“And black powder dribbled out. How was it to be set off?”
“Someone would have had to slip into the basement, but that wouldn’t have been difficult. There’s a hatch through which the beer barrels and other heavy goods areput in. We set a watch, but no one turned up. The servants have been kept quiet as much as possible, but word is bound to escape. There could be panic!”
“The story can be denied,” Braydon said soothingly. “The world is awash with rumors. Whose house was it?”
“The Honorable Mrs. Courtenay. In the past she was part of the queen’s household and was trusted by the princes.”
“Is she under suspicion?”
“She seems an honest enough old lady, but who knows where evil lurks these days?”
It’s your job to know,Braydon thought with asperity. For Sidmouth, every protestor was a potential revolutionary, every orator a potential Robespierre, and every servant a potential traitorous spy. Braydon sometimes wondered if Sidmouth truly trusted anyone.
“You said in the letter that Hawkinville is unavailable?” he asked. Sir George Hawkinville ran an unofficial antirevolutionary department for which Braydon worked from time to time.
“In Paris. Ostensibly a pleasure jaunt with his family, but there are some issues there. You will handle this?”
It should have been a command, but came out with an anxious question mark at the end.
Braydon considered claiming his very new marriage as reason to decline, but that would be vile. This was a dangerous incident and could be smoke from deeper fires.
“Of course.”
“Good, good. Find the spy in that house. He or she will be the one intended to set off the bomb.”
“You said that access was possible from outside,” Braydon reminded him. “Moreover, if we find such a person, we’ll have a mere minion. We need to know who is behind the plot.”
“Find the minion and we’ll get the truth.”
By any means?Braydon hoped he was correct in believing torture chambers a horror of the past. “Even the rack wouldn’t overcome ignorance,” he said, “and such means are, of course, unthinkable. If I were devising such a plot, the lowest wouldn’t know me, and the links from layer to layer would be very hard to follow.”
“Damnation.Damnation!We could still hang the vermin. Hang, draw, and quarter ’em for an attempt on three royal lives. That should deter any future attempts.”
Braydon prayed no jury would condemn anyone to death for such a nonevent, but in these times who could be sure? Most juries looked kindly on protestors, but in the current mania over Princess Charlotte’s death, a jury might turn vicious with anyone threatening the royal family.
“People fired up by a purpose are rarely rational,” he said. “What measures have been taken to prevent future attacks?”
“Their royal highnesses have instructions not to cluster. Kent is en route back to Brussels, and Clarence should be in Bath by now. Both are under extra guard. Sussex is a damned irregular, but he should be sensible in this situation.”
Braydon thought the Duke of Sussex admirably freethinking, but it was a shame that his rebellious streak had led him to marry in contravention to the Royal Marriages Act. He had children, but the Act made any royal marriage null if it didn’t have the approval of Parliament, so his were technically bastards. If matters were otherwise, there’d be no succession crisis. Prince Augustus and Princess Ellen would stand ready to ascend to the throne if needed.
“But who was behind it?” Sidmouth demanded, thumping the arm of his chair with a clenched fist.“Who?”
“Rather, ask why,” Braydon said.“Qui bono?”
“Someone who wishes to disrupt the kingdom!” Sidmouth declared. “The death by explosion of three princes. Alarm. Shock. Fear.”
Certainly in you.
“There could be a more practical purpose,” Braydon said. He left a polite pause, but when Sidmouth didn’t take up the subject, he did. “The explosion would have removed three of the four princes who are free to marry and provide an heir.”
“By Lucifer!Jacobites?” Perhaps Sidmouth’s hair really did rise on end.
“Any Jacobite claim would be feeble, but there are plenty of German Protestants with a line of descent.”
The Jacobite fragments were Papist, which was why Parliament had made a law to say all future monarchs must be Protestant. That was how George of Hanover, a rather distant branch on the royal family tree, had become King George the first in 1714. If the Hanoverian line failed, a number of other Protestant German principalities had people with claims.
Sidmouth shot to his feet to pace. “I can’t believe it of any of them. It’s the French. It has to be the French. Create mayhem. Weaken us. Open the way...” A knock at the door ended the tirade. “Come!”
