Blood Royal Read Free Page A

child would have seen that submission so sudden and abject was far too good to be true, but, though the Duke looked puzzled and followed his ‘prisoner’ with a malevolent gaze, the entrance of Bell with some liquor distracted his thoughts. The liquor including mulled wine, he let out a whoop of delight and, though I fully expected that once this diversion was over he would return to the charge, he did not do so and, beyond ignoring Grieg’s presence, seemed to have shelved his displeasure and the matter from which this sprang.
    To me it was plain that his silence was exactly what Grieg had desired, but, though the latter had managed to shut the Duke’s mouth and was already discussing something ponderously the fury of the storm, I could not help feeling that he had other fences to fly before we parted, and that if he surmounted them all, he would be surprisingly adroit. Indeed, the end came rather sooner than I had expected, for the Duke drank more mulled wine than he could conveniently carry and was quarrelsome in his cups.
    Grieg had ventured to suggest that he should retire for the night.
    The Duke glared at him.
    “Retire?” He spouted an oath. “Where are my clothes?”
    “If your Highness could dispense for once—”
    “What about a bath in the morning? Where are my sponges? Who’s to shave me? What have I got to put on?”
    “No one regrets more than I—”
    “‘Regret’, you blackguard? The only thing you regret is that you’ve lost your match. But for these fellows here – Where were you taking me, Grieg? Answer me that. I’d have had my things there – I don’t think. And you have the nerve—”
    “I implore your Highness to wait. I beg—”
    “You can — well beg,” raved the Duke. “You came to me this evening and said the Prince wanted me at once. You—”
    “I implore your—”
    “ Silence! ” roared the Duke.
    Then he turned to Hanbury and me.
    “Prince Nicholas of Riechtenburg is my great-uncle, and, as my father’s renounced, I’m the heir to the throne. My father’s cousin don’t like this – the Duke Johann. He’s had one or two shots at putting me out of the way, and now that the old man’s failing I suppose he’s quickening up. But he,” – he pointed to Grieg – “he’s on my great-uncle’s staff. I know Johann’s little crowd, and I don’t drink with them, but I never dreamed that he’d got at the Prince’s ADC’s.”
    Grieg had been standing still, with his hands behind him and his eyes on the speaker’s face. Now he shrugged his shoulders and turned to a chair.
    As he sat leisurely down—
    “Nothing so slippery,” he said coolly, “as the steps of a throne.”
    I have never seen a mask so bluntly discarded, and I was not surprised when the Duke started forward with an oath and a burst of abuse.
    The other stifled a yawn.
    “Like father, like son,” he said shortly. “But he had the sense to renounce.”
    As the Duke began to stammer with passion, I stepped to the bell. With my hand on the old bell-rope I looked at Grieg.
    “I’m not concerned with your politics,” said I, “but you happen to have made me your host.”
    “That’s one way of putting it,” said Grieg.
    “It’s my way of putting it,” said I. “And as I don’t like your behaviour, I suggest that you go to bed.”
    The man looked me up and down.
    “And if I refuse,” he said, rising.
    “I shall order my servants to put you out of this room.”
    As I pulled the rope, the Duke swayed forward drunkenly, tumbler in hand.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “I haven’t d-done with him yet. ‘Done’? I haven’t begun. I—” He rocked on his feet. “And who are you to give orders? Just because—”
    Bell entered the chamber.
    “Show this gentleman to his room,” said I.
    “Very good, sir,” said Bell.
    He picked up Grieg’s hat and coat and stood with his hand on the door.
    “D-damn it,” cried the Duke. “I told you I hadn’t d-done with the swine. Hadn’t