An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) -Deanna Raybourn Page 0,44

Alpenwalder dialect, and the girl bobbed a curtsy to show she understood.

I glanced about the room, taking in my surroundings. Furnished in the same quiet luxury as the rest of the suite, the bedchamber was a study in tastefulness. Yelena might not have been the most articulate of servants, but she kept the room neat as a pin. No stray articles of clothing, no traces of face powder or trimmed threads, were to be seen. The books on the bedside table had been stacked in order of size, squared off at a precise angle. The pillows on the bed were plumped to an exact sameness, and the chairs tucked in the embrasure of the French windows were as rigidly correct as the sentry outside. Even the recamier of dark raspberry velvet had been positioned exactly in the center of a faux bois screen stretched across one corner of the room. The only unexpected note came from the plump Persian cat sitting majestically upon the dressing table. It regarded me with a long, unblinking stare.

“How do you do,” I said politely, for I have always believed that while one may be familiar immediately upon making a dog’s acquaintance, a cat will stand for no such informality.

The cat gave me a slow blink of its jeweled eyes.

“That is Guimauve,” the baroness told me. “He is spoilt beyond redemption.”

“Guimauve,” I repeated. “What an apt name!” It was the French word for the marshmallow flower, Althaea officinalis, a most useful herb with a broad white bloom that bore a striking resemblance to the creature before me.

The baroness issued another order to Yelena, who immediately collected the animal from the top of the dressing table and placed it on an azure silken cushion. It meowed by way of complaint, but it seemed to be a token protest only, for it instantly fell to grooming its snowy fur and ignoring us entirely.

As the cat attended to his ablutions, I was stripped of my own clothing down to the bare skin, my nakedness swiftly covered with a silk chemise of such delicacy it felt like a fall of rose petals whispering over my flesh. I would rather enjoy playing at being a princess if all the garments were going to be so lavish, I decided.

But no sooner had the chemise settled on my skin than I was trussed within an inch of my life into a strangulating corset of merciless dimensions. Unlike my own lightweight athletic corset, which permitted great ease of movement with only modest support, this monstrosity was clearly fashioned of steel with stays that might uphold a battleship if necessity demanded.

“I . . . cannot . . . breathe,” I protested through gasps.

“Her Serene Highness has a very small waist,” the baroness replied pitilessly. “You will not fit into her clothes if yours is not as narrow.” She and Yelena together bore down with ruthless purpose on the laces again, drawing them tighter still until the stays creaked in protest and the baroness pronounced herself satisfied.

Once I was trussed like a pheasant fit for roasting, she sat me down—with difficulty—at a dressing table, where she gave Yelena detailed instructions about my hair. I watched the girl’s reflection in the looking glass as she worked, pins held in her lips, hands moving quickly, deftly, as she first tonged my hair into long, smooth ringlets, then plaited the loose curls into a series of coils at the base of my neck and around my ears. Once this was done, a box of false hair was opened, and the baroness and the maid took a long time selecting the appropriate pieces, the baroness peering through her monocle as she chose.

“Does the princess wear false hair?” I asked in some astonishment.

The baroness shrugged. “Sometimes. Her own hair is much longer than yours—past her knees, in fact. But even she will augment her coiffure if the occasion demands.”

“But why?” I asked. “Exactly how much hair does an Alpenwalder woman require?”

“Quite a lot,” the baroness told me as she began to weave in the false pieces herself. Mercifully they were a match for my own, as the princess and I had nearly identical coloring.

The baroness explained as she worked. “The Alpenwald played host to a very august visitor some years ago—the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. She was traveling incognita, you understand, but she is very fond of walking and our lakes offer excellent vistas for such sport. She is a distant cousin of the late Hereditary Prince and it was