I didn’t once look back, so I don’t know if he attempted to follow me or not. Probably not. What was one girl less to a man like Darcy? As I neared the castle I decided to pay a call on Nanny. She had now retired to a little cottage on the estate and I was pretty sure she’d be up at this early hour. Of course she was, and she greeted me with a beaming smile and open arms.

“I had no word that you’d be coming, my dove,” she said in her soft Scottish voice, hugging me to her ample bosom. “Well, this is a lovely surprise.”

She had shrunk, I noticed. I’d always thought of her as a big woman but she now only came up to my shoulder. She bustled about, pouring me a cup of tea and ladling out a big bowl of porridge.

“You came because of your poor brother, I suppose,” she said. “We were all stunned to hear it. Who could have done such a wicked thing?”

“Who indeed,” I said.

“Some lad on the estate trying to make an extra shilling or two by catching the occasional rabbit, maybe,” she suggested.

“Rather a big trap if he was after rabbits,” I pointed out.

“I’d hate to think it was someone who bore a grudge against His Grace,” she said.

I looked up sharply. “Do you know of anybody who bore a grudge?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He’s well liked around here.”

“Has anyone been dismissed recently?”

She thought. “The head gillie did have to let a boy go for helping himself to shot,” she said. “Young Willie McDonald. Always was a nasty piece of work, that one.”

Willie McDonald, a nasty piece of work, I thought. Of course, that made much more sense then any conspiracy theory against the royal family. I should have a chat with Constable Herries at the local police station and suggest he put the fear of God into young Willie to get him to confess.

“So how is your poor brother faring?” Nanny asked, as I tucked into the porridge.

“He seemed cheerful enough last night. Of course I haven’t taken a look at the wound.”

“The gamekeeper’s wife has been dressing it for him. She said it looked verra nasty.” (She rolled her r’s in the true Scottish manner.) “We’re just praying it doesn’t turn septic. And your poor brother, laid up when he’s got a houseful of people he should be entertaining.”

“I think he’s rather glad to avoid some of them,” I said and she chuckled.

“I saw that American lady going off with the prince the other morning,” she continued. “My, but she gives herself airs and graces, doesn’t she?”

“Some people are already worrying that she sees herself as queen someday.”