Читать книгу Prince Of Secrets - Paula Marshall - Страница 10

A fter Sandringham and the season, living at Markendale was like falling into a warm bath. Nothing was required of one, Dinah decided, but to lie back and enjoy one’s self. That this also was not enough for her was a subject for internal annoyance. Really, what do I want? she asked herself. If I were honest, a different kind of life altogether, but that would mean being no longer Lady Dinah Grant—and do I want that? Could I bear to lose Cobie—even though in no true sense can I be said to have him!

He remained an enigma. She could be sure of nothing. He might—or might not—be having an affaire with Susanna. He might—or might not—be doing a thousand other things, some of which might—or might not—involve him in using the magician’s tricks which she had found in the cupboard in his room.

For no reason at all she thought that he was in some way involved with the police—but how and why she had no idea. She also had no idea whether or not he was enjoying himself in England, and whether he intended to stay, or whether he meant to return to the United States—and if so, when?

Markendale was even bigger than Moorings. It had been built early in the eighteenth century and had little of Moorings’ airy charm. It was a barracks of a place, furnished heavily by William Kent, and looked out across the moors.

Its attraction for Lord Kenilworth and his guests was its nearness to the railway line which led to Doncaster, where the autumn race meeting was held. Dinah found racing boring, and she was pretty certain that Cobie felt the same. He had once said to her when she had asked him why he didn’t buy any horses to race that his interest in horses was confined to riding them, not watching midgets doing it for him.

‘Now that is for your ears only,’ he told her, lightly. ‘They would probably drum me out of English society forever if they found out that I thought any such thing!’

Dinah could lose herself by wandering through the corridors at Markendale, admiring the paintings on the walls, and visiting the library, which was excellent, although there was no sign that anyone in the house-party ever used it other than to read the daily papers in it, or write the occasional letter there.

By doing so she could avoid the idle chit-chat of the other women. Never mind what the Marquise had taught her, she deserved a little time to herself, and so she told her husband when he came to find her, late one afternoon, curled up on the window seat in the library, half-hidden by the curtain. She was not reading anything improving, but was deep in Mr Henry James’s novel, The Princess Casamassima.

She looked up at him, impudence written on her face. ‘I hope that you have not come to reprimand me.’

‘For what?’ He was brief. She had noticed that when they were alone this was more his style than effusiveness was.

‘For not joining in, for hiding myself away.’

He sat down opposite to her in one of William Kent’s chairs, and shrugged. ‘You deserve a little time of your own.’ He nodded his head at her book, ‘Something serious?’

Dinah knew from his tone that he was roasting her—she was reading his voice more and more easily, and knew that his subtle double-entendres were always intended, never accidental.

She decided to return the compliment, ‘You might say so.’ She showed him the title-page. ‘It is, after all, about us, I mean our society.’

He nodded agreement. ‘You should read The American—and then tell me whether you think Mr James describes us correctly.’

Her answer was oblique. ‘Most of the Americans I have met are not at all like you.’

‘Is that meant to be a compliment?’

‘If you like.’ Her smile at him was as sweet as those which he usually offered her.

Cobie laughed, rose and came over to her, to bend over her, to put his hand on her neck and kiss her tenderly.

‘You learn quickly,’ he told her, ‘and now, you must learn something else—a little patience with the inanities of this life. We are going to the races at Doncaster tomorrow, and I have said that you will accompany me. You would rather do so, would you not, than remain behind with most of the other women?’

Dinah made a little face. ‘I would rather neither, if you follow me. But, yes, I would prefer to go with you.’

‘Good, and now come with me. It is almost tea-time, and the Prince is asking for you. I see that you are dressed for it.’ He directed an approving look at her cream and pale violet silk tea-gown.

‘Dressed for everything,’ remarked Dinah irrepressibly, ‘Do you know, I calculate that I change my clothing on an average of nearly six times a day?’

‘At that rate,’ Cobie returned, ‘I believe that you surpass me, which I would have thought difficult.’

Dinah had to prevent herself from asking him if one of his many changes when they were in London was into his curious brown suit, and if so, where he went in it. Her silence he took for agreement, and companionably—for they were nothing if not that, she thought ruefully—they passed into the Great Hall, which was now used as a drawing room. It was the middle bar of an H, the two newer wings being the outside ones.

There was a huge hearth with a great fire roaring in it. Assembled there was the entire house party, including those members of it who had arrived only a few hours earlier: Sir Ratcliffe and Lady Heneage, Arthur and Susanna Winthrop and Mr Hendrick Van Deusen, who was the only member of the party to attend without a large retinue of his own.

Afterwards Dinah thought that there was something symbolic about the company, who were never all to meet under the same roof again. As though her and Cobie’s arrival was some sort of signal, Violet rang for tea to be served, while Cobie steered Dinah towards the Prince who was seated in a huge armchair, near to the fire. His Princess was a few yards away in another, her complexion shielded by a large tapestry screen mounted on a pole.

‘As you commanded, sir,’ said Cobie. Dinah, bowing gracefully, had her hand taken by the Prince.

‘None of that formal nonsense here, Lady Dinah,’ he boomed. ‘We are all friends together, no more and no less. Where do you hide yourself, these days, hey?’

‘In the library, sir.’ Dinah thought that he deserved no more and no less than the truth. She could see Violet rolling her eyes and frowning at her, could feel the eyes of half a dozen jealous women boring into her back.

‘In the library, hey! I thought as much, and what do you find to amuse yourself there? And what does your husband think about having a blue-stocking for a wife?’

Dinah was demure, ‘I think that he rather likes the idea, sir.’

‘But you’re not sure,’ he offered her shrewdly. ‘A man of action, your husband. Violet tells me that you wished to go to Oxford, to be a lady scholar. Is that true? You are too charming, I will not say pretty, to be wasted in the cloisters.’

He sat back and smiled at her scarlet face, ‘D’you mind me not calling you pretty, hey?’

‘No, sir, if that is what you think.’ But she did, a little.

‘Sensible girl, aren’t you? Not many women would have given me that answer. No, you’re not pretty, but you are becoming beautiful—which is better than pretty and will last longer. Clever man, your husband.’

This was a trifle oblique, but Dinah thought she took the Prince’s meaning—that it was Cobie who had transformed, and was still transforming, her.

‘I think so, sir.’

‘He is proud of his young wife, I am sure.’

Dinah wasn’t sure, but she said, politely, ‘Oh, yes, and I am proud of him. I wouldn’t like to do anything to distress him. He has been very kind to me, you know, sir.’

Tea had arrived while they were talking and he waved Dinah to a chair beside the Princess who made something of a fuss of her. She complimented her on not over-eating, asked her if she intended to join them at Doncaster on the morrow, and created among those assembled there more jealousy of the raw chit who had been the sensation of the season, and now looked like outdoing her own sister.

Conversation became general. The Prince rose, which had everyone else on their feet, and Dinah found herself talking to Mr Van Deusen who had been sitting quietly by the fire, diagonally from her, enjoying the delights of the most enormous spread which she had ever seen a man eat.

‘Enjoying yourself, Lady Dinah?’

‘I think that I should like notice of that question, Mr Van Deusen.’

He gave a gusty laugh. ‘You look as though you are.’

‘Appearances often deceive, Mr Van Deusen.’

He now gave her the sharpest look. He had doubtless, in the dubious past—she was sure that it was dubious—which he shared with Cobie, heard him say that. Perhaps more than once.

Before he could answer her, she added, ‘It depends, I think, on what one means by enjoy.’

A slow smile crossed his broad face, ‘Oh, yes, Lady Dinah. Do let us logic-chop. Such a change from the usual conversation at these places. You have been learning from…Jacobus.’

He had nearly said Jumping Jake, because watching her he could see how much a pupil of his she was, and how much she had learned from him.

‘Yes, from Jacobus. He has never told me where his name came from. Do you know, Mr Van Deusen?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘Alas, no.’

He did not tell her that it was not the name he had originally known Cobie by, and which it was difficult for him not to use. ‘A family name, I believe.’

‘Ah, but what family?’ retorted Dinah naughtily, and then relented. ‘I mustn’t tease you, must I. Besides, Sir Ratcliffe is coming, and I must put on my best face for him, and do nothing to encourage him in any way.’

Which was difficult, for he had taken to pursuing Dinah Grant, and she could see his wife, old before her time, standing before the tall windows, the late afternoon light cruel on her face. She had not worn as well as her husband and the twenty years of her unhappy married life were written harshly on her features.

Pity for her made Dinah a little abrupt with her husband. Mr Van Deusen had melted away on his arrival, leaving her to cope with him alone. He was sure that she could.

‘And who the devil’s he that he should be here?’ uttered Sir Ratcliffe peremptorily, staring after him. ‘Any idea, Lady Di?’

She disliked her name being shortened, and said a little frostily, ‘He’s a friend of my husband, and beside that he is known to the American Envoy and, I believe, to Lord Kenilworth. Something to do with a trade mission to the United States a few years ago. Lord Kenilworth met him then.’

‘Pity we have to deal with such upstarts,’ sighed Sir Ratcliffe, forgetting that Dinah was married to one of them.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ agreed Dinah smartly. ‘And what a pity that they’re so rich that we’re happy to marry them—for their dollars, of course.’

Sir Ratcliffe, remembering that Dinah was reputed to have done just that, said kindly, ‘Much better if we could have their dollars without their presence, haw, haw!’

‘One must pay something for benefits received,’ Dinah sighed back at him. ‘After all, I doubt whether I should be here at all if I hadn’t married my husband. Think what I should have missed.’

Now this was all as two-faced as any of her husband’s conversations, seeing that she wasn’t at all sure that taking part in the social round was any kind of benefit at all. The real benefits of her marriage could hardly be discussed with Sir Ratcliffe.

‘Oh, indeed,’ he drawled back at her, thinking that she was wittier than Violet, and much less of a shrew into the bargain. Susanna was beginning to pall: she was too clinging, and an affaire with Grant’s wife would be one in the eye for Grant and no mistake. He was reputed to make free with other men’s wives rather than provide his own for their use.

‘I see that you take after your sister, Lady Dinah—in more ways than one, I hope,’ and he looked at her with the light of hopeful conquest in his eye.

Fortunately, Cobie, not liking to see his wife so much as speak to Sir Ratcliffe, came over to them, excused them both and led her out of the Hall down yet another long corridor. His conversation, apparently aimless, was far from being so.

‘Markendale is an architectural monstrosity,’ he said idly. ‘I have been talking to Lord Kenilworth’s land agent, and he has been showing me the plans of the building. It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The wing we are all housed in is comparatively new, built during the last fifty years to accommodate the last Lord Kenilworth’s guests. Like the present one he had the reputation of being a great host, and his wife a great hostess. The present pair are trying to outdo them. They would be hard put to build such a puzzle as the new wing where stairs lead anywhere but where you might expect.’

Dinah nodded. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that one might get lost, and be found years later as a skeleton on some landing no one has thought to visit. Ought I to carry a cord with me, like Theseus in the Labyrinth, do you think, to keep me from such a sad fate?’

He nodded lazily, handed her through a glass door and walked with her into the gardens, turning at the end of a long alley to look back at the Hall.

He pointed to a window on the first floor. ‘I calculate that we are housed over there.’

A balcony ran the full length of the house, saved only from spoiling its lines by the presence of a flat roof below it where an orangery had been built on to its side by the present Lord Kenilworth.

‘Should you like to live here?’ Dinah queried

Cobie shook his head. ‘Not my style,’ he said decisively.

Dinah wondered what his style was. Presently they turned away to stroll down to the lake where a folly in the form of a Grecian temple stood, and where Cobie had ordered his sketch-book, pencils and water-colours, and Dinah’s canvas-work, to be left.

‘I thought that you might appreciate a little time on your own,’ he told her, beginning to draw the idyllic scene before them. ‘The next few days promise to be hectic, what with the races in the day, ceremonial dinners and equally ceremonial card-playing at night. We shall all be expected to join in.’

Dinah did appreciate a little time to herself. She took out her tapestry and began to stitch. Presently Cobie rose and picked up his sketch-book. ‘You will excuse me, I know. I have a mind to draw the house in the background,’ he said, and walked away.

She watched him until he disappeared from sight before resuming her work. He was aware of her gaze on him, but it was to escape it that he had left her. He stopped when the house lay plain before him, and he began to draw it carefully…but not because of its aesthetic interest. He took from his pocket the internal plan of the wing where all the guests were accommodated, and which he had drawn from memory after Kenilworth’s land agent had shown it to him earlier.

Sir Ratcliffe’s bedroom was there, three windows away from his own, accessible both from the ground by way of the orangery roof and the balcony, and by the balcony from his own bedroom.

Cobie began to turn plans over in his mind.

He was still turning them over that evening when, to escape from everyone, he left the vast drawing room where tables had been set out for baccarat to be played when the Prince so ordered. He wandered into a dimly lit octagonal room, known as The Cabinet which had one window looking out on the gardens. The other walls were covered with cases of dead butterflies, pinned down in all their fragile glory.

Another guest was inspecting them desultorily through her lorgnette: she was Lady Heneage.

Cobie bowed, and began to retire. ‘I had not meant to interrupt you.’

‘No matter,’ she said, almost curtly. ‘I would value your opinion on these,’ and she waved her hand at the cases.

She was beautifully dressed, and was wearing the famous Heneage diamonds, a necklace, ear rings, two rings, and a brooch. Far from enhancing her, they added in some odd way to her insignificance—the most important thing about her being them, and them only.

‘Oh, I can have no opinion on such things,’ he said coolly. ‘I am not qualified to judge.’

Her sad face broke into a watery smile, ‘Which means, I think, that you do not like them.’

Because Cobie thought that, like him, she didn’t, he murmured, truthfully for once, ‘Admiring scenes of carnage is not one of my favourite occupations, Lady Heneage.’

She took his point, and nodded slowly, saying, ‘You have a way with words, Mr Grant. I have been listening to you. Do you admire my diamonds more? I hear that you have been investing in them.’

Neither was she a fool, although many thought her so.

‘A Heneage heirloom, I understand. Always owned and worn by the current Lady Heneage. They are extremely beautiful, without a flaw. If they were to come upon the market I think that the price they would fetch would be little less than astronomical.’

She made a savage gesture with her hand. ‘That is nothing to me. They are a brand I wear, nothing more. A millstone around my neck, Mr Grant. I wish them at the bottom of the sea. Do I shock you?’

He pitied her.

There was something so forlorn and lost about her. Her husband was busy chasing someone else’s wife—perhaps his own—whilst his wife, whose fortune gossip said that he had thrown away on the gaming tables, walked alone and unhappy.

‘No,’ he said gently. ‘But I should tell you that very little does.’

‘I thought not. Look after your wife, Mr Grant. Protect her from the wolves—which you are well able to do, being one yourself. You see I am being frank with you. I was once like her, until I married. Leave me, please. I grow maudlin. I know that you will say nothing of this to my husband. He dislikes you intensely. Perhaps that is why I like you. What he dislikes must be worth knowing.’

Cobie took the hand which lay lax at her side, lifted it and kissed it. ‘To say that you have my deepest sympathy would be presumptuous, Lady Heneage. I thank you for your interest in my wife. If there is ever anything I can do for you…’

She interrupted him. ‘No one can do anything for me. I married him with, as I then thought, my eyes open. But a young woman’s knowledge of life is limited. One pays for that, Mr Grant, more bitterly than one deserves.’

Oh, yes, he knew that to be true, none better. He thought of the dreadful price which he had once paid for innocence, and pitied her the more. He said nothing further, merely bowed again, and left her staring at the holocaust of damaged beauty which gathered dust upon the walls of a little-visited room.

The Prince was one of the bankers at baccarat, Cobie found when he returned to the drawing room. He was using his own cards and counters fashioned from red leather with his Prince of Wales feathers on one side and the denomination on the other. The counters were worth from five shillings to ten pounds. The game was played as solemnly as though they were at a casino—to the shock of some of the party who were strait-laced.

Sir Ratcliffe was winning consistently. His luck was in these days, he proclaimed jovially. He had backed the favourite that afternoon and it had romped home. He helped Susanna, who sat beside him, and who had never played before. She won quite a large sum, too.

Cobie, watching him carefully, was not sure how much luck had to do with it, but never mind, he thought that Sir Ratcliffe’s luck was soon going to change for the worse in other areas of his life.

The Prince called him into the game. Lady Heneage came to sit by him, to be advised as her husband was advising Susanna. Dinah had refused to play. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she had asked him earlier. ‘But I find it tedious.’

Cobie found it tedious, too, but had his reasons for playing. One of them being that watching Sir Ratcliffe carefully seemed reasonable when he was part of the game. He won a little himself. Lady Heneage won more until she announced that she was tired and needed an early night—which gave the Grants the opportunity to excuse themselves as well.

They had a suite of rooms, which included a small drawing room as well as two bedrooms, and a rather stark closet of a bathroom off Cobie’s bedroom, nothing like the luxurious one in Park Lane to which Dinah had grown accustomed.

‘What a boring way of passing the time,’ she exclaimed of the baccarat game.

‘True,’ said her husband. ‘I can think of a much better way, can’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she told him fervently, inviting him into her bed.

Well, at least if he were pursuing an affaire with Susanna here, at Markendale, she would soon know, since everyone knew of the amorous adventures of everyone else. It seemed as though Susanna had taken up with Sir Ratcliffe again, which was a great relief, and long might it last, she thought naughtily, before Cobie leapt into her bed, and thought disappeared altogether, and sensation was all…

Later on, in the small hours, sleepless, his wife on his arm, Cobie lay on his back and thought about Lady Heneage, Sir Ratcliffe, two dead children, and a diamond necklace which was hated by its owner—or temporary owner—for heirlooms were ambiguous things, their owner being unable to do anything but allow them to be passed on to the next Lady of the Heneage household when her husband died.

He had once read Trollope’s novel, The Eustace Diamonds. He remembered that Lizzie Eustace, who, unlike Lady Heneage, had loved her diamonds fiercely, had refused to hand them over when her husband died, and had carried them around with her in a small safe. She then stole them herself, claiming that someone else had.

Sir Ratcliffe was sure to carry the diamonds in a safe—and did he also hide the Prince of Wales’s letters in it? One might suppose so. Where else could be better? He would need to know that they were secure. How strong would the safe be? Could a man who had mastered the art of cracking safes, not only by using dynamite, but by more subtle, criminal means, crack Sir Ratcliffe’s?

Cobie had reconnoitred to some purpose that afternoon, and now knew the exact lay-out of the floor on which he was sleeping. The thing would be to arrange matters so that it looked as though an outsider was the thief—that is, if he managed to steal anything.

Chance, chance, he said to himself, be my friend again.

Dinah stirred as though she had heard him. He looked down at her fondly. After all, by chance, he had acquired a wife who pleased him in bed, unlikely though that had seemed when he had decided to marry her. He would have to be sure that she was sleeping peacefully in her own room when he carried out the plan which had taken shape in his mind. He slept at last, knowing ruefully that, for his plan to work, Sir Ratcliffe would have to be in Susanna’s bed, not his own.

For that, as well as for Lizzie and the other dead child, Sir Ratcliffe would lose more than his letters… Meantime, he would watch the swine enjoy himself, knowing the day of reckoning was coming, and soon—the next night, if all went well.

All did go well. He even enjoyed watching his intended victim win again at the races on the following afternoon and at the baccarat table at night. The grey man, Beauchamp, stopped him on the stairs on the way to dinner, ostensibly to admire a painting by Richard Wilson which hung above them, actually to say conversationally, ‘Have you thought over what we discussed at Sandringham, Mr Grant? Have you come to a conclusion yet?’

Cobie, watching Dinah talking to Lady Heneage in the hall below, said, apparently idly, ‘Oh, yes, indeed, Mr Beauchamp,’ and then fell silent. Playing cat and mouse was a game he excelled at.

There was a hint of exasperation in Beauchamp’s tone. ‘And?’

‘And?’ Cobie’s smile was as sweet as he could make it. ‘Why, as to that, Mr Beauchamp, sir, you will have to wait and see. It should add interest to your stay here. And, yes, the Richard Wilson is superb, one of his best, don’t you think.’

With that he walked lightly down to join Dinah and Lady Heneage who did not appear to be sharing her husband’s happiness at his constant winning. Indeed, the one person Sir Ratcliffe wasn’t happy with was his wife. When she went to her room that night, he caught her up, and followed her in.

‘A word with you,’ he said, his face ugly, his hand on her arm. She tried to shake it off, but couldn’t. ‘What are you doing, toadying up to that swine, Grant? I won’t have it, do you hear me? Keep away from him.’

Still trying to shake herself free she said defiantly, ‘No, indeed. I do not interfere with your pleasures, none of which is innocent. My pleasure in talking to Mr Grant is innocent. I shall do as I please.’

‘That you won’t,’ he snarled, and twisted her arm cruelly. ‘You’ll do as you are told, or it will be the worse for you.’

She tried to pull away from him, but failed again. ‘I won’t do as you bid me. You have forfeited that right.’

This time he let go of her arm only to give her a backhanded blow across the face. ‘You heard what I said, woman. You grow a deal too bold these days.’

‘My life is pure,’ she told him, still defiant. ‘Can you say as much?’

He struck her again, knocking her to the floor. He bent down and carelessly stripped her of her diamonds.

‘Damn you, woman, you don’t deserve these. Perhaps one day I might have a woman I should be proud to see wearing them. May it soon come.’

He turned and left her. She struggled to her feet. He was doubtless going to Susanna Winthrop, and she wondered whether he was as cruel to her as he was to his unconsidered wife. Not yet, perhaps.

Slowly, she prepared for the night, not ringing for her maid. She climbed into bed painfully; there were bruises on her wrist and on her arms and legs where she had fallen heavily. Pain and shame kept her from sleep, as it did on many nights.

Some time after midnight, she dozed lightly, but a slight sound woke her. It seemed to come from her husband’s room, which she had thought to be empty. Moved by curiosity, wondering who could be there, for it was not Sir Ratcliffe’s habit to return from Susanna’s room until dawn, she rose, walked to his bedroom door to fling it open and switched on the light to see—what?

A man, all in black, wearing a kind of muffler which covered his head and face except for his eyes. He had Sir Ratcliffe’s small safe open before him on the dressing table in the window to take full advantage of the moonlight and was lifting out of it the leather cases in which the Heneage diamonds were kept. The necklace had already been abstracted and glittered on a large black silk handkerchief spread out on the bed.

For some reason she wasn’t frightened, although beforehand she would have thought that she would have been paralysed by fear. The burglar, for he was a burglar, calmly continued to pull out the cases. She now saw that a pile of papers, removed from the safe, also lay half-folded in the handkerchief, ready to be taken away.

For a moment she and the burglar stared at one another. She thought of giving the alarm, and then she thought of the misery which her life with Sir Ratcliffe had brought her, how the diamonds lay like fire on her skin, burning it, and that she hated them and him.

Slowly, slowly, she turned around, switched off the light, so that now only the moon illuminated the room, and returned to her bed, leaving the intruding thief to do his work.

Lady Heneage slept well for the first time in months. The thought of her husband’s face when he found his safe pillaged brought a smile to her lips as consciousness faded.

When the door had opened Cobie’s first thought was that it might be Sir Ratcliffe returning early from Susanna’s bed. And if so, what should he do then?

But it was Lady Heneage, ghost-like in a long white nightdress, her greying hair in a plait down her back, her eyes fearless, looking straight at him. He could have applauded her—he might have expected hysterics or wild screaming, either of which would have brought all the inhabitants of Markendale at the run, leaving him to escape…if he could.

Cobie decided to do nothing, simply to continue calmly unpacking the diamonds from the safe. To move towards her, to say anything, might only serve to destroy her unnatural calm.

She hesitated. She put up a hand to switch off the light, before walking silently from the room. The whole episode had taken only one nerve-shattering minute. From wondering sardonically what would follow if he were caught, he moved to understanding what her inaction, her refusal to arouse the house, told him of her relations with her husband.

Her intrusion also told him that the tightrope on which he was walking was higher above the ground than was usual, even for him. He didn’t think that he had been recognised. He did think that it behoved him to move as speedily as he could, which he did. At the end he took a card from his pocket and put it into the empty safe which he left, prominent in all its rifled glory on the dressing table.

The last leg of his dangerous odyssey lay before him. His booty in his pockets, he wriggled through the sash window, leaving it open. It was the work of a moment to walk briskly along the balcony to enter his bedroom through his own open window. Earlier, he had placed a ladder, fetched from the garden, to lean against the orangery wall, giving the impression of an outsider having gained entrance.

Luck had been with him again, but for how long? One day the horse beneath him would fall at one of the fences he was trying to take, and that would be the end—but not yet, please. He laughed noiselessly at the thought of the brouhaha the rifled safe would cause in the morning.

He parcelled up the Prince’s letters, to place them in a large and expensive envelope of white hand-made paper which he sealed with an elaborate and meaningless seal, bought from a pawnbroker’s in a dingy part of London, sinking it deep into the hot wax.

The envelope was addressed as to the personal attention of HRH the Prince of Wales. In the morning he would set out for his pre-breakfast ride—he had been taking one for the last week, so that his being up at such a time would cause no comment, and on his way out he would slip the envelope on to the table where the incoming mail was placed.

His last act after hiding the diamonds was to take a bath and dress himself for bed. Angelic in pure white, his newly washed and dried hair clustered in curls about his head, he offered the world the impression of a cinquecento saint. He opened the communicating door between Dinah’s room and his, to slip quietly into her bed where she lay sleeping, a small smile on her face, to be discovered by her in the early hours and to celebrate with him not only his presence, but his unknown skulduggery.

Sir Ratcliffe Heneage lay in bed with Susanna Winthrop in the curve of his arm. It was almost dawn, time for him to leave. He began to move; she protested against him in half-sleep. Waking fully, she said, a little fretful, ‘I really—can’t think what I’m going to do.’

He tensed a little, and asked, ‘About what?’ He was a trifle apprehensive. It was always dangerous when women began to think. Best if they only ever felt.

‘About the fact that I’m having a baby.’

‘What is there to do? Your husband knows, and hasn’t made anything of it.’

He could really do without this sort of thing to trouble him. Yesterday’s letters from his bankers and his creditors were enough trouble for a fellow without a woman having second thoughts when he was in bed with her. He was sure she was having second thoughts. He knew the tone of voice she was using only too well.

‘He knows the child can’t be his, but he’s prepared to accept it, it gives him an heir, keeps the money from his cousin, but I’m frightened that he might find out that it’s yours.’

Sir Ratcliffe gave a coarse laugh. ‘Never tell me that he thinks it’s Apollo’s!’

Susanna put her face into the pillow, said in a muffled voice, ‘For some reason he took it for granted that it was. I suppose he thought that it happened just before you and I became friendly. He thinks Cobie’s my lover.’

She fell silent, then raised an agonised face.

He said, brutally, ‘I’d have thought that it would have disturbed him more for Grant to be the father than myself. After all, Grant’s an illegitimate nobody, I’m the possessor of an illustrious name.’

Susanna said tearfully, ‘I know, but since he’s always believed that I’ve been unfaithful to him with Cobie, he didn’t mind a child by him—he half-welcomed it. But if he knew that it was yours he would be enraged. It would mean that I’d been unfaithful with two lovers, not one. He couldn’t stand that.’

Sir Ratcliffe began to laugh. ‘A good joke, isn’t it—seeing that you’ve assured me that you were never Grant’s mistress. Well, it’s to both our advantages to let him think that it’s Grant’s, so why worry?’

‘Because—’ and now Susanna’s voice was agonised ‘—I’m doing Cobie a dreadful wrong. He’s always behaved honourably towards me, and now everyone thinks that I became pregnant by him before I began my affaire with you. I’ve even let his wife believe that—as much by what I haven’t said as what I have. Now I don’t know how to tell the truth. Oh, it was a wicked thing to do…I can’t think why I did it….’

‘But sensible,’ said Sir Ratcliffe briskly, rising and putting on his heavy brocade dressing gown, ‘seeing that I can’t afford to keep a mistress and an illegitimate brat, and I don’t want to be involved in a nasty divorce case either. Now, if your husband doesn’t mind Apollo’s get, why should you have qualms? You gain every way. I’d better go, it’s getting late, and you’d better stop all this pious talk about doing wrong.

‘First of all you don’t mean it, and secondly, I find it a damned bore. I can get that sort of whining cant from my wife—from my mistress I expect better things. So put a bright face on, my dear, if you want to keep me in your bed.’

He had never spoken so coarsely to her before, but he was beginning to tire of her. Ordinary love was always milk-and-water to him: he needed strong brandy, but for safety’s sake, he dare not, at the moment, try to find any. It was too soon after he had enjoyed the last child. He wondered how long Susanna would go on clinging to him if he meted out to her some of the treatment his wife received. It might be interesting to find out.

He was humming cheerfully to himself when he walked along the corridor to his room, the morning light growing stronger by the minute. No one was about, although he knew that by now the servants in the attics would be stirring, getting ready for the day. He unlocked the bedroom door to let himself in, and switched on the light.

He didn’t, at first, see the open safe on the dressing table, only the bed, turned down for him, but not yet entered. He pulled off his dressing gown, yawned, and strode towards it…

To see on his way—no, he couldn’t be seeing that, no, not that! There was the safe, yawning as widely as he had just done, and empty, quite empty, except for a piece of card left on its floor. Fearfully he leaned forward, picked up the card, and felt the breeze from the window, which was wide open, although he had left it almost shut.

The message on the card was plain and unequivocal. I’VE TAKEN PAYMENT FOR LIZZIE STEELE—BUT IT’S NOT THE FINAL PAYMENT was printed on it in bold capitals. Sir Ratcliffe’s head buzzed and roared. For a moment the loss of the diamonds and the Prince’s letters were forgotten. Someone knew! Someone was aware of Lizzie’s death and his part in it, and that someone had taken the diamonds—and the letters—to punish him.

He was no longer safe, his secret was no secret. Some midnight thief had come through the window and robbed him, not only of his last few pieces of wealth, but of his security. Still holding the card, he sank on to the bed. What to do? He must report the theft of the diamonds. He couldn’t keep that from his wife.

Whatever he had said to her, he still wanted her to wear them every night. They were the only proof left that he wasn’t entirely bankrupt, wasn’t beginning to sell the last remnants of the Heneage wealth, everything else having gone. No, he must reveal the theft, but not the card which the thief had left—for what questions might not the police ask him about it?

He fetched his wallet from where he had left it on the previous evening and stuffed the card in it. As soon as there was a fire going and he was alone with it he would destroy the incriminating thing, but he couldn’t destroy the fact that someone, somewhere, knew the dreadful truth of him—and was seeking revenge.

Worse, the one salvation he had, the talisman which had kept him safe for so long, was his possession of the Prince’s incriminating letters—and they had gone, too. If they had been returned to the Prince he was done for, because the Royal favour, which had been the only thing to keep him afloat, would now be removed.