“Then I’m surprised at that. ’Tis hard enough for an Irish lass to find work in a respectable house, never mind the highest in the land.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“I don’t know Lizzie’s history, but a girl who grows up in acountry cottage? She doesn’t know the dainty ways of the English.”
Kate wheeled the tea trolley back to the kitchen, and Julia returned to her office, thinking.What was Lizzie’s journey? There must be a story there.
She also wondered if Tennant realized how unusual the girl’s employment had been. Lizzie Dowling had traveled a great distance, measured not merely in miles. How had a young Irish girl ended up in the queen’s household and serving a princess? It was something of a mystery.
Might the tragedy’s roots be in Ireland?
CHAPTER 7
At ten minutes to seven, Tennant and Dermott arrived at the entry hall of Osborne House. Sir Lionel waved away a footman’s offer to take their overcoats.
“Hold on to it,” Dermott said. “The queen likes to keep the temperature a degree or two colder than Siberia.”
When the footman was out of earshot, Tennant said, “That servant had a black armband on his sleeve. Has there been a death in the royal family?”
“My dear inspector, what a question! The armband is for Prince Albert, of course. It’s a mere six years since the queen’s widowhood commenced.”
“Formal mourning after all this time? Extraordinary.”
“The rituals are followed meticulously, especially here. Albert designed Osborne, a German prince’s notion of an Italian villa.”
They turned right into a long hallway and left into an audience room. They’d barely arrived when a booming voice echoed from the corridor. Tennant looked at Dermott.
“Prepare yourself for two extraordinary sights,” Sir Lionel murmured. “Your Sovereign and the ‘Queen’s Highland Servant.’That’s John Brown’s official title. Princess Louise calls him ‘that absurd man in a kilt.’”
A towering, broad-chested man of about forty entered with the queen. In her fifth decade, Her Majesty was nearly as wide as she was tall, but Brown dwarfed the diminutive Victoria. His calf muscles bulged beneath his tartan kilt, and askene-dhu,the silver-handled knife he’d tucked in a scabbard, glinted in the cuff of his right knee sock. Brown’s gray tweed jacket and waistcoat strained across his barrel chest. Ginger strands threaded his grizzled gray hair, the red more prominent in the beard that fringed his chin from ear to ear.
The queen wore widow’s black from chin to toe, and when she sat and spread her skirts, she resembled a short, squat mound of coal. Only a touch of creamy lace at her wrists and neckline and a white widow’s cap relieved the depressing effect of yards of black taffeta. While Tennant rejoiced that he’d kept his coat, the room wasn’t cool enough for the queen. She fanned her pink face furiously, and a faint shine on her forehead and cheeks glowed in the lamplight.
A second gentleman, gray and stooping, with receding grizzled hair and a drooping walrus mustache, followed the pair into the room. Brown seated the queen, and the second man approached to shake hands with Sir Lionel.
“General, this is Detective Inspector Richard Tennant,” Dermott said. “General Charles Grey, the queen’s private secretary.”
The general shook the inspector’s hand. He returned to the queen and bent, murmuring in her ear.
Victoria inclined her head. “Pray, let Inspector Tennant approach and present his report to the queen.” Her voice was a surprise: high, light, and pleasantly musical, making her sound younger than a woman in her middle years. German had been the language of her mother and governess, and traces lingered in the queen’s speech.
Tennant summarized the facts as he knew them. He explainedthat the sisters’ deaths suggested—but did not clarify—a link between the killings. “If Your Majesty has any questions, I will endeavor to answer them.”
At that point, Tennant thought she’d press him about his suppositions. Instead, she said, “The queen assures you of the household’s fullest cooperation. General Grey will assist you in every way possible.”
Tennant thought,I came all this way for that?He said, “For his part, Sir Richard Mayne assures me I will have all the Yard’s resources I need, Your Majesty.”
“The queen is satisfied.” Victoria looked from Tennant to Dermott. “As to this deployment of soldiers. Sir Lionel, you may tell Mister Gathorne-Hardy that we have gone down this road. At Balmoral, it came to nothing.”
“Your Majesty, rest assured that the Home Office is—”
She raised her hand. “We have little confidence that this so-called threat is—”
A rumbling Scots bass filled the room. “Woman, will ye not listen to the man?”
Dermott and General Grey didn’t blink; only Tennant was startled by Brown’s interruption.
“Yer daft to ignore the danger to yerself.”
