A Flaw in the Blood

Theo studied von Stühlen's face, the tension in his frame gradually easing; and then, he told him.

“Georgie!” Fitzgerald muttered in a half-whisper. “Georgie!”

She was sitting on the rock where Gibbon had left her, near the Dauntless's old mooring. Beside her stood a man hunched with age, a lantern raised in his right hand. Both of them turned to look at Fitzgerald and Gibbon as they emerged from the marsh.

“This is Mr. Deane,” Georgie said. “He says he's your neighbour. He has a boat, Patrick.”

It was a fisherman's dory, the oars shipped in their locks—the boat Fitzgerald had heard, before tumbling in the dark.

Fitzgerald reached for his purse. “Could you take us around to Sheerness, Mr. Deane?”

“He left this morning for France?” von Stühlen said as they halted in Shurland's courtyard.

“Yes. He wished to take his mistress there, for the Christmas season,” Theo said indifferently. “Not particularly kind in him, to break his journey under Mother's roof—but Father has always had a curious notion of propriety. All my people have, to be frank.”

“I see.” Von Stühlen scanned the Hall's weathered façade. “How exactly did your father quit the island?”

“On his steamer. The Dauntless. He moors it at the head of the creek, a mile or two south of the Hall.”

“I know. Your blacksmith—Applefield? Applewood?—told me as much. Which is why my men cut the boat adrift this evening.”

Clive's head jibbed suddenly; Theo's grip had tightened on the lead. “Then I must be mistaken. I was out riding when Father left. Perhaps he took passage from Sheerness after all. It would be the safer choice, for a winter crossing.”

“I don't think so,” von Stühlen mused. “I think, rather, that you are lying.” He drew the pistol from his belt and leveled it at Theo in one swift movement, the muzzle hovering between the boy's eyes.

Theo stepped backwards, dropping Clive's lead. All around them, a casual circle of men, intent and watching. For an instant von Stühlen was swept backwards, to Bonn—another circle of watchers, in academic gowns this time, Albert attempting to quell the violence as a pair of peasants cowered in their midst—but he thrust the image firmly away. Mercy had triumphed that time; but mercy had no purpose here.

“Tell me the truth.”

“I have!” Theo cried hotly.

“No.” He cocked the gun. “You've lied repeatedly. Where is your father?”

The boy's eyes were trained on the pistol's mouth. Clive nuzzled his hair, the great nostrils blowing gently on Theo's scalp, and unconsciously he reached up to steady him.

“I shall count to three,” von Stühlen suggested wearily. “One. Two—”

“He went down to the Dauntless an hour or so ago,” Theo said quietly. “Did you really leave the mooring unguarded?”

“No. I didn't. Horan!” Von Stühlen turned, his gun hand relaxing. “A party to the creek—and quickly!”

Theo lunged for the dangling pistol, his fingers clawing at von Stühlen's wrist. The element of surprise helped him, briefly, before the older man reacted and the others closed in. But von Stühlen was strong, and experienced, and unafraid—as he turned the gun on the boy and his plunging horse.

Chapter Thirty

The very day that she was dismissed from the service of the Queen—a position she held because of her uncle, who before his retirement had been one of the Duchess of Kent's people, and had known Victoria from a child—Violet Ramsey fulfilled the errand with which HRH Princess Alice had charged her.

She walked into Windsor and placed in the general post a plain white envelope addressed to the offices of the London Times. It was upon her return that the Master of Household informed her she was dismissed; she was not to see or speak to Princess Alice again, but to gather her few belongings and three days' wages before quitting the Castle for good. Violet might have protested, but she assumed her transgression— the posting of the Princess's letter—had somehow been witnessed or betrayed.

On Wednesday, the eighteenth of December, the following notice appeared in the Times, in the midst of the column headed Personal:

PRIVATE COMMUNICATION TO DR. ARMISTEAD.

VITAL INFORMATION REGARDING A FORMER

PATIENT. REPLY IN PERSON, THE KING'S ARMS,

PORTSMOUTH, NOON 19 DECEMBER.

Georgiana Armistead, for whom it might have been intended, never saw it.

“You will write to me,” Alice urged, “when it's all over—and tell me how it was done?”

“Of course.” Bertie lifted his hand, let it fall again. “It seems strange—all of us so scattered, when Papa —”

Her brother stood awkwardly in his dark mourning clothes beside the carriage that was to take them to Osborne. The Queen had managed to quit Windsor quite early that Thursday morning: It was plain that she was desperate to be free of the place as soon as possible. She had not even looked at Bertie as she entered the carriage; a shudder had served as goodbye.

Alice ran a delicate hand the length of his sleeve—Bertie was always impeccably turned out—and then, impulsively, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I know you will do as you ought. Think of me—I shall be thinking of you—on the twenty-third.”

“Good luck with Eliza.”

“Yes.” She glanced at their mother measuringly. Under the absurd peak of her widow's cap, her countenance looked oddly childlike, vulnerable.

It was, Alice thought, the perfect mask.

They reached Portsmouth at half-past eleven.

It was the custom for the gunnery staff at the Naval Academy to salute the Queen with a volley of cannon, before she embarked upon the Isle of Wight ferry; but today the guns were silent, out of respect for grief.

Alice knew she would have at most an hour at the King's Arms. Mama would take refreshment in her private rooms; and she had only to plead a bout of sickness to be left alone.

“Of course you are indisposed,” Mama said coldly, when Alice wavered unsteadily in the doorway. “You could expect nothing less, from having crammed yourself into the nursery carriage. Five of you, and Beatrice most unwell! I do not know what you were thinking of. I was forced to attend to the Duchess of Atholl's expressions of sympathy for a full two hours—and she is exceedingly tedious, as I need not remind you. I have no patience with you at all, Alice.”

Mrs. Thurston, who had guarded the infancy of most of the Queen's children, was calling trenchantly for warm milk and beef broth; Helena and Louise, far from retiring to rest as their mother would have wished, appeared to be bowling in the passageway; various maids and footmen were tramping through the upper floor of the inn as though it were a public footpath; and Lady Caroline Barrington, the Lady Superintendent of the Nursery, could faintly be heard adjuring the younger girls to pray partake of refreshment before embarking on the ferry, as the sea air would otherwise make them most unwell.