I finally got a word in edgewise. “I am no apologist for the excesses of England’s prince,” I said smartly. “You must justify Monaco’s prince without my support.” Alice took in my stiff denial, then said, “So it stands, with Albert and myself peacefully waiting to formalize our love. Now some... unknown person... has determined to stir up the scandal of my earlier liaisons. I am not the mistress of my heart. Indeed, I am not certain I would not have been better off living an obscure life with my dear and glorious physician.”
“Physicians,” I corrected.
We regarded each other, the confident blond duchess and myself. I anticipated being asked to leave. Then she laughed.
“You are so very British, Miss Huxleigh, as bracing as a sirocco from the shores of Africa. I would keep you as a court critic if I could, a voice of rectitude to toll the minutes of my sins like some relentless clock upon a church tower. I cannot tell you how wearisome it is to have everyone agree with me.”
“Not everyone,” said a voice from the doorway.
The bearded man entered.
“Emile!” The duchess began to stand, but he moved quickly to lay a dissuading hand upon her shoulder. “Dr. Emile Hoffman,” she introduced him. He all too obviously knew who we were. “Emile doubts the wisdom of sharing our delicate situation with strangers.”
“Better than sharing it with friends,” Irene put in crisply. “Why is he involved, pray? You said that your liaison was long over.”
The doctor flushed, as if less inured than the duchess and Irene to such frank realities. “It was I who was contacted by these wretches. The first letter threatened to damage Alice’s reputation with the prince, and with the public.”
“My reputation, cherie,” she said with a smile, “is partly why I am so well regarded.”
“So said Marie Antoinette once,” the doctor returned. He eyed us all in turn, then sat down on a tapestry- upholstered chair.
Unlike most men taking the Riviera air, he wore dark, sober clothing. Even his vest was of charcoal-striped sateen. Perhaps professional dignity was why he chose to wear a beard. He was much better-looking than first glimpse promised, with dark, curly hair and a set of keen, twinkling eyes that gave him the look of an amiable schoolboy rather than a dignified medical man. Yet even while uneasy, he radiated an energetic charm that would explain the duchess’s attachment.
Godfrey had been studying the pair himself, for quite different reasons. His mild gray eyes sharpened as he leaned forward to address them.
“These are very serious blackmailers, I suspect. They approached the doctor first to impress the duchess with how much they know and to amplify your mutual fears. I assume, Doctor, that it would not harm your practice if all—”
“I am now in Nice.”
“—if all Nice knew of your former relationship with the duchess?”
Dr. Hoffman’s smile was rueful. “Indeed, it might enhance it.”
“Then she alone is the target,” Godfrey declared. “Although using you as intermediary has the interesting effect of renewing your association and further compromising her.”
The duchess sighed. “Yes. It is most unfortunate. Albert’s and my wedding has not only been forbidden by Prince Charles, but by the Bishop of Monaco as well. We will marry when Charles dies, but a scandal before then will not convince the bishop or the people to accept me as Princess of Monaco. I am already hampered by being an American and half Jewish.”
“You believe that the prince will stand by you?” Irene asked. “Once his father dies, he may decide he must serve the line and marry into the aristocracy.”
Alice’s bright blue eyes clouded, then cleared. “I am the aristocracy, Irene. The aristocracy of New World money. American heiresses are becoming quite the fashion for European noble houses to marry.”
Irene answered drily “Kings and princes can be fickle.”
I knew she recalled her disastrous encounter with the current King of Bohemia, who had pursued her as a prince but was ready to disavow her when he inherited the throne.
“Anyone can be fickle, my dear Irene.”
“Unfortunately, not blackmailers,” Godfrey said. “We know what they propose to reveal. What do they want?” The duchess and the doctor exchanged a quick, uneasy glance.
‘That’s just it,” she said at last. “They won’t say. Or rather, they say they will tell us when the time comes. You see why it is so distressing.”
“When the time comes?” Irene was suddenly alert. “What time? For what?”
“Alas...” The doctor spread his hands with a medical man’s precision. “We are told only to wait and see.”
“How do they convey this extraordinary instruction?”
“By letter,” the doctor answered.
“May I inspect it?” Irene’s gloved hand was extended. Dr. Hoffman reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a sadly wrinkled document. Irene scanned it quickly.
“In French, but execrable French. Cheap paper, and filthy. This is not the handiwork of a society blackmailer.”
“Perhaps some servant thinks to grow wealthy on forbidden knowledge,” Godfrey speculated.
Irene shook her head. “This is an ignorant, crude attempt, but not pointless. Or without guile.” She eyed the doctor. “How did it come?”
“By post.”
“You have the envelope?”
“I... not here.” He seemed confused. “I left it, ah... in Alice’s sitting room.”
“May I see it?”
“Of course.” He rose, bobbed the women a bow and darted off.
The four of us carefully avoided regarding one another. Obviously, Dr. Hoffman still enjoyed a certain familiarity with the duchess.
Hurrying footsteps announced the physician’s return. He brought the envelope directly to Irene, who snatched it eagerly. She ignored the address on the front and turned it over.
“As I thought!” she announced, her eyes shining as if she had just received an ovation at La Scala in Milan.
We stared, uncomprehending.
“The sealing wax! The scent of sandalwood. The senders of the mysterious letters to Louise Montpensier’s uncle!”
“Of course,” I murmured dully.
“By Jove—” Godfrey began.
But Alice, Duchess of Richelieu, had the last and most shocking words.
“Louise Montpensier? Little Louise? You know her, too?”
Chapter Seventeen
AULD ACQUAINTANCE NOT FORGOT
Prince Albert of Monaco, with the Duchess of Richelieu on his stiffly cocked arm, was circling the ballroom to my side, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
There was no mistaking his direction, nor his identity. Two diamond stars of office blazed from the dark cloth of his navy-wool dress uniform. Gold braid entwined upon his collar and cuffs, while genuine gold glinted from the hilt of the ceremonial sword at his side. A ribbon of rank slashed from his right epaulet to his left hip.
I felt like some third-rate opera company Cinderella, delivered to the ball and then abandoned, like an inconvenient pumpkin, to the oncoming prince. Irene sang for the guests, at the behest of the duchess, in a more intimate salon, while Godfrey circulated in search of news and clues. I was left to join the dowagers lining the walls, under orders to “learn what I could” of everyone, but especially of Louise. Her safety and the solution of the puzzles involving her were the underlying reasons for this social expedition.
Onward came the quasi-royal couple. Her Grace’s Worth gown of billowing cerise taffeta added sparkle to the prince’s intimidating appearance. With his stoutness, heavy-lidded eyes, straight nose and closely trimmed beard, he looked bored and overstuffed, as the Prince of Wales often did. It was hard to imagine this man marrying the vivacious woman beside him—although it was true that the stolid Prince of Wales had wed the beautiful and formidable Princess Alexandra.
“Mademoiselle Huxleigh, how charming you look!” The duchess addressed me in French. “Prince
Albert so enjoyed hearing Irene sing. I had no idea that we had a diva of such skill among us. A pity the prince’s social duties drew us away beforetimes. I adore the opera! One day soon, Monaco shall have a splendid opera house worthy of Irene and other artists.”
Despite the threat of blackmail, the duchess seemed undeterred from her ambitions of a princess-to-be. “Albert,” she went on, “Mademoiselle Huxleigh is English.” A flicker of interest stirred in the prince’s wan brown eyes. “Ah, English. So many Americans flock to Monte Carlo now that I fear we have lost many of our English friends. American women dazzle but are unpredictable. They ride astride and are forever appearing in the newspapers. I believe that a woman should appear in the press at only three times: at birth, at her marriage, and at her death.”
“I quite agree, Your Highness.”
“Excellent! Discretion in a woman is as honesty in a man, a cardinal virtue.”
With that, the prince moved on, the duchess pausing long enough to whisper to me, “You must ignore Albert’s mothballed ideas; his father is an ogre of convention. The important news is that Louise and her American are here tonight. Irene was particularly happy to learn that. Louise’s American is, of course, one of those detestable journalists who put women in the newspapers! Let us hope that Irene’s investigations will ensure the prince’s peace of mind by keeping my past affairs from the public print.”
She swept away, a gaily colored marzipan figure of cerise flounces, golden hair and blue eyes. I felt some sympathy for her. If a good fairy had given Alice Heine wealth, beauty and title, a less friendly benefactor had taken from her also: first a young husband, then two men who had clearly attracted her. Now her past threatened her present: a prince and a principality.
Women milled around me, their skirts draped and swagged like the rococo ballroom itself. Brilliant facets of gemstones and crystal exploded everywhere, sending forth fireworks of diamond, ruby and sapphire. Gilded pillars and polished mahogany and carved plasterwork mounted to high ceilings from which hung ornate, glittering chandeliers.
“There you are.”
Godfrey, dashing in formal dress, had brought me a cup of iced punch, a boon in the crowd-warmed room.
“We are here tonight on the duchess’s whim—and Irene with scant notice for her Riviera debut. Even so, her singing is staggering the audience,” he noted with forgivable pride. “No one had the slightest inkling that the unknown ‘Madame Norton’ could even hum so much as ‘Frĕre Jacques.’ ”
“It may be satisfying, but is it safe for Irene to sing?”
“Far safer than some of her other pursuits.” He glanced to a crown of glowing crystal above us. “Safer than snakes and swinging from lighting fixtures on moving trains, I should think.”
“It was not my idea to travel south, nor to stir up sailors and aristocrats.”
“Odd, isn’t it, how highborn and lowborn persons mingle in these two vastly separate puzzles.” Godfrey stared into the distance. “Now their threads entangle again! For there stands Louise Montpensier, looking far happier than when we last saw her. Thank God she is all right!”
“We must detain her, Godfrey, before she vanishes in this mob and Irene accuses us of incompetence!”
“Indeed.”
Together we wove through the room until we reached the missing girl. I would not have recognized her. The sallow, dispirited young woman was now animated and attractive. Perhaps the young gentleman beside her had accomplished this change. I liked him immediately. There was honesty in his sun-darkened face and eager, open eyes; some would find him naïve. I persisted in finding him refreshing.
Louise paled as she recognized Godfrey. He bowed over her hand. “Mademoiselle Montpensier. And Mister Caleb Winter of Boston, is it not?”
“Look here,” the young American said immediately, “if you’re an agent of Louise’s uncle, you’ll have a fight if you try to force her back to Paris.”
“My dear sir, I’m nothing of the sort.”
Louise tugged at her champion’s woolen sleeve. “This gentleman rescued me from... from those who tattooed me,” she confided. “Please do not harm him.”
Godfrey smiled at her. “Your fiancé is the second party to take my service to you in the wrong way. You have more defenders than you know, Mademoiselle. It is a pity that you are dead.”
“Dead?” The color faded from her face. “You know all, then?”
“We could visit the terrace for some fresh air,” Godfrey proposed.
I slipped to Louise’s side. In a few chaotic days, the poor girl had gone from despair to elation, and now to shock.
“Mademoiselle Huxleigh!” She gave me a look of even deeper shock. “You have altered.”
“I am dressed for a soirée, that is all. Come, we will sit outside, where we may talk in private.”
The night was cool, but the heat of the ballroom had been so overpowering that we welcomed the change. A far-flung chandelier of stars glittered against the night’s India-ink skies. Floral scents drifted from the surrounding bushes. While couples strolled in the gardens, none came close enough to intrude upon our party.
Louise and I sat upon a bench, our skirts puffing like sails and making it impossible for the gentlemen to sit also. That did not matter: Louise’s young gentleman took up a protective post behind her. Godfrey paced.
“We are pleased to see you alive, Mademoiselle,” Godfrey said at last. “But to the Paris police, your uncle and his neighbors, you are dead, drowned in the mere behind your home.”
Louise twisted her gloved hands. “I had to flee. When I found that Caleb would not abandon me after my misfortune, I was overjoyed. He convinced me that we must run away and be married, that his American acquaintance, the Duchess of Richelieu, would help us. And my uncle—”
“We have seen your uncle,” I said. “Therefore we understand why you might flee. Didn’t you guess that your so-called death would be blamed upon your aunt?”
“My aunt? No! Is she—?”
“There is no proof,” Godfrey said gently, “so she is safe for the present. But you must return and tell the police the truth.”
“Yes, yes. But first Caleb and I must find the truth of my father’s death here in Monte Carlo. I... I no longer believe him a suicide, a coward who lost all he had and so threw away his life. I no longer believe my uncle’s story of his death.”
“Louise has had a raw deal, Mr. Norton,” the young American said in his colorful manner. “I can’t figure it out. She swears there’s no money in the family anymore. That don’t matter a fig to me, but maybe someone has an eye on the inheritance he thinks she has. Either way, Louise has a right to know about her father, and I’m going to find out the facts. I’m a correspondent for The Boston Clarion. I know how to dig up the truth.”
“Truth is not a buried bone,” said a voice behind us. “It takes more than a good nose to find it.”
We turned to find Irene watching our conference with some amusement. Louise had never seen her in full plumage and the young American had never seen her at all, so they stared with mouths agape. She wore an evening gown of changeable violet silk, with iridescent black coq feathers bristling from the shoulders and hem. The effect was, as the French would say, ‘formidable!” Caught between the moonlight and the soft blur of the ballroom’s candlelight, Irene seemed a figure conjured from a Byronic ode, beautiful and slightly sinister.
She greeted Louise with a reprimand. “It was most foolish of you to run away.” She turned to the journalist with another. “And even more foolish of you to abet her. You have brought her to the very heart of danger.”
“I’m not afraid of danger,” he replied.
“Then you are certainly too young to face it.” Irene eyed Louise again. “How did you come to meet the duchess?”
“Caleb did,” Louise said. “The duchess is very fond of Americans. He proposed to interview her for his newspaper. We thought she would know those in Monte Carlo who would remember my father’s death. Sh
e was most sympathetic.”
Irene’s impatient gesture with a black-velvet-gloved hand made an amethyst and zircon bangle dispense cold fire. “Sympathy is as misleading as truth. What have you learned of your father?”
The two exchanged a glance. “Why, nothing yet, Madame,” Louise said politely. “It is too soon, for his death was long ago and hushed up.”
Irene turned to Godfrey, who was lounging against a stone balustrade with the air of a playgoer during an intermission. “What have you learned so far, Godfrey?”
“That Claude Montpensier had the honor of being among the first fatalities of the casino in eighteen seventy-three, when we were, all of us, still children. Much that we see surrounding the casino today was not yet constructed, but ill luck was firmly installed, as it always is in gaming palaces. Suicide was the hidden scandal behind Monte Carlo’s dazzling wheel of fortune. The facts in such cases—and the bodies as well—were often suppressed.
“From what little I have learned, Claude Montpensier was found at one o’clock in the morning dangling from the chandelier in an unused parlor at his hotel. His pockets were empty, hence the supposition that gaming losses caused his suicide.”
“That’s all?” Irene sounded indignant. “Empty pockets and they assume a suicide?”
“There was the rope.”
She bridled like an offended peacock. “Rope. Anyone can commit murder by providing rope and a dead man. No one saw him losing money in the casino? No one knows for sure that he died by his own hand?”
“Irene, no one took responsibility for victims of the wheel of fortune in those days; no one had foreseen the likelihood of suicide becoming as much a part of Monte Carlo as the palm trees and the sea. I have the name of a doctor who may have attended the body at that time, but he himself may also be dead.”
She turned to the young reporter. “Godfrey is a mere barrister, yet he has ferreted out more facts than a fearless correspondent, and in less time. As for truth, who is to determine it after so many years have passed?”
The Adventuress (v5) Page 16
