Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [143]
The butler looked at the man with loathing, but after one desperate glance at Vespasia, he surrendered.
‘Thank you.’ Vespasia stepped across the threshold; Charlotte and Narraway followed her.
The moment they were inside and the front door closed, it was apparent that they were prisoners. There were other men at the foot of the sweeping staircase and at the entrance to the kitchens and servants’ quarters.
‘You didn’t have to do that!’ the butler accused the other man.
‘Oh, decidedly, we did,’ the other contradicted him. ‘They’d ’ave gone away knowing there was something wrong. Best we keep all this quiet. Don’t want the old lady upset.’
‘No you don’t,’ Vespasia agreed tartly. ‘If she has an attack and dies, you will be guilty not only of murder but of regicide. Do you imagine there is anywhere in the world that you could hide from that? Not that you would escape. We may have many ideas about the liberty or equality that we aspire to, even fight for, but no one will countenance the murder of the Queen who has been on our throne longer than the lifetime of most of her subjects around the face of the earth. You would be torn apart, although I dare say that matters less to you than the complete discrediting of all your ideas.’
‘Lady, keep a still tongue in yer head, or I’ll still it for yer. Whatever people feel about the Queen, no one cares a jot if yer survive this or not,’ the man said sharply. ‘Yer pushed yer way in here. Yer’ve no one but yerself to blame if it turns bad for yer.’
‘This is—’ the butler began. Then, realising he was only offering another hostage to fate, he bit off his words.
‘Is anyone sick?’ Vespasia enquired of no one in particular.
‘No,’ the butler admitted. ‘It’s what they told us to say.’
‘Good. Then will you please conduct us to Her Majesty? If she is being held with the same courtesy that you are offering us, it might still be as well for Dr Narraway to be close to her.You don’t want her to suffer any unnecessary ill effects. If she is not alive and well I imagine she will be of little use to you as a hostage.’
‘How do I know ye’re a doctor?’ the man said suspiciously, looking at Narraway.
‘You don’t,’ Narraway replied. ‘But what have you to lose? Do you think I mean her any harm?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think I mean her any harm?’ Narraway repeated impatiently.
‘Of course not! What kind of a stupid question is that?’
‘The only kind that needs an answer. If I mean her no harm then it would be of less trouble to you to keep us all in the same room rather than use several. This is not so very large a house, for all its importance. I will at least keep her calm. Is that not in your interest?’
‘What’s in that bag? Yer could have knives, even gas, for all I know.’
‘I am a physician, not a surgeon,’ Narraway said tartly.
‘Who’s she?’ the man glanced at Charlotte.
‘My nurse. Do you imagine I attend female patients without a chaperone?’
The man took the Gladstone bag from Narraway and opened it up. He saw only the few powders and potions they had bought from the apothecary in Southampton, all labelled. They had been careful, for precisely this reason, not to purchase anything that was an obvious weapon, not even small scissors for the cutting of bandages. Everything was exactly what it purported to be.
The man shut the bag again and turned towards his ally at the foot of the stairs. ‘Yer might as well take ’em up. We don’t want the old lady passing out on us.’
‘Not yet, anyway,’ the other man agreed. He jerked his hand towards the flight of stairs. ‘Come on, then. Yer wanted to meet Her Majesty – this is yer lucky day.’
It was the butler who conducted them up and then across the landing and knocked on the upstairs sitting-room door. At the order from inside, he opened it and went in. A moment later he came out again. ‘Her Majesty will receive you, Lady Vespasia. You may go in.’
‘Thank you,’ Vespasia accepted, leading the way while Narraway and Charlotte followed a couple of steps behind her.
Victoria was seated in one of the comfortable, homely chairs in the well-used, very domestic