The duke shrugged. “She said only that she had something she must do and that I would have to trust her. And she promised to announce the betrothal upon her return.”
“A carrot to secure the donkey’s cooperation,” I said blandly.
The duke raised his glass and made a braying noise. He was noticeably more intoxicated than he had been, and I wondered if inebriation might loosen his tongue.
“Did it ever occur to you,” I put it to him pleasantly, “that your villainous little friend from Deauville might have followed you and seized the opportunity to abduct Gisela to hold her for ransom?”
A look of horror came over him and he drank off the last drops of his brandy in a single swallow. “No, that cannot be.”
“Unlikely, I grant you. But possible. Miss Butterworth followed you that night. Why not this fellow? He must have kept rather a close eye upon you during your time in London?”
He licked his lips, his tongue brushing the hairs of his moustaches, which had gone limp from the dousings of brandy. “He owns a flat in Belgravia. I stayed there when I first arrived. He likes to know where I am, at least until the money is paid back. He might, that is to say, I don’t know, but I suppose he might have followed us. Oh, Gisela,” he said, falling to muttering something in impenetrable German.
Stoker elaborated on my theory. “Or Gisela mayn’t have left of her own volition at all. We know she entered the station in your company. What if you delivered her to this man on his instructions?”
“I would never!” the duke cried in outrage.
“But you might have,” Stoker persisted. “You could have taken her to the club on the pretext of retrieving the rope, pretending to help her, only to hand her over to this fellow. He may be preparing a ransom note as we speak, ready to take his money from the Alpenwalder treasury if he cannot get it from your pocket.”
“That is monstrous,” Maximilian said.
“Not as monstrous as the fact that if anything were to happen to her, you would be the Hereditary Prince of the Alpenwald, in your own right,” I suggested. “In fact, what if that was your plan all along? Hand Gisela over and let this miscreant demand money for her, then kill her, eliminating all of your problems at one stroke. Excellent thinking, Stoker.”
The duke surged out of his chair. “Enough!” he said, flinging his glass into the mantel looking glass and shattering both. “Gisela is not a problem for me to solve. I am in love with her!” Brandy dripped from the shards on the mantelpiece, dropping softly to the carpet. For a long moment, it was the only sound in the room apart from the duke’s heavy breathing.
As quickly as the rage had come, it left him. His shoulders sagged and his face crumpled as he sank to his knees and buried his face in the chair cushion. He let out a low, mournful noise, rather like a very sad bull elephant, and I looked at Stoker. “What is he doing?”
Stoker bent to peer at the duke. “I think he is weeping.”
“Well, that is awkward,” I murmured. I knelt next to the duke and patted his back.
“There, there,” I said in my best soothing voice. “We do not really think you want Gisela dead.”
Stoker mouthed over the duke’s head at me. “Yes, we do.”
I pulled a face at him as the duke continued to weep loudly. He turned to me and lay his head on my shoulder, clutching me as his shoulders heaved and his tears soaked my gown. “Now, Maximilian, pull yourself together. Do try,” I urged.
“Let him cry,” Stoker suggested. “He might feel a good deal better if he gives vent to his emotions.”
I put out my tongue at him. It was very well for him to encourage such a thing. He did not have the duke’s not inconsiderable weight bearing down on him. My arms were beginning to cramp, but Maximilian was undeterred. He wept on, great heaving sobs, and in between he talked, or at least tried, the words choked out in gulps. There was a good deal of remorse and far too much self-pity for my taste, but he did seem genuinely sorrowful for the poor decisions he had made.
After a good quarter of an hour’s sobbing, he began to subside to sniffles and moans, and eventually he pulled away, mopping his face on the large scarlet handkerchief Stoker provided for him.
“Thank you,” he said, blowing his nose lavishly into the handkerchief.
Stoker turned to me as the clock chimed. “You might as well go and let the baroness get you into harness.”
“What will you do?”
“I am going to help His Grace get sober,” he said, baring his teeth in a smile.
“Good.” I did not envy Maximilian. Stoker’s ministrations, while highly skilled, were occasionally none too gentle. I turned to the duke. “A word of wisdom, Maximilian? Do not fight whatever Stoker does to you. It will go easier on you if you do not.”
He groaned as I closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER
22
Before I was dressed, the baroness sent down to the kitchens for food and I recognized the handiwork of Julien d’Orlande as soon as it appeared. Not content with his usual elegance, he had truly outdone himself for the repast of a princess. There was a selection of tiny sandwiches and cakes, each decorated more lavishly than the last. Tarts filled with frangipane and hothouse fruits were glazed to glistening perfection while icing sugar dusted the snowy peaks of miniature mountain-shaped cakes of vanilla sponge. I gazed at the vast assortment of food, from the shimmering spun-sugar nest with its clutch of gilded chocolate eggs topped with a marzipan peacock to the pile of narrowly cut roast beef sandwiches cunningly stacked to look like a mountain. Little sprigs of watercress had been tucked in between to give the impression of alpine plants clinging to the mountainside. In pride of place, an enormous wheel of fragrant, almost pungent cheese rested in a nest of grape leaves and tiny savory biscuits.
“Our famous Alpenwalder cheese,” the baroness told me. “It is most delicious with a glass of wine or toasted onto bread.”
I surveyed the groaning trays as Guimauve, stretched on the bed, lifted his head to sniff at the various enticing aromas.
“Is it always like this?” I asked the baroness as Yelena presented me with a delicate china cup filled with clear chicken consommé. I sniffed appreciatively at the steam.
The baroness smiled. “Of course. People like to demonstrate their gifts and it is natural to do so for royalty.”
“Quite a way to live,” I mused, sipping at the soup. A single dumpling floated on the surface. I scooped it up and took a bite. It was full of minced chicken and some flavorsome herb—tarragon, perhaps? It was one of the most delectable things I had ever eaten, but I could scarcely force it past the corset.