Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,55

return to the other ladies in the drawing room.”

“I asked her to be here,” Darcy said. “Believe it or not she has also had some experience with this kind of thing. And she’s a good head on her shoulders.”

Of course I blushed stupidly as they looked at me.

“First things first,” Nicholas said. “You must understand that this is a very delicate situation for us and one that could have serious ramifications if the news leaked out. Pirin was a powerful man in my country. It was only his influence at court that kept a whole province from breaking away. If word gets out that he’s been murdered—why, we could have a civil war on our hands by the end of the week, or, worse still, Yugoslavia could decide this would be an opportune moment to annex our Macedonian province. So I would prefer it that the true circumstances not be made known outside of this room.”

“In that case we should let it be generally thought that he died of a heart attack,” Darcy said. “We can’t bring him back to life but I presume it was well known that he liked his food and drink, so his death will come as no great surprise.”

“That was the general consensus of opinion as we were leaving the dining room anyway,” I chimed in. “If nobody else overheard Lady Middlesex then I don’t think you’ll have much trouble with convincing everyone that he died of a heart attack.”

“That’s certainly helpful,” Nicholas agreed.

Anton said nothing. He was still staring at the body in fascination and revulsion. Suddenly he looked up, his clear blue eyes fastening on his brother’s. “I don’t think anyone should be told that he’s dead before Papa finds out,” Anton said. “We should keep up the pretense that he’s gravely ill until our parents get here.”

Nicholas frowned. “I don’t know if we can do that,” he said. “I’m sure some of the servants overheard this lady’s outburst.”

“One assumes they don’t speak English,” Darcy said.

“Another thing you should consider,” Anton said, still looking directly at his brother, “is that Papa may well want to call off the wedding.”

“Call off the wedding, why?” Nicholas asked.

“Think about it, Nick. He will want to make a grand show of mourning for Pirin—to let our Macedonian brothers know how highly he regarded him. It would be most unseemly to have any kind of festivities during such a solemn time.”

“Oh, damnation, you’re right,” Nicholas said. “That’s exactly what he’ll want to do. And Romania could take it as a slight if we postpone the wedding. And think of the expense—we’ve already invited all the crowned heads of Europe to the ceremony back home in Sofia. And poor Maria. She’s so looking forward to her big day. What a horrible mess. Trust Pirin to get himself poisoned at the most inopportune moment.”

“What we have to do is keep up the pretense,” Anton said, warming to his subject now and strolling past the corpse. “We’ll let Papa know that Pirin is ill, but he shouldn’t find out that he’s dead until we’ve had the wedding ceremony.”

Nicholas gave a nervous laugh. “And exactly how are we going to do that? He’ll want to visit the sickroom, I’m sure.”

“Then Pirin will be sleeping. In a kind of coma maybe.”

“He looks dead, Anton, and in case you haven’t noticed, he’s not breathing.”

“We’ll have to have someone hidden behind the curtains and snoring for him,” Anton said. “We can do it, Nick. We can pull it off at least until Papa realizes it’s too late to call off the wedding.”

“You know how thorough Papa is. He’ll want to summon his own doctor.”

“It will take several days to get him from Sofia.”

“He’ll at least want to know that a doctor has been consulted,” Nicolas insisted.

“Then one of us will have to play the part. Darcy, perhaps.”

“He’s met me before,” Darcy said. “He could have just missed the doctor who has been called out to a confinement in the mountains.”

Nicholas laughed again. “You are turning this whole thing into a farce. It can’t work. You know what court life is like. It will probably be all around the castle by morning that he’s dead. Servants will come into his room—and who knows when Papa will get here? We can’t leave a corpse lying around for days, you know. He’ll begin to smell.”

“How revolting,” Lady Middlesex said.

Nicholas looked up at her, I think just realizing that strangers were present at what was a very private discussion.