An Unexpected Peril

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Stoker groaned by way of reply, but I stoppered his protest with a kiss, short and hard.

  “You owe me a pound.”

  “Why in the name of seven hells do I owe you a pound?”

  “Because an Alpenwalder has indeed proven our villain,” I said with deep satisfaction.

  He reached into his borrowed pocket, but I stilled his hand with my own, clasping it warmly.

  “Keep your money this time. Come along, Stoker. The sun is rising, and we have lived to see another day!”

  * * *

  • • •

  A few hours later, we were bathed and dressed and comfortably ensconced in the drawing room of the princess’s suite, devouring plate after plate of Julien d’Orlande’s best efforts.

  “Try the miniature pork pasty,” I urged Stoker as I passed him a tiny pie capped with a caramelized shallot. “He has done something quite wonderful with apple and sage.”

  He took one, passing me the tray of petite éclairs stuffed with violet crème. The princess watched us in bemusement.

  “Do you always take your own attempted murder in your stride?”

  I considered this. “The first time is unnerving,” I admitted.

  “But when it gets to be habit,” Stoker added, “one must adapt a rational attitude and make certain to eat to keep up one’s strength.”

  I resisted the urge to pull a face. For a person who had spent the greater part of our confinement complaining bitterly about the predicament, he was quite sanguine now that he was warm and fed.

  “You must forgive me,” Gisela said quietly. “I had no idea anyone would be in any danger at all.”

  “There would not have been if they hadn’t meddled,” Maximilian put in—reasonably, I decided.

  “The duke is correct,” I said, reaching for an adorable cherry tartlet glazed with amaretto syrup. “We exposed ourselves to danger with our investigation.”

  “An investigation about which you neglected to inform us,” the chancellor said in a tone of lofty reproach.

  “As you neglected to inform us of the potential dangers to the princess,” Stoker reminded him, smiling coolly over a tarte au citron. The chancellor had the grace to look embarrassed.

  “I remain abashed at my failures,” the chancellor said.

  “Hardly yours,” Gisela put in. She stared hard at Maximilian, and to my astonishment, he flushed deeply.

  “Duke Maximilian?” I prodded.

  He shifted in his seat, then burst out in a torrent of speech. “The princess and I have had a lengthy and comprehensive discussion and she has impressed upon me the fact that I have, in every possible way, let down my country, my name, and my royal blood. I extend my deepest apologies to you, Miss Speedwell, and to you, Mr. Templeton-Vane.” He turned to the princess. “I apologize to you as well, Your Serene Highness. I know, too, that you cannot forgive me. I will not ask because I do not deserve it. I will resign my commissions formally and withdraw from public life in the Alpenwald. I await your further instructions.”

  He rose to his feet and bowed sharply from the neck. “I am, contrary to the cowardice and weakness of character I have demonstrated here, your servant, Your Serene Highness.” He drew his sword from his scabbard and laid it gently at her feet. “I offer you the resignation of my commission in the Alpenwalder Guard, and I will accept whatever punishment you see fit to mete.”

  He bowed once more and left us, shutting the door softly behind.

  “Princess,” the chancellor began, “do you not think you should speak with him?”

  The princess shook her head. “No. I think a little time to meditate on his sins will do Maximilian a world of good. Besides, we have other matters to discuss.” She turned her attention to Stoker and to me.

  “I really am very sorry that you were brought into this farrago,” she began. “I never meant for any of it to happen.”

  “I think I can piece together some of it,” I told her. “It began that day in the Curiosity Club when Stoker realized that Alice’s rope had been cut.”

  “Did it?” She sighed and gave Pompeia Baker-Greene a sad smile. “I think we both wondered. Alice was such a careful climber, so mindful of risk. It seemed impossible to us that she would have made any such elementary mistakes, especially on a climb she had done so many times before.”

  “I made my peace with it,” Mrs. Baker-Greene said slowly. “One learns to when there have been enough of these kinds of losses. I wrote to the princess and told her that one must befriend grief. It is a companion that never leaves.”

  I thought of the losses I had known, my aunts, my friend the baron. And others. For some, grief was a devil, to be shut out upon the doorstep and ignored. But the notion of accepting that it would be a constant visitor in one guise or another seemed to me the beginning of wisdom.

  “I tried,” the princess said, a plaintive note creeping into her narrative. “But I could not dismiss the idea that something was wrong. Then when Mr. Templeton-Vane found the rope, I had the first real proof that I was not simply rejecting the banality of an accident befalling Alice. And at that moment, another proof fell into my hands.”

  “The summit badge,” I said.

  The princess nodded. “Alice was buried with a badge and I assumed it was hers. They said she had been found with a badge clutched in her hand and they pinned this to her clothing before she was laid to rest. But no one realized at the time that she had not worn her badge that day. The badge in her hand was the baroness’s.”

  “The baroness told me that Alice tore it from her during the final struggle,” I put in gently.

  “I suspected something like that as soon as I saw a badge amongst her things. It was Alice’s, I recognized it at once. There was a little nick on one edge, you see. She used to joke that she would make me replace it for her,” she added with a smile. “And the back of each is engraved with a tiny number unique to the recipient. This is so the badge may be returned to its owner if it is mislaid. When I saw Alice’s own badge with her things at the exhibition, I wondered immediately—whose badge had Alice been clutching when she died? Alice was climbing alone that day. It was a dangerous practice and one I discouraged, but she knew that mountain. It would have been a simple exercise for her. But if someone else was with her, why had no one come forward?”

  “Unless they had something to hide,” Stoker put in.

  “Exactly. I could not take the risk that the rope—thus far the only piece of evidence linking her murderer to the crime—would go missing. I had to take it into my own possession for safekeeping, but without alerting the murderer, whoever that might be. And I needed Pompeia’s help to secure the second and most damning piece of evidence—the murderer’s badge that had been buried with Alice. But most importantly, I could not permit Pompeia to learn of Alice’s murder from anyone but myself. I owed her that.”

  “So she borrowed a maid’s cloak and put herself on a train,” the elderly mountaineer said, smiling fondly at the princess.

  The princess returned the smile. “It was a stroke of grave misfortune that the storm happened to blow in that night. You see, I had it all worked out on the timetable. I would go to the Midlands, speak with Pompeia, and return by the milk train and be back in my suite before anyone missed me. She would authorize an exhumation to retrieve the murderer’s climbing badge from Alice’s body, and by examining the badge, we would have the piece of evidence we needed to find her murderer. Once that had been arranged, Pompeia would follow a day or so later, after she had arranged to retrieve the badge whilst I followed my official program and signed the treaty.”

  She gave me a searching look. “You did sign the treaty, did you not?”

  I nodded. “I have my doubts about its legality, but I signed it.”

  Her smile was one of satisfaction. “I will make it right. I will tell them our copy was destroyed in a cle
rical accident and we will execute fresh papers. The important thing was to secure the meeting with the French in person and play out the little drama of diplomacy. The rest is simply paperwork.”

  It was a cynical view, but perhaps that ought not to have surprised me. Rupert had said much the same.

  Stoker retrieved the conversation, steering us back to the princess’s narrative. “But when the storm blew in, you were stranded in the Midlands.”

  She nodded. “It was the worst snowstorm in a decade, so they said. We were snowbound in Pompeia’s house. The good news is that it meant no one was abroad to see me away from London. But it meant Miss Speedwell was forced to take my place.” She smiled. “I hear you were more than adequate. I am grateful.”

  “I did my best,” I told her.

  “But you did not undertake the masquerade to help the Alpenwald,” the chancellor said, clearly sulking.

  “No,” I admitted. “I did it because I wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to Alice Baker-Greene.”

  “And in doing so, Miss Speedwell has done us a very great service,” the princess insisted.

  “Has she?” the chancellor queried. “You were already on the trail of the murderer.”

  “And everything else I was in London to accomplish would have been destroyed without her taking on my role of princess,” she told him. “We will be grateful to Miss Speedwell and her companion.”

  This was clearly to be the official position of the Alpenwalder government, and the chancellor bowed his neck to his princess, his moustaches gleaming in the morning light.

  “What will happen to the baroness?” Stoker asked.

  The princess’s mouth thinned. “She has been given into the custody of Captain Durand for extradition to the Alpenwald. She has decided to waive her right to a trial and acknowledged her guilt.”

  “So she will be sent to prison,” I ventured.

  She said nothing for a long moment, and when she finally did speak, it was with a chilly finality. “She murdered not only Alice Baker-Greene but Yelena Borisovna. As the intended husband of the victim, Captain Durand has certain rights.”

  “Rights?” Stoker inquired.

  The chancellor cleared his throat. “The captain has elected to sail from England to Germany and make his way down the Rhine. A sea voyage this time of year is a perilous undertaking,” he said blandly.

  Which meant that anything the captain cared to do to see justice served upon the baroness would be accepted with a blind eye by the princess and her chancellor. I shivered as I realized how rough that justice might be. Was she to be bundled into a sack and tossed overboard to drown as she had intended for us? Given the quick mercy of a bullet before being disposed of in the river? Or would Durand choose for her to be locked in a dark fortress for the rest of her life? The possibilities were grim.

  The princess turned back to us, brisk and businesslike. “I mean to open Alice’s exhibition on schedule tomorrow evening. Will you be there?”

  We exchanged glances and nodded. “Of course, Your Serene Highness. It would be an honor.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  The next evening, we arrived at the Curiosity Club an hour before the exhibition opening in order to attend to the last details. Lady C. was a whirlwind of activity, supervising the polishing of the display cases and the dusting of the various displays.

  “That goat is most unsettling,” she remarked to me, pulling a face. “Ought we to leave it?”

  “Oh yes,” I told her, not relishing the battle that would ensue should we remove Stoker’s pride and joy.

  At last the preparations were finished. A wide velvet ribbon had been stretched across the doorway, to be cut by the princess to officially open the exhibition, and tables had been laid with vast silver coolers of iced champagne and enormous wheels of Alpenwalder cheese adorned with bunches of hothouse grapes. Trays of lobster patties and hot roast lamb pies were passed, and Julien’s enormous sugar homage to the castle took pride of place. The guests circulated, taking in the maps and photographs and pausing to admire Stoker’s goat as well as a rather bedraggled stuffed otter that had been sent at the last moment by a prominent Londoner of Alpenwalder descent.

  I was most interested in the reaction of the princess and Pompeia Baker-Greene. They remained together, lost in contemplation whilst the other guests mingled, drinking champagne and chattering loudly about their own travels and travails. The princess was claimed by Lady C. to make the rounds of dignitaries while Stoker and I went to stand next to Pompeia. Her Bath chair had been moved in front of Alice’s portrait, the photograph of her standing atop a mountain peak, a suffragist banner in hand. Pompeia Baker-Greene sat regarding it thoughtfully as she took immoderate bites of Alpenwalder cheese and sipped at her champagne.

  “She was a remarkable woman,” I told her. “I wish I had known her better.”

  “She would not have liked you much in the end,” Pompeia said firmly. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a grin. “But only because she was sometimes wary of kindred spirits. And you, Miss Speedwell, are like my granddaughter—an uncommon woman.”

  I grinned. “I am glad you were able to come, although I wish the circumstances had been more pleasant.”

  Her steely brows rose. “Why? Death is part of life, child. It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is merely a doorway. Alice is no further away from me than if she had stepped into the next room.”

  “You are a philosopher,” Stoker told her.

  “I am an old woman,” she corrected. “And I have neither the time nor the patience for pretense.” She looked up at him with an assessing eye. “I am also a connoisseur of good-looking men, and you, my dear boy, are an extraordinarily attractive one. Now, wheel me over to where they are pouring more of this champagne and I will teach you a thing or two about women.”

  He did as she told him, putting his head close to hers as he refreshed her glass. I was still watching them when the princess moved to my elbow.

  “Should you stand so near me?” I asked softly. “Someone else might notice the resemblance and surmise what we have been up to this week.”

  She looked down the length of her regal nose. “I am taller and my jewels are much better,” she said, not unkindly. “I do not think we will be found out. Tell me, did you enjoy playing at being a princess?”

  I considered for a moment. “Not really. It is a great deal of work and very little freedom.”

  “Ah,” she said, smiling gravely. “You understand me. Few people do. Alice saw the cage for what it is. Gilded and studded with diamonds, but it is still a cage. That is what made her such a good friend,” she added, her gaze drifting to Alice’s portrait.

  “Friend?” I asked gently.

  She caught her breath but did not look at me.

  “I understand,” I told her.

  She canted her head, giving me a thoughtful smile. “I think that you do. Our relationship was not one I could ever acknowledge openly, you understand. Such a thing is not possible here in England. In the Alpenwald, it would be utterly unthinkable. But she was the love of my life.”

  “That is why you could not bring yourself to agree to marry Maximilian,” I murmured. “Because your heart lay elsewhere.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I found the sketch—tucked under the endpaper of Alice’s ledger. The sketch was illuminating and clearly drawn by someone who loved you intimately.”

  She closed her eyes, briefly, and an expression of pain flickered across her face. When she opened her eyes again, she had recovered herself.

  “Well, I will not be the first monarch to put aside my youthful love and marry for reasons of state,” she said, turning a heavily jeweled betrothal ring around on her finger.

  “Maximilian?” I was aghast, but Gisela was matter-of-fact.

  “The wedding is to
be in the spring. I will advance him the money he requires to pay his gambling debts and he will spend the next few months proving himself to me. Given how grateful he is for my forgiveness and his own embarrassment at his actions, he will be entirely biddable as a consort.”

  “But after all he has done—”

  She turned to me, and there was a worldliness in her gaze that spoke to long experience of the failures and foibles of men. “Miss Speedwell, you have known Maximilian a few short days. I have known him all of his life. He is a good man. He just does not know it yet. Responsibility will be the making of him, I will see to it.”

  “He put a threat into a box of chocolates for a fright,” I argued. “And he arranged for a bomb to be thrown at you.”

  “A silly note and a firecracker,” she replied with a curl of her lip. “He has told me all about his debts, and I can assure you his travels will never again take him to Deauville. I will pay what is owed, and that will be an end to the matter.”

  “I can only say that you are the best judge of the duke’s character,” I said, my voice unenthusiastic to my own ears. She smiled.

  “Do not forget, Miss Speedwell, he kept my secret when I asked him to. When I had need of him, real need, he was as stalwart a champion as anyone could wish. He pretended to have a tendresse for Alice so that she could stay in the Alpenwald without anyone growing suspicious. And I turned to him again when I decided to steal the badge and the rope from here,” she said softly, her eyes lighting with amusement. “He proved a rather better housebreaker than I might have expected. And then when I went to Pompeia, he told no one where I had gone.”

  I blinked at her. “He swore he did not know,” I began.

  “Oh, he knew. And he told no one, just as I asked of him. For a long while he even pretended to be courting Alice in order to throw off any possible suspicion that she came to the Alpenwald to see me. He has been a good friend, and he will make me a good husband,” she said firmly.