Miss Seeton Rules (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 18)

by Hamilton Crane

  Mr. Rookwood, who’d thought she meant it, continued to fret while Miss Seeton locked her front door, then whisked her down the path before she’d properly closed her bag on the keys, and had her buckled into the passenger seat and the car door locked—for safety, he told her—while she was still trying to recall whether there was anything she had forgotten ...

  And then, as the engine turned over and the car moved off, she realised there was nothing she could do about it, in any case.

  Mr. Rookwood hadn’t told her, when they set out, how far they had to go, or even where they were going, except that it was to the princess: but, although in all the hurry one hadn’t thought to check the sitting-room clock, it would come as no great surprise to learn that they had already been driving around the winding, shadowed—for the moon had gone behind clouds long ago—lanes of Kent (or perhaps by now they were in Sussex) for half an hour, at least. Which naturally made one wonder—though of course they were the experts, and must understand such matters far better than a humble teacher of art—why Mr. Rookwood and his colleagues couldn’t have arranged, in the time it had so far taken, for the lady-in-waiting—Lady Vaudine Elliot, as she recalled—to fly down from Kensington Palace in the helicopter. But as Mr. Rookwood was driving so fast, and seemed so very preoccupied—which must be why he had appeared to forget Lady Vaudine’s name—one hardly cared to put the question to him. Or to ask why he had been driving with only his sidelights for the past few miles and not with his—Miss Seeton smiled—main beam. Dear Nigel! He was always so courteous when telling her things; it was a pleasure to ask for explanations, except that she could not, she felt, ask Mr. Rookwood in the same friendly way, in case it should appear to him not only impertinent, from a stranger, but a distraction. One knew that unless they themselves chose to open the conversation, one should never directly address the men at the wheel ...

  “Nearly there.” Mr. Rookwood sighed, slowed the car, and switched off even his sidelights. Only the faint glimmer from stars and moon in a patchy sky showed where they were going. Security, Miss Seeton supposed, pleased with herself for having worked it out at last, although she hoped they would meet no other darkened cars coming in the opposite direction; and it was perhaps a little odd that one could see—except, of course, that it was dark, so that it would be more accurate to say that one could make out—no other signs of a—a security presence, as one understood from films that it should be called. Should she ask Mr. Rookwood to confirm her guess? But he seemed increasingly reluctant to talk, and in the greater dark it would be, of course, still more of a distraction if he did.

  Mr. Rookwood flicked the indicator, then flicked it off again with a muttered exclamation Miss Seeton found somewhat surprising, in a man of his type. The worry, no doubt, of so grave a responsibility as the princess’s safety. The car slowed almost to a halt, then turned through an open gateway flanked, as far as Miss Seeton could tell, by tall pillars; but the road ahead, which one supposed should with greater accuracy now be called a driveway, was rutted, and bumpy. One was too busy holding oneself steady on the seat, despite the belt, to bother trying to see more closely; it almost appeared that Mr. Rookwood was deliberately trying to shake his passenger from one side of the car to the other—which was, Miss Seeton told herself firmly, ridiculous, and showed how one’s imagination—on which one had all too seldom been able to pride oneself—had been stimulated by the excitement of the occasion: by the darkened, mysterious speed of this unusual journey. Miss Seeton felt a little thrill run down her spine, and her fingers, when not clutching at the seat for support, tingled in the old, familiar way ...

  The car rumbled and jolted along for several hundred yards, then stopped. Mr. Rookwood switched off the engine, and climbed out; he did not at once come round to open Miss Seeton’s door, but seemed more interested in checking that nobody had followed them up the drive, or was hiding behind the bushes near the house: security, of course. Miss Seeton unbuckled herself, tried the door handle, remembered, and waited for Mr. Rookwood to release her.

  It was a pity that, in her haste, she had not had time to transfer the torch she always carried from her everyday bag to her best: except, of course, that one had somehow received the impression that the princess would be ... well, somewhere rather less isolated than this. More—more civilised. Somewhere with proper lighting; somewhere much busier, with more people. But one had to assume that Mr. Rookwood and the others, wherever they were, knew what they were doing ...

  Mr. Rookwood unlocked the car door, warned of the need for caution, and helped her out. “This way,” he said, in a voice hushed but firm—and this time he did, very definitely, take her by the arm. One might almost have said that he gripped her, hurrying her away from the car almost before she’d had time to pick up her umbrella or adjust her hat. And as for the chance to practise her curtsey, he’d given her none at all ...

  He guided—not pushed, surely? Not thrust, no matter what it felt like—Miss Seeton across to the house, up some steps, and through a darkened doorway into a shadowed hall. He seemed to know, even in the dark, exactly where he was going. “We go upstairs,” he said quietly, edging her towards the steep rectangular greyness of the light from a tall window, and urging her to mount. “Careful, now ...”

  Silently lamenting the absence of her torch, Miss Seeton did her best to be careful, feeling her way with the point of the umbrella she held in her free hand. Mr. Rookwood was very like a cat, one might say, able to see in the dark, and treading so very softly and with such a sure step ...

  “Down here,” he said, and led Miss Seeton towards a door at the far end of the landing: a door around the edge of which shone a narrow, golden, electric gleam, a most welcome sight in the grey, glimmering shadows ...

  “In here.” He fumbled with the handle, bent, opened the door, and as he did so thrust a hand inside and switched off the light. Miss Seeton heard a rustle of movement, a little cry—and herself cried out, as she felt something—someone—push her sharply in the back, so that she lost her footing and staggered into the room ...

  And heard, to her amazement, the door slammed shut behind her, and the key turned sharply in the lock.

  chapter

  ~ 19 ~

  “WHO’S THAT? Whoever you are, keep still!”

  The voice which now addressed Miss Seeton out of the anonymous dark was young, cultured, and female, and ... not frightened, thought Miss Seeton, her hands gripping her bag and brolly for reassurance: but wary. And—judging by the accent—clearly accustomed, from birth, to command ...

  “Stay just where you are,” commanded the voice, with a hint of breathlessness. “I’ll put the light back on. Don’t move an inch!”

  The soft patter of feet sounded in Miss Seeton’s ear as, despite those breathless commands, she found herself turning to track the sound around what instinct, and the accompanying echoes, told her was probably the perimeter of the room. There came a gentle, muffled scraping, and a click.

  In the sudden light, Miss Seeton blinked.

  And blinked again, though this time from astonishment rather than glare: for, beside the switch—with a pillow in her upraised hand and a furious gleam in her eye—stood, in a martial attitude, Her Royal Highness, Princess Georgina.

  The gleam mellowed almost at once to a look of recognition—those born in the purple are raised according to the strictest principles of etiquette—and, at the same time as Miss Seeton recovered her startled wits and sank in a curtsey, the pillow, likewise, was lowered to the floor.

  “We’ve met before,” said Georgina, above Miss Seeton’s murmured salutation. “At Dungeness.” Miss Seeton, rising from her curtsey, blushed, and fumbled with the strap of her handbag to avoid meeting the princess’s eye. Georgina nodded. “The little girl with the flowers ...”

  “My—my pupil, Your Royal Highness.” Miss Seeton began to breathe a little more easily. Perhaps, after all, there would be no need to mention ...

  She relaxed too soon. Georgina had a
thoughtful pucker between her brows. In normal circumstances, Royalty does not willingly cause embarrassment to its loyal subjects: in normal circumstances, the princess would never have dreamed of mentioning Miss Seeton’s unfortunate encounter with the radiation alarm. But these circumstances were very far removed indeed from being normal.

  “And the alarm, of course,” said Her Royal Highness, fixing Miss Seeton with a brilliant blue eye. “It went off when they scanned you, and the next thing I knew I’d been grabbed—but it wasn’t your fault,” hastily, as Miss Seeton blushed still more, and bobbed another curtsey as she tried to frame a suitable apology.

  Her mind, however, had gone blank with dismay. It was Georgina’s voice which now said: “Whoever they are, they haven’t said much I’ve been able to hear, but at least I’ve managed to work out that they’d planned to snatch me anyway, later in the day. Your, um, little misfortune just allowed them to bring their plans forward a bit.”

  “Oh, dear ...” Miss Seeton, looking incredibly guilty, didn’t know where to begin apologising. “Oh, Your Royal Highness, I do most humbly beg your pardon. My poor Cousin Flora would be so very mortified to think—”

  “Don’t worry about it!” Georgina ran across to give her companion a quick hug. “I told you, it wasn’t your fault—but I thought the little girl was called Sally?”

  Miss Seeton was so overwhelmed by such kindliness from a member of the Royal House of Windsor that, in her confusion, she dropped her umbrella. In ducking to retrieve it, she narrowly missed bumping heads with Georgina, who seemed to share the same automatic instinct for tidiness: and, too startled even to blush, Miss Seeton cried:

  “Oh, do be careful! Ma’am,” she added, recollecting herself hastily, and reverting to the traditional formula. “I do most humbly beg your pardon ...” And she essayed yet another curtsey.

  It was not, however, third time lucky. Even the agility imparted to the knees by years of yoga cannot be equal to a curtsey from a crouching start. Miss Seeton, wobbling, gave a little cry, and fell over, dropping her umbrella again as she did so. Georgina, caught unawares partly by the wobble, partly by the handle of the brolly, likewise gasped, and fell. The two ladies ended up side by side on the floor, rubbing their posteriors and—after a few moments—trying, for some reason neither could understand, not to giggle.

  They tried: but failed. Miss Seeton, on the point of apologising for the umpteenth time, but too breathless with dismay for her unintentional—treasonable?—discourtesy to do so, caught the eye of Princess Georgina. The well-known sapphire orbs were sparkling: the ruby lips were curving in a grin. “There—there aren’t,” said Georgina, choking, “any—any bells this time, are there?”

  Her laughter was infectious. Miss Seeton, relieved that the princess didn’t appear to be badly damaged, laughed with her—chuckled, rather, and smiled; and then, quite without thinking, reached over to pat her on the shoulder. The poor young creature. A note, perhaps, of hysteria in her laughter. Miss Seeton, experienced in the ways of teenage girls, patted the royal shoulder again: it was no wonder that she seemed just a touch ... overwrought. Anyone else, with a less rigorous upbringing to strengthen her character, would doubtless have given way to hysteria long ago ...

  “Come now, my dear.” Miss Seeton, the years of teaching overriding all other considerations, administered one last, bracing pat, then gathered up her bag and brolly and rose gracefully to her feet. “It would be better for both of us, you know, if we were to sit comfortably on chairs, rather than on the floor.”

  As she dusted herself down, for the first time she did more than glance at her surroundings. She was in a bedroom of reasonable size, carpeted, and furnished with a single bed, an easy chair, a small, low table, and a bookcase with a selection of paperback volumes on its shelves. Above the bookcase was a window, thickly curtained. There was a wardrobe against one wall, and what looked like a communicating door directly opposite.

  “The bathroom,” said Georgina, who had recovered herself almost completely, and was contemplating her visitor with as much interest as her visitor contemplated the room. “All mod cons, I believe the saying goes. For a prison, in fact, it’s rather comfortable—that’s where they spilled my food the other day,” she added, as Miss Seeton shuddered on noticing a large, red-brown stain on the carpet, just inside the door. Her Royal Highness giggled. “It looks awfully like a bloodstain, doesn’t it? Quite horrid, but harmless, really. Tomato ketchup”—she made a face—“and gravy, I think. You see I kicked one of them on the shin, and tried to hit him over the head with the tray—but he was too quick for me, more’s the pity.”

  Miss Seeton looked discreetly scandalized. One did not somehow expect that a princess of the Blood would be so ... so vehement in expressing her—understandable, admittedly—indignation at—one could not, it seemed, mince one’s words—at being—Miss Seeton gulped—being held captive. Not, perhaps, entirely ladylike—something rather more subtle might be more appropriate ... except, of course, that one found it hard to envisage exactly what, in the circumstances, would—or indeed could—be considered appropriate ...

  Georgina observed Miss Seeton’s expression, and was reminded of her old governess. Her giggle was apprehensive, her tone slightly aggrieved as she said:

  “Oh, I suppose that sort of behaviour would send the Buck House crowd into vapours, if they knew about it—but they don’t.” There was a little quiver in her voice as she spoke the final words. “And—and what else could I do? The dignity of one’s position is all very well in—in normal life, but you can’t call ... being kidnapped normal, can you?” Her voice shook again; and again she rallied. “Believe me, I’ve no intention of sitting about meekly waiting for a knight in shining armour to come galloping to the rescue. The Lord—and I don’t mean Sir Shining Armour—helps those who help themselves, doesn’t He?”

  And then her face crumpled, and her eyes sparkled with something more than bravado, as Miss Seeton—whose thoughts had turned automatically to Nigel Colveden, the nearest to Sir Galahad she’d ever met—sighed, and without thinking patted her on the shoulder yet again. “Oh, dear!” gasped Georgina, and for the first time since her capture she permitted herself a few snuffles of self-pity.

  Miss Seeton said gently, “There, there. You must not distress yourself, my dear—Ma’am,” she added, remembering. She blushed. Should she, perhaps, curtsey? In the circumstances, it might, perhaps, be regarded as ...

  Georgina straightened, and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. “Oh, please don’t! You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since I’ve been here—the first face, if it comes to that, because they always wear masks—and we’re in this together, aren’t we?” Blowing her dainty nose, she favoured Miss Seeton with a sudden, intense look from those sparkling sapphire eyes. “Aren’t we?”

  Miss Seeton, her conscience—apart from the curtsey—clear, looked steadily back at her. “If it is not an impertinence on my part to say so, I suspect—indeed I fear, Ma’am, that we may be.”

  Georgina sighed as she emerged from her handkerchief. “Then I didn’t imagine it? We can’t—can’t escape, because they ... they have locked the door again?”

  “I believe,” said Miss Seeton, slowly—one had no wish to distress the child—the princess—further—“they did, Ma’am. That is to say, he did. Mr. Rookwood. Which came as a considerable surprise, because—”

  “You know him?” The sapphire sparkle was all interest now as Georgina—who despite her earlier words had crossed to the door to try it, just in case—glanced back over her shoulder. “You know who they are?” And she rattled the handle with brisk emphasis as she spoke.

  Miss Seeton’s brow creased with the effort of memory. “He told me that he was a member of the—of the security forces, and from my extremely limited knowledge I have to say that he”—thoughts of the imminent Christmas Pantomime came unbidden—“he certainly looked the part, except that now I am forced to the conclusion that this could well have b
een a—an untruth, as he has locked the door, and there can surely be no need for such behaviour now that Your Royal Highness has been rescued. If that is in fact what has happened. And since he has locked us in, it would seem somewhat unnecessary—if a rescue has been effected, I mean, even though I explained to him that I was hardly the most suitable ...”

  She sighed. “He told me, you see, that”—she blushed—“Your Royal Highness had—had particularly requested my presence—which I confess I found most surprising, when they are so much better trained than I—women police officers, I mean, the full-time sort, when my—my attachment to the police, or rather my connection with them ...”

  She blushed again, and drifted to a halt. One ought to have remembered sooner that etiquette required Royalty, not Royalty’s companions, always to initiate, and thereafter to direct, any topics of conversation. Her Royal Highness had wished only to know the identity of Mr. Rookwood: should she wish to know the identity of Miss Emily Dorothea Seeton, she would, naturally, ask.

  “Then who,” asked Georgina, “are you? You said you were a teacher. How can you be a policewoman as well?”

  “But I’m not,” said Miss Seeton, forgetting etiquette in her desire for accuracy. “At least—I was, but I have been retired for some seven years now, Ma’am, although sometimes, when Miss Maynard is away ... That is—I never have been, I assure you, Your Royal Highness.”

  She drew a deep breath. Had she made herself, she wondered, entirely clear? There was a puzzled furrow between Georgina’s delicate brows, and a dancing light in her eyes. Miss Seeton tried again. “A teacher—of art. In Hampstead—Mrs. Benn’s school, and evening classes at the Polytechnic, though I have from time to time helped out when Miss Maynard has been unable ... But certainly not a police officer. In Plummergen, that is, not Hampstead. A retaining fee, no more—which, although in my opinion most generous, Your Royal Highness would doubtless regard as—”