An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(63)

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” he asked, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Some might say I am engaging in such an experience now,” I returned tartly. “Our liaison is not sanctioned by society. Neither the law nor the church will give us a veneer of respectability. If we were to find ourselves frustrated by one another, there are precious few to whom either of us might turn for succor.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Frustrated with me?”

“At the moment, yes. Wildly so. We are speaking of a murder investigation and you have turned the tables to make this conversation about us.”

He seemed about to offer a rejoinder, then shrugged instead. “All right. Carry on.”

I resumed the thread of my argument. “Without the possibility of loving openly, Gisela and Alice would be forced to conduct their affair in secret, stealing time together.” I gestured towards the list of dates and scribbled names of villages. “A handful of expeditions together, no doubt with Gisela incognita, and each time she leaves the Alpenwald, she must . . .” I foundered. “She must what? How did she leave? I know they said she slipped away from her royal duties, but she is the head of state. She has guards, ladies-in-waiting. Someone must have helped her. Someone must have known about Alice.”

“Not necessarily.” Stoker crossed one booted ankle over the other. “She might have made some sort of excuse—taking the waters at a spa town or needing a rest. She might have pleaded ill health or nerves, neither of which the Alpenwalder court would want to publicize. It is always bad for business when a head of state is in ill health, a holdover from the mediaeval belief that the body of the king was connected to the welfare of the country itself. Healthy king, healthy land.”

“And you think the Alpenwalders would have been content to let their princess fob them off with such stories?”

“It is one possibility. They are her subjects, Veronica. They would not pry too deeply even if they suspected she was off on an assignation—and if they did suspect it, they would never tell us,” he pointed out. “Every one of the Alpenwalders we have spoken to has been evasive on the subject of Gisela’s absences. Whatever story she spun them, they trust that she can manage her own affairs and will always return. Except that this time, she has not. She left, no doubt of her own accord, after learning that Alice was most likely murdered. Perhaps she simply needed time to come to terms with the possibility.”

“Or she realized she was about to be unmasked as a murderess,” I said.

He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “And what was her motive to kill the woman she loved?”

“Exposure,” I told him quickly. “If Alice decided to reveal the affair, it would be catastrophic for Gisela. People are intolerant enough of Sapphic practices amongst private citizens. What would the conservative Alpenwalders have to say about their princess loving another woman? It could spark a revolution.”

“And why would Alice do that?”

I spread my hands. “A quarrel, perhaps. People do strike out against the ones they love when they are disappointed and hurt. What if Alice threatened her in a moment of anger? Gisela would have been frightened out of her wits.”

“You almost sound sorry for her,” Stoker said coldly.

“Pity and empathy are not the same,” I replied. “I can understand her actions if that is what happened. She would have been terrified of the affair coming to light, the scandal it would have caused. So she could have determined that Alice would have to die.”

“Why not simply send her away with a sum of money?” Stoker suggested.

“Alice would never be bought,” I told him. “She had a peculiar sort of integrity. No, she would never have taken a penny of Gisela’s money if the princess tried to purchase her silence.”

Stoker thought a moment. “There are two rather gaping holes in the fabric of your theory. First, Gisela was not in the Alpenwald when Alice died. I seem to remember you saying she was abroad at the time. And second, the only one seen on the mountain that day was a moustachioed man, so even if you are about to suggest that Gisela made a pretense of leaving and came back, she does not fit the description of the possible murderer.”

I gave him a withering stare. “She was disguised, of course.”

“As a man with moustaches,” he finished in a voice dripping with scorn. “It sounds like a penny dreadful, Veronica. I refuse to believe that Her Serene Highness, the Hereditary Princess of the Alpenwald, pasted on false moustaches and climbed a mountain to murder her lover.”

“She would not have to,” I said slowly. “She would not have to be there at all. The princess could have had an accomplice. And who better than the man who intends to marry her? Duke Maximilian of Lokendorf,” I finished in triumph.

Stoker stared at me a long moment. “Bloody bollocks,” he muttered.

My smile was one of purely feline satisfaction. “It is a very good theory,” I told him.

“It is not the worst you might have fashioned,” he said with a grudging nod. “It does at least tick every box.”

“Indeed it does,” I said, smoothing my skirts. “Now we have only to find proof.”

“Proof? How in the name of seven hells do you intend to do that?”