An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(78)
“How did you arrange this?” I asked J. J. hastily as the baroness left to retrieve a box of jewels. “Did you crack Yelena over the head? Is she tied up in a broom cupboard somewhere?”
J. J. pulled a face. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Yelena. The princess’s lady’s maid. She disappeared this afternoon and is not to be found.”
J. J. shrugged. “Nothing to do with me. But if I were you, I would be careful.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“Because if Alpenwalder women are disappearing, there is a very short list of prospective victims.”
I put out my tongue at her, resuming my decorum just as the baroness returned, looking a little relieved. “At least the jewels are still here,” she said grimly. Then she looked at J. J. and stiffened. It would never do to air soiled Alpenwalder laundry in front of a mere hotel maid, I realized, and I made no reply.
In the end, I was glad of J. J.’s presence, for it was absolutely a matter of all hands to the tiller. Whatever toilette I had made the previous evening was nothing compared to the effort for a formal dinner. I was washed, powdered, brushed, massaged, pinned, coiffed, dressed, bedecked, and bedizened.
“I feel like a warhorse preparing for battle,” I complained at one point. “How on earth do women make a habit of dressing like this?”
The baroness managed a thin smile. “One becomes accustomed to the weight. And this is not a full state occasion,” she reminded me. “Enthronings are even grander occasions with a full crown and scepter and the rod of St. Otthild as well as a mantle of state that stretches nine yards in length.”
Little wonder the princess had run away, I reflected, if it meant escaping such ludicrous trappings. The baroness explained that it was only the opening of the Alpenwalder parliament and enthronings and royal weddings that called for full regalia, but an occasion as important as dinner at Windsor Castle still called for formal Alpenwalder court dress. If it had been left to the gown alone, I would have made no complaint. Borrowed from the style of the Russian imperial ladies, it had an undergown of heavy white satin thickly embroidered with Alpenwalder emblems in gold silk. The overgown was rich scarlet velvet edged in ermine, the long, slashed sleeves sweeping to the floor and lined in white satin. The deep neckline, rounded and positioned just at the edge of the shoulders, was banded in a wide swathe of more golden embroidery, which trailed down the front of the overgown and around the long train.
My hair was once again plaited and piled and pinned with an array of false pieces into an elaborate confection to hold a coronet of old rose-cut diamonds set around enormous, luscious rubies. A deep blue sash crossed from one shoulder to my waist, secured with the jeweled order of St. Otthild, a gem-encrusted otter rampant with a sprig of St. Otthild’s wort gripped in his tiny diamond teeth.
I looked to the baroness and realized she was not wearing her order. “What has become of your sash, Baroness?”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “I cannot find it. It was creased after last night and I told that wretched girl to see it pressed, but it has disappeared. No doubt she has pawned my jeweled otter as well,” she added bitterly. It seemed harsh to believe so easily that Yelena might have resorted to thievery, but I remembered her resentment against the Alpenwalders and her eagerness to turn her hand to extortion. It was a small leap from there to thinking she might help herself to the odd trinket to sell, although I could hardly imagine a brisk secondary market for diplomatic honors.
While I pondered this, the baroness added the finishing touches to my ensemble. I could scarcely move for the weight of it all, but there was something about the grandeur that created within me a determination to rise to the occasion. Together the baroness and I had replicated her tricks of using cosmetics to enhance my resemblance to the princess, and J. J. had a few thoughts of her own that heightened the effect further. She even managed to camouflage the bit of violet bruising that had risen on my chin as a result of my encounter with Douglas Norton. As I stared into the looking glass, I felt light-headed, detached suddenly from all that I had known and all that I was.
It occurred to me then that, were it not for an accident of birth, a peculiarity of the law, I might have rightfully worn such things. I was the child of a prince, the descendant of queens, and the blood in my veins was no less blue for having been mixed with an Irish actress’s. If her marriage had been recognized, I would have worn such garments from my youth, enjoyed the adulation and the applause. But I would also have stifled my own spirit, I reflected. Those quirks of character that made me the woman I had become were because I had been given the freedom to do as I pleased. No royal protocol dictated my upbringing; no august personages dictated my education. I had been at liberty to study as I wished, pursuing my own interests and friendships, embarking upon travels and learning to rely upon no one but myself. I had not had the privileges of royalty, but neither had I endured the privations, and of these I could number many. Just the few days I had spent in Gisela’s slippers had taught me that I could never endure the strictures of her life, the endless and tedious round of engagements and obligations. I belonged to no one, was beholden to no one. Whether I starved or whether I throve, the outcome lay firmly in my own hands. And that freedom was worth all the diamonds in the world, I decided.
“It is natural to be overwhelmed,” the baroness said kindly. “But you will do this and you will do it with dignity and confidence, I have no doubt.”