Chapter 24
The mansion was hushed; most people were taking a late afternoon rest. Anthony had gone to the cantonment to talk to Dylan, whose superior officer had contracted malaria and foisted several duties onto his next-in-command.
Taj Darzi had accompanied Anthony in an effort to strengthen relations and perhaps lend resources to help find Captain Miller’s killer.
To Sophia’s knowledge, Anthony had not divulged the nature of the dark reason behind the death to anyone but her, Dylan Stuart, and Rachael Scarsdale.
Sophia flopped on her stomach across her bed and opened a novel she’d tried to read five times already.
Too many thoughts swirled and tumbled about her head, and she couldn’t focus.
Anthony was a spy. Sensitive information had been stolen, but as long as the thief did not have access to the code, they were probably safe.
But now someone had killed for it. That same someone didn’t realize a young boy had witnessed the crime until his nanny spoke of it, trying to find a listening ear.
Someone had threatened Sophia and tried to kill the boy . . .
“Ugh,” she moaned and tossed the book on the floor, feeling juvenile and out of sorts. It was as though the mansion was anchored in the doldrums and there wasn’t a hint of wind anywhere. They would all die there on the equator, sunburned and shriveled.
“Mercy,” she muttered. “What is the matter with me?”
A rapid knock came at her door—panicked. She opened the door and realized why.
“Charity?”
The girl’s eyes were huge. But then, the girl’s eyes were often huge.
“Sophia!” Charity pushed into the room and slammed the door. “It’s Beatrice,” she breathed and grabbed her middle. “Beatrice—” Her face crumpled, and her voice caught on a sob.
Sophia pulled her to one of the chairs by the hearth. She crouched in front of it and patted Charity’s knee. “Breathe. There’s a good girl. And another deep breath—there we go. Now. What has happened to Beatrice?”
“She overheard the servants talking in the compound today as they laundered clothing. Many of the families’ servants gather to do the chores. It makes the task so much less tedious, you see.”
“Yes?” Sophia twirled her hand in a circle, encouraging Charity to speak more quickly.
“Right, yes. So she was outside with her watercolors and overheard them talking. Someone had heard from the trail of servants between here and the palace that the prince died this morning.” She gulped a breath.
“But the palace is keeping the news quiet, and they are following the directive of the late prince’s advisor.
The short one who always smells like cheap tobacco, which is odd, because they have so much money. ”
Cheap tobacco?
“I’ve not met the advisor, so I cannot speak to the truth of it, of course, but Beatrice heard all of it, and she understands the dialect perfectly.”
Sophia put her hand to her forehead. “Do you mean to suggest that Mr. Darzi is unaware that the prince has died?”
Charity nodded, curls bobbing. Her eyes teared.
“The servants said his funeral would be tonight, that ‘things would continue as planned’ so that he—Mr. Darzi—would lose favor with British officials.” Her voice broke.
“The short advisor—the one with the cheap tobacco—he is hoping to enflame relations between the Indian princely states and the British military. A revolution, he calls it.”
Sophia felt a measure of alarm. “The gossip is that the funeral pyre will happen tonight?”
“Yes,” Charity gasped.
Oh, no. No, no, no. “Did they offer any specifics about this ceremony?”
“No!” Charity wailed. “But you and I both know what it means, Sophia!”
Sophia was afraid she did.
“And then, and then they said the dowry would be worth every penny, that it was a small thing to take the woman with it, that once suspicion had been cast on Mr. Darzi and the British imprisoned him, the advisors would rule the state as one body. They would have the dowry money by then and would have no further use for either Mr. Darzi or his new bride.”
Charity shuddered on an indrawn breath, and Sophia’s heart was torn in two. One half ached for the girl who cared so much for her sister that she hurt when her sister hurt, and the other half was bent on murdering a short advisor to a dead prince who smoked cheap tobacco.
Sophia took a deep breath and reached for Charity’s hands. “I am so sorry, sweet girl. Some people are quite cruel. Was Beatrice very afraid?”
Charity nodded miserably. She faced Sophia and clutched her hands tightly.
“And why on earth would Beatrice tell me all of these things? She knows I cannot keep a secret to save my life! Why would she tell me all of this?” She gulped.
“She said she needed to warn Mr. Darzi of the nefarious plans. And then there is our father!”
Sophia’s heart beat faster. “What of your father?”
“He ranted at Beatrice last night after the midnight picnic for advancing things too quickly with Mr. Darzi. He said he had not yet secured the key to her dowry, that he had to find some code, and that the prince’s advisors would not want something they couldn’t sell.
He said he was to receive half of the profits, but now he didn’t know if the advisors would honor the agreement.
And then he ranted about not having the same pool of resources as the prince’s advisors or the captain and that he would never find a buyer on his own.
” Charity shook her head. “He sounded like a madman! And when Mother tried to reason with him, to make sense of his ramblings, he shouted that the dowries were at stake and . . . and he hit her!” Charity bit her lip, her gaze stricken.
“We were so afraid—Beatrice and I! He . . . he . . .” Her lip trembled, eyes full of misery and disbelief. “He is a man of God! How could he?”
Sophia winced. How indeed? She had seen her share of violence against women and children on the dirty streets of London, and it horrified her every time. Her heart went out to Charity, who gasped back another sob and placed her fingers against her mouth.
“I didn’t want him to hit her again, so I shouted at him and ran to my mother.
He left the house, and has not returned.
” Charity’s eyes had grown huge again. “I am so afraid, Sophia, and I do not understand any of this. What would possess him to be so completely . . . completely insensate? Nothing makes sense, nothing. The dowry money was supposed to come from his uncle. What has that to do with the prince or his advisors or something for which he needs a mysterious key and a code? And another buyer—another buyer for what?”
The puzzle pieces suddenly snapped together for Sophia, and she felt panic settling in. She asked for the one thing Charity had yet to tell her. Perhaps Beatrice had known her searching out Mr. Darzi on her own would be dangerous, and she knew Charity would tell someone. “Where is Beatrice now?”
“At the palace.”
Sophia sighed. “Of course she is. And none of the gentlemen I trust are in this house at the moment.”
“I suppose we do need a gentleman.” Charity’s face fell.
“Yes, especially as Mr. Darzi is not at the palace.”
“What?” Charity leaped to her feet. “Beatrice knew he had plans away from the palace this morning, but surely he is returned by now!”
“He is at the military compound with Major Stuart and Lord Wilshire.”
“Are you certain? Perhaps they have left.”
“Lord Wilshire told me he would speak with me directly upon their return. I have yet to see either of them.” She frowned.
“And if Mr. Darzi has returned to the palace, he may be in danger as well. If these advisors are intent on enacting their plans tonight without his knowledge or interference, they will, at the very least, incapacitate him.”
“Beatrice will die of a broken heart if something befalls him!”
Sophia didn’t tell Charity that Beatrice was in far worse danger than dying of a broken heart. She also couldn’t bring herself to tell the girl that her father had probably killed Captain Miller and was now in possession of stolen British state secrets.
“We shall have to tell Lord Pilkington about this. We can insist he take us to the palace so that we might retrieve Beatrice and Mr. Darzi, if he is there—although we have no legal right to demand they surrender him.”
Sophia hurriedly put on her shoes and sat at her vanity table.
She scribbled a note to Anthony explaining that he must come immediately to the palace, that Beatrice Denney might be in danger, but he was not to tell her parents.
She also mentioned to keep Taj Darzi with him if they hadn’t already been separated, that the man was in danger if he returned to the palace.
Charity read over her shoulder and wiped her nose with a handkerchief. “Why can he not tell my parents?” she asked, her nose pinched and voice funny.
“Well—” Sophia scrambled. “We do not want them to worry. Not yet.”
She folded the note and hustled Charity down to the front foyer to find Himmat.
The butler was out front, settling a dispute between two of the kitchen servants, one of whom was now unclean after handling dishes the Residency guests had eaten from.
Charity bounced on the balls of her feet, and Sophia impatiently waited for a break in the flow of angry words.
She did not want to compound matters by being disrespectful.
Finally, a lull. “Himmat,” she said quickly, and the butler turned around and bowed to her, palms together.
“Where might I find Lord Pilkington, do you know?”
“Miss, my lord is hunting.”
She blinked. “Hunting?”
“Yes, miss. He hunts duck with Lord Braxton.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered. Sophia tapped the folded paper against her leg and scrambled for an alternate plan.
The sun had moved lower in the sky. While most of the mansion’s guests would soon be awake from their naps, there wasn’t one person inside whom she believed would be useful in gaining entrance to the palace.