“What will you tell them?”
Her thin smile was once more in evidence. “That is the advantage of being an empress, my dear. I do not have to tell them anything at all.”
She turned to the looking glass and straightened the peak of her widow’s cap. “I shall never be reconciled to this,” she said with a dour look at it. “Black does not suit me.”
She gave me a last look over her shoulder. “Thank you, Veronica.”
“You are welcome, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Her smile was gentle. “My nieces and nephews all call me Aunt Vicky.”
She left me then, my aunt Vicky, the Dowager Empress of Germany. I took a breath, as deep as I could with the tight lacing of the corset, steadying myself against the washbasin.
Before I could gather my thoughts, the door opened once more and J. J. Butterworth slipped inside. “You look like something the cat sicked up,” she told me cheerfully.
“What an enchanting person you are,” I replied.
She grinned, unrepentant. “Do not wait for me when you leave tonight,” she instructed.
I blinked at her. “You mean to remain behind? At Windsor Castle?”
She shrugged. “I have a story to chase.”
“This was your plan in coming all along, was it not? You used us to gain entrée to the castle because they would never permit a journalist inside if they knew who you were. What now? Rifling through the queen’s wastepaper basket?”
Her smile would have suited a cream-filled cat. “Something like that. Do not spare a thought for me, Veronica. I will have what I came for. And I promise not to involve you,” she added with an exasperated sigh. “I know you were about to ask.”
I flapped a hand. “I do not care. Just go.”
She left in a whirl of aprons and indignation, but I scarcely noticed. She was hardly likely to burn the place down around everyone’s ears and I almost did not care if she did. Rage simmered within me, coupled with some other, more painful emotion that threatened to flay me alive. I was in Windsor Castle, wearing a fortune in jewels, with my father a short distance away.
The room was suddenly stifling. Gathering my skirts in my hands, I rushed out, down the tiny staircase, and past the door I had entered. I was in a different part of the castle, and I passed through rooms I had not seen. One had walls bristling with weapons of every description, pikes and swords arranged in patterns, while another sported a gallery of paintings of men who had been instrumental in Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo. No one stopped me or stood in my way as I fled. I hastened from one vast chamber to another until I came at last to the vestibule where we had entered. The guards stood at attention as I passed, fleeing down the crimson carpeted stairs like Cinderella as the clock struck midnight.
CHAPTER
26
Upon our return to the Sudbury, Stoker and I hastened to change back into our own clothing. It required the utmost ingenuity to divest myself of the jewels and hairpieces and garments without help, but I was almost frantic in my haste to rid myself of Gisela’s things. I had had enough of playing at being a princess, I decided grimly.
As I dressed, the familiar tweed felt like armor, bracing me against an uncertain world. It was as much a part of me as my own skin, and I understood only then how much wearing Gisela’s clothes and jewels had affected me. I had not been entirely myself dressed as I had been in the trappings of royalty. Now I was Veronica Speedwell once more, and as I finished buttoning my jacket and shot my cuffs, I felt invigorated as I had not since we had begun this endeavor.
I had related to Stoker my exchanges with Aunt Vicky and J. J. as well as the information that Yelena was a blackmailer. We did not speak of my father; some things were too near the bone for casual discussion, and I was not ready to think about the opportunity I had let pass me by. Stoker came to collect me just as I finished, having concluded his own struggles with the false moustaches.
“I think the bloody things took off half my skin,” he complained.
“Never mind that now,” I told him. “We will have only a little time to search. I managed Gisela’s bedchamber earlier but found nothing.”
“I did the same for Durand’s room just now,” he said.
“Did what for Durand’s room?” I could just make out the large form of the captain silhouetted in the doorway.
“May I help you, Captain?” Stoker inquired politely.
“Where are the others?” he demanded.
“Still at Windsor,” I informed him. “Where you ought to be. The chancellor was most put out that you could not be found. Where is Yelena?”
Durand’s eyes were limned red with the signs of unshed tears, and a small muscle jumped unsteadily at his jaw. “I do not know.”
“She is not with you?” Stoker asked narrowly.
“If she were, would I ever have forsaken my duty?” He was clearly aghast at the very idea of such a thing. “I stayed behind to look for her.”
“Is that not a dereliction of duty?” I inquired.
“I do not care,” he said, thumping his chest with one fist. “What does it matter if my heart is gone from me?”
I sighed. Durand was clearly as big a romantic as Stoker. “You read poetry, don’t you?” I asked.
He blinked at me. “Yes. I write it also.”
“Of course you do,” I murmured.
Stoker shot me a villainous look. “Veronica, contain your worse impulses. The captain is clearly distraught.”
Durand blinked. “What is this word?”
“‘Distraught’? It means upset. Deeply upset,” Stoker told him.
The captain nodded slowly. “Upset. Yes, this is true. My Yelena is gone.”
His face crumpled and for one terrible moment I thought he was going to weep, and I had had quite enough of crying men for one day.
I spoke to him in a brisk tone, calculated to stiffen his mettle. “Come now, Captain. It cannot be as bad as all that.”
He fixed me with an imploring look. “I know you find things,” he said. “I have heard the baroness and the chancellor speak of it.”
“We do have some experience,” I said with a modest gesture.
“Then you will find my Yelena. Please.”
I sighed and looked at the clock. Time was getting on and this might easily be our only opportunity to search for any clues to where the princess had gone or who had been responsible for Alice’s murder. “The baroness said she received a note and went out, quite suddenly.”