“Everyone has left me.” Tears flood her eyes. She draws a stinging gasp. “My father. My baby sister. Cal, off to seek his own fortune. My mother, the way she hid inside herself and gave up and didn’t spare a thought for...”
She can’t say it. Her hands are shaking, her eyes streaming. This is the worst possible time to confess all of this, the most unstrategic display of raw emotion, and yet, what other time will there be?
“If you left too, Béa—”
And then Béa is there, rising from the desk in a blur, pressing her hands to Alice’s cheeks, wiping the tears away withthe tips of her fingers. “I will stay by your side, Alice. If you will have me,mon Dieu, je resterai, pour toujours et toujours.”
What could I possibly want apart from this?Alice thinks as she takes in humble, kind, brilliant Béa.
When she steps back and straightens her gown, it’s with a rush of renewed purpose. Her eyes dry up in a blink.
Revenge has felt bitter all this time. Now, she suspects, it will only be sweet.
Béa returns to her station at the desk before the telegram machine, shooting her a grin from across the room as Alice opens the door. After clicking it closed behind her, she strides into the Württembergian embassy with her head held imperiously high.
Alice nods to Dagmar and manages not to laugh at her cook’s getup—Alpine maiden garb purchased from a theatrical costumer, the look complete with two long, plaited pigtails. Dagmar picks up a tray of drinks and nods back, grave.
Alice glances reassuringly at Cora, who is pacing the room in her pretty pink dress. Cora answers the look with a nod of her own.
To Ward, seated at a table in the corner, his ledger at the ready, she grants a rather cooler smile.
Last, she inspects their ambassador, standing proudly beneath the mounted Württembergian flag.
Dagmar’s bartender sweetheart, Konrad Weber, fits the bill even better than Alice could have hoped. In his tailored diplomat uniform decorated with dangling war medals, his bristled mustache trimmed and oiled, he looks every bit the Bavarian grandee.
“Zay are already waiting to enter,” he notes, nodding to the front door. Even his accent is perfect, Alice marvels. “Care to do zee honors?”
Konrad steps gallantly aside.
And the Duchess Marie Charlotte Gabriella of Württemberg opens the parlor-level door to the entrance hall.
Cora has never felt so nervous and exhilarated for a performance in her life. Her heart takes off, galloping like a wild pony, as the embassy door flings open.
Mr. Vandemeer stands waiting in the vestibule, the first to arrive, naturally, looking as puffed and barrel-chested as a rooster in his trim business suit.
“Velcome, velcome!” Alice’s newly minted ambassador cries, clicking the heels of his gilded and medaled green uniform. A bit on the nose, Cora had thought of the costume as a first impression, but Alice had insisted that subtlety is lost on these people, and now Cora can certainly see her point.
Konrad extends his hand to Mr. Vandemeer. “I am Gustav Roderick, zee Württemberg ambazeedor, yes?” He pumps Vandemeer’s hand vigorously. “Zee well has run dry, eh? Now it ez time for a new type of green!”
Cora risks a glance in Alice’s direction. Was that an ad-libbed riff on their Württembergian folk saying? And is it her imagination, or is Konrad’s accent growing more pronounced?
Alice, though, remains placid, immovable as marble beside the man.
“Err, James Vandemeer. A pleasure, Ambassador Roderick.”
“We make you at home.” The ambassador waves them in. “Come, come, take ze seats.”
As soon as Mr. Vandemeer makes himself comfortable in the embassy’s sitting room, Dagmar moves from her positionnext to the wall, braids flopping as she hurries over to the serving trolley. She begins adding a thick brown mixture into a sherry glass, topping it off with a healthy pour of red wine from the nearby decanter.
Alice sits down prettily in an empty chair.
“An Esslingen cordial,” Alice boasts as Dagmar hands James Vandemeer the glass, the contents of which are disturbingly murky.
“At nine in the morning?” Vandemeer raises his eyebrows.
“Our country’s signature breakfast drink,” Alice explains. “It is meant to bring good fortune.”
Vandemeer takes a sip, sputtering, “Thick as molasses.”
