Peaches and the Queen Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Peaches and the Queen

  The palace was in an uproar...

  About the Author

  Peaches and the Queen

  By Edith Layton

  Copyright 2015 by Estate of Edith Felber

  Cover Copyright 2015 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Duke’s Wager

  The Disdainful Marquis

  The Mysterious Heir

  Red Jack’s Daughter

  Lord of Dishonor

  www.untreedreads.com

  The Estate of Edith Layton dedicates this book to:

  Liz Martin

  Liz Montgomery

  @Meoskop

  #DogNamedLucky

  Reader, reviewer, fan, friend.

  Peaches and the Queen

  Edith Layton

  The palace was in an uproar, but a very quiet one. Otherwise the Queen would be distressed. Once upon a time monarchs of this realm stormed along royal corridors shouting orders to take people’s heads off, bellowing commands and sending legions off to war. Just a generation past, a king had skipped down these same halls in his nightgown, stopping only to bow to portraits on the walls and chat with ghosts. The present Queen’s late husband had been fond of making a racket too, but it had been many long years since his hearty laughter had been heard. Now these royal halls were quiet at the express wish of the ruling sovereign.

  Queen Augusta Victoria, monarch of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and Empress of India, did not like upset, angry words or undue clamor.

  So her attendants showed their distress in worried whispers if they had something terrible to talk about.

  They did.

  Their Queen’s cat was missing. And Christmas was coming.

  * * *

  “The point is that it is gone,” Mr. Squire told the assembled staff in a strangled whisper. “She inquired after it again this very morning. We have looked everywhere, in all its usual haunts. There is not a sign of it, which is most unusual. The household staff has been busy. We sent for word round every corner, and they haven’t even seen it in the kitchens today. So now I am asking all of you to join the search.”

  The assembled staff looked grave to a man, and there were a dozen of them there, all those under Mr. Squire’s direct command—the kennel master, the master of the stables, the head gardener, the head farrier—every senior member and his assistant of the palace’s western quarter’s outdoor staff. Mr. Squire was a very highly placed official of the palace. He reported to his superior, and his superior’s superior had no other.

  “Surely,” Mr. Squire continued, “one orange cat should not be hard to find! Mind,” he added, as many heads nodded agreement, “the most important point is that the Queen should not know the animal is presumed lost. There is no need to distress her. Find it, and all will be well. But find it quickly, for she wishes to leave the palace as soon as possible.”

  This wasn’t news. The Queen seldom came to this palace anymore. Her visit had been a rare one, her departure expected.

  “But the cat lives here, Mr. Squire,” the head gardener ventured to say. “So why hurry? There be plenty of acres for it to roam in, and the cat comes back, like they say. It will be sitting pretty when she comes to Buckingham again.”

  “She likes to see things in their proper places before she leaves,” Mr. Squires said repressively. “It rests her mind. A small enough favor for us to grant her, wouldn’t you say?”

  They looked down at their boot tops. The old Queen had suffered too many hard knocks in her life, and so said all. She’d seen them through wars, found them a peace and a prosperity that made them rulers of the sea, given them a world that the sun never set upon. Yet during her long reign she’d had a great personal loss: her beloved husband. All knew she’d loved him above all things. Now she was old and sometimes very sad. Mr. Squire had the right of it. Finding one wretched cat was not too much to ask a loyal subject.

  “Orange, she be?” an under gardener asked.

  “‘Marmalade,’ the Queen is wont to say,” Mr. Squire corrected him. “A sort of tigerish orange, as white stripes can be seen. Not a tortoiseshell, but rather orange with decorative devices. Not a lap cat by any means either. I believe it even bears some scars from a previous life before it came to the palace. It is a large beast, although the Queen has been heard to chide those who say so, for she says the animal’s portly stature is mostly fur.”

  The assembled men grinned, a snicker was heard.

  “Good mouser, I expect,” the stable’s master put in loyally. “We got dozens of ’em round back, but none so stout as that.”

  “Good moocher, more like,” a farrier said behind his hand.

  “And hit’s name?” the kennel master asked in affected accents. “Any animal responds to a name,” he told the others when they looked at him oddly. “Now, your canine, when called, will come to you. But your cat will often not even flick an ear when hit hears hit’s name.”

  Some of the men frowned, others hid sneers. The kennel master was not a favorite. The others felt he put on airs because he saw the Queen more often than they did. She’d call on him to visit her so she could discuss her dogs with him.

  If there was anything their Queen adored, it was dogs. She had palace dogs and kennel dogs, every size from the great Newfoundlands Mr. Landseer had made famous in his paintings, to teacup-size terriers, and many sizes in-between. Some slept on her bed, others carpeted her chambers. They ate, slept and traveled with her. Her partiality to canines influenced every form of art in the kingdom. Mr. Landseer had got himself a knighthood for depicting them so well, in particular their loyalty and devotion, since that was evidently what their sovereign missed most since her dear Albert’s death so many years before. Any literature that hoped to be popular in her England featured a noble dog somewhere in its pages, too. The preference influenced everything in Victoria’s life; most photographs taken of her in recent years having at least one dog in it or lurking in its margins.

  She might not be amused by much anymore, but she was addicted to dogs. It was unusual that she had formed a liking for a cat, but not entirely unlikely. She loved all animals.

  “The animal’s name is Moggie,” Mr. Squire said with such a stern expression no one dared smile. “Though I cannot say that the creature realizes it.”

  “Answers to ‘here’s a fine fish head,’ I expect,” an under gardener said wisely.

  “Pussy, pussy, pussy,” the kennel master said haughtily. They all looked at him. “Hit summons them all,” he explained.

  �
�Perhaps,” Mr. Squire said, “but you cannot go around the palace or the grounds saying it. The Queen is bound to hear if everyone goes about hissing that, and then she will certainly know something is amiss.”

  “Use a lot of sentences with esses hin them, then,” the kennel master advised.

  “Lots’a saucers with dead fishies,” the under gardener muttered.

  Mr. Squire cleared his throat and the men fell still again. “The palace guard and warders have been summoned,” he said. “The Queen’s body servants have been instructed, the indoor staff has been alerted. The rest of the outdoor staff is being informed as we speak. It is your job to advise any who have not heard of our quest, but remember, this information must stay within these precincts and not reach our sovereign’s ears! Secrecy is foremost. No, discovering the animal’s whereabouts is first. It must be found quickly. The Queen leaves within the week as she wishes to be at Balmoral for Christmas. So she will depart only days from now…unless the cat is not discovered. Then I cannot say what may happen.

  “We must deliver the animal, and speed our good Queen on her way. Go forth and search. Report your findings to me.”

  “But,” the kennel master said ponderously, “hi believe hit would be safer hif the cat was brought to me first. For no one can argue that hi am best equipped to handle an animal.”

  Several listeners scowled, realizing that if the kennel master got the cat first, they’d never get credit even if they found it. They turned to Mr. Squire.

  “This is reasonable…” he said slowly.

  The kennel master smirked. But so did a kennel worker, who whispered to another. As the whispered words were passed on, scowls turned to sly smiles, immediately hidden. If they’d been seen, the kennel master’s own satisfied smile would have vanished.

  “Now, no time to waste,” Mr. Squire said. He clapped his hands. “To work!”

  * * *

  There was great consternation in a room a mile from the palace, but it too was muted. Maybe because there wasn’t enough space for much, even noise, in the little room. The only sounds were the swish of a woman’s skirts as she crossed the room to set two bowls down on the single table’s top, and the ragged snores issuing from an old dog sleeping on a heaped pile of rags in a corner.

  A thin young boy stood by the only window, looking out into the gloom of an alleyway. There was just enough light to see that there was just enough room for a cat to turn sideways out there. But even when the thick fog drifted, there wasn’t even a shadow of a cat to be seen. The boy’s mouth turned down at the corners and he added a sigh to the stillness.

  “She’s gone,” he said. “Long gone. Far gone, I’d guess, and I dunno what we’ll do now.”

  “‘Don’t know,’” the woman corrected him as she seated herself at the table. “Come eat. We’ll leave the window open and perhaps she’ll let herself in later tonight.”

  “What? And let in rats? Or human ones? Huh. There’s better ways to die, thank you kindly,” the boy said with remarkably adult derision. “I’ll just wait up for her.”

  “That, you will not,” the woman said decisively. Her voice gentled. “Ah, Theo, you know you have to get your sleep. You have to be up early for work in the morning.” She was a lovely young woman with a trim figure, her smooth auburn hair drawn back in a neat bun at the nape of her graceful neck. She had large brown eyes in an oval face, and a prettily curved mouth made for laughter. But she wasn’t smiling now. She sat at the little table, her shoulders slumped. She bowed her head, rested it in her hands, and sighed.

  “Lord knows I wish you had to get up for school,” she murmured. “We may be able to get more than Mr. Foster’s lessons for you in the new year if we save enough, so we need every penny piece we can earn until then. The cat will come back. Cats always do, they say. Waiting up for her won’t speed her on her way. Perhaps she’s off visiting a gentleman friend, or even producing more ginger cats to bring to you.”

  “She’s too old for sport like that,” he said disdainfully. “Never seen her out on the tiles or howling on the rooftops like the other tabbies, have you? And she’s been with us for three years and never produced so much as a fur ball, so you know she ain’t going to have more kittens neither.”

  “‘Either,’ his sister corrected him. “And stop saying ‘ain’t.’ I know it’s how you must speak out there, but your life on the streets should not cross this threshold.”

  The boy ignored her words. He shot a worried glance over at the sleeping dog and shook his head. “If she doesn’t come back, Nibs’ll die, see if he doesn’t. He doesn’t hear or see much, but he knows it’s time to eat when Peaches rubs up against his muzzle, and remembers to go out when she pats him on the nose. I come back often as I can during the day, and whenever I get here, the cat’s at the door waiting for me to let her in so she can see to him. Goes straight up to him and holds her breath until she’s sure he’s breathing. She doesn’t leave until she sees he’s sleeping peacefully. That cat takes care of him, she does, Liz, and you know it. If Nibs ever wet himself he’d die of shame sure as he would if he stopped eating.”

  Before his sister could speak, her brother went on. “That wouldn’t be fair. He took care of us when he could, now we’ve got to take care of him, and that means getting Peaches back. My lessons don’t mean a snap compared to a debt of honor. You said so yourself, or why else would you be working your heart out to get me back to school? I’m happy without, but you say you promised Mum. Well, I promised Nibs I’d watch over him.”

  Useless to say “It’s only a dog,” Elizabeth thought sadly, biting the words back. Since they’d come down in the world they had little else but this wretched room, the clothes on their backs, the wits in their heads, and the love of an old dog who had known them in happier times. Nibs was a link to those bygone days. When he went there’d only be the two of them to remember that their father had been an apothecary with his own shop, and they’d lived above it in seven well- appointed rooms, not just a shabby rented one.

  And the truth of it was that the battle-scarred old ginger cat had taken to the old dog. They’d fed it out of pity, and it had simply moved in with them, deigning to call their meager room its sometime home. The big cat came and went as she pleased, but since the old dog had begun to fade, it pleased her less to stay out long. The beasts even slept together. As the old dog failed, the cat became almost obsessive about caring for him.

  The orange cat came back from her wanderings every few hours to observe Nibs. It was both sad and gratifying to see her make straight for the old dog, like a doctor summoned to care for an ailing patient. She’d stare at Nibs fixedly, then rub her head against the old hound’s muzzle until he opened his eyes. Then she’d pat him awake so he could go out to relieve himself. Other times she’d bring bits of food to him. But always, after he’d gone out to relieve himself or had eaten his fill and returned to drop his weary bones back into his nest, she’d lick him down to sleep again, as though the old hound were her last kitten.

  “I asked everywhere,” the boy said sadly.

  Elizabeth grimaced. Her brother Theodore’s “everywhere” included some places she’d rather not know about. He made money where and how he could. He promised her the money was made lawfully, but she feared it was often only just on this side of the law. There wasn’t much steady employment available for a ten-year-old boy. There were too many adults who needed work in this part of London, and other parts were as inaccessible to them as other countries. The plum positions here, like street sweeping or selling fruits or flowers on street corners, were jobs for those with connections. Connections Elizabeth and Theo did not have.

  They didn’t have a single relative in London, and although it was true that her brother knew many people in their neighborhood, most of them were the sort his sister wished she didn’t even have to pass in the street. Theo had a gift for charming people, but they’d only lived in the area for three years. So he made money wherever he could, filling in gaps that ca
me available, providing services that a boy could handle, and selling whatever he could get those hands on.

  Theo had big, sincere brown eyes and an earnest face. He was quick on his feet and with his wits. Most often, he sold papers, candles, nails and matches. If lucky, he was asked to stand in for a weary flower girl or watch a barrow for a busy monger who had to relieve himself. He earned other coins opening doors, carrying bundles and holding horses for gentlemen.

  His sister worked from before sun up to first moonlight, trimming hats in a millinery shop and modeling them whenever called upon. She was called upon often because her face sold as many hats as her employer’s skill did. She knew there were ways she could have made much more money using her face and form. Hard-eyed men and women in the neighborhood had told her that too, but she walked past them as though she didn’t hear them. She was moral enough to be horrified by the very idea, practical enough to know the lives of the women who worked in that trade were as short as the time they could make money from it.

  Their father hadn’t left them anything but those looks, wits and their pride. He didn’t have any of those things at the end. After his wife died, he’d taken solace from his own stores. Some of his drugs made him happy, some made him drowsy, others just made him ill. But he’d needed more and more, until they’d made him dead before his time, with a mountain of debts left as a monument to the evils of his trade.

  “If I could just go out and have a look now,” Theo said urgently. “I can’t when it’s light because I have to work, but I don’t have anything to do now. Ah, please, Liz! That way at least I’d know if she’d been flattened by a wagon or was floating in the river. I know the streets even in the fog. I could take a torch…”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Elizabeth said wearily, “because I won’t let you. There are a dozen ways a cat can come to a bad end here—and boys too. Night’s not the time to go looking. She could be a pair of mittens or a sausage by now,” she said brutally, because she had to kill her own sympathy. Letting even a boy as wise as Theodore out at night was more than folly. It would be madness.