CHAPTER
12
The prince gave a low groan and covered his face with his hands.
“Is there any chance—” I began, but Stoker, who had bent to see for himself, shook his head. “Cyanosis is setting in. She is quite dead. Her throat has been slashed.” He did not mention the acrid odor of loosened bowels and bladder that attended death and which I had ascribed to stagnant water. That was an indignity too far for his sensibilities to remark upon.
The prince groaned again and I took his wrists in my hands, none too gently, a gross act of lèse-majesté that I did not pause to consider. “Your Royal Highness, this is not the time. We must get you quite away from here,” I told him.
He lowered his hands, blinking furiously at me. “What?”
“You must not be found here,” Stoker put in. “We have the star. For the love of Christ, let us go.”
The prince nodded slowly. “We cannot simply leave her,” he said, and I liked him better in that instant than I had yet. “She was my friend and we must see her properly attended to.”
“And we will come back to make certain that happens,” I assured him. “But Stoker is quite right, you must not be found here, particularly not in your present state,” I added with a glance at his gown.
“Of course,” he murmured. He gripped my hands suddenly. “You will come back? You will not let her remain there like, like . . .” His voice broke and I put my hand over his.
“I give you my word.”
He nodded then. “Very well. We should take the back stairs, to the mews,” he added, pointing towards the door opposite the one we had used. He held tightly to his veil, clasping it to his chest as a child will cling to a beloved blanket. Stoker tugged a little at the white linen coverlet, pulling it out just enough that it would touch the floor, shielding the sight of Madame Aurore’s dead body from view. Vespertine settled near the corpse of his mistress, his long nose resting on his forepaws, his eyes deeply sad.
“We will return soon,” I told the hound, patting him once.
“Come, quickly,” Stoker ordered. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, and in that moment, pandemonium broke loose. The door opened, slamming hard into his face. He reeled back, blood pouring from his nose as he let loose a stream of profanity so filthy he could only have learnt it from an exclusive boys’ school.
A hand, enormous and grasping, was reaching around the door, but Stoker flung himself forward, using his body weight to pin the arm into place as a howl of anguish filled the air. The arm was withdrawn just long enough for Stoker to slam the door closed, throwing the bolt.
“The other way,” he ordered, shoving us towards the sitting room. We crossed it at a dead run. I led our little band, dragging the prince as Stoker brought up the rear. I eased open the door to Madame Aurore’s rooms, expecting to see the aged porter sitting guard, but the corridor was deserted. I beckoned to the others and motioned for them to resume their masks, as I did mine. We hurried silently down the stairs. Just as my slippered foot touched the last step, I heard a cry.
“There!” A man dressed in one of the page’s costumes pointed and two more dressed exactly the same looked our way. They made directly for us, and I realized we were now in flight, from whom I had not the faintest notion. But it was imperative that we remove the prince from the vicinity as quickly as possible. I slipped my dagger from my girdle, prepared to fight our way out, if necessary, but just then the house was plunged into darkness.
“They’ve dimmed the lights early!” a giggling voice proclaimed, and there was a responding moan of pleasure.
I would have said it was a happy coincidence that the lights should have been extinguished just as we required an escape, but I do not believe in coincidence. Still, I am not one to quibble when a rescue is in order, and Stoker and I were determined to see the prince got safely away. I linked one of the prince’s arms with mine; Stoker took the other. In the pitch black of the hall, I relied upon Stoker to guide us. He had a cat’s sense for darkness, and navigated us swiftly along. Our progress was inelegant. We bumped into furniture, got ourselves tangled in draperies and tassels more than once, and tripped over a hassock that seemed to be providing support to three people engaged in languorous lovemaking. I fell into one receptive pair of arms, shoving myself free at the cost of the Templeton-Vane tiara, which toppled off as I fled. I cursed, wondering how on earth I would explain its loss to Tiberius, but we had more urgent business to attend.
We descended the stairs, twisting and turning through various rooms and corridors. I became quite disoriented until I caught a sudden whiff of chestnut and stopped, causing the prince to slam into me, protesting.
“I do say—” he began.
I prodded him to silence just as I heard a delighted voice from a few feet away. “Yes, twist it just like that, only hard.”
“Stoker, not that direction,” I muttered, shoving him away from the direction of Mr. Hilliard and his latest inamorata.
“Through the gardens,” he whispered back, tugging us forwards. We moved then in a peculiar little crocodile, Stoker in the lead, me in the rear, and the prince tucked snugly between. We crossed the ballroom, dark as it was and echoing with the occasional groan of some well-timed caress. The door to the gardens was unlocked, and we passed through quickly. The gardens themselves were chilly, illuminated only by starlight and the thinnest waning crescent of a moon surrounded by a scattering of stars, Madame Aurore’s emblems blazing out like the tiniest of diamonds on a bolt of black velvet. A faint breeze stirred the trees, making menace of their withering branches. In the summer, this would be a fair place for disporting oneself in a handy bower. Now, with autumn creeping onwards, it was full of shadows and a faint air of peril.
Stoker led on, never slackening his pace, until we reached a wall.
“What now?” I demanded.
“We climb,” he said shortly. Without waiting for a consensus, he levered himself onto the wall, fitting the toes of his boots and his fingertips into the little crevices between the crumbling bricks. In a matter of seconds he was sitting astride the top of the wall, reaching down.
“Sir?” he urged.
The prince turned back to me. “I am hardly dressed for this,” he started to protest.
“Think of it as an adventure,” I instructed. “Now, take his hands and I will boost you from behind. Or we can leave you here and you may look to save yourself.”
He gave a start—either at the notion of being discovered or the brazenness of being spoken to in such a fashion—and did as I ordered. Stoker grasped him around his long wrists and hauled him upwards. The prince scarcely had time to put his feet to the wall before Stoker had him up and over, rosy skirts billowing as he descended. I had already launched myself upwards, swinging nimbly to the top and over, dropping to the pavement below.