by Juliana Gray
“Yes, sir. And a dog.” The valet made his disapproval of the dog apparent without the smallest change of voice.
“A corgi, I believe. And the ladies: two fair and one auburn?”
“Yes, sir.”
Olympia sat up and heaved a sigh. “I’ve been expecting them.”
Eight minutes later, in a yellow dressing gown rioting with British lions, with his whitening hair neatly brushed and his chin miraculously shaved, the Duke of Olympia opened the door to his private study in a soundless whisper.
“Good morning, my dears,” he said cordially.
The three ladies jumped in their three chairs. The corgi launched himself into the air and landed, legs splayed, atop the priceless Axminster rug, on which he promptly disgraced himself.
“I beg your pardon,” Olympia said. “Don’t rise, I implore you.”
The three ladies dropped back into the chairs, except the auburn-haired youngest, who scooped up the dog with a reproving whisper.
“Your Grace,” said the eldest, “I apologize most abjectly for the irregularity of our arrival. I hope we have not put out your household. We meant not to disturb you until morning . . .”
“Except that wretched new butler of yours, Ormsby or whatever the devil his name was . . .” burst out the youngest.
“Stefanie, my dear!” exclaimed the eldest.
Olympia smiled and shut the door behind him with a soft click. He stepped toward the center of the room and stopped before the first chair. “Luisa, dear child. How well you look, in spite of everything.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “A very great pleasure to see you again, Your Highness, after so many years.”
“Oh, Uncle.” A blush spread across Luisa’s pale cheeks, and her hollow blue-eyed gaze seemed to fill a trifle. “You’re terribly kind.”
“And Stefanie, my dear scamp. Do you know, I recently met another young lady who reminded me very much of you. It made my old heart ache, I assure you.” Olympia reached for Stefanie’s hand, but she instead sprang from her chair and threw her arms around him.
“Uncle Duke, how perfectly sporting of you to take us in! I knew you would. You always were such a trump.”
Stefanie’s arms were young and strong about his waist, and he patted her back with gentle hands and laughed. “You always were the most reckless girl in that damned cow pasture of a principality you call home.”
“Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof is not a cow pasture, Uncle Duke!” Stefanie pulled back and slapped his arm. “It’s the most charming principality in Germany. Herr von Bismarck himself pronounced it magnificent. And dear Vicky . . .”
“Yes, of course, my dear. I was only teasing. Quite charming, I’m sure.” Olympia suppressed a shudder. Bucolic landscapes made his belly twitch, or perhaps it was the rather charmless thought of dear Vicky, Kaiserin of Germany and his own sovereign’s eldest daughter. He turned to the final princess of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, the middle child, quietly soothing the corgi, who was yapping and whining by turns. “And Emilie,” he said.
Emilie looked up and smiled at him behind her spectacles. “Uncle.” She placed the corgi on the rug and rose.
How old was the girl now? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? But her eyes looked older, round and owlish, improbably ancient amid the clear skin and delicate bones of her face. Her hair gleamed golden in the light from the single electric lamp on Olympia’s desk. The other two were handsome girls, constructed on regal lines that showed well in photographs, but Emilie’s beauty was more subtle. It ducked and hid behind her spectacles and her retiring nature. A scholar, Emilie: She could parse her Latin and Greek better than Olympia himself. A strain of genius ran through the family blood, and Emilie had caught it in full.
“My dear girl.” Olympia caught her hands and kissed her cheek. “How are you?”
“I am well, Uncle.” She spoke quietly, but there were tears in her voice.
“Sit down, all of you. I have ordered tea. You must be exhausted.” He motioned to the chairs and propped himself on the corner of his desk. “Did you make the crossing last night?”
“Yes, after sunset,” said Stefanie. “I was sick twice.”
“Really, Stefanie.” Luisa was sharp.
“It was the licorice,” said Stefanie, sitting back in her chair and looking at the gilded ceiling. “I never could resist licorice, and that little boy at the quayside . . .”
“Yes, quite,” said Olympia. “And your attendants?”
“Oh, they were quite all right. Sturdy stomachs, you know.”
Olympia coughed. “I mean, who are they? Can they be trusted?”
“Yes, of course.” Luisa shot a reproving look—not the first—at Stefanie. “Our governess, who as you know has been with us a thousand years, and Papa’s”—her voice quivered slightly—“Papa’s valet, Hans.”
“Yes, I remember Hans,” said Olympia. He focused his mind on the memory: a burly fellow, not the most delicate hand with a neckcloth, but his eyes burned with loyalty to his master, whom he had served since before the Prince’s marriage to Olympia’s youngest sister. “I remember Miss Dingleby, as well. It was I who sent her to your mother, when Luisa was ready for schooling. I am relieved to hear she has escaped safely with you.”
“So you have heard the tale.” Luisa looked down at her hands, tangled tightly in her lap.
“Yes, my dear,” Olympia said, in his kindest voice. “I am very sorry.”
“Of course he’s heard,” said Emilie, in an expectedly brisk voice. Her eyes, fixed on Olympia’s face, gleamed sharply behind her spectacles. “Our uncle knows about all these things, often before the rest of the world. Isn’t that so, Uncle?”
Olympia spread his broad hands before them. “I am a private man. I simply hear things, from time to time . . .”
“Nonsense,” said Emilie. “You were expecting us. Tell us what you know, Uncle. I should like, for once, to hear the entire story. When one’s trapped in the middle of things, you see, it’s all rather muddled.” She looked at him steadily, with those wise eyes, and Olympia, whose innards were not easily unsettled except by bucolic landscapes, knew a distinct flip-flop in the region of his liver.
“Emilie, such impertinence,” Luisa said.
Olympia straightened. “No, my dear. In this case, Emilie is quite right. I have taken it upon myself to make an inquiry or two, in hemi-demi-semi-official channels, about your case. After all, you are family.”
The last word echoed heavily in the room, calling up the image of the girls’ mother, Olympia’s sister, who had died a decade ago as she labored to bring the long-awaited male heir of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof into the world. The baby, two months early, had died a day later, and though Prince Rudolf had married twice more, applying himself with nightly perseverance to his duty, no coveted boys had materialized. Only the three young ladies remained: Princess Stefanie, Princess Emilie, and—bowing at last to the inevitable four months ago—Crown Princess Luisa, the acknowledged heir to the throne of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof.
But their mother still hovered, like a ghost in the room. Olympia’s favorite sister, though he would never have admitted it. His own dear Louisa, clever and handsome and full of charm, who had fallen in love with Prince Rudolf at court in the unending summer of 1863, during the height of fashion for German royalty.
Emilie, he thought as he gazed upon the young princesses, had Louisa’s eyes.
“And?” she asked now, narrowing those familiar eyes.
The electric lamp gave a little flicker, as if the current had been disturbed. Outside, a dog barked faintly at some passing drunkard or night dustman, and the corgi rose to the tips of his paws, ears trembling. Olympia crossed his long legs and placed his right hand at the edge of the desk, fingers curling around the polished old wood. “I have no inkling, I’m afraid, who caused the death of your father and”—he turned a sorrowful gaze to Luisa, who sat with her eyes cast down—“your own husband, my dearest Luisa.” This was not entirely a lie, tho
ugh it was not precisely the truth; but Olympia had long since lost all traces of squeamish delicacy in such matters. “One suspects, naturally, that the murder must have occurred by the hand of some party outraged by Luisa’s recognition as heir, and her subsequent marriage to . . . I beg your pardon, my dear. What was the poor fellow’s name, God bless his soul?”
“Peter,” Luisa whispered.
“Peter, of course. My deepest apologies that I was unable to attend the ceremony. I felt I would not be missed.”
“By the by, that was a jolly nice epergne you sent,” said Stefanie. “We absolutely marveled on it.”
“You are quite welcome,” said Olympia. “I daresay it has all been packed safely away?”
“Miss Dingleby saw to it herself.”
“Clever Miss Dingleby. Excellent. Yes, the murders. I thought to send for you myself, but before I could make the necessary arrangements, word had reached me . . .”
“So quickly?” asked Emilie, with her clever eyes.
“There are telegraphs, my dear. Even in the heart of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, I’m told, although in this case the necessary communication came from a friend of mine in Munich.”
“What sort of friend?” Emilie leaned forward.
Olympia waved his hand. “Oh, an old acquaintance. In any case, he told me the facts of this latest crisis, the . . . the . . .”
Luisa looked up and said fiercely, “My attempted abduction, do you mean?”
“Yes, my dear. That. I was gratified to learn that you had defended yourself like a true daughter of your blood, and evaded capture. When the papers reported the three of you missing with your governess, I knew there was nothing more to fear. Miss Dingleby would know what to do.”
“She has been a heroine,” said Luisa.
Olympia smiled. “I had no doubt.”
“Well then,” said Stefanie. “When do we begin? Tomorrow morning? For I should like to have at least a night’s sleep first, after all that rumpus. I declare I shall never look at a piece of licorice in quite the same light.”
“Begin?” Olympia blinked. “Begin what?”
Stefanie rose from her chair and began to pace about the room. “Why, investigating the matter, of course! Finding out who’s responsible! I should be more than happy to act as bait, though I rather think it’s poor Luisa they’re after, God help them.”
“My dear, do sit down. You’re making me dizzy.” Olympia lifted one hand to shield his eyes. “Investigate? Act as bait? Quite out of the question. I shouldn’t dream of risking my dear nieces in such a manner.”
“But something must be done!” exclaimed Emilie, rising, too.
“Of course, and something shall be done. The Foreign Office is most concerned about the matter. Instability in the region and all that. They shall be conducting the most rigorous inquiries, I assure you. But in the meantime, you must hide.”
“Hide?” said Emilie.
“Hide!” Stefanie stopped in mid-pace and turned to him, face alight with outrage. “A princess of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof does not hide!”
Olympia lifted himself away from the desk and gathered his hands behind his back. “Of course, there’s no point hiding in the ordinary manner. These Continental agents, I’m told, are unnaturally cunning in seeking out their targets. Simply sending you to rusticate in some remote village won’t do. Your photographs are already in the papers.”
Stefanie’s hands came together. “Disguise! Of course! You mean to disguise us! I shall be a dairymaid. I milked a cow once, at the Schweinwald summer festival. They were all quite impressed. The dairyman told me I had a natural affinity for udders.”
“Nonsense. A dairymaid! The very idea. No, my dears. I have something in mind more subtle, more devious. More, if you’ll pardon the word”—pause, for effect—“. . . adventurous.”
Luisa drew in a long and deep breath. “Oh, Uncle. What have you done?”
“I admit, I had the idea from you yourselves. Do you remember, a great many years ago, when I came to visit your . . . er, your charming homeland? You were just fifteen, Luisa.”
“I remember.” Her voice was dark with foreboding.
“You put on a play for me, did you not? Hamlet, I believe, which was just the sort of melancholy rubbish a fifteen-year-old girl would find appealing.” Olympia came to a bookshelf, propped his elbow next to a first folio, and regarded the girls with his most benignly affectionate expression.
“Yes, Hamlet,” said Luisa warily.
“I remember!” said Stefanie. “I was both Claudius and the Prince of Norway, which proved rather awkward at the end, and Emilie of course played Polonius . . .”
Olympia widened his beneficent smile. “And Luisa was Hamlet. Were you not, my dear?”
The timepiece above the mantel chimed three o’clock in dainty little dings. The corgi went around in a circle once, twice, and settled himself in an anxious bundle at Stefanie’s feet. His ears swiveled attentively in Olympia’s direction.
“Oh no,” said Luisa. “It’s out of the question. Impossible, to say nothing of improper.”
Stefanie clasped her hands. “Oh, Uncle! What a marvelous idea! I’ve always wanted to gad about in trousers like that, such perfect freedom. Imagine! You’re an absolute genius!”
“We will not,” said Luisa. “Imagine the scandal! The . . . the indignity! No, Uncle. You must think of something else.”
“Oh, hush, Luisa! You’re a disgrace to your barbarian ancestors . . .”
“I should hope I am! I, at least, have some notion . . .”
“Now, ladies . . .”
“. . . who overran the steppes of Russia and the monuments of Rome . . .”
“. . . of what is due to my poor husband’s memory, and it does not require trousers . . .”
“My dear girls . . .”
“. . . to create the very wealth and power that make us targets of assassins to begin with . . .”
“Hush!” said Olympia.
Luisa paused, finger brandished in mid-stab. Stefanie bent over with a mutinous expression and picked up the quivering corgi.
Olympia rolled his eyes to the ceiling, seeking sympathy from the gilded plasterwork. His head, unaccustomed to such late hours, felt as if it might roll off his body at any moment and into the corgi-soiled Axminster below.
Indeed, he would welcome the peace.
“Very well,” he said at last. “Luisa rejects the notion, Stefanie embraces it. Emilie, my dear? I believe it falls to you to cast the deciding vote.”
Stefanie rolled her own eyes and sat with a pouf into her chair, corgi against her breast. “Well, that’s that, then. Emilie will never agree.”
“I am shocked, Uncle, that a man of your stature would even consider such a disgraceful notion.” Luisa smoothed her skirts with satisfaction.
Olympia held up his hand and regarded Emilie. She sat with her back straight and her fingers knit, thumbs twiddling one another. Her head cocked slightly to one side, considering some distant object with her mother’s own eyes.
“Well, my dear?” Olympia said softly.
Emilie reached up and tapped her chin with one long finger. “We shall have to cut our hair, of course,” she said. “Luisa and Stefanie will have an easier time effecting the disguise, with their strong bones, but I shall have to wear a full beard of whiskers at least. And at least we are not, taken as a group, women of large bosom.”
“Emilie!” said Luisa, in shocked tones.
“Emilie, darling!” cried Stefanie. “I knew you had it in you!”
Olympia clapped his hands in profound relief. “There we are! The matter is settled. We shall discuss the details in the morning. Wherever has the tea gone? I shall have it sent to your rooms instead.” He turned around and pressed a button on his desk, a state-of-the-art electrical bell he’d had installed just a month ago. “Ormsby will show you the way. Tally-ho, then!”
“Uncle! You’re not going to bed?”
Olympia yawne
d, tightened the belt on his dressing robe, and made for the door. “Oh, but I am. Quite exhausted.” He waved his hand. “Ormsby will be along shortly!”
“Uncle!” Luisa called desperately. “You can’t be serious, Uncle!”
Olympia paused with his fingertips on the door handle. He looked back over his shoulder. “Come, my girls,” he said. “You shall be well instructed, well placed in respectable homes. You are actresses of exceptional talent, as I have myself witnessed. You possess the dignity and resourcefulness of a most noble family. You have, above all, my unqualified support.”
He opened the door, stretched his arm wide, and smiled.
“What could possibly go wrong?”
* * *
The Duke of Olympia did not, however, make straight for his room. He walked in the opposite direction, down the hall toward the service staircase at the extreme back of the house. As he descended, the expressions of feminine outrage and excitement from the study died slowly into the walls, until the air went still.
Miss Dingleby was waiting for him in the alcove near the silver pantry. She made a little noise as he drew near, and stepped into the light.
“Ah! There you are, my dear,” Olympia said. He looked down at her from his great height and placed his hand tenderly against her cheek. “Won’t you come upstairs and tell me all about it?”
ONE
A ramshackle inn in Yorkshire (of course)
December 1889
The brawl began just before midnight, as taproom brawls usually did.
Not that Emilie had any previous experience of taproom brawls. She had caught glimpses of the odd mill or two in a Schweinwald village square (Schweinwald being by far the most tempestuous of the three provinces of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, perhaps because it was the closest to Italy), but her governess or some other responsible adult had always hustled her away at the first spray of blood.
She watched with interest, therefore, as this brawl developed. It had begun as the natural consequence of an ale-soaked game of cards. Emilie had noticed the card players the moment she sat down in an exaggerated swing, braced her elbows, fingered her itching whiskers, and called for a bottle of claret and a boiled chicken with her deepest voice. They played at a table in the center of the room, huddling with bowed heads about the end as if they feared the spavined yellow ceiling might give way at any moment: three or four broad-shouldered men in work shirts, homespun coats slung over their chairs, and one stripling lad.