Crowned and Dangerous (A Royal Spyness Mystery) (3 page)

“It’s freezing,” I said through chattering teeth.

Darcy tiptoed around to turn off the light, and when he climbed into bed beside me the springs did indeed give an ominous twang that set both of us giggling like schoolchildren.

“That certainly rules out hanky-panky of any sort,” he said, still chuckling. He wrapped me in his arms. “Still freezing?” he asked.

“Better now,” I whispered. “Much better.”

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
30

Snowed in somewhere in the wilds of Yorkshire, on our way to elope to Gretna Green.

Golly, life is quite exciting these days!

The next morning we were woken by creaks and footsteps in the hallway, doors slamming and the sound of a motor starting up in the yard below. I was still lying in Darcy’s arms, his face a few inches from mine and his warm breath on my cheek. Darcy’s eyes opened; he looked at me and smiled. “Good morning, Mrs. Chomondley-Fanshaw,” he said.

“Spelled ‘Featherstonehaugh,’ don’t forget,” I reminded him. A pale and watery sun shone in through a dirty window, then a train tooted and rattled over the level crossing.

Darcy sat up, shaking out his hands. “My arm has gone to sleep,” he said. “But you know what—if trains are running, maybe we can leave the car at York Station and catch a train northward.”

“Oh yes, let’s do that,” I said. “And let’s not wait here for breakfast. I bet it will be ghastly.”

“Good idea. Let’s just get dressed and go. At least in York there will be news about the state of the roads there, and whether trains are running.”

Filled with renewed optimism we dressed hurriedly. Darcy didn’t even bother to shave and the stubble made him look more roguish. “They won’t believe you’re Mr. Chomondley-Fanshaw at the next place, looking like that,” I said, stroking the roughness of his cheek. “They’ll think you’re a pirate carrying me off.”

“You like the thought of that, I can tell,” he teased, raising an eyebrow and making me blush.

He carried the suitcases downstairs and put them in the car boot, before returning to settle up the bill.

“You’ll not be wanting breakfast?” the landlady demanded. “After I’ve gone to the trouble of heating up the black pudding?”

“We have an appointment in Scotland,” Darcy said tactfully. “We have to change our plans and see if we can catch a train from York.”

“I shouldn’t think so with all this snow,” the woman said with obvious relish. “On the wireless they said it might all be shut down for days. Trains, roads, the lot.”

On that encouraging note we left. The motor started, to my relief, and we drove back southward until we came to the signpost to York.

“It says fourteen miles,” I said, fighting back disappointment. “That’s a long way.”

“York is on the main train line to Scotland. Let’s just hope these side roads aren’t blocked. The snow doesn’t seem so bad here.”

We turned off the highway onto a smaller road. Darcy seemed to be right and the snow here was already melting a little in the morning sunshine.

“I hope we come to somewhere soon,” he said. “I’m starving. How about you?”

“Absolutely ravenous,” I agreed.

At a crossroads we found a transport café, with lorries parked outside. Darcy pulled up beside a laundry van with no complaint from me. Inside it was warm and smoky and noisy but we were treated to enormous mugs of coffee and equally large plates of bacon, eggs, sausage, fried bread, baked beans and black pudding. And I have to confess that we ate it all. We emerged in a much more cheerful mood, in time to see another van unloading the morning newspapers.

“Perhaps the paper will have up-to-date news about the state of the roads and railways,” Darcy said, and he went to get one from the delivery boy. He came back to me.

Blizzard Halts Traffic on Great North Road,
said the headline. He scanned on down the column. “They don’t seem to know much more than we do,” he grunted. “Or at least they didn’t when this paper went to press. In fact if you ask me . . .”

There was a long pause.

“If I ask you what?” I demanded. Then I saw his face.

He was staring at the front page as if he were having a vision. He had gone deathly white.

“Darcy, what’s wrong?” I leaned in to see what he was looking at. The main headline and lead article were about the storm but right below that, in big black letters, a headline read,
IRISH PEER ARRESTED
FOR MURDER
.

Darcy’s hand was shaking and I held the paper with him to try to read the small print.

Thaddeus Alexander O’Mara, Sixteenth Baron Kilhenny in County Kildare, Ireland, was arrested yesterday, charged with the murder of Mr. Timothy Roach. Mr. Roach, an American from Chicago, purchased Kilhenny Castle and the adjacent horse racing stable from Lord Kilhenny several years ago. Lord Kilhenny had still acted as manager and trainer of the racing stable until a
doping scandal earlier this year. Mr. Roach was found inside the library at Kilhenny Castle, having been struck violently on the head by an ancient battle club belonging to the O’Mara family.

“Oh, Darcy.” The words came out as a whisper and my breath hung in the still, cold air, like smoke
.

Darcy looked up at me with hopelessness in his eyes. “I must go to him right away,” he said. “You’re a good driver, aren’t you? This car isn’t hard to drive. It has preselected gears.”

He saw my blank stare and added, “You only have to move the little lever on the panel, then press the accelerator. Easy. I can’t take it across to Ireland. I only borrowed it from a friend for a couple of days. If you can drive it back to London, I’ll take a train from York.”

I hesitated, considering my limited driving experience and whether I could handle a big powerful motorcar like this. Having never owned a motorcar, my driving had been limited to the estate wagon on the grounds of Castle Rannoch or into the nearest villages, where the only traffic on the road would be an occasional Highland cow or sheep. I’d taken out our ancient Rolls a few times but usually it was the chauffeur who drove while I sat in the backseat. But I pushed these thoughts hurriedly from my mind, trying to come to terms with everything. One thought, more than others, shouted in my head and I blurted out, “Why would you go to him? You told me what he thinks of you. Would he even want to see you?”

Darcy gave a hopeless little chuckle. “Probably not. In fact almost definitely not. He’ll probably tell me to go to hell, but someone has to be there for him. He’s his own worst enemy, Georgie. He’ll lose his temper and say stupid things he doesn’t mean and alienate the jury. Someone has to stick up for him and there’s nobody else.”

“What about your sisters?”

“He doesn’t like them any better than he does me. And besides, one is in India and they are both busy with their own families.
They’ve little children and husbands. They just can’t drop everything and rush over to Ireland. And they don’t know anything about courts and legal procedure and how to investigate a crime.”

I didn’t want to ask whether he thought his father was innocent. A man with a violent temper who hated his own son and who had had everything he loved taken from him might well have been tempted to commit murder.

“I’ve no idea how one gets from York to Holyhead and the ferry.” He was already walking ahead of me back to the motorcar, talking more to himself than me. “Change in Manchester?” He turned back to me. “You’ll be all right driving back to London? I don’t think there should be snow on the roads south of here. I’ll write down the address for you. It’s Eaton Square. You know it, of course. It’s just around the corner from your place. Explain what happened. . . .”

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.