“No,” I told her.
The empress gave me a long look. “Are you certain?”
I nodded, the jewels in my tiara clattering.
She touched one. “I never cared for tiaras with the gemsen tremblant. Terribly noisy, I always think.”
Impulsively, I put out a hand, laying it gently on her sleeve. “Please, ma’am. I do not want to meet him at all. Not like this.”
She considered me a long moment. “Very well. Give me ten minutes. I will make your excuses and say you are unwell. Your carriages and entourage will be waiting for you out front.”
I thought of the suite at the Sudbury, yet to be searched. “If you please, can you keep the others here as long as possible? I need only one carriage and the black-haired gentleman with the eye patch.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Is this to do with Gisela’s disappearance?”
“In part. And another matter.”
“As you wish. Ten minutes. Find your way to the front of the castle and I will have the fellow meet you there. I will keep the others as long as I can.”
“What will you tell them?”
Her thin smile was once more in evidence. “That is the advantage of being an empress, my dear. I do not have to tell them anything at all.”
She turned to the looking glass and straightened the peak of her widow’s cap. “I shall never be reconciled to this,” she said with a dour look at it. “Black does not suit me.”
She gave me a last look over her shoulder. “Thank you, Veronica.”
“You are welcome, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Her smile was gentle. “My nieces and nephews all call me Aunt Vicky.”
She left me then, my aunt Vicky, the Dowager Empress of Germany. I took a breath, as deep as I could with the tight lacing of the corset, steadying myself against the washbasin.
Before I could gather my thoughts, the door opened once more and J. J. Butterworth slipped inside. “You look like something the cat sicked up,” she told me cheerfully.
“What an enchanting person you are,” I replied.
She grinned, unrepentant. “Do not wait for me when you leave tonight,” she instructed.
I blinked at her. “You mean to remain behind? At Windsor Castle?”
She shrugged. “I have a story to chase.”
“This was your plan in coming all along, was it not? You used us to gain entrée to the castle because they would never permit a journalist inside if they knew who you were. What now? Rifling through the queen’s wastepaper basket?”
Her smile would have suited a cream-filled cat. “Something like that. Do not spare a thought for me, Veronica. I will have what I came for. And I promise not to involve you,” she added with an exasperated sigh. “I know you were about to ask.”
I flapped a hand. “I do not care. Just go.”
She left in a whirl of aprons and indignation, but I scarcely noticed. She was hardly likely to burn the place down around everyone’s ears and I almost did not care if she did. Rage simmered within me, coupled with some other, more painful emotion that threatened to flay me alive. I was in Windsor Castle, wearing a fortune in jewels, with my father a short distance away.
The room was suddenly stifling. Gathering my skirts in my hands, I rushed out, down the tiny staircase, and past the door I had entered. I was in a different part of the castle, and I passed through rooms I had not seen. One had walls bristling with weapons of every description, pikes and swords arranged in patterns, while another sported agallery of paintings of men who had been instrumental in Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo. No one stopped me or stood in my way as I fled. I hastened from one vast chamber to another until I came at last to the vestibule where we had entered. The guards stood at attention as I passed, fleeing down the crimson carpeted stairs like Cinderella as the clock struck midnight.
CHAPTER
26
Upon our return to the Sudbury, Stoker and I hastened to change back into our own clothing. It required the utmost ingenuity to divest myself of the jewels and hairpieces and garments without help, but I was almost frantic in my haste to rid myself of Gisela’s things. I had had enough of playing at being a princess, I decided grimly.
