An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(77)
But Yelena had said all she came to say. She knotted the handkerchief closed again and tucked it back into her pocket. “If you want me to keep your secret, you will pay me a little. And if you want to know where the princess was going, you will pay more, I think.”
“I suppose I would,” I said politely. “How much will you require?”
“Ten pounds,” she told me in a tone that would brook no negotiating.
I suppressed a sigh. I never carried so much money upon me; it was a month’s wages. Stoker, who was reckless with banknotes, his own or anyone else’s, might well have tucked four times as much idly into a boot, but he was not at hand.
“My associate will pay you,” I assured her.
She gave a laugh, a merry little trill that might have been pleasant under other circumstances. “I do not give credit. You will pay me,” she repeated. “And then I will talk.”
Yelena wrapped up four more of the cheese tarts in a handkerchief and slipped them into her pocket. She left me then, and I was glad of it. She was a distinctly unlikeable young woman, although I was not entirely unsympathetic to her plight. Still, a gift for extortion was unattractive in a lady, I thought, deciding it best not to dwell upon my own particular talents in that regard.
Whilst I waited for the baroness, I made a hasty search of the room in hopes of discovering some clue to Gisela’s whereabouts or her state of mind when she left. Guimauve was underfoot, nudging my hand and making a silken nuisance of himself until I settled him on the bed with one of the chicken sandwiches.
“Do behave,” I ordered. “I am trying to find your mistress.” He gave me a long, cool look and then attended to the base of his tail, as if to indicate his complete indifference to the princess’s whereabouts. I pulled a face and made a quick survey of the room’s contents. There were no enticingly locked doors or diaries written in undecipherable code. The chancellor and baroness managed her state papers and schedule, and any private correspondence she might have kept was nowhere in evidence.
The only truly personal effects in the room were the stack of books upon the night table. There was a selection of political volumes—one on constitutional monarchies of the world, another on English history viewed through the lens of Continental perspective—and the memoirs of Benjamin Disraeli. A few books on alpinism and a selection of travel guides to mountainous regions (Baedeker’s, of course) were stacked with a slender collection of poetry and Le Livre de la Cité des Dames by Christine de Pizan. There was also a weighty biography of Queen Christina, the sixteenth-century monarch who had traveled the Continent dressed as a man and abandoned her Swedish throne after embracing Catholicism. I thumbed through it at random, noting the passages highlighted in pencil. There were notes in the margin, little drawings and the odd exclamation mark or notation about a point of law. The princess had been particularly effusive in the chapter regarding Christina’s incognita adventures, and I was not surprised. There was a stifling element to court etiquette, to the endless round of formal engagements and appearances, the restrictive clothing, the requirements of behavior and expression of opinions. I had spent only one evening in harness and found it exhausting; I could not imagine how weighty the burden of state must be when it must be endured for a lifetime. I flipped through the rest of the book, my attention drifting during a heavily annotated section on Christina’s abdication.
I replaced it in the stack of books, surveying the various volumes of policy and history and political biography. Together they suggested a woman deeply conscious of her place in history and who must have felt the pressures of her position to be at times insupportable. I had theorized to Stoker that Gisela might have removed Alice as a threat to her future as a monarch, but my eyes fell again upon the assorted Baedeker’s and the biography of a queen who gave up her throne. It was possible that Gisela had had a hand in Alice’s murder, but it was just as possible that she had considered abdicating to begin a new life with the woman she loved.
I considered this as I thumbed through the Baedeker devoted to the Alpenwald. It was a slender volume, and I had almost reached the end when the baroness bustled in, clearly vexed. Her color was high and her monocle, screwed firmly in her eye, was fairly vibrating as she peered at me.
“Where is that dreadful girl?” she demanded.
I looked up from my reading. “What girl?”
She huffed as she plucked the book from my grasp and stacked it neatly with the others, shooing Guimauve from the bed and brushing a few stray cat hairs and crumbs from the silken coverlet.
“Yelena! She has gone out, apparently, and no one knows where—just when I actually have need of her.” She huffed. She plumped a few of the pillows with a vigorous gesture, and I hastened to settle her feathers.
“Do you wish to send someone to find her? To make inquiries?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she told me with Teutonic firmness. “We have a timetable to meet and we will not be delayed by the likes of her.” I deeply regretted the fact that Stoker and I had as yet had no chance to search the rest of the suite or hold a proper tête-à-tête after our conversation with the duke, but there would be no opportunity now. The baroness was bent upon her task and sent downstairs for one of the hotel maids to assist her. I was not at all surprised when J. J. appeared. I had learnt respect for her resourcefulness. She was quick and deft, doing exactly as the baroness instructed with a meek promptitude that seemed wholly out of character for her until she shot me a wink when the baroness’s back was turned.