When the Devil Drives (11 page)

Pandemonium. A woman was screaming, men shouting. Several threw themselves from their horses and leapt over the railings to help her. I slid off the chestnut, threw the reins to Wiggins and walked round on the grass to Rancie, not caring much if the contessa were alive or dead. I was so furious with her that I'd have felt like knocking her unconscious myself if the ground had not done it for me. Rancie was standing there, nostrils flaring, knowing that something was wrong. I took the rein and stroked her muzzle.

‘It's not your fault, Rancie. It's mine. Forgive me. I should never have let her touch you.'

I walked Rancie a little way and found her mercifully undamaged. By then, Wiggins had come to join us, pale faced and looking as if it were his fault. ‘The poor lady's alive at any rate,' he muttered.

I just stopped myself saying that she didn't deserve to be. I left the three horses in his care and went over to the flower bed. Some of the men were lifting the contessa over the railing. She gasped and briefly opened her eyes. I didn't think they should have moved her but it was too late now. Two of them spread their coats on the grass and laid her down. Another vaulted onto his horse saying he'd fetch a doctor from the barracks. I noticed that the skirt of her riding habit was rucked up showing a shapely knee in a silk stocking and a calf booted in black leather. Perhaps the gentlemen were too polite to touch the skirt, or more likely they enjoyed looking at her leg.

I kneeled down beside her, and at first sight thought that a bone must have broken so badly that it was making a bulge along her boot. Then the light caught something metallic in the top of the boot close to the calf, only visible to me kneeling down. I might have made some sound of surprise, because her eyes sprang open, full of pain, and fixed on me.

‘Don't touch it.' She hissed it at me, winced and closed her eyes again.

I pulled her skirt down and stayed kneeling beside her until a doctor came galloping up. Under his care, and a gulp of brandy from a gentleman's flask, she recovered enough to sit up. After some time, the doctor pronounced her fit to be moved and a charitable lady offered to see her home to Grosvenor Square in her carriage. As she limped to the carriage, supported by several gentlemen, her eyes met mine again. Challenging eyes, as if daring me to say anything. Wiggins and I watched the carriage roll away.

‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘You were certainly not to blame and I shall make sure Mr Legge knows that.'

We rode slowly back to the livery stables, Wiggins leading Bella. As soon as I'd seen Rancie untacked, I went straight across the park and knocked on the door of 4 Grosvenor Street. As Suzette let me in, I heard piano music coming from upstairs. Mozart, and very well played as it happened, although I was too angry to notice at the time. I stamped up the stairs and opened the door of the drawing room that was supposed to be mine. Mr Clyde turned on the piano stool, smiling as if the music had put him into a pleasant dream. He stood up and the smile faded when he saw my face.

‘What happened? Wouldn't the contessa ride with you after all?'

‘Oh, she rode with me,' I said. ‘She nearly killed my horse and has probably broken her ankle.'

‘Where is she?'

‘Somebody took her home.'

‘I must go to her.'

‘Not yet,' I said. ‘There's something that won't wait.'

‘What's that?'

‘I'm not accepting your case after all.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I can't do my work if my clients lie to me,'

If he'd denied lying, I'd have walked out. (Even though curiosity might nag me for the rest of my life.)

He stood looking at me, his eyes sad. When he spoke, his voice was low and tired. ‘Would you sit down, at least?'

I sat on the edge of one of the armchairs. My riding boots were muddy from the flower bed and had left smears on the carpet. He sat back down on the piano stool and waited for me to speak.

‘You told me that the gentleman she's obsessed with is part of the prince's household. He isn't. She's in love with one of the princes himself.'

‘She told you that?'

‘No. But there were only the two princes in the carriage when she tried to deliver her letter.'

I could see that he wanted to ask how I knew that. ‘So which is it?' I said. ‘Ernest or Albert?'

‘Oh, Ernest. Albert's far too shy for anything like that.' His reply was prompt, with a wry twist of a smile.

‘So the contessa was Prince Ernest's mistress?' I said.

He nodded.

‘I should have told you from the start, I admit. But I'm sure you'll understand the wish to avoid scandal, particularly since the princes are on an official visit here.' He waited. I said nothing.

‘Please, Miss Lane, accept my apology and don't give us up. I can't tell you how relieved I was when you agreed to help me. If you walk away now, I don't know where to turn.'

I guessed that he wasn't accustomed to plead for what he wanted.

‘There's something else you didn't tell me,' I said.

‘What?'

‘That she carries a pistol. It was hidden in her riding boot, but I saw it when she fell off.'

He looked startled. I didn't know whether it was because of the pistol, or because I knew about it.

‘Did anybody else see it?'

‘I'm almost sure not. But did you know?'

He hung his head, looking away from me for the first time. ‘I didn't know. Perhaps I feared it.'

‘Why?'

He raised his eyes. ‘A person may carry a weapon in self-defence.'

‘This is Mayfair, not some blasted heath full of highwaymen,' I said. ‘Why should she expect to have to defend herself? Have any of Prince Ernest's people threatened violence against her?'

‘I don't believe the prince would countenance anything like that.'

‘If not the prince, maybe one of his overenthusiastic followers?' I persisted. ‘After all, if she's such an embarrassment, it might have occurred to somebody to try to scare her away.'

‘The contessa is not easily scared.'

‘Exactly. She wasn't scared this morning, out in the park, and yet she was carrying a pistol. There are two reasons for carrying a weapon: defence – or attack.'

He looked at me and said nothing.

‘So who is she planning to attack?' I said.

‘Like you, I can only guess.'

‘Who, then?'

‘The man she thinks has wronged her.'

‘If every woman who was wronged by a man decided to shoot him, half the human race wouldn't reach the age of thirty,' I said.

‘She is not every woman. She's passionate, perhaps reckless.'

‘Desperate too, you said. So, Prince Ernest?'

‘Yes.'

I thought about it, aware of his eyes on me. He'd won one round at any rate. I hadn't walked out.

‘Assuming you're right,' I said, ‘how could she? He must be surrounded by people nearly all the time. Even when she was trying to deliver her letter, she didn't get to him.'

‘But suppose she'd had a pistol in her hand at the time, not just a letter. Would she have been close enough for that?'

I thought the answer was probably yes.

‘There's another point about that. She knew somehow that he'd be making a private visit to the Gloucesters in Park Lane,' I said.

‘Exactly. I've thought all along that she's getting information, either from somebody in the princes' suite or even at Windsor.'

‘She met a young man in the park named Courtney,' I said. ‘He told her some piece of news that excited her.'

‘Did you know him?'

‘No.'

‘And she didn't say what the news was?'

‘No.'

‘You might ask her when you go to visit her.'

‘I'm not sure I shall be visiting her.'

‘Wouldn't it be the normal thing to do, call and ask after her injury?'

‘Except that the injury was her own fault and she could have broken my mare's leg.'

He waved that aside, but then he couldn't have known all that Rancie meant to me.

‘Miss Lane, I should have taken you fully into my confidence from the start. Now you know the worst of it, you must see in all humanity that you can't walk away and leave her.'

‘If you're even half right, that's exactly what I should do. You're asking me to protect a woman who might try to assassinate a visiting royal.'

‘No. I'm asking you to help prevent it.'

‘Then tell the police or even the Foreign Office what you suspect. I'm sure you have friends in high places.'

‘And have her arrested? You can't ask me to do that.'

‘Even if she tries to kill him the next time he makes a visit somewhere?'

‘Then we must stop it. That, and something else she might be planning.'

‘What else?'

He hesitated, turned to the piano and held down a low key. When he spoke, his voice was not much louder than the dying vibrations of the piano wire. ‘She might be planning to shoot herself in his presence.'

I could imagine that, more easily than seeing her as a murderess. I even pictured the scene: a public occasion with His Highness and courtiers on horseback and in uniform. A lovely, desperate young woman rushes forward, perhaps grips the prince's stirrup with her small hand.
See, see to what you have condemned me.
Her other hand produces something from her heaving bosom. Before the courtiers can recover from their horror, a shot rings out. The young woman slumps to the ground, heart blood pumping over the white lace at her breast, pistol falling from her hand. The other hand clings for a few seconds to her betrayer's stirrup then, as the fingers reluctantly surrender their grip, falls beside her lifeless body. A scandal of European dimensions has occurred.

‘I think, in cases like that, people don't really imagine they're going to die,' I said, almost to myself. ‘They picture themselves floating over it all, seeing people being sorry for what they've done.'

‘Exactly that. You see, you do understand her. That's why you can't desert us.'

‘You mentioned a gentleman who wanted to marry her in spite of everything,' I said. ‘Does he know about all this?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then if I were that gentleman, I think I should try to kidnap her.'

He opened his eyes wide. ‘Kidnap?'

‘Yes. According to what you tell me, she sees this visit to London as her last chance. The prince is only here for a few weeks. If the contessa could be got out of the way until the visit were over, she might see sense at last.'

‘So you're advising him not only to kidnap her but keep her locked up as well?'

‘If you're right, she's at risk of being locked up in any case, and for a lot longer than a few weeks.'

‘You take my breath away. I wasn't aware I was dealing with a lady of such ruthlessness. But she would surely hate the poor gentleman very much for dealing with her so roughly.'

‘Yes.'

‘And he doesn't wish to be hated by her.'

‘If he loved her, he might have to suffer that hatred as the price for preserving her freedom and possibly her life,' I said.

I was testing him. He sighed.

‘Well, I shall put to him your interesting suggestion, if I have the opportunity. Meanwhile, will you go and visit and let me know how she is?'

My riding habit and muddy boots were hardly suitable for visiting the sick, but I wanted to get it over. I stood up.

‘Above all, don't say anything to her about this conversation,' he said. ‘Don't even mention my name.'

‘Really? Would
Mr Clyde
mean anything to her if I did?'

He dropped his eyes. I still wasn't completely in his confidence, whatever he said.

At the contessa's lodging, I had to wait in the hall while the blue and silver footman took my name upstairs. When he ushered me into the salon, the contessa was lying on the chaise longue in a rainbow chrysalis of silk and merino shawls, with her dark curls and those amazing eyes giving promise of an especially exotic butterfly. And an impatient one.

‘Where have you been? I have been waiting for you.'

‘How's your ankle?'

The leg sticking out from the chrysalis was swaddled in bandages and the smell of comfrey ointment hung in the air.

‘The doctor says it's only sprained, but what does he know? I think the bone's broken. And he tells me I must not put weight on it for a week.'

‘Is that so bad?'

I thought it might at least keep her out of action while we decided what to do.

‘Impossible. I must be in Kensington tomorrow.'

Less than two miles away, but she made it sound like the end of the earth.

‘Why?'

‘Because he'll be coming there from Windsor.'

I played ignorance. ‘Who?'

‘The gentleman I told you about.'

‘The one who is in the service of Prince Ernest?' I said. I let her understand from my tone of voice that I'd guessed where her true interest was centred. She was too desperate to care.

‘Yes. Tomorrow afternoon he'll be paying a private call. I must see him, give a letter to him.'

‘You've tried that once already,' I said.

Again, she either didn't hear me or didn't care.

‘You must come with me. We'll go in my carriage, then you must give the note into his hand.'

‘On certain conditions,' I said.