Стефани Баррон - A Flaw in the Blood

“Show her up,” he ordered the porter. “She's alone, I expect?”

“Quite alone, sir.”

“How daring of her.” Von Stühlen smiled.

There was one benefit of maintaining the fiction that Papa had died of typhoid, Alice thought; it allowed her to plead a vague and potentially dangerous set of symptoms throughout those first few weeks of January, and no one—not even Mama, for obvious reasons—would attempt to argue with her. Uneasy headaches. Loss of appetite. Restless sleeping. All the members of the Household, even the servants, were worried she was sickening for the dread disease—she who had nursed Papa to the last.

She cultivated the habit of retiring to her room at midday, reclining on a sofa with her books or her writing paper. Her old nurse ordered everyone at Osborne to leave her in peace. From time to time she felt Mama's eyes follow her in speculation—from the Queen at least she had no secrets; but Mama's hand was stayed. She could not proclaim to the world that her daughter was promulgating nonsense.

So when Alice left her rooms that Wednesday morning, no one was available to watch her hurried flight down the broad back-terrace steps. She avoided the stables. It was more than a mile's walk into Cowes, but she had allowed herself plenty of time. She knew the Portsmouth steamer's schedule by heart. It was only as she attempted to board, heart pounding and mind singing at her escape, that someone had the courage to speak to her.

“Bonjour, madame.”

Von Stühlen bowed with his usual grace, but Odaline duFief seemed unimpressed. She was heavily veiled against the January streets and carried an enormous fur muff; her clothing was black and severe. Mourning, he thought. How she embraces the old bitch's cause! Or is this for Albert? More of the national hypocrisy?

“You are very good to receive me,” she murmured; he caught the trace of an accent, the glint of unblinking eyes behind the veil.

“Not at all. I imagine we both work toward the same end—justice for that unfortunate boy. Pray sit down, and tell me how I may serve you.”

She did not accept the invitation, but crossed the carpet deliberately, as though drawn by the sound of his voice.

He hesitated, aware of something unanticipated in her manner. She was too much in command of herself—she had no desire for complicity, though she halted barely a yard from his face.

“My husband, you see, has told me all about you.” She withdrew one black-gloved hand from her muff and reached dreamily for her veil. As he watched her unwind its smoky length, the face emerging like an apparition, the muff dropped carelessly to the floor. In her free hand was a gun.

“Lady Maude,” he stammered, stepping backwards. “I thought—”

“You thought I was a fool,” she said.

And fired at his heart from point-blank range.

“Good morning, Your Highness,” Georgiana said quietly in the girl's ear.

Princess Alice turned, an expression of fright flitting across her features.

“I am Dr. Armistead. You wished to speak with me, I believe? I thought it best to come to you, rather than demanding the exertion of a Solent crossing.”

“Dr. Armistead?” The Princess's gaze flicked past Georgie to the pair of men standing several paces behind her. “But . . . you are a lady —”

“I am also qualified in medicine. Your late father the Prince Consort was a valued acquaintance. It was to speak of him, I believe, that you placed that notice in the Times ? Although, to be frank, he was never my patient, Your Highness. He consulted me on behalf of your brother.”

Alice said nothing for an instant, glancing about with a hunted look.

“We have engaged a fly,” Georgiana attempted. “If you will consent to enter it, we may speak in complete privacy. For my part, I promise no harm shall come to your person or reputation.”

“Of course. It is only that— If only I could be certain—”

“That I am who I claim?” Georgiana smiled. “Would it help you to know that I am recently returned from Cannes? That I met your brother Leopold there? And that he was so kind as to lend me his donkey, Catherine?”

“Leo!”

“The Prince and I are old friends. It was he your Papa required me to examine.”

Alice's expression clouded. “Then I was wrong. I thought perhaps you knew something of my father that I did not—that you might be capable of dispelling some grave fears that have attended me since his tragic death—but if you were Leo's physician—”

“There is much that we might discuss,” Georgiana said carefully. “But not in such an exposed place. May I beg to introduce another who is closely concerned in these affairs? Your Highness, may I present Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald to your acquaintance?”

She stared down at his body where it lay on the carpet, blood spreading across the elegant white shirtfront, a darker stain on the black cloth of his waistcoat. His sensual lips were parted, exposing the teeth; his one good eye stared coldly at the brass fender.

She had an idle fancy to remove the eye patch and probe the empty socket with her finger; or to kneel down and kiss those parted lips—either would have been a sensation she might have enjoyed, in the past. But she was so very tired now. To kill him had required all the attention and energy she could summon from her dying frame, all the mental force she could muster. She wanted, now, to sleep.

Maude did not intend to hang for von Stühlen's murder. She would not appear at the Bar to offer her confused testimony. She simply placed the copy of the Count's confession in his dead right hand, and composed herself in a convenient chair. When the porter's running feet had reached the door of the third-floor flat, she fired the gun a second time.

I was pretending to read one of Palmerston's dispatches, which the excellent Mr. Helps had conveyed across the threshold—although in truth I was composing a letter to my daughter Vicky, full of sad reflections upon Those Who Are Gone—when Alice appeared at the door of my private sitting room.

I barely glanced at her, having lost all patience with her melancholy airs and her wicked attempts to cultivate illness. It is a very good thing that she is to be thrown away upon Louis of Hesse—who is nothing but a Ludwig, after all, dressed up in a French name. Kind but dull, and his teeth so very bad that even our dentist could do nothing with him.

“I am not at leisure, Alice,” I said firmly, my eyes upon Vicky's letter. “I have not the quantity of hours you seem to spend in reading your books. I must guard my moments jealously.”

She ignored my words and walked without hesitation into the room. To my surprise, a small cavalcade followed: William Jenner, with an expression of marked ill-ease upon his countenance; the despicable Patrick Fitzgerald; and a lady . . . a lady whose name I fancied I could summon. It was she who closed the double doors behind her, and remained, like a sentinel, before them. She was far too beautiful to bear looking at. I remembered her handwriting on the page—the satisfaction of the flames . . .

I rose from my desk in cold fury.

“We must and shall speak with you, Mama.”

Alice's face was quite pale and her features haggard; I might almost have believed in her spurious illness as she stood before me so straightly, all her father's stubbornness in her upright frame.

“Mr. Fitzgerald you know. But Dr. Armistead is a stranger, I believe—in person, if not in name.”

“Not in name,” I agreed. “But I have no wish to make Miss Armistead's acquaintance. She is guilty of abortion and her paramour of murder. Jenner— Summon the footmen and we shall have these two bound over to the Law at once! I must thank you, Alice, for doing what others less worthy of trust could not!”