Crowned and Dangerous

by Rhys Bowen

  The words were just coming out of his mouth, as if he couldn’t control them. I caught up with him and put a hand on his arm. “Darcy, calm down. I’ll come with you.”

  He shook his head violently. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t want you there.”

  I suppose he must have noticed the hurt look on my face. “You don’t understand,” he said hastily. “I was waiting for the right moment for you to meet my father and to tell him about us. This would be a disaster. He’d resent your being there, seeing him in a position of weakness, and he’d take an instant dislike to you. And I’m afraid he’s like my namesake, Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: his ‘good opinion once lost is lost forever.’ He is famous for harboring grudges.”

  “How did such a disagreeable person manage to produce such a wonderful son?” I said, gazing up at him with love in my eyes.

  “My mother, I suppose. She was a lovely person in all ways, inside and out. She made my father behave himself and she turned him into a better person when she was with him. And then she died. And he lost hope, I suppose, and reverted to his former crotchety self. I wish you could have met her, Georgie.”

  “I wish that too. But we have to accept things as they are, don’t we? My father died, as did your mother, and we’ve both been left to fend for ourselves. But the good thing is that we have each other. I’ll do what you want, Darcy. Whatever makes it easier for you. Why don’t we drive together to Holyhead and I’ll see you onto the ferry and then take the car back to London if that’s what you want.”

  He touched my cheek. “You’re a wonderful girl, Georgie. I’m so sorry it all went wrong and my lovely surprise didn’t work out and we never got to Gretna Green. But I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get married soon, when this horrid business is all sorted out. We’ll have a big fancy wedding. And we’ll invite your father.”

  He nodded. “Yes.” As if he was trying to believe it.

  “So we should get going. It’s a long drive to Holyhead.”

  “I don’t want to put you through all that, Georgie. The train is much simpler and probably much faster. There is bound to be snow on the moors between Yorkshire and Lancashire and the roads could be closed there too. No, we’ll drive together into York. I’ll take the train and you’ve got a straight shot into London down the Great North Road. Knowing you are home safely will give me one less thing to worry about.”

  “All right. If that’s what you want,” I said flatly.

  “I do. I really do.” He opened the driver’s door to the motorcar for me. “You drive. Get some practice while I’m with you.” I took my place behind the wheel and tentatively drove off. The roads were empty with only a dusting of snow. We drove in silence past snowy hedgerows and dry stone walls. Sheep huddled together in snowy fields. Smoke curled up from cottage chimneys. It would have been a charming scene straight from a Christmas card if I had been able to enjoy it. Instead my stomach was clenched into a tight knot. I tried to think positive thoughts, tried to come up with something encouraging to say to Darcy, but I couldn’t think of a single thing.

  He, on the other hand, was trying valiantly. “Do you know the Princess Zamanska?”

  I wondered if he had cracked up. “Zamanska? Never heard of her.”

  “Oh, I thought you might, seeing that you are practically neighbors. But now I come to think about it, your family wouldn’t move in the same circles. They wouldn’t approve of her lifestyle and she’d find them too staid and boring.”

  My nerves were at snapping point. “Why are we talking about some foreign princess?”

  “Because she’s the one who lent me the car. You’ll like her. She’s a funny old thing. Quite eccentric. Lives life on the edge. Motor racing, balloon riding, dog sledding . . . she’s done it all. Number sixteen Eaton Square.”

  “Is there a Prince Zamanska?”

  “Zamanski,” he corrected. “He’s male. Or rather was, until he was assassinated by angry peasants for riding his hunt over their cabbage fields. The princess had to flee for her life. Came here with little more than the clothes on her back.”

  “And enough money to live in Eaton Square and own an Armstrong Siddeley,” I pointed out.

  “Well, yes. She’s not exactly starving. The prince might have had failings in many ways but he was shrewd enough to keep all his money in a Swiss bank account. His widow lives quite well.”

  We were coming to the outskirts of York. And then, all too soon, we arrived outside the railway station. I don’t know whether it was fear or the big greasy breakfast I’d eaten, but I was now feeling positively sick. I had no idea how long it would be before I saw Darcy again. I had grown used to him flitting off to far-flung corners of the world, but this was different.

  “You’ll write to me or telephone me, won’t you?” I said in a small voice. “You will let me know how things are going, and if there is anything I can do.”

  “Of course I will. Will you be staying with your brother at Rannoch House?”

  “I suppose so. Now that the wedding is over I don’t expect they’ll want us to stay on indefinitely at the apartment in Kensington Palace, and Binky did say I was welcome to stay with them, whatever dear Fig thinks.”

  He took my hands in his, looking at me with concern and longing in his eyes. “Drive carefully.”

  “Of course I will.” I gave him a smile, hoping to look more confident than I felt.

  “And take care of yourself.”

  “You too.”

  We stood there looking at each other, with so many things hanging unsaid.

  Then he managed a smile. “I love you, Mrs. Chomondley-Fanshaw, spelled Featherstonehaugh.”

  “I love you too.”

  He gave me a chaste little kiss, then he turned and walked away, swallowed up into the noise and bustle of York Station.

  Chapter 4

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30

  Driving back to London alone. My poor Darcy on his way to Ireland. I just pray things turn out all right for all our sakes!

  My drive south went quite smoothly. The snow had vanished by the time I drove out of Yorkshire and a wintery sun shone, drying up wet roadway. The motorcar handled easily enough, but I found myself gripping the steering wheel tightly, all the tension in my body transferring itself into my fingers. There had been a horrible mistake, I told myself. Darcy would find out the truth quickly and his father would be released and thank Darcy for coming to his aid and all would be well. I said this out loud to myself over and over as if speaking the words would make them come true. I did not allow my thoughts to move into the realm of what if?

  Twilight was settling over the city by the time I drove into London. I don’t think I had ever had to drive through city traffic before. Maybe once into a town near Castle Rannoch but not even into Edinburgh, which was a good deal more staid than London. Lights flashed in my face, horns honked, double-decker buses pulled out in front of me. And I had little knowledge of the roads in this northern part of the city. So I followed the main stream of traffic and prayed. More by luck than anything else I found myself at Baker Street Station. This was now more familiar territory. It was quite dark by the time I reached Oxford Street, then down Park Lane to Knightsbridge. I finally turned into Kensington Gardens with the solid brick shape of the palace ahead of me.

  I opened the front door expecting to be greeted by warmth and a maid rushing to take my coat and bag. Instead I stood in a completely deserted hallway and felt a cold draft swirling around my legs. It was reminiscent of my first arrival at Kensington Palace, when it had been equally cold and unwelcoming. A strange feeling came over me, a sense of unreality, that perhaps the last weeks had never happened except in my dreams or imagination. Any minute now a ghostly white figure would waft past me down that hallway, just as it had when I first visited, and I would be back where I started. I stared at
the dark hallway and my heart jumped when I really did see a figure coming down the stairs toward me. But she was not white and ethereal. In fact she was all too solid and she didn’t float. She clomped.

  “You have returned?” the figure demanded as she came toward me. I sighed. Marina might have left but her cousin, the dreaded Countess Irmtraut von Dinkelfingen-Hackensack, was still in residence. The last person I wanted to see at this moment.

  She was regarding me with that critical, haughty stare. “They tell me you have already departed.”

  “I only went away for a little while. Not for good,” I said.

  She frowned. “What was not good about it? Was it for bad, then? Why would you go away for something bad?”

  The countess’s English was annoyingly literal.

  “No, I meant I only intended to be away for a couple of days, but unfortunately the road north was closed by a blizzard and I had to return.”

  “A blizzard? What is this?”

  “A snowstorm.”

  She made a disparaging hmmph noise. “I do not think in England you know what a blizzard is. In Russia we have blizzards. In Germany we have blizzards. Real blizzards. Powerful blizzards.”

  “It was enough of a blizzard to close a major road,” I said. I tried to think of a way to change the subject. “So how long will you be staying?”

  “I had intended to remain a few more days in England to visit places of culture before I departed for my parents’ Schloss outside Berlin. But now a military man comes and tells me the apartment is to be closed up and I must leave. He is even more unpleasant than the first military man. He talks as if he is giving orders to me. And I am a countess, related to royal families. This is not right, is it?”

  “Absolutely not,” I agreed. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. “So when do we have to move out?”

  “Tomorrow. He tells me he sends away the last of the servants and closes this apartment in the morning.”

  “Oh golly.” On the drive down, I had hoped for a few days to catch my breath before I had to face Fig. Surely Darcy would telephone me with news at the palace. If he rang my brother’s house then Fig was likely to instruct the butler to say that I was not there. She had done it before.

  “Have most of the servants left, then?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Most inconvenient. I had to ring for a maid to bring up more coal for my bedroom fire.”

  “And what about meals?” I had not stopped for food on the way down and was now feeling decidedly peckish.

  “I send my maid to collect a tray for me. But it is cold meat and pickles for my luncheon. This is a meal for peasants, not for aristocrats.” She turned to glare in the direction of the kitchen. “And do you know what they sent up for my breakfast? A kipper. Do you know this fish called a kipper? It is most disagreeable. Full of little bones. Where are the eggs and kidneys and bacon, I ask, but I am told this is what Cook prepared for me. I think they wish to drive me out by serving unpleasant food. It will be the frog in the cave for dinner, you see.”

  I had to smile. “You mean toad in the hole? I quite like that. It reminds me of nursery food.”

  “I find this place most disagreeable,” she said.

  “But Marina’s wedding was lovely, wasn’t it?” I looked back at the stairway, picturing her coming down the stairs with her sisters holding her train and fussing over her headdress. Was that only yesterday? It felt like a lifetime away.

  “Yes, it was a fine wedding,” Irmtraut agreed. “But I am not sure she will be happy with this bridegroom. This English prince, there are bad stories about him, I think.”

  “He has sown a few wild oats, I agree,” I said and instantly regretted it.

  “He has been a farmer? He worked in fields?”

  I tried not to laugh. “No, it’s an English expression. It means he has led a wild life in some ways.”

  “The English language is ridiculous,” she grunted. “I will never understand it.”

  “If you were here long enough you’d get the hang of it,” I replied, again not pausing to consider my use of words.

  “What would I wish to hang?” she asked. Then she sniffed. “Another stupid English expression, I suppose.”

  “I’m afraid so. But I think that Prince George seems genuinely fond of Marina and I hope he will try to make her happy.”

  Irmtraut sighed. “It is the duty of royal persons to accept their marriage, no matter how disagreeable. She will do her duty, I know.” She looked up at me sharply. “But you—you will not do your duty, I think. You will try to marry this man who is a Catholic and thus forbidden to you.”

  “I’m only thirty-fifth in line to the throne,” I said. “I hardly think it will matter to the crowned heads of Europe who I marry. But yes, I do plan to marry for love.”

  I don’t know where this conversation would have gone but a door opened behind us and a maid came into the hall. She stopped in surprise seeing me there.

  “Your ladyship.” She curtsied. “We didn’t expect you. We were told you had already departed and would send for your maid and your things.”

  “I had to return unexpectedly,” I said. “I have to deliver the motorcar back to its owner but then I would like something to eat. Can you tell Cook that I would like some dinner sent up to my room when I return, please. Something warm and nourishing. I have been traveling all day.”

  She squirmed in embarrassment. “I’m afraid it’s only leftovers, my lady. We were instructed to clean out the kitchen. They’re shutting up the whole apartment, you know. There was enough stew for the countess here, but . . .”

  I hesitated. I was tired. I was emotionally exhausted and I really didn’t want to go out looking for food. I knew that other apartments in the palace were occupied by my royal great-aunts; in fact the Prince of Wales referred to them as the “Aunt Heap.” They would undoubtedly be sitting down to good meals tonight. But I also knew that those royal ladies were hot on protocol and one did not visit uninvited.

  “I’m sure Cook will do her best and find something for me when I return,” I said. I was going to ask her to send for my maid to have my suitcase carried up to my room, but in the current circumstances it seemed easier to carry it myself. Heaven knew what Queenie had been up to while I had been away. Two days would have been long enough for a few disasters. I went up the two flights of stairs and opened the door to my room. I didn’t really expect to find Queenie there. But I did expect to find a fire burning in the grate. Instead my trunk was sitting on top of my bed, the curtains were closed and the room was freezing. Hardly a warm welcome home.

  I went over to the wall and tugged on the bellpull, feeling decidedly irritated now. It was the maid who had spoken to me in the front hall who appeared long before Queenie—naturally.

  “My lady?” she asked. Then she went on before I had a chance to say anything. “Oh dear. You’ll want your fire, of course. I’ll send someone up to lay it for you. And your bed needs to be made up again.” She gave me a bright smile. “Don’t worry. It will all be done by the time you come back.”

  I deposited my suitcase on the floor and turned to leave again. There was no point in lingering. It was too depressing for words. To have gone from the high excitement of a royal wedding followed by an elopement to Gretna Green to this cold and lonely room almost brought me to tears. Just as I opened my door I heard the sound of feet approaching. Not the gentle tap of feet but full-blown gallumphing. I think the pictures on the walls shook a little as Queenie appeared at the top of the stairs, panting as she attempted to run. She was a big girl and not what one would describe as light on her feet.

  “What the blooming heck are you doing back here?” she demanded. “That Mr. O’Mara told me you’d be gone and I should go back to your brother’s place to wait for you.”

  “I had to return unexpectedly,” I said.

  She put
her hands on her broad hips and sighed. “Now I suppose you’ll want your bags unpacked again?”

  “It is your job, Queenie,” I pointed out. “Where were you when I rang for you?”

  “Down in the kitchen having a late cup of tea,” she said, “and finishing the seedy cake.”

  “It’s a good thing we are leaving,” I commented. “Your uniform is about to burst at the seams.”

  “I needed to eat to keep up me strength,” she said defiantly. “All these ruddy stairs to go up and down. But what are you doing back here? I thought from what Mr. O’Mara said that you’d be in a nice hotel somewhere having a bit of the old how’s yer father.” And she accompanied these last words with a knowing wink.

  “Certainly not,” I replied haughtily, although I think I might have blushed. “Besides, what I do is none of your business, Queenie. I told you many times a good lady’s maid never questions her mistress or her mistress’s behavior.” I looked at her, standing there with her blouse buttons bursting, hair frizzing out from under her cap, traces of past meals streaked liberally down her front and her usual vacant and cowlike expression on her face, and I sighed. “I had hoped you might have learned a thing or two from the other maids here.”

  “I have,” she said, still defiant. “Didn’t you notice I said ‘bloomin’ heck’ instead of ‘bloody hell’? One of the other maids said that swearing wasn’t proper and she’d be fired if she ever said a swearword. So I thought I’d better watch me language a bit.”

  “Quite right,” I said. “You know I’ve been far too lenient with you. I let you take too many liberties, but I expect you to shape up from now on or I really won’t be able to keep you. I have to return the motorcar to its owner now but I expect my room to be warm and comfortable by the time I get back.”

  “Bob’s yer uncle, miss,” she said, never having learned after two years to address me by my proper title. Then she added, “So what happened, then? You and Mr. Darcy didn’t have a falling-out, did you? He didn’t jilt you, did he?”