Disclaimer: NCIS characters and situations borrowed; varying license taken with historical persons. Victorian universe courtesy of Sequitur.
A/N: Sorry for the delay – work, the holidays and a Secret Santa fic exchange put this behind. With luck there won't be so much time between installments now, and in fact there are a couple big chunks of the next chapter already done.
Kudos again to Sequitur for her universe and the Victorian version of our favorite team. All comments, reviews or other input appreciated!
A PERSON OF SOME CONSEQUENCE
Chapter 11
As Gibbs' "five minutes" had stretched to forty-five, the tension in the room had escalated, but save Ducky's quiet murmurs to Lady Margaret, subdued in the circumstances from his usual discourse, the inhabitants were quiet. When the time had stretched to an hour without Gibbs' presence, the Prince suddenly turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, without one further word of warning or threat to either of them. As the sound of retreating footsteps faded, Anthony took the last two or three paces toward Ducky from where he'd taken up a post by the elderly physician, both to observe his work and to be nearby, just in case.
"Anything more you can tell yet from your examination, Ducky?"
Dr. Mallard noted with approval that even with these events, the younger man's voice was quiet and calm. He would have to remember to tell Jethro about Anthony's rising to the occasion, he mused before speaking. "Not enough, I fear. What I told you before about drug's involvement is correct, as far as I can tell now. And poisoning is still accurate. However ..." The doctor paused, considering the woman with a sad frown. "I would like to know if she were happy, in her life, or if she had reason to want to end it. With the marks upon her..." He shook his head and went back to his work.
"You think she took the poison herself, to end her own life?"
"No, not from what I have heard or myself seen about her, always gay and charming to those about her. But it is possible, Anthony, and it must be ruled out. For a woman as apparently happy and carefree as she might have seemed to everyone, to bear such marks as these..." The doctor discretely pulled aside the drape just enough that Anthony could see the tell-tale damage, where it was, and of what type. "Would you not think that in the privacy of her own soul she might seek a way to escape the life she hid from others, were it as painful to her as it might be?"
Anthony considered, then spoke, slowly, "unless this, too, was consensual."
"Possible, of course – but certainly not the norm." Anger filled the quiet voice. "Far too many women are abused and, I daresay, you will not find many who enjoy it."
"Oh, I know, Ducky," Anthony replied grimly, his knuckles gently stroking his still-tender jaw. "I do know – maybe more painfully than most men."
At that reminder, Ducky looked back up and over toward Anthony to see the marks he still bore from his adventures of the previous night, and his ire softened. "Of course. My apologies, Anthony, if I seemed to direct my anger toward you. You are certainly more enlightened than most of your age and breeding as to such atrocities."
Anthony allowed a snort and a forgiving smile. "I would thank you, Ducky," he teased slightly, "but I suspect that bar is not a high one, in your eyes." He glanced from the body back to the room's exit and on toward the hall, trying to quell the rise of nerves he'd felt upon the Prince's sudden departure. For a reason he couldn't yet fathom, that action seemed to Anthony to bode the most ill for them since they'd arrived. "And if anyone here thought this were a death by her own hand, I suspect there would be less concern about our comings and goings – if we were brought in at all." He was quiet for another moment, then added, "I do hope that Battenberg isn't off arranging for Gibbs and McGee to be rounded up and brought back, in the Crown's custody, Ducky. I am certain he could make things ... unpleasant ... for us all."
"Indeed." The doctor continued his work, but in a softer voice, asked, "you don't expect Gibbs to return, do you?"
Anthony wasn't too sure if it had been a question or a statement, but Anthony simply shook his head. "I expect Gibbs to do as much investigation as he can do quickly, and determine his course from there. I have no doubt that he intends to come back for us, Ducky – but since he left without so much as a 'by your leave' to the Prince ... he may not find his name at on the guest list for a return visit when he does."
xoxoxox
Abigail stood before McGee with the most innocent of expressions, demure and sweet, as she rattled the tea tin in his face, but her cheeks glowed with a pinkish health that no amount of pinching could have raised. As he thought of it, McGee wondered if she did not appear a bit too innocent, and not all that surprised to find him rooting about in the Lady's pantry.
But she left him no time for further reflection, as she crisply stepped around him and crossed over toward the counter where he'd left the tea service, her petticoats rustling as they brushed his legs. "If you are here, McGee, does that mean that Ducky has finished as well? I didn't expect him to be done for quite some time yet, so I came by to see Lady Ziva. You came at just the right time, as we hadn't even yet had a chance to start the kettle."
Timothy turned, a frown developing as he worked it out. "But ... Lady Ziva was ... not here. She was outsi... er, she was out. Or, at least, not receiving visitors. She was ... well," he hesitated, unsure just how much Abigail might know about Ziva's more ... energetic ... pastimes, to which he had just been a witness. "She was not in until she came in with me."
"I know that, silly," Abigail said, sounding almost nervous herself, her eyes on the tea she now spooned into the pot as she avoided his. "I only just arrived. And I have a key of my own, one I keep for when Ziva is out of the country. I check the house for her on occasion if she will be away for a time." McGee sensed that Abigail was hiding something from him, but could not for the world accuse her, and with all that was transpiring at the moment with Anthony and Gibbs, he could not let Abigail's adventures – whatever they might be – distract him from his business.
Besides ... it really was not his business if she didn't wish to tell him whatever it was making her secretive ... was it?
His suspicion about what she might be hiding – and the thought that Miss Abigail might be concerned enough about his thoughts and opinion of her to want to hide it – both unsettled his gut and made his mouth a bit dry, suddenly. He swallowed, hard, cleared his throat, and shook his mind back to business, just as she finished swirling the hot water over the tea leaves.
Abigail put the lid on the pot to steep, and, managing a firmer resolve in her expression than she had thus far this morning, turned to McGee, asking lightly as she did, "shall we go into the sun room to talk? It's quite lovely there this time of d..."
Meeting Timothy's eyes now for the first time since she'd appeared in the kitchen, what Abby saw as she considered him – and his too-communicative face – led worry to replace anything previously in her thoughts. "McGee," Abigail's expressive green eyes searched his face. "What matter brought you here, to see Ziva? Where are Gibbs and Anthony? Are they alright? And what's happened to Ducky? And why are you here if they are not?"
Again, he felt his mouth go dry, but this time it was as he fretted over exactly how to handle Abby's demands. Not only was she entitled to know if the others were in danger – something he could not, in all honesty, deny at the moment, as sobering a prospect as that might be, given the circumstances – but if he'd learned anything about Abby it was her insatiable appetite to know what was going on with things in general, and with Gibbs and his assistants in particular. He licked his lips and tried, "I ... I am sworn to secrecy, Miss Abigail, and I cannot tell you wh..."
"They have been called by Prince Battenberg to Marlborough House to investigate a murder," Ziva announced summarily as she breezed into the room, silks and crinoline swishing as she passed them both and disappeared into the panty.
"Lady Ziva!" McGee squawked, his jaw dropping.
"You may have been sworn to secrecy by the Prince, McGee, but I have not." The Lady's voice floated back to them as did the sounds of her moving a few things about. "And as time is of the essence, we can use Abby's help as well." Ziva appeared again, in her hands three sheathed knives and a small pistol, and she handed one of the knives to Abby as she lay the other things on the counter. "You do not seemed to be armed, McGee. Do you need me to find you something as well?"
"The Prince made it clear that no one was to know, nor any of us to communicate beyond..." he gasped, the imagined ire of the Crown's representative overwhelming him.
"And yet you are here, at Gibbs' request, to seek my help. Clearly he believes that the Prince's directives needed some ... reconsideration." Ziva looked long into the young man's eyes, seeing the conflict there. "Are we not a team, McGee?"
The silence in the room was nearly as clear an answer as was his slow nod, at which, it seemed, the tension in the room broke. A wide-eyed Abby, trying with all her might in the dark circumstances to hide a grin of conspiratorial pleasure to be included, finally breached the quiet to whisper, "who's the victim?"
xoxoxox
Gibbs found himself alternately cursing and praising Anthony in his thoughts as he made his way up the street toward the cab stand. His morning coat, upon which his assistant had insisted, had gotten the attention of those passing him on the street, curious as to why such a fine gentleman was on foot, walking as he did not with the mien of one simply taking the air. Realizing that his apparel would make him glaringly suspicious were he to seek information in the usual back alleys and darker pubs where he often found some of his best local news, and given his reputation and a case that called for as little scrutiny as possible, Gibbs quickly determined that because of his garb, the limits on his time and the day of the week, he might have his best luck in Printinghouse Square. There he might find some of the several men he knew whose business it was to have their ears cocked for the smallest tidbit, and their noses in everything, especially where the Crown and the randy Prince Albert were concerned, all in the hope that an article might be developed for their respective newspapers. Despite it being a Saturday, making it harder to find such men about, Gibbs decided that his most immediate, best hope of finding information about Lady Margaret's murder – most assuredly the fodder for a scandal the likes of which London had not seen in his day – would be among these men.
Gibbs was not happy with his haste. If he'd had the day for his investigation, he would have waited and watched, sorted out the activity among the news vendors running off with the day's second edition and the messengers bringing their flimsies, watched as the writers came and went, ever on the prowl for prized information, the elusive newly emerging detail, that they could tell the world before their competitors caught wind of it. Only then would he seek out his several contacts, both writers and non, often as wily in obtaining the odd clue as Anthony might be.
But today he had only minutes for them, and went from one printing house to the next to seek out his top three acquaintances in the trade. He found two of them in. Now, as he stalked back out to the street and on to the next cab stand, making sure not to use the same cab or stand twice, in the hope that each portion of his journey could not be linked to the next by either a particular cabby or those who waited near his stand. He fought back the frustration of his pursuit by telling himself that, indeed, no news here was in itself news: neither man had heard more than the most general, banal information about the party the evening before – the food and the drink, the guests and the music. Gibbs reminded himself to better appreciate the true prize of his morning's efforts, the list of names he now held of those in attendance, most of them actually on the list that Anthony had supplied, and bade himself acknowledge that the very fact that two of the most irritatingly persistent publishers of London's gossip had not the first inkling that Lady Margaret had gone missing, much less that a murder had occurred. That in itself caused a darker cloud on Gibbs' brow: thus far, the Prince had managed to keep her death wholly within his walls. To what lengths would he go to keep it so?
Gibbs turned the corner and came upon the second cab stand of the morning, and went directly to the first unfamiliar face to catch his eye. Gibbs growled another address to the driver, promising an extra bob if he could make arrive in under ten minutes, and bound inside the cab. He needed to make one more stop before returning to his men. He hoped the time he'd expend in doing so would provide them all a bit of insurance, should his worst fears be realised...
xoxoxox
It was another thirty minutes before the Prince returned. Anthony observed him closely; he seemed cooler than he had been when he left, possibly more distant – and his eyes now more calculating. Anthony found himself steeling himself for what was to come.
"I see that neither Mr. Gibbs nor Mr. McGee have returned to us," Battenberg began.
"And there, you see my reasons for wanting to handle this alone," Anthony began, conversationally. "They're like children, really, always running off in all directions at the moment you need them."
Battenberg's silence was as icy a warning glare as Anthony had ever seen from Gibbs, and even Dr. Mallard glanced toward the men in concern at Anthony's flippant tone. The Prince crossed the remaining distance to come close to Anthony, speaking so low the doctor had to strain to follow the conversation. "It will not go well for you, Anthony, should your men fail you. Who and what you are is known to me, as are the roots of your ... apprenticeship ... with Gibbs. He may have his own history, but as some of it in the service Her Majesty it has a better footing than your own. You may now wish that you had ignored his entreaties and fled to New York while you had the chance."
Anthony could feel himself pale at the threat underlying the man's words, but he fought to control his breathing and convince the man his information meant nothing. He put on his best grin. "So you have been in the trenches, I see, to know that particular version of my history – although I would have thought that a man of your rank would not have to consort with the poor wenches down on the docks to satisfy your manly desires. Isn't that why you have so many housemaids about? Or failing that – could you not simply wait for the Heir's next party or theatre outing? Certainly one of those he cast aside would be willing to service a man so close to the Crown, if she could not have the First Born himself."
The slap across his jaw, landing on the side already sore from the evening before, wasn't as laughable as it should have been, but Anthony would not fail to take advantage of it, given that at the moment it occurred, both men instantly knew what it represented – that Anthony had rattled the unflappable Battenberg. "Was that for their honor, Sir? Because, for a man of your military training, with the full power of the Crown at his backside," he emphasised scornfully, "to slap me exactly as I was slapped two nights ago by a very charming young lady who took offense at my rather forward suggestion ... well, it's all rather amusing, is it not?"
The Prince's eyes flared their anger, but Anthony sensed it was with himself, for showing his rage, as well as with his investigator. "Say what you will, my friend," Battenberg hissed, back under control once again. "There is far more at stake here than you can imagine, and certainly no amount of investigation will uncover all the ramifications of what may be found here. Step carefully and wisely, for there are far greater things to be protected in this matter than the lives of four inconsequential people." As Anthony's brow drew in anger and he began to protest, Battenberg interrupted, "and, my dear Anthony, this is not a mere threat – it is information. It is what it is. And neither you, nor I, nor Gibbs or McGee or the good doctor here mean nearly as much. We may all end up on that ship to New York, or worse, if you depart from what is required of you." The man's anger had not subsided, really, but had shifted into something more dangerous. "Now ... tell me where to find your missing men."
...to be continued...