Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,84

know that he had carried out a clever murder and would never be caught? Or was it that he felt guilty that the wrong man had died?

With these thoughts buzzing through my head I found myself in the long gallery, where afternoon coffee was being served. My mother had found the group of older countesses and was sitting eating torte with them. She waved as I approached.

“We’re about to play bridge, darling. Care to join us?”

“No, thank you, I’m useless at bridge. Is the princess still in the fitting room?”

“Oh, no, darling. She appeared about half an hour ago, poured herself a black coffee and looked with longing at the cakes. That child is starving herself, if you ask me. Now she’s definitely too thin. European men do like a woman to have a little meat on her bones.”

“And Prince Nicholas, have you seen him recently?”

“I haven’t seen him since lunch. I gather he and Anton went out to shoot, and I expect Max went with them. They’re only happy when they’re shooting something—apart from sex, of course.”

“Mother!” I gave her a warning frown.

My mother glanced around at the other women, who were tucking into their torte with abandon. “They won’t understand. Their English is hopeless, darling. Besides, it is about time you were acquainted with the facts of life. I’ve hopelessly neglected my duty in that area. Men only have two thoughts in their heads and those are killing or copulating.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of men with finer feelings, who are interested in art and culture.”

“Yes, darling, of course there are. They are called fairies. And they are quite adorable—so witty and fun to be with. But in my long and varied life I’ve found that the ones who are witty to be with are no use in bed, and vice versa.”

She took a final bite of her cake, licked her fork—curling her tongue in what would have been a seductive gesture had any men been present—and went to join the other ladies, who were setting up a bridge table. I helped myself to coffee and cake and sat alone on a sofa, feeling uneasy. So Nicholas had gone out hunting again, had he? I had seen from experience how easy it was to shoot at the wrong target, and hadn’t Darcy suggested exactly the same way to kill someone conveniently? But I could hardly go after Nicholas at this stage. I’d just have to wait until he returned. Dragomir had warned me against amateur sleuthing, but I was apparently the only one in the castle, apart from the killer, who knew the truth. I had to warn Nicholas as soon as he came back.

The cake looked absolutely delicious—layers of chocolate and cream and nuts. I took a slice but I found it hard to swallow. If I couldn’t come up with a good answer for the first question—who wanted to kill Prince Nicholas?—then perhaps I should examine the next logical one: why? I understood that murder is committed for several reasons: fear, gain, revenge, with fear being the most compelling motive of the three. Who in this castle had something to fear from the prince, something so terrible that he had to be silenced forever? I couldn’t answer that one. I knew so little about everyone here. So who had something to gain from his death? The obvious answer to that was Anton. He’d be next in line to the throne if his brother died. And he had the means—a knowledge of chemistry—and he had stood to clink glasses with his brother. No—that theory didn’t work since the poison was put into the red wine when Nicholas had already switched to champagne and Anton would have observed that.

Of the other people within reach at the table, Matty wouldn’t want to finish off her bridegroom right before the wedding. I was sitting opposite, so was Siegfried, and neither of us did it. So we were back to Dragomir or an unnamed server, bribed by a large sum of money to do the unthinkable. And if not these, a political assassination. That, I supposed, made the most sense, because an anarchist or communist wouldn’t care about the murder taking place in such a public place—would actually prefer it to be visible and spectacular, like the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo that had started the Great War.

This was out of my league. I had tangled once before with a team of highly trained communist infiltrators and had no wish