Thirty! Alfred was startled. He had not thought of the voluptuous Kitty in terms of age. “She’s promised to me,” he said stubbornly. “Since Welbeck Abbey, where we was in service together. We’re gettin’ married.”
Ruth rolled her eyes at this foolishness. “Footmen don’t get married,” she scoffed, “leastwise not here at Blenheim.”
“And who says we’re stayin’ at Blenheim?” Alfred retorted. He came back to the subject. “I need to know where she’s gone,” he said urgently. “You have to tell me.”
“You and the Duchess,” Ruth said, folding her arms across her white apron. “Both of you, hammerin’ on me. But I don’t know where she is, now, do I? All I know is, I woke up on Saturday morning and she was gone, and I got to do double work ’til Mrs. Raleigh hires somebody else.”
Alfred’s heart sank. “Just… gone?” he asked dismally. “She didn’t leave you a note or tell you where she was going, or anything like that?”
“Not a note, not a word, not nothin’.” Ruth gave him a softer look. “You don’t know where she is, then? If you’re promised, seems like she’d tell you she was goin’ home or wherever.”
“I’m sure she would if she’d had a chance,” Alfred said stolidly. “She always tells me everything.”
The truth was, of course, that Kitty told him very little. Their conversations had been mostly about the business, Welbeck Abbey being only his second job. At Welbeck, she’d told him generally about the scheme-what they should take, where it was, what they should do with it, and helped him through his case of nerves, since he was green at this sort of thing and scared half witless from start to finish, which Kitty had said was all right, since he looked so incapable that nobody would ever take him for a thief. And when the job was over and they had been together in London for those two incredible days, they hadn’t talked at all, just tumbled in the sheets for hour after ecstatic hour, with nothing but moans of pleasure and little cries of delight. At the thought, Alfred’s face burned, and he brought his attention back to Ruth.
“Did she take anything?” he asked. “Her clothes?”
“No, and that’s the odd thing. That’s what I told the Duchess, y’see. That she left her trunk and all her clothes, including her best blue wool dress.”
“Her trunk?”
Ruth nodded. “I told Her Grace that, and about the man, too.”
Alfred frowned. “What man?”
“I don’t know, do I?” Ruth retorted crossly. “A man with a red beard, is all I know. Kitty and me walked into Woodstock and she met him, last half-holiday. I went on to my mother’s house and left her with him at the Prince.”
And then the Duchess and Mrs. Raleigh had come out of the morning room, and Alfred, still holding his tray of lamps, had pulled himself to attention and looked straight ahead, and when he relaxed, the hallway was empty and everybody was gone.
As he set out the morning room lamps, Alfred was deeply troubled. If Kitty had left her clothes, she must have meant to come back. His heart wrenched within him. Something must have happened to prevent her from returning, and he couldn’t for the life of him imagine what it might be. Did it have something to do with the red- bearded man she’d met at the Black Prince? Was he a relative, a friend, a lover?
With a sharp stab of disloyalty, Alfred pushed that last thought away. He and Kitty might not be promised, but he knew in his heart that she loved him-if she didn’t love him just yet, he was special to her. Maybe the man was connected to the Syndicate. He hadn’t met any red-bearded men, but then, he hadn’t been working for the Syndicate long, and he didn’t know who was who, except for Kitty and Bulls-eye. Bulls-eye hadn’t seen her, though, at least that’s what he’d said, so Alfred was at a loss.
And it wasn’t just his romantic hopes and dreams about Kitty that were threatened by her mysterious disappearance. Kitty was the one with the experience, the one who knew the general scheme, the signals, the arrangements for getting the things out of the house. And while he had a general idea what they were supposed to find out before the rest of the crew arrived, Kitty was the one who knew the details.
Alfred finished his task, went out of the room, and shut the door behind him, feeling bleak and abandoned. Without Kitty, he had no way of doing his job the way it was supposed to be done, and he knew enough about the Syndicate to know what happened to people who didn’t do their jobs. But his chief thought was for Kitty-beautiful, sensual Kitty, whose lovemaking warmed him still-and his chief worry was that something dreadful might have happened to her.
The pub in Brighton, and the family of little Alfreds and Kittys, seemed suddenly very far away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Restless-almost intolerably so, without capacity for sustained and unexciting labor-egotistical, bumptious, shallow-minded and reactionary, but with a certain personal magnetism… [Winston Churchill’s] pluck, courage, resourcefulness and great tradition may carry him far, unless he knocks himself to pieces like his father.
Winston had begun working on his father’s Life the summer before, and was already nearing the end of what he planned as the first of a two-volume work. He knew, though, that he was going to have to spend quite a bit more time polishing the text than he would like. His task was to redeem Lord Randolph from the portrayals of his more malicious peers, as a conniving, capricious politician who had thrown up a promising career on a crazy whim. While others might suggest that Lord Randolph had been an angry, spendthrift, syphilitic husband and a cold and uncaring father, Winston saw him as a great statesman who was too busy about the affairs of the Empire to squander his energies on his family, and especially his undeserving eldest son. Lord Randolph was a Churchill, cast in the same mold as that noble duke, the first Marlborough, and it was Winston’s job to guard that memory and the Churchill name, and to do all he could to enhance it.
This morning, Winston was scribbling away at a paragraph about his father’s abrupt breach with his party. But he put down his pen when Consuelo came into the room, not stopping to knock. She was followed by Kate Sheridan. Both were breathless, and the Duchess wore an almost distracted look.
“Why, my dear Connie!” he exclaimed, rising and holding out his hands. “Whatever is wrong?”
“It’s Gladys,” Consuelo said wretchedly, “and the Duke. They’re gone!”
“Gone?” Winston echoed stupidly. Her hands in his were very cold, and her fingers were trembling. “Gone? Both of them?” His thoughts immediately went to the gesture he had seen the night before, the public touch, the open declaration. What a wretched business! And where the devil was Marlborough? He hadn’t gone off with that foolish girl, had he? By Jove, if he had But that was unthinkable. Marlborough might fancy himself in love, but he could never bring himself to drag the family name through the dirt, or risk a break with the Vanderbilts-and the Vanderbilt money.
Kate Sheridan put a steadying hand on Consuelo’s shoulder. “What Consuelo means,” she said in a calm, quiet voice, “is that Gladys did not sleep in her bed last night, nor change clothes.”
“Did not sleep in her bed!” Winston exclaimed in agitation.
Kate nodded. “And since her absence struck us as a rather serious matter, we thought that the Duke ought to be informed-except that we’ve not been able to locate him.” She paused. “We spoke to Mr. Meloy, who has not seen him. Mallory, his valet, did not see him this morning, either. It doesn’t seem helpful to alarm the servants, so we thought that perhaps you might have a look for the Duke and-”
“Yes, of course,” Winston interrupted. “I should be glad to, very glad.” He kissed Consuelo’s hands and let them go. “You can count on me,” he said comfortingly, suppressing his own rising alarm. “I’ll find Sunny, and then we can sit down together and discuss what should be done about Gladys.” By heaven, he would force Sunny to come to terms on this business, and make a final break with Gladys. Marlborough had to be made to see the danger the woman posed. “She can’t have wandered far,” he added, putting on a reassuring smile, “not dressed as she was. In fact, she may have already returned to her room.”
From the beginning of his acquaintance with Sunny’s wife, Winston had gone out of his way to cultivate a
