An Unexpected Peril

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “Mr. Templeton-Vane, you are right. We have asked a tremendous thing of you and your friend. And she has been a triumph. But our princess is still missing and what we must accomplish here is not at an end.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she put her hand on his arm. “Please. I beseech you. Not for myself, but for my princess. Stay here tonight. The princess may return by tomorrow morning and then we will send you on your way with gratitude, such fervent gratitude!”

  “And if she has not?” Stoker asked.

  “That is the bridge yet to be crossed,” she said.

  He looked to me, but we both realized it was a formality. Stoker could never refuse a woman in distress of any variety. To have the baroness, a noble and handsome woman, pleading with him for so small a favor was far beyond his ability to rebuff.

  “Baroness,” he began, his tone doubtful.

  She must have known she had won as soon as he failed to reject the proposal outright, but she pressed anyway. “Our suite is very comfortable,” she urged. “And it is late and you both have had a terrible shock. The explosive might have been a nasty prank, but it was still a dreadful experience and we feel responsible. We have prevailed upon you both so far beyond the bounds of good manners, I shudder to think what opinion you must hold of us. To host you here, in luxury, with the most comfortable beds and the most delicious food, to send you home well rested and well fed, it is the least we can do. But perhaps you do not want to allow us the chance to repay your kindness and to make amends for what you have already endured?”

  Stoker looked helplessly at me. He always was far too malleable where women were concerned. I gave the baroness my most gracious smile. “You are very kind, Baroness, but I think we should sleep better in our own beds. As you say, it has been a most exhausting day. We will, of course, be at your disposal should you wish us to call again,” I told her.

  She inclined her head. “Very well. Come, Fraulein. I will help you change into your own clothes.”

  The chancellor turned to Stoker.

  “Thank you for your efforts tonight, sir. You may change in the room you used earlier.”

  Stoker allowed the chancellor to lead him to the room put aside for his use while the baroness took me to the princess’s bedchamber, careful to lock the door once we were inside. The business with the bomb seemed to have unnerved her even more than I had first realized.

  “The chancellor may be quite right and you may wake up tomorrow to find her here, wondering like the Three Bears who has been sleeping in her bed,” I added with a nod towards the vast silken four-poster.

  “Just so,” she replied, but the frown did not leave her brow, and she moved mechanically through the lengthy process of disrobing and dismantling the royal creation she had made of me. Jewels were replaced in their boxes, hairpieces were combed out, garments were folded away. After some delay, Yelena appeared carrying a tray with a small teapot and earning a scolding from the countess for her tardiness. She gave the noblewoman a sullen look as she carried the gown off for sponging, banging the door behind her.

  “That girl,” the baroness fretted as she lifted the lid on the teapot, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam. “She has been harboring thoughts above her station ever since she took up with Captain Durand.”

  “I understand they mean to marry,” I ventured.

  The baroness gave me a knowing look as she poured a thin stream of liquid from the pot into a fragile china cup marked with the Alpenwalder otters. “In our country we would say you have long ears, like a hare, Fraulein, the better to hear gossip. But yes, Yelena is little better than a peasant, you understand. For her to marry a man of the captain’s station is a very great thing for her. It gives her ideas.”

  “What is wrong with ideas?” I asked gently.

  “La! You Englishwomen are all the same,” she clucked as she handed me the cup. “So modern with your bicycling machines and pamphlets on voting. Some woman shouted at me on the pavement the other day because she wanted money to stop vivisection. I told her, I do not even know what this is, but whatever it may be, ladies should not be shouting on pavements to stop it.”

  “Vivisection is the performing of operations on live animals for research,” I told her as I peered into the cup. The liquid was green in color and bits of dried petals floated on the surface.

  She pulled a face. “That does not sound very nice. Perhaps I should give her a few coins if I see her again.” She nodded towards the cup. “This is a tea made of St. Otthild’s wort,” she explained. “We drink it in the mountains for all things—to ease us when we are wakeful, to soothe us when we are sad. It is even good for women’s troubles,” she confided. “I thought it might calm your nerves after that dreadful incident at the opera. And perhaps give you a little energy as well.”

  I sipped it and felt myself beginning to relax at once. As a cream for the skin, it had smelt of roses, but the aroma of the tea was similar to our own elderflower, subtle and elusive. It was a gentle concoction, and I thanked her.

  “There is no need to drink it if you do not like the flavor,” she told me. “It is an acquired taste to some.”

  “I do like it,” I assured her.

  “Do you require anything else? Biscuits? Honey?” she asked. But I could see the signs of worry and fatigue stamped upon her features.

  “Nothing at all. I am quite revived, Baroness,” I said.

  My eyes fell then to the chocolate box containing the threat against Gisela. I took a few more sips of the tea. “On second thought, a chocolate might be nice,” I ventured.

  The baroness looked at me in surprise. “Of course, Fraulein.”

  She pressed the box upon me. “You must take it.”

  “I could not possibly,” I protested. “It is the princess’s.”

  The baroness shook her head firmly. “I insist. You have done a tremendous service for us this night. It is the least of what my princess would want you to have. You must take it or you will offer a grave insult.”

  Her expression was mulish, and I knew we had already caused them unease by refusing to accept their hospitality for the night. Besides, it was easier to take the whole box than to steal the threat.

  “That is very kind of you.”

  She helped me into my own things, which Yelena had sponged and pressed in spite of their being perfectly clean, then put out her hand.

  I regarded it with some astonishment. “You do not shake hands in the Alpenwald,” I said.

  “But you are an Englishwoman, and I must thank you the English way,” she said. I shook her hand gravely and she inclined her head, a gesture of profound respect from this proud aristocrat. I felt a quickening of some emotion—regret, perhaps?—that my time with her had been so short. She was interesting in spite of her hedgehog prickles, and I should have enjoyed getting to know her better, not least because she might have been able to shed some light on Alice Baker-Greene’s death or Gisela’s disappearance. It had been my experience that people often knew far more than they realized, and sometimes extensive conversation was required to winkle the information out of them.

  She walked me to the door of the suite, where Stoker stood ready, divested of his moustaches, gold earrings glinting from his ears. More handshakes all around, and the chancellor favored me with a formal kiss to the hand. They were subdued, as a group, no doubt because of the attack on their princess and the fact that her whereabouts were still unknown.

  Duke Maximilian was still dreadfully pale as he bowed and kissed my hand, all trace of the flirtatious seducer quite absent as he pressed my hand. “Gute Nacht, Fraulein. I hope our paths will cross again.” He gave me a tiny smile at the sight of the gold box in my hands. “I see you have a souvenir of your time with us.”

  “I do. Would you care for a rose cream before I go? A violet cream perhaps?”

  Stoker lifted the box out of my hand
s. “I am certain the duke’s tastes do not run to English sweets,” he said blandly.

  The duke’s smile turned wintry. “As you say. I have the Continental inclinations. I will wish you both farewell.”

  He stepped sharply back and we took our leave of the Alpenwalders. It had been an evening none of us would soon forget.

  CHAPTER

  15

  The doorman of the Sudbury was still on duty despite the lateness of the hour and, at the sight of a copper from Stoker, summoned the hotel’s comfortable brougham for us. I settled in against the velvet squabs, and when the door was closed upon us with the curtains drawn, we were cocooned in a dark and comfortable little nest against the frigid, frosty midnight. I ought to have been exhausted, but I found myself instead exhilarated, in an exaltation of spirits I had seldom enjoyed whilst in England. Upon my travels, I was often in the grip of strong emotion, hot upon the trail of an elusive butterfly or brought up to my highest mettle by the demands of arduous travel. Those experiences sharpened the senses and tested the resolve, resulting in a sense of vitality and purpose difficult to explain to those who choose a more sedate existence.

  But on my home soil, there were precious few occasions for such keen endeavors. The odd abduction or attempt on my life and the bouts of physical congress I enjoyed with Stoker were the only times I had felt that knife-edge of authentic experience and I reveled in the sudden thrum in my blood.

  I turned to Stoker, whose eyes gleamed catlike in the dark. He said nothing, but the growl he emitted was eloquent as any love poem. What followed has no bearing on this narrative, but I will note that the rhythmic movement of a carriage at a brisk trot is most conducive to certain pleasures, so much so that at a particularly sharp moment, Stoker was forced to cover my mouth with his hand to muffle my most forceful exclamations. The fact that in my enthusiasm I unwittingly bit his finger was something I did not discover until I had removed myself from the most suitable position—sitting astride him and using the velvet hanging straps to great effect to secure my balance—and smoothed my skirts back into place.

  Stoker had tidied his own clothing and sat with his hand wrapped in one of his enormous scarlet handkerchiefs, glowering a little.

  “Did you not enjoy yourself?” I asked in some surprise. Whilst Stoker’s preference was for a lengthy and languorous coupling accompanied by comfortable beds and extensive recitations of poetry, he could always be relied upon for applying himself with diligence and dexterity to a more vigorous interlude.

  “I did,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “Until you bit me.”

  He brandished the injured limb and I apologized prettily. “I thought you heard my groans of pain,” he went on, still sulking.

  “I did,” I explained. “But I fear I mistook them for the culmination of your pleasure. Your groans all rather sound the same.”

  “Yes, it did seem to spur you on,” he added a trifle nastily.

  “It is hardly my fault if you are inarticulate,” I pointed out. “Do attempt to clot faster, Stoker. We have arrived.”

  The carriage drew up at Bishop’s Folly, Lord Rosemorran’s estate, and we alighted. Stoker clutched the box of chocolates to his chest with his good hand and it was left to me to pay the coachman. He caught the coin I flipped with a nod. “Much obliged, madame. I do hope you enjoyed the ride,” he added with a wink as he sprang the horses from the curb.

  “Of all the cheek,” I muttered. “Did you hear the fellow?”

  But Stoker was in no mood for my imprecations against the coachman. He sulked and stormed until I settled him at my little Gothic folly, building a fire and handing over my best velvet cushion for his head before passing him a bottle of my favorite aguardiente. I left him to clean his wound himself on the grounds that I thought he was making rather a tremendous mountain of this particularly small molehill, but once I saw the depth and detail of the bite, I was assailed by guilt. His left index finger was marked by the perfect imprint of my teeth, the flesh scored nearly to the bone and still bleeding freely.

  “I am sorry,” I told him in true contrition as I bound the finger in a clean handkerchief. “I do not know what came over me.”

  “I do,” he said, sipping thoughtfully at the liqueur. “You are bored.”

  “With you!” I cried. “You cannot think so. You must not.”

  “I don’t, as it happens,” he said dryly. “Your enthusiasm for my person is both comprehensive and much appreciated. But there is something in this fog-shrouded island that dulls the senses.”

  “You feel it also?”

  He gave me a searching look. “Why do you think I rejected everything about the life to which I was bred? I ran away from my father’s home when I was little more than a child in search of—I do not know what. Adventure, I suppose. That part of myself that I chased but could never seem to find. I was suffocated in that house, listening to my parents’ quarrels and wondering if the whole of my life was meant to be nothing but a repetition of theirs. It was as though they never really lived. That house was merely a stage set and their lives were theatrical parts played upon it. The angry aristocrat, the long-suffering wife. The servants looking on. And every day the same thing—tea with scones and silences. Hatred for dinner, resentment at luncheon. I wanted nothing more than to breathe, to feel something other than that oppression.”

  I said nothing and he went on, his voice a little dreamy from the aftereffects of our vigorous activities and the aguardiente.

  “And so I left, searching out experiences, both good and bad. And God knows I have found them. The bad were the bombardment in Alexandria, the Amazonian expedition. Marrying Caroline. And the good were the friends I found, the kindred spirits I have met along my travels and who have known me as one of them.”

  A sudden dart of fear lanced my heart. It thudded awkwardly in my chest. “I would hope that I am counted among the good that has happened to you,” I said, summoning a smile.

  He did not return it. He leant forward a little and cupped my chin in the breadth of his palm. “You are not.”

  The thud in my chest became a hammering, slow and painful on the ribs. “Oh.”

  He went on. “You are not among the good that has happened to me. You are the best of all that I have known. You are what I searched for when I left that house and wandered this earth, boy and man. You are the part of myself I never thought to find because I did not even dare to dream you existed. You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you.”

  I was silent a long moment, but the tears upon my cheeks said everything I could not.

  “Well,” I said finally, wiping my cheeks upon my sleeve, “it was not Keats, but I suppose as declarations go, it is sufficient.”

  He smiled, a smile of such infinite tenderness that my throat tightened to speechlessness.

  “I understand you, Veronica, because I am you. I know that England is too small and too safe to contain you because it confines me as well. Do you think a day does not pass that I do not long to be aboard a ship, salt spray in my face and sails snapping in the wind, bound for the other side of the world? We have known such liberty, such wideness of experience that most can only imagine. And we will know such things again,” he promised. “But I should reconcile myself to the fact that whilst we are here, we must take our adventures where we can.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  His hand still gripped my chin and he bent his head to press his brow to my own.

  “I mean that you ought to change out of your skirts and into a pair of trousers. Because we are going to break into the Curiosity Club. Tonight.”

  I blinked in astonishment. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Serious as a parson in a pulpit.” He kissed me soundly upon the mouth and sat back, draining the last of his aguardiente. “Go on, th
en. It grows late and we have work to do.”

  I hurried to the corner where a chest of drawers and series of pegs had been arranged to hold my wardrobe. A modest screen shielded the corner and, although I had few secrets from Stoker, I stepped behind it, stripping off garments in haste.

  “Explain,” I ordered as I shook out the suit of clothes I had ordered for butterflying. At first glance, it seemed much like an ordinary town suit—a narrow skirt and fitted jacket of becoming and serviceable cut. But upon closer inspection, it was easy to see the fabric was costly and durable thin tweed and the skirt was layered over a pair of very slim matching trousers which tucked into flat boots that laced to the knee. I buttoned and laced and tucked whilst Stoker talked.

  “Amongst Alice Baker-Greene’s possessions is a notebook, her climbing journal,” he said. “I think we need to steal it.”

  I poked my head around the screen. “How did you learn about the journal?” I demanded. “I know I showed it to you the day we met the princess, but how do you know its significance?”

  “Captain Durand,” he said in obvious satisfaction. “We had a most illuminating discussion whilst he was helping me with my moustaches. Apparently, Alice kept detailed records of her expeditions—including companions. If she meant to climb with someone that morning, she might have made note of it and it may well lead us to the moustachioed man on the mountain. Besides which, it is a notable coincidence that the princess has disappeared just after we discovered that Alice Baker-Greene was likely murdered and I do not like coincidences. Alice apparently wrote at length about the people where she traveled. She may well have recorded something which could lead us to the princess as well.”

  I emerged from the screen, pulling on a heavy cloak. “That was my discovery,” I told him in some irritation. “I was meant to persuade you that we needed to see the ledger.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps I am better at this investigative business than you are,” he said lightly.