said.

  “His mother’s Argentine English. Between the two families they own half of Argentina. Not a bad catch at all.”

  “Are you angling yourself or are you telling me to cast my line?” I whispered.

  She smiled. “Haven’t decided yet, so feel free. My theory is always that all is fair in love and war.” Again I wondered if she was referring to Darcy.

  “So where did you meet Darcy?” I couldn’t help asking. “Was it at the party last night?”

  “What?” she appeared distracted. “Darcy? Oh, yes. He was there. He may be a little too wicked for you, Georgie, but I can tell you that he’s certainly still interested. He asked a million questions.”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, this and that. Of course everyone was speculating about the murder. They were all on your side, by the way. Nobody in the room could believe that Binky could drown anyone in a bathtub.”

  “Did they have any theories on who might have done the drowning?”

  “None at all. But I can tell you that de Mauxville was not the most popular man in the world. Everyone agreed that he cheated at cards and did not behave like a gentleman. So I think it’s safe to say he had his share of enemies.”

  “No suggestion as to who they might be?”

  “If you mean did anyone own up to the murder, the answer is no. The murderer could be quite outside of our set. If de Mauxville has criminal connections it could be a falling-out of thieves.”

  “Goodness, I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “But we’d have no way of checking up on criminals.”

  “Everyone got a glass in their hands?” Eduardo called. “Right-o. Take a seat and hold on tight so that we can cast off.”

  “Let’s sit here, on the side, so that we’ll get the heavenly breeze in our faces,” Belinda said, hoisting herself up onto the rim of the boat with her feet on the teak seat. I followed suit. “I’m sure we’ll be going very fast, if I know Eduardo. He also drives racing cars, and he flies.”

  “Like Peter Pan?”

  She laughed. “A plane, darling. A dear, dinky little plane. He’s promised to take me up sometime.”

  As if on cue a motor roared to life, making the whole boat throb with power.

  “Ready to cast off,” Eduardo shouted as someone rushed to release the ropes that held the ship fast to the jetty. Suddenly we took off with such force that I was thrown backward. I made a futile grab at the smooth side of the boat as I went flying off into the ice cold water. Around me the water was churning madly and the thrashing of propellers boomed through my ears. Gasping, I fought my way to the surface. I’m a strong swimmer and wasn’t particularly scared until I realized I was being dragged along. Something was wound tightly around my ankle and I couldn’t reach it because of the speed at which I was being dragged. I fought to keep my head above water long enough to scream, but I couldn’t without getting a mouthful of water. Surely someone must have seen what had happened. I had been surrounded by people. Belinda had been sitting right beside me. I waved my arms frantically. Then there was a splash, strong arms came around me, and the motor was mercifully cut. I was dragged back to the ship and hauled back on board. Everyone was making a big fuss of me, while I sat there, gasping and coughing like a landed fish.

  “Are you all right?” Darcy asked, and I saw from his wet state that he had been one of those who dived in to save me.

  “I think so,” I said. “More shocked than anything.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t bash your head on the side as you went in,” another voice said and I looked up to see the stiff, upright form of Whiffy Featherstonehaugh. “Because then you’d just have gone under and we might never have noticed you.”

  I shivered. Whiffy patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Anyway, my dear Georgie, I regret to inform you that there are no fish big enough in the Thames to warrant using you as bait,” he said. The typical Englishman’s way of offering sympathy. I noticed he was not wet.

  Eduardo appeared with a blanket in one hand and a brandy in the other. “I’m so frightfully sorry,” he said. “I can’t think how that happened.”

  “It’s just Georgie,” Belinda said, helping to put the blanket around my shoulders. “Things seem to happen to her. Accident-prone, you know.”

  “Then I’ll watch out for albatrosses on the voyage,” Eduardo said. “Come down to the cabin and I’ll find some dry clothes for you.”

  “So you have to almost drown a girl before you can lure her to your cabin these days, eh, Eduardo?” someone asked.

  Everyone was making light of the episode, the way people do after they have had a fright. Belinda went down below with me and helped me into Eduardo’s striped fisherman’s jersey and a pair of baggy trousers about five sizes too big for me.

  “Honestly, Georgie,” she said, laughing and looking worried at the same time, “who else but you could fall off a boat with her foot tangled in a rope?”

  “I can’t imagine how it happened,” I said. “The beastly thing was absolutely knotted fast around my ankle. I tried to get it off but I couldn’t.”

  “I’m going to watch over you like a hawk for the rest of the trip,” she said. “Now come back on deck and let’s see if we can dry out your clothes.”

  “They are your clothes and I’m afraid they are rather the worse for being in Thames water,” I said. “It tasted foul.”

  Darcy was waiting as I came out of the cabin. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said. “My God, you look like a drowned rat. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I took you home?”

  I had to admit that I wasn’t feeling too well. I must have swallowed gallons of Thames water and I was still shivering, probably with delayed shock.

  “If you really don’t mind,” I said. “It might be best. But I don’t want to spoil your afternoon.”

  “I am also, as you might notice, pretty darned wet,” he said, “and Eduardo didn’t offer to take me to his cabin and dry me off.”

  I laughed.

  “That’s better,” he said. “You looked as if you were about to pass out a minute ago. Come on, let’s see if Eduardo knows how to back this thing up.”

  A few minutes later we were moored, once again, at the jetty.

  “Watch out for ropes this time,” Belinda called after me. “See you tonight.”

  Darcy hailed a taxi.

  “Belgrave Square, isn’t it? What’s the number?” he asked.

  “I can’t go home,” I said dismally. “The police may still be there and anyway the house is surrounded by reporters and the morbidly curious.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  “I’ve been sleeping on Belinda’s sofa,” I said. “I do have a change of clothes there and I can wash out the clothes she lent me before they are stained forever with this Thames water.”

  “You want to go back to Belinda’s place?”

  “I can’t think where else to go right now,” I said, and my voice wobbled. “The problem is that it’s her maid’s day off and I only know how to cook baked beans and I was so looking forward to a lovely picnic.”

  “I tell you what,” Darcy said. “Why don’t we go back to my place? Don’t look like that. I promise to behave like a gentleman and there is good wine in the cellar and I know a great place to have a picnic. And I am about to catch pneumonia myself and you wouldn’t want that, would you, especially after I dived into that awful water to rescue you.”

  “How can I refuse,” I said. “And it does sound a lot better than baked beans.”

  The taxi now whisked us in the direction of Chelsea and stopped outside a pretty little blue and white shuttered house. “Here we are,” he said.

  Darcy opened the front door and ushered me through to a tiny living room. No heads or shields on the walls, no portraits of ancestors, just a couple of good modern paintings and comfortable sofas. This is how ordinary people live, I thought with a pang of envy, and I pictured myself living in a house l
ike this with Darcy, doing the cooking and cleaning myself, and . . .

  “Give me a second to go and change,” he said. “If you want to rinse out those wet clothes there’s a sink in the scullery.”

  Thanks to living alone at Rannoch House, I now knew where a scullery was to be found and went through a small, neat kitchen to the room beyond. Here I ran the sink full of water (hot water, oh, the bliss of it; I almost jumped in with the clothes) and plunged the clothes into it. When they came out, I did notice that the white skirt had now become light blue, but hoped it might go away when the garment dried. I opened the door to find a place to hang them and found myself beside the Thames. I was in a small, pretty garden with a tiny lawn and a tree that had just burst into leaf. Beyond was a jetty. I stood there entranced until I was found by Darcy.

  “Now you’ve seen how the plebs live,” he said. “Not bad, eh?”

  “It’s lovely,” I said, “but didn’t you say you were borrowing it?”

  “Absolutely. I can’t afford this kind of place. It belongs to a distant cousin of mine who chooses to spend his summers on the Med in his yacht. Fortunately I have cousins all over Europe, thanks to the Catholics’ view on birth control. Stay here and I’ll bring out the wine and whatever food I can rustle up.”

  Soon we were sitting on deck chairs in that little garden with cold white wine, ripe cheeses, crusty bread, and grapes. It was a warm evening and the setting sun glowed on the old brick of the walls. For a while I ate and drank in silence.

  “This is heaven,” I said. “Hooray for all your cousins.”

  “Speaking of cousins,” Darcy said, “I gather that poor old Hubert Anstruther is not expected to last much longer. In a coma, so they say.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Went climbing a couple of times with him in the Alps. Didn’t strike me as the kind of fellow that would let himself be swept away by an avalanche.”

  “Tristram is devastated,” I said. “Sir Hubert was his guardian, you know.”

  “Hmph,” was all he said to this.

  “And neither Sir Hubert nor Tristram is my relative,” I added. “My mother was married to Sir Hubert many husbands ago, which made Tristram and me almost related once, that’s all.”

  “I see.” There was a long pause while Darcy poured us another glass of wine. “So are you seeing much of that blighter Hautbois?”

  “Darcy, I do believe you’re jealous.”

  “Just keeping a protective eye on you, that’s all.”

  I decided to strike back. “So I gather you were at a party with Belinda last night.”

  “Belinda? Yes, she was at the party. What a grand girl she is—heaps of fun. Not an inhibition in sight.”

  “She told me you might be too wild for me.” I paused. “I wondered how she knew that.”

  “Did you, now? That would be telling.”

  He grinned at my obvious discomfort, then he leaned closer to me. “Are you going to let me kiss you tonight? Even though I’m wild?”

  “You did promise to behave like a gentleman, remember.”

  “So I did. Here, let me fill that wineglass for you.”

  “Are you attempting to get me drunk so that you can have your way with me?” I asked, my own inhibitions miraculously melting with the first glasses of wine.

  “I don’t believe in that approach myself. I like my women to be fully aware of what they are doing so that they get the maximum enjoyment from it.” His eyes, over his raised wineglass, were flirting with me. I was very conscious of those melting inhibitions.

  I made an attempt to stand up. “It’s getting rather cold out here, isn’t it? Don’t you think we should go inside?”

  “Good idea.” He picked up our glasses and the wine bottle, which was now miraculously empty, and went ahead of me into the house. I followed with the remains of the food. I was just setting it down in the kitchen when his arms came around my waist.

  “Darcy!”

  “I always think it’s better to take ’em by surprise,” he whispered, and started kissing the side of my neck in a way that made me go weak at the knees. I turned to face him and his lips moved to meet mine. I had been kissed plenty of times before, behind the potted palms at deb balls, in the backseats of taxies on the way home. There had even been a bit of groping thrown in, but nothing had made me feel like this. My arms came around his neck and I was kissing him back. Somehow my body seemed to know how to respond. I felt giddy with desire.

  “Ow,” I said as I was somehow backed into a cooker knob.

  “Kitchens are damned uncomfortable places, aren’t they?” He was laughing. “Come on, let’s go and take in the sunset from upstairs. It’s the most glorious view across the Thames.”

  He took my hand and started to lead me up the stairs. I floated behind him, half in a dream. The bedroom was bathed in a glorious rosy sunset and the waters of the Thames below sparkled like magic. Swans were swimming past, their white feathers tinged with pink.

  “This is heavenly,” I said again.

  “I promise you it will be even more heavenly,” he said and started kissing me again. Somehow we seemed to be sitting on the bed. But that was when the little alarm bells started going off in my head. I hardly knew him, after all. And it was just possible that he had spent last night with Belinda. Was that what I wanted for myself—a man who flitted from girl to girl, from one encounter to the next? And another thought alarmed me even more. Was I following in my mother’s footsteps? Would I be starting down that long road that she took, moving from one man to the next with no home, no stability?

  I sat up and took hold of Darcy’s hands. “No, Darcy. I’m not ready for this,” I said. “I’m not another Belinda.”

  “But I promise you’d like it,” he said. The way he was looking at me almost melted my resolve again. I rather thought I might like it myself.

  “I’m sure I would, but I’d regret it afterward. And with all that’s going on in my life right now, this would not be the right time. Besides, I want to wait for a man who really loves me.”

  “How do you know I don’t love you?”

  “Today, maybe, but can you guarantee tomorrow?”

  “Oh, come on, Georgie. Let go of that awful royal training. Life’s for having fun. And who knows how it might turn out.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should never have led you on. You did promise to behave like a gentleman.”

  “As for that”—he had a such wicked grin—“your relative King Edward was a perfect gentleman but by God he bedded half the females in his kingdom.”

  He took a look at my face and stood up with a sigh. “All right, then. Come on. I’ll call a cab to take you home.”

  Chapter 20

  Belinda Warburton-Stoke’s sofa yet again

  Monday, May 2, 1932

  When I arrived back at Belinda’s place that night, with more than a modicum of regret, I found a note from Binky, instructing me to meet him at our solicitors’ office at ten o’clock. This could prove to be awkward if it went on too long, as I had arranged to meet my grandfather at lunchtime. To be on the safe side, I went into Rannoch House early in the morning to pick up the maid’s uniform. This was a wise move as there was no sign of either police or journalists outside at that hour. The house felt very strange and horribly cold, although all traces of the body had been removed from the bath. But I found myself tiptoeing past the bathroom door under the watchful eye of that avenging statue.

  As I took the maid’s uniform out of my wardrobe, I heard something chink. I put my hand into the apron pocket and there was the figurine I had broken at the Featherstonehaughs’. So much had happened since, that I had completely forgotten about it. Oh, dear. Now I’d have to think of a way to have it mended and sneak it back. I just hoped they hadn’t noticed it was missing among all those swords and gods and whatnots. I shoved it into the top drawer of my dressing table and put the maid’s uniform into a carrier bag. I’d have to find a loo to change in somewhere al
ong the way.

  I was just leaving the house when the telephone rang.

  “Georgie?” a male voice asked.

  For a second I thought it was Binky, but before I could answer he went on to say, “It’s Tristram. Sorry to ring you at this hour. Did I wake you?”

  “Wake me? Tristram, I’ve been up for hours. Actually I’m staying with a friend and I just stopped at Rannoch House to pick up some things before I have to meet my brother at the solicitors’. You’ve heard the news presumably?”