Royal Blood

by Rhys Bowen

  This is bliss, I said to myself. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

  I was off on that pink cloud, flying over fields with Darcy beside me until I realized that his lips were no longer on mine and I was feeling cold again. I opened my eyes. Darcy was sitting up on the side of the bed, putting on his shoes.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked blearily. “Don’t you want me anymore, Darcy? You’ve been trying to get me into bed since we met and now here we are in a big empty house and you’re going?”

  “You fell asleep,” he said. “And you’re plastered.”

  “I confess to being just teeny bit tipsy, but wasn’t that what you were planning?”

  “That was my idea when I came up with the oysters and the champagne, but I find I’ve got a moral streak I didn’t know I had, when it comes to you.” He laughed almost bitterly. “When I make love to you for the first time, my sweet Georgie, I want you to be awake and fully aware of what you’re doing. I don’t want you to fall asleep in the middle of things, and I don’t want you to think that I took advantage of you.”

  “I wouldn’t think that,” I said. I sat up. “Why is everything going round and round suddenly?”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let me get you into bed. Alone, I mean. I’ll stop by in the morning. You’ll probably have a devil of a headache.”

  He helped me out of my slip. “My, but you’ve got a lovely body,” he said. “I must want my head examined.”

  Suddenly he froze. “What was that?”

  “What?”

  “It sounded like the front door shutting. Nobody else is here at the moment, are they?”

  “No, I’m all alone.” I sat up, listening. I thought I could make out the sound of footsteps and voices down below.

  “I’m going to see what’s going on,” Darcy said. He went out onto the landing, while I reached for my dressing gown on the hook behind the door. It wasn’t easy to stand up at this stage and I had to hold on to the door to steady myself. Then I heard the words that sobered me up instantly.

  “Binky, Fig, you’re back.”

  Chapter 4

  Rannoch House

  November 9 and 10

  I staggered out onto the landing, conscious that the floor kept rising up to meet me and that the stairs were floating out into infinity. I clutched the banister as I made my way down the first flight. In the hallway at the bottom of the second flight, standing on the checkered black-and-white marble, were two blobs in fur coats with pink things on top. Gradually they swam into focus as two horrified faces with mouths open.

  “Good God, O’Mara, what are you doing here?” Binky demanded.

  “I should think that even for someone with your limited imagination it’s pretty clear what he was doing here,” Fig said in an outraged voice as she stared up at me. “How dare you, Georgiana. You have betrayed our trust. We graciously offer the use of our house and you turn it into a den of—den of—what’s it a den of, Binky?”

  “Lions?” Binky said.

  Fig sighed and rolled her eyes. “Utterly hopeless,” she muttered.

  “Iniquity?” Darcy suggested. He seemed to be the only person not in the least put out by this. I was still making my way unsteadily down the stairs and didn’t trust myself to let go of the banister. I didn’t trust my voice, either.

  “Precisely,” Fig snapped. “A den of iniquity, Georgiana. Thank heavens we didn’t bring little Podge with us to witness this. It might have scarred him for life.”

  “To know that normal people might want to have sex occasionally?” Darcy asked.

  Fig put her hand to her throat at the mention of the word “sex.” “Say, something, Binky,” Fig said, pushing him forward. “Speak to your sister.”

  “What-ho, Georgie,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

  “No, you idiot, I meant speak to her.” Fig was almost dancing around in anger by now. “Tell her that her behavior is simply not on. It’s not the way a Rannoch behaves. She’s turning into her mother, after all we’ve done for her and all that money we’ve spent on her education.”

  “Now look here,” Darcy said, but she leaped at him.

  “You look here, Mr. O’Mara.” Fig took a menacing step toward him, but Darcy stood his ground bravely. “I suppose you’re to blame for this. Georgie has had a sheltered upbringing. She is inexperienced in the ways of the world and certainly lacking in judgment to allow you into the house when she is all alone. I think you had better leave us before I say any more, although I fear the damage is already done. Prince Siegfried would certainly not want her now.”

  For some reason I found this very funny. I sank onto the stair and started giggling uncontrollably.

  “Don’t worry, I’m going,” Darcy said. “But I’d like to remind you that Georgie is over twenty-one and it’s up to her what she does.”

  “Not in our house,” Fig said.

  “It’s the home of the Rannochs, isn’t it? And she’s been a Rannoch a bally sight longer than you have.”

  “But it now belongs to the current duke and that is my husband,” Fig said in her most frosty “I’m a duchess and you’re not” voice. “Georgiana is living here on our grace and favor.”

  “With no heat and no servants. I don’t consider that much of a favor, Your Grace,” Darcy said. “Especially when your dear husband, the duke, might have been lying six feet under by now in the family plot, and your little son beside him, had it not been for Georgie. It seems to me you owe her more than a little thanks.”

  “Well, of course we’re grateful for everything,” Binky said. “Most grateful.”

  “Of course we are. It’s her morals we’re concerned about,” Fig added quickly, “and the reputation of Rannoch House. Strange men going in and out at all hours will be noticed in Belgrave Square.”

  The choice of words made me start giggling again. Fig looked up the stairs and focused on me. I had just realized that my robe was not quite tied and I had nothing on underneath it. I tried to pull it around me to save what was left of my dignity.

  “Georgiana, are you drunk?” Fig demanded.

  “Just a little,” I confessed and clamped my lips together so that I didn’t giggle again.

  “The champagne went to her head, I’m afraid,” Darcy said, “which is why I brought her home and I thought it wise to put her to bed in case she fell and hurt herself, since she has no maid to help her. So if you want to know the sordid details of what happened, I put her to bed, she promptly fell asleep and I was just leaving.”

  “Oh,” Fig said, the wind taken out of her sails. “I wish I could believe you, Mr. O’Mara.”

  “Believe what you like,” Darcy said. He looked up at me. “So I bid you good night, Georgie,” he said and blew me a kiss up the stairs. “See you soon. Take care and don’t let her boss you around. Remember you have royal blood. She doesn’t.”

  He gave me a wink, patted Binky on the shoulder and let himself out.

  “Well, really,” Fig said, breaking a long silence.

  “It’s bally cold in here,” Binky said. “I don’t suppose there’s a fire ready for us in our bedroom, is there?”

  “No, there isn’t.” I had rallied enough from my drunken stupor to be coherent, and more than a little angry. “You said you were planning to come in the next week or so, not the next day or so. And why is it that you are traveling without servants?”

  “We’re just on a flying visit this time, because Binky has secured an appointment with a Harley Street specialist for his ankle,” Fig said, “and I also wish to consult with a London doctor, so we thought we could save the expense of bringing servants, since Binky told me what a whiz you had turned out to be around the house. Obviously he was exaggerating as usual.”

  I stood up, still a little uncertainly. My bare feet were freezing on the stairs. “I don’t think that my father would expect me to act as a chambermaid in the family home,” I said. “I’m going back to bed.”

  With that I turned and made
my way back up the stairs. It would have been a grand exit had I not tripped over my dressing gown cord and gone sprawling across the first landing, revealing, I rather suspect, a hint of bare bottom to the world.

  “Whoops,” I said. I righted myself and hauled myself up the second flight. Then I climbed into bed and curled into a tight little ball. I had no hot water bottles to place around me but I wasn’t going downstairs again for anything. And it did give me a certain sense of satisfaction knowing that Fig was about to climb into an equally icy bed.

  I opened my eyes to cold gray light, then promptly closed them again. Darcy was right. I did have a hangover. My head was throbbing like billy-o. I wondered what time it was. Half past ten, according to the little alarm clock on my chest of drawers. Then the full details of the previous night came back to me. Oh, Lord, that meant that Binky and Fig were in the house and by now they would have discovered that I had nothing to eat in the kitchen. I scrambled into a jumper and skirt and made my way downstairs, almost as shakily as the night before.

  I was about to push open the baize door that led down to the kitchen and servants’ quarters when I heard voices coming from my right. Binky and Fig were apparently in the morning room.

  “It’s all right for you,” I heard Fig’s voice with teeth chattering just a little. “You can go to your club where you’ll be comfortable enough, but what about me? I can’t stay here.”

  “It’s only for two more nights, old thing,” Binky said. “And it is important that you see that doctor, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, but being as cold as this isn’t doing me any good. We’ll just have to check into a hotel and never mind the expense. Surely we can still afford Claridge’s for a couple of nights.”

  “You’ll feel better after a spot of breakfast,” Binky said. “It’s about time Georgie woke up, isn’t it?”

  At that point I poked my head around the door. Both Binky and Fig looked haggard and grumpy, sitting wrapped in their fur coats. They also looked rather unkempt without a maid and a valet to dress them.

  The atmosphere as Fig spotted me was frigid in more ways than one, but Binky managed a smile. “Ah, you’re up at last, Georgie. I say, it’s bally freezing in here, isn’t it? I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a fire?”

  “Later, maybe,” I said. “It takes a lot of work to light a fire, you know. A lot of scrabbling in the coal hole. Perhaps you’d care to help me.”

  Fig shuddered as if I’d said a rude word, but Binky went on, “Then maybe you’d be good enough to cook us a spot of breakfast. That will warm us up nicely, won’t it, Fig?”

  “I was just about to make some tea and toast,” I said.

  “How about a couple of eggs?” Binky asked hopefully.

  “No eggs, I’m afraid.”

  “Bacon? Sausage? Kidneys?”

  “Toast,” I said. “One cannot buy food without money, Binky.”

  “But, I mean to say . . . ,” he sputtered. “Dash it all, Georgie, you haven’t actually been reduced to living on tea and toast, have you?”

  “Where do you think the money might have come from, dear brother? I have no job. I have no inheritance. I have no family support. When Fig says she has no money, she means she can no longer afford Fortnum’s jam. I mean I can’t afford any jam. That’s the difference.”

  “Well, I’m blowed,” Binky said. “Then why the deuce don’t you come back and live at Castle Rannoch? At least we have enough to eat up there, don’t we, Fig?”

  “Your wife made it quite clear that I was one mouth too many,” I said. “Besides, I don’t want to be a burden. I want to make my own way in the world. I want a life of my own. It’s just that it’s so horribly hard at the moment.”

  “You should have married Prince Siegfried,” Fig said. “That’s what girls of your station are supposed to do. That is what your royal relatives wanted you to do. Most girls would have given their right arm to become a princess.”

  “Prince Siegfried is a loathsome toad,” I said. “I intend to marry for love.”

  “Ridiculous notion,” Fig snapped. “And if you’re thinking of your Mr. O’Mara, then you can think again.” Fig was now warming to her subject. “I happen to know that he doesn’t have a penny. The family is destitute. Why, they’ve even had to sell the family seat. There’s no way he’s ever going to be able to support a wife—if he ever intends to settle down, that is. So you’re wasting your time in that direction.” When I didn’t answer her she went on, “It’s all about duty, Georgiana. One knows one’s duty and one does it, isn’t that right, Binky?”

  “Quite right, old thing,” Binky said distractedly.

  Fig gave him such a frosty stare that it’s a wonder he didn’t turn into an instant icicle. “Although some of us are lucky enough to find love and happiness once we are married, isn’t that so, Binky?”

  Binky was staring out of the window at the fog creeping in again across Belgrave Square. “How about that cup of tea, Georgie?”

  “You’d better come down to the kitchen to drink it,” I said. “It’s warmer down there.”

  They followed me like children behind the Pied Piper. I lit the gas stove and put the kettle on while they watched me as if I were a conjurer doing a spectacular magic trick. Then I put the last of the bread onto the grill to make toast. Binky watched me and sighed. “For God’s sake, Fig, call Fortnum’s and ask them to deliver a hamper. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

  “If you give me some money, I’ll be happy to stock up the kitchen again for you—and more economically than a hamper from Fortnum’s.”

  “Could you, Georgie? You’re a lifesaver. An absolute bally lifesaver.”

  Fig glared. “I thought we agreed on a hotel, Binky.”

  “We’ll dine out, my dear. How about that? I know that Georgie knows how to cook a splendid breakfast if we provide her with the ingredients to do so. The girl’s a bally genius.”

  They sipped tea and ate toast in silence. I tried to get down my own tea and toast although every crunch of toast sounded like cymbals going off in my head. I was just wondering when Belinda might be home and how much better it would be to sleep on her uncomfortable modern sofa when the doorbell rang.

  “Who can that be at this hour?” Fig said, staring at me as if she thought it was my next lover come to call. “Georgiana had better go. It wouldn’t be seemly for you or I to be seen answering our own front door. Word does get around so quickly.”

  I went, as curious as she was to know who was at the door. I was half hoping it would be Darcy, coming to rescue me, although I suspected he wasn’t the sort to be up and around before noon. Instead, the first thing I noticed was a Daimler motorcar parked outside and a young man in chauffeur’s uniform standing outside the door.

  “I have come for Lady Georgiana,” he said, not guessing for a moment that I was anything other than a servant. “From the palace.”

  That’s when I noticed the royal standard the Daimler was flying. Oh, golly. Thursday. Luncheon with the queen. With my brain pickled with alcohol I had completely forgotten.

  “I’ll inform her,” I muttered. I closed the front door and was about to rush up the stairs in flat panic when Fig’s head emerged from the top of the kitchen stairs.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  “The queen’s chauffeur,” I said. “I’m supposed to go to the palace for luncheon today.” I implied that luncheon with Her Majesty was a normal occurrence for me. It always annoyed the heck out of Fig that I was related to the royals and she was only a by-marriage. “I’d better go up and change, I suppose. I shouldn’t keep her chauffeur waiting.”

  “Luncheon at the palace?” she demanded, scowling at me. “No wonder you don’t bother to keep any food in the house if you are always dining in high places. Did you hear that, Binky?” Fig called down the stairs. “The queen has sent a car for her. She’s going to lunch at the palace. She’s going to get a decent lunch. You’re the duke. Why aren’t we invited?”


  “Probably because the queen wants to talk to Georgiana,” Binky said, “and besides, how would she know we are here?”

  Fig was still glaring as if I’d arranged this little tête-à-tête just to spite her. I must say it gave me enormous pleasure.

  Chapter 5

  Buckingham Palace

  Thursday, November 10

  In spite of a head that felt as if it were splitting down the middle and eyes that didn’t want to focus, I managed to bathe and make myself look respectable in fifteen minutes flat. Then I was sitting in the backseat of the royal Daimler being whisked toward the palace. It wasn’t really a great distance from Belgrave Square down Constitution Hill and I had walked it on previous occasions. However, today I was most grateful for the car because the fog had turned again to a nasty November rain. One does not meet the queen looking like a drowned rat.

  As I looked out through rain-streaked windows at the bleak world beyond I had time to wonder about the implications of this summons and I began to worry. The queen of England was a busy woman. She was always out opening hospitals, touring schools and entertaining visiting ambassadors. So if she made time to bring a young cousin to lunch, it had to be something important.

  I don’t know why I always expect a visit to Buckingham Palace to signal doom. Because it so often did, I suppose. I remembered the visiting princess foisted on me by my royal kin. I remembered the instruction to spy on the Prince of Wales’s unsuitable woman, Mrs. Simpson. My heart was beating rather fast by the time the car drove between the wrought-iron gates of the palace, received a salute from the guards on duty and crossed the parade ground, under the arch to the inner courtyard.

  A footman leaped out to open the car door for me.

  “Good morning, my lady. This way, please,” he said and led the way up the steps at a good pace. I followed, being extra careful as my legs have been known to disobey me in moments of extreme stress.