Page 19 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

M ama was going to scream. Victoria knew it. She saw the muscles cording in her mother’s neck and the white lines that appeared around her mouth. She steeled herself, ready to answer shout for shout. Dash knew it, too. She could feel him tremble as he pressed closer to her.

Jane’s gaze, as always, shot to Sir John to see how he regarded the scene. This time she and Victoria both got a surprise.

Sir John looked embarrassed. He’d been caught out, and he knew it. Victoria pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh.

Mama realized something was amiss, and she swallowed all her anger in a single hard lump.

“Very well, Victoria,” she said, but she kept her gaze fixed on Sir John. “If it will give me a moment’s peace. Lehzen, see that the door is left open.”

“Jane, come,” said Victoria, scrambling to be gone before Mama had a chance to change her mind. “And bring that book you were talking about. And your workbasket. I want to see how your stitching is coming along.”

Jane got up and turned. Victoria could not help but notice she angled herself so that her body was between the stool and her father’s searching eyes. What is she doing?

There was no way to tell. All Victoria knew was that when Jane turned back, she had her book and basket. She slunk obediently behind Victoria and Dash into the smaller of the two sitting rooms.

The princess chose the settee, which was big enough for them both. Dash curled up at her feet, perfectly content as long as no voices were raised.

“Now, let us see that book you brought.” Victoria extended her hand.

Jane gave her the book and sat down beside her. Lehzen settled herself into the straight-backed chair beside the hearth and took up her sewing. It just so happened that she now faced the open door, which would allow her to see the moment anyone approached the threshold.

Victoria dropped her voice to a murmur. “Did you . . . did you have something you wished to say to me?” She turned a page in the book.

“I did,” said Jane. “But . . . I don’t know if it matters.”

“I would like to hear it, anyway.”

Jane stared at her hard. Victoria could read the question in her gaze as plain as the words on the page in front of her.

Does she mean it?

Victoria cringed inwardly. Jane had reason to wonder.

Victoria had not exactly hidden her feelings.

Jane had always been a piece of the daily puzzle that must be worked around or avoided altogether.

Occasionally, Victoria felt sorry for her.

After all, it must be very hard to be Sir John’s daughter.

But there was nothing more than that. Not since they were children.

Back then they had played together and laughed together. Then it had all changed. She tried to put her finger on when and how and, disconcertingly, found she could not.

“I walked home across the green last night,” Jane breathed. “To look at the place where you fell. I found these.”

Jane opened her basket. Using the basket lid as a screen, she handed Victoria a sadly battered pair of pince-nez spectacles. A wrinkled black ribbon stained with dried mud dangled from the frame.

Victoria received the spectacles into her hands as if they were precious jewels. Jane, who never spoke out of turn, who sat and sulked and slunk, who always did exactly what she was told, had gone walking where she should not. Jane had doubted her father and had gone out to search for answers.

“But with Father changing his story and saying the dead man was a gardener, it can’t mean anything.”

Victoria closed her fingers around the pince-nez.

“No,” she said to this new, strange Jane. “It means a great deal. Because that story is a lie, and now we have proof.”

Proof that she had seen what she had seen. That this time she had not seen a ghost. That she was not mad.

“How can this be proof of anything?” Jane’s question cut through Victoria’s triumphant thoughts. “Anyone can wear spectacles. Even a gardener.”

How?

Victoria closed her eyes. She willed her anger and her imaginings away.

I will see what is in front of me. Only that.

She opened her eyes.

“This ribbon is silk.” She smoothed the bedraggled black scrap.

“A gardener would not have a silk ribbon. They couldn’t afford it.

And if somehow they did own such a thing, they wouldn’t use it on a workday.

They would save it for best.” She looked again.

She saw again. “And the rims on the spectacles. They’re gold. A gardener would have steel. Or wood.”

“Maybe he stole them.”

“What for?”

Jane had no answer for that.

“The man I saw wore a black coat, as well,” Victoria went on.

“How could the dead man be a gardener who wears a black coat and gold-rimmed spectacles on a silk ribbon? Such a thing does not exist.” She threaded the ribbon through her fingers.

“That wasn’t a gardener. It was Dr. William Maton.

I thought it might be. Now I’m certain. He wore spectacles like these.

He put them on so he could read his watch when he took my pulse. ”

“But why would Father lie about such a thing?” asked Jane.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Victoria admitted. “At first, he didn’t lie. He just didn’t believe me, because he didn’t want to. That was probably just a reflex.”

Jane nodded. She had to be as familiar with this aspect of Sir John’s behavior as Victoria was.

“Then, when he found out it was true, his next instinct would be to make it go away as quickly and quietly as possible, which he did by making his announcement at the concert last night.” Victoria smoothed her hand across the spectacles.

“Now, with these, we have solid evidence that the dead man was Dr. Maton. So, what we need to ask is, why didn’t Sir John want anyone to know it was him?

” Victoria took a deep breath. “Jane, will you help me find out what’s happened? ”

Jane looked nakedly, openly shocked. “What help could I be? I don’t know anything, and . . . and I’ll only make a mess of things.”

“But you found these.” Victoria held up the spectacles and then tucked them into her sleeve. “That’s a great deal. All I ask is that you try.”

Jane groped for what to say. Victoria seized her hand and pressed it, willing some strength into her, willing her to understand that this once they had a chance to do something.

Jane looked at their hands clasped together. Her cheeks flushed. When she met Victoria’s gaze again, Victoria felt she was looking at a stranger.

All at once, Lehzen coughed. Victoria’s gaze jerked up; so did Jane’s.

Sir John stood framed in the open door. Mama sat at her desk in the other room, watching him. Sir John looked at Jane and gave a very slight nod, the tiniest sign of approval.

Good girl.

Victoria’s skin crawled. Sir John beamed and shut the door, showing how much he trusted Jane.

What does he think is happening? What has he set in motion? Victoria felt something like panic brewing inside her. Had she mistaken Jane’s motives?

In her mind’s eye, Victoria saw Sir John standing over his daughter. Saw him raise his fist and Jane’s head snap back. Such a blow could terrify anyone into obedience, no matter what the scheme.

Jane was staring at the book, which was still open on their laps. Her breath was heaving, as if she’d just run the length of the palace.

“It doesn’t matter about the spectacles,” Jane said through clenched teeth. “He’ll just come up with another lie. He has an answer for everything , and no one will believe me if I contradict him. They won’t even believe you. They’ll just say . . .”

That I’m making it up. That I’m mad.

“It does matter.” Victoria faced Jane fully. I will not let the possibility of you slip away so easily. “And you know that it matters. That’s why it frightens you. It frightens me, too,” she admitted. “But that is exactly why I mean to keep going.”

“How?” demanded Jane.

A fresh thrill ran through Victoria. This was not a refusal. Jane was listening. Jane was considering the possibilities.

“We must establish two things,” Victoria said. “We must establish what happened to Dr. Maton before his death. Why was he out on the green? Where had he been? Where had he planned to go?”

“And the other thing?” asked Jane.

“What was Dr. Maton’s full connection to Sir John? Of course, they knew each other because Dr. Maton attended my parents and me. But was there more than that between them?”

Jane didn’t look at her. Jane turned over a page in the book and frowned. Victoria held her breath.

Finally, Jane spoke. “I . . . I suppose I could talk to my sister, Liza. She knows everything that goes on in the house and in the town.”

“Excellent,” said Victoria. “And if you learn anything, and we can’t talk, you can leave me a note.

” She furrowed her brow at the volume between them.

“Perhaps in a book? But not this one. Sir John might see it as his property. We’ll use Wordsworth’s poems. Mama is used to me reading those and won’t wonder at it. ”

“But—” began Jane.

“But what?”

“Why are you doing this?” Jane spoke the words in a rush, as if she did not want to give herself time to take them back. “What could it possibly matter to you whether it was Dr. Maton or a gardener or Father Christmas who died?”

“Because Dr. Maton’s death is not a small thing,” Victoria whispered.

“This is not one of Sir John’s usual lies about my temperament or why Mama was late for the reception.

This is about the security of the palace and the security of my person.

If I can prove Sir John was involved, that would mean that he meant to deceive me, and that he schemed to deceive Their Majesties.

I can tell Queen Adelaide, and she can tell my uncle king.

They can use it to force the hands of the Kensington board into giving me my own household. ”

“That is why I am doing this,” she said. “And why I intend to succeed.”