“Ah-well, my brother’s been rather busy,” she said. “But I do know the question of marriage is very much on his mind.” Because that old goat Billingsley wouldn’t shut up about it, but still. “I’m sure he’s eager to find a bride, Your Majesty.”
Erminium sniffed. “Well, if he can’t hunt down a suitable gel tell him to apply to me. I’ve a spare niece that wants taking off my hands.”
Oh, Saint Snodgrass protect me. “That’s very kind of you, Your Majesty,” Melissande said faintly. “I’m sure Rupert will be touched.”
But Erminium had turned away, her stick-thin, silk-draped arm lifted a little, crooked forefinger beckoning.
“Here, Ratafia,” she said, as her radiant daughter joined them. “This is Melissande of New Ottosland. She’s that scoundrel Lional’s sister. By all means be convivial while I have a word with Leopold Gertz, but don’t go getting any ideas. This chit thinks she’s fooling the world by calling herself Miss Cadwallader and prancing about Ott in trousers, currying favour with social misfits who refuse to accept they need a king.”
As her mother went in search of Hartwig’s Secretary of State, Princess Ratafia sighed. “Please forgive Her Majesty,” she said, her soft voice lightly accented. “She does not mean to be abrupt. It’s just that my wedding has her melancholy. She misses my father, King Barlion. It has been eleven years and she still has not forgiven him for dying.”
“Oh,” said Melissande. “I’m sorry.”
“And I am sorry, too,” said Ratafia, whose beauty up close was as overpowering as Bibbie’s, in its distinctly Borovnik fashion. “About the loss of your brother, King Lional. It must have been a great shock.”
Melissande, who until that moment had thought she looked quite fabulous in her crystal-beaded dinner gown and jewels, resisted the urge to give up once and for all and go find a spare pair of Gerald’s trousers.
“Yes, it was a shock,” she said, managing to keep her voice even. “Thank you.”
Ratafia looked across the crowded room at Hartwig’s very plain brother, Ludwig, who’d been waylaid by the Count of Blonkken. Her flawless face softened into a smile of haunting beauty.
“I fancied myself in love with Lional, you know.”
“Oh,” she said again. “I didn’t know you knew him.”
“Only from afar,” said Ratafia. “We met once, in Graff, when he was still a prince. He danced with me five times in one night. I wept for days after we heard the sad news of his accident. I couldn’t imagine there was another man who could make my heart beat so fast.” Her perfectly sculpted lips parted in another smile. “And then I met Ludwig.”
And what did that mean? Was it possible that mixed up somewhere in all the politics, there was also true love? Given the pressures of international relations, it seemed unlikely. On the other hand, stranger things had happened. But before Melissande could ask, the trumpets blared again.
Dinner time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I’m sorry?” Gerald said, staring at Mitzie. Thank Saint Snodgrass they were ensconced more-or-less behind the potted tree fern, and that the Servants’ Ball was in full, uproarious swing. “You went looking for-ah-Ferdie in the Grande Splotze morgue?”
Mitzie nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. After I couldn’t find him in the hospitals. But he wadn’t with the dead people, neither. I looked at all of them.” She shuddered. “Even when they were old and horrible, or all runny, I looked. But Ferdie wadn’t there. Oh, Mister Rowbotham! Something dreadful must’ve happened to him!”
“You looked at runny dead bodies,” said Gerald, not risking a glance at Bibbie. “Gracious. That was very brave of you, Mitzie.”
Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you, Mister Rowbotham.”
“Although I’m a bit surprised Cook didn’t offer to do it for you.”
“Cook? Pah!” Mitzie blinked away the tears. “All he does is call my Ferdie nasty names and throw bowls at the wall because he don’t have his senior pantry-man and he says his back’s too bad for lifting.”
“And what about Mister Ibblie? You can’t ask for his help?”
Mitzie shrank. “Oh, no, Mister Rowbotham, sir. Mister Ibblie, he don’t speak to kitchen maids. And even if he did, sir, Ferdie idn’t meant to be any of my business. Besides, there’d be no help dere. Mister Ibblie told Cook he caught Ferdie out of bounds and Ferdie must’ve bolted on account of fearing he’d be punished and if he shows his face again he’ll only be turned off so dere’s no point in trying to find him.” She hiccupped. “And Cook said Mister Ibblie had no right to chase away his pantry-man, kitchen staff are his say-so, and then Mister Ibblie told Cook it was his own fault for not keeping a stricter eye on us and after that neither of them had a care for Ferdie no more. It was just about them.”
Well, damn. If only that didn’t sound entirely bloody plausible. “There, there,” said Gerald, and fished a handkerchief out of his pocket.
Mitzie took it with a watery smile and mopped her wet cheeks. “Dere weren’t no-one I could speak to. Only I feel like I’m letting Ferdie down, sir, holding my tongue when I know something’s wrong.”
“Oh, Mitzie, you’ve not let him down,” Bibbie said quickly, and slid her arm around the despondent kitchen maid’s shoulders. “You braved the Grande Splotze morgue! If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.”
Mitzie’s cheeks pinked, and her eyelashes fluttered low to shield her eyes. “Oh, miss. You’d do the same, for Ferdie. He’s got such a way with him, he has.”
Gerald stifled a groan. It seemed more than likely that Bestwick’s little ways were set to end his career.
Provided, of course, he’s not lying dead in a ditch.
Trying to ignore the dread that thought woke, and the guilt of his own failure, he gave the kitchen maid an encouraging smile. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, Mitzie. Now, I wonder, d’you think we could go back over a few things? Just to make sure I have the story straight? You said the last time you saw Ferdie was in the stables. You’re quite certain of that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it was two days ago?”
“Two days afore yesterday, sir. Late lunchish time.”
So, definitely the same day Bestwick sent Sir Alec his desperate message. The same day, it seemed, that Ibblie had seen him. “And what exactly were you doing with Ferdie in the stables? I don’t think you said.”
“Doing, sir?” said Mitzie, her voice strangled. Her blush this time was rosy red.
Belatedly, he realised. Oh. Right. Opposite him, Bibbie was working hard to keep her expression serious. Wretched girl. She was s’posed to be gently-bred. She was s’posed to be mortified. Instead she looked like she wanted to break into whoops.
“Yes, well, never mind, Mitzie,” he muttered. “I’m sure what you do with your friends is none of my affair. I mean business. Just, if you could think back and tell me who else was in the stables with you?”
Mitzie looked puzzled. “Oh, sir, there wadn’t nobody else. All alone, we were. We had to be.” Another blush. “You know.”
“Yes, yes, quite,” he said hurriedly. “I see. Ah-does that mean you didn’t see Mister Ibblie?”
She shook her head. “No, I never saw him, sir. I left first, y’see. So’s we’d not set tongues wagging.”
“And you’re quite sure nobody’s laid eyes on Ferdie since then?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mitzie. “Everybody’s been asked, sir. And there’d be no call to fib on it.”
Not if there was nothing to hide, no. But clearly somebody was concealing the truth, because in the short space of time between Mitzie leaving the stables and Ibblie discovering Bestwick there, something had happened to alarm the agent about the wedding.
Unless Ibblie’s the culprit, Gerald realised. In which case he and I need to have another pointed conversation. In private, this time.
Damp handkerchief strangled in her fingers, Mitzie turned to Bibbie. “Oh, miss, please, you have to believe me. Ferdie didn’t run away. He told me how much he loves working in the kitchen and how one day he’d like to be a ’prentice cook, and I believed him. He was pantry-man here four years, y’know, and there’s not a man alive stays
