Palace of Spies

by Sarah Zettel

  “Open, Olivia. You must. Please, please, please.” I gently prised her jaw apart. She tried to struggle. She choked and wheezed. Her breath smelt sweet and foul. Mrs. Abbott, grim and silent, poured the entire glass of greasy-looking brown liquid down Olivia’s throat, clamping her mouth and nose ruthlessly shut so she must swallow.

  I waited one heartbeat. Two. Three. A dozen. Olivia convulsed again. She gagged and shook. I rolled her onto her side, and Matthew took her shoulders to help hold her steady. Mrs. Abbott held the basin. Olivia vomited.

  When at last she finished, she went limp in my arms. “Olivia?” I whispered. She was cold. She was still. Her mouth was blue, and it should not have been. No living flesh ever wore that color. I squeezed her hand as tightly as I could. “Olivia!”

  Matthew had gone white. Mrs. Abbott left us, and I barely noticed. When she returned a moment later, she had a hand mirror with her. I was weeping continuously now as I lifted my cousin’s head so Mrs. Abbott could hold the glass in front of Olivia’s mouth.

  A heartbeat. Another. An eternity and an instant. Matthew’s strong, warm hand on my shoulder.

  A faint silver mist formed on the glass.

  She’s alive. The words thundered through me, but I could not speak. I slumped backwards and would have fallen against the headboard if Matthew had not been there to catch me.

  Mrs. Abbott drew the mirror away and then gently lifted one of Olivia’s lids to peer into her eye. She laid her hand against Olivia’s chest and then pressed her ear there.

  “Alive, yes, but weak. Her heart is not steady. You are sure it was belladonna that did this?” she demanded of Matthew.

  Matthew indicated the fallen glass, which, I now belatedly realized, the dogs were sniffing around. My God, what if one of them had drunk . . . ? Olivia might live, but if one of her dogs was harmed, she would certainly kill me.

  Mrs. Abbott retrieved the glass and, as Matthew had, she sniffed and she tasted. Her face went white as sheets and paper, and she strode to the table where the sherry decanter sat. For a moment I thought she was going to smash the crystal bottle, but she only unstoppered it and sniffed again.

  We saw by her expression that this was where the poison waited. Not that she turned toward us. She stayed there, facing the poisoned wine, her head bowed.

  “This is how it was done,” she whispered. “It was poison for my Francesca as well. And I did not see. I did not think. I was so sure it was fever. I . . .” She choked on the grief that swelled beneath her words.

  But then Olivia stirred. Her eyes flickered and opened. “P . . . Peg?” she breathed.

  It was a long time before I could stop crying.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  IN WHICH MYSTERIES AND DRAWINGS ARE EXAMINED, AND SOME ANSWERS ARE DISCERNED.

  I pray sincerely that I never know a night worse than that one. Olivia vomited three more times. Twice more she fell into a stupor, breath and pulse both faltering. Each time, I was certain she had died. I sat on the bed beside her and held her in my arms and babbled at her, begging that she live. I don’t know if I was begging Olivia or God, and I don’t suppose it mattered much.

  Matthew kept the fire blazing, even as night gave way to a clear dawn. He drew the window curtains shut against any possibility of draft.

  As dawn brightened into a hot morning, Mrs. Abbott worked. She all but forced me into the dressing room to get me out of my court clothes and into day things. She brought hot bricks wrapped in flannel to place at Olivia’s feet and sides, and clean water to moisten her mouth and wipe her face. She mopped up all trace of the spilled sherry and put down more clean water for the dogs.

  At eight o’clock, however, Mrs. Abbott left us. She had to return to Sophy Howe to avoid rousing her new mistress’s suspicions. She promised she would tell Sophy that Lady Francesca had indeed fallen ill again, and she would send one of the reliable palace maids up with brandy, bread, and broth.

  She stood by the door as she said all this. Her eyes were red with unspent tears, and her voice harsh as any crow’s from weariness and a fury I could finally begin to understand.

  “Thank you,” I said to her. It was all I had to offer. “You saved her life. Thank you.”

  Mrs. Abbott’s eyes glittered, and for all my new understanding, I could read nothing in her hard face. She turned and softly closed the door behind her as she left.

  I tried to send Matthew away as well, but he would not go. “You’ll lose your position,” I warned him.

  He shrugged. “It’s lost. I’ve been seen with you under dubious circumstances, and I’ve stayed out all night. Mr. Thornhill will not tolerate such behavior.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered miserably.

  But Matthew took my hand. “I’m not.”

  The morning wore itself away into afternoon. Mrs. Abbott did send up the victuals she promised. I fed Olivia broth and brandy. Matthew and I and the dogs shared out the bread and some biscuits. Sometimes Olivia lapsed into sleep. Other times she woke, her eyes dull, but focused.

  At those times I talked, telling Olivia and Matthew the whole of my story, from my first meeting with the firm of Tinderflint, Peele, and Abbott, to my training to impersonate Lady Francesca, to finding the drawings that my predecessor had hidden. I told them how Mrs. Abbott deserted me to take service with Sophy Howe and why she’d done it. I talked about Mr. Peele stealing two of the three sketches and ordering me to turn thief and to get myself out of the palace without delay. Finally, I told them both about Robert, and the Jacobites, and the papers he had left in my keeping.

  “Are they still here? Those papers?” asked Matthew.

  I felt my blood drain from my cheeks. Matthew went to my writing table and, after a moment’s search, found the packet with its blue ribbons. It seemed a very small thing just then, but it was a sign of hope. Perhaps.

  “What about this sketch? May I see it?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I could not do this now. Not with Olivia still hovering so close to the abyss. But something was touching my hand. I opened my eyes to see Olivia looking at me from under her heavy lids. Her one finger tapped at my hand restlessly. No, impatiently. When she saw she had my attention, she croaked a few syllables and jerked that finger toward Matthew. And then fell back against the pillows, her breath ragged from the effort.

  It was so like her, I thought with awe and exasperation. She might be near dead, but Olivia still had not lost her sense of drama. She wanted to hear the end of the story.

  I left her side and unearthed the last sketch from my workbasket, where I’d stowed it. Matthew cleared the round table beside the bed and brought over a candle for extra light. We needed it. The sketch had become well smeared from all the folding and unfolding and being carried about in my sleeve. Matthew bent close and squinted at the lines. Then he lifted it, holding the paper in one hand and a candle in the other, examining the drawing in silence, his ruddy cheeks slowly growing pale.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked.

  “It’s a parody of the ceiling in the princess’s new apartment,” I said. “But I can’t understand why the couple there on the rocks is dead.”

  “Look at them again.” He passed me the paper and then went and pulled back the curtains so the bright daylight flooded the chamber. “Look closely.”

  I did look. Perhaps I could have seen, had not so much of my attention kept darting back to Olivia to reassure itself she was still breathing.

  “That’s His Majesty King George there, dead on the ground,” said Matthew quietly. He was right. I’d passed the king’s portrait a thousand times in the dim gallery, but had only seen him in person the day he left, and then only his shoes. “This one, mounting the chariot instead of Apollo? That’s James the Pretender. I’ve seen his portrait elsewhere,” he added quickly, but I heard afresh the north country burr in his voice and wondered at that. “He’s here again, in the medallion where His Royal Highness’s portrait is on the original. I can’t tell who the wo
man standing in for the princess in the other medallion is . . .”

  I peered closely. I’d stared at this sketch more times than I could count, but I’d been in the twilight of my room, either in the mornings before anyone was about, or late at night when I couldn’t sleep. Flickering firelight and classical dress in the sketch, and paint and powdered wigs on the originals had obscured the details that broad daylight and Matthew’s artist’s eye revealed. “God in Heaven. That’s her. That’s Francesca.” Francesca had filled in her own face in the place where the Princess of Wales belonged.

  “No.” Matthew leaned in until his nose almost touched the sketch. “Yes. You’re right. And Leucothoe here? That’s Sophy Howe.”

  I stared at the figure who was trying to bar the Apollo figure from his conveyance. “And the charioteer . . .” recognition came over me slowly. “That’s Robert Ballantyne, and Sophy Howe is holding James the Pretender back from climbing into the chariot. Robert Ballantyne is the Pretender’s charioteer, and all of it, over His Majesty’s dead body.” Everyone said Francesca was so sweet, but no sweet girl put herself in the place of a princess, beside a man who meant to retake the throne his father had lost. I thought on another sketch, the portrait Matthew had drawn, and of the greed he’d captured in Francesca’s face. “What was she playing at?”

  “What about the other two drawings?” asked Matthew. “The ones that this Peele took. Describe them to me.”

  I did. I told him about the death of Queen Anne with its addition of the monkey, and the man with the paper beside the secret panel in the fireplace. I could not help but remember that Robert had pulled the papers he had left with me from another such panel. I also told Matthew about the floor plan for the great house.

  “Queen Anne died in Kensington Palace,” said Matthew slowly. “Could this floor plan have been for Kensington?”

  “It could have.” In fact, it was a wonder I had not considered this before. I told myself I had other demands on my attention, but this did not make me feel any less a fool. I took up Olivia’s hand again. Did it feel warmer, or was that just hopeful imagination? Olivia’s eyes flickered again and opened a hair’s breadth. She was watching me, us. She listened closely, although she could not speak. My heart swelled.

  “So, when Queen Anne died, a monkey and a man hid something in her bedchamber,” said Matthew slowly. “But what? And why would it be worth murder?”

  Matthew shook his head and frowned at the picture of the ceiling, tracing its lines with one finger. I gripped Olivia’s hand and listened to her breathe. I tried to think. If this were a game, if this were the two of us in the breakfast parlor laughing over an advertisement or cartoon, Olivia would already have the whole storyline laid out. She’d have it all making perfect sense from beginning to end.

  How would Olivia think about this?

  “There are two houses,” I said slowly to her. Olivia’s mouth opened, and closed. She gave a little jerk of her chin. Go on, she was telling me. Go on. “There are two houses. The town house, and the palace. Suppose one intrigue for each house. In the town house, there are the plans of this trio of Lady Fran’s. In the palace, there are the plans of the spies. What bridges them? Lady Francesca.” I answered my own question. “Lady Francesca is raised in the Jacobite palace of Saint-Germaine, surrounded by plots and counterplots.” I eyed the door uncertainly. I wondered what Mrs. Abbott was doing at this moment. I didn’t dare think what Sophy Howe was doing.

  Matthew noticed my distraction and took up the narrative thread for me. “So, she is a courtier as a girl, with no idea her kind guardian is a spy, or that he is setting her up as a pawn in his game when he plucks her from the Jacobite court to send her to the Hanoverians. There, romantic that she is, she fails to fall in love with any of the wealthy and titled gentlemen who would make her fortune. Instead, she loses her heart to the poor footman who dreams of bringing his king home from across the water. Perhaps he even found out she had been at Saint-Germaine and sought her out—”

  “But how would he have done that?” I asked. My head was aching. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong this whole time. Olivia parted her lips again. How could I even be thinking about this? I reached for the damp cloth and patted her lips. But I had to think. It was only at the end of this labyrinth that I’d discover who had meant to poison me and found Olivia instead. “No one knew Francesca had lived at Saint-Germaine. She was supposed to be from Dover. That’s what Mr. Tinderflint told everyone.”

  “Robert Ballantyne’s a spy.” Matthew waved my words away. “Spies find out things. It’s their primary occupation. This Robert, a dedicated Jacobite, finds out about Francesca’s other life as an exile in the court of the Pretender and goes to her. They talk. Both are lonely and are filled with the fervor of the cause. Their love burns bright, and he tells her his plans—”

  “Except he didn’t,” I reminded him. “He’s been keeping things from her, for her own safety.”

  Matthew evidently could not think of any answer to this and lapsed into silence. I sat holding Olivia’s hand and wishing in vain for the other two drawings—the death of Queen Anne, and the floor plan of the unknown house. What did those mean, and what were we missing now? I stared at the drawing in front of us. I thought about Lady Fran—described by her lover and her sister maid as so sweet and selfless—making so many sacrifices for love of her footman and his cause. I touched the self-portrait Francesca had put in place of Her Royal Highness’s visage. I thought about how this sweet girl always knew what to say, and how her troubles folded together so tidily, like a well-made fan.

  Then I thought how there was one person in this mystery who had never called her sweet, let alone simple. That was Mr. Peele, the cheat and blackmailer. The man who had come into this room and had thought to search the workbasket. Which was one of the places Francesca had in fact hidden her sketches. I’d gotten the idea from her, because that sweet girl was also very good at hiding things.

  These thoughts slid across the floor of my mind, and it was as if a prop had been kicked away. The whole unruly pile of bricks that were the events of my life and Lady Francesca’s toppled. But instead of falling into a heap, they landed in the tidiest pyramid imaginable.

  “We’ve been wrong,” I said softly. I lifted my eyes to the twin expressions of confusion that had fallen across Matthew and Olivia’s faces. “Sweet, good Lady Francesca. She fooled us all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  WHAT DID HAPPEN?

  This is what happened:

  Francesca Wallingham grew up in the court of Saint-Germaine, the bastard daughter of an upper servant and some French noble or other. She was quick, and she was clever, and she knew to a nicety who held the reins of power in that palace of exiles. She watched the men come and go, knew all the hiding places and overheard all the whispers. She learned how to laugh and flatter and use her big, dark eyes to best effect. She learned how to appear innocent and sweet. So sweet, in fact, that the conspirators would be convinced she was stupid beyond belief, and either ignore her or try to make use of her.

  She watched her mother earn money by passing messages. Maybe she even learned the trade, whether her mother knew she did or not. By the time Mr. Tinderflint came along in his guise as Mr. Taggert, she was very good at this, too. She was greedy and jealous of the ones who would always have more than she. In front of her mother, she sighed and lamented about England, about how well they both would do there. Her mother made a bargain with Mr. Tinderflint, and the two of them escaped across the channel.

  Mr. Tinderflint housed them. He coached Francesca as he had coached me, grooming her patiently for her role. He wrote letters as necessary, and when George of Hanover became King George of Great Britain, he had his sweet protégée installed in the palace, intending to use her as a source of news and gossip, just as he had used my mother.

  But Mr. Tinderflint had no idea how adept Francesca was at overhearing things, nor how well she was able to keep what she heard to herself
. Being from Saint-Germaine, she knew the codes men spoke in and the secret names the Jacobites used to refer to their leaders and their king. She discovered the would-be traitors among the courtiers and the servants. She found the one who could not resist her, and she used him. Oh, poor Robert, how she used him. She made herself into his dream of a girl, a beauteous maiden with a pure soul and lofty spirit. She found out what he guarded. She made her own coded copy of the pertinent information so she could find it herself when she was ready. She paid off Sophy Howe—not to protect Robert, but to protect herself until she had all her plans in place. Then she left the court, feigning nervous exhaustion. Her intent was always to recover this treasure of Robert’s to take it back to Saint-Germaine herself and present it to the Pretender.

  That was why none of what I’d unearthed made sense before. That was why the three people I’d been calling “the firm” seemed to have such separate and conflicting motivations. The conspiracy did not belong to Tinderflint, Peele, and Abbott. It belonged wholly and solely to sunny, sweet, pretty, false Lady Francesca. In the end, though, it was not the swiftness with which the uprising was put down that ruined her schemes. It was death.

  This was what I explained in a great rush to Matthew. I was so lost in the story, I did not notice for a long time that he had ceased to look at me. He gazed over my shoulder. My back was to the door. When I turned, I saw Mrs. Abbott there.

  “Go on,” she said as she walked farther into the room. She deftly flipped the counterpane up from the end of the bed and felt the cloth-wrapped bricks at Olivia’s feet. “Go on.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Abbott,” I whispered.

  She smoothed the coverings back in place. Olivia’s eyes had fallen closed. She still wore a sickly, waxen pallor, but the blue tinge was gone from her lips, and her breathing was much easier. Mrs. Abbott watched her for a long time.