Page 90 of Thrones We Steal

“What’s your point?”

“I’ve been thinking about the circumstances of Philip’s supposed death.”

“Supposed death? The log book says he died. What more proof do you need? Time travel?”

“I told you I don’t buy the story ending with Philip dying on that boat. Helena was too thorough for it to stop there. Look at everything she did to put this whole thing into motion.”

He has a point. There was the hidden trapdoor in the dressing table, directing letters via her maid. Helena was clever.

He continues. “I think she was a force to be reckoned with. Think about all of the details she thought of to pull off this affair, arguably the biggest scandal in all of Wesbourne history. These things didn’t just happen. My guess is Philip Anderson’s death was a decoy.”

Maisie jumps up and nearly spills her coffee. “Yes! He was only identified as Philip Anderson because of the pocket watch found on the body.”

“Seems pretty straightforward to me,” I droll. The last thing I need is for Maisie to team up with Henry against me.

“Not if you’re trying to fake your own death!” Maisie has taken to pacing the room, wringing her hands. “We may never know if they planned it this way or if Philip simply took advantage of the opportunity, but think about it! All he had to do was slip his own pocket watch into the man’s pocket. When the name matched one of the names on the manifest, it would be natural to assume it was the same person.”

It’s a big assumption, and one I’m not ready to accept. Too much hangs in the balance. “That’s assuming no one knew Philip or the man who died. How could Philip possibly have known such a situation would arise? That is, unless you’re now implying he killed this person?”

Henry jumps in, almost as animated as Maisie. “There was a small immigration to Wesbourne in the early to mid-1800s. Men were coming over because our economy was booming.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I read it somewhere.”

Unless he’s a history buff and has spent hours in the research library—something that is as likely as the king taking up a tutu and ballet—the only place he could have read that is on my blog. I spent an entire month choking on dust to collect the information for that piece.

“I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume there were lots of young, single men on board who knew no one else on the ship,” he says. “They were going in search of a better life than the one of poverty they left behind in Ireland.”

He laces his fingers together on the table. I remember with perfect clarity how they felt on my body.

“It’s really a brilliant plan, if you ask me,” Maisie says. “Philip fakes his own death in order to come into Wesbourne under cover. That way, if there was any suspicion about the queen’s ex-lover coming to Wesbourne, they would only have to find the record of his death to put an end to it.”

The idea deserves thought. It’s far-fetched but not impossible. If Maisie and Henry are right and Philip had in fact faked his death, chances are good he and Helena would have stopped at nothing to enact their plan to be together.

“Okay. So right now, we have two possible theories. The first, and most likely—” I shoot a look at both of them over the rim of my coffee cup. “—is that Philip died on the ship before coming to Wesbourne. Someone found out about Helena’s plans to meet her lover and wrote the diary as a way to stir up trouble.”

Henry raises his hand. “Objection. I don’t think that theory seems more likely—”

“Overruled. The second theory is that Philip faked his death, either intentionally or incidentally, and had an affair with Helena, which was presumably the plan all along.”

Maisie tucks her hair behind her ears and says, “I’m with Henry. I think the second theory is more believable.”

I purse my lips and exhale through my nose. “It doesn’t matter what we want to believe. What matters are the facts.”

“And really good coffee.” Henry winks and holds up his cup in a salute to Maisie, who giggles.

“Don’t laugh. It only encourages him.” I kick his shin under the table and earn a grunt in response. “We need to be able to prove or disprove one of our theories. Any ideas on how to do that?”

“We could visit Mrs. Schumann?” Maisie volunteers. At our blank looks, she adds, “The lady who donated the diary to the Society. Or rather, her grandson donated it. She might be able to tell us how it came to be in her possession.”

“Hasn’t she already been interviewed?” I say.

“They’ve tried.” Maisie takes a big gulp of coffee. “But she adamantly refuses to speak to anyone about it.”

I squint at her. “So how is that a viable suggestion?”

“Henry might be able to get her to talk.” She smiles at him from under her eyelashes and wraps a piece of hair around her finger. Oh god, is she flirting with him now?

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