Chapter 2
Susan Styles pulled gently on the reins, and her pony cart rolled to a stop at Osborne House’s stables. The head groom pushed the double doors open and offered his hand to help her down from the driving platform.
“A pleasant drive, Lady Styles?” He signaled to a stable boy who led the trap away.
“Yes, thank you.” She tucked back strands of fair hair loosened by the breeze. “Am I the last to return?” Susan nodded to the pair of young groomsmen watering a horse and picking out its hooves.
“Not quite. Captain Montgomery is back.” He looked over her shoulder. “And here’s the major.”
Peter FitzGerald, equerry to Queen Victoria, dismounted, tossed the reins to a stable boy, and removed his hat, raking his dark, tangled hair. “Well met, Lady Styles, but I thought you’d been out driving with Princess Louise.”
“Her head ached, so I dropped her at the house.”
“Shall we walk there together?”
“Of course.”
Susan had been surprised to find Peter at Osborne House while Her Majesty was absent.
But he had stayed behind to supervise the renovation of the queen’s stables, returning for a final inspection.
For her part, Lady Styles had arrived at Osborne with the Prince and Princess of Wales.
As Princess Alexandra’s “lady of the wardrobe,” Susan was her senior lady in waiting.
Some in the royal household thought her twenty-nine years made her too young for the job.
Mature duchesses usually held such posts.
But the princess liked her, and the formal role had warmed into a friendship.
“Princess Alexandra tells me you are leaving us,” Susan said.
“Next week,” FitzGerald said, rolling his eyes. “For the delightful trip to Balmoral and back.”
Susan smiled in sympathy; few of the queen’s courtiers relished the five-hundred-mile journey to her castle in Scotland.
The head groom asked, “Any last instructions, Major?”
He frowned, stroking the scar that ran from his right ear to his chin.
It was a Crimean War “souvenir,” he’d once told her, “courtesy of a Russian saber.” It hadn’t made him less attractive, and time had tamped its fire to dusty pink.
Susan first traced its line years ago, her breath coming quicker.
“I spotted a decayed section of fencing in the north paddock,” FitzGerald told the head groom. “Get Merriweather and Sons to do the fence repairs.”
“Not Gibney’s? They built the original paddock.”
“The house steward thinks they’re padding the bills.” FitzGerald shrugged. “But Michael Bolger might be wrong, so the less said, the better.”
“I’ll see to it, Major.”
“Good man.” FitzGerald nodded to an empty stall. “I see the grooms haven’t stabled the prince’s mount.”
Susan, too, had noticed the vacant stall for the horse belonging to the Prince of Wales.
“Still out and about,” the groom said. “Fine afternoon for a gallop.”
FitzGerald looked at the darkening sky. “He shouldn’t leave it too late. Night falls earlier these days.”
“Hunter’s Moon tonight, Major. That will light his way.”
Three hours later, Susan fiddled with the brooch pinned to her bodice as she walked along the Grand Corridor of Osborne House, looking for a mirror.
She found one and checked to see that the jewel was secure, sighing at her reflection.
Susan had worn the black silk gown once too often.
Widowhood had required an entirely new mourning wardrobe, followed by “half-mourning” dresses in mauves and grays.
Both were expenses she could ill afford.
Susan turned left at the hallway’s end, passing the dining hall and surprising a pair of whispering, white-gloved servants setting the table.
“Her half day off, and Lizzie’s not back.”
“There’ll be hell to—”
The second footman broke off when he spotted Lady Styles. The pair bowed stiffly and returned to setting out the wineglasses.
After dinner, Dr. Lewis asked his granddaughter, “Shall we walk along the Parade, you and I? Your aunt isn’t overly fond of my pipe.”
“It’s bedtime for me at any rate,” Lady Aldridge said as she gathered her things.
Julia and her grandfather crossed the road and stopped at the harbor wall. The wind had shifted, and a light breeze from land to sea barely rippled the sea’s surface. Dr. Lewis cupped his hand around his pipe bowl. After three puffs, the tobacco took his match and glowed.
Julia hooked her arm around his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
He tossed the match over the seawall and looked down at her. “Thank you for what?”
“For persuading me to come. For three uninterrupted weeks with my grandfather.” She squeezed his arm. “I feel like a schoolgirl, books packed away, and taken on holiday.”
“Well, Aunt Caroline said I mustn’t take no for an answer.” He swept his pipe across the harbor view. “And I ordered up this perfect evening. Just for you.”
The full moon had painted a silvery highway, splitting the dark water from horizon to shore.
Julia said, “It’s one of those nights when you could walk the Parade without a lantern to guide you.”
“A Hunter’s Moon, my dear,” he said. “The second full moon of autumn.”
“Beautiful … but I’ve always found something menacing in the name.”
“The origin is American, I believe. The time to go hunting, when the birds and animals have stored up energy for the winter.”
“Fattened and ready for the kill.”
“And what about Richard’s hunt?” Dr. Lewis said, releasing her arm and turning toward her. “Four months scouring Europe, and the man eludes him still.”
Julia bent for a loose stone. She tossed it into the water and watched the spreading rings. “There was some … confusion over aliases that slowed the chase. It turns out his real name is Edgar Romilly.”
“My dear … is it time for the inspector to give up and come home?”
Julia lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. He has two months left of his leave from Scotland Yard. I doubt he’ll return until it runs out or he tracks Romilly down.”
“Murderous scoundrel. Well, success or failure, Richard hunts for justice.” He reclaimed her arm, giving it a shake. “Now, what say you? Shall we go on a hunt of our own? I propose we wake with the birds, explore the eastern shore, and discover the island’s beauties.”
“Yes, please. So long as we travel by carriage, not by boat.”
At breakfast the following morning, Julia said warily, “A floating bridge, Grandfather?”
“I know you said, ‘not by boat,’ but it’s the only way across the river to East Cowes unless you travel ten miles downstream to Newport.”
“I’m not picturing—”
“It’s a steam barge. Horse-powered chains dragged an earlier vessel across the river. This one is large enough to carry carriages, carts, and passengers.”
“This modern world of ours,” Lady Aldridge said. “You two enjoy yourselves. I intend to stroll to the Green, read in the shade of the umbrella tree, and rest after luncheon.”
A hotel servant strapped a wicker basket with a picnic lunch to the back of their hired carriage. Fifteen minutes later, Julia and her grandfather joined the queue at the ferry dock.
“Here she comes, Julie.”
She looked east, shielding her eyes from the morning sun.
The approaching barge belched steam from its squat funnel and juddered to a stop.
Two long seating sheds ran the length of its sides with a center space for carriages and wagons.
Julia and her grandfather boarded and made the short crossing.
When they reached the other side, they resumed their carriage seats and rumbled down the exit gangway.
Their coachman turned right on York Avenue, passing a man standing by a carriage with the VR cipher for Victoria Regina on its door. Dr. Lewis rapped the roof with his walking stick. The driver slowed and pulled to the side of the road.
Dr. Lewis unlatched and lowered the window. “Charles?”
A thin, stooping man with gray muttonchops turned. He shifted his medical bag to his left hand and offered his right through the carriage window.
“Andrew, my dear fellow. This is a surprise. Where are you staying?”
“The Marine Hotel.”
“A long visit?”
“We’ll be here a few more weeks.”
The gentleman glanced over his shoulder at the royal carriage. “Forgive me for hurrying off, but I’m expected at Osborne House. May I call on you tomorrow?”
“Of course. Delighted.”
The gentleman tipped his hat and climbed into the royal coach.
“Who was that, Grandfather?”
“Sir Charles Locock. We were at medical school together. He’s the queen’s physician. Delivered all nine of her children.”
They followed the doctor’s carriage until it turned at the entrance to Osborne Park. Julia said, “If the queen is away, I wonder why the doctor is in a hurry.”
Dr. Lewis shrugged. “Attending the Prince or Princess of Wales? Princess Louise is in residence, too.” He patted her hand. “Now, my dear, let’s get down to the business of pleasure. I propose we explore as far as the island’s easternmost point.”
On Culver Downs, Julia left her grandfather and a fellow bird enthusiast discussing peregrine falcons and trekked to the edge of the cliff.
The chalk precipice curved away, gleaming above the midnight blue of the channel’s waters.
Julia dragged some wind-whipped strands from her eyes and thought of Dover’s white cliffs.
In early summer, she’d gazed across the channel to France, wondering about Richard and where he was. And here it is, October.
He’d finally written a month after he left England.
After four silent weeks, he wrote from Paris to say he’d collect his letters at the Bureau de Poste on the Rue du Louvre.
Julia took that as an invitation and sent three letters in as many months.
She believed Richard would get his man. As for the two of them …
Aunt Caroline had dismissed Julia’s early hesitations, saying, “Yes, there will be challenges to face. But, my dear, you’ve never lacked courage or imagination. Why allow them to fail you now?”