An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(96)

She clutched her hands together, the knuckles whitening.

“Is that why you harmed your princess?” I asked.

She rounded on me, her expression fierce. “How many times do I have to say it? I would never harm my princess!”

“Then where is she, Baroness?”

“I do not know,” she told me, her voice small and defeated. “She has run away before, but never for so long.”

“When she left before, it was to be with Alice, wasn’t it?” I ventured. She did not respond, but the stubborn set of her chin told me I was right. “We compared the dates of her absences from the Alpenwald with the times Alice was climbing in remote areas with a companion she referred to in her journal by the letter ‘D.’ Dolcezza.”

“The sweet one,” the baroness said, the words bursting forth in a torrent of rage. “It was wrong, her association with that woman. It brought out all of her worst instincts, her inclination to liberality, to modernization. It taught her to neglect her duties and to scorn our traditions.”

“Alice Baker-Greene was a suffragist,” I recalled. “She demonstrated for all sorts of causes, education for all, Irish Home Rule, the rights of workers, and open immigration. All the things in which Princess Gisela was interested. I have seen her books, remember?”

“Books given her by that woman,” she spat. “They sat up for hours, far into the night, talking of such things, making plans to change our country, to strip away all that we hold dear. And Gisela neglected her duties to be with this foreigner who had befriended her. It was a kind of madness. I tried to speak with her so many times about her responsibilities, about her duty to marry and secure the succession, but she would argue with me, trying to explain about education and votes for women and the rights of animals,” she said, her mouth twisting bitterly. “Animals! She was no longer the Gisela I knew, but I believed she would return to us. She was too proud, too much of an Alpenwalder, to neglect her people.”

“Then why eliminate Alice?” I asked. “If you were so certain that Gisela would overcome her feelings and do her duty, why act at all?”

“Because she was blinded by her idealism—idealism instilled in her by that creature! Every day our Gisela became more radical in her opinions, wanting to change things, to make it all different and modern,” she said, her mouth twisting bitterly. “Every day she moved further away from us.”

“And you realized Gisela was thinking of renouncing her throne,” I said suddenly. “I saw the passages she had highlighted in the biography of Queen Christina about abdication. Your princess was considering the unimaginable—giving up her royal destiny. You could not have that, could you? You could not take the risk that Alice would take her away from the Alpenwald forever.”

“Gisela belongs to her people,” she said. “The crown is her right but also her responsibility. She has a duty to perform.”

“And you were going to see that she did it, no matter what. So Alice had to die, to remove the distraction she had become, the dangerous ideas she had instilled in your princess. Her influence over Gisela threatened your own.”

Something flickered in her expression and I seized upon the hunch. “Because that was the real problem, wasn’t it? You couch your confession in terms of destiny and service to the people of the Alpenwald, but it is much simpler and dirtier than that, is it not? If Gisela abdicated, your post as lady-in-waiting would be at an end. All the opportunities to profit from your court appointment, the lavish lifestyle you enjoyed in the castle, the influence—all of it would vanish in the snap of the fingers.”

“I will not dignify such an accusation,” she said loftily.

“You do not have to,” I said. “I am convinced of it. You murdered Yelena as well. As close as she was to the princess, she must have guessed something of her feelings for Alice and your resentment as well. Or did she find the mask and put the pieces together herself? I imagine she was blackmailing you. Poor stupid Yelena! All she wanted was a little money so she and her captain could marry. And she was mercenary enough to think she could risk making an enemy of you, not realizing that you are every bit as calculating. It was not sentiment or loyalty to your country that drove you to murder Alice Baker-Greene. You meant to keep Gisela under your guidance. With Alice gone, she would have turned back to you, leant upon you for support—and of course she would have rewarded that support, would she not? You intended that your princess should never leave the Alpenwald so that you could continue to feather your nest as you have for all these years. So simple a motive and so venal.”

She turned her shoulder towards me and faced into the wind once more. “You understand nothing,” she told me.

“On the contrary,” I said. “I understand everything.”





CHAPTER





28


At last, just as dawn was breaking over the horizon, we reached the docks at Greenwich. Stoker and I had, after a spirited exchange of views, decided to hand the baroness over to the authorities.

“You’ve no call to summon the police, do you?” Corrigan asked nervously.

“It would be no more than you deserve,” Stoker replied with a narrow look.

Corrigan ducked his head. “C’mon, guv. You know what it’s like for a sailor, trying to make an honest shilling. Sometimes the work just isn’t there, and I’ve seven mouths to feed at home, I do. And Weaver there has nine.”