by Rhys Bowen
Chapter 20
A mountainside near Castle Rannoch
August 19
When I opened my eyes two pale beings hovered over me, looking down at me with concern. For a moment I wondered whether this was heaven and that angels were actually blond. Then I noticed that one of them had fish lips and the other said, “She’s coming round, thank God.” I realized that one face belonged to Siegfried, the other to Hugo Beasley-Bottome.
“Where am I?” I asked. “Did I fall?”
“You, old fruit, are the luckiest girl in Scotland, I’d say,” Hugo said. “I heard yelling and went to investigate, and there was the prince here, gesturing like a madman at the cliff. Then I noticed that you were dangling in midair. The bally rope was caught on a small tree that was jutting out from the rock. It was dashed impossible to get at you, you know.”
“Then how did you get at me?” I tried to sit up. The world swung around alarmingly and I lay back again.
“Your cousin Lachan arrived to join us. He climbed up and attached a second rope, which was held by a piton, then with him bracing, we were able to break the branch that held you and lower you down. Dashed tricky maneuver, I can tell you.”
“Thank you, very much,” I said. “I don’t know where you got the ropes from, Siegfried, but they must have been old. We should have tested them first.”
“The rope was not old,” Siegfried said. “Prince George brought it over himself from Balmoral. We laid it out to measure it and it was in fine form. Nothing wrong with it.”
“Obviously something was wrong with it or it wouldn’t have broken,” I said.
Then I noticed Hugo’s face. It had a strange, wary look to it. What was he doing up here in the first place? Or Lachan, for that matter? This was rather out of the way for a good haggis hunt, surely, and I thought I remembered someone saying that Hugo had gone down to be with his friends on the loch.
Lachan himself appeared at that moment. “Och, she’s awake and talking. That is good news. Well, let’s carry you back to the castle, wee Georgie, and get some brandy down you for shock. Your Highness, why don’t you run on ahead and tell them we’re coming so that they can have a bed with a hot water bottle ready.”
“Very well,” Siegfried said. “If you are sure the two of you can carry her between you.”
“Between us?” Lachan laughed. “Why, she weighs no more than a feather.” Then he swept me up into his arms.
“I’ll bring the rest of their equipment, then,” Hugo said.
Lachan strode down the steep path as if I weighed nothing at all.
I was beginning to recover. “So what happened to your haggis hunt, then?” I asked. “Surely you didn’t bring them up here to do their hunting?”
He grinned. “It was canceled. They made the mistake of telling one of the groundsmen about it and he laughed himself silly. Now they’re right put out about our little joke.”
“I thought it was rather a good joke, personally,” I said.
“So did I, but your brother has given Murdoch and me a stern warning. No more silly tricks or we’re on our way home.”
“Have you played any other silly tricks, then?” I asked.
“What? Oh no. Nothing at all.” I was sure from his face that he was lying. Had he confessed to Binky that he was responsible for setting the trap? Surely he wasn’t the White Lady. Nobody could have mistaken anything as large, red and obviously male for a ghostly woman.
As we approached the castle, servants ran out to meet us. Siegfried must have embellished the story or told it with great drama because they were looking terrified.
“Oh, my lady, thank goodness you’re safe,” Hamilton said. “And thank you, Mr. Lachan, for saving her for us. Your room is ready, my lady, and I’ve taken the liberty of having some hot tea and brandy sent up.”
“Thank you.” I smiled, feeling for a moment safe and cared for. Lachan carried me up the stairs and placed me on my bed. “Well, you’ll be all right now, I expect,” he said. Fig appeared at that moment in a frightful fluster. “They say you nearly died, Georgiana. I thought no good could come of climbing.”
“The climb was no problem,” I said. “The rope snapped on the way down.”
“Who is in charge of ropes here? I’ll see he’s fired immediately.”
“Fig, the rope came from Balmoral with Prince George,” I said. “And Siegfried said it looked just fine when they laid it out.”
“Then I suppose a sharp rock must have cut through it.” She pushed Maggie aside and placed the hot water bottle beside me. This was a good idea as I was now feeling decidedly shivery. The tea tray arrived and Fig poured a generous helping of brandy into my cup. I drank, gasping at the combination of alcohol and heat, then I lay back.
“Have a good rest now, and then we’ll send up some lunch,” she said. “And by the way, have you heard? The Americans came back in a frightful temper. It seems your dreadful cousin had spun them a yarn about hunting for haggis. Really those men are too much.”
“That’s rich, coming from someone who made the piper play at dawn,” I said with a grin. “You’re just as bad as they are.”
“Well, I suppose if it helps to drive them away, I can’t complain.”
“I think it was jolly funny,” I said. “You should have heard Lachan describing how ferocious the haggis were and how they went for your ankles.”
“I suppose that is rather amusing.” Fig’s face actually cracked into a smile. “I wonder what they’ll say when we have haggis for dinner tonight. Cook has it all prepared, you know.”
“Excellent.” I closed my eyes. Fig shushed Maggie out of the room and I lay there alone. All in all it had been a surreal morning, with Siegfried asking me to marry him and then the fall. It did cross my mind that the two could be related. Had he cut the rope in a fit of pique because I had turned him down? Foreigners were known to be so emotional and he did come from a part of the world where vengeance was a daily occurrence.
I must have drifted off to sleep because I awoke to hear the sound of a door creaking open. All Castle Rannoch doors creak, as do the floorboards. It’s positively a requirement in a castle to have creaking doors. My eyes opened in time to see Hugo Beasley-Bottome creeping into the room.
“Hugo!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
He started, as if he had expected me to be asleep. “Sorry. I just thought—well, I thought that you and I might have a little chat.”
“I’m not in a chatting mood at the moment,” I said warily. “I’ve just woken up.”
“I wanted to get you to myself,” he said, “and now seems like a good time. There are always so many bally people around.”
He came over toward my bed. I sat up hastily, drawing my covers around me in a good display of maidenly effrontery. “Mr. Beasley-Bottome, this is my bedroom and I certainly didn’t invite you in.”
At that a smile flashed across his face. “A chap has to take whatever opportunity he can in this life. That’s what they taught us at school, don’t y’know?”
“Please leave,” I said.
“Hold on a jiffy, old bean. I said I only wanted a chat. I’m not intending to ravish you on the spot, although I must say the idea is tempting. . . .” He paused. “I don’t quite know how to put this but I think you’d want to know . . .”
At that moment the door burst open and Lachan stood there, giving a good imitation of an avenging relative. “What do you think you’re doing in here?” he demanded. “Out, this minute. Can’t you see the wee lassie needs her rest and quiet?”
“I only wanted a few words with her,” Hugo said.
“Do you want a few words with yon boy?” Lachan demanded.
“I really don’t at the moment,” I said.
“Then out.” He made a grab for Hugo, who took the hint and headed for the door.
“And just in case there are any more interruptions, I think I’ll set up camp outside your door tonight,” he said.
“Lachan,
you really don’t have to guard my honor.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or not.
He went across to the door and closed it. “It’s not that. I took a good look at yon rope. It didn’t seem to have broken because it was worn. It looked more like a clean cut to me. Someone had cut almost through it and left the last strands to break.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath. “And how do I know that you weren’t that person, playing one of your famous jokes?”
“Some joke, wee Georgie. You’d have fallen on your head from a great height and we’d currently be holding your wake.” He leaned closer. “That’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on yon Hugo person. How did he arrive so quickly on the scene, that’s what I’d like to know. He was no climbing with you, was he?”
“No, I hadn’t seen him all morning.”
“Then what was he doing in such a convenient spot as to be offering help when you were stuck up there, unless he knew what was going to happen to you?”
“Oh, dear,” I said. “I did feel awfully uneasy when he came creeping in a few minutes ago. I’m glad you turned up when you did.”
He patted my leg under the blankets. “Don’t you worry now. I’ll be outside the door and it would take a strapping man to get past me.”
“Thank you, Lachan,” I said.
He went to go, then turned back. “Georgie, about my wee jokes—you know about the rock that landed on the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson?”
“That was you?”
“Not me. Murdoch. And it was an accident, I can assure you. He decided he might as well get in some practice for the Braemar Games. It’s a good spot here, away from the competition. He was up to throwing the hammer and he didn’t have a hammer on the spot, so to speak, so he had improvised by tying some rope around a large rock. Well, somehow it came loose as he was twirling it around his head and it went flying off in the wrong direction. We heard the awful clunk and the yells, and when we saw it was the Simpson woman, we made ourselves scarce.”
“Well, that’s good news,” I said, trying not to smile. “At least it wasn’t deliberate. And you didn’t accidentally put out the trap for Binky to step on, did you?”
“Good God, no. I’d never hurt a kinsman. I might be tempted to do it for a Campbell, maybe, but who’d want to hurt Binky? He can’t have an enemy in the world. A bit soft, maybe, and not overly endowed with brains, but there’s not a mean bone in him.”
“That’s true,” I said.
He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead, then patted my shoulder. “Sweet dreams, young lady,” he said. “I thought you did a fine job today. No silly hysterics. Just what one would expect from a Rannoch.”
He left me then, with several thoughts to consider. Was he seriously considering marrying me? He and Murdoch had described themselves as penniless, but Binky had referred to their farm as prosperous. But Lachan was the younger brother. He wouldn’t inherit anything.
“This is ridiculous,” I said out loud. Of course I wasn’t considering marrying him. I could have had a prince, a possible heir to a throne. I could always have someone like Gussie if I wanted, but I didn’t want. I knew who I wanted and he had nothing to offer me in the material sense. Ah, well, two men who were interested in me in one day. That wasn’t bad. Things were looking up in some ways.
They were looking down in others, of course, because it was apparent that someone had tried to kill me today. Or rather not to kill me, but to kill one of us. I thought that Siegfried’s brutish countrymen would probably go more directly for a bomb through the window. Then, of course, I realized what should have been obvious all along: the rope had come from Balmoral. It had been intended for Prince George. Once again someone was targeting an heir to the throne—and this time somebody sixth in line. It was about time I stopped lying here and started working, before it was too late and one of the accidents took its toll.
Chapter 21
Castle Rannoch
August 19
I must have dozed off for quite a while because when I awoke the room was bathed in pink twilight and there were sounds of commotion outside my door. Raised voices. A man shouting. I got up and opened the door cautiously. The first person I saw was Earl, standing at the top of the stairs. “She’s nowhere to be found, I tell you,” he was saying.
I came out onto the landing. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s Babe. She’s disappeared,” he said. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Maybe she went out for a walk before dinner,” I suggested.
“We went out for a walk earlier,” he said. “We came back and she said she wanted to take a bath before dinner. She’d never go out walking again after she’d taken a bath. I did other things. Wrote a letter. Tried to make a telephone call to London—without success, I might add. Then when I went back to the room, she wasn’t there. I just don’t understand it.”
Fig had now come up the stairs to join us and together we went up the second flight to Earl and Babe’s bedroom.
“There, you see,” he said. Her dinner dress was laid out, ready to wear, on her bed. “She went to the bathroom in her robe. And her toilet bag is missing.”
“Have you checked the bathroom?” I asked. “She could have fallen asleep in the bath, or even passed out.”
“That was my first thought,” Earl said. “But the bathroom is unoccupied.”
We walked down the hallway to the nearest bathroom. It was, indeed, unoccupied and there was no sign that Babe had ever been there. No lingering steam on the mirror to indicate that a bath had been taken recently. (Of course, steam does not tend to linger long at Castle Rannoch, owing to the gale coming in through the open windows.)
“Is it possible she used another bathroom?” Fig suggested. “She might have found this one occupied and decided to look elsewhere.”
We crossed the landing to the hallway on the other side where the Simpsons and the Von Sauers were currently staying. That bathroom was occupied, but the annoyed voice coming from it was that of Mrs. Simpson, who told us in no uncertain terms to go away.
“Would she have gone downstairs and used one of our bathrooms?” I asked. There was one on my landing and another on Fig and Binky’s side.
“I don’t think Babe would want to be seen going down the staircase in her robe,” Earl said. “I didn’t think of checking another floor, but I’m willing to give anything a try right now.”
We went downstairs and examined my bathroom. Also empty. Lastly we went across to the grandest hallway, the one that contained the bedrooms of Fig and Binky, Prince Siegfried and also that of Prince George. The bathroom door was closed. We tapped on it. No answer. Earl rapped on it loudly. “Babe, are you in there?” Still no answer. “Oh, God,” he exclaimed. “What if she’s drowned in the bathtub? We must break down the door.”
“Nobody is breaking down a door,” Fig said. “We’ll get a key.”
I was dispatched to summon Hamilton, who arrived with the pass keys. We tried several and at last the bathroom door opened. The window faced the back of the castle and this part of the house had already descended into darkness. But we could make out a white shape lying on the floor.
“Oh, my God!” Earl sprang forward, while Fig turned on the light.
The harsh glare of the bulb revealed Babe, lying sprawled next to the lavatory in a pool of water and blood, while around her lay shattered pieces of what had been the lavatory tank. One could see where it had come away from the wall, high above the loo, revealing a brighter patch of tartan wallpaper. Most embarrassingly, she had obviously been sitting on the throne when she was struck. She was wearing nothing but a short kind of negligee and her little white bottom stuck up piteously.
Pandemonium ensued. Hamilton was sent to telephone for our doctor and an ambulance. Earl was on his knees pleading for Babe not to die, having first covered her posterior with his jacket to prevent further embarrassment. The countess appeared at that moment, started to have hysterics and had to be led away b
y her son, moaning, “A house of horrors, I knew it. What did I tell you? Somebody get me out of here before doom befalls us all.”
No sooner had she disappeared than Prince Siegfried arrived in a silk dressing gown with a black sleeping mask pushed up on his forehead, wanting to know what all the infernal row was about when he was trying to take forty winks. Fig and I were the only ones staying calm and sensible. Fig had always boasted about her Girl Guide training and I must say her first aid badge came in rather useful. She was down on her knees among the muck, feeling for a pulse. She looked up eventually and nodded.
“She’s still alive. Get towels to mop up this mess and blankets to put around her. We shouldn’t move her until a doctor examines her. She could have a fractured skull.”
I attempted to move the pieces of shattered lavatory tank from her.
“It must have toppled onto her when she pulled the chain,” I said.
“How extraordinary. I’ve never heard of that happening in my life,” Fig said. “She must have pulled the chain jolly hard.”
“You’ve no business having guests to stay in a house that is falling to pieces,” Earl said angrily. “This place is a positive death trap. I said so to Babe only this morning.”
“What an extraordinary day,” Fig muttered as we moved out of the way to make room for the maids who had arrived with piles of towels and blankets, and had begun to mop up the floor. “First you fall off a mountain and nearly kill yourself, and now this. Anyone would think there was a curse on the castle or something. You’ve never heard of any curses on the Rannoch family, have you?”
“There was that witch who was thrown into the lake,” I suggested. “But she’s had six centuries to curse us so I expect she would have done it by now.”
Fig sighed. “I don’t suppose we’ll hear the last of it. That man Earl will want to sue us or something. That’s what they do in America, isn’t it? We’ll be bankrupted. Destitute. We’ll have to go and live in one of the cottages. . . .”
“Don’t you start getting hysterical,” I said, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. “Remember, a Rannoch never loses his nerve.”
