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His eyes opened even wider. “You mean the court in Venice?”
“Why not?”
“You think that is a good idea?”
“Of course! If you had any loyalty to Rathbone, you wouldn’t need to ask me, you’d just go!”
Her concern for Rathbone must have cut sharply through her voice. He saw it, and a curious softness filled his face, and then something which might have been surprise or hurt. It was all there, and then gone in an instant before she was sure.
“I was just going!” he said tartly. “What do you imagine I am packing for? Or do you want me to go to Venice just as I stand? Don’t you think it would be a little more intelligent, if I am to mix with the exile court, for me to take a few changes of suitable clothes?”
She should have known. Of course, she should have. She had misjudged him. Relief welled up inside her, filling her with warmth, untying all the knots of anger and calming her fear. She found herself smiling. She should never have doubted.
“Yes, I’m so glad.” It was not quite an apology, but almost. “Yes, naturally you’ll need the appropriate clothes. Are you going by boat or train?”
“Both,” he replied. He hesitated. “You don’t need to worry so much about Rathbone,” he said grudgingly. “He isn’t a fool. And I’ll find enough evidence either to make a decent case or else persuade the Countess Rostova to withdraw before it comes to court.”
She realized with a tingle of amazement that Monk was annoyed because she was afraid for Rathbone. He was jealous, and it infuriated him. She wanted to laugh, but it would sound hysterical, and he would be quite capable of shaking her till she stopped. And she would not stop, because it was so unbelievably funny. He would misunderstand entirely, and then she would only laugh the more. They would end, closer than ever, touching, the fears and barriers forgotten for a moment. Or they would quarrel and say things which might not be meant but could not be taken back or forgotten.
He stood motionless.
She did not dare put it to the test. It mattered too much.
“I doubt she’ll apologize or withdraw,” she said quietly, her voice breaking a little. “But at least you may be able to find out whether or not he was murdered. Was he?”
“I don’t know,” he replied soberly. “It could have been poison. There are yew trees in the garden there, and anyone could pick the leaves without being noticed.”
“How would they get them to Prince Friedrich?” she asked. “You can hardly walk into a sickroom and ask the patient to eat a few leaves. Anyway, most people know what yew leaves look like; they’re sort of needles, and everyone knows they’re poisonous. It’s the sort of thing your parents tell you not to eat when you’re a child. I can remember being frightened of yew trees in graveyards when I was very young.”
“Obviously, someone made an infusion and added it to his food or drink,” he said dourly. “They could either have done that in his room or, far more likely, gone to the kitchen or distracted a servant carrying a tray upstairs. It would be easy enough. The only thing is, Gisela never left their suite of rooms. She is about the only person who didn’t go into the garden at all. All the servants will testify to that. Even at night, she remained with him all the time.”
“Someone helped her?” she said, knowing even as she did so that Gisela would never trust anyone else with such a secret.
Monk did not bother to answer.
“If he was murdered at all, it wasn’t Gisela,” she said quietly. “What are you going to do? How can we help Rathbone?”
“I don’t know.” He was unhappy and annoyed. “If we can prove it was murder, that may be all Zorah really wants. Perhaps she accused Gisela because the Princess is the one person who would have to fight to clear her name. Maybe that was the only way to force a trial and a public investigation.”
“But what about Rathbone?” she insisted. “He is the one who has undertaken to defend her. How will finding someone else guilty help him?”
“I don’t suppose it will,” he said testily, moving away from the mantelpiece. “But if that’s the truth, then that is all I can do. I assume you don’t want me to manufacture evidence to convict Gisela simply to assist Rathbone out of a predicament he’s dug himself into because he was fascinated by a German countess with outrageous opinions and listened to his heart, not his head? Or do you?”
She should have been furious with him for his vitriolic remarks and for deliberately trying to make her jealous by mentioning Zorah in these terms, the more so because he had succeeded. But for once she could read him too easily, and his motive at least was flattering. She smiled. “Find as much of the truth as you can,” she said quite lightly. “I expect he will make something worth having of it, even if it is only the dignity of saving a reputation and making a decent apology for a misplaced belief. The truth may be hard to take, but lies are always worse, in the end. Perhaps silence would have been best, but it’s too late for that now.”
“Silence?” he s
aid with a sharp laugh. “Between two women like that? And I can’t even speak to Gisela, because she is receiving nobody.” He took another step forward. “Tell Rathbone I’ll write to him from Venice … if there’s anything to say.”
“Of course. I’ll see you when you return.” She was about to add something about doing all he could, then caught his eye and kept the silence he had referred to so scathingly. She would miss him, knowing he was not even in London, but she certainly did not say that.
5
AS MONK HAD TOLD HESTER, his journey was first to Dover, then across the Channel to Calais, then to Paris, and then the final, large and very gracious train which took him for a long journey south and east to Venice. Stephan von Emden had gone two days before and was to meet him when he arrived, so he was traveling alone.
The trip was both fascinating and exhausting, particularly since, apart from one journey up to Scotland, he was unfamiliar with travel of any distance. If he had ever been out of Great Britain before, it was lost in that part of his memory which he could not retrieve. Snatches came back when some experience echoed something from the past and produced a fragment, sharp and unrelated, puzzling him more than it enlightened. Usually it was no more than an impression, a face seen for a moment, perhaps a powerful emotion connected with it, sometimes pleasant, more often one of anxiety or regret. Why was it that pain seemed to return more easily? Was that something about his life or his nature? Or do the darker things simply mark themselves on the mind in a different way?
He spent much of the time, as the train rattled and swayed through the countryside, thinking of the case he was pursuing, perhaps fruitlessly. Hester’s attitude rankled with him. He had not appreciated that she was so fond of Rathbone. Perhaps he had never thought about it, but now he could see from the tension and the anxiety in her that she was concerned. She had seemed hardly able to think of anything else.
