Eleven.

Five minutes later, she was properly equipped: coatless and wearing soft-soled shoes, carrying a candle, a box of lucifers and her hairpin lock-pick.

As she came back down the service stairs, with more than usual care, a distant clock struck midnight. It was early yet, she told herself, trying to contain her sudden simmering antic.i.p.ation at the prospect of adventure. It was quite likely that Honoria would remain behind the secret door for some time.

She couldn't just blunder in. She would have to improvise. Yet that was one of the things that made her happiest, and so it was with a very real lightening of spirit, if not physical discomfort, that Mary settled in to wait, at the other end of the kitchens near the larder.

It was a deeply familiar situation sitting on her haunches, in the dark. She'd spent countless hours on "watch training" at the Agency, learning to maintain her sense of time's pa.s.sing without even the skies for reference; remaining alert but not overfocused; keeping her limbs from fal ing asleep, without the privilege of movement. It was, on the surface, a simple matter but one she had struggled with. Her propensity was either to remain so furiously alert and stil that she found her joints stiff and seized just when she most needed them, or to ponder the possibilities of each case so intently that she lost track of time. As Anne and Felicity noted, she was a creature of extremes.

Neither of these occurred tonight. Instead, she committed a new and astonishing error: fal ing into a daydream. It was something she'd never done before, and something she'd never quite understood. It had always seemed impossible to become so distracted in uncomfortable, high-tension situations where nearly al questions remained unresolved. But this evening, Mary was a few miles and many years away, sifting through fragmented memories of Limehouse and her father, when she became aware of the sc.r.a.ping sound of the hidden door. She started and, compounding her error, gasped slightly.

There was a second gasp, like a magnified echo of her own. Then, Honoria's voice: "Who's there?"

Mary was instantly awake and furious with herself.

However, there was nothing to do but remain perfectly stil and silent.

"I know you're there," said Honoria, after another pause. Bold words, but her voice was higher and thinner than usual.

Mary's tension eased a fraction. Fear was good for her, at least. The next few seconds must have stretched endlessly for Honoria, but Mary's internal clock was working once again. She heard an uncertain shuffle, and then another. Impossible to know in which direction.

"Show yourself, if you're there," said Honoria, and this time her voice held a distinct quaver.

Perhaps half a minute ticked silently past. She could see little of Honoria primarily the dazzle of her candle, and her general shape behind that. But she was safe enough: as long as Honoria continued to hold that candle at arm's length, al beyond it would appear black. And even if she extinguished her flame, Mary would have time to move away silently before Honoria's eyes adjusted. So Mary remained poised but relaxed, now, and waited for Honoria to act.

The lady-in-waiting hesitated a minute longer.

Took a half-step, as though to investigate. Mary tensed, readying herself for action. But after another pause, Honoria turned on her heel and hurried away.

She had sounded thoroughly rattled. And she was snooping about a part of the Palace she'd no business being in, going through concealed doorways. Mary wondered, again, about Honoria Dalrymple's position within the ranks of the ladies-in-waiting, and made a note to check with the Agency about her history. Come to think of it, they'd not come back with information about Honoria's possible connection to Beaulieu-Buckworth, either...

When Honoria's footsteps had receded and she was definitely alone once more, Mary moved decisively towards the secret door. She loved these moments, when endless possibilities of action and adventure stretched before her. It was tempting to savour them, to play at heightening her suspense.

But this wasn't a game, and she, like Honoria, was trespa.s.sing. They both risked severe punishment if caught, although it was a fine debate as to which was the graver penalty: social disgrace for a lady-in-waiting or loss of livelihood for a housemaid.

Mary shook her head, both figuratively and literal y.

She was wasting time. And, she reminded herself sternly, it was possible that nothing of real interest lay behind that secret door. Neat rows of jams and pickles, perhaps. Or a child's play-closet. Yet even as her fingers found the catch, she didn't real y believe that...

The door swung open with a faint creak. A new smel , thin and cold and sharp, fil ed her nostrils. This was a surprise she'd expected claggy damp, perhaps mildew or mould. But not this aroma, which was more reminiscent of riverbanks than anything else. She frowned into the darkness, unable to discern any sort of depth or detail. Even so, she was reluctant to strike a light. As Honoria had just demonstrated, a candle in the darkness il uminated only the things nearest. And it alerted possible observers for hundreds of yards al around.

Instead, she stepped through the doorway and felt about the frame with her fingertips. One of the Agency's first rules was Secure your exit. Her fingers moved swiftly, careful y over the unpainted wood. There: set into the top of the frame was a st.u.r.dy metal latch that, when depressed, would release the door. Mary tested the catch. Then she swung the door closed behind her and pressed it again. So far, so good.

Now, inside the secret door, she listened for clues as to what sort of hiding-place this was. The floor gave slightly beneath her shoes not packed earth but wooden floorboards, springy and rotting with age. How old did that make them? Perhaps thirty or forty years, depending on what lay beneath and how damp it was. Safely during the reign of George I I, at least. Mary's mind whirled. The old King George and Queen Charlotte were reputed to have had an ideal marriage congenial and affectionate and dignified and had had fifteen children, if she remembered her history lessons correctly. It made a concealed entrance of this sort less likely than ever unless it had been built for someone other than the King.

A smal sound a rattle or a trickle of some sort recal ed her to the present. It wasn't an echo, but it sounded distant as though where she stood was merely the starting-point of a long corridor. And so it was. Certain now that she was alone, Mary lit her candle and, blinking against its sudden dazzle, was astonished to find herself in a narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel. The cobwebbed brick wal s curved up to become the ceiling, which was scarcely tal er than Mary herself. She touched the ceiling thoughtful y: a film of greasy dust coated her fingertip. The floorboards were indeed rotting but bore no particular signs of heavy use: the edges were nearly as worn as the centres, so she could at least discount the possibility of tens of thousands of urgent footsteps wearing them down.

She moved careful y through the tunnel, the yel ow glare of her candle skittering wildly off the wal s, making her dizzy. It was her hand, she realized: it was shaking with excitement and nerves. She relaxed her fingers about the smal grips she used to carry the candle the only sensible way to avoid being continual y burnt by hot wax and its light steadied perceptibly. Better.

Her progress through the tunnel felt timeless. She couldn't be more than fifty yards from the secret door, yet the stil , stale atmosphere made it seem endlessly distant. It was the tunnel's shape, too a series of short, straight lengths with sudden forty-five-degree turns that seemed designed to disorient its occupant. Then, quite suddenly, she came to an end or, as she quickly realized, a beginning. It was a large hole in the tunnel floor, neatly circled with brick. It was much too large and distinctive to fal into, unless one were tumbling pel -mel through the darkness. On peering inside, Mary saw an ancient, rusting iron ladder set into the bricks that lined its wal s. It was a vertical continuation of the tunnel, nothing more. What troubled her was that with a sole candle, she couldn't see its end only the ladder disappearing into blackness. She paused for only a moment. Then, transferring her candle to her left hand and accepting philosophical y the inevitable damage to her dress, she began her descent.

The rungs weren't painful y cold: a surprise, until Mary remembered the insulating properties of being underground. They did, however, leave a thin coating of slime against her palms, her sleeves, her cheek when she accidental y brushed too close. She descended twelve rungs before her searching foot encountered only emptiness. d.a.m.n. She crouched no mean feat on a ladder, in a crinoline and shone her inadequate little light downwards. It flickered wildly, and this time it wasn't due to her shaking hand. Yet it revealed nothing no visible floor, no detail that gave a clue as to what lay below.

Mary snuffed out the flame and put away the candle, heedless of the dripping wax that promptly made a smal pool in her pocket. Gripping the lowest rung tightly with both hands, she lowered herself down with a smooth, athletic motion. Felicity and Anne had sometimes remarked on her uncommon strength her ability to pul herself up by the arms, even when enc.u.mbered by a stone's worth of clothing. But tonight, her arms felt bruised and shaky.

She was grateful when her toes brushed something solid. Tested the surface and found it wide and even.

Releasing the rung and resisting the temptation to wipe her hands on her skirts, she listened to the new atmosphere about her. It had a slightly hol ow sound.

She relit her candle and raised it up, the better to inspect her new discovery. It was a smal room, apparently an antechamber of sorts with a doorway at the other side. Unlike the tunnel she'd just come through, it had a brick floor. In fact, it was a tube of a room, with curved wal s that led up to a low, curved ceiling another tunnel fashioned in bricks.

Mary shook her head slowly, a smal smile curving her lips. How utterly unlikely, how preposterous, to think that Honoria Dalrymple was mixed up in al this grime and skulking about. The room was empty, and it was unclear what purpose it served. A clandestine meeting-place? A store-room for il icit goods? A secret escape route? She would write to the Agency for more background detail. Perhaps she'd not al owed enough time.

She crossed the room slowly. The second opening was barricaded with closely s.p.a.ced wooden planks, fixed in place from the other side.

There were, technical y, gaps large enough to peer through but her candle showed nothing but blackness. She'd no idea whether she was looking at a wal , six inches away, or another endless tunnel.

Mary frowned at the barrier. She could remove a plank easily enough, she imagined, by kicking it loose. Yet after that, she'd have no way of replacing it in an un.o.btrusive fashion. It would obviously have been tampered with.

Even so, it was instructive. The wooden planks were recent and solid, not ancient and rotting. They weren't even that grimy. Someone else had been here in the last few months and seen fit to barricade the tunnel. Someone else had accessed the tunnel from its other end. And now that she peered through the planks from a new angle someone had affixed a sign that said: DANGER ABSOLUTELY.

NO ACCESS.

She blinked and glanced back into the chamber.

There were no obvious hazards, of course, unless one counted spil ed poisons. Or the tunnels suddenly caving in.

At that, a smal , distinct chil rippled down her back and it was nothing to do with the threat of being trapped underground. She turned back to the sign and frowned at the lettering. It was difficult to say, of course, reading backwards by candlelight and she'd seen so few examples of his handwriting, and never this sort of block-printing. Yet there was something about the way the letters were formed that raised her suspicions. She felt a rush of warmth.

A sense of dread. A thundering in her ears, her throat, her pounding pulse. Al this, at the mere thought of the man.

She leaned against the wal , feeling suddenly weary. It was a sickness of hers, dreaming up James Easton in the unlikeliest places. But flowing beneath that fear was the knowledge that he was, indeed, at work beneath the Palace. She pushed the thought away with difficulty and looked at her candle: burning low. She sighed and then paused. Closed her eyes as the truth struck her. She was a fool for not realizing it earlier. That was the source of the wet, almost metal ic smel : she'd just entered the underground sewer system.

It was warmer than she'd expected. Less smel y, too the air was dank, but not suffocating or nauseating. The Thames smel ed worse on a daily basis than did this sewer drain. Standing at one point within this vast underground maze of tunnels, Mary felt her choices dwindling. The case was closing in on her.

She looked again at the notice. Now that she knew where she was knew that it had to be his it seemed surprising she'd ever doubted the handwriting. Denial was a waste of energy, but at this hour, she simply couldn't contemplate more. She had to go to bed, to sleep if possible and, at some point, to consider two inevitable tasks that lay before her.

James Easton.

Lang Jin Hai.

Both men she'd have to talk to in the near future.

She couldn't imagine anything she'd like more. Or less.

Twelve.

St Valentine's Day Buckingham Palace Morning came far too soon, but sleep not at al .

Mary lay awake through the cold night, listening to Amy's breathing and the m.u.f.fled chiming of a distant grandfather clock, measuring out the quarter-hours.

At six, she pul ed herself out of bed feeling utterly bruised in spirit. Appropriately, she was also somewhat damaged in body: the hawthorns had made their mark, leaving a number of deep scratches on the backs of her hands and one on her neck. She pul ed a face at her reflection to gruesome good effect, the dark circles beneath her eyes made more macabre by the way Amy's cheap looking-gla.s.s swel ed her chin and shrank her forehead. She'd always dreamed of being reunited with her father. Now that it was a possibility, she looked like a ghoul and he was in gaol. Perfect.

While the Queen had breakfast, Mary was responsible for cleaning and airing Her Majesty's private parlour. She was crouched down, laying a new fire, when the door clicked open. Mrs Shaw, of course, checking up on her again. But when she stood and turned, it wasn't Mrs Shaw at al .

"Oh, I say is that you, Mary? It is Mary, isn't it?"

Her eyes widened as she stared into the sheepish face of the Prince of Wales. Dropped a reflexive curtsey. Stifled a curse. "Your Highness. I didn't know you wanted the parlour."

"I er was just on my way to breakfast."

"In your dressing-gown, sir?" She cringed. Too impertinent, by far.

And yet he smiled. "Actual y, I was hoping for a breakfast tray." That was logical enough: if he kept to his room, he needn't face his mother.

She kept her tone demure. "Very good, sir. I'l ask Mrs Shaw straight away."

"Actual y..." His hand fluttered in the air for a moment, arresting her movement, before dropping to his side. "I'd like you to bring it. Yes."

Her stomach lurched. Trouble snapped at her heels from al directions. After a few moments, she found her voice. "Very good, sir."

Prince Bertie muttered something and fled.

When Mary relayed the message to Mrs Shaw, the housekeeper's eyes widened. "He asked for you particularly?"

"Yes."

The sharp eyes raked her appearance, lingered suspiciously on her scratched neck. "You're quite certain."

"Yes, ma'am."

A pause. "That's not the way to promotion in this household, my girl; that's the swiftest path to a Home for Fal en Women."

Despite Mrs Shaw's fears, one didn't say no to the Prince of Wales not directly, at least. A quarter of an hour later, Mary was treading noiselessly to the Prince's apartments a rather glorious term for a bedroom with a smal sitting room attached carrying a tray heavy with breakfast delicacies: cold roasted meats, coddled eggs, devil ed kidneys, both bread-and-b.u.t.ter and toast.

As she'd suspected, the Prince was alone in his apartments a suspicious circ.u.mstance as he was, at least in theory, constantly attended by one or two equerries. He was seated in a wing chair, studying a French newspaper with an expression of great wisdom. As she approached, he glanced up with elaborate surprise. "Oh. That was prompt."

She dipped her head. "Mrs Shaw sent a little of everything, sir."

"Leave that tray for a moment, Mary, and come here."

She hesitated briefly, then advanced two smal paces, keeping herself wel out of arm's reach.

"What is it, sir?" She couldn't decide whether or not to look him straight in the eye. Doing so would be a defiant stance on her part, and one the Prince might misconstrue as bold invitation.

"Come and sit by me." His hand waved vaguely to the place beside his armchair although there was not, of course, a second chair or stool.

"I'l fetch a chair, sir." Mary turned aside, wondering for one crazy moment what her chances were of simply fleeing the room. Would Prince Bertie chase her down the corridor? Invent a story to have her dismissed?

But just as she began to move away, the Prince said, "Just never mind the chair it's only I'd like a word." His voice sounded smal and shuttered.

She glanced down: yes, his eyes were suspiciously bright.

She felt a sudden easing in her chest. "Of course, sir." She returned to stand beside the chair again, wondering if she ought to offer him a handkerchief.

Prince Bertie took several deep breaths, which seemed to keep the tears from rol ing. "It's ridiculous, isn't it?"

"What is, sir?"

"Expecting you to be kind to me. But the other day was it yesterday? I forget you seemed so sympathetic. As though you understood what it must be like, being me."

Mary pressed her lips together to keep from making a face. "I don't know, exactly, but I can imagine, sir."

He looked up at her through bloodshot eyes.

"Then you've a devil of an imagination. Most of the time, I can't even imagine what's required of me even as I'm doing it."

It was that sudden, as though he'd pul ed off a mask. Mary stared at the Prince of Wales, her irritation suddenly submerged by a wave of pity.

Prince Bertie was stil a ridiculous figure, to be sure.

His plump cheeks and heavy eyelids gave him the air of a sleepy schoolboy; the cla.s.s dunce, even. But what else was he, real y? Other people's expectations were rather beside the point just now.

With bloodshot eyes and slumped posture, he was real y just a very young man in disgrace, suffering under the weight of family disapproval and his own guilty conscience.

She knelt beside the wing chair. "There, there,"

she murmured and as if on cue, the Prince's face crumpled. His eyes wel ed over, the tears forming fast-running rivers down his cheeks. Mary felt his breath, hot and childlike on her fingers, as he clasped her hand and wept, his whole frame shuddering with the effort.

They remained locked in their awkward clasp he was hugging her arm like a favourite dol for only a few minutes, at most. Then, as though recal ed to himself, Prince Bertie released her and sat back in his chair, trying to stanch the tears.

Mary fumbled for a handkerchief. She never had a clean handkerchief. But His Highness was already shaking his head and gasping, trying to master himself. His forced smile was grotesque more of a fright mask than a facial expression. But it was an attempt. He found his own square of beautiful y monogrammed silk so infinitely superior to her own meagre sc.r.a.p of hemmed cotton and mopped himself. When he blew his nose, he honked so loudly that she blinked.

He winced. "Apologies." He glanced at her damp arm. "I mean, for everything."

"Not at al ." It was partly reflex what else could she say? but Mary meant it.

He was silent for a moment. "It's quite pathetic, what I did, isn't it? Asking you up here for a friendly bit of chat. As though you've a choice: my family pays your wages."

"No," said Mary quickly. "It needn't be like that."