The Perfect Princess (26 page)

“That’s an Irish name, and I’m Scottish.”

“Same thing.”

“And I don’t have an accent.” Richard was serious.

Harper let out a long, patient breath. “Are you listening?” When Richard nodded, he went on, “We’re to help carry the boxes into the house. If anyone challenges you, say nothing. Let me do all the talking.”

“Who would challenge us?”

“The butler. The steward. The parlor maid. How should I know? But be
respectful
. Remember, this is just like the army, and in this army, we’re foot soldiers, at the bottom of the ladder until someone tells us different.
Now, don’t pucker up like that. You, of all people, should understand discipline. You’re a colonel. In this house, the butler, or whoever, is the commanding officer, and if you assume everyone is an officer, you can’t go wrong.”

“You mean, I’m to take orders from
everybody?”

“Aye, that’s exactly what I mean, and you can take that scowl off your face, ’cos it won’t impress no one.”

When the carriages drew to a halt, footmen came out of the house and ran down the steps to assist.

Harper thrust a small box into Richard’s arms. “It’s empty,” he said, “so you won’t strain yourself.”

Richard grinned. “Rosamund’s idea?” He suspected that he had Rosamund to thank, too, for the luxury of traveling inside the coach instead of perching on the box and being buffeted by the elements.

“No. Mr. Templar’s.” Harper scowled. “And keep your eyes off Lady Rosamund, or we’ll both end up in the Thames with millstones tied around our necks.”

“A cat may look at a queen.”

“Not if the cat’s in service, he can’t. Right. Follow me.”

They had done no more than step down from the carriage when a figure appeared at the top of the marble stairs. There was no question in Richard’s mind that he was looking at Rosamund’s father, and behind him, the younger brother. The family resemblance was striking.

No one moved. For one brief interval, it seemed that they were all captured like subjects in some painter’s canvas, then Rosamund descended from the second carriage and everyone came to life. Flanked by Lord Caspar and Hugh Templar, she ascended the stairs. Richard wasn’t sure what he expected, but something more than the bloodless peck on the cheek her father gave her before he put one arm around her shoulders and swept her into the house.

“Some homecoming,” he said under his breath, for Harper’s ears only.

“That’s how it is with the aristocracy,” Harper replied, but he sounded disappointed as well.

A footman appeared in front of them. He, too, wore blue livery and a black waistcoat trimmed with gold braid, but his hair, Richard noted with approval, was un-powdered.

“Come with me,” he said in exactly the same tone of voice Lord Caspar might have used.

Richard’s brows came down. Harper pinned him with a hard stare, then, satisfied that his chief had got the message, obediently followed the footman into the house.

They were told to wait in a small anteroom just off the front entrance. Half an hour later, the same puffed-up lackey who had shown them into the anteroom now arrived to escort them to the duke’s library on the other side of the house.

“Leave the boxes,” he said, “and tuck these hats under your left arm.”

When they arrived at the library, he bade them wait outside. He left the door ajar, and Hugh Templar’s voice carried to them.

“Robinson and Cook of Mount Street,” Hugh said.

“I know them,” said the duke. “Good outfit, I’ll give you that. But I prefer Sharp and Bland of South Audley. They made things to last. I’m sure my old Lizzie will still be going strong a hundred years from now, and she’s thirty if she’s a day.”

Harper beamed.

“What are they talking about?” asked Richard.

“Coaches,” replied Harper. “They’re talking about coach builders. Now maybe Mr. Templar will believe me.”

The conversation in the library broke off. A moment later, Richard and Harper were ushered in and announced
as Doyle and Harper. Seated around a roaring fire were the duke and his sons and Hugh Templar. There was no sign of Rosamund. Richard fixed his eyes on the duke. His hard-eyed stare was returned in full measure.

“So,” said the duke softly, “this is the man who abducted my Rosamund.”

Lord Caspar stirred but he did not stand. “Your Grace,” he said, “permit me to introduce Colonel Maitland, formerly Chief of Staff of Special Branch.”

“Step into the light,” said the duke, addressing Richard. “It’s not often that I’m introduced to a convicted murderer.”

“Your Grace,” began Hugh, then fell silent when the duke held up one hand.

Richard stepped into the light, and Harper kept pace with him, shoulder to shoulder.

The duke’s gaze shifted to take in Harper. “And you are?”

“Sergeant Harper, Your Grace,” said Harper, scowling savagely, “bodyguard to Colonel Maitland.”

The duke’s dark brows winged upward. “And still on duty, I see,” he murmured. He passed a hand over his mouth, waited for a moment, then made a thorough and leisurely appraisal of both men. Finally, looking at Harper, he said, “I won’t hurt your colonel, Sergeant Harper. A promise is binding. So sit down, both of you.”

When this was done, he said, “What is it you want from me, Colonel? Don’t be shy. I’m in a generous mood, now that my daughter has been returned to me safe and sound.”

Richard had already wrestled with his reluctance to accept help from the Deveres, so he came to the point at once. “I need somewhere safe where I can hide out until things quiet down.”

“That was understood at the outset. You’ll stay here for as long as you want. What else can I do for you?”

“When I leave here, I’ll need money to tide me over. Then there’s Dunsmoor. It shouldn’t be left empty. When things are settled, I’ll repay every penny you’ve spent on my account.”

The duke nodded. “I see. You want to pursue your driving ambition—that is, to clear your name?”

“I do.”

“This isn’t necessary. Leave it to me and I think I can safely promise that within the week you will be completely exonerated of Miss Rider’s murder. Not that I’d do it for your sake, you understand. However, I feel I owe it to Mr. Templar for the help he gave us in tracking you down so that my daughter could be rescued.”

“Your Grace,” interjected Hugh, refusing to be silenced this time. “I tracked down Colonel Maitland because I was worried about
him
, not Lady Rosamund. I knew she would come to no harm.”

The duke ignored Hugh’s interruption. “Well, Maitland? What is it to be?”

Richard’s eyes narrowed on the duke’s face. After a moment, he shook his head. “You’re talking about bribing witnesses, tampering with evidence, fabricating new evidence.”

“And if I am?”

Richard’s distaste could hardly be concealed. “Thank you, but no thank you. I prefer my own methods. And there’s more at sake than my reputation. Lucy Rider was murdered. I’m going to find her killer.”

From that point on, the duke’s questions narrowed on the crime, and how Richard had come to be charged with the girl’s murder. In Richard’s mind, the duke had taken on the role of prosecuting counsel, and his replies became shorter and shorter, and were not always couched in polite terms.

Suddenly the duke got up and, of course, everyone got up with him. To Richard, he said, “You’ve been assigned to Lord Justin’s care. He has need of a valet, and that will suit for the present. Your duties will not be onerous and you’ll be isolated from most of the servants. At any rate, you’ll be in livery, and I doubt your own mother would recognize you if she came calling.”

To Harper, the duke said, “My daughter tells me that you drove my coach with no one to help you?”

“Aye, Your Grace,” Harper answered carefully.

“A remarkable achievement.”

Since the duke was smiling, Harper nodded.

The duke went on, “And, Mr. Templar tells me that you like nothing better than to take coaches apart and put them together again?”

“Aye,” replied Harper. Then he remembered to add, “Your Grace.”

“Splendid! Then I have just the position for you. We’re shorthanded in the coach house right now, because . . . well, suffice it to say that I had to turn off some men who let me down badly. How would you like to be head coachman, Harper?”

“Head coachman,” Harper breathed out. His face was transformed by his smile, but by degrees the smile faded. “I already has a position, Your Grace. I’m Colonel Maitland’s bodyguard. Where he goes, I go.”

Richard said, “Don’t be daft, Harper. We’re no longer working for Special Branch. You’re a free agent, the same as I am.”

“Then if I’m a free agent, I’m your bodyguard until I decides different.”

The duke said, “Perhaps Colonel Maitland wouldn’t mind forgoing the position of valet for that of second coachman?”

“It’s all the same to me,” said Richard, lying through his teeth. In his book, shoveling horseshit was a more
manly occupation than acting nursemaid to a dandy who couldn’t be bothered to put on his own coat. Harper had inadvertently saved him from purgatory.

“That settles it, then,” said the duke. “You’ll both be assigned to the coach house. Justin, see to it.”

Lord Justin indicated that Richard and Harper were to go with him. Hugh walked with them to the door.

“I wish I could do more,” he said, “but it’s better for you if I keep my distance for the next little while. Good luck, Richard, and the same to you, Harper.”

Richard understood only too well. If Hugh didn’t keep his distance, he could lead his enemies right to him.

In the hallway, a superior-looking servant whom Lord Justin introduced as Turner, the groom of the chambers, was waiting for His Grace’s instructions. Mr. Turner was in his fifties, with graying hair, shrewd eyes, and a beaked, Roman nose. He wasn’t in livery, but in a fashionable gray frock-coat, so Richard knew that he must be pretty high up in the servant hierarchy.

“Doyle and Harper, two new recruits from Devere,” said Lord Justin airily. “Mr. Harper is to be head coachman and Mr. Doyle, well, we’ll let Mr. Harper decide what to do with him. You might want to show them around and see that they’re comfortably settled. Oh, and don’t let Doyle do any heavy work. He’s not up to it yet.”

Turner’s appraisal of his two new recruits was as thorough as the duke’s, but he waited till Lord Justin had returned to the library before voicing his opinion.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re out-of-work war veterans looking for an easy life in His Grace’s household ’cause you’ve heard that His Grace has a soft heart. Well, just remember that it’s not His Grace you’ll be answering to from now on, but to me, Alfred Turner, groom of the chambers. And if you turn out like that other lot, who were wetting their whistles at the Magpie and Stump when they should have been protecting Lady
Rosamund, you’ll be out on your arses before you can say you own names. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Harper, flashing Richard a warning look.

But Richard was too relieved to have escaped the indignity of being Lord Justin’s valet to put up any resistance. “Thank you, Mr. Turner” was all he said.

In single file, they trudged after the groom of the chambers.

Hugh left almost at once. The duke and his sons saw him off in one of the Devere carriages, then returned to the library to talk things over.

The duke was brooding on what might have happened between Maitland and his daughter in the week just past. He’d been so afraid that she would come home a broken woman, cowed, a shade of her former self. But she’d alighted from the carriage and walked into the house as though she’d just returned from a week’s holiday with Great-Aunt Sophy in Hampshire. Her sunny demeanor had gone a long way to blunting his rage against the man who had abducted her, as had her insistence that Maitland had behaved like a perfect gentleman.

Maitland, a perfect gentleman? He had his doubts about that.

“Well, what do you think, Father?” asked Lord Caspar.

“About Maitland? Short on charm, but I liked him the better for it.”

“He has impeccable references,” said Lord Justin. “Hugh Templar and Harper—I’d take their word over anyone’s any day.”