Read Online Death at Blenheim Palace by Robin Paige - Free Book Online

it,” Bulls-eye said in a definitive tone. “Now, you go back and do yer business and keep yer mouth shut. Oh, an’ keep yer eye out for a new hire who’ll ’ave yer instructions.” It had been the Syndicate’s habit, Alfred knew, to use a local boy or young man to carry messages. Boys could go from the palace to the village and back again, without suspicion. “An’ doan’t come round ’ere lookin’ fer me,” he added sternly. “It’s dang’rous business, an’ it’s bad practice. Not t’ say against the rules.”
    Alfred nodded. From the tone of Bulls-eye’s voice, he knew he’d got all he was going to get. None the wiser about Kitty, and with a dreadfully heavy heart, he got up and left.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Gladys Deacon was a beautiful girl endowed with a brilliant intellect. Possessed of exceptional powers of conversation, she could enlarge on any subject in an interesting and amusing manner. I was soon subjugated by the charm of her companionship and we began a friendship which only ended years later.
     
The Glitter and the Gold
Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsam
     
 
 
Seated at the round dining table which was always used when there were only a few guests, Winston bestowed an approving glance at his fish soufflé—pale gold, dressed with a frill of parsley and decorated with prawns. For him, dinners at Blenheim were the most enjoyable part of the day, for the French chef in the Marlborough kitchen was outstanding, the wines in the Marlborough cellar were the best that Vanderbilt money could buy, and the Saloon—the state dining room, used when the Marlboroughs entertained—was a glorious room, with its red marble dadoes and trompe l’oeil wall frescoes rising some thirty feet to a frieze of military scenes and then another ten feet to the frescoed ceiling.
    The effect was martial, and although some felt it overwhelming, Winston always found it inspiring.
    The first Duke, Winston’s own forebear, was indisputably one of the nation’s greatest military heroes. Winston felt that he himself had made no little contribution to the family’s reputation by offering his own efforts in that regard, including his participation in the splendid cavalry charge at Omdurman in the Sudan and his daring escape from the Boers during the war in South Africa, and he would count himself fortunate if fate gave him other opportunities to bring military glory to the Churchill name.
    The Marlboroughs were always the consummate host and hostess, but Winston enjoyed the other guests as well: Kate Sheridan, with her easy, unpretentious American charm, so like that of his own American mother; and Charles Sheridan, with his wide range of intellectual and scientific interests and his willingness to talk liberal politics and the need for social reform. He even rather liked Botsy Northcote, a tall, good-looking fellow with a military moustache. Botsy was a lively conversationalist with a wide acquaintance of people and ideas, when he was not off his head with love and despair—as he seemed to be now, no doubt because Miss Deacon was not paying him the kind of attention he deserved, in view of the fact that she was wearing the diamond necklace he had given her. And of course, there was Consuelo, gracious and elegant, whose first care was to make her guests comfortable and happy and see that each one had everything his or her heart could desire.
    But therein lay a dilemma, for Miss Deacon was the heart’s desire of at least two men at the table—the Duke and his friend Botsy. Tonight, seated across from Botsy and between Winston and Marlborough, she was wearing a low-cut silk gown of an unusual shade of burnished gold that highlighted her red-gold hair and displayed a perfect curve of breast and shoulder, as well as that splendid diamond necklace. Perhaps it was the danger she posed to Blenheim and the Marlboroughs that made it difficult for Winston to keep his eyes off her, or perhaps it was her outrageously flirtatious glance, her