grasp and stacked it neatly with the others, shooing Guimauve from the bed and brushing a few stray cat hairs and crumbs from the silken coverlet.
“Yelena! She has gone out, apparently, and no one knows where—just when I actually have need of her.” She huffed. She plumped a few of the pillows with a vigorous gesture, and I hastened to settle her feathers.
“Do you wish to send someone to find her? To make inquiries?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she told me with Teutonic firmness. “We have a timetable to meet and we will not be delayed by the likes of her.” I deeply regretted the fact that Stoker and I had as yet had no chance to search the rest of the suite or hold a proper tête-à-tête after our conversation with the duke, but there would be no opportunity now. The baroness was bent upon her task and sent downstairs for one of the hotel maids to assist her. I was not at all surprised when J. J. appeared. I had learnt respect for her resourcefulness. She was quick and deft, doing exactly as the baroness instructed with a meek promptitude that seemed wholly out of character for her until she shot me a wink when the baroness’s back was turned.
“How did you arrange this?” I asked J. J. hastily as the baroness left to retrieve a box of jewels. “Did you crack Yelena over the head? Is she tied up in a broom cupboard somewhere?”
J. J. pulled a face. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Yelena. The princess’s lady’s maid. She disappeared this afternoon and is not to be found.”
J. J. shrugged. “Nothing to do with me. But if I were you, I would be careful.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“Because if Alpenwalder women are disappearing, there is a very short list of prospective victims.”
I put out my tongue at her, resuming my decorum just as the baroness returned, looking a little relieved. “At least the jewels are still here,” she said grimly. Then she looked at J. J. and stiffened. It would never do to air soiled Alpenwalder laundry in front of a mere hotel maid, I realized, and I made no reply.
In the end, I was glad of J. J.’s presence, for it was absolutely a matter of all hands to the tiller. Whatever toilette I had made the previous evening was nothing compared to the effort for a formal dinner. I was washed, powdered, brushed, massaged, pinned, coiffed, dressed, bedecked, and bedizened.
“I feel like a warhorse preparing for battle,” I complained at one point. “How on earth do women make a habit of dressing like this?”
The baroness managed a thin smile. “One becomes accustomed to the weight. And this is not a full state occasion,” she reminded me. “Enthronings are even grander occasions with a full crown and scepter and the rod of St. Otthild as well as a mantle of state that stretches nine yards in length.”
Little wonder the princess had run away, I reflected, if it meant escaping such ludicrous trappings. The baroness explained that it was only the opening of the Alpenwalder parliament and enthronings and royal weddings that called for full regalia, but an occasion as important as dinner at Windsor Castle still called for formal Alpenwalder court dress. If it had been left to the gown alone, I would have made no complaint. Borrowed from the style of the Russian imperial ladies, it had an undergown of heavy white satin thickly embroidered with Alpenwalder emblems in gold silk. The overgown was rich scarlet velvet edged in ermine, the long, slashed sleeves sweeping to the floor and lined in white satin. The deep neckline, rounded and positioned just at the edge of the shoulders, was banded in a wide swathe of more golden embroidery, which trailed down the front of the overgown and around the long train.
My hair was once again plaited and piled and pinned with an array of false pieces into an elaborate confection to hold a coronet of old rose-cut diamonds set around enormous, luscious rubies. A deep blue sash crossed from one shoulder to my waist, secured with the jeweled order of St. Otthild, a gem-encrusted otter rampant with a sprig of St. Otthild’s wort gripped in his tiny diamond teeth.
I looked to the baroness and realized she was not wearing her order. “What has become of your sash, Baroness?”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “I cannot find it. It was creased after last night and I told that wretched