Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] (12 page)

“Be on the lookout for flying toy soldiers. Consuela was only partially correct,” Kate whispered out of the side of her mouth. “It’s not just you—he’s going to kill us both.” She then hastened inside the study and curled up on the leather couch she’d just so recently—although it felt years ago—had Valentine move for her.

“We’ve got something to discuss,” Simon said as Valentine walked behind Gideon’s desk, taking up the role of stern headmaster, or so it seemed to Kate.

“True. But if you don’t mind, Simon, I believe that’s my line in this small farce we seem to be enacting. Although only one of us is in costume,” he said, shooting another sharp look at his sister as he sat down. “Shall we begin with the pit?”

Kate knew that tone, that look, which was why she hadn’t stuck her tongue out at him. Well, and because Simon was in the room, and for some reason she didn’t want him to think she was little more than a nursery brat. Valentine was wound tightly as a clock spring. She hoped Simon had heeded her warning.

So much for hopes.

She watched, goggle-eyed, as Simon pulled a straight-back chair around and straddled it, so that he was sitting between Valentine and herself, able to see both of them. He seemed so confident. He’d probably appear confident in front of a firing squad. Did that make him brilliant...or brick stupid? “No, I’d rather we end there.”

Valentine raised an eyebrow at this “down to business” pose, and she glanced up at the coffered ceiling, surprised to see it wasn’t falling in on them. But then her brother surprised her. “You’ve discovered something, haven’t you?”

Kate exhaled. They were going to behave like gentlemen. And here she was, barefoot and smothered in fairly ratty emerald green velvet, her damp hair hanging down her back, looking as out of place as a court jester at a king’s war council. She had to listen carefully, and come up with at least one brilliant question, or else neither of them would take her seriously again. Or maybe just order her to leave the room and let the grown-ups talk.

Simon spoke again. “A theory, yes. And, possibly, some evidence to support that theory. I was going to tell you both later this evening, but now more pieces have fallen into place.”

“Since the cave-in,” Valentine prodded, nodding.

“Since the cave-in, yes. But my theory had its beginnings in the long gallery.”

“I’d be an idiot if I said I wasn’t intrigued by that statement. Since I was only going to read you both a stern lecture on the dangers of making mud pies twelve feet below the ground, I suppose it can wait. It can wait forever, as a matter of fact, because nobody more clearly knows how lucky you both are to even be here, or can give me back the year of my life I lost when I first looked over the pit and saw you. Very well, begin with the long gallery.”

And Simon did. Kate sat stock-still, her knees tucked up beneath her chin, amazed at what she was hearing. He had taken bits and pieces, things he’d learned on his own somehow, things she’d told him and things he’d observed, and woven them together into a riveting story, even as he admitted much was born in supposition.

The Redgraves had chosen their ascent wisely, always careful to play the game of politics on the side of the winner. Doing so, they had changed their loyalties, even their religion, so many times their true ancestry became lost. Which was fine with them; they were happy at having achieved their goal, being the outlandishly wealthy earls of Saltwood.

But not all of them were quite so content to stop there, and decided it was time once more to move the target. When it began, Simon couldn’t say for certain, but he was sure Charles Redgrave had nurtured more than a fondness for that old tale of the family hanging somewhere on the Royal House of Stuart family tree. Of course, at various times over the years, being a Stuart could literally end with them hanging
from
an entirely different sort of tree.

“I repeat, this is nearly all speculation on my part, backed with only the most pitiful evidence, but please allow me to begin by indulging in a short history lesson.”

Valentine groaned. “Very short, if you please. Even mercifully brief, if at all possible.”

“I’ll do my best.” Simon then told them about the time and travails of Louis XV, reminded them of France’s Seven Years War with England that had commenced in 1755 and was not going well for them, mostly adding to the enormous debt hanging over the country. He then colored in the lines of a portrait of the aging Louis’s reputation of lifelong libertine, eventually keeping dangerously young mistresses locked in a small mansion at the Parc-aux-Cerfs, commonly known as Stags’ Park, double entendre probably intended.

Kate hid her face against her knees.

“The king had not been discreet in his love affairs, from having three sisters in succession as lovers, to Madame de Pompadour serving not just as mistress but, rumor had it, both political adviser and, in her later years, procuress. Add to that Louis’s love for his deceased mentor, Cardinal Fleury, and his belief in a Catholic monarchy, the king’s varied success and failure in war, his decreasing popularity with both the nobility and the masses, and here was a man who might be interested in a two-pronged coup that would make him the most beloved monarch in France’s long history.”

“Two-pronged, is that all? Sounds like an entire set of cutlery to me,” Valentine commented wryly, handing Simon a wineglass. “Go on, I’ve always enjoyed a good fiction.”

“Which it might well be,” Simon reminded him. “Kate, am I boring you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, nervously arranging the hem of the banyan over her bare toes. Here was her chance to be brilliant. “Two-pronged, you said. I suppose it would be a mighty triumph if Louis were to somehow restore a Catholic monarchy to the English throne, along with making free with the English treasury while he was about it?”

Simon looked impressed, and Kate tried not to preen. She adored puzzles almost as much as she loved solving them. Besides, now Valentine couldn’t toss her out of the room. She was being helpful.

“Your grandfather died in 1759, only a year after your father was born. No one can say if he was actively dealing with the French, if he had gathered a secret Society of like-minded individuals rather than, shall we say, a group of fun-loving naughty chums who simply liked to prance about in devils’ heads and tip over any female they could find to play with them.”

“Here now, Simon. My sister’s in the room.”

Kate bristled. “Your sister grew up listening to Trixie’s stories and isn’t easily shocked, Val, or she would have daintily swooned at the mention of Stags’ Park. Go on, Simon, please.”

“Forgive me, but there are comparisons to be made. It’s not outside the realm of believability your grandfather, and perhaps some who came before him, had been up to something involving the monarchy. Although I have reason to doubt that, which we’ll get to in a moment. I believe this all began with your grandfather, if it happened at all. But, if he did harbor his own ambitions to replace the Hanovers and their limited Stuart blood with a bloodline he believed more potently Stuart, and he was amenable to yet another change in official religion, France was clearly the place to look for assistance. And what better way to get close to the king than through their mutual...interests.”

“That’s preposterous,” Valentine said. “I mean, anything’s possible, but I’ve never heard a thing about kingly ambitions, for God’s sake.”

Simon shrugged. “I’ll get to the evidence later, such as it is. I am fairly, no, more than fairly certain he was, at the least, busily building his own small kingdom right here, so if he wasn’t to become monarch, he would certainly have the lush background fit for a prince of the realm.”

“Torr Gribbon,” Kate said quietly, so only Simon heard. “One thread, Simon, and you think you can weave an entire tapestry.”

“Conversely, pull one thread on a tapestry, and everything else begins to unravel. I’m sorry, Kate,” Simon said, his eyes gentle for a moment before he turned to face Valentine once more. “Now, your grandfather is gone, your father grows to adulthood and, along the way, somehow discovers what his father had been up to. The journals from those times, the bible, everything. He’s intrigued, to say the least. It’s the 1780s. Louis XV has been replaced by the even more unpopular Louis XVI, and France appears ripe for revolution. Barry, along with many Englishmen fearing a revolution in our own country if the masses succeed in bringing down Louis, looks to France with an eye to convincing, even blackmailing England to intercede on behalf of the French monarchy. After all, the wealthy and titled have toiled hard and long to be where they are now, and a revolution could see them stripped of home, lands, title, wealth—and possibly their very lives.”

“Making it time to dust off the devil masks and get back to corrupting the powerful, the gullible, the foolish, and perhaps even a return to the dream of somehow ascending the throne. Until Mama shot him dead, of course. That was inconvenient for him, wasn’t it?”

Valentine sighed audibly. “Remind me again why you’re in here, Kate, listening to all of this.”

She smiled. “Because I’m completely without scruples and will find out everything one way or another, anyway. Oh, and I’m brilliant. There is that.”

Simon laughed as Valentine tossed the letter opener he’d been fingering into the air and caught it again, saying, “That’s the end of it, and not a moment too soon. I officially resign as your stand-in guardian. Gideon can have you back with my blessings. Simon? Before my sister so rudely interrupted, you were going to enlighten us, I believe, tell us our father’s motives, his plans?”

Kate raised her hand. “But I wasn’t done. Please let me finish and see if I’m right. Barry was following in the steps of our grandfather’s plans, with the thought of being generously rewarded by a triumphant Louis for his assistance, in the form of an, at least nominal, seat on the English throne thanks to this nebulous Stuart blood. I imagine his court would have been made up of hand-picked members of the Society. I picture a coup, don’t you? Instead of bewaring the Ides of March, King George would have had to beware the French-supported Society he would have been led to believe had his back. Or something like that. It seems far-fetched, but Trixie has told me more than once about Barry’s love of opiates. Anything may seem possible when one’s head is swirling in the smoke of an opium pipe.”

“Lovely,” Valentine grumbled, reaching for a quill and dipping a pen into the ink pot. “Keep going, although we might now have crossed the bridge of fiction and are now in the land of fantasy.”

Kate got to her feet, no longer able to sit still, and perched herself on the edge of Gideon’s desk, forgetting the banyan and her bare feet. “But then Barry was dead, just weeks after the Bastille fell. The revolution had begun, Louis eventually lost his head, and now we have Bonaparte. We can only speculate as to what would have happened or not happened if one or both of them had lived to carry out their plans.”

“Her Royal Highness, Princess Katherine. See her now in her lavish court trappings,” Valentine joked, earning himself a scathing look from Kate, who already felt ridiculous enough in the ancient banyan. But it seemed to be something else that wiped the grin from his face. “Wait.” He stood and reached across the desk, grabbing at the plaid lapel. “Where the devil did you get this?”

“I...I found it in a chest in the attics. It’s either our grandfather’s or Barry’s, I suppose, as there were other things of theirs in the same area. Why?”

“Why?” Valentine repeated. “Simon, is this what I think it is?”

“I wondered when you might notice. The Royal Stuart plaid, yes, and as Kate and I have been just recently debating, perhaps another thread unraveled from the tapestry. I was as surprised as you when I first saw it. I know you didn’t mean to be so helpful, Kate, but well done in any case.”

“But it’s just an old robe.” Kate touched her left cuff. “I don’t understand.”

Simon enlightened her. “Since the battle of Culloden, the Royal Stuart is worn only by the royal family or with permission of the king, although I hear that’s soon to change. They may not have dared to wear kilts, but both your grandfather’s and your father’s portraits in the long gallery show a shadow of a draped plaid in the top right corner. The same Royal Stuart.”

“Along with the small portrait of the first Charles I never noticed. The ladies use the long gallery for walking on rainy days, but for the most part it’s ignored. I avoided it like the plague in my youth, preferring fencing lessons with Gideon and Max. That’s no good excuse for never noticing the details of the portraits, but I’ll offer it, anyway. I think we’re seeing more fact than speculation now, even as I believe a pit is opening somewhere in my stomach,” Valentine said quietly. “Is there more?”

“Perhaps there is,” Simon told them. “Would anyone care to guess the coat of arms used to mark each of their tombs? If someone hadn’t chipped them off, that is. I managed to convince Dearborn to accompany me back to the mausoleum an hour ago, and no other markers are missing, all of them displaying your own coat of arms. Which, still keeping to speculation, granted, leads me to believe this all began with your grandfather.”

“But—but that’s insane.”

Simon nodded. “So is believing the Society continued on, if only in its more salacious form, striking deceased members from the rolls, bringing in new members to keep the number at the devil’s dozen of thirteen. Until one of those new members tripped over the Society’s true beginnings and purpose and decided perhaps it wasn’t. Insane, that is.”

Valentine refilled their wineglasses and returned to his chair. “And now, the wheel of France’s always volatile history having taken yet another turn, rather than an unpopular monarch looking for a prime prize, we have Bonaparte and his seeming quest to conquer the world. I can think of no other man more eager to barter most anything if it gains him the British Empire.” He set down his wineglass and clapped his hands. “My congratulations, Simon, I wasn’t in the least bored. I find it all damned difficult to swallow, but the theories are intriguing.”