“I see,” he said slowly. “It is so serious a matter in England?”
“When it concerns the royal family of another country, yes sir, it is.”
A strange flicker of emotion crossed Waldo’s face. Monk could not read it. It might have been any of a dozen things. A few yards away, a soldier in resplendent uniform bowed to a lady in pink.
“My brother gave up his duties in his family over twelve years ago, and with it his privileges,” Waldo said coolly. “He chose not to be one of us. Gisela Berentz never was.”
Monk took a deep breath. He had little to lose.
“If he was murdered, sir, then the question arises as to who did such a thing. With the political situation as it is at present, speculation will touch many people, including those whose views were different from his.”
“You mean me,” Waldo replied unflinchingly, his brows raised a little.
Monk was startled. “More precisely, sir, someone who holds your views,” he corrected hastily. “Not necessarily, of course, with your knowledge or upon your instructions. But it might be difficult to demonstrate that.”
“Extremely,” Waldo said, his eyes steady and hard, as if already he faced the charge and was steeling himself to it. “Even proof will convince only those who wish to be convinced. It will follow a long path before it reaches the ears of the common man.”
Monk changed the subject. “Unfortunately, we cannot prevent the trial. We have tried. We have done everything in our power to persuade the Countess Rostova to withdraw her allegation and apologize, but so far we have failed.” He did not know if that was true, but he assumed it would be. Rathbone must have at least that much sense—and desire for his own survival.
A flicker of humor crossed Waldo’s face for the first time.
“I could have told you as much,” he replied. “Zorah has never been known to back away from anything. Or, for that matter, to count the personal cost of it. Even her enemies have never called her a coward.”
“Could she have killed him herself?” Monk asked impulsively.
Waldo did not hesitate an instant, nor did his expression change. “No. She is for independence. She believes we can survive alone, like Andorra or Liechtenstein.” Again the shadow of humor crossed his face. “If it had been Gisela who was killed, I would have said certainly she could …”
Monk was stunned. The words raced around his head. He tried to grasp their dozen possibilities. Was it conceivable that Zorah had meant to poison Gisela and, through some grotesque mischance, had killed Friedrich instead? This thought opened up vast possibilities. Could Rolf have done it, on his own or for his sister, the Queen? Then Friedrich would have had no impediment to returning to lead the independence party. Or could Brigitte have tried to kill Gisela so that Friedrich could return and she could marry him, to please the country and so she would one day be queen?
Or even Lord Wellborough? He could have been attempting to promote a war which could massively enrich him.
Monk muttered some reply, civil and meaningless, thanked Waldo for having received him, and backed away with his mind still in a tumult.
Monk woke in the night with a jolt, half sitting up in his bed as if someone had startled him. He strained his ears but could hear no sound in the darkness.
The same sense of fear was with him as the one he had felt while putting on his cuff links, an overwhelming isolation, except for one person … one person who believed in his innocence and was prepared to risk his own safety in standing by him.
Was there anyone to stand by Gisela, or had she forfeited everything in marrying Friedrich? Was it really “all for love, and the world well lost”?
But it had been a different kind of love which had prompted Monk’s one friend to fight for him at any cost, the loyalty that never breaks, the faith which is tested to the last. It had been his mentor who had jeopardized his own reputation on Monk’s innocence. He knew that now. He could remember it. He had been accused of embezzlement. His mentor had staked his own name and fortune that Monk was not guilty.
And that had been enough to make them search further, to carry him until the truth was found.
And sitting up in bed with the sweat clammy on his body in the cold night air, he also knew that he had never repaid that debt. When the tide had been reversed, he had not had the ability, or the power. All he possessed was not enough. The man he had most admired had lost everything: home, honor, even, in the end, his life.
And Monk had never been able to repay. It was too late.
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.
