James motioned across the room. “William will explain.”
He turned toward the desk.
“The Prince of Wales, as I’m sure you know, stays in the press. Over the past nine years I have charted the reports from every London newspaper. That survey shows the Globe printed well over 70 percent of the initial stories about Richard. Now, that could simply be from hard work, luck—”
“Or a little inside help.”
“Precisely,” James said.
“And the dead man? He published the Globe?”
“He was its founder and owner.”
“Have you spoken to Richard about this?”
James shook his head. “It would do no good. He could not care less about any perceptions, problems, or embarrassments.”
Malone sensed something in the prince’s tone. “What are you not saying?”
“It is our daughter,” Victoria said. “Eleanor is an ambitious woman. We fear that she might have something to do with all of this.”
That shocked him. “What would be gained by disgracing her brother? She’s far removed from the succession.”
“As long as Albert is safe,” James said.
“You think he might be in danger?”
“We don’t know what to think,” James made clear. “We hope this is all simply the paranoia of two old people with difficult children. But William is not so sure. Neither am I anymore. After the tapes incident, my mind was changed.”
He recalled the furor that had erupted a few months back when audiotapes of Richard’s private telephone conversations surfaced in the media. Calls made to various women, some married, others with less-than-stellar reputations. The conversations were juvenile and sexually explicit, displaying an amazing immaturity — which the press had exploited.
“Did you ever discover who recorded them?” he asked.
James shook his head. “They tried to blame palace security, but no one here made them. The conversations were all on open, mobile phones, so they could have been recorded by anyone. Bloody embarrassing for our family. But, as with everything else, Richard seemed unaffected.”
“The disturbing thing about those conversations,” William said, “was that they occurred over an extended period, on different mobile lines, in different parts of the country. How did someone happen to be tuned to the precise frequency at the precise moment?”
“What did your security people say?”
“They offered no explanation, and to this day we have no idea who made those tapes, nor who forwarded them to the press.”
“Let me guess,” Malone said. “The Globe had an exclusive.”
William nodded. “The source was, as always, ‘unidentified palace insiders.’ Just like in today’s Globe. A front-page story about Richard and the daughter of one of the more vocal lords in Parliament. Pictures and all. A grand romp he had last weekend. Richard may be reckless and foolish, but he does not invite the press to follow him. Yet they were somehow alerted to that liaison.”
“But why is his sister suspect?” Malone asked.
“My daughter,” Victoria said, “tries hard to convince me that she is a good child. But she married into an ambitious family. Nigel Yourstone says he is a friend of the realm, yet his son is hardly the man I would have thought Eleanor would marry. Her decision to do so has always puzzled me. But the boy was fair born, of the right lineage, and pronounced fertile. That is all I can require of her choice in a husband.”
“Our daughter,” James said, “is far more devious and capable than her brother.”
“You think she’s the leak?”
Neither parent answered him.
Finally, James said, “We simply don’t know.”
Silence passed between them.
“There is no one in the palace we can trust with this,” James said. “William has kept his concerns and his suspicions to himself. Victoria and I speak only between ourselves. We need someone independent to analyze the situation and tell us if there is any reason to be concerned.”
“Your intelligence people can’t do the job?”
The prince shook his head. “Far too sensitive. William is close with your supervisor. She told us where to find you and said you might be able to help us out for a few days.”
“You know Stephanie Nelle?” he asked William.
“Goodness, yes. She and I have been acquainted for years. Quite a delightful woman, wouldn’t you say? She said you were her best agent. We need the best here, Mr. Malone.”
“And we need to move with speed and authority,” James said.
But there was still the matter of the terrorists’ trial, scheduled to start in less than a week. He was merely assisting, but he hated to leave his colleagues in the lurch.
One of three phones on the desk rang and William answered. After listening for a moment he hung up. “The BBC has a broadcast running that the front office says we should see.”
William stepped over to an ornate cabinet and swung open its double doors, revealing a television. He switched on the set and adjusted the volume. An older man was standing before a bevy of microphones.
“That’s Lord Bryce,” James said. “A stubborn blowhard. No friend of the Crown. Though I rarely agree with Richard, his choice of sexual companion this time is fitting punishment for that bloke.”
Malone was puzzled and William explained about today’s Globe story, which detailed Richard’s tryst from last weekend with Bryce’s daughter. Bryce was no monarchist, and the on-screen announcer was explaining how he intended to move aggressively toward the abolition of the monarchy. No one gave his effort much of a chance, but the attempt would definitely generate more negative discussion about an institution that, the announcer noted, “had begun to outlive its usefulness.” The voice went on to say, “Tourist dollars generated from the millions who travel to Britain each year to experience royal culture should not be justification for perpetuating a national embarrassment. Is it too much to ask for the privileged to behave themselves?”
The image suddenly shifted to another man. Mid-fifties, handsome, with thick salt-and-pepper hair. He approached the microphones and spoke in a deep, authoritative voice, expressing his loyalty to the Crown, but also his disagreement with the heir’s immoral actions.
“That is Nigel Yourstone,” James said.
He made the connection.
Yourstone’s son was married to Eleanor.
“I have to agree with my colleague,” Yourstone said. “Enough is enough. The time has come for some accountability from Buckingham Palace.”
The Duke of Edinburgh’s face hardened, and Malone spotted anger at the comments from the father-in-law of the third person in line for the throne.
But a tear tracked down Victoria’s cheek.
Her gaze caught his own.
And he suddenly felt the pain of a mother who’d quite possibly been betrayed.
CHAPTER TWO
Nigel Yourstone smiled at the cameras while reporters asked their questions. Lord Bryce’s tirade in the House of Lords had been a classic. The crusty old gentleman had spent nearly an hour berating the monarchy, particularly Richard, for what he considered a vicious assault on the pride and dignity of his family. The press seemed to salivate at Bryce’s promise that a bill would be introduced in the Commons calling for the monarchy’s abolition. Such measures were nothing new, but the number of ministers supporting the idea was growing. Bryce himself had made no secret of the fact that the head of state should not be chosen by genetics, echoing what every schoolchild was taught from an early age. At the very least, royals should be a mirror to our better selves. Unfortunately, as Bryce had made clear, Richard Saxe-Coburg was a married man who cavorted like a schoolboy at the public’s expense. And, as Bryce had so aptly said, the clear incompetence of this feeble-minded individual, who owes his station to an accident of birth, borders on the amazing.