The Autumn Palace (28 page)

‘They're killing you!' Ondine yelled as she launched herself towards the Duke. Everyone in the room gasped as she became airborne. She whacked the pastry out of the Duke's hand and managed to knock over a waiter with a tray of food at the same time. Oooof! She landed with a thud in a shower of hors d'oeuvres.

‘What is the meaning of this?' The Duke looked ready to explode.

Before she could censor herself, Ondine cried, ‘Please, Your Grace, you musn't eat the food. It's got toxic rhubarb leaves in it. It's the Duchess's fault, she told the chefs to do it.'

‘How dare you!' the Duke thundered.

Oh no! Ondine had completely forgotten about the Duke not wanting to hear anything bad about his wife. But this time it couldn't be helped. If the Duke wanted to survive, he had to listen. Which meant Ondine had to draw every last skerrick of courage and tell him what she knew.

‘Please, Your Grace, rhubarb leaves are poisonous. That's why you've been so sick. That's why Old Col got sick too. The Duchess told the kitchen staff to use them in the food and she knew the pastries were your favourite!'

‘But –' the Duke started.

‘I did noshing of the short!' Duchess Kerala strode towards them, glass of red wine in hand. She'd come dressed as a soldier, like her son, and the scowl
on her face really made her look the part.

By this time, Hamish and Old Col had caught up with Ondine.

‘Yes, you did!' Ondine's voice trembled as she faced down the Duchess. The entire room went quiet and she felt sick with fear. ‘Hamish overheard you, didn't you, Hamish?'

Everyone looked at Hamish.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ondine saw the Infanta, dressed as a 1920s movie starlet. The Infanta looked at Ondine and slowly shook her head. As if to say,
Now you will see. Hamish will let you down
.
⁹¹

The room was full of people, but it was so quiet Ondine could hear Hamish shifting his weight in his new shoes. All the while she kept hoping,
No, he won't let me down. I know it
.

Time stretched to the point of snapping.

Silently, Ondine prayed,
Oh Hamish, please say something
.

‘Aye, that's right,' Hamish said.

Relief washed over Ondine at those three words. She couldn't help smiling as he continued; every word from his lips strengthened her claim.

‘I saw ye tear strips off the kitchen staff for wasting food,' he said to the Duchess.

‘You're lying,' she answered, taking another sip of wine.

Palpable tension rippled through the room.

‘Mebbe if ye didnae drink so much, ye might remember,' Hamish said.

The crowd gasped at the massive breach of protocol.

Jupiter's moons, but things were getting ugly! Yet at that moment Ondine had never felt more proud of Hamish.

The Duchess looked angry enough to shoot darts out of her eyes. ‘You have no right.'

A lesser person would have withered under the Duchess's glare. Everyone stared at Hamish, most of them probably wondering who he was and how he had the nerve to say such things to the Duchess.

‘He has every right.' The Infanta stepped forward, and if Ondine didn't know better, she could
have sworn Anathea was smiling. ‘If your drunken behaviour has put the Duke's health at risk, then this man is doing the right thing.'

‘You would shay that,' the Duchess said.

Ondine cast a quick look around the room. She caught Old Col's glance and noticed her great aunt staring daggers at the Duchess. ‘You will speak the truth!' Old Col commanded.

The Duchess made a strange sound in the back of her throat and clamped her teeth together, refusing to speak. In the crowd behind Old Col, Ondine saw a lot of the witchy women huddling together, discussing things in murmured tones. She suddenly wondered if they were not pretending to be witches, but were real witches in real life.

‘I don't feel so well,' the Duke said, turning pale.

Everyone gasped.

Ondine thought they were all being pathetic and cowardly. ‘Well, don't just stand around. Someone get a doctor!'

The Duke slumped into Ondine's arms. He was so heavy, she couldn't hold him up. They fell to the
floor in a flumph of green cabbage skirts.

Luckily for the Duke, there were three doctors in attendance at the Harvest Ball, one dressed as a ballerina, one as a lizard monster and the third as another witch. They laid him on a chaise longue in one of the libraries.

‘It's kidney stones,' the doctor dressed as a witch said. She was the one who'd treated Old Col and the Duke earlier. She made the Duke swallow a tablet the size of his thumb. ‘If what you say is true, and he's been eating rhubarb leaves, then he's lucky to be alive.'

Ondine breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Oh, my dear darling,' the Duchess said, smothering her husband's forehead with kisses.

The Duchess's words didn't ring true to Ondine. She looked at Hamish and he looked at her. While everyone else fussed over the Duke, Ondine and Hamish snuck out of the room.

‘Where do you think you're going?'

Ondine knew that voice. Oh, why did Vincent
have to turn up now? He stood right in front of them, blocking their path.

Squee!
‘It's you!' cried another voice that Ondine knew.

Brilliant! It was Hetty, and she'd just walked around the corner in her shimmery moon costume.

‘Sorry, Hetty, you have tae take one for Brugel,' Hamish said. Quick as a flash, he grabbed her and threw her in Vincent's path. There were grunts of frustration (from Vincent) and shrieks of glee (from Hetty) as she smothered her idol in kisses.

‘Nice one!' Ondine said as she and Hamish charged the rest of the way to the Duchess's rooms.

Her cabbage costume was so wide she knocked things over. They had to stop for a moment as Hamish helped pull the material over her head. She felt stupid standing there in a green polo neck and tights, but it was agility she required, not the latest fashion. Together they negotiated all the polished breakables. In the bedroom freshly arranged ginger lilies filled the air with such a cloying smell Ondine sneezed.

The ledger was still there in its hiding place. The hand-written balance sheet too.

‘We need them both, otherwise the Duke won't believe us,' Ondine said.

‘I know.' Hamish unscrewed a bottle of white wine. ‘We have tae sell this right. We have tae stand absolutely firm.'

‘What are you doing?' Ondine asked.

‘Drinking some courage.' Hamish necked the bottle and took a good swig. A strange expression came over his face.

‘Bad vintage?' Ondine thought the wine had turned.

Hamish stared at the bottle. ‘It's . . . it's nawt wine at all. It's apple juice!'

 

91
   Except she probably would have said, ‘You will be let down by Hamish,' because of her penchant for the passive voice
.

‘A
pple juice? That makes no sense.' Ondine reached for the bottle and took a deep sniff. The sweet tang of apples filled her nostrils. She took a swig anyway and tasted the truth.

Hamish had already moved on to a bottle of red wine. The label may have boasted a harvest from the previous decade, but, judging by his face, it might have been bottled last week.

‘Grape juice,' he said, offering it to Ondine.

She sniffed and tasted this one too. Although there was no alcohol content, her head started spinning. ‘But . . . if the Duchess is always a bit soaked, why are these bottles full of juice instead of wine?'

Hamish shook his head, then picked up another bottle and twisted the cap. ‘Hear that?'

‘No.'

‘Exactly. No crinkly sound, no seal breaking. These bottles have all been emptied and refilled.'

‘By who?' In her head, Ondine heard her mother say,
By whom, darling
.

‘By the Duchess. She's not a sad old drunk at all. She's as sober as the day is lawng. She just wants everyone tae think she's wasted so that nobody suspects anything.'

Ondine felt her eyes grow wider at the thought. ‘No wonder she could put so much away, it was all an act.'

‘Exactly.' Hamish grabbed two bottles and put them under his arm, then he picked up the ledger. ‘Ever notice how uncomfortable everyone is when she's wobbling around, getting all shouty? Ye look the other way. Ye don't want her tae target you, because she's a raving drunk. Except in this case, we're all looking away so that we won't notice what she's up tae.'

‘That's so clever!' Ondine blurted.

‘Ondi, me love, she was trying tae kill her husband!' Hamish said, leading them back to the hallway.

‘She did it right in front of us. You were there in
the kitchen and you watched her yelling at the staff, but you didn't realise.'

Hamish's voice dripped with sarcasm: ‘Thanks fer yer vote of confidence.'

They jogged back to the room where the doctors had taken the Duke.

‘Oh, Hamish, I've just realised,' Ondine gasped. ‘You said the Duchess told Vincent, “One day all this will be yours.” She really wasn't just saying that as a figure of speech.'

‘Aye: I only hope we're not too late fer the Duke.'

Laid out on the chaise longue, the Duke looked stricken. Perspiration ran in rivulets down his face. His hair stuck to his scalp in wet dregs.

The Duchess sat weeping by his side while the three doctors discussed the situation amongst themselves in the corner. In a nearby chair sat the First Minister, and next to her, the Infanta.

‘I think we'll need more than doctors,' Ondine said.

The Duchess turned around and looked daggers at them. ‘Get these intruders out of here,' she commanded.

‘It's over, Kerala,' Hamish said, holding up the two bottles of not-wine. ‘We know yer dirty wee secret.'

‘I have no secrets!' the Duchess said.

‘I think you do.' Ondine's mouth turned completely dry. ‘My Lord Duke, I am so very sorry you have to hear this, but your beloved wife has not only been poisoning you, she's been stealing from you, too.'

The Duke whimpered but said nothing.

The Duchess screamed at them, ‘Are you trying to kill him?'

‘No, but you are,' Ondine said, her heart hammering behind her ribs. ‘We know the wine is just for show. It's only fruit juice. We have the ledger, and we have your secret bank account details.'

‘How dare you!' the Duchess said between clenched teeth.

The Duke whimpered some more, from the pain in his kidneys and probably the pain in his heart.

Old Col stared at the Duchess as she muttered a dark spell under her breath, ending with the hideous threat, ‘speak truth not lies or the next Duke dies.'

Ondine noted that she cursed the next duke, not
the current one. The Duchess didn't care if the current duke died, but she cared very much about Vincent. No Vincent, no chance to rule on his behalf.

The Duchess grunted and tried to clamp her mouth shut, but Old Col's stare worked like a drill, digging through layers of obfuscation. The Duchess's words came out as a strangled snarl: ‘I did it for Brugel.' Exhausted, she collapsed on the floor in defeat and said nothing more.

From his sickbed, Duke Pavla whimpered again.

The First Minister spoke up: ‘I shall convene an urgent sitting of the Dentate first thing on Monday.'
⁹²

‘Does this mean Lord Vincent will still be the new Duke?' Ondine said as she and Hamish returned to the ballroom. They'd grabbed some warm trousers and a coat so Ondine no longer looked like a green bean. In the ballroom, the party atmosphere had evaporated – as it should, considering the circumstances. People had stopped eating the food because of Ondine's warning.
However, the police wouldn't let anyone leave, so the band kept playing, even though nobody was dancing.

‘I hope not.' Hamish shuddered at the thought.

‘So who will be the next Duke?'

‘I think the First Minister is checking the constitution right now.'

Speaking of which, the woman herself walked into the ballroom. ‘Ah, there you are,' she said, making a beeline for the Infanta.

Ondine and Hamish were close enough to overhear without having to strain their ears.

‘Your Grace, I have checked the constitution for the line of succession. It states that while the Duke is incapacitated for reasons of physical or mental ill health, the closest relative over the age of twenty-one shall rule in his stead, until such time as the Duke makes a full recovery or dies.'

The Infanta's jaw dropped in shock.

‘Do not be alarmed, the doctors expect Lord Pavla to make a full recovery in time,' the First Minister said.

Ondine leant closer to Hamish, an act that made
her brain a bit fuzzy. ‘Does that mean Anathea will become Duchess of Brugel?' she whispered.