Page 40 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

M uch to Victoria’s surprise, the rooms were empty when she and Jane came in from the garden. To be sure, Lady Flora and Lehzen were there to take their bonnets, but neither Sir John nor Mama was in evidence.

A stroke of luck at last.

But it did not make up for all they had just learned from Gerald Maton’s letter.

The truth was, despite her determined words to Jane, Victoria felt dispirited.

She had been counting on Dr. Maton finding something in his father’s papers.

People wrote the most amazing things in their private letters, somehow believing that no one else would ever see. ...

Victoria froze.

“Letters,” she breathed.

“What did you say, ma’am?” asked Jane. But she was not looking at Victoria. She was looking across the room at Lehzen and Lady Flora.

“I was just saying I had some letters I wanted to finish,” Victoria announced. “Come help me, Jane.”

“Yes, of course.”

Victoria’s table sat next to Mama’s desk. Dash had a basket beside it. He hopped into it now and turned himself around, nosing his blanket until everything was to his liking.

Victoria also made as great a fuss of settling herself. She took out her paper, pen, and ink. She found her latest letter from Feodora and one from Uncle Leopold. She unfolded them and bent her head, as if studying the pages. Then she picked up her pen and addressed the paper.

Sir John and Maton were friends , she wrote. May have written letters.

“But the doctor’s letters were burnt,” breathed Jane.

Victoria smiled and wrote, Sir John’s were not . She underlined it.

Jane clapped her hand over her mouth.

Victoria nodded. Item: Search Sir John’s desk at home. She drew an arrow toward Jane.

Jane blanched. She swallowed. Victoria held her breath. Then, slowly, Jane nodded.

Victoria beamed. She wrote, Item: Search Sir John’s desk here . She drew an arrow pointing toward herself.

Jane frowned. She mouthed, How?

Victoria grimaced, dipped her pen in fresh ink and wrote, It only wants a little caution .

But Jane shook her head minutely. She made a twisting gesture with her hand. For a moment Victoria could not understand. Then she realized Jane was pantomiming the turn of a key.

Oh, damn!

Sir John kept his desk locked. Victoria knew that. She’d seen it herself. Every day he came in and sat down and pulled his chain of keys from his waistcoat pocket and opened the drawers.

What can we do? There must be a way . . .

But her mind remained stubbornly blank. She must think of something quickly. Wherever Mama and Sir John had gone, they would be back soon, and it was not the time for writing letters, and she hadn’t done her journal yet for today, and . . .

All at once Jane got to her feet.

“What is it?” whispered Victoria.

Jane didn’t answer. She just went to the bell and rang. Lady Flora looked at her curiously. So did Lehzen, but neither moved to stop her.

The footman walked in and bowed. “Miss Conroy?”

“Yes, Phillips.” She twisted her hands awkwardly. She looked, Victoria realized, every bit her old limp self. “My father has lost his desk key. He asked me to find out if there might be a spare . . . ?”

“I’m sure there is, miss,” Phillips replied. “Mrs. White will know for certain. Shall I go speak with her?”

“Yes, thank you. And you needn’t bother my father with it,” she added. “Just leave it on the mantel. He knows to look for it there should it be needed.”

“Very good, miss.” Phillips bowed and retreated without any hesitation. Because how could anyone suspect Jane of any deception? They all knew her far too well. She was shy and downtrodden and possibly a little stupid.

Jane returned to Victoria’s table, and Victoria seized her hand, then squeezed it hard. Jane grinned. Jane Conroy actually grinned.

Victoria picked up her pen, but before she could write anything, Dash barked and jumped to his feet.

Because Phillips had opened the door again, and there stood Mama and Sir John. Victoria’s tongue froze to the roof of her mouth.

“Well, did you girls have a pleasant walk?” Mama sailed into the room. “What are you writing there, Victoria?”

Victoria realized she had made a fatal mistake. She had left something written right out in the open. Mama would see it in a moment and know it was not a letter or anything like it.

“Oh, this . . . ?” Victoria reached for it, and Jane reached at the same time.

It was impossible to say which of them knocked over the inkwell, but in the next instant a black pool of ink spilled across the whole of her writing table.

Jane leapt to her feet and Victoria with her, but the ink had already poured across the table and begun to drip onto the table and the rug. And Dash.

Dash immediately began to bark and rush in circles, trying to get at whatever it was that was soaking through his coat.

“ Ach, mein Gott! ” screamed Mama.

“Oh, Dash!” Victoria snatched him up.

“Victoria! Your dress !”

After that, no one paid attention to what might have been lost on the writing table.

And as Dash was being taken away by Lehzen to be bathed, and Phillips was shouting orders about the table and the carpet to a small army of servants, and Victoria was being hustled away by Mama and Lady Flora to be changed out of her ruined dress, no one had a spare moment to see how Victoria looked to Jane and smiled.