Malice at the Palace (The Royal Spyness Series Book 9)

 

 

“I don’t think they realized you were staying here. I’ll send them a note back and ask that you may be included, Traudi,” Marina said. “Of course you should come with us.”

 

She was really a sweet-natured person.

 

“I think that perhaps you should not attend, Irmtraut,” Marina’s mother said. “It is to be a family occasion for Marina to meet her new aunts.”

 

“Very well,” Irmtraut said stiffly. “I should not intrude on a family occasion.”

 

“Oh, but Mama, surely . . .” Marina began but Irmtraut interrupted.

 

“No, you are right. I should not attend,” Irmtraut said stiffly. “I should not feel comfortable and I do not wish to seem like the poor relation.”

 

“As you wish,” Marina said and I could tell even she was becoming exasperated with Irmtraut.

 

She turned to me. “Now you must tell me all about these aunts so that I get it right tomorrow.”

 

Oh crikey. I was clear enough about Princesses Louise and Beatrice, both Queen Victoria’s daughters. Princess Alice, I understood, had married Prince Alexander of Teck, and was thus related to Queen Mary as well as the king. The last royal aunt, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, was a little more nebulous to me. I knew she was also a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and therefore cousin to my father, but not much else about her. It seemed that Queen Victoria had had enough children to populate the royal houses of Europe.

 

“But you know her, Marina,” her mother said when I mentioned the name. “Her daughter Alice is your aunt. She married Daddy’s brother.”

 

“Oh yes. Of course.” Marina smiled. “Then her grandson must be Philip. The blond boy.”

 

“Such a handsome lad already,” Marina’s mother said. “I wonder who he will marry one day?”

 

“Unfortunately too young for you, Georgie,” Marina said. “But you have someone else in mind, don’t you?”

 

So we had a lovely Sunday to look forward to—luncheon with the aunts and then a glamorous soiree with Noel Coward. How easily one slips into the mode of thinking there is nothing extraordinary about this. If only Fig could see me now!

 

Marina was dining with her parents at Buckingham Palace so it was to be just Irmtraut and me at Kensington again. We were having sherry, prior to dining, when a maid appeared.

 

“Your ladyship, there is a gentleman to see you at the front door,” she said. “A Mr. O’Mara.”

 

“Thank you.” I felt my cheeks turning red as I went out to meet him. He was standing in the long gallery off the front entrance, looking around with interest.

 

“This place could do with a coat of paint,” he said. “Couldn’t they have found anywhere a little less dingy to house a princess?”

 

“It was the only apartment that was vacant here,” I said. “There are several royal aunts in residence.”

 

“Ah yes. The Prince of Wales’s Aunt Heap.” Darcy smiled.

 

“Will you come in for sherry? I could introduce you to the dreaded Irmtraut.”

 

He looked dubious. “I just stopped by to give you the latest news. We’ve found the birth certificate and no father is listed. It seems the child is already in America.”

 

“America?”

 

He nodded. “Sir Jeremy went to have a chat with Sir Toby. He was told that Sir Toby arranged the adoption with a wealthy American publisher while he was over in the States. He said there was a little unpleasantness because Bobo changed her mind at the last moment and didn’t want to give up her baby. But he said he made her see sense.”

 

“So Toby Blenchley was the father?” I asked.

 

“Not according to him. She was just a young acquaintance, but he’d heard about her unfortunate circumstances and his mind went instantly to his friend in America whose wife was longing for a baby. So he helped arrange the adoption. End of story.”

 

“Would you go to all that trouble for a distant acquaintance?” I asked.

 

“Probably not.” Darcy smiled. “But Sir Toby hasn’t been in government this long without learning a thing or two. I don’t see any way we could prove he was the father. In fact he hinted to Sir Jeremy that everyone knew that Prince George was the child’s father, but naturally, as good Englishmen, they would never express that thought in company.”

 

“But we know she has been seen around with Sir Toby. If she wasn’t his mistress, then why?”

 

“Another idea that I don’t think we’ll be able to prove,” he said. “It’s possible he brings in the drugs when he comes back from trade missions. It’s unlikely the bags of a minister on government business would ever be searched. He might have been supplying people like Bobo.”

 

“But you’d never get anyone to talk.”