The Royal Assassin Read Free

up?”
    â€œTwo days. The princess is in a hurry to reach London.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œPrincess Kira is a painter. She likes to paint street scenes.”
    â€œI’ll have to get hold of Frances Atterby and learn if she’s free to help run the bookshop again. You’re certain I won’t have to run all over England with this princess?”
    â€œYes.” He gave me a smile that reached his eyes and took my hand again. “I’m not an ogre, Georgia. I know how much your bookshop means to you.”
    â€œBut if the princess takes off for someone’s country estate, you’ll expect me to go along.” I knew how the duke’s mind worked.
    â€œShe doesn’t want to leave London with all these new sights to paint. And all the major art galleries are in London.”
    I’d only have two days to research painting so I’d have some idea what the princess was talking about. In French. I’d have to step carefully or I could blunder badly. “Won’t she want to paint in the countryside?”
    â€œHer family’s kept her on their country estate most of the year. She’s had little opportunity to visit St. Petersburg, and she wants to live in a big city. London will be new and exciting for her.”
    But why was she staying with the Herefords? Then I remembered. “The Duchess of Hereford is a well-regarded painter, isn’t she?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat explains why the princess is staying with her.”
    â€œThe Herefords are young enough not to bore a young lady and cosmopolitan enough not to make her think all Englishmen are provincial louts.”
    â€œSo everything is focused on this princess and no one cares about the guard who died.” I pulled my hand away and folded my arms over my stomach. I would have tapped my foot but there was no room between the boxes. I hadn’t met the princess but so far I’d not heard anything to make me like her. My sympathies lay with the guard’s family. I was seventeen when both my parents died. Their murder still haunted me.
    â€œWe care because we need to know why he died. Scotland Yard has very little evidence to link anyone to the killing.”
    â€œSo the murderer will go free.”
    â€œHopefully, we’ll catch him before he kills again.” Blackford looked squarely into my eyes, knowing he’d said the words that would make me go along with this investigation.
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    BLACKFORD RETURNED TO the bookshop in the afternoon to escort me to the home of the Duchess of Hereford. I couldn’t think of any reason why he always used the ancient carriage given to his family by the Duke of Wellington for services rendered at Waterloo unless it was to aggravate me. Sitting high off the ground, I found it difficult to climb in and out of it even with assistance. In short, I was at a disadvantage. I appeared foolish.
    I glanced over at an urchin who was hawking a free broadsheet, and my aggravation grew. My shop stocked dailies and weeklies that we charged customers for. I didn’t like free competition on my doorstep.
    â€œMiners’ strike. Show solidarity,” the boy bellowed at us, a page held high in his ink-stained fingers. I was about to shoo him away when he smacked the duke in the chest with a copy.
    The duke glared as he took the paper and then gave me a hand up before climbing into the coach after me. “Well, at least the price is right,” he muttered and tossed it aside. “Solidarity, indeed.”
    An image of the unsullied duke manning the barricades with the grimy miners brought a smile to my lips.
    Once we were under way, he glanced across the carriage at me and said, “You cleaned up nicely.”
    I was wearing my newest white shirtwaist with a blue skirt and clean white gloves. Emma had tamed my hair into a proper coiffure under a wide-brimmed straw hat. I was surprised he noticed.