She regarded me a long time, sweeping her gaze from the tips of my evening slippers—embroidered with sequins and silver thread—to the tiara atop my crown of false hair. After an agonizing wait, she gave a slow nod. “You will do.”
And I knew that faint praise held a wealth of emotion for her. She swallowed hard as she looked at me, no doubt missing her vanishedprincess. It was clear the baroness had great affection for her mistress, no matter how wayward she could be. Before I could offer some comfort, she turned away, briskly.
“I must go and make my own toilette,” she told me. “You must not crease.”
“I should not dream of it,” I promised her. “I will sit here until you return.”
“Sit!” The word was nearly a shriek. “You cannot sit! You must stand. Right there. Do not move. Pretend you are a waxwork from that Madame Tussaud until I return,” she instructed.
She left me then, earrings quivering in indignation that I might be foolish enough to do anything as abjectly stupid as sit. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, suddenly acutely conscious of how very awkward it was to simply stand. I listened to the mantel clock—mercifullynotan Alpenwalder goat clock—tick over the minutes, and just as the quarter hour chimed, the door from the sitting room eased open.
Stoker darted in, closing the door softly behind him. I gasped and instantly regretted it; the corset permitted no deep breaths, and I whooped with laughter as I attempted to catch my breath.
“You needn’t be rude about it,” Stoker reproached me in an injured tone.
“Forgive me,” I managed. “I did not mean to wound your pride. But...moustaches.”
Stoker had been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of his life, his chin freshly barbered, his nails cleaner than I had ever seen them, every trace of ink and glue removed. His hair had been clubbed back into an old-fashioned queue, and perched atop his head was a shako of dark blue trimmed with silver braid. They had found him a spare uniform, dark blue and silver, each button struck with an imageof the Alpenwalder otter of St. Otthild, but it was his face that had undergone the greatest transformation. Between his nose and his lip burgeoned the most extravagant set of moustaches I had ever seen. Like those of the chancellor and Captain Durand, his had been waxed into the shape of a ram’s horns, extending out from the edge of the mouth and then curling back in a grand flourish as black as his hair, thick and dense as a shrubbery. I went to him and poked with an experimental finger.
“It looks like a hedgerow. Have you got wildlife in there? I think I spy a badger,” I said.
He grimaced, or at least I think he did. It was rather difficult to tell with the concealing layer of facial hair. “How on earth did they happen to come by such a monstrosity?” I asked him.
“Apparently they travel with contingencies,” he explained. “The moustaches are part of the uniform and in case any of the officers meet with an accident, there is always a spare to hand.”
“But why are you even in uniform?” I demanded. “Surely plain clothes would have been more discreet.”
“That is what I thought,” he told me in an aggrieved tone. “But then the chancellor happened to mention that a certain Inspector Mornaday has been tasked with the role of liaison with Special Branch.”
“Hell and damnation,” I muttered.
“I said a good deal worse when I discovered it,” he told me. Mornaday was a complication we could ill afford. Our sometime ally and occasional champion, Mornaday was unpredictable as quicksilver. He longed for promotion within the confines of Special Branch—something he had recently achieved. But there was no telling how long his goodwill might last. The fact that he harbored a tendresse for J. J. Butterworth complicated the situation. He had, once or twice to my knowledge, fed her titbits that would give her an exclusive storyfor theDaily Harbinger. As keen for her advancement as his own, he made certain to paint his involvement in a good light. In payment for his indiscretion, she always mentioned him in laudatory tones. It was a symbiotic relationship, that of parasite and host, I thought bitterly. It was Mornaday’s deficiencies of imagination that led him to think he was the host. I knew perfectly well he was often steered towards a story by the impetuous and deeply ambitious Miss Butterworth.
“What of Sir Hugo?” I asked suddenly. “If Mornaday is there, his superior cannot be far behind.”
“Sir Hugo is abed,” he told me. “With gout.”
“Poor fellow,” I said with real sympathy. “We must send him a nice calf’s-foot jelly.”
“Or perhaps just a calf’s foot,” Stoker suggested, a gleam in his eye. He and Sir Hugo enjoyed a state of armed neutrality at the best of times.
I sighed as best as I could in my confining garb. “I suppose we will simply have to make the best of it. Keep your moustaches primped and your shako pulled low.”
Stoker gave me an appraising glance, from extravagant jewels to exuberant décolletage. “I do not think I will be the one they are looking at.” He nodded to the impossible slimness of my waist. “How can you eat in that?”
“I cannot eat,” I told him coldly. “I cannot bend. I cannot breathe. In short, I cannot do anything for which the human body is fashioned. I am an automaton for the evening, a doll, dressed and polished for your amusement.”
I might have carried on in the same vein, but his attention was drawn to the large gilded box on the dressing table. I sighed. “Rose and violet creams. Help yourself.”
He required no further urging. With a soft moan of pleasure, he reached into the box and took one of each, mingling the heavy floral creams in a single mouthful. His eyes rolled backwards. “Heaven,” he managed through the chocolate and cream. He reached in to take another, but suddenly his gaze sharpened and he plucked out a piece of card.
“What is this?”
I shrugged—a mistake, I realized at once, for it sent my earrings swinging painfully against my neck. “A note from the sender, I presume.”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. It was hid beneath the top layer of chocolates. And it is not precisely friendly.” He handed over the bit of card, a little grubby thanks to its proximity to the chocolates and printed simply. It smelt of sugar, but the message was none too sweet.PREPARE FOR YOUR END.
“A threat to the princess,” I breathed. I inspected the note for clues, but it had been hastily scrawled in an obvious attempt to disguise the handwriting, each letter printed in a harsh block capital on a torn bit of paper. I turned horrified eyes to Stoker. “Poison,” I said succinctly.
