Her Royal Spyness (16 page)

He might have mentioned it to me, I thought angrily. Typical Binky.

I dialed the telephone exchange and asked to be connected to Brooks, which had been my grandfather’s club, my father’s, and was now Binky’s.

“May I help you?” said a quavering old voice.

“Could you please tell me if Lord Rannoch is currently in residence?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not, madam.”

“You mean he’s not in residence or you can’t tell me whether he is or isn’t?”

“Precisely, madam.”

“I am Lady Georgiana Rannoch, the duke’s sister, and I wish to speak to him on a matter of great urgency. Now, could you tell me whether he is in residence?”

“I’m afraid not, my lady.” The voice was unperturbed and it was quite clear that the old man was prepared to die rather than disclose the whereabouts of a club member to one of the opposite sex. There was nothing for it but to go there myself.

I went upstairs and changed out of the maid’s uniform, trying not to look at the bathroom door as I went past. The fact that Binky’s clothes had gone presumably meant that he wasn’t intending to come back. And I could only conclude the worst—that he had seen the body and panicked. Now I just hoped he wasn’t somewhere spilling the beans.

I took pen and paper and wrote him a note, in case he returned before I did.
Binky. There is a corpse in the upstairs bathtub. Don’t do anything until I return. Above all, don’t telephone the police. We need to talk about what we should do. Love, Georgie.

I set off at a brisk pace up Picadilly to St. James’s Street, home of the oldest London clubs, went up the austere steps of Brooks, and rapped on the front door. It was opened by an extremely ancient hall porter with watery blue eyes, fine white baby hair, and a perpetual tremor.

“I’m sorry, madam. This is a gentlemen’s club,” he said, giving me a look of such horror that one might think I was standing on the doorstep dressed as Lady Godiva.

“I know it’s a gentlemen’s club,” I said calmly. “I am Lady Georgiana Rannoch and I telephoned a few minutes ago. I need to know immediately whether my brother, the duke, is on the club premises. If he is, I wish to speak to him on a matter of great urgency.”

I was doing quite a good imitation of my esteemed great-grandmother—the Empress of India, not the one who had sold fish in the East End, although I gather she had a commanding presence and was also good at getting her own way.

The hall porter quivered but did not budge. “It is against club policy to reveal which members are in residence, m’lady. If you care to write His Grace a message I will see that it is delivered to him, should he appear in the club at any time.”

I stared at the porter, wondering what would happen if I pushed past him and took a quick look at the guest book. He was definitely smaller and frailer than I. Then I decided that such unforgivably boorish behavior would get back to HM within the hour and by the end of the week I’d be a lady-in-waiting in deepest Gloucestershire. I wrote my note to Binky and sensed the smug look on the hall porter’s face as he took it from me.

Now I had no idea what to do next. Really it was too bad of Binky to have vanished into thin air at a moment like this. I stood at the edge of Green Park, feeling warm spring sunshine on me, watching nannies pushing their little charges for an outing in the fresh air, and found it hard to believe that all around me life was going on as normal. It came to me that I had never been truly alone in my life before. A feeling of utter desolation swept over me. I was alone, unprotected, abandoned in the big city. To my horror I felt tears welling up in my eyes. What on earth had made me bolt to London without any sensible preparations? If only I’d stayed in Scotland, I’d never have found myself in this mess. I had the strongest urge to pack my bags and catch the next train home—which, of course, I realized was exactly what Binky must have done. It’s that built-in homing instinct common to generations of Rannochs who crawled back to Castle Rannoch, wounded and exhausted after the latest skirmish against the English/Vikings/Danes/ Romans/Picts or whomever they were fighting at the time. I was now absolutely sure that Binky had gone home, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Even if he had fled on discovering the body, he would be on a Scotland-bound train for hours yet, and then he’d have to make his way to Glenrannoch, which meant he probably wouldn’t arrive home until sometime tonight.

I pulled out my handkerchief and surreptitiously dabbed my eyes, utterly ashamed of this weak behavior. A lady never showed her feelings in public, according to my governess. And a Rannoch certainly didn’t crumble at the first small hurdle in her life. I reminded myself of my ancestor Robert Bruce Rannoch, whose right arm had been hacked off in the battle of Bannockburn and had promptly transferred his sword to his left hand and gone on fighting. We Rannochs did not give in. If Binky had let down the family by running away, I wasn’t about to do the same. I would take action, and immediately.

I started to walk back to Rannoch House, trying to decide what to do next. I couldn’t leave the body in the bath indefinitely. I had no idea when bodies started decomposing but I had no wish to find out. And I certainly wasn’t going to sleep in a house with a body floating yards away. I heard a clock strike four and my stomach reminded me that it was teatime and I hadn’t even had lunch. I realized that all my life I had been guided, protected, cocooned by nannies, governesses, servants, chaperons. Other people of my age had learned to think for themselves. I had never had to make a major decision for myself. In fact the first important decision I had made was to run away from Castle Rannoch. That one hadn’t turned out too wonderfully so far.

I needed help, and swiftly, but I had no idea to whom I could turn in this hour of need. Certainly not to my kin at the palace. Then the vision of food made me think of my grandfather—the live one, not the ghost who played bagpipes. He was such an obvious choice that a great sense of relief swept over me. He’d know what to do. I was just about to find the nearest underground station when I stopped short: he had, after all, been a policeman. He would be horrified that I hadn’t called the police immediately and would make me do so. And then, of course, I’d have to explain why I had fled to Essex rather than reporting a murder right away.

So not my grandfather then. What I needed at this moment was someone to talk to. I realized that making the right decision at this moment was vital. A problem shared is a problem halved, as my nanny used to say. I almost wished I had let Tristram come in when he had appeared on my doorstep and shown him the body in the bath. He was, after all, practically a relative. Not that he’d have had the slightest idea what to do about my current predicament (he’d probably have fainted on the spot), but at least I’d have shared my problem with someone.

Apart from Tristram, whom did I know in London? There was Darcy, who might well know how to make a corpse disappear. But I wasn’t sure that I completely trusted Darcy, and anyway, I had no idea where he lived. Then I remembered Belinda. She had been wonderful in a crisis at school, like that time we had caught the potting shed on fire.

Belinda was just the sort of person I needed at this moment. I set off for her little mews cottage at top speed, uttering a silent prayer that she would be home. I was quite out of breath and feeling horribly hot in my tweed suit by the time I got there, the day having turned out warmer than I had expected. (Of course I could never admit that I was hot. Another thing that my governess used to say was that the words “hot,” “lot,” and “got” were not part of a lady’s vocabulary.) I rapped on the door, which was opened by her maid.

“Miss Belinda is resting and not to be disturbed,” she said.

“It’s an emergency,” I said. “I simply have to talk to your mistress right away. Please go and wake her.”

“I can’t do that, miss,” the maid said, looking as imperturbable as that wretched hall porter at Brooks’s. “She gave strict instructions that she was not to be disturbed come hell or high water.”

I had had enough of being rebuffed by loyal retainers for one afternoon.

“This is both hell and high water,” I said. “A matter of life and death, in fact. If you don’t go and wake her, I shall do so myself. Kindly tell her that Lady Georgiana is here on a matter of great urgency.”

The girl looked frightened, although whether it was of me or of waking her mistress, I wasn’t sure. “Very good, miss, I mean your ladyship,” she stammered. “Although she’s going to be awful cross, because she didn’t get ’ome until three this morning and she’s due out again tonight.”

She turned reluctantly from the front door and dragged her feet toward the staircase. But at that moment a dramatic figure appeared at the top of the stairs. She was wearing a scarlet Japanese kimono and a mask, pushed up just above her eyes, and she stood in dramatic film star pose, one wrist raised to her temple.

“What is all this racket, Florrie?” she asked. “Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t to be disturbed?”

“It’s me, Belinda,” I said. “I have to speak to you.”

She raised the mask a little higher. Bleary eyes focused on me.

“Georgie,” she said.

“I’m sorry to wake you but it’s a real crisis and I couldn’t think of anyone else I could turn to.” To my horror my voice trembled at the end of this sentence.

Belinda started to grope her way down the stairs in a good imitation of Lady Macbeth in her sleepwalking scene. “Make us some tea, please, Florrie,” she said. “I suppose you’d better sit down, Georgie.” She collapsed onto the sofa. “God, I feel like hell,” she muttered. “Those cocktails must have been lethal and I did have an awful lot of them.”

“I’m sorry to be disturbing you like this,” I repeated. “I really am. I wouldn’t have come if I could have thought of anywhere else to go.”

“Sit down and tell Aunt Belinda everything.” She patted the sofa beside her.

I sat. “She can’t overhear us, can she?” I muttered. “This is strictly for your ears only.”

“The kitchen’s at the back. So go on. Spill the beans.”

“I’m in awful trouble, Belinda,” I blurted out.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up in surprise. “It was only just over a week ago that you expressed interest in losing your virginity. You can’t possibly be pregnant already!”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I said. “There is a body in my bathtub.”

“A dead body, you mean?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Belinda was now wide awake. She perched on the edge of the sofa, and leaned in closer. “My dear, how absolutely fascinating. Anyone you know?”

“Actually, yes. He was an awful Frenchman called de Mauxville, who was trying to claim ownership of Castle Rannoch.”

“A long-lost relative, then?”

“Good Lord, no. Nothing to do with us. He won the house from Father in a card game, or so he was trying to claim.”

“And now he’s lying dead in your bath. Have you called the police yet?”

“No, I didn’t want to do that until I could find Binky and now he’s vanished, so I don’t know if he had anything to do with it or not.”

“It won’t look good—you both have an awfully good motive for killing him, after all.”

“I know that.”

“So what are you planning to do—dispose of the body somehow? Does Rannoch House have a back garden? Flower beds?”

“Belinda! I couldn’t bury him in the back garden—it simply isn’t done.”

“It would be the simplest solution, Georgie.”

“No, it wouldn’t. For one thing he’s rather large and I don’t think even two of us could drag him out to the garden successfully. For another, someone is bound to be looking out of a window and see us, and then I’d be in worse trouble than I am now. At least at this moment I can face the police with true innocence. And don’t forget that the Rannoch family motto is Death Before Dishonor.”

“I bet you’d have done it if he’d been a small man and you’d had a wilderness behind the house,” Belinda said, grinning.

I had to smile too. “Maybe I would.”

“Who else would know that this de Mauxville had come to claim Castle Rannoch?”

“Our solicitors, unfortunately. Apart from them, I couldn’t say.”

She sat frowning for a moment. Then she said, “I think your best approach is to play your trump card.”

“Trump card?”

“Your royal connection, my dear. You summon the police, acting with righteous indignation. You have just found a body in your bathtub. You have no idea who he is or how he got there. Kindly have it removed instantly. Think of your great-grandmother. The lower classes are always in awe of anything royal.”

“And if they ask me if I know him? I can’t tell a lie.”

“Be suitably vague. You think he came to the house once to see your brother. Of course you were never personally introduced to him, so officially you don’t know him.”

“That’s true enough. I never was introduced.” I sighed.

She patted my knee. “You do have a good alibi, don’t you?”

“Me? Not one I can divulge to them. I was cleaning somebody’s house. I can’t let anyone know about that.”

“No, of course you can’t. Oh, dear, then we’d better give you one. Let’s see. You and I went shopping at Harrods together in the morning and then we lunched together at my place, and arrived, together, at Rannoch House. You went up to change and discovered the body, after which we summoned the police immediately.”

I looked at her with admiration. “Belinda—you’d do that for me?”

“Of course. Think of what we went through together at Les Oiseaux. I’ll never forget all those times you covered for me when I was in a pickle. That time I got locked out and had to climb up the ivy—”

I smiled. “Oh, yes. I remember.”

“There you are, then. We’ll have some tea. I’ll get dressed and we’ll go to face the music.”

Chapter 14

Rannoch House
Still Friday afternoon

“There he is.” I pushed open the bathroom door and pointed dramatically at the body, which hadn’t moved since I’d seen him last.

Belinda went over and eyed him critically. “What a nasty-looking man. Was he equally unpleasant in life?”