“Very well,” Stoker said in a pleasant tone. “Perhaps you would care to explain your arrangement with J. J. Butterworth.”
The hesitation was so slight, anyone watching him less intently would have missed it. But a trained butterfly hunter’s eye is acute, and I saw the brief, tiny inhalation, the almost imperceptible flare of the handsome nostrils.
The denial, when it came, was a shade too casual. “I am certain I do not know what you mean.”
I looked over my shoulder to Stoker. “Perhaps we ought to go directly to the chancellor,” I proposed. “No doubt he would be vastly interested in the duke’s intentions with regard to his princess.”
“Oh, very well,” Maximilian said, quaffing the last of his brandy and letting the glass drop to the carpeting. His expression was distinctly unhappy. He had intended to play the game by bluffing and he had lost badly. He wiped a drop of brandy from his mouth and made an effort to focus his eyes. “If you must know, I gave the girl an interview. I thought to sway public opinion in my favor. If the English, our nearest ally, finds me a worthy partner to Gisela, it might influence her to finally accept my hand in marriage.”
“You were looking to raise your prestige on an international level?” Stoker asked.
“Something like that,” Maximilian replied with a tinge of real bitterness. “I have not always been a paragon of virtue. My reputation is a trifle soiled, and there are those in the Alpenwald and abroad who have wondered if Gisela could do a little better for herself.”
“Hence seizing upon the chance to get J. J. Butterworth to write something laudatory about you,” Stoker remarked.
“Just so.” Maximilian’s grin was broad and no doubt lubricated by the brandy he had drunk. “A nice, pretty profile of a prince-to-be.” He refilled his glass and took a deep swallow.
“Indeed it was,” I agreed. “And I am very glad to hear the article was your idea. I was afraid she had extorted it from you after discovering you in the act of doing something disreputable—such as breaking and entering the Curiosity Club?”
The fact that he choked on his brandy bothered me not at all except that he managed to spit a quantity of it on the hem of my skirt. “That will leave a stain,” I informed him when he had recovered himself.
His face changed colors from puce to white and back again. “Miss Butterworth, I presume? She is the only one who could have told you. One ought never to trust the press,” he added hoarsely.
Stoker poured him a fresh drink and Maximilian sipped at it, more gingerly than he had before. But his color seemed somewhat more natural after a few minutes.
“So you admit you broke into the club?” I pressed.
“I admit nothing,” he said, his self-possession returning. “It would be my word against that of a rubbish-peddling guttersnipe.”
“A rubbish-peddling guttersnipe who also knows you arranged for the explosion last night,” Stoker put in mildly.
“And left a threatening note in Gisela’s chocolate box,” I added for good measure.
Maximilian dropped his glass and gave a deep moan, thrusting his hands into his hair as he bent double. “Mfffmmmfffmffff,” he said.
“I am afraid that was not entirely audible,” Stoker told him.
The duke raised his head; the fight had clearly gone out of him. “I did not mean to harm her—I would never harm her, you must believe that. I love Gisela.” His protests echoed J. J.’s, but that proved nothing. She might well have been parroting what he had told her, falling for his persuasions in spite of her journalistic instincts.
“Tell us,” I urged. I was conscious of Stoker fairly vibrating with satisfaction at what we had learnt so far.
The duke began to speak in a small, halting voice, very unlike his usual assured tones. “You must understand what it is like. I was born to a very minor branch of the family. I have a title, yes, but precious else. The lesser von Hochstadts have never been wealthy. We hang on the fringes of the senior branch of the family, hoping for crumbs. My parents always pushed the idea that Gisela and I should marry, and her father liked the notion of keeping everything within the family. We were thrown together constantly as children. We quarreled and made up, as children do, but we were friends, always,” he insisted. “I was sent away to school here in England and then into the army. I scarcely saw her, but whenever I did, we picked up where we had left off. We understood one another very well. We got on. It seemed logical that we should marry.” He paused, heaving a bone-weary sigh. “I am not permitted to propose to Gisela. Her rank is too far above my own. It must come from her, but the years have passed and still she does not speak. I am left on tenterhooks, never knowing when I will marry, when I will assume my responsibilities as consort.” He smiled, a small and rueful thing. “I must amuse myself as best I can, which sounds as if it ought to be a very enjoyable life, but it is not. I have no purpose, no money, and no way of earning any. I gamble because that is the only way to afford decent tailoring,” he said, plucking at the cuff of his sleeve. “I keep company with disreputable ladies because it is a way of passing the time, and I drink too much in order to forget that the woman I am meant to spend the rest of my life with does not think me worthy of her hand.”
He retrieved his glass and examined the contents, draining a few remaining drops.
“Has the princess told you as much?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. But I know she believes I am not serious enough, that I lack responsibility and proper feeling.”
I rolled my eyes heavenwards. “And your idea of how to change that is to gamble and disport yourself with disreputable people?”
He turned to Stoker. “Does she always speak so plainly?”
Stoker shrugged. “No. In fact, she is being rather polite just now. You are quite fortunate she has not told you what she really thinks.”
The duke put down his glass and laced his fingers across his flat stomach. “Very well. What do you really think?”
“I think you are entirely pathetic,” I told him serenely. “You are gifted by nature with intelligence and ability and remarkable good looks and yet you cannot be bothered to lift a finger for anyone besides yourself. You have allowed indolence and bad company to influence you to do nothing more interesting than play baccarat and wager on horses, which makes you dull in the extreme. Not only do I not blame the princess for hesitating to betroth herself to you, I applaud her for her lucky escape.”
He gaped at me, his complexion purpling once more. “No one has ever dared speak to me in such a fashion.”
“You did ask,” I reminded him. “And I am not finished. I have not even begun to express my feelings on the abject weakness of character that would cause a man to play vicious pranks upon the woman he professes to love.”