The
new adventures of Lady C. – A contribution to the stories created by S.
Florence
The Stolen Wellington. Part 1
Written by Samantha Stanley & Harriet Chamberlain
Lady Christina de Souza, 98th in line to
the throne of England (Thankyou Megan Markle ), not the Queen's favourite
relative, owner of the de Souza manor, a fleeting companion of the time
travelling alien known as "The Doctor" and notorious jewel thief
"The Lucky Cat" had just about recovered from losing her entire
family at the battle of canary wharf in 2007, and had just about recovered from
not only meeting an alien on a bus, travelling to another planet with him on
the bus, but saving the lives of those on the bus with her and the entire
planet of Earth whilst losing her prized stolen possession to date, king
Athlestan's golden chalice and had just about recovered her father's lost
fortune ( thanks to his gambling habit) by stealing whatever she could get her
hands on, selling it on the black market and restoring the manor, ( well one
room, her bedroom. The rest of the manor was falling apart as all her money and
her loot went into the secret vault hidden in the depths of the manors wine
cellar and the very expensive and slightly alien tech security measures) it's
butler John Cook, his strange cousin and stable hand Hugo Halliwell and his
knackered pony Clip-Clop, back to all its former glory thus throwing herself,
the aristocratic side of her at least, back into the limelight, back into the
public eye and back into the Queen's bad books. No one knew her alter ego and
what she had done and sacrificed to bring her family home back from the dead
and no one ever would, except John Cook, his cousin Hugo and quite possibly the
Queen who eyed her suspiciously whenever she saw her and made constant
references to the Maneki Neko, Lady C's calling card, to see if she flinched
and revealed her true identity.
Recovering from all that whilst
maintaining a Lady like stature took a lot of effort, a few glasses of gin and
the odd wild fling with an unsuspecting married member of her social circle,
just so she could experience the thrill of excitement that stealing gave her,
without having to steal anything as other people's husbands didn't count as she
technically wasn't stealing, she was borrowing and she always gave them back!
It was fair to say that life had settled down considerably since that
awful day during the battle when she had lost her parents and younger sister
Lady Monica. She had tried to look for them of course but where do you start
when there is only an end to a war, and no beginning? It had been 13 years now
and she was older, none the wiser but a lot richer and still not in favour by
the Queen. She did have a happy life though, or that's what she at least told
herself every morning, so imagine her surprise when she had come home one
evening after stealing a painting supposedly painted by Van Gogh yet looked
alarmingly like an exploding TARDIS, for a client who went by the name of
Professor Song, ( Quite obviously made up but as long as she paid up, Lady C
didn't care what her clients called themselves, yet she was intrigued to meet
the Professor as she was sure the painting must be something to do with the
Doctor.) and found her dead sister, Lady Monica Georgia de Souza (named after
her father's grandmother) sitting in her dining room, eating her pizza and
drinking her beer that had been laid out for her by her butler like he did
after every heist, sitting on her chaise lounge as though she hadn't of been
dead all this time. In fact, she was very much alive!
There had been shouting, tears and tantrums, mainly from Hugo who had
insisted that Monica was a ghost back from the dead to reclaim her shoe
collection he had hoarded the day she had "died" and when he had been
sedated by John Cook and taken back to the stable, he shared with Clip Clop
(his choice) Monica and Christina had started shouting at each other.
"Where have you been? I thought you were dead! Why didn't you come looking
for me? Stop drinking all my beer!" This went on until the early hours of
the next morning until both women had fallen asleep on the chaise lounge out of
pure exhaustion. Cook had woken them at 5am and sent them to bed. It was now
10am, Lady C had been awake for hours, had her breakfast in bed and was reading
the newspaper as the headline was screaming at her about an art heist from the
London museum. She would stay exactly where she was until Monica came in and
apologised for being alive and in the meantime, she googled her, trying as she
had so often done before to find some traces of her family but the searches had
turned up nothing. This time though she had a different name. Bella Roseau, a
secret identity Monica had been using these past 12 years to keep herself
hidden. It would seem she had learned something from Christina after all.
It took Monica a long, long time to get back to sleep once Cook had
woken them in the early hours. Obviously being back so late last night, and
being dead for so long that 90% of her stuff was in storage and her old room is
full of dust, her furniture covered in a cloth hiding Monica expensive style
underneath. Being back home was just what she needed at this time, all the
stuff that she had been through since changing her name and living off whatever
she could get was difficult to her. She had tried her best to be independent
for the first time in her life, and since what happened in Canary Wharf, she
couldn’t have gone home for a long time even if she wanted to.
Staying in one of the guest room for the night, Monica lay on her back
staring up at the ceiling above her; she had a lot of work to do to make it up
to her sister. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, and if it was the other way
around, she didn’t think that she would ever forgive Christina. But lucky for
Monica, Christina was probably a tiny bit more forgiving…. And I really mean a
tiny bit. Monica checked her phone and saw it wasn’t a ridiculous time to get
up and go see Christina. Throwing on a silk dressing gown from the suitcase she
brought back with her she slipped out the room and walked towards her sister’s
room. It’s strange how everything is exactly the same as how they left it but
just run down. All the fancy art the family used to collect still filled the
walls of the hallway, the massive chandelier above her head still bright, just
full of cobwebs. There was only a certain amount of cleaning that Cook could
have done and it wasn’t fair to leave him behind to look after it all, but
Monica didn’t think that her sister would ever walk away from this place,
especially after her family had died, but she did.
Knocking lightly and pushing open Christina’s bedroom door, she walked
in ready to grovel. Monica was so close to walking in jumping onto the bed next
to her sister and getting under the duvet like she used to but she stopped
herself knowing it wouldn’t be welcome. Not just yet anyway.
“So…. What would make this a bit better?” Mon went to awkwardly sit on
the edge of the bed but instead chose to walk away and sit on the chair on the
other side of the room. “I mean, you know I can’t cook. And that hasn’t got any
better since I’ve been away. But I could try? Would that help?” Mon took quick
notice of Christina scrolling on her phone. “Anything interesting about me?” Mon
questioned, that used to be what she would ask her sister back in the day
before everything went wrong, and that was because Mon was used to going out
getting completely drunk, making a fool of herself and probably ending up on
the front page of some tabloid doing something she probably shouldn’t. Since
she had died Mon did spend some time looking online about herself wishing she
would relive the life she used to have, but how could she come back from the
dead? Christina would probably be able to know, she knew everything. “Anyway,
so I was thinking, how much of my stuff you still have? I mean you must have
kept some right?” Mon shrugged; Christina did not look impressed. “Are you ok?”
Trying to ignore her sister wouldn't be an easy task. Monica was far too
"In your face" to be placed on a back burner somewhere or ghosted
just to prove a point, but it had to be said that although Christina was over
the moon that her sister wasn't dead after all, she was furious with her for
lying to her and leaving her with the mess of planning her entire family’s
funerals.... not something anyone should have to do. Cook helped of course,
Hugo didn't but that was Hugo and that was another thing, how she was going to
convince him to give Monica back her shoe collection, she did not know,
especially as he had grown rather worryingly attached to a bright red pair of
Jimmy Choo's in her absence.
As she sat cautiously on her bed, Christina carried on searching the
news feed on her phone in the pretence she was far too busy to be listening to
her sister's pitiful attempts at an apology for not being dead, but something
caught her eye and very quickly, a devious if not hilarious plan began to form
in her mind that would indeed allow Monica to make it up to her on a grand
scale.
Placing her phone on her bed, she sighed heavily, acting wounded and
heartbroken as she mentally put the finishing touches to her master plan.
Reaching over the night stand, she grabbed a small bell and rang it a few times
in an attempt to get Cook to bring her a morning cup of tea. She waited a few
seconds, rang it again, huffed impatiently and then
bellowed..."COOK......TEA!" at the top of her lungs just as the
butler came hurrying through the door carrying a tea tray with a startled
looking Hugo behind him carry a breakfast tray and a piece of her toast in his
mouth.
"Sorry mi' Lady, 'ad to stop Hugo nicking yer sausages, yer know
what he's like round pork. Morning Miss Monica, brought yer usual, bloody Mary
with a twist and a Ryvita"
Placing the trays down and cuffing Hugo
round the head so the toast shot from his mouth, Cook left the room dragging
his slightly backward cousin with him.
Christina finally spoke to Monica, trying to sound authoritative yet
sounding more like an excited child at Christmas.
"All your belongings are in storage, by storage I mean in the stable
with Clip-Clop. I did try and save some things but Hugo insists you left them
to him in your will which we never found and I was too upset to contest it or
argue with him, besides, he's been wearing most of your dresses on a daily
basis so I doubt you'll want any of it back"
Taking a sip of tea, she let her plan unravel like a soft coiled ribbon
that had gently fallen to the floor.
"I am going on a job later this evening" She passed her phone
to her sister and pointed to the illuminated screen. "As you can see,
Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington has resurfaced and its due to go on
display for 1 week from tomorrow morning at the London art gallery, meaning it
will be taken to the gallery overnight in preparation. I have quite a few
contacts interested in this particular piece who are willing to pay a very
large sum of money and you my dear undead sister, are going to help me get
it.... tonight! I will go over the plans properly with you after breakfast and
when we pull this off, you'll be able to restock your wardrobe and more,
because you are going to be the one, who steals it for me!"
There was a distinct smirk on Lady C's face as she unveiled her plans,
mostly because of what she had planned for her sister and mostly because the
thrill of a pending heist always made her extremely happy. Taking another sip
of tea and plucking a sausage off her plate, she relaxed back into her pillows
and waited for her sister to come to terms with the fate that awaited her.
To be
continued…
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