An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6) -Deanna Raybourn Page 0,94
I asked. “It at least confirms that she was not abducted, and you might have saved them some worry.”
“I gave Gisela my word, Fraulein,” he said, picking up the empty glass and staring into it. “She wanted no one to know where she went, and that is why she would not even tell me where she was bound. Take that to the chancellor and the baroness if you must, but it will accomplish nothing except anger them because I did not convey it myself. That is in no one’s best interests.”
Stoker tucked the timetable into his pocket. “There is no reason they need to know just yet. In fact, not having to worry about such an occurrence will free you to see to it that Miss Speedwell has all the support she requires this evening and makes a success of it.”
The threat was unmistakable. Stoker was holding on to the timetable as insurance that Duke Maximilian would render me whatever aid he could during the course of the banquet and signing ceremony.
The duke gave him a grudging nod and smiled, a flicker of his usual insouciance playing about his mouth. “A worthy adversary, Templeton-Vane. I might duel you yet.”
“I look forward to it,” Stoker said, holding his gaze for a long moment. “Did the princess give you any indication of how long she meant to be away?”
The duke shrugged. “She said only that she had something she must do and that I would have to trust her. And she promised to announce the betrothal upon her return.”
“A carrot to secure the donkey’s cooperation,” I said blandly.
The duke raised his glass and made a braying noise. He was noticeably more intoxicated than he had been, and I wondered if inebriation might loosen his tongue.
“Did it ever occur to you,” I put it to him pleasantly, “that your villainous little friend from Deauville might have followed you and seized the opportunity to abduct Gisela to hold her for ransom?”
A look of horror came over him and he drank off the last drops of his brandy in a single swallow. “No, that cannot be.”
“Unlikely, I grant you. But possible. Miss Butterworth followed you that night. Why not this fellow? He must have kept rather a close eye upon you during your time in London?”
He licked his lips, his tongue brushing the hairs of his moustaches, which had gone limp from the dousings of brandy. “He owns a flat in Belgravia. I stayed there when I first arrived. He likes to know where I am, at least until the money is paid back. He might, that is to say, I don’t know, but I suppose he might have followed us. Oh, Gisela,” he said, falling to muttering something in impenetrable German.
Stoker elaborated on my theory. “Or Gisela mayn’t have left of her own volition at all. We know she entered the station in your company. What if you delivered her to this man on his instructions?”
“I would never!” the duke cried in outrage.
“But you might have,” Stoker persisted. “You could have taken her to the club on the pretext of retrieving the rope, pretending to help her, only to hand her over to this fellow. He may be preparing a ransom note as we speak, ready to take his money from the Alpenwalder treasury if he cannot get it from your pocket.”
“That is monstrous,” Maximilian said.
“Not as monstrous as the fact that if anything were to happen to her, you would be the Hereditary Prince of the Alpenwald, in your own right,” I suggested. “In fact, what if that was your plan all along? Hand Gisela over and let this miscreant demand money for her, then kill her, eliminating all of your problems at one stroke. Excellent thinking, Stoker.”
The duke surged out of his chair. “Enough!” he said, flinging his glass into the mantel looking glass and shattering both. “Gisela is not a problem for me to solve. I am in love with her!” Brandy dripped from the shards on the mantelpiece, dropping softly to the carpet. For a long moment, it was the only sound in the room apart from the duke’s heavy breathing.
As quickly as the rage had come, it left him. His shoulders sagged and his face crumpled as he sank to his knees and buried his face in the chair cushion. He let out a low, mournful noise, rather like a very sad bull elephant, and I looked at Stoker. “What is he doing?”