Crowned and Dangerous (A Royal Spyness Mystery) (11 page)

“Don’t tell me you’re another one of the fraternity,” she said. “Which paper do you work for, honey?” The accent confirmed my suspicion.

“I don’t work for any paper,” I said. “I’m just staying in Dublin and popping over to visit a friend here.” Then I decided attack was
the best form of defense. “How about you? Presumably you’re from an American newspaper?”

“Magazine, honey. Ladies’ magazine. Our readers love tales about dukes and earls and things. Especially bad ones. I’ve been trying to get some dirt from the locals. So which of them is your friend? Maybe I could come along with you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said hastily. “My friend hasn’t been well. I plan to keep things really quiet and simple, if you don’t mind.”

As I went to leave she called after me, “I didn’t get your name, honey.”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “It’s Pauncefoot-Smith. Belinda Pauncefoot-Smith.”

She laughed. “You English with your snooty names. You crack me up.”

“And your name?” I asked.

“Connie,” she said. “Connie Wright.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Wright,” I said. “Now I fear I must brave the elements. My friend lives a long way out of town.”

“There’s some guy with a taxi around sometimes,” she said. “You could have the innkeeper call him.”

“Oh, I don’t mind walking, thank you,” I said. I left the pub and set off in the wrong direction, just in case she had decided to follow me. Then I slipped between houses and managed to cut back along a footpath between allotments. The rain had now subsided to a gentle drizzle. I followed the lane back to the castle wall, then saw an even narrower lane going off to the right. At first I walked gently uphill, then the land dipped ahead of me and I saw the red roofs of the stables among green fields. There was a flash of movement and color coming over the rise and I realized, with something of a thrill, that the horses were being put through their morning paces. They came toward me until the ground echoed with the thud of their hooves. Then they rounded a corner and were gone. So life at the
stables was going on, even without an owner or trainer. Unless the American had hired a new trainer after he sacked Darcy’s father.

I had been so intent on watching the horses that I hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening on the other side of the lane. I turned and saw that the high wall had disappeared to the left. There was now a dense stand of woodland beside the road and among the trees I spotted a house, or rather cottage. It too was built of gray stone but had a depressing look to it, with small windows and overhanging eves. Witch’s house from the Brothers Grimm came into my mind. I would not have wanted to live there. But smoke was coming from the chimney, which must mean someone was living there now. I took a deep breath and followed the flagstone path that wound between the trees to the front door.

I had rehearsed my speech so many times during the past twenty-four hours. “Hello, Darcy. I’m here and I love you and I’m not leaving so don’t try to make me. I want to do anything I can to help you.”

I repeated it once more as I approached the front door. I lifted the big black knocker and brought it down with a resounding crash. At the sound, rooks rose cawing from nearby trees. The front door opened and I found myself staring not at Darcy but at an older version of himself. The dark curls were tinged with gray, the face had deep frown lines etched onto the brow, and the mouth turned down at the corners. Those lines turned to a scowl when he saw me.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded. “How did you even know that I’d come home? Damn and curse you blasted reporters. If you don’t get out of my sight this very minute I might well consider committing a second murder. After all, you can only hang once.”

Any sensible speech had deserted me. He looked truly frightening, his eyes blazing with anger, and I well believed that he could kill without thinking twice about it.

“You don’t understand, Lord Kilhenny,” I stammered, because
my heart was still beating really fast. “I’m not a reporter. I didn’t even know you would be here. I came to see your son.”

“Darcy?” he demanded. “And what might you want with my son?”

What should I say now? Obviously not that Darcy and I had been about to get married. I tried to think of something reasonable but my brain still refused to work. Then the need to come up with a reply was taken from me. There were footsteps in the dark hallway beyond and a voice demanded, “Georgie? What are you doing here?”

M
ONDAY
, D
ECEMBER
3

F
INALLY
AT
K
ILHENNY
, C
OUNTY
K
ILDARE
, I
RELAND
.

Darcy and I stood there, staring at each other. I couldn’t tell what emotion lay behind those alarming dark blue eyes. Not anger, surely. But fear? I mustered every ounce of self-control and put on a bright smile.

“Hello, Darcy! So my friends were right. They said they’d seen you in Ireland. I’m staying with pals in Dublin and I thought I couldn’t possibly be so close without looking you up. The gang in London all send their love.” I could hear that I was babbling but I couldn’t stop.

I thought a flicker of amusement lit his eyes for a fraction of a second.

“Good to see you, old thing,” he replied in similar tones. “I had no idea you were visiting Dublin. I’d ask you in, but it’s not exactly convenient.”

“Not exactly convenient?” Darcy’s father thundered at him. “It’s bad enough you turning up here out of the blue and foisting yourself
upon me. The last thing I need at the moment is your absurd London crowd bursting in on us.” He turned back to me with a scowl. “And who might you be, young lady?”

“Oh, just one of Darcy’s many London friends,” I said. “We’re all so frightfully fond of him, you know.”

Before Darcy’s father could explode or lunge at me, Darcy edged past him and grabbed my arm. “Calm down, Father. She meant well. Go back inside.”

He forced me away from the doorstep. “Good of you to come, old thing, but in the circumstances I’ll walk you back to the village and see if we can find some means of transportation for you. I presume you didn’t drive yourself?”

“No, I came by taxi. A nice man called Barney.” I turned back to Darcy’s father, who was still glaring at us. “I’m so frightfully sorry to have disturbed you, Lord Kilhenny. Please forgive me.”

Lord Kilhenny shot me a final angry look then turned his back on me, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway. Darcy still had a firm hold on my forearm and propelled me up the flagstone path. We walked fast, without saying a word until we were back on the lane and out of sight of the lodge. Then Darcy turned to face me. His eyes were blazing. “Why did you do this, Georgie? I told you not to come. I told you that you and I must sever all ties. I thought I made that quite clear. Are you out of your mind coming here?” He was still gripping my arm so firmly that it hurt.

“Let go; you’re hurting me!” I exclaimed. “I came because I love you, and I’m not going to let you go through this alone.” I stared at him defiantly. It had begun to rain more heavily again and he was wearing an old jumper and corduroy trousers that would soon be soaked. His dark curls were already plastered to his forehead and rain streamed down his face like tears. He didn’t appear to notice.

“But it’s all over between us. It has to be, don’t you see?” He had been shouting. Now I heard the hopelessness in his voice. “You must take the next train back to Dublin and go home. I insist.”

“You can’t force me. It’s a free country. I can come and go as I please. And I choose to stay near you, whether you want it or not.” I heard the wobble in my voice as I said this.

He sighed. “Don’t be a fool. The place is crawling with reporters. Someone is going to recognize you.”

“And if they do, so what? I’ll say what I said to your father: that I’m staying with friends in Dublin and thought I’d come out to show support for my pal Darcy. What’s so worrying about that? Nobody knows that we’re engaged.”

“But we’re not engaged anymore.” There was now desperation in his voice. “We can’t be. You have to see that. We can never marry. I won’t put you through this. I won’t have your life blighted the way mine will be. As soon as this business is over I’m going far away—Australia maybe, or South America.”

“Then I’m coming with you. I’ll start learning to throw the boomerang or brush up on my Spanish.”

He gave a brittle laugh and gripped my shoulders. “God, Georgie, do you think I don’t want you with me? Of course I do. I can’t bear the thought of being parted from you. But everywhere I go I’ll be known as the son of a murderer. I can’t allow that to happen to you. I won’t allow it.”

“You really believe that your father is guilty, do you?” I asked. “Has he confessed to the crime?”

He released me and turned away. “Not exactly. But the evidence is overwhelming.”

“Have you asked him outright if he did it?”

He was frowning at me. “He won’t talk to me, but as I said, the evidence is overwhelming. He and Mr. Roach had a loud argument and my father was heard to tell Roach that he’d kill him one day.”

“Lots of people threaten to kill each other,” I said. “So what other evidence is there?”

Darcy shook his head, staring out past me. “Plenty. There were no visitors that evening and nobody in the castle except Mr. Roach’s
manservant. Mrs. McNalley, who comes in to cook and clean, had already gone home for the night. Mr. Roach’s man went into the library to see if his master needed anything before he went to bed, saw signs of a struggle, and found Roach lying there with the back of his head stove in and an ancient battle club that had hung on the wall lying nearby, covered with blood. And when the Garda tested the club my father’s fingerprints were on it. Nobody else’s. Rather conclusive, wouldn’t you say?”

“But what does your father say?”

Darcy sighed. “The trouble is he can’t remember anything. I should have told you before, but after my mother died my father took to the bottle. That evening he drank himself into oblivion, judging by the empty Jameson bottle that was found on his kitchen table next morning. He remembered the argument earlier and even remembered telling Roach that one day he’d push my father too far. But the evening is a blank. He has no recollection of going to the castle and certainly not of killing Roach.”

“So he might not be guilty.”

Darcy gave a short and bitter laugh. “Do you think any jury would take drunkenness or amnesia as an excuse? His fingerprints were on the club. Nobody else’s.”

“Was there any blood on his clothing?” I asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Because if this Mr. Roach was hit with considerable force then it’s highly likely that at least one drop of blood spattered in the killer’s direction.”

Darcy looked at me and shook his head in disbelief. “Your royal relatives would swoon on the spot if they heard you saying that.”

“I’m trying to be helpful, Darcy. I’m trying to see if there is any remote possibility that your father was framed.”

“Framed? How could he have been framed?” He was shouting now and rooks rose cawing again.

“He would be the ideal person to pin this on, wouldn’t he?
Turned out of his ancestral home. Accused of horse doping. Sacked from his position as trainer at the stables. And the recent argument when he threatened to kill this Mr. Roach. Such a strong motive for wanting Mr. Roach dead.”

“Exactly,” Darcy snapped. “So many reasons that any jury would find him guilty.”

“But if he wasn’t guilty?” I asked quietly.

He stared out past me, to where the distant shapes of horses galloped across the landscape. For a long while he said nothing. I could hear the distant thud of hoofbeats that faded away to silence.

“Do you believe with all your heart that he is guilty?” I asked. “From all that you know of your father?”

“Of course I don’t want to,” he said. “And the truth is that I know little of my father. I was away at school from the age of seven. He always had a fiery temper, I know that. But I don’t ever remember him beating me or my brothers. He’d explode in anger, yell a bit, and then it would all be over and forgotten. But that was before he took to drink. Alcohol robs a man of reason, doesn’t it?”

“It also robs a man of balance,” I said. “If he was blind drunk wouldn’t it have been easy to push your father over? To disarm him if he was swinging a club?”

“So you think he could be innocent, do you?” he asked.

“I don’t know him,” I said. “But I think he deserves to have someone on his side. And for selfish reasons of course I want him to be innocent, for your sake. For both our sakes.”

“My darling Georgie,” he said and wrapped me in his arms. “I didn’t want you to have anything to do with this sordid business, but now that you’re here, I’m awfully glad.”

I rested my head against his shoulder, feeling a brief moment of perfect peace.

“I’m sorry I barged in on your father like that,” I said as he released me. “I didn’t realize he’d be there. I thought he’d still be locked away in prison.”

“He was released on bail yesterday,” Darcy said. “At least his useless solicitor managed that much. The family having been a backbone of the community for a thousand years. Not a flight risk. All that sort of stuff. Apparently the judge agreed, although my father can’t leave the immediate area without a police or legal escort. But better than Dublin jail.”

“You’re soaking wet,” I said, as I became conscious of the wet wool against my cheek and the smell of wet sheep. “You’d better go back and change before you catch a cold.”

“I think a cold is the least of my worries right now,” he said, managing a smile. He released me from his arms. “We have to decide what to do with you first. There really is nowhere for you to stay here. Even if my father were not in his current state the lodge is too small. I’ll take you back to the village and the wisest thing would be for you to take a train back to Dublin.” He corrected that. “Actually the wisest thing would be for you to go back to London.”

“Which you know I’m not going to do. I want to be with you here. I want to help. If nobody is working on your father’s behalf then we have to. Two heads are better than one, Darcy.”

He sighed. “I don’t know, Georgie. I don’t know anything anymore. How can I do my best for my father if I’m constantly worrying about protecting you?”

“You don’t have to protect me. I’m a big girl. And if this whole thing had happened a day later, if there hadn’t been a snowstorm in Yorkshire, then I’d have been your wife by now and of course my place would be at your side. So let’s have no more talk about sending me back to London, all right?”

“I can see you’re going to be stubborn about this.”

“Absolutely right. I am. You can’t get rid of me that easily, Darcy O’Mara. I’ve wanted to marry you since the moment we first met. When you picked me up in a London café and told me to put on my posh frock because we were going to crash a wedding.”

“You should have refused me then. It would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

“What, and ended up married to Prince Fishface instead? That would have been a better option?”

We looked at each other and had to laugh.

“God, Georgie. What a mess.”

“We’ll get through it.” I took his hand and we walked on.

“So where do we start?” I asked after we had walked for a while in silence.

“I suppose the question would be who else might have a motive for wanting a reclusive American dead,” he said.

“His manservant?”

“Hired in America. Seemed intensely loyal. Quite broken up about his employer’s death.”

“What do we know about this Mr. Roach?” I asked.

“Not very much,” Darcy said. “I wasn’t around when my father declared bankruptcy and the castle and stables had to be sold to pay his debts. An American millionaire, I was told.”

“That’s all?”

“Apparently a reclusive type who had inherited money and wanted to go back to his Irish roots. Books and horses, those were his interests, so I heard. One of the reasons he bought this particular castle was that it came with both.”

“And his money came from where?”

“Family money. They built property in Chicago at the beginning of the century. He was the last survivor and inherited it all, I’m told.”

“Are there any valuable objects in the castle?” I asked.

Darcy frowned. “Apparently the rare books in the library are worth something. Maybe some of the portraits. But it’s not as if we had a Frans Hals or a Gainsborough.”

“And nothing was stolen? I was wondering if Mr. Roach interrupted a burglary in progress.”

“I don’t think anything was taken. The Garda nosed around a bit and found nothing suspicious.”

“The manservant heard nothing?”

“He says he was in the kitchen, washing up Roach’s late supper. That’s down two floors from the library and the walls are rather solid. He didn’t know that anyone else was in the house. He came up and stumbled upon the body.”

“Has your father engaged a good lawyer?” I asked.

This made Darcy laugh again. “He’s using the family solicitors, Leach and Leach. They’ve been our family lawyers since seventeen hundred and something. Old Mr. Leach must be eighty and his son approaching sixty.”

“Then you must persuade them to hire a top-notch barrister.”

“Top-notch barristers cost money and we have none. Besides, what would be the point? The prosecutor would show the jury the weapon with my father’s fingerprints on it and they’d all find him guilty.”

I stopped and swung to face him. “You really believe he’s guilty, don’t you? Your own father. You don’t even want to save him from the noose.”

“Of course I want to save him,” Darcy retorted angrily. “But I have to face facts. You have to face facts. And the big question is, who else could have done it?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” I said.