“My husband always decried my suspicious nature,” she replied tartly. “It is hardly an asset.”
“In this work, it is,” Melville assured her.
Adele pressed her hands together once more. They were damp. “I fail to see how an inclination toward suspicion can possibly stop a plot of the sort you think might be happening.”
“Oh, it will happen,” he assured her. “I have thoroughly questioned a German who has confirmed it. Your role, if you agree to help me, is simple. The man who is coordinating the attack will be at Balmoral.”
“One of the guests?” Adele breathed, horrified. “But…but they are peers! People I know! None of them could possibly--”
Melville held up his hand, his palm toward her.
Adele drew in a breath and made herself stop babbling.
Melville’s expression was sympathetic. “I understand that this is a shock to you. Perhaps it will serve to underline just how ruthless the Germans can be. They exploit the weaknesses of good men, turn them and make them work for German interests.”
“How could any man ever consider…” Adele shook her head.
Melville considered her. “What if I said to you that I know the truth about your husband’s and your son’s deaths?”
Adele gasped, sickness swooping through her. “What could you possibly know about it? They died in a house fire.” It hurt to speak of it.
“But what if there were more to the matter?”
Adele gripped the metal edges of the tea chest, which dug into her fingers. “My husband was a dry goods merchant.”
Melville nodded. “Yes, indeed, but can you see how the Germans could twist it and make you biddable? They could come to you and say they know the truth about the fire, that they know who set it and killed your husband and your son. That they are willing to tell you everything they know, if you will only help them with a small matter of theirs…”
Adele stared at him in horror. “This is what they did with…with whoever intends to kill the King?”
“Yes,” Melville said flatly. “They have an agent in the castle itself, who will oversee the planting of the bomb. Shortly before the bomb explodes, I am sure he will contrive to leave the castle, so he is out of the way and safe.”
“A bomb…” She brought her hand to her throat. Her chest hurt from the ramming of her heart. “You want me to learn who the man is, do you not?”
“There. You are capable of independent and clear thought, just as I had hoped. Yes, Lady Adelaide. I need you to identify who the agent is. I will be on the grounds, disguised as a groundskeeper and will be watching as closely as I can. Once you know who the man is, your part in the matter will be over. I will move in and deal with him, after that.”
Adele considered. “What if the man, whoever he is, learns that I am looking for him?”
“Ah.” Melville reached into his pocket, withdrew a small handgun, which he placed on the tea chest next to him.
Adele stared at it.
“I know you have fired guns before,” Melville said.
“Rifles!” she protested. “Hunting rifles.”
“And shotguns, yes.” He gave her a tight smile. “It is the same principle. Make sure the gun is loaded, cock it and fire.” He paused. “You will do splendidly, Lady Adelaide. Only you can help me save the King.”
She swallowed. “You had best call me Adele,” she told him. “I hope you like fish.”
That conversation had been the first of several in the intervening ten days, but her task this weekend had remained unaltered. She was to speak to all the guests and determine who the agent might be, using her already established friendships and insights into the upper-class way of thinking and behaving. When she thought she knew who the traitor was, she was to light a candle in the window of her borrowed bedroom and signal to Melville using the Morse Code he made her learn.
Only now Adele was faced with the unanticipated problem that none of the guests wanted to speak to her, anymore. She had been ostracized while she was away.
While she finished her third glass of champagne and wished fervently that the dinner gong would sound, Boyd Waterman came up beside her. “You look lonely, Adele.”
Adele said into her champagne, “I’ve been judged and found wanting.” She finished the glass in one large swallow.
Boyd gave a soft laugh. “Nonsense. I’m speaking to you, still.” He smiled. “And the King doesn’t find you at all objectionable.”
“Neither does the odious Daniel Bannister, although I’d hardly call his comments conversation.” She sighed.
“Cheer up,” Boyd told her. He lifted his elbow. “Who do you want to speak with?”
She stared at his elbow. “Why, everyone, of course. Well, perhaps not Daniel.”
“Of course. I remember that about you. Miss Chatterbox. Come along. If you’re on my arm, they simply have to speak to you, don’t they?” His eye closed in a near wink.
Adele slid her fingers inside his elbow and gave him her very best smile. “You are a darling!”
Boyd did not move from her side for the rest of the pre-dinner cocktail hour, for he was quite correct—while she was in his company, the other guests were forced to acknowledge her and speak to her, including the snobby Miriam Lynwood, who unbent enough to smile at her, as if they had not been debutantes in the same year.
There were seven people in attendance who were strangers to her. Adele asked Boyd to introduce her to those seven first. When they reached the second group
