Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

dabbed at my face with the tray cloth and was now able to focus on him. He was tall and slim, like an overgrown schoolboy who is wearing his big brother’s morning suit. An attempt had been made to slick down his dark brown hair but it still flopped in boyish fashion across his forehead and his earnest brown eyes were now pleading with me in a way that reminded me of a spaniel I once had.
    “I’ve ruined your lovely dress. I really am the most clumsy ox,” he went on as he watched me dry myself off. “I’m absolutely hopeless at events like this. The moment I put on a morning suit or a dinner jacket, I am positively guaranteed to spill something, trip over my shoelaces, or generally make an utter fool of myself. I’m thinking of becoming a hermit and living in a cave somewhere on a mountaintop. In Scotland, maybe.”
    I had to laugh at that. “I don’t think you’ll find the food is as good,” I pointed out. “And I think you’d find a Scottish cave incredibly cold and drafty. Trust me, I know whereof I speak.”
    “You do have a point.” He observed me and then said, “I say, I think I know who you are.”
    This was not good. It was bound to happen, I suppose. Just in case things got awkward, I tried to spot Darcy in the crowd. However, I was completely unprepared for what the young man said next: “I believe that you and I are related.”
    I went through a quick mental list of cousins, second cousins, and second cousins once removed.
    “Really?” I said.
    “Well, sort of related. At least, not actually related, but your mother was once married to my guardian, and we played together when we were little. I’m Tristram Hautbois, Sir Hubert Anstruther’s ward.”
    All I could think was what terrible twist of fate had christened somebody Tristram who could not say his r s properly. He pronounced it “Twistwam.”
    “We ran through the fountains naked, apparently,” I said.
    His face lit up. “You remember it too? We thought we’d get into frightful trouble, because a lot of important people had been invited to tea on the lawns, but my guardian thought it was frightfully funny.” His face became solemn again. “You’ve heard what’s happened, I suppose. Poor old Sir Hubert’s had a terrible accident. He’s in a coma in a Swiss hospital. They don’t expect him to live.”
    “I only heard about it this morning,” I said. “I’m very sorry. I remember him as such a nice man.”
    “Oh, he was. One of the best. So good to me, you know, even though I was only a distant relative. My mother was his mother’s cousin. You knew his mother was French, I suppose. Well, my parents were killed in the Great War and he took frightful risks coming over to France to rescue me. He has raised me as if I were his own son. I owe him a huge debt of gratitude that I’ll never be able to repay now.”
    “So you’re actually French, not English?”
    “I am, but I’m afraid my mastery of the language is no better than the average schoolboy’s. I can just about manage ‘ la plume de ma tante ’ and all that. Shameful, really, but I was only two years old when I was brought to Eynsleigh. It’s a lovely house, isn’t it? One of the prettiest in England. Do you remember it well?”
    “Hardly at all. I have a vague memory of the lawns and those fountains, and wasn’t there a fat little pony?”
    “Squibbs. You tried to make him jump over a log and he bucked you off.”
    “So he did.”
    We looked at each other and smiled. I had thought him the usual run-of-the-mill mindless twit until now, but the smile lit up his whole face and made him look quite appealing.
    “So what will happen to the house if Sir Hubert dies?” I asked.
    “Sold, I expect. He has no children of his own to inherit. I am the closest he has to a son, but he never officially adopted me, unfortunately.”
    “What are you doing with yourself now?”
    “I’ve just come down from Oxford and Sir Hubert arranged for me to be articled to a