How to Tame Your Duke(56)

"I was prepared to protect her, and I did. And she wanted to see her sister."

"With an imminent threat hanging over her head, Emilie's desire to see her sister is neither here nor there."

"I disagree."

"Because you are in love with her."

"Because I have seen what a few weeks of being a prisoner in this house  has done to her. She is honorable, she is dutiful, she hasn't  complained. But she is not happy. She is not herself."

Olympia's glass landed on his desk with a trifle more force than  necessary, spilling a precious few drops of sherry onto the depthless  mahogany. "How many times, Ashland, have I cautioned you not to let your  emotions become involved in your work?" The word emotions dripped from  his mouth, as if he'd accidentally ingested some foul concoction of  earthworm and bat's blood.

Ashland returned his gaze levelly. "The happiness of others should be the ultimate goal of any endeavor. Should it not?"

"Hmm." Olympia took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the spilled sherry.

"Do you mean simply to harangue me for my excessively emotional nature,  or have you any interest in the outcome of my inquiries this morning?"

"The latter, of course."

"Very well. I met with Hatherfield . . ."

"Ah yes." Olympia sank into his chair. "Tell me about my dear friend Hatherfield."

"I daresay you know more than I do. Very clever of you, tapping us all  for your project. In any case, he has not encountered any outside danger  in his-ahem-association with Princess Stefanie, but he has received an  odd series of notes." He drew a paper from his pocket and laid it on the  desk before him. "He gave me this one for examination. Do you recognize  the writing?"

Olympia took the note and smoothed it with care. "I do not."

"You will note the peculiar character of the letters themselves. It puts me in mind of the Gothic German script."                       
       
           



       

"I see your point."

"It does not awaken any particular suspicion?"

Olympia looked up and pushed the note back across the desk. "My dear  Ashland, remember that this organization has members across Europe. We  might attribute such writing to any number of men."

"You're not concerned that someone seems to have discovered Princess  Stefanie's true identity as well? That these clever disguises of yours  haven't seemed to fool our opponents at all?"

A thump sounded through the floorboards, and a faint shout. Ashland raised one eyebrow.

Olympia waved his hand. "The musicians, I believe, are setting up."

"You're quite certain of them?" Ashland folded the paper and replaced it in his pocket.

"They are all trained agents," said Olympia. "Hence the, er, difficulties in arranging themselves, er, musically."

"Any other outside staff? Has the food been examined?"

"My dear fellow, I am not an amateur. We have gone over these details countless times."

Ashland leaned forward. "One more question. This Hans. Emilie's father's valet. What do we know of him?"

"Enough."

"Can he write English?"

"He was devoted to the late Prince. Vetted by Miss Dingleby herself."

"Ah yes. The redoubtable Miss Dingleby. A finger in every pie, it seems.  Vetting valets. Protecting princesses from mortal harm."

Olympia knitted his fingers together on the desk and twirled his thumbs  in a kind of water mill. A faint scent of cigars and sherry drifted from  the air around him, a familiar and reassuring smell. The smell of  competent men, of clubs and private studies. "You do not approve of my  Dingleby?"

"She has your trust. She must be beyond reproach." Ashland laid his palm  flat atop his crossed leg. He was wearing knee breeches, as befitted a  royal occasion, and his quadricep felt as if it might burst through the  gleaming white silk. Without adjusting his own expression a millimeter,  he studied the duke's face: the deepening lines about his blue eyes, the  uncompromising angle of his chin. How many secrets were crammed into  the skull behind that face?

Olympia sighed and leaned back in his chair. "What an observant fellow you are. Perhaps I should start from the beginning."

Ashland allowed a small smile. "Better late than never, I always say."

* * *

Miss Dingleby stepped back to admire the result of the hour's labor.  "Excellent work, Lucy. Mrs. Needle was quite right; you are a wonder  with hair. Perhaps that curl near her right ear might be a trifle  higher?" She motioned with her finger.

"Aye, ma'am." Lucy came in again with the tongs, nearly singeing the skin of Emilie's ear.

"Excellent, excellent," Miss Dingleby said. "I hardly recognize you, my  dear. Rather like your sister's engagement ball last year. What a  glorious occasion! Except for the fiancé, of course. A sad sack, Peter,  but that's all in the past."

"He wasn't a sad sack. He was quite pleasant."

The roll of Miss Dingleby's eyes demonstrated exactly her opinion of pleasantness in young men. "Now stand up, my dear."

Emilie rose to her feet. Lucy stepped back to a respectful distance.

Miss Dingleby busied herself about Emilie's skirts, getting each fall of  fabric just so. "Excellent, excellent," she muttered, emerging at last.  She stood back and cocked her head to one side. Her finger tapped her  lower lip.

"What do you think, Lucy? How does Her Highness look?"

"Quite nice," said Lucy.

"Hmm. Yes. I see what you mean." Miss Dingleby reached forward and  removed Emilie's spectacles. "Oh, there we are. Much better, don't you  think? Our dear Duke of Ashland won't be able to take his eyes from  you."

Lucy made a tiny and tortured cough, as if a small animal were strangling itself at the back of her throat.

"Yes, Lucy?" Miss Dingleby said, without looking.

"Nobbut a . . . a speck of t'dust, ma'am." Lucy laid her tongs on the dressing table.

"A glass of water, then." Miss Dingleby snapped her fingers. "In fact,  that's an excellent idea. I shall return at once with drinks for us all.  I have a special recipe for calming the nerves."

"My nerves are perfectly calm," said Emilie, and it was true. She felt  utterly cool and collected, as if she were a doll of some kind, an  automaton encased in ice, a princess of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof.  Not at all the sort of hoyden who would engage in rampant carnal  intercourse with dukes in midnight carriages.                       
       
           



       

The wheels of fate were turning now, and there was not a bloody thing she could do about it.

"Nonsense. I shall be back directly." Miss Dingleby strode to the door and marched out.

Emilie studied the closed door with a trace of bemusement, then went to  the dressing table, picked up her spectacles, and replaced them on her  nose. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.

A magnificent dress, she had to concede. Her long figure had been  compacted into an hourglass of blue satin, so pale and icy it was nearly  white. The sleeves were gathered up at the very balls of her shoulders  in sprays of tiny blue satin rosettes, and her gleaming skirts came  together in the back into a veritable river of a long ice blue train.  Her bodice swooped just to the edge of propriety, and a fringe of  frothing petticoats peeped out a fraction of an inch between her ice  blue hem and the floor. A matching blue ribbon wound through the  artfully upswept curls on her head.

To her right, Lucy was busying herself with the tongs and the hairpins, her face a study in ruddy color.

"Thank you for your help, Lucy," Emilie said.

"Aye, ma'am. I'm right fair sorry, ma'am. I mean Your Highness. What  happened afoor in Yorkshire. I never did know. . . I never thought . .  ."

"Lucy, my dear. Whatever are you talking about?"

Lucy looked up and met her face in the mirror. "That last night, ma'am . . ."

"I have no idea what you mean. Yorkshire, you say? The Princess Emilie  of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof was never in Yorkshire." Emilie gave a  delicate shudder to underscore her point.

Lucy blinked. "Ma'am?"

"As it happens, however, your arrival is most fortuitous. I am in need of a lady's maid at the moment."

Lucy's mouth dropped open. "But ma'am . . . Your Highness . . . I'm never trained at all . . ."

"That is of no consequence whatever. My interest in fashion is minimal.  What I require, most of all, is discretion and loyalty." She turned from  the mirror and met Lucy's astonished gaze. "Discretion, my dear, and  loyalty. Offer me these, and I shall return them in spades."

"Oh, ma'am." Lucy breathed out slowly.