Royal Flush

by Rhys Bowen

  “Lady Georgiana, why don’t you ask your cook if she could pack a picnic for us,” the countess suggested.

  “And should we take our bathing things?” Babe asked.

  “The loch is freezing and there is the monster,” I said, giving her an encouraging smile.

  “Does this monster actually appear in broad daylight?” Fritzi, the countess’s wayward son, asked. “I mean, is it an established phenomenon? Have they been sacrificing virgins to it for generations?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said.

  “Lucky it wasn’t in Baltimore,” Wallis Simpson muttered. “They’d have run out of virgins too quickly.”

  Again the group tittered.

  “In which case I’ll bring my gun along,” Earl said. “I’ve always wanted to bag a monster. It will look great stuffed on the wall beside that marlin.”

  I left them making noisy preparations and bumped into Fig. She was pleased to hear about the picnic and the prospect of a day free from Americans. “And sandwiches cost so much less than a proper lunch,” she said. “Maybe Mrs. McPherson can make pasties. She’s such a dab hand with pastry, isn’t she?”

  “And I notice the hot water boiler has already been turned down,” I added in a low voice. “It was commented on. Babe had to finish showering in cold water.”

  She gave me a conspiratorial smile. “And I’m just about to go and see Fergus about playing the pipes in the morning. He’ll love it that we’ve reintroduced that old custom. And I must remember to suggest the haggis for dinner tonight. I wonder if Cook will have time to make it. What goes into it exactly?”

  “It’s a sheep’s stomach with the rest of the intestines minced up with oatmeal and sewn into it.”

  “Is it? How disgusting. I know it’s always served on Burns Night and New Year’s Eve but I only eat the required mouthful myself. I don’t suppose Cook has the odd sheep’s stomach on hand.”

  “And it has to boil for hours,” I pointed out.

  Fig made a face again. “Well, let’s hope she can procure one by tomorrow. The mere description ought to drive them away.” She went to walk away then looked back at me. “This has to work, doesn’t it, Georgiana?”

  “One hopes so,” I said.

  Chapter 13

  Castle Rannoch and a lochside jetty

  August 18

  Calm and pleasant weather to begin with . . .

  I weighed up whether to join the picnic party. Frankly a day in the company of Earl and Babe was not exactly enticing, but it would give me an excuse to find Constable Herries and have a little chat with him about Binky’s accident. Before we left I had a couple of tasks to complete. One was the letter to my grandfather and the other was a visit to Podge. I found him playing in my old nursery, surrounded by toy soldiers and a fort, while his nanny sat mending an item of clothing.

  He jumped up when he saw me, scattering soldiers underfoot. “Aunt Georgie!” he cried and flung himself into my arms. “Look at my toy soldiers. They used to belong to Papa. And the fort. He’s letting me use them because I’m old enough now. Come and play with me.”

  We played a pleasant game while I tried to think what I could say to warn his nanny without being too dramatic. I did point out to her that there might be more illegal traps on the estate, so that Podge should never be allowed to stray far from the house and that she should keep a good eye on him at all times.

  “I always do, my lady,” she said in a shocked voice. “He’s not allowed to run wild, you know. If he goes out, he goes out in his pram.”

  Podge looked wistfully toward me as I left. I remembered how lonely nursery life had been and how I’d longed for a little sister or brother. Of course I hadn’t realized in those days that my mother was just not the breeding kind, and besides, by the time I was old enough to think about a brother or sister, she had already bolted to another man. I went up and dressed for the picnic.

  After much preparation and many last-minute forays for forgotten items, we loaded into the shooting brakes and headed for the lochside. The two princes had decided to go off climbing together. There was still no sign of the wild cousins, so it was just Hugo and I with the remaining Americans. Countess Von Sauer and her son went in the first car with Earl, so I found myself stuck with Hugo and Babe.

  “Well, this is cozy, isn’t it?” Hugo said, pressing his knee rather too closely against mine and slipping an arm around my shoulder as the car drove away. I gave him a frosty stare and was glad that the ride would be a short one. It was easy to locate where the action was on the loch as the speedboat had attracted quite a crowd of local spectators. As we pulled up at the jetty and got out, we could see the long, thin boat, painted bright blue, being towed back to shore by a rather more sturdy vessel, full of people.

  “What happened?” Hugo shouted, going onto the dock to meet the approaching vessel.

  “Damn thing became airborne at one twenty,” someone shouted back. “He was lucky it didn’t flip over.”

  “What the hell are you doing back here?” someone shouted from the boat. “I thought you’d gone.”

  “Couldn’t keep away, old chap,” Hugo shouted back. “Missed your delightful wit.”

  The boat docked and the party came ashore. Suddenly there was an excited squeal and someone was running down the dock toward me.

  “Georgie, it is you!” she exclaimed, arms open. It was Belinda.

  “Good heavens, what are you doing here?” I asked in amazement.

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” she said, enveloping me in a cloud of Chanel perfume as she hugged me. I hadn’t recognized her earlier as she was wearing a most un-Belinda-like outfit of beige twill trousers and open-necked shirt with a brown pullover, but her face was still perfectly made up.

  “I arrived last night,” I said. “I came to help Fig.” This had now become the obvious excuse.

  “Darling, I never thought I’d hear you say those particular words,” she said. “I thought you loathed Fig.”

  “I do, but she’s in a bit of a pickle at the moment. Binky’s laid up and the house is full of Americans, including the dreaded You-Know-Who.”

  “Is she here?” Belinda looked around. “Well, I never.”

  “Not at this moment. She’s gone off driving with a certain prince. Mr. Simpson is over there—the one with the sulky expression on his face.”

  “I’m not surprised. Wouldn’t you be sulky if your wife only dragged you around for respectability and then kicked you out of the bedroom at night to dally with a prince?”

  “I’m not sure he actually comes to her bedroom at night, but I wouldn’t want to be an object of pity like poor old Simpson. So what are you doing up here?” I saw the answer to that question making his way down the dock toward us.

  Belinda looked up at Paolo adoringly. “I’m here because of Paolo, silly. He’s the one who’s driving the boat. He’s going to break the world speed record. Isn’t it too, too thrilling?”

  “It sounds rather dangerous to me,” I said.

  “Of course it is. Paolo’s only happy doing something dangerous,” she said.

  The rest of the boaters now came down the dock toward us, deep in discussion, and words like “thrust” and “velocity ratio” floated in the clear Highland air.

  “I think you know almost everybody, don’t you?” Belinda waved in their general direction. “Paolo, look who it is. It’s Georgie.”

  “Well, that’s not too surprising, seeing that it’s her family home on the other side of the loch,” Paolo said, and kissed my hand. “You arrived just too late to see my impression of a water bird. I was airborne for several seconds, you know. Quite exhilarating.”

  “It’s supposed to stay in the water, or rather on it,” an American voice said behind him. The speaker looked ridiculously young and terribly earnest, peering owlishly through round spectacles.

  “That’s the designer, Digby Flute,” Belinda muttered to me. “Father owns film studios in Hollywood. Pots of money. H
e’s tried breaking the record himself twice and nearly killed himself each time.”

  “So now he wants Paolo to kill himself instead? That’s nice of him.”

  Belinda smiled. “He’s improved his design and it has a new engine, built in Germany. In fact, speaking of Germany, guess who’s designed and supplied the engine.”

  She gestured to a big, blond and very Germanic-looking man who was picking his way toward us from the shore.

  “Max!” I exclaimed. “Does that mean my mother is somewhere in the vicinity?”

  I hadn’t quite finished this sentence when I saw her. She was standing deep in conversation with two other people I recognized and one I didn’t. The first was a large, pink and frightfully rich young man called Augustus Gormsley, usually known by his nickname of Gussie. The second was Darcy. And with them was a girl I had never met before: darkly exotic looking, slim, petite and at this moment regarding Darcy with smoldering brown eyes. My first temptation was to duck behind a pine tree and disappear, but I was too late. Gussie spotted me.

  “I say, it’s your daughter, old bean,” he said to my mother and then beckoned me over. “What-ho, Georgie.”

  I had no alternative but to join them. “Hello, Gussie. Darcy. Hello, Mummy.” I managed to sound calm and civil. “What a surprise to see you here.”

  “Hello, darling.” My mother and I exchanged the usual air kisses. “You’re looking rather pale,” she said. “Aren’t you well?”

  “It’s been a trying summer so far,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Where are you staying?”

  “At Balmoral, darling, where else?”

  I couldn’t have been more surprised if she had told me a hermit’s cave on the mountain. “Balmoral? I didn’t realize you were pally with Their Majesties these days.”

  “Not me, Max. He took the Prince of Wales shooting at his lodge in the Bohemian Forest last winter and the prince is returning the favor. Besides, it’s all in the family, you know. Max is connected through his Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line.”

  “Goodness, I didn’t realize he had royal blood. So should I have been calling him Your Highness all this time?”

  It occurred to me that I hadn’t really called him anything because his English was very limited, so it probably hadn’t mattered.

  “No, darling. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha lot were on his mother’s side, so he’s just plain Herr, more’s the pity. I do rather miss being a duchess. One got such good service in Paris, where such things matter.”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of dukes floating around for you to snag,” I said.

  “The trouble is that I’ve become rather attached to Max,” she said. “He does have his faults—like not being able to speak English and preferring to live in Germany with all those dumplings. But he is rather sweet and cuddly, isn’t he?”

  It was like asking if a grizzly bear was sweet and cuddly. I refrained from commenting. “So you’ve come to join the royal shooting party?”

  “And of course Max is interested in seeing how his engine is performing.” She giggled. “Frankly, between the two of us, his engine performs remarkably well for his age.”

  She smiled coyly and held out her hand as Max came toward her. “You remember my daughter Georgiana, don’t you, Max darling?”

  Max clicked his heels and gave me a nodding bow.

  “I hear you’ve come to shoot with the prince,” I said, pronouncing each word slowly.

  “Ja. Shoot wiz prince. Is gut.”

  “And he came to your hunting lodge last winter?”

  “Ja. Vee shoot vild boar. Big tooths.”

  “Tusks, Max. Boars have tusks,” my mother corrected. She patted his hand. “His English is improving wonderfully, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  Paolo and the young American descended on us and started talking about engines and thrust again.

  “This is the part I find horribly boring,” my mother said. “I think I shall go back for a lie-down, if one is allowed to lie down at Balmoral. It’s all horribly hearty and outdoorsy, isn’t it?”

  I felt a ridiculous wave of disappointment that my mother hadn’t seen me for months and now had no wish to spend any time with me. I should have become used to it by now, but I hadn’t. “You could go and cheer up poor Binky,” I said and related the saga of his accident.

  “If I can sneak in without encountering the dreaded wife,” she said, “maybe I’ll do that. I’ve always had a soft spot for your brother.” And off she went. He wasn’t her son, of course, but she had briefly been his stepmother and I knew he was fond of her.

  I stood watching her go with that strange hollow longing that always came over me when I met my mother. And then I realized that she had left me with three people I had no wish to talk to: two men who had behaved badly and a dark, sultry girl who was far too beautiful and sexy. Was she now my replacement in the girlfriend stakes? I could feel Darcy’s eyes on me, and forced myself not to look around. I was trying to move away, giving the impression that there was somebody I simply had to speak to, when I was snagged by Gussie.

  “Long time no see, Georgie,” he said. “How have you been?”

  “Well enough, thank you, Gussie,” I replied coolly. He seemed to have forgotten that the last time we met, I had had to fight him off, while he tried to remove my knickers.

  He moved closer to me. “You know I was hoping we could maybe pick up where we left off last,” he said, proving that he hadn’t forgotten at all.

  “You mean when I was saying ‘Get off me, you brute’ and you weren’t listening?”

  He chuckled. “All the girls say no, but they don’t really mean it. It’s just to appease their consciences. Afterward they can say ‘I tried to fight him off but he was just too strong for me.’ ”

  “I really meant it.”

  “Oh, come on, Georgie,” he said, turning slightly pinker. “Everyone likes a bit of the old rumpy-pumpy from time to time, surely. I mean, it’s awfully good fun, isn’t it?” He looked at my face. “You mean you don’t? You haven’t?”

  “Frankly that’s none of your business,” I said haughtily. “But if you really must know, I intend to wait until I meet someone I can love and respect,” I said.

  “Good God.” He studied me as if I were some kind of exotic species of unknown animal. “Oh, well, let me know if you find such a being. And if not, I’m always available if you change your mind.”

  Darcy and the dark girl were moving off. My gaze followed them.

  “Now there’s someone who doesn’t follow your rules,” Gussie said.

  “Who is she?”

  “Name’s Conchita. Spanish, I believe, or is it Brazilian? Father owns plantations. Oodles of money. Paolo persuaded her to invest in this latest madness. She and the Yank are funding it, and Paolo’s driving it.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Oh, I’ve just come along for the excitement,” he said. “And I promised Father I’d write him up a column for one of his daily newspapers. Oh, there’s Hugo come back,” he added. “I knew he couldn’t stay away long.”

  I spotted Hugo Beasley-Bottome, moving through the crowd as if looking for someone. “He’s been up here before, has he?”

  “Oh yes. Pops up and down all the time. He was staying with us at the house until a few days ago. I didn’t realize he’d come back.”

  “He’s staying at Castle Rannoch now,” I said.

  “I say, is he? I wonder why he decided to change his abode. I don’t think anyone in our party upset him and the food’s halfway decent and there’s plenty of booze.”

  “He inveigled an invitation out of my brother, so he said. Even though he was damned rude about the place. Called it positively medieval.”

  “Well, it is, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, but then why go out of his way to stay with us?”

  Gussie followed Hugo’s progress through the crowd. “Of course we all know what he’s doing here and where
he’d like to stay, but he hasn’t received an invitation.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked, immediately thinking of Balmoral.

  “The Padgetts’, of course.”

  “Padgetts?”

  “Yes, you know. Major and Mrs. Padgett. They live on the edge of the Balmoral grounds. He’s the master of the estate or whatever the official title is. He’s been in the royal service for donkey’s years. He used to be rather important at one stage, one of the favorites of Queen Victoria and then King Edward. Now he’s more or less retired—they only bring him out on rare ceremonial occasions.”

  “Oh yes. I believe I have met him. But why would Hugo want to stay there?”

  “Because of Ronny of course, old thing. He has what the Americans call ‘hot pants’ for her. She’s not shown any interest in him but he doesn’t give up.”

  “Oh, of course. Ronny Padgett,” I said, finally putting two and two together. “I met her at the aerodrome. She said her family lived up here, but I had never connected her with the major at Balmoral.”

  “Well, she’s up here now. She comes and goes in that little plane of hers. Lands on the lakes, so hold on to your hat if you’re picnicking on the shore. She comes in awfully low.”

  I laughed. At least Gussie was one of my social set. He was amusing. One knew where one stood with him. It was unfortunate that I wasn’t attracted to him. He’d have made a good catch and I might have enjoyed a luxuriously decadent lifestyle with him. I looked around. Darcy and the dark lady had now completely disappeared. But I did spot Constable Herries keeping an eye on things from the road above. I excused myself and made my way up to him.

  “How are you, Constable?” I asked.

  He touched his helmet. “Well enough, my lady. I’m sorry to hear about His Grace’s accident.”

  “Nasty business,” I said. “I wondered whether you had made any inquiries about it?”

  “Inquiries, my lady?”

  “Into who might have set such a trap on Castle Rannoch land?”

  He leaned his red, whiskered face closer to me. “I suspected it was someone from the estate who just wanted to snare the odd rabbit and now dare not come forward and own up.”