An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6)(98)

“But when it gets to be habit,” Stoker added, “one must adapt a rational attitude and make certain to eat to keep up one’s strength.”

I resisted the urge to pull a face. For a person who had spent the greater part of our confinement complaining bitterly about the predicament, he was quite sanguine now that he was warm and fed.

“You must forgive me,” Gisela said quietly. “I had no idea anyone would be in any danger at all.”

“There would not have been if they hadn’t meddled,” Maximilian put in—reasonably, I decided.

“The duke is correct,” I said, reaching for an adorable cherry tartlet glazed with amaretto syrup. “We exposed ourselves to danger with our investigation.”

“An investigation about which you neglected to inform us,” the chancellor said in a tone of lofty reproach.

“As you neglected to inform us of the potential dangers to the princess,” Stoker reminded him, smiling coolly over a tarte au citron. The chancellor had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I remain abashed at my failures,” the chancellor said.

“Hardly yours,” Gisela put in. She stared hard at Maximilian, and to my astonishment, he flushed deeply.

“Duke Maximilian?” I prodded.

He shifted in his seat, then burst out in a torrent of speech. “The princess and I have had a lengthy and comprehensive discussion and she has impressed upon me the fact that I have, in every possible way, let down my country, my name, and my royal blood. I extend my deepest apologies to you, Miss Speedwell, and to you, Mr. Templeton-Vane.” He turned to the princess. “I apologize to you as well, Your Serene Highness. I know, too, that you cannot forgive me. I will not ask because I do not deserve it. I will resign my commissions formally and withdraw from public life in the Alpenwald. I await your further instructions.”

He rose to his feet and bowed sharply from the neck. “I am, contrary to the cowardice and weakness of character I have demonstrated here, your servant, Your Serene Highness.” He drew his sword from his scabbard and laid it gently at her feet. “I offer you the resignation of my commission in the Alpenwalder Guard, and I will accept whatever punishment you see fit to mete.”

He bowed once more and left us, shutting the door softly behind.

“Princess,” the chancellor began, “do you not think you should speak with him?”

The princess shook her head. “No. I think a little time to meditate on his sins will do Maximilian a world of good. Besides, we have other matters to discuss.” She turned her attention to Stoker and to me.

“I really am very sorry that you were brought into this farrago,” she began. “I never meant for any of it to happen.”

“I think I can piece together some of it,” I told her. “It began that day in the Curiosity Club when Stoker realized that Alice’s rope had been cut.”

“Did it?” She sighed and gave Pompeia Baker-Greene a sad smile. “I think we both wondered. Alice was such a careful climber, so mindful of risk. It seemed impossible to us that she would have made any such elementary mistakes, especially on a climb she had done so many times before.”

“I made my peace with it,” Mrs. Baker-Greene said slowly. “One learns to when there have been enough of these kinds of losses. I wrote to the princess and told her that one must befriend grief. It is a companion that never leaves.”

I thought of the losses I had known, my aunts, my friend the baron. And others. For some, grief was a devil, to be shut out upon the doorstep and ignored. But the notion of accepting that it would be a constant visitor in one guise or another seemed to me the beginning of wisdom.

“I tried,” the princess said, a plaintive note creeping into her narrative. “But I could not dismiss the idea that something was wrong. Then when Mr. Templeton-Vane found the rope, I had the first real proof that I was not simply rejecting the banality of an accident befalling Alice. And at that moment, another proof fell into my hands.”

“The summit badge,” I said.

The princess nodded. “Alice was buried with a badge and I assumed it was hers. They said she had been found with a badge clutched in her hand and they pinned this to her clothing before she was laid to rest. But no one realized at the time that she had not worn her badge that day. The badge in her hand was the baroness’s.”

“The baroness told me that Alice tore it from her during the final struggle,” I put in gently.

“I suspected something like that as soon as I saw a badge amongst her things. It was Alice’s, I recognized it at once. There was a little nick on one edge, you see. She used to joke that she would make me replace it for her,” she added with a smile. “And the back of each is engraved with a tiny number unique to the recipient. This is so the badge may be returned to its owner if it is mislaid. When I saw Alice’s own badge with her things at the exhibition, I wondered immediately—whose badge had Alice been clutching when she died? Alice was climbing alone that day. It was a dangerous practice and one I discouraged, but she knew that mountain. It would have been a simple exercise for her. But if someone else was with her, why had no one come forward?”

“Unless they had something to hide,” Stoker put in.

“Exactly. I could not take the risk that the rope—thus far the only piece of evidence linking her murderer to the crime—would go missing. I had to take it into my own possession for safekeeping, but without alerting the murderer, whoever that might be. And I needed Pompeia’s help to secure the second and most damning piece of evidence—the murderer’s badge that had been buried with Alice. But most importantly, I could not permit Pompeia to learn of Alice’s murder from anyone but myself. I owed her that.”