A Dangerous Disguise (9 page)

"I have never heard such a farrago in all my days!" Sir Bernard said. "What were you thinking of, young woman?"

"I know I haven't been very sensible," she admitted. "It was only a prank that went wrong."

"A prank? Well, well, let's leave it at that. Let me have a statement in writing and we'll say no more. Yes, Hawkins, what is it?"

He had looked up as a soberly dressed clerk entered the room. There was no sign in his manner that this had been pre-arranged between them.

"Excuse me, Sir Bernard, there's a message for the Duke of Camborne."

"Yes?" said the Duke, rising.

"It's from Lord Baisley," said the clerk, naming the Queen's Comptroller. "Your Grace is wanted at the Palace without delay."

"You'd better be off," said Sir Bernard. "If you're not back when Miss McNewton is ready to leave, I'll send her to the Imperial in a cab."

The Duke smiled at Ola.

"I'll return as soon as I can."

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm all right."

She watched him, smiling, until the door had closed behind him. Then she turned back to face Sir Bernard, and the smile died from her face.

His own face had been stripped of its amiability, leaving only a cold mask behind.

"Now," he said, and the word seemed to freeze the air. "Now, we'll have the truth out of you."

"But I've told you the truth."

He made a sound of contempt.

"Please madam, those pretty tales will do for Camborne, but I've been around a lot longer than he has. You're a spy. The only question is – for whom? You'll tell me sooner or later, so why not save us all a lot of time?"

"But it's not true," she cried, rising from her seat. "I've told you the truth."

"Who do you work for?"

"I'm not a spy," she insisted.

"Who do you work for?"

"But you said you understood – "

"Who do you work for?"

Terror overcame her. She ran to the door and tried to pull it open, but it was now locked.

"Let me out!" she screamed, hammering on the door. "John! John!"

"He's gone," said Sir Bernard. "He won't come back for you."

"John!" she screamed again. "Where are you?"

"You stupid girl, what are you expecting? He's done his part in getting you here quietly and without a fuss. You won't see him again."

She turned horrified eyes on him.

"His part?" she whispered.

"The Duke saw through you the first day and reported to me, since when you've been under surveillance. He has questioned you on my behalf to try to gauge the extent of your activities, and finally he brought you to us."

"I don't believe you," she choked.

"Don't you? Let me tell you something about those meetings when you were weaving your arts about him. You thought he was coming under your spell, didn't you? But last night the Duke stood in this very room and said to me, 'I was doing my duty to my country, keeping a suspicious person under observation.'"

"He wouldn't betray me like that," she choked.

Sir Bernard gave an unpleasant bark of laughter.

"Betray you? Madam, is it possible to betray you? A spy, a deceiver, a trickster? It is you who betray, and now you have been found out. His Grace is totally loyal to the British throne, so abandon any further idea of ensnaring him with your wiles."

"No!" she screamed. "It isn't true. I'm not a spy."

"You are a spy, madam, and you're probably an assassin too. Oh yes, Camborne told me how often you asked to see the Queen, but always from a safe distance. How big a distance, I wonder. Not too far for an accurate shot at Her Majesty. And then, of course, you'd have had to dispose of poor Camborne himself. But on whose behalf?"

"It's not true, it's not true." The words were barely audible. Darkness was engulfing her.

"Sooner or later you will tell me who you work for. Unless your confederate breaks first."

"My – confederate?"

"The woman posing as your lady-in-waiting, whom you have so obligingly named as Greta Lanso. I'm obliged to you for that, as she has refused to say a word since her arrest."

"Arrest?"

"She was picked up at your hotel an hour ago and is now behind bars. She will talk, and you will talk. You can take my word for that."

She knew then that the nightmare was real.

*

At Buckingham Palace the Duke went straight to Lord Baisley's office.

"I came as soon as I received your message," he said.

"Message? I sent no message."

"Surely you did. I was with Sir Bernard and someone came in to say – " his voice ran down and a look of horror came into his eyes.

"I don't believe it," he said. "It isn't possible."

"What isn't possible?" asked Lord Baisley.

But he was talking to thin air. The Duke had left the room at a run.

He found a cab quickly and shouted, "As fast as you can go." It seemed an eternity until he reached Whitehall, and for all that time he was telling himself that there must have been a mistake.

But in his heart he knew that there had been no mistake. Suddenly he recalled tales of how Sir Bernard's bluff amiability was a mask hiding something more sinister. He had never seen that side of the man himself, regarding him as a bit of a buffoon. Now he saw how he had been duped into leaving Ola alone with him. But he might still be wrong.

Until the last moment he clung to the hope that he would arrive to find that all was well. That hope died in the first moment of seeing Danson's face.

"What have you done with her?" the Duke demanded savagely.

"Put her behind bars, where she belongs. Forgive me for that little stratagem, but it wouldn't have done to have you here, making a scene. As it was, she screamed the place down, banging on the door, shrieking for you to come and save her."

"Dear God!" the Duke whispered, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in horror.

The picture of Ola screaming in terror, begging him to save her, finding herself abandoned, was more than he could bear.

"It was most distressing," said Danson with a shudder. "I had hoped to get the business over without disturbance, but I'm afraid she's going to cause a lot of trouble."

"Are you out of your mind!" the Duke shouted. "You can't believe this nonsense."

"My dear fellow, it was you who gave me the evidence against her of how often she asked to see the Queen from a distance."

"So that she wouldn't be exposed – "

"So that she could get a safe shot."

Into the Duke's mind came the memory of Ola saying, "I'm an excellent shot. I can hit a bull's eye at fifty paces," and then hastily retreating, denying what she had just admitted.

Like someone who had inadvertently revealed too much.

Everything in him howled NO! It wasn't possible.

And yet - ?

He became aware that Danson was still talking.

"And when she'd shot the Queen, she'd have shot you. She would have to if she wanted to get away. You're lucky to be alive, so don't start getting sentimental about her.

"Just stay out of it from now on. It wouldn't look good if you were to try to defend a woman like that. In a short time she'll be tried, convicted and executed. And that will be the end of her."

Ola had no idea where she was, except that there were bars on the windows and a tiny barred window in the door. The walls were stone, the bed was narrow and hard.

She knew nothing of Greta's fate, except that she had been brought to a place like this. Her companion had bravely maintained silence, but soon she would learn that her mistress had told them her name. This apparent treachery would break her heart.

Nobody would tell her where Greta was. In fact, nobody would speak to her at all. Sometimes a face would appear at the bars in the door, but if she called out they ignored her.

She was alone, with nobody to care what happened to her.

When she thought of how the Duke had betrayed her she wanted to cry and cry until there were no tears left. He had won her love with his charm, his tenderness, his strength. And it had all been false. While he seemed to be adoring her, he had been observing her as a 'suspicious person'.

She paced the floor until she was exhausted, then sat on the bed, pressed up into the corner, laid her head on her knees, and folded her arms protectively.

She stayed like this for hours, sometimes dozing,

sometimes waking to the sound of doors slamming and distant cries. It was like being in hell, deprived of all hope.

In the morning she was brought a meal of bread and cold water. The wardress slammed it down, gave her a look of contempt, and departed, slamming the door.

Sir Bernard Danson had told her she would be interrogated again, and at every sound outside her door she braced herself. But it was not until the afternoon that footsteps stopped, the key turned and the door swung open.

Bracing herself, she turned defiantly to face the wardress.

But it was not a wardress.

It was the last man in the world she expected to see.

"You?" she whispered. "You dare to come and face me?"

"You should be glad that I did," said the Duke through gritted teeth. "I'm not supposed to be here. I've been warned off taking any further interest in you. Your guards have orders to keep me out. I managed to bribe them but I don't have much time."

He came close to her, looking down into her ravaged face with terrible eyes.

"Tell me it isn't true," he said hoarsely. "The things they're saying about you can't be true – tell me!"

"What is the use of telling you?" she demanded. "They things they are saying about me are the things you said. You accused me. You brought me here."

"You brought yourself here," he raged. "Did you really imagine you could put on such a performance and nobody would be surprised?

"You came right to the doors of Buckingham Palace, a place where details of every royal family in the world are kept. You walked in and challenged us all to spot you as an impostor. I was suspicious from the first moment." "So you 'kept me under observation'?"

"Yes," he snapped.

"That was all you were doing? All those things you said – "

"Let us not speak of them," he said roughly. "I did my duty."

"Your duty? It was your duty to kiss me and say that you loved me? It was your duty to - ?"

"That's enough. It's not for you to demand explanations of me. You came here to deceive."

"And I failed. But your deception was very successful, wasn't it? Right up to the moment when you told that man I was behaving suspiciously."

"Which you were. You didn't want to get close to the Queen, but you wanted to see her from a distance. With a gun, according to Danson."

"You can't believe that."

"Why not? You told me you were a crack shot – until you checked yourself and took it back."

"But that – I just thought it wasn't ladylike."

She had wanted him to love her, but she could not say that now. Looking into his grim face, she saw no yielding.

"Is that the best explanation you can offer?" he demanded coldly.

"Yes, it's the best explanation I can offer. It's the truth. I've been stupid, but nothing more. And the stupidest thing of all – " she broke off as her voice wobbled.

How could she tell this iron man that the stupidest thing of all was to have believed his honeyed words and given him her heart, given it so completely that it was still his, even though part of her was close to hating him.

How he would laugh at that!

"Yes?" he demanded. "What is the stupidest thing of all?"

Suddenly she was too weary to go on.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "You wouldn't believe me. After this you would never believe anything that I said, any more than I could believe you."

In the cold stone cell, they faced each other in silence.

The Duke walked over to the window and looked out as far as he could. The bleakness of the surroundings suffocated him. He ought to go. There was no more to say. Yet he could not bear to leave her.

"I think you do me an injustice," he said curtly. "Was it I who created this situation?"

"No, I began it by coming to London in a disguise. But when I look back on some of the talks we've had, I can see that the things I said, which you have used to accuse me – "

"Well?" he snapped.

"You invited me to say those things, John. You laid traps for me – "

"Because I knew you to be a deceiver," he raged, infuriated by this injustice. "I merely wanted to know how much of a deceiver."

"And then you went to Sir Bernard Danson and told him what you had discovered."

He was silent, gazing at her with burning eyes.

"Tell me," she went on, "was he one of the 'friends' who warned you off helping me?"

"Yes. He thinks you were going to kill the Queen, then kill me? Is that true?"

Suddenly her temper flared. It might be unwise to antagonise him, but she was beyond thinking of that. The bitter, searing anger that had been consuming her from the start flamed out into the open.

"Would I admit it, if it were true?" she flung at him.

He took two strides towards her, seized her shoulders and gave them a shake.

"Tell me the truth," he shouted. "Has it all been lies? Every smile, every kiss – all a pretence, leading to murder?"

"Whose life do you care about, John?" she asked recklessly. "The Queen's or your own?"

"The Queen's. Only hers, because if you are false to me, I'll put the gun in your hand myself and invite you to shoot me. What would I care for life then?"

He closed his eyes in horror as it came back to him forcefully that it was not his life under threat, but hers. By this time next week she might be dead, and his life a blasted wasteland.

Opening his eyes he saw her face turned up to his, the dark shadows around the eyes, the mouth tense with exhaustion and horror. He recalled her on the first day, the high-spirited brilliance with which she had played her part, the young, eager laughter with which she had confronted the world.

All brought to this.

With a groan he tightened his arms and covered her mouth with his own, seeking to find the secret of her heart. Her lips were sweet against his, as sweet as in the other kisses they had shared, and for a moment the dreadful surroundings vanished, leaving only the two of them.