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It was a small bargain, but Elizabeth cherished it. For the first time her desire to know Minna did not feel like an obligation she had placed upon a grieving man. They were learning, she and her uncle, to build a relationship in the present rather than live entirely among its causes.

That night, however, Adelheid lay awake while her husband slept. She rehearsed the afternoon with the maid, the questions she had put to Elizabeth, and the possibility of a locked box containing the words she had spent two decades fearing.

Could she ask directly to see the letters? No. The request would seem extraordinary, especially after Minna's death. Could she persuade Albrecht to ask? He would read them with Elizabeth, and anything dangerous would become his knowledge too. Could she steal them? The Matlock household was well ordered, its servants loyal, and Elizabeth guarded by people who noticed every alteration in her comfort.

Adelheid turned upon her pillow. She told herself that Elizabeth knew nothing, that a child's fragment of nightmare could never prove an old crime. Yet the terror had begun to grow beyond reason. She had once believed Minna helpless because she was young and grieving. Minna survived. She had believed a carriage accident would end all questions. Minna lived ten more years, married, and bore a daughter. She had believed the dead kept their secrets. Now their child sat at the Matlocks' table and spoke of a falling man.

In the dark Adelheid whispered a name she had not permitted herself to speak for years.

"Friedrich."

Albrecht stirred beside her, and she went still.

Adelheid did attempt once more to quiet herself without violence. She asked Albrecht whether he would consider returning to Falkenried before the end of autumn. Their children missed them; the affairs of the estates were numerous; the hazards of wartime travel might grow worse with winter.

"We shall go home when matters here have settled," he answered. "I would not abandon Elizabeth immediately after discovering her."

"She has an entire English family," Adelheid said. "Surely her happiness need not depend upon our presence."

"It does not depend upon us," he answered gently. "But there is a difference between being needed and being welcomed. I had forgotten how much pleasure there is in the latter."

Adelheid turned away so he would not see her expression. He was not being unreasonable, nor was he failing in any duty. He merely wished to know his niece. Every generous argument he offered made her fear seem more shameful, and shame made her less willing to relinquish it.

That night she considered destroying the packet of letters in her cabinet. Burning the evidence might spare her children if anyone began asking questions about Vogel. But the letters were the only proof that he had been paid for silence, and without them she would have no hold over him if he chose to threaten her. She restored the packet to its hiding place and told herself that prudence required unpleasant decisions.

In the morning she announced that she meant to make several calls connected with their English acquaintances. Albrecht, relieved that his wife was beginning to take an interest in London, encouraged her to do so.

She asked her maid to find the small travelling writing case and the address book she had packed separately from their other belongings. Among the names was one she had hoped never again to use. The man belonged to the past as certainly as Friedrich did, but unlike Friedrich he was alive, and she knew precisely how to reach him.

A choice which had once seemed monstrous now presented itself in the language of necessity. She must discover what Elizabeth knew. She must make certain no paper from Minna's past could destroy her children. And if knowledge could not be obtained without danger, she would have to convince herself that danger was the lesser evil.

As her carriage turned into the busy London street, Adelheid looked back at the windows of Matlock House. She had been warmly received there. A sensible woman would have accepted hospitality, rejoiced in her husband's restored happiness, and trusted that an old secret would remain old.

Adelheid had long ago ceased to be sensible where that secret was concerned.

CHAPTER 22

A Lady's Private Business

Matthias Vogel had spent twenty years attempting to become a man whose past interested nobody. In London he called himself Matthew Voss, kept the accounts of a small concern supplying vehicles and horses to private households, and cultivated the air of someone for whom a receipt was more important than a friendship. He was careful to pay his debts. He went to church often enough to escape notice. He never travelled farther from home than business required.

The letter from Adelheid reached him folded inside an innocuous inquiry about imported harness leather.

He recognized the handwriting before he broke the seal.

He did not finish his supper that evening. He sat at his small dining table and considered the folly of believing that people who knew one's true name would eventually have the decency to die.

The note contained no explicit request. Her Highness wished to speak with an old acquaintance concerning arrangements of the greatest delicacy. A servant would call upon him the following afternoon. He was to send a reply by the bearer and mention the matter to no one.

Vogel burned the outer sheet, preserved the inner one, and locked the surviving ashes of his peace inside an iron box beneath his desk.

He remembered the night in 1789 more clearly than he cared to acknowledge. He had been coachman to an aristocratic household in which wages were good and obedience more profitable than conscience. The princess had asked him to arrange a journey in poor weather; a carriage had overturned; servants had been instructed to speak of a dreadful accident. Vogel had been paid to remain silent. The money seemed enormous then. Within a year it began to feel insufficient.

He had not believed Minna survived until the news reached him in England. By then it was too late to undo anything. He had learned to accept the dead as his safest companions.

The next day he met Adelheid in a hired private room above a respectable establishment where business callers were unlikely to be remembered. A maid remained in the adjoining chamber, and the door was left sufficiently open to satisfy appearances, though the conversation itself was conducted quietly in German.

"You have prospered," Adelheid observed, glancing at his well-kept coat.