“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” I said. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

“You don’t trust me?” He withdrew his hand from my arm. “I took a bullet for the king and queen, and you still don’t trust me?”

“Of course I trust you,” I said. “Only, Sir Jeremy told me that nobody was to know and that I’d find a contact working undercover at Balmoral.”

“You thought that contact might be me?”

I nodded.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “And this Sir Jeremy asked you to protect the Prince of Wales from a mad assassin, did he? Exactly what training do you have in that department?”

“No, he asked me to keep my eyes and ears open. And it’s not just the Prince of Wales, Darcy. He suspects that someone is trying to kill the heirs to the throne. And now I’ve seen for myself, I have to agree with him.”

“But why ask you?”

“Because he thinks it has to be one of us, not an outsider. And I can observe from the inside, so to speak.”

“Interesting. So what have you observed so far?”

“Until now it’s all been apparent accidents, nothing you could say was deliberate. There was Binky’s foot caught in a trap. The lavatory cistern that crashed down on Babe . . .”

“I heard about that from her husband. Frightfully miffed, he was.”

“Well, wouldn’t you be if your wife was nearly killed by a flying lavatory tank?”

“Not the prettiest way to die. But I gather she survived to flush another day.”

“It’s not funny, Darcy,” I said, going to slap his hand and then thinking better of it. “It fits the pattern of these accidents.”

“So what other accidents have there been?”

“There was the rope that broke when I was climbing with Prince Siegfried—”

“What?” Darcy demanded.

I related the details of the incident. “And you think the rope was deliberately sabotaged?” Darcy demanded. He was no longer flippant. His face was grim.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at it since the accident and I don’t know if I could tell if a rope had been deliberately cut, but Siegfried said the rope had come over from Balmoral with Prince George and they’d laid it out to measure it and it was in fine condition.”

“So do you think someone was trying to get rid of you or Prince Siegfried? I know which I’d choose,” he added, making me smile.

“I was wondering whether it was Prince George that was the target. After all, he brought the rope, and that lavatory tank that fell on Babe—it was in the bathroom he used.”

“I see.” Darcy and I walked side by side in silence. “So I wonder who this contact of yours really is,” he said at last. “And obviously your Sir Jeremy is not quite the boring cove I took him for.”