Murder Most Royal

She had no intention of ever telling Valentine. This was long before the days of DNA, of course, but even now, if you don’t take a test, how would you know? And the title and the estate were at stake. She and Hugh didn’t have any other sons as time went by – only Flora. So there was the question of inheritance if it all came out and it turned out they had no legitimate male heirs. Also, Hugh adored her, and she was very worried he might do something idiotic and go to jail if he found out, and the shame it would bring on her was unthinkable.’

‘But it did come out.’

‘Yes. They were very unlucky with that blood test. It was terribly simple: Valentine cut himself quite badly on some barbed wire at the farm and developed septicaemia. They thought they might need to do a transfusion and tested him . . . and I can’t remember what the blood type was – O, I think – but it was about the only one that couldn’t be a product of Hugh’s blood type and Lee’s. Hugh stupidly checked. He should have left well alone.’

‘It’s a natural temptation, I should imagine,’ the Queen said. ‘Given the consequences. I’m sure he did it to reassure himself rather than anything else.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Lee was laughing at the sheer, unlucky madness of it when she told me.’

‘And what was Hugh’s reaction?’ the Queen pressed.

Moira had a point. The Queen realised she had found this story all too easy to believe, but she knew many, many men – most men, perhaps – who would have at least wondered about such a seemingly convenient explanation.

A thought occurred to her, and she had been so busy thinking of the impact on the St Cyrs all those years ago that she was surprised she hadn’t thought of it before.

‘And you, Moira?’ she asked. ‘Did you believe her?’

‘Of course I did!’ Moira said, surprised even to be asked. ‘I was the only person she confided in at the time. Well, me and the shepherdess. She and Lee were close, too.’

‘And yet, you wanted your daughter to marry Ned next month.’

Moira’s mouth fell open and she stared back, wordlessly. It was as if the thought had only just occurred to her.

‘But . . .’ she said, colouring, ‘it was decades ago! One time. Entirely out of character. And Ned was very drunk, Lee said so.’

‘And yet . . .’ the Queen persisted. She didn’t want to, but she was so astonished that she was trying to make sense of the woman in front of her.

Moira stopped mid-sentence as she caught the Queen’s eye.

There was a long pause. The Queen remembered a young ambassador’s wife who hosted her on a tour not long into her reign. On the first evening of that visit to a distant country, the Queen had caught her hostess’s eye in the mirror, after the smiles and chatter of a convivial evening, while the men were drinking port and the servants were busy and the two women were replenishing their lipstick together. She wasn’t sure what she saw in those eyes, but she had asked if there was something wrong and, after a silence that seemed to last a lifetime, the woman had admitted, calmly and quietly that a senior politician had raped her in that very house two nights before.

She continued to apply her lipstick while she spoke. Her hand trembled, but she was careful. The Queen listened mutely while she described in brisk, bright tones, the attack that had happened in that very room. The act had been over in less than five minutes, she said.

‘I was so absolutely . . . How could he . . .? I couldn’t understand it. My muscles wouldn’t move. Not to speak, protest . . . anything. And so I let it happen. I thought if I didn’t – I still think so – that I would die. Silly, isn’t it? Surely he wouldn’t have killed me here, in my house? And yet . . .’ She looked into the mirror, but neither at herself nor the Queen, who was watching her reflection ‘. . . I watched from far, far away, as if I wasn’t here at all. I thought, when he’d finished, I’d come back to myself, but . . .’ She took a tissue from a box, carefully blotted her lips and fixed on a smile. ‘When it was over, I adjusted my petticoat and carried on with my cocktail party, because, what else could I do?’ She had since hosted a magnificent dinner party which was the talk of the town.

‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’ she had implored the Queen. ‘I only told you because . . . I don’t know why I told you. I’m so sorry. I just . . . I needed to . . . But I don’t want . . . Anyway, I’m much better now.’

One minute, her hostess looked as if she would crumble at a touch, and the next, when a maid knocked on the door to see if they needed anything, she was a model of brisk efficiency. ‘Keep calm and carry on!’ she’d concluded, with that brittle smile. ‘It’s what we do, isn’t it?’

From that moment, the Queen had understood the out-of-body experience of shock.