An Unexpected Peril

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  The general spent the rest of the meal nursing his cup of tea and shuddering every time he looked at food. It was not the kindest method of handling the situation, I reflected, but it had always proven mightily effective. I glanced down the table to see Stoker still deeply engaged in conversation with Madame de Letellier. She laughed at something he said, exchanging his empty plate of pudding for her full one, and he attacked it with gusto. I gestured for the footman to fill my glass once more with the muscat the general had declined.

  “But only halfway,” I instructed. After the lavish amount of champagne I had consumed the previous night, I intended to keep a clear head about me for the signing of the treaty.

  When the last of the plates had been cleared, Rupert rose from his seat. “Your Serene Highness, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen,” he said. “We have been invited to take our champagne in the lantern room.”

  Stoker sidled up behind me. “Did you have a nice dinner with Rupert?” he asked, grinning.

  “I think your brother is rather put out with us,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “Nothing that has not happened before.”

  I nodded towards his dinner companion, Madame de Letellier. “Your partner is very pretty.”

  His mouth twitched. “Enchantingly so. But she did not spend the meal leering into my gown. The general seems entirely taken with you.”

  “Oh, he is. We mean to marry in the spring. We shall name our first child after you if it is a boy. Or a girl. Revelstokia.”

  He gave a snort of suppressed laughter behind his gloved hand. There was something utterly delicious about sharing a jest with him, a secret laugh that no one else in that company could understand.

  “Your Serene Highness,” the chancellor’s low voice interrupted my reverie. He gave me a tight smile. “You are doing very well,” he said, lowering his voice. “Not much longer.”

  We entered the lantern room. Above swung the lamp for which the chamber was named, an enormous lantern that cast a warm glow over the octagonal room. Across the expanse of thick carpet, a table had been laid with a white cloth, and enormous silver champagne coolers had been filled with ice. Dark green bottles were nestled in the snowy piles, rivulets of water running down the golden labels. Behind the table, footmen were discreetly opening bottles and filling coupes.

  Standing in front of the table was a diminutive figure dressed all in black. For a moment, my heart stilled in fear at the notion that it might be my grandmother. But this woman was too slender; although her figure was lushly plump, it had not yet achieved the dumpling roundness of the queen’s. Her face bore traces of grief, marking a visage that had never been pretty but might once have been handsome. It was a purposeful face, full of character, with a stubborn chin and a level blue gaze. Her gown was the latest Paris fashion rendered in stark black silk and heavily embroidered in jet which clacked when she moved. Dark hair, threaded with silver, had been pinned tightly back beneath a widow’s peaked cap. A long black veil hung to her ankles, and at her neck a brooch of enormous diamonds shimmered and shattered the light.

  She held up her hands, more diamonds glittering as she moved. “Welcome, friends,” she said in English accented by an edge of German. “Welcome to Windsor Castle, where we take our first steps towards a lasting peace.”

  She came towards me, hands outstretched. I recovered myself just in time to make her a low curtsy. “Your Serene Highness,” she said, taking my hands in hers and lifting me.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” I returned in a low voice.

  She looked at me a long moment, studying me. Then her face wreathed in smiles. “We will not stand on ceremony, Gisela,” she said, wrapping her arms about me. “Give me a kiss, child.”

  There was no response to make except to return her embrace. I had recognized her at once from her photographs, of course. This was Her Imperial Majesty, the Dowager Empress of Germany, Princess Royal of Great Britain.

  And my aunt Vicky.

  CHAPTER

  25

  The next several minutes were occupied with the handing out of champagne glasses and the greeting of the other dignitaries. Toasts were proposed and drunk, and through it all, I felt nothing but a blank calm I could not escape. I said the proper things and made the proper gestures, and yet I wanted only to run.

  The chancellor crept close to me at one point. “You said she was at Sandringham,” I hissed at him through smiling teeth.

  He glanced at me in surprise. “It was thought so, but she clearly wishes to celebrate her achievement in bringing this about. Do not distress yourself, my dear. You are doing perfectly well.”

  He moved away and I realized he did not—could not possibly—understand the true source of my distress. He did not know of my relationship with the royal family. But Stoker and Rupert did, and between them, they managed to keep close to me, one or the other always near at hand should I have need of them.

  The toasts were finished when the empress rang a little bell. A footman appeared with a leather folio, presenting it to her with a flourish. Another small table had been draped with a cloth and atop this were three pens, each resting in a narrow tray of mother-of-pearl.

  The empress opened the portfolio and produced the copies of the treaty. It was a single page, shorter than I expected, but beautifully rendered with elegant copperplate and flourishes. At the top, it read Treaty of Windsor Castle, January 1889. A moment of history, I thought as I gripped the pen tightly in my gloved hand.

  The general, entirely revived by the excellence of the champagne, beamed at me. He bent and scrawled his signature on the first copy as I put the pen to mine. I glanced at the chancellor, who gave an almost imperceptible nod of the head.

  Gisela Frederica Victoria Helena. I had practiced the princess’s signature until my fingers cramped, and the result was a triumph. There was a little stutter on the “G,” a hesitation as I held the pen poised over the paper, ready to commit forgery on an international and most likely felonious scale. But then I had taken a deep breath and pressed on, gaining confidence with each letter.

  As I signed, the general applied his own signature to his copy, a trifle unsteadily, shaking his head once or twice to clear the cobwebs, no doubt.

  It was done. We exchanged copies and countersigned, then Rupert stepped forward to put his name as witness to the treaty. The general straightened and saluted me, wobbling only slightly. “I am your servant, Your Serene Highness. It is my ardent hope that the bonds of our friendship will never be tested by the ambitions of the kaiser, but if they are, you may rest assured that the Alpenwald will never know a truer ally than France.”

  He took a deep breath, summoning his composure, and bowed deeply, executing a perfect curtsy in my direction.

  “Thank you, General,” I said gravely. “The Alpenwald is grateful for the friendship of France.”

  Everyone applauded then and fresh champagne was poured. As the glasses were passed, the door opened and a plump gentleman in elegant evening dress entered. He glanced around the room.

  “Have I missed the party, then?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.

  I gripped the pen in my hand so tightly I heard it crack.

  A footman stepped forward, blushing for his tardiness at not announcing the newcomer as soon as he arrived.

  “His Royal Highness,” the footman proclaimed. “The Prince of Wales.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I had seen my father only twice before and both times in passing. He advanced, smiling broadly and gesturing for a glass of champagne. I could not move or speak, but stood, staring at him in mute . . . what? Horror? Longing? Resentment? There were no words for what I felt in that moment. I was unmoored, as adrift as I had ever been in my life, and a roaring sound rose in my ears, shutting out the sudden burst of excited conversation at the prince’s appearance in the room.

  Su
ddenly, my arm was gripped hard just above the elbow. “Oh dear,” said the empress coolly. “You seem to have spilt ink on your glove.”

  I glanced down to the ruined pen still clutched in my nerveless fingers. I opened my palm to find pieces of it sitting in a pool of ebony ink on the ruined kidskin. “Come,” the empress ordered, steering me by the arm. “We must wash your hands.”

  She guided me to the corner behind the champagne table, in the opposite direction from the prince. The baroness started forward to help, but the empress waved her off with an imperious gesture. I attempted to give the baroness a reassuring smile, but my mouth would not curve. I forced myself to walk calmly with the empress. In the corner there was only paneled wall, but she depressed a bit of molding and a hidden door sprang open. She led me through, closing it behind us. We were in a narrow corridor, a hushed passageway, thickly carpeted and leading deeper into the castle.

  She did not speak as she moved, never hurrying but somehow covering the distance swiftly as she led me down the passage and through another concealed door. We passed through a small octagonal dining room and into another corridor, up a small staircase, and finally into a lavatory tiled in plain white and green and surprisingly plain for all its modern conveniences. She closed the door firmly behind us, locking it.

  She turned, folding her hands together over the key. “Now, why don’t you tell me who you are and what you have done with Gisela?”

  Her eyes, brightly blue and slightly protuberant, were watchful. She came only to my chin, but a royal upbringing and lifetime spent in the strictest courts of Europe had honed her imperiousness to a fine edge. I did not bother to lie. I would not have known how to begin.

  “How did you know? I thought I was doing rather a good job of it.”

  She did not smile, but the tightness of her lips eased. “I met Gisela last year at the baths at Friedrichsbad, where we both went to take the waters. We got to know one another quite well.”

  “The chancellor said you had never met!”

  “The chancellor knows only what Gisela wishes him to know,” she said with a knowing smile. “I presume he put you up to this. He of all people would know his princess from an imposter.”

  “It was the chancellor’s idea,” I admitted.

  “How much is he paying you?”

  “Not a shilling,” I told her.

  She raised an imperial brow. “Then why are you doing this?”

  “For the sake of the treaty,” I said.

  She regarded me a long moment, then shook her head. “You are a most remarkable person, Miss—” She gave me an expectant look.

  “Speedwell,” I supplied.

  I had not expected her to know the name, but her eyes went wide. “Not Veronica Speedwell? Bertie’s girl?”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Of course,” she told me. “I was newly married when all the business with your parents happened.” She waved a hand as if to brush aside the unpleasantness of my parents’ marriage, my father’s abandonment, and my mother’s subsequent suicide. “Bertie—His Royal Highness,” she corrected swiftly, “and I have always been close. He wrote to me often in Berlin. I helped him with his troubles.”

  I did not much care for being characterized as one of his “troubles,” but there seemed little point in quibbling with her over the matter.

  She tipped her head, her gaze bright as a bird’s as she looked me over. “You are very like Gisela. The resemblance is remarkable, in fact. But these things happen in families and you both do share a connection some generations back. Little wonder the chancellor thought to make use of you. But how did he come to meet you?”

  “I was introduced to the princess a few days ago. The Baroness von Wallenberg noted the resemblance and when the princess went missing, she suggested the impersonation to the chancellor.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Gisela is missing?”

  “Not precisely. She seems to have left of her own accord and means to return in due course. It is just that no one is certain of where she is.”

  “So she is missing,” she replied tartly. “And Scotland Yard know nothing of this?”

  “The chancellor thought it best not to tell them. He was afraid that the princess’s absence might signal disrespect to the French and the treaty might never be signed.”

  She considered this a moment, then nodded. “He was right to worry. General de Letellier is a touchy sort of man. Very conscious of French dignity and easily offended. But how on earth did the chancellor think he could get away with this ridiculous charade?”

  “But he has,” I pointed out. “You are the only one who has detected the masquerade. The French have signed the treaty. The chancellor has a secret document giving authority to me to sign on behalf of the princess. I am dubious of the legality of the thing—no doubt I have broken a dozen international laws—but the chancellor does not seem terribly worried about the prospect.”

  She shrugged. “The Alpenwalders are acting in good faith inasmuch as they are committed to aiding the French against my son.” Her mouth twisted a little on the last word. How thankless to be the mother of such a child! She seemed to intuit my thoughts, for she gave me a thin smile. “You have never met your cousin, the kaiser. Be grateful, child.”

  There was no tactful answer to this, so I did not attempt one.

  “Do you mean to unmask me?” I asked with more bravado than I felt.

  Her response was oblique. “Do you know why I wanted this treaty, Miss Speedwell? Not simply to thwart my son. It was my husband’s great ambition to bring Germany into the modern age, no more looking fondly backwards to the military parades and battlefield glories. He was a good man, the Emperor Friedrich. His father wanted nothing to do with his liberality, with his desire to bind Germany to the rest of Europe. My Friedrich waited all of his life to ascend the throne and remake his fatherland. By the time he became emperor, he was dying.”

  There was no bitterness in her words, only resignation to the cruelties of fate. “My poor Fritz was emperor for three months. For the whole of his short reign, they ignored him, those ministers and generals and Bismarck,” she said, fairly spitting the name. “They took one look at a dying man and knew his grip was too weak to hold power. They passed him over and went directly to the son, praising him and promising to make his wildest dreams of German domination come true. This was the great mistake, you know. They think they can control him, can use him for their own ends. But no one can control my son, and they will learn this too late. My only hope is that it will not be too late for the rest of the world.”

  She paused, fixing me with that austere blue stare. “You are really doing this for the sake of the treaty?”

  “I am.”

  Silence stretched between us, brittle, until she gave a sigh. “Well, I have worked a year to bring it about. I am hardly going to take a hammer to it with my own hands, am I?” she asked. Something within me, taut and painful, eased when she said those words.

  She inclined her head to my stained glove. “Take that off. Carefully. You don’t want to spot Gisela’s gown.”

  I peeled away the soiled glove as well as its spotless mate. I washed my hands carefully to remove all traces of the ink, taking my time. The soap was good plain stuff, smelling faintly of lavender. There would be no cakes of finely milled French soap here, I reflected. Only good, honest English soap scented with lavender.

  “The lavender is grown in the fields around Sandringham, in Norfolk,” she told me as she played handmaiden, holding out a towel for me to dry my hands. “It is his favorite house. Have you met him?”

  She did not say my father’s name. She did not have to. “Never.”

  “Would you like to? Properly, I mean. And privately. It could be arranged. After all, I suppose I owe you something for what you have done tonight.”

  I thought of that sharp twist of lon
ging I had felt when I looked at him. Was it the call of blood to blood? Or was it simply the childish wish to be recognized, to be owned by one’s begetter? I imagined that brilliant winsome smile turned upon me as I basked in its warmth, the kindly eyes crinkling as he looked at me.

  “No,” I told her.

  The empress gave me a long look. “Are you certain?”

  I nodded, the jewels in my tiara clattering.

  She touched one. “I never cared for tiaras with the gems en tremblant. Terribly noisy, I always think.”

  Impulsively, I put out a hand, laying it gently on her sleeve. “Please, ma’am. I do not want to meet him at all. Not like this.”

  She considered me a long moment. “Very well. Give me ten minutes. I will make your excuses and say you are unwell. Your carriages and entourage will be waiting for you out front.”

  I thought of the suite at the Sudbury, yet to be searched. “If you please, can you keep the others here as long as possible? I need only one carriage and the black-haired gentleman with the eye patch.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Is this to do with Gisela’s disappearance?”

  “In part. And another matter.”

  “As you wish. Ten minutes. Find your way to the front of the castle and I will have the fellow meet you there. I will keep the others as long as I can.”

  “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.”