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He lay back with a feeling of emptiness and a strange alone-ness of the irretrievable. Whatever was given, it would have to be to someone else. It could never be the same.
The following afternoon he was presented at court. He needed to know whether it could be that Gisela herself was the intended victim, and he dreaded telling Rathbone.
And yet perhaps of all the possible answers, the one he had thought the worst of all, that Zorah killed him herself, was, in fact, the least appalling. What if it were Prince Waldo, to prevent Friedrich from coming home and plunging the country into war? Or Rolf, on the Queen’s behalf, meaning to kill Gisela and thus free Friedrich to return, and he had tragically killed the wrong person?
What would the British legal system, and British society, make of that? How would the Foreign Office and its diplomats at Whitehall extricate themselves from that morass with honor—and European peace?
How much of all of this did Zorah Rostova know or understand?
Queen Ulrike was a magnificent woman. Even after what he had heard of her iron resolve, Monk was unprepared for the force of her presence. At a distance, as he entered the room, he thought she was very tall. Her hair was glittering white, and she wore it swept up high on her head, braided in a natural coronet inside a blazing tiara. Her features were straight and strong, her brows very level. She wore shades of ivory and oyster satins with so slight a hoop that her skirts seemed to fall almost naturally. She stood with her shoulders squared and her gaze straight ahead.
When it was his turn to be introduced, and he walked forward, he saw that she was actually of no more than average height, and closer to, it was her eyes which startled and froze. They were clear aquamarine, neither green nor blue.
His name was announced.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed.
“Count Lansdorff tells me you are a friend of Stephan von Emden, Mr. Monk,” she said, surveying him with chilly courtesy.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He met you at the home of Lord Wellborough, where my unfortunate son met his death,” she continued with no discernible emotion in her voice.
“I stayed there a few days,” he agreed, wondering what Rolf had told her and why she had chosen to raise the subject.
“If you are a friend of Baron von Emden’s, then possibly you are also acquainted with the Countess Rostova?”
His instinct was to deny it for self-protection. Then he looked at her cool, clear eyes and was startled, even chilled, by the intelligence in them, and by a glimpse of something which might have been emotion, or simply force of will.
“I know her, ma’am, but not well.” To such a woman the truth was the only safety. Perhaps she knew it already.
“A woman of dubious tastes but unquestionable patriotism,” she said with a ghost of a smile. “I hope she will survive this present storm.”
Monk gasped.
“Are you enjoying Felzburg, Mr. Monk?” she continued as if they had been discussing something of equal unimportance. “It is a most agreeable time of year for concerts and theater. I hope you will have the opportunity during your stay here to visit the opera.”
It was an indication that the interview was at an end.
“Thank you, ma’am, I am sure I shall find it excellent.” He bowed again and withdrew, his head swimming.
* * *
He should have looked forward to the evening immensely. It was a ball to which Eugen had seen he was invited and where he knew Evelyn would also be present. All too soon he would have to return to London and to the reality of his life as it was. Whatever it had been before he had left it to go into the police force, that luxury, that easy acceptance of pleasure, was part of a past he could never relive in memory, much less return to. At least for the time left to him, he would, by act of will, forget the past and the future. The present was everything. He would enjoy it to the fullest, drink the cup of it to the last drop.
He dressed with care, but also with a sense of satisfaction, almost delight. He surveyed himself in the glass and smiled at his reflection. It was elegant and at ease in its beautiful clothes. The face that looked back at him had no diffidence, no anxiety. It was smooth, slightly amused, very sure of itself.
He knew Evelyn found him exciting. He had told her just enough to intrigue her. He was different from any other man she knew, and because she could not understand him, or guess what was really behind the little she could see, he was dangerous.
He knew it as clearly as if she had said it to him in words. It was a game, a delicately played and delicious game, the more to be savored because the stakes were real: not love, nothing so painful or so demanding of the self, but emotion for all that, and one that would not be easily forgotten when he had to leave. Perhaps from now on something of it would be echoed in every woman who woke a hunger and a delight in him.
He arrived at the magnificent home of the host for the ball and strode up the steps. Only a sense of dignity stopped him from racing up two at a time. He felt light-footed, full of energy. There were shimmering lights everywhere: torches in wrought iron holders outside, chandeliers inside blazing through the open doors and beyond the tall windows. He could hear the hum of conversation almost as if the music were already playing.
He handed in his invitation and hurried across the hallway and up the stairs to the reception room. His eyes swept over the crowded heads to find the thick, dark hair of Klaus von Seidlitz. It took him a moment or two. Then someone turned, taller than the others, and he saw Klaus’s face with its broken nose and heavy features. He was talking to a group of soldiers in bright uniform, recounting some tale which amused him. He laughed, and for a few moments he was a different man from the brooding, almost sullen person Monk had seen in England. In repose his face had seemed cruel; now it was genial, and merely crooked.
Monk searched for Evelyn and could not see her.
Rolf was standing not more than a dozen yards from him. He looked polite and bored. Monk guessed he was there from duty rather than pleasure, perhaps courting a political interest. Now that Friedrich was dead, where did the independence party pin its hopes? Rolf had the intelligence to lead it. Perhaps he would have been the person behind the throne if a plan to reinstate Friedrich had succeeded. Maybe he had always intended to rule.
