Princess Charlotte’s noble governess, the Dowager Duchess of Leeds, typically attended her charge between the hours of two and five. The exception was on Sundays, when Her Grace put in an appearance between noon and three—which was how she came to be crossing the entrance hall when Hero arrived at Warwick House that afternoon.
“Ah, dear Lady Devlin,” said the Duchess, intercepting her with a tight smile. “What a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, Princess Charlotte is at present indisposed, so that neither she nor Miss Kinsworth will be able to come down. But do say you’ll join Arabella and me for tea?”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” said Hero with an equally false smile as she allowed herself to be shepherded into the dilapidated drawing room that lay just off the entrance.
“Have you met my daughter? Lady Arabella Osborne.”
“Lady Devlin.” The slender young girl rising from the room’s threadbare silk settee was so lovely it was hard not to stare. Just sixteen years old, she had flawless alabaster skin, a perfect nose, and a trembling pink rosebud of a mouth that seemed to smile shyly. But when Hero met her eyes, she found them a shrewd, icy gray, as hard and unfeeling as granite.
“I do hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with Charlotte,” said Hero, taking a lumpy high-backed chair by the fire.
Lady Arabella gave a pretty little frown. “What?”
“Her sudden illness.”
“Oh, no, not too serious,” said the Duchess, settling beside her daughter and reaching to pour the tea.
Born plain Miss Catherine Anguish, she had begun life as the daughter of a barrister from the middling gentry. She owed the coup of her splendid marriage to her beauty, which in her youth was said to have rivaled her daughter’s. Now in her forties, she was still an attractive woman, although tiresome, with a tendency to tell long-winded, boring tales about her own health. She’d also allowed her elevation to the rank of duchess to go to her head, acquiring a well-deserved reputation as an insufferable snob who treated anyone she considered her inferior with ostentatious condescension. And she considered anyone not from a ducal or royal family her inferior.
“Truth be told,” said the Duchess, handing Hero a cup, “the child has the constitution of an ox. I, on the other hand, have been most dreadfully plagued all winter by a severe inflammation of the lungs. Why, just yesterday the Regent sent his own dear Dr. Heberden to check on me. ‘Your Grace,’ he said to me, ‘your sufferings would crush the spirit of nearly anyone, yet you bear it all with the fortitude and determination of a saint. A saint!’”
“How . . . admirable,” said Hero, resigning herself to an excruciatingly detailed recital of Her Grace’s shortness of breath, the pinched nerve in her back, the phantom pains her numerous physicians feared might mean gallbladder problems. Finally, after some ten minutes of this, Hero managed to stem the recitation of ills long enough to turn to young Lady Arabella and say, “I understand you’re learning Italian.”
“I am, yes,” said the girl, carefully settling her teacup into its saucer.
The Duchess beamed. “She is quite the linguist, you know. She was already fluent in French, and she recently learned German, as well.”
“German? An unusual choice,” said Hero.
“Mmm. The Princess and Miss Kinsworth are both fluent in it, you see, and had taken to conversing in the language so that no one else could understand what they were saying. Unfortunately, as soon as Arabella mastered German, they switched to Italian.”
“Cheeky of them,” said Hero.
Lady Arabella threw her talkative mother a warning frown that appeared utterly lost on the Duchess. “You’ve no idea,” she continued. “Charlotte is quite the little hoyden. Just last week she locked poor Arabella in the water closet for a quarter of an hour and refused to let her out.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Why? Well . . . you know,” she said vaguely. “The girl does that sort of thing all the time, I’m afraid. She shakes hands with men as if she were a man herself, strides about with all the boisterous energy of a general reviewing his troops, and laughs nearly as loudly as her mother. One would think no one had ever taught her how to behave en princess. But believe me, Lady Devlin, I have tried.”
“I’ve no doubt you have,” murmured Hero. Between the hours of two and five—or twelve and three on Sundays.
“Have I ever! She’s horse mad, of course. Gallops all over the place when she’s out at Windsor. No one can stop her—not even her grandmother the Queen. The way she sets her horse at any jump she sees, it’s a wonder she hasn’t broken her neck.”
“She must be an excellent horsewoman.”
The Duchess sniffed. “I suppose she is. I wouldn’t know; I myself do not ride.”
Hero took a slow sip of her tea. “I wonder, did you happen to see Jane Ambrose the last time she was here?”
“Oh, no. I don’t come during the week until two o’clock, you know.”
“Do you have any idea why she died?”
“She slipped on the ice and hit her head, of course.”
“Except that she didn’t. Not really.”
The Duchess met Hero’s gaze for one telling moment, then looked away. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hero raised one eyebrow. “You aren’t concerned that her death might have something to do with Princess Charlotte?”
The Duchess froze with her cup raised halfway to her lips. It was left to her precocious daughter to give a trill of artificial laughter and say, “Mercy, no. Whatever gave you such a notion?”
“Mainly Peter van der Pals’s recent attempts to convince Jane to spy on Charlotte for the House of Orange.”
Mother and daughter exchanged glances again. Then the Duchess crimped her lips into a tight, supercilious smile. “Dear Lady Devlin, I’ve no idea who told you such a thing, but I fear they were ‘having you on,’ as the young gentlemen like to say.” She set aside her teacup with an awkward clatter. “Now, do tell me you and Lord Devlin are planning to attend my alfresco breakfast this Thursday. I’m calling it ‘A Winter Wonderland in Kensington Gardens,’ and it promises to be something quite out of the ordinary. The Queen herself has promised to put in an appearance, you know.”
“We hope to be there, yes,” said Hero, who had intended to decline the invitation due to her state of mourning for her mother. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Lovely,” said Her Grace.
Hero set aside her own cup and rose to her feet. “The weather should make it . . . interesting.”
The Duchess gave another of her brittle smiles. “I think we can all contrive to keep warm. The snow will make it unique, don’t you agree? Like our own exclusive Frost Fair.”
“Quite,” agreed Hero, thinking Lady Leeds’s inflammation of the lungs obviously wasn’t severe enough to keep her from braving the elements in her quest to give a party that would be the talk of the ton.
“I did see something recently that made me wonder about Mrs. Ambrose,” said young Lady Arabella, walking with Hero to the door.
“Oh?” said Hero. “What was that?”
“I was here earlier than Mama one day and happened to glance out the window just as Mrs. Ambrose was letting herself out the gate. There was a carriage waiting for her in the lane. I thought it odd enough that I paused to watch, which is how I happened to see a gentleman step forward just as she was closing the gate behind her. They spoke for a moment. Then he helped her into the carriage and climbed in after her.”
“When was this?”
“Two weeks ago last Thursday.”
“Do you remember anything about the carriage?” asked Hero.
“It was a nobleman’s barouche. I know because I saw the crest on the door—a gold chevron against an azure background, with a rampant lion below and two castles above.” The girl gave a slow, knowing smile that came perilously close to being a smirk. “Perhaps you’re familiar with it?”
“Yes,” said Hero, who had grown up with the Jarvis coat of arms. “I believe I am.”