Death at Glamis Castle (32 page)

Lord Osborne's straw mattress rustled as he settled himself upon it. “It's a good thing neither of us is troubled by fears of ghosts,” he reflected somberly. “This place is full of them. Ghosts of dead dreams, of forgotten pasts, of lives and loves that once were.” His sigh was laced with pain and a heavy regret. “Oh, to go back and do it all over again, Flora, from the beginning. To have another chance.” The pain became passion. “I should do it all differently, oh, so differently, knowing what I know of myself now. I would never let Papa and Grandmama force me to give up my wife, and the baby. I would stand by Annie forever—such a dear, good girl, and so loving and devoted.” He groaned bitterly. “And lovely little Alice, my sweet Alice. If I could do it again, I would claim them both, and take them to France, and to
hell
with the throne. I would . . .” His voice trailed away, blurred with tears.

To hell with the throne?
Flora could not answer to that, for she had no idea what Lord Osborne was talking about, or whether he was speaking of a real or an imagined past. But she had seen in his rooms several photographs of a pretty young woman with a baby in her arms, and while she had never heard of a marriage, it might very well be true. If Lord Osborne had been somehow compelled to give up his wife and baby, therein might lie the cause of his delusional fancies. For who could bear a real life from which the heart's love had been forcibly stripped away?

Flora lay silently on her pallet, her eyes open and staring into the dark, and after a moment her breast began to heave with silent sobs, the tears running down her cheeks and into her hair. It was not Lord Osborne's loss for which she wept, of course, but her own. When the two of them left for Perth in the morning, she would be leaving her mother behind, yet unburied, her killer yet unnamed. To do such a deed went against all Flora had been taught, and her heart ached as if it might burst wide open. The only thing that eased her pain was the knowledge that Hilda MacDonald, who had loved Lord Osborne as if he were her son, would surely approve of what her daughter was doing. She would certainly want Flora to help him get away from this place and find a safe haven, to protect him from any who would harm him, and especially from that wretched Lord Sheridan and his soldiers, who—

Flora's eyes widened and she sat bolt upright, her heart in her mouth and a half-stifled scream on her lips. The door of the cell had opened with a rusty sigh, and in the blackness, a candle flame shimmered. A pale, disembodied face floated behind the flickering flame, its eyes gleaming with reflected light, its teeth showing white and fierce, a mass of loose hair flowing raggedly over its shoulders.
The Monster!
Flora thought, in a panic.

And then, in the next instant, a woman was kneeling beside her mattress, a comforting hand on Flora's shoulder. It was Lady Sheridan, her dressing-gown smelling faintly of lavender, her voice soft and gentle.

“Don't be frightened, please, Flora. I'm not here to hurt anyone.”

To his credit, Lord Osborne had been quick to act. Seeing the light, he'd bounded out of bed and snatched the empty wine bottle from the table. Seizing it by the neck, he slammed it hard against the table edge, sending glass shards in all directions. He held the jagged remainder in his hand as if it were a sword.

“Stay bloody well back!” he shouted, brandishing the broken bottle, “or I'll—”

“Eddy,” a quiet voice said, “we're here to help you.” A slim, brown-bearded man stepped forward, authoritative even in pajamas, robe, and slippers.

“Charles!” Lady Sheridan gasped. “You
followed
me!”

“Forgive me, my dear,” the man said apologetically. To Lord Osborne, he said, “I'm Charles Sheridan, and this is my wife.” He paused, holding the candle so that it illuminated his face, which bore the unmistakeable stamp of aristocracy, the jaw firm, the nose aquiline. “Charles Sheridan,” he repeated, speaking louder, forming his words distinctly. “The last time we met, I think, was in late '91, at Sandringham. Do you remember?”

“Sandringham?”Lord Osborne, uncomprehending, stared at the man's face, then lowered the bottle. “Sheridan? Well, deuced if it isn't! What the devil are
you
doing here?” He frowned. “My father didn't send you, did he?”

As Flora scrambled confusedly to her feet, Lady Sheridan rose, lit the candle on the table by the flame of her own, setting the two side by side. In the brighter light, Flora saw that Lady Sheridan, like her husband, was in her night-clothes, her hair flowing loose around her shoulders.

“As a matter of fact, he did,” Lord Sheridan acknowledged. He came a step closer, his hands out, so it could be seen that they were empty. “He sent both me and Toria.”

“The devil!” Lord Osborne exclaimed angrily. “My sister's here
too
?”

“She arrived yesterday,” Lord Sheridan said. “The King fears for your safety. When you went missing, he ordered me to bring a few troops to look for you. He—”

Lord Osborne snorted contemptuously. “Safety! What a thumping great lie. It's my
security
the King is worried about, Charles. The truth is that he doesn't want me running around loose. He's afraid somebody will tumble to who I am.” His voice was bitter. “I'd be made a laughing-stock, and the whole bloody family a butt for ridicule. Papa and Motherdear would be mortified, and the monarchy would be in for another round of drubbing in the press.”

The King?
Flora looked in amazement from Lord Osborne to Lord Sheridan. What in the world were they talking about? What did any of this have to do with kings and monarchies?

Lord Sheridan shook his head. “The matter is more serious than that, I'm afraid,” he said gravely. “As it turns out, the men who kidnapped you and killed Flora's mother are—”

“Killed Hilda?” His face tightening, Lord Osborne stared. “I didn't hear that right, did I?” he whispered. “Tell me I've misheard!”

“You didn't know?” Lord Sheridan asked.

“Know? Know? Of course I didn't know!” Lord Osborne swung around to Flora, his eyes searching her face. “Say it's not true, Flora. Say that your mother isn't—” He stopped when he saw her expression. “It's true, then?” he whispered. “She's dead?”

Fighting back tears, Flora nodded. “Her throat was cut, m'lord. I found her body on the path tae the village, early on Monday mornin'. I didna like tae tell ye, sir, for fear it would upset ye.” She began to sob, and Lady Sheridan gathered her into her arms and held her as she wept.

“Oh, dear God.” Lord Osborne's voice broke, and tears began to flow unrestrained down his face. After a moment, he wiped his eyes and turned back to Lord Sheridan. “Hilda has been like a mother to me for almost ten years. When was she killed?
Why?
”

Lord Sheridan countered with a question. “You were abducted on Sunday night?”

“I think so,” Lord Osborne replied slowly. “Perhaps it was Sunday, or . . .” He passed a hand over his face. “I . . . I have not been well, Charles. The past few days and nights have all blurred together. To tell God's honest truth, sometimes I think I'm losing my mind.” He cleared his throat and plunged on, as if he were anxious to get the words out. “It started out as a game, you see, this business of being the Bonnie Prince. A way to pass the time, to amuse myself and keep myself occupied.” His voice was rising unsteadily, his words coming faster. “But now I find it hard to distinguish between what's real and what's fancy. It's quite ridiculously mad, of course, but I seem to have lost the ability to—”

“I'm sure everything has been extraordinarily difficult,” Lord Sheridan cut in, his voice kindly. He pulled out the broken chair for Lord Osborne, and the stool on the other side of the table for himself. “But perhaps you could tell us how the abduction was managed.” From the pocket of his robe, he took a gold cigarette case and a packet of matches. He held the case out.

“That's mine!” Lord Osborne exclaimed. “Where did you—”

“In your rooms,” Lord Sheridan replied, handing it to him. “I thought you might want it when you were found.” He struck a match and lit the cigarette Lord Osborne took from the case. “Tell us anything you can remember about what happened,” he said, putting the matches on the table. “Any scrap of information, no matter how small, may be of use to us.”

Lord Osborne pulled on the cigarette, making an effort to get hold of himself. A heavy gold ring glinted on his finger, catching the glimmer of the candle. “It . . . it must have been on Sunday night. Because of no dinner, you see, to give the kitchen a free evening. I always have a cold supper and then Hilda brings me—brought me something quite late, before she went home. I was smoking and reading in my chair. Reading Scott, I think.” He paused, and a smile trembled across his mouth. “Yes, Scott. His story of the Second Jacobite Rebellion and Prince Charlie's escape to Skye. One of my favorites.”

He paused, seeming lost in memory. Lord Sheridan prompted him. “And then?”

“And then I heard noises in the hall outside my room. Voices, angry voices. But I was deep in my story, and of course I don't hear very well.” He stopped, pulling on his cigarette. “Then the door burst open. Before I could get out of my chair, someone grabbed me from behind and dropped a jacket over my head.”

Lord Sheridan leaned forward, his eyes glinting. “How many were there?”

“How many?” Lord Osborne chewed on his lip. “Two, although I can't be sure. There may have been more. They bound my arms and gagged me and took me down the stairs. They carried me some distance—how far, I don't know—to an ice house.”

“An ice house?” Lord Sheridan asked in surprise.

“At first I thought it was a cave,” Lord Osborne said, “but later, one of the men called it an ice house. There were wooden pallets on the floor and it was full of straw.”

Flora freed herself from Lady Sheridan's embrace and sat forward on the edge of the bed. “The ice house is dug intae th' bank of th' stream south of the castle,” she said, “and lined wi' brick, so as tae keep in th' cold. In winter, men cut ice out o' the pond and store it there, packed in straw, until it's needed in th' kitchen.”

Lord Osborne nodded. “There wasn't any ice as far as I could see, but there was a great deal of straw. Anyway, they kept me locked up there. I think it was a couple of days, but I'm not sure. At one point, one of the men was there alone, and freed me to eat something. He had a bottle of whiskey, and before long he fell asleep. I managed to slip away and hide in the woods. Some time later, an hour or so, p'rhaps, I heard a shot.”

“Someone was shooting at you?”

Lord Osborne shook his head. “I don't think so. It came from the direction of the ice house, or at least it seemed so. After that, I walked for a while, to a place where I have often gone to paint. Flora had always been with me there, and I thought, if she were searching, that was where she would go. She found me there and brought me to this place.” He looked up, frowning, his silvery brows coming together. “Hilda was murdered the night the men came to my rooms?”

“She seems to have caught your kidnappers in the act,” Lord Sheridan replied. “She was killed there. Later, her body was carried out and left on the path, where Flora found her the next morning.”

Lord Osborne turned to look at Flora. “Oh, Flora,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “My poor, poor Flora. Fatherless, and now motherless. I am very sorry, my child, and even sorrier for the part I have played in this tragedy.”

Flora leaned forward, holding out her hands. “But it was not yer fault, m'lord!” she burst out. “Ye had naething tae do with—”

Lord Osborne raised his hand to stop her words, and a look of unutterable despair passed over his lined face. “It
is
my fault, Flora, by virtue of who I am. It is a curse I thought I could escape by letting everyone think I was dead. By coming here to Glamis, where I could live away from the world.” He shook his head. “But I was wrong, and it's too late to do anything about it. Too late to change anything.” His voice became ragged. “Too late, too late. I should better have died.”

He pulled in his breath as if he were reaching for control, and turned back to Lord Sheridan. “What did they want of me, those men? To force the King to pay for my release? He would do it, of course. He would feel obligated, even though he and Motherdear no longer think of me as their son.” A note of self-pity came into his voice. “When they bother to think of me at all, which is seldom. I'm better forgotten, you see. Better dead. I'm the one who could always be counted on to do the wrong thing, get involved with the wrong sort of fellows, make the wrong sort of choices. The one shut away for the blackest of all Royal sins: for being an embarrassment.”

The image of the Monster, shut away for forty years because he was an embarrassment to his father and mother, rose like a disconsolate ghost in Flora's thoughts. Poor Lord Osborne, whose father and mother never bothered to think of him. And then her mouth was suddenly dry, as she realized that the parents Lord Osborne was speaking of with such sadness must be, could
only
be King Edward and Queen Alexandra! Improbable, impossible as it seemed, it must be the truth. It would account for all the photographs of the Royal Family in his room, for his portrait of the Queen, painted with such loving attention, which she had counted off to one of his many flights of fancy.

Lord Osborne sighed wearily. “So they were after money,” he said in a bleak voice. “Poor Hilda died on account of my sins—and someone else's greed.”

“Not money, I should think,” Lord Sheridan said. “The kidnapping seems to have been your cousin Willie's idea. Or someone close to him in the German high command.”