‘All right, I’ll just sign this and then we can get on with the wedding.’ Her Majesty read over the abdication document, which was sitting on a large mahogany desk to the right of two matching red velvet thrones. Archie and Petunia had followed the group into the room and were lying beneath Her Majesty’s feet while Thornton Thripp hovered behind her. Lloyd Lancaster-Brown and Marjorie Plunkett were there too, standing to the side.
‘Are you sure, Your Majesty?’ Thripp asked.
‘Yes.’ Queen Georgiana picked up the fountain pen and placed its tip on the page. ‘And we’ll make sure that this one is witnessed properly, won’t we?’
Just as Her Majesty was about to sign, the doors to the room burst open.
‘Aunty Gee!’ Alice-Miranda called out as the rest of the children tumbled in behind her.
‘Oh my heavens! Darling girl, you’re safe!’ Queen Georgiana dropped the pen and charged across the ruby-coloured carpet, embracing the child in her arms. ‘However did you get away from those monsters?’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Marjorie Plunkett sighed.
Thornton Thripp’s eye began to twitch uncontrollably.
‘What monsters?’ Alice-Miranda frowned.
‘The kidnappers,’ Aunty Gee said. ‘We weren’t kidnapped, Grandmama,’ Edgar said, ‘but we were locked in the tower.’
A hidden door in the middle of the timber panelling flung open and Braxton Balfour raced through with Vincent Langley behind him.
‘By him.’ Edgar pointed at Langley.
‘Why are you pointing at me?’ Vincent Langley protested, shaking his head.
‘Aunty Gee, you haven’t signed any papers, have you?’ Alice-Miranda asked.
‘Not completely, but how do you know about that?’ the Queen replied.
‘Because it’s all a lie. Someone doesn’t want Freddy to be King, and the only way to make that happen is for you to think that your line shouldn’t be on the throne in the first place.’
‘Who’d want to do such a thing?’ Her Majesty demanded.
‘Mr Thripp. But he’s working with two others – a man and a woman,’ Alice-Miranda explained.
Marjorie Plunkett’s eyes were like dinner plates. ‘How do you know all this?’
Queen Georgiana turned around just in time to see her chief advisor ducking off behind the thrones. ‘Thripp!’ she roared.
‘Get him!’ Sep yelled.
The four lads charged after him. Sep dived and tackled Thripp around the ankles, bringing him crashing to the ground.
‘Well done, Sep!’ Queen Georgiana cried out, thinking the boy must be a great asset to his rugby team.
‘Quick, take this.’ Lucas snatched a tassled rope from the velvet curtains and threw it to Louis and Edgar, who quickly bound Thripp’s arms behind his back.
The boys helped him to his feet and marched him over to Her Majesty.
‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ Her Majesty demanded.
Thripp gulped.
‘He’s in on it too!’ Caprice said, pointing at Vincent Langley.
‘I most certainly am not! I won’t have you accusing me of things I know nothing about,’ the man frothed.
‘Marjorie, I think you’d better call for reinforcements,’ Queen Georgiana looked at the woman.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘No, don’t let her get away!’ Millie said. ‘It might be her, for all we know.’
‘Oh, goodness,’ Queen Georgiana said. ‘Marjorie, don’t move.’
At that moment Marian Marmalade charged through the door with another Vincent Langley behind her. There was a collective intake of breaths.
Mrs Marmalade’s jaw dropped when she saw Thripp with his arms bound. ‘I spotted Langley when I was going to fetch some tea,’ she explained. ‘I told him to come up here, but I thought I’d better accompany him just in case. What on earth is going on?’
‘And why are there two Mr Langleys?’ Caprice demanded.
The two men faced each other.
‘It’s clear, he’s an imposter,’ the man who’d just walked in with Mrs Marmalade shouted.
‘I beg your pardon,’ the other Langley said. ‘How dare you?’
Suddenly, Archie and Petunia leapt to their feet, growling. Archie charged towards the man beside Mrs Marmalade and started nipping at his feet while Petunia raced over to the man beside Mr Balfour and began licking his shoes.
‘Archie and Petunia don’t seem to like either of them,’ Mrs Marmalade said.
‘There’s an easy way to tell,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Remember when Millie and I found a latex mask upstairs in the attic and we thought it must have belonged to the twins?’
‘Don’t look at us,’ Louis retorted.
Caprice raced over to the man standing next to Braxton Balfour while Millie headed for the man beside Mrs Marmalade.
‘Ready?’ Millie looked at Caprice. ‘On three. One, two, three!’ At exactly the same time, the girls reached up and yanked the men’s noses.
‘Ow! Stop that at once.’ The man beside Braxton pushed Caprice away.
Millie’s jaw dropped as the other man’s nose flew off his face and sprang back with a solid slap. ‘You’re not Mr Langley! Who are you?’
The man swallowed hard.
Archie was growling much louder now and biting the man’s trousers.
‘Well, whoever that is, he locked us in the tower. And whatever’s going on, he’s definitely in on it,’ Alice-Miranda declared.
The man turned to run but was intercepted at the door by a cavalry of footmen. No one had seen Jacinta slink out to go and find them. She thought they might need some back-up.
‘Oh, no you don’t.’ The first footman pushed the man back inside the room. There was no escape. He was surrounded.
‘Reveal yourself!’ Queen Georgiana commanded.
The crowd watched as the man dug his fingernails under the skin of his neck and began to peel back his face, right up over his hairline.
Caprice scrunched up her nose. ‘Eww, that’s disgusting!’
‘Who is it?’ Lucas said.
Marjorie Plunkett’s jaw dropped.
‘Miss Broadfoot!’ Millie declared. ‘I knew there was something weird about you.’
‘Actually, my name’s Treadwell,’ the woman spat. Her voice had changed too, as her voice-modifying device had been removed along with her mask.
‘And I thought she was one of your most trusted agents, Marjorie,’ Queen Georgiana remarked.
‘So did I,’ the woman replied. ‘Rowena, what were you thinking?’
Agent Treadwell glared at her. ‘That I should have been Chief, not you. I’ve always been smarter and stronger yet, somehow, you got the job and I was relegated to undercover fieldwork, having to use ridiculous names like Bunyan. What were you thinking, Marjorie?’ she hissed.
‘Miss Plunkett, you’re not really Her Majesty’s milliner, are you?’ Alice-Miranda said.
The woman hesitated.
Lloyd turned to Marjorie, shock written all over his face. ‘What does she mean? You’re not Gee’s milliner?’
‘Oh, give it up, Lloyd,’ Thornton Thripp huffed. ‘This was as much your idea as it was mine.’
‘What?’ Marjorie suddenly felt ill. She looked at her fiancé.
‘Miss Plunkett, we know about Fiona. We heard Mr Thripp and Miss Broadfoot – I mean Treadwell – talking about it and then we found an old mainframe in a strange room in the very bottom of the hunting tower, beneath the cellar,’ Alice-Miranda explained.
‘Fiona told us everything,’ Edgar said with a proud grin.
‘And what exactly did she say?’ Marjorie asked.
‘That you were her boss and that Fiona 2.0 was located at SPLOD HQ,’ Caprice said.
Queen Georgiana stared at Lloyd. ‘So is it true the abdication papers weren’t witnessed?’
‘She stole them from HQ,’ Lloyd said, pointing to Treadwell. ‘And he got Fiona to verify them once I’d taken over the system.’ Lloyd glared at Thornton Thripp. ‘No, they’re not real. She couldn’t find the real ones.’
‘But we did.’ Alice-Miranda produced the original copy from the tower. ‘Caprice found it in a drawer in the room Fiona was in, along with a whole lot of old documents.
‘Thank heavens for that.’ Her Majesty exhaled. ‘But what were they doing up there?’
Marjorie turned to her fiancé. ‘You knew all along that I wasn’t a milliner?’
Lloyd shrugged.
‘Did you ever love me, or was I just part of your evil plan?’ A tear wobbled down Marjorie’s cheek.
‘I don’t know. You would have made a lovely queen, Marjorie,’ Lloyd said. ‘And you would never have been any the wiser.’
‘How could you?’ Marjorie sobbed. ‘You’re certainly not the man I fell in love with.’
Queen Georgiana shook her head. ‘Why, Lloyd? I don’t understand. You’ve never expressed any interest in being King before.’
‘Because I’d rather anyone be King than that feeble-minded son of yours,’ Lloyd hissed.
‘Steady on. That’s our father you’re talking about.’ Edgar walked over to Lloyd and poked him in the chest.
‘I know Freddy can be a bumbling twit at times but this is so extreme. You were the best of friends when you were boys. What happened between the two of you?’ Queen Georgiana asked softly.
‘He pushed my sister from the tower and ruined her life – that’s what happened,’ Lloyd fumed.
‘No, he didn’t,’ a tiny voice said from the back of the room.
‘Lydie?’ Lloyd breathed. His jaw dropped and he looked completely shell-shocked.
Alice-Miranda ran around behind the footmen.
‘Are you all right, Miss Lancaster-Brown?’ the child asked. Lydie nodded. Alice-Miranda held the woman’s hand and led her to the centre of the room.
‘But … how?’ Lloyd stumbled backwards and steadied himself by grabbing hold of the desk.
‘It doesn’t matter. But you owe Cousin Gee and Freddy an apology,’ Lydie said. ‘I didn’t remember that day until now – until Braxton came to see me and things started to fall into place. He took me to the tower, Lloyd, and it was as if all the missing pieces were there. You and Freddy were so awful to me. You told me you’d ruin everything if I married Braxton. You said that he wasn’t good enough for me. We argued, then you stormed off and Freddy stayed. I was so cross with both of you.’
‘He pushed you,’ Lloyd said, tears swimming in his eyes. ‘He was like my brother and he pushed you out of the tower and ruined your life. I hated him from that day on. I hated him even more because he lied about it.’
Lydie shook her head. ‘But he didn’t push me. It was my fault. We were arguing and I ran upstairs to get away from him. Then I spotted a nest in the tree outside. Three little baby birds were chirping for their mother but I saw her lying on the ground. Freddy followed me. I told him to leave me alone but he just kept at me. He said it would be a disgrace for me to marry a farmer’s son. But I wasn’t listening. All I cared about was getting to that nest and rescuing those tiny creatures. I leaned out of the window and that’s the last thing I remember about that day.’
Lloyd looked at his sister bewilderingly. ‘All this time I’ve wanted to find a way to ruin Freddy’s life the same way he ruined yours.’
‘Well, you’ve done a very good job of ruining your own life, Lloyd.’ Her Majesty shook her head at the man and walked over to his sister. ‘Lydie, darling, welcome back to us, welcome back.’ She embraced the woman warmly.
Alice-Miranda strode over to Lloyd Lancaster-Brown and stood in front of him. ‘You’re lucky you committed treason now and not a couple of hundred years ago. Now you’ll only go to gaol. Back then you would have lost your head.’
Lloyd’s bottom lip trembled.
‘Take Thripp, Lloyd and Bunyan – or whatever her real name is – to the dungeons,’ Queen Georgiana ordered.
Braxton Balfour nodded at Her Majesty. He and five footmen marched forward and positioned themselves in pairs beside each prisoner.
‘The dungeons!’ Caprice looked at Alice-Miranda. ‘I thought you said there weren’t any dungeons at the palace.’
Alice-Miranda grinned. ‘I guess Aunty Gee can never be too careful.’
‘Oh, darling girl, you’re right about that,’ Queen Georgiana said, and hugged Alice-Miranda tightly.
Millie raced over to the desk where Her Majesty’s abdication paper was sitting. ‘What would you like to do with this, Aunty Gee?’ the child called.
‘Tear it up, Millie,’ Queen Georgiana said with a nod. ‘Tear it to pieces.’