An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) -Deanna Raybourn Page 0,112

time to search. I managed Gisela’s bedchamber earlier but found nothing.”

“I did the same for Durand’s room just now,” he said.

“Did what for Durand’s room?” I could just make out the large form of the captain silhouetted in the doorway.

“May I help you, Captain?” Stoker inquired politely.

“Where are the others?” he demanded.

“Still at Windsor,” I informed him. “Where you ought to be. The chancellor was most put out that you could not be found. Where is Yelena?”

Durand’s eyes were limned red with the signs of unshed tears, and a small muscle jumped unsteadily at his jaw. “I do not know.”

“She is not with you?” Stoker asked narrowly.

“If she were, would I ever have forsaken my duty?” He was clearly aghast at the very idea of such a thing. “I stayed behind to look for her.”

“Is that not a dereliction of duty?” I inquired.

“I do not care,” he said, thumping his chest with one fist. “What does it matter if my heart is gone from me?”

I sighed. Durand was clearly as big a romantic as Stoker. “You read poetry, don’t you?” I asked.

He blinked at me. “Yes. I write it also.”

“Of course you do,” I murmured.

Stoker shot me a villainous look. “Veronica, contain your worse impulses. The captain is clearly distraught.”

Durand blinked. “What is this word?”

“‘Distraught’? It means upset. Deeply upset,” Stoker told him.

The captain nodded slowly. “Upset. Yes, this is true. My Yelena is gone.”

His face crumpled and for one terrible moment I thought he was going to weep, and I had had quite enough of crying men for one day.

I spoke to him in a brisk tone, calculated to stiffen his mettle. “Come now, Captain. It cannot be as bad as all that.”

He fixed me with an imploring look. “I know you find things,” he said. “I have heard the baroness and the chancellor speak of it.”

“We do have some experience,” I said with a modest gesture.

“Then you will find my Yelena. Please.”

I sighed and looked at the clock. Time was getting on and this might easily be our only opportunity to search for any clues to where the princess had gone or who had been responsible for Alice’s murder. “The baroness said she received a note and went out, quite suddenly.”

“A note from whom?” he asked, thrusting out his chest manfully. “If it was another man, I will kill him.”

“There is really no call for that,” I told him firmly. “It did occur to me that perhaps Yelena was summoned by the princess.”

Something like hope kindled in his eyes. “You think so?”

I shrugged. “It is possible. We still do not know where the princess is. It is conceivable that she had need of Yelena and sent for her with instructions not to reveal anything of the matter to anyone.”

He thought, stroking his moustaches as he pondered. “This is possible,” he said. Then he shook his head, slowly and from side to side, like a buffalo. “But I think it is not true. Yelena would have told me.”

I considered Yelena’s mildly extortionate activities and groped for a tactful way to raise the matter with Durand. Stoker had no such scruples. “Did you know she is a blackmailer?” he asked suddenly.

Durand guffawed. “A blackmailer! That is a harsh word for a little harmless exchange of monies.”

I gaped at him. “You knew?”

“Of course I knew. My family will—what is the English phrase?—cut me up when I marry her.”

“Cut you off,” Stoker corrected.

“Yes, thank you,” Durand replied. “They will cut me off. I will have no monies of my own except what I earn as captain of the princess’s guard. Yelena and I like nice things,” he finished blandly.

“So you conspire with her to extort money from people?” I asked, still aghast.

He shrugged. “It is easy for a man in my position to see things. It is natural for me to tell them to my fiancée. But Yelena is her own woman. What she does with such knowledge is not for me to say.” He turned to Stoker. “You understand, no? You cannot control your woman either.”

“I am not anyone’s woman but my own,” I returned hotly. Stoker slanted me an oblique look but said nothing.

“Will you help me find her?” Durand asked piteously.

“Certainly,” I told him, baring my teeth in a savage parody of a grin. “I think you quite deserve one another.” More than that, I had just realized that Durand carried keys to all of the rooms. It would not be necessary to pick the lock of the lumber