Her face shone with pride as she helped me into the gown, drawing it carefully over my undergarments and lacing it tightly into place.
As she finished knotting the ribbons, she paused, peering intently at my upper arm. “What is this?” she demanded.
She put a fingertip to my flesh, pointing out the small gathering of fresh scars scattered over my arm like a constellation.
“Battle scars, I am afraid,” I told her. “I was shot.”
She reared back in astonishment. “Shot? With a firearm? By whom?”
“My uncle,” I replied truthfully.
The baroness stifled a gasp of horror. “Tell me no more. But this is a noticeable flaw, Fraulein, and it will mark you as different to the princess to anyone with sharp eyes. We must have a remedy . . .” She trailed off as she went to the dressing table, rummaging through the drawers until she emerged, triumphant. She held a wide ribbon of silver satin, which she tied firmly about my upper arm, securing the ends in a bow.
She stepped back to survey the effort, frowning. “What do you think?”
“Rather dashing,” I assured her. “And who knows? If anyone does remark upon it, I may find myself in the fashion papers as an innovator.”
She did not return my smile. She merely gave a grunt and stooped to help me into my shoes, court shoes of velvet in the same shade as the gown, and presented a long velvet mantle furred with a curious silver pelt.
“The Geistenfuch,” she explained. “The ghost fox—a small silver fox that lives in the mountains. Very rare and very beautiful.”
I wondered how many of the poor little beasts had been sacrificed for the robe, but it would be the rankest hypocrisy not to acknowledge that I was glad of the warmth. She draped and pinned a wide riband of white watered taffeta across my chest, securing it with a remarkably ugly brooch of considerable age. It was set with heavy, old-fashioned stones depicting a jeweled otter rampant.
“The order of St. Otthild,” she informed me. “The otter is her badge, and this order is one of great antiquity. The lesser degrees feature the flower of St. Otthild’s wort, but of course the princess is a member of the first degree,” she said proudly.
Then she pulled on my kid gloves, thin and tight as a second-skin, buttoning them past my elbows. She clasped the bracelets of the parure over them, then positioned the mantle atop everything, handing me a matching muff of silver fox before stepping back to view her efforts.
“Will I pass muster?” I asked lightly. But I was conscious even as I uttered the words of a rather desperate desire for her approval. It suddenly seemed quite important to me that I do this well, for reasons I dared not even contemplate.
She regarded me a long time, sweeping her gaze from the tips of my evening slippers—embroidered with sequins and silver thread—to the tiara atop my crown of false hair. After an agonizing wait, she gave a slow nod. “You will do.”
And I knew that faint praise held a wealth of emotion for her. She swallowed hard as she looked at me, no doubt missing her vanished princess. It was clear the baroness had great affection for her mistress, no matter how wayward she could be. Before I could offer some comfort, she turned away, briskly.
“I must go and make my own toilette,” she told me. “You must not crease.”
“I should not dream of it,” I promised her. “I will sit here until you return.”
“Sit!” The word was nearly a shriek. “You cannot sit! You must stand. Right there. Do not move. Pretend you are a waxwork from that Madame Tussaud until I return,” she instructed.
She left me then, earrings quivering in indignation that I might be foolish enough to do anything as abjectly stupid as sit. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, suddenly acutely conscious of how very awkward it was to simply stand. I listened to the mantel clock—mercifully not an Alpenwalder goat clock—tick over the minutes, and just as the quarter hour chimed, the door from the sitting room eased open.
Stoker darted in, closing the door softly behind him. I gasped and instantly regretted it; the corset permitted no deep breaths, and I whooped with laughter as I attempted to catch my breath.
“You needn’t be rude about it,” Stoker reproached me in an injured tone.
“Forgive me,” I managed. “I did not mean to wound your pride. But . . . moustaches.”
Stoker had been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of his life, his chin freshly barbered, his nails cleaner than I had ever seen them, every trace of ink and glue removed. His hair had been clubbed back into an old-fashioned queue, and perched atop his head was a shako of dark blue trimmed with silver braid. They had found him a spare uniform, dark blue and silver, each button struck with an image of the Alpenwalder otter of St. Otthild, but it was his face that had undergone the greatest transformation. Between his nose and his lip burgeoned the most extravagant set of moustaches I had ever seen. Like those of the chancellor and Captain Durand, his had been waxed into the shape of a ram’s horns, extending out from the edge of the mouth and then curling back in a grand flourish as black as his hair, thick and dense as a shrubbery. I went to him and poked with an experimental finger.
“It looks like a hedgerow. Have you got wildlife in there? I think I spy a badger,” I said.
He grimaced, or at least I think he did. It was rather difficult to tell with the concealing layer of facial hair. “How on earth did they happen to come by such a monstrosity?” I asked him.
“Apparently they travel with contingencies,” he explained. “The moustaches are part of the uniform and in case any of the officers meet with an accident, there is always a spare to hand.”
“But why are you even in uniform?” I demanded. “Surely plain clothes would have been more discreet.”
“That is what I thought,” he told me in an aggrieved tone. “But then the chancellor happened to mention that a certain Inspector Mornaday has been tasked with the role of liaison with Special Branch.”
“Hell and damnation,” I muttered.
“I said a good deal worse when I discovered it,” he told me. Mornaday was a complication we could ill afford. Our sometime ally and occasional champion, Mornaday was unpredictable as quicksilver. He longed for promotion within the confines of Special Branch—something he had recently achieved. But there was no telling how long his goodwill might last. The fact that he harbored a tendresse for J. J. Butterworth complicated the situation. He had, once or twice to my knowledge, fed her titbits that would give her an exclusive story for the Daily Harbinger. As keen for her advancement as his own, he made certain to paint his involvement in a good light. In payment for his indiscretion, she always mentioned him in laudatory tones. It was a symbiotic relationship, that of parasite and host, I thought bitterly. It was Mornaday’s deficiencies of imagination that led him to think he was the host. I knew perfectly well he was often steered towards a story by the impetuous and deeply ambitious Miss Butterworth.