I hardly saw what was passing outside. Dash, now locked securely in my arms, gave out a whimper from time to time. It was almost as if he knew, clever dog that he was, that he was about to be torn away from the mistress who had loved him so well.
When I did look up at last, we were in crowded streets with tall houses, white like wedding cakes, on either side. There were avenues with trees, and a bustling high street. Then we were passing a grassy green and drawing up at a gate in iron railings.
The iron of the gates was wrought into the pattern of a golden crown.
We heard the new Edward exchanging a word or two with some guards, and then, after a jolt that made Dash wince, we were creeping forward again into what seemed like a small town of red brick. Our own home, Arborfield Hall, was not a large house, but it was built in the up-to-date Gothic style with plenty of pretty decoration and beautiful coloured glass. Kensington Palace, on the other hand, seemed to be an enormous, sprawling building, but sadly out of fashion with its boring rectangular windows and grimy brick walls. It looked rather like my idea of a prison.
At last we creaked to a halt in a cobbled courtyard. The sound of the horses seemed to echo three times around the high walls before it faded away. Edward jumped down with a thud.
‘Remember!’ my father said, his eyes twinkling at me once again over the top of his cane. ‘“Your Royal Highness”, that’s what you should say! And I know that you have the cleverness to bring this off, Miss V. You won’t fail me. Will you?’
His confidence forced a tiny smile to raise the corners of my mouth.
Now Edward opened the door and reached a hand to steady me as I stepped out. I lost my footing for a second on the cobbles, and Dash squirmed free of my arms to make a circuit of the courtyard with his light bound. My eyes followed him around the enclosing walls of dull dark red.
There were lamp posts in the courtyard, just like a street, and the front doors of many different households. I knew that other members of the royal family lived here too, although the princess’s household was the most important. An old lady in a mob cap was sweeping the dirt from the step before one blue door and sending it flying down on to the cobbles below. But otherwise the courtyard was deserted and silent. The biggest door of all was marked by a portico, and lay straight ahead.
I checked that all the little buttons were straight on my navy blue travelling cape, and settled my bonnet forward so that my vision was restricted to a narrow tunnel ahead of me. This, my mother had told me, was the correct way for a young lady to pass through life, gaze lowered, shielding herself from the hungry eyes of other people.
My father was evidently pleased. He took the crook of my elbow. ‘Cool as a cucumber again, eh, Miss V?’ he said softly. ‘That’s my girl. We can carry it off. Always trust John Conroy for that.’
And so, because of my bonnet, I could only see a thin vertical slice of building as he guided me towards the door, and perhaps that’s why I looked up. A movement had caught my eye. One of the upper rectangular windows, towards the top of my field of vision, had bars across it like a cage.
With a tremor, I saw that the courtyard was not as deadly quiet as it had at first seemed. At that shrouded, barred window, a little white face was hovering. And it was watching me. I felt the two eyes boring into me with what felt like such malevolence that I gasped and glanced down instinctively to make sure that Dash was safe at my feet.
But when I looked up again, the face had gone. Was it a girl’s face or a ghost’s?
Perhaps I’d only imagined it after all.