Royal Flush (5 page)

“Have your maid do it for you, and she can follow on a later train. Surely you have the bulk of your clothing at Castle Rannoch?”

Now I was feeling both angry and flustered. “Contrary to popular belief, all aristocrats are not rich enough to own a vast wardrobe. The few items of clothing I possess are with me in London.”

“But you can do without them until tonight. I’ll have my man drive you via Belgrave Square so that you can give your maid instructions and pick up the odd toiletry.”

“I have no maid at the moment,” I reminded him.

“No maid? You’ve been living in Rannoch House alone?” His manner implied that I had indeed been operating the suspected house of ill repute.

“I can’t afford a maid,” I said. “Which is why I’ve been trying to find work.”

“Dear me.” He gave an embarrassed sort of cough and tapped his pipe into the ashtray. “And I suppose I can’t expect you to travel by a slow train to Edinburgh, and the overnight Pullman into Glasgow won’t work then?”

“I can’t make an easy connection from Glasgow, nor expect our chauffeur to meet me there,” I said.

“Very well, it had better be tomorrow then. I’ll have my girl book your seat. And I can’t urge you strongly enough to talk to nobody in the meantime.”

“I presume you want me to telephone my brother to let him know I’m coming?” I said.

“Don’t worry, that’s been taken care of,” he said.

I felt myself flushing red again, wondering just what had been said. Would it be clear to all that I had been sent home in disgrace like a naughty schoolgirl? Sir William rose to his feet. “Very well, you’d better get going. Don’t answer the telephone whatever you do, and if you can draw the blinds and make the house appear to be unoccupied, so much the better. My man will call for you in the morning.”

Annoyance was gradually overtaking fear. This man was ordering me around as if he was my superior in the army.

“And if I choose not to go?” I demanded.

“I should have no alternative but to bring the matter to the attention of Their Majesties. I should hope you’d wish to spare them any embarrassment. Besides, I understand you are expected at Balmoral in the near future anyway. You are merely putting forward your arrival by a few days. Simple as that. Off you go then. Enjoy the grouse shooting, you lucky devil. Wish I could be up there instead of stuck behind this desk.”

And he gave me a hearty laugh, playing the benevolent uncle now that I was following his wishes. I nodded coldly and left the room with as much dignity as I could muster.

Chapter 6

Rannoch House
Still August 16

I felt as if I was about to explode as I let myself into Rannoch House under the watchful eye of the young constable. In truth I suspect that the anger I felt was a result of my embarrassment and humiliation. I just prayed that Sir William hadn’t revealed my gaffe to Binky and Fig. Binky would think it was a huge joke, but I could just picture Fig giving me that withering look and going on about how I’d let the family down and suggesting it was my mother’s inferior blood coming out again. This of course turned my thoughts to my grandfather. He was the one person I would dearly have loved to see at this moment because I needed a good hug. Belinda would be no use, even if she wasn’t currently in Paolo’s arms. She’d think the whole thing was screamingly funny. “You of all people pretending to be a call girl, darling,” she’d say. “The one remaining virgin in London!”

But my grandfather was not on the telephone and I didn’t think Sir William would take kindly to my gadding around on a tube train. So I packed the sort of clothes one needs in Scotland, then sat in the gloomy kitchen below stairs, sipping a cup of tea. At that moment the telephone rang. I jumped up but remembered the instruction not to answer it. A little later it rang again. Now my nerves were seriously rattled. Had the press twigged to me after all? Or was it a potential client who had discovered my advertisement in yesterday’s newspaper? I moved uneasily about the house, occasionally peeping through the closed blinds of the front bedroom to see if any reporters had stationed themselves in the square.

Then at about five o’clock there was a loud knock at the front door. I rushed to the bedroom window and tried to see who was there, but the front door is under a covered portico. It could have been Belinda of course, but the knock had somehow sounded mannish and demanding. It came again. I held my breath. If it was someone from Scotland Yard, then it was their own silly fault that I wasn’t answering the door. I was obeying instructions. I watched and waited and eventually I saw a man walking away from the house. An oldish man, not too well dressed. Then suddenly there was something about the walk I recognized. Forgetting all instructions, I rushed down the stairs, flung open the front door and sprinted down the street after the retreating figure.

“Granddad!” I shouted.

He turned around and his face broke into a big smile. “Well, there you are after all, ducks. You had me worried for a moment there. Did I wake you from a little nap?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I was instructed not to open the door. Come inside and I’ll tell you all about it.”

I almost dragged him back inside Rannoch House, glancing around for reporters lurking in the bushes inside the gardens. I know the gardens are private and require a resident’s key to enter, but reporters are notoriously resourceful and can leap iron railings when required.

“What’s this all about, my love?” he asked as I shut the front door behind us with a sigh of relief. “Are you in some kind of trouble? I suspected as much when that bloke told me you’d been to my house—the one day I was away, of course. Went on the annual outing to Clacton.”

“How was it?” I asked.

“Smashing. All that fresh sea air did a power of good to these old lungs. I felt like a new man by the time we came home.”

I looked at him critically. I knew his health hadn’t been good for some time and he didn’t look well. A stab of worry shot through me that I might lose the one rock in my life, coupled with a pang of regret that I wasn’t in a position to do more for him. I wished I could send him to the seaside for the summer.

“So what’s up, ducks?” he asked me. “Come and make a cup of tea and you can tell your old granddad all about it.”

We went down to the kitchen and put on the kettle while I told him the whole story. “Blimey,” he said, trying not to grin, “you do get yourself into a right pickle, don’t you? Escort service? High-class girls?”

“How was I to know?” I demanded hotly.

“You weren’t. Brought up too sheltered, that’s your trouble. But next time you have any bright ideas, you run them past your old granddad first.”

“All right.” I had to smile.

“Anyway, no harm done,” he said. “You’re lucky you got out of it as easily as you did.”

“I wouldn’t have if Darcy hadn’t been at the nightclub,” I confessed. “He stepped in and rescued me. And the bad thing is that somehow Scotland Yard got wind of this and they are shipping me off to Scotland posthaste, just in case any reporters stumble upon it.”

“That’s going overboard, isn’t it? What if a reporter did stumble upon it? You’d just say it was a poorly worded advertisement.”

“Scotland Yard is getting the
Times
to say the telephone number was an error. They think I’d be embarrassing the Crown.”

“No more than their own son is embarrassing them,” Granddad said. “Has he still got that married American woman in tow?”

“As far as I know. I must say the press is being wonderfully discreet about it. It hasn’t made the papers at all.”

“Because Their Majesties have requested it be kept hush-hush.”

The kettle boiled and I made tea while Granddad perched on a hard kitchen chair, watching me. “So you’re to be shipped back to Scotland, are you? To Balmoral or to your brother?”

“Castle Rannoch. My Balmoral invitation is not for over another week.”

“I can’t see your sister-in-law throwing out the red carpet for you.”

“Neither can I,” I said. “In fact I’m rather dreading it, much as I adore being in Scotland at this time of year.”

“Don’t you let her push you around,” Granddad said. “It’s your home. You were born in it. Your father was a duke, and the grandson of the old queen; hers was just a baronet who got his title for lending Charles the Second money to pay his gambling debts. Remind her of that.”

I laughed. “Granddad, you’re awful. And I believe you’re a bit of a snob at heart.”

“I know my place and I don’t claim to be what I’m not,” he said. “I don’t have no time for people who give themselves airs about their station.”

I gazed at him wistfully. “I wish you were coming with me,” I said.

“Now can you see me huntin’ and shootin’ and hobnobbing with the gentry?” He chuckled, and the chuckle turned into a wheezing cough. “Like I said, I know my place, my love. You live in your world and I live in mine. You go home and have a lovely time up there. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Chapter 7

The Flying Scotsman, traveling north
August 17, 1932
Going home. Excited and dreading it at the same time.
Lovely day. Bright and warm.

The next morning I sat in a first-class compartment on the Flying Scotsman as the countryside flashed past, bathed in sunlight. It was all very pleasant and rural, but my head was swimming with conflicting emotions. I was going home—back to a place I loved. Nanny still lived in a cottage on the estate, my horse was waiting for me in the stable, and my brother would be pleased to see me, even if Fig wasn’t. The thought of Fig clutched at my stomach. I wasn’t afraid of her, but it is never pleasant to know that one is not wanted. I wondered what Sir William had said to her. Would she know that I’d been sent home in disgrace?

Outside in the corridor I was conscious of a bell ringing and a voice announcing the first sitting for luncheon. Luncheon in the dining car was something I would not normally have allowed myself in my present impecunious state, but today I felt I deserved it. After all, for the foreseeable future I’d not be fending for myself, and someone at Scotland Yard had paid for my train ticket. I got up, glanced in the mirror to make sure I looked respectable then came out of my compartment into the corridor, almost colliding with a person emerging from the next compartment. He was a rather good-looking young man, tall, with blond hair, brilliantined into a set of pretentious waves, and wearing a sporty-looking blazer and slacks.

“Frightfully sorry,” he muttered, then he appeared to really notice me. His eyes traveled over me in the way that eyes usually traveled over Belinda. “Well, hello there,” he said in what I suppose was a slow, sexy drawl. “I say, what a lucky coincidence to find someone like you in the next compartment. Here was I, steeling myself for eight hours of boredom and the crossword puzzle. Instead I bump into a frightfully pretty girl, and what’s more, a pretty girl who appears to be alone.” He glanced up and down the empty corridor. “Look here, I was on my way to the cocktail lounge. Care to accompany me for a drink, old bean? One simply can’t survive without a gin and tonic at this time of day.”

Part of me was tempted to go with him; the other part was affronted at the way he had been mentally undressing me. This didn’t happen to me often and I wasn’t sure whether I should enjoy it or not. As always in moments of stress, I reverted to type. “It’s frightfully kind of you, but I was on my way to the dining car.”

“It’s only the first sitting. Nobody goes to the first sitting except for aged spinsters and vicars. Come on, be a sport. Come and keep me company with a cocktail. It’s a train, you know. The rules of society are bent when traveling.”

“All right,” I said.

“Jolly good. Off we go then.” He took my elbow and steered me in the direction of the cocktail bar. “Are you going up to Scotland for the grouse shoot?” he asked as we maneuvered unsteadily forward against the rocking of the train.

“I’m going to visit family,” I said over my shoulder, “but I expect I’ll do a little shooting. How about you?”

“I may do a little shooting myself but I’m particularly going to watch a chum of mine try out his new boat. He’s designed this fiendish contraption with which he plans to break the world water speed record. He’s going to be trying it out on some ghastly Scottish lake, so a group of us decided to come along as a cheering section.”

“Really?” I said. “Where shall you be staying?”

“I’ve managed to wheedle a sort of invitation to a place nearby called Castle Rannoch,” he said. “I was at school with the duke, y’know. I must say the old school tie works wonders everywhere. But I can’t say I’m looking forward to the castle with great anticipation. Positively medieval by the sound of it. No decent plumbing or heating and family ghosts on the battlements. And the live occupants sound equally dreary, but it really will be dashed convenient for all the excitement so I expect I’ll be able to stomach it for a few days. How about you? Where are you staying?”

“At Castle Rannoch,” I said smoothly. “It’s my family home.”

“Oh, blast it.” He flushed bright pink. “Don’t tell me you’re Binky’s sister. I really have bally well put my foot in it, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you do seem to have,” I said. “Now, please excuse me. I don’t want to miss the first sitting at luncheon with the vicars and spinsters.” I spun away from him and stalked off fast in the opposite direction.

The dining room was quite full by the time I arrived, and not just with the threatened spinsters and vicars, but I was found an empty table and handed a menu. I noticed a man seated opposite me staring with interest. He was an older military type—slim, upright bearing and neat little mustache, and I wondered if he made a habit of picking up young women on trains. In fact he half rose to his feet, as if to come in my direction, when he was beaten to it by another man.

“I’m frightfully sorry,” the latter said in high, breathless tones, “but the whole wretched place appears to be occupied so I wondered if you’d mind frightfully if I joined you. I promise that I don’t slurp my soup or drink my tea from the saucer.”

He was the complete physical opposite of the other man—short, chubby and pink, with a dapper little mustache and a carnation in his buttonhole. His dark hair was carefully combed to cover a bald spot. Completely inoffensive in any case and he was giving me a hopeful smile. He could even have been one of the aforementioned vicars, traveling minus dog collar.

“Of course,” I said. “Do sit down.”

“Splendid. Splendid,” he said, beaming at me now. He took out a crisp white handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Warm on this train, isn’t it? They’ll all get a frightful shock when they reach Scotland and the usual howling gale is blowing.”

“Do you live in Scotland?” I asked.

“Good lord, no. I’m a cosmopolitan bird myself. London and Paris, that’s me.” Then he extended a pink, chubby hand. “I should introduce myself. I’m Godfrey Beverley. I write a little column for the
Morning Post
. It’s called ‘Tittle Tattle.’ All the juicy gossip about what’s going on around town. You’ve probably heard of me.”

A small alarm bell was going off in my head. This man was part of the press. Was he ingratiating himself to me so that he could get the inside scoop on my current rapid departure from London?

“I’m sorry,” I said smoothly, “but we take the
Times
, and I pay no attention to gossip.”

“But my dear young lady, you must be one in a million if you don’t find gossip utterly delicious,” he said, looking up expectantly as soup plates were delivered to our table.

“Ah, vichyssoise—my favorite,” he said, beaming again. “I’ve heard they do a decent meal on this train these days. So much better than when they used to stop for lunch at York and we all had to cram down awful sausage rolls in twenty minutes. And I didn’t get a chance to ask you your name, my dear.”

I tried to come up with an innocuous name and was just about to say Maggie McGregor, which was the name of my maid at home, when the maitre d’ appeared at our table. “Some wine for you, your ladyship?” he asked.

“Uh, no, thank you,” I stammered.

“Your ladyship?” My table companion was gazing at me in eager anticipation. He put a hand to his mouth like a naughty child caught at the biscuit barrel. “Oh, heavens above, how silly of me. Of course. I recognize you now from your pictures in the
Tattler
. You’re Lady Georgiana, aren’t you? The king’s cousin. How absolutely crass of me not to recognize you. And here I was thinking you were an ordinary wholesome young girl going home from boarding school or university. You must have thought me frightfully presumptuous, trying to sit at your table. And how gracious you were about it too. Please do forgive my boorishness.” He half rose to his feet.

“Not at all,” I said, smiling to calm his fluster. “And please do stay. I hate to eat alone.”

“You are too, too kind, your ladyship.” He was positively bowing now.

“And I am an ordinary wholesome young woman,” I said. “I am going home to visit my family.”

“To Castle Rannoch? How delightful. I shall be staying at my favorite inn, not far from you. I always like to go up to Scotland during the season. Everybody who is anybody is there, of course, and there is always the chance that your esteemed family members will appear from Balmoral and mingle with humble commoners like myself from time to time.” He paused to work his way through the soup. “I presume you have been invited to Balmoral?”

“Yes, one is always expected to put in an appearance each season,” I said, “but I plan to spend a few days at home on the family estate first.”

“They must all miss you so much when you are away,” he said. “Have you been traveling in Europe?”

“No, I’ve been in London for most of the time,” I said, then I remembered that he was Mr. Tittle Tattle. “Of course one visits friends frequently at their country houses. I’m a country girl at heart. I can’t stay in the city for too long.”

“How true, how true,” he said. “So do tell me with whom you have stayed recently. Any juicy scandals?”

“Not since the German princess,” I said, knowing he would be fully conversant with that one.

“My dear, wasn’t that awful? You are so lucky to have escaped with your life, from what one hears.”

The empty soup plates were whisked away to be replaced with roast pheasant, new potatoes and peas. Godfrey Beverley beamed again. “I have to confess that I do adore pheasant,” he said, and tucked in with relish.

“So tell me,” he asked after he had demolished most of the food on his plate, “what is this we hear about your esteemed cousin the Prince of Wales and his new companion? Is it true what they are saying, that she is a married woman? Twice married, in fact? And an American to boot?”

“I’m afraid the Prince of Wales does not confide in me about his lady friends,” I said. “He still sees me as a schoolgirl.”

“How shortsighted when you have blossomed into such a lovely young woman.”

I was about to remind him that he had also taken me for a schoolgirl, and he must have remembered at the same moment because he became flustered again and started playing with his bread roll. The plates were removed and a delicious-looking queen pudding was placed in front of us.

“I wonder if
she
will be up in Scotland?” he asked in conspiratorial undertones.

“She?”

“The mysterious American woman about whom the rumors are flying,” he whispered. “She certainly wouldn’t be invited to Balmoral, but I do hope to catch a glimpse of her. They say she is the height of fashion—which reminds me, have you seen much of your dear mother lately? I am inordinately fond of your dear mama.”

“Are you?” My hostility toward him melted a little.

“Of course. I adore that woman. I worship the ground she treads upon. She has provided me with more material for my columns than any other human being. Such a deliciously naughty life she has led.”

The hostility returned. “I see very little of her these days,” I said. “I believe she is still in Germany.”

“Oh no, my dear. She’s been in England for the past couple of weeks at least. I spotted her at the Café Royal the other evening. And she sang with Noel Coward at the Café de Paris the other night. There is a rumor he’s writing a play for her. You wouldn’t happen to know if that’s true, would you?”

“You obviously know more about her than I do,” I said, feeling ridiculously hurt that she had been in London and hadn’t contacted me once. Not that she had contacted me for months on end when I was growing up or away at school. The maternal instinct never ran strongly through her veins, I suspect.

I managed to eat my meringue without shattering white bits all over me and also managed a couple of polite answers to Mr. Beverley’s persistent questions over coffee. With great relief I drained my cup and called over the steward to pay my bill.

“Already taken care of, your ladyship,” the steward said.

I looked around the car, a little flustered over who might have been treating me to lunch. It certainly wasn’t Mr. Beverley. He was counting out his money onto the tablecloth. Then I decided that perhaps Sir William might have arranged this, trying to soften the blow of my having to leave London in disgrace, I suppose.

I rose and nodded to Mr. Beverley, who also staggered to his feet. “My lady, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it was to make your acquaintance,” he said. “And I do hope that this will be the first of many meetings. Who knows, perhaps you will be free to take tea with me one day while I am at the inn. There is a delightful little teahouse nearby. The Copper Kettle. Do you know it?”

“I usually take tea with the family when I am home,” I said, “but I’m sure we’ll bump into each other at some stage, if you are planning to stay in Scotland long. Maybe at one of the shoots?”

At this he turned pale. “Oh, deary me, no. I do not relish killing things, Lady Georgiana. Such a barbaric custom.”

I almost reminded him that he had tucked into the pheasant with obvious relish and that somebody had had to kill it at some stage, but I was more anxious to make an exit while I could.