On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service (Her Royal Spyness #11)(4)

So do write back, dear, dear Georgie. I long to get a letter and long even more to see your smiling face.

Your lonely friend,

Belinda

I put that letter to join the queen’s on my dressing table and sat staring out of the window. White clouds raced across the sky. Seagulls wheeled in the strong spring breeze. I pictured Belinda’s lake with the orange tree on her terrace and poor Belinda sitting all alone, dreading what lay ahead of her, hoping for a letter or a visit from a friend.

I should go to her, I decided. I’d want my friend to come to my aid if such a thing had happened to me. There was nothing to stop me from going out to Italy if Darcy was away. He hadn’t told me how long he’d be gone. I don’t suppose he knew it himself. In the past he’d been in such far-flung regions as Australia and Argentina. This time it might be China or Antarctica for all I knew. And Belinda had offered to pay my fare. I now had a small savings account so I could afford to buy the ticket, but that money was for my wedding . . . if it was allowed to happen.

I went over to the wall and tugged on the bell pull. Now that I had come to a decision I wanted to leave on the next boat before I got cold feet about crossing the Continent alone.





Chapter 2


MONDAY, APRIL 8

KILHENNY CASTLE

At last I have a plan and a mission in life. Can’t wait to see Belinda and her orange trees!

Almost immediately I heard the patter of little feet running down the corridor toward me. My door opened and a little freckled face, topped with the brightest red hair you have ever seen, poked around my door.

I smiled at the eager little face, thinking how different she was from my former maid, Queenie. I would have had to ring at least three times before she showed up and then the whole room would shake with the clomp of her approaching feet. But Queenie was now happily installed as undercook with Darcy’s great aunt and uncle. Either she had improved or they simply didn’t notice when she burned down their kitchen but I had heard no complaints about her. I rather suspected that their house was so eccentric and chaotic that they’d only laugh if her puddings wound up on the ceiling.

“You rang, my lady?” my new maid asked, dropping a curtsy.

“I did, Kathleen,” I said. She was a girl from Kilhenny village, the daughter of the baker, and had proved herself a quick learner and so eager to please it was almost embarrassing. She was like a devoted spaniel, not leaving my side for a second. Of course, she was not without her share of mistakes, as she had never had to wash silk stockings, press velvet or handle any other delicate fabrics. Fortunately I did not possess much of the above and most of my wardrobe had been left at my brother’s house in London. But I have to say she learned from her mistakes and never repeated them.

“Please go up to the box room and bring down my suitcases. You’ll find my labels on them. And then pack all my things, the way I showed you, between tissue paper.”

Her forehead wrinkled and she looked as if she might be about to cry. “You’re going away, my lady? You’re leaving us?”

“We’re going to London and then maybe to Italy.”

“We?” she asked in a horrified voice.

“You’re coming too, of course.”

She had wide blue eyes to start with. These now became impossibly large with alarm.

“Holy Mother of God!” She crossed herself. “London? And Italy? Me? Oh no, my lady. I could never go to foreign parts.”

“But a lady’s maid always accompanies her mistress when she travels,” I said. “Who else would look after the luggage and help me dress on the train?”

She had backed away now until she was pressed against the door.

“But, my lady, when I took on this job as your maid, I thought it meant looking after you here, at Kilhenny Castle, not tripping off to foreign parts. My mother would never let me go and be among all those heathens and wicked men.”

I tried not to smile. “Actually they are not heathens, Kathleen. In Italy they are all Catholics like you.” It did cross my mind that they pinched bottoms in Italy, but I added, “Your pope himself lives in Italy.”

Her face brightened a little. “The pope? That’s right. Rome is in Italy, isn’t it? And the pope lives in Rome. Will you be seeing him, then, your ladyship?”

“I think that’s highly unlikely,” I said. I realized as I said it that I could have bribed her with a possible visit to the Vatican, but I couldn’t see how I would fit Rome into a stay on the Italian lakes on the Swiss border. “The place I’m staying is far from Rome, I’m afraid,” I added.

Her face fell. “No matter,” she said. “Me mother wouldn’t let me go even if it was to see the Holy Father himself. She’d die of worry and grief.”

“It would only be for a few weeks at the most, Kathleen,” I said. “And what about when Mr. Darcy and I get married? We will probably decide to live in England most of the time.”

“England?” she echoed, making it sound as if I had just said Zululand. She shook her head violently. “I’m sorry, my lady. I’m proud and happy to be your maid when you’re here at the castle, but don’t go asking me to travel with you to heathen parts, because I couldn’t desert me mother like that.”

It seemed that even London counted as heathen parts to Kathleen. I was afraid she had made up her mind. I was either going to travel maidless back to England or I was going to have to reclaim Queenie. Oh golly. The thought of bringing Queenie back to Rannoch House was almost more than I could bear. My sister-in-law hated her so violently that I’d have to endure a constant tirade. And then Queenie would probably prove my sister-in-law’s point by clogging up the loo and flooding the bathroom or burning my best velvet dress.