Royal Blood Part 25

He marched his daughter back to the study. The rest of us followed. When the door was shut behind us the king spoke coldly.

"The truth, Maria. Is that boy in the castle? Have you dared to see him again?"

"No, Father," Matty said. "Georgiana misunderstood."

"I saw him," I said. "I'm sorry, Matty, if it weren't a question of murder I wouldn't have betrayed your secret, but it is. And your bridegroom has a right to know that you tried to kill him."

"What?" Matty shrieked. "No, that's quite wrong. I told you Vlad is sweet. He'd never kill anyone."

"And what about you?" I said. "You dropped enough hints that you didn't want to marry Nicholas, that you were being forced into it when you loved someone else."

"You think that I put poison in Nicholas's gla.s.s?"

"One moment, if you please." Patrascue stepped between us. "I do not understand. It was a Bulgarian field marshal who was poisoned. This I was told. Is it not true?"

"The poison was intended for me," Nicholas said. He was staring at Matty with horror and disbelief on his face. "Pirin was a peasant. He had no table manners. He grabbed the nearest full gla.s.s and it was mine." He shook his head. "I can't believe this of you, Maria. If the idea of marrying me was so abhorrent to you, why didn't you tell me? I would never have expected you to subject yourself to a life of unhappiness."

"No, Nicholas." She went over to him and put her hand gently on his arm. "You are not abhorrent to me. You are a kind, decent person and I should not object to spending my life with you. I just happened to fall in love with someone else. Someone beneath me whom I could not marry. But I swear that I didn't try to kill you. Neither did Vlad."

"Then you admit he was here?" Patrascue threw himself into the fray. It was almost like watching a play.

"All right. I admit it. But he just came to say good-bye to me, that's all."

"Where is he now?" Patrascue asked.

"Gone. Long gone."

"How could he leave the castle when we are snowed in?"

"He had skis with him," Matty said. "He left before that man was poisoned."

I didn't believe her for a minute and neither did Patrascue.

"You say that you saw him, Lady Georgiana?" he asked, spinning sharply to address me. "When was this?"

"On my first night here he came into my room by mistake. He thought that it was Princess Maria's room. And someone else spotted him, observing the banquet-Miss Deer-Harte, the English lady who is now also dead, whom we can conclude was pushed from a staircase as she was snooping at night."

"So, it is a question of two murders, not just one?" Patrascue asked.

"The English lady could have fallen," Siegfried pointed out.

"She would not have been going down those stairs if she had not been following somebody," I said. "She was determined to catch the man she had seen."

"I can prove to you that Vlad had nothing to do with this second death," Matty said. "All right, he is not long gone. He was with me all night. He didn't leave my side once." And she tossed her head defiantly.

"Maria!" The king opened his mouth in horror. "You do not announce this shameful conduct to the world. Do you think your bridegroom would want you now that you have told the world you are no longer a virgin?"

Matty looked across at Nicholas. "I'm sorry, Nicholas. I never wanted to embarra.s.s you or put you in this awkward position, but I can't let the man I love be accused of a crime I know he didn't commit."

Nicholas nodded. "I applaud your bravery, Maria," he said.

"Then how do we know that the man this English lady saw was not Mr. O'Mara?" Patrascue asked. "I am still not satisfied that we have not all been barking up the wrong tree, since Lady Georgiana made these accusations against the princess. I think she was trying to throw us off the scent."

"As to that, I'm afraid I have the same alibi as Princess Maria," Darcy said. "At the time the poor woman was being pushed down the stairs, I was in bed with Lady Georgiana."

Of course I turned scarlet as I felt all those eyes on me.

"Then this is true?" Siegfried asked me. "You do not deny it?"

"I'm afraid it is true," I said. "Darcy was with me when we heard the screams from down below."

"But if these people have an alibi for the second murder, what then?" Patrascue said. "I would like to discount one of these alibis but I see from the guilty looks on the faces of these young highnesses that their stories are true. Is the murderer someone quite different? Someone we haven't considered until now?"

Someone behind me cleared his throat and Dragomir stepped forward. I hadn't noticed him in the room until that moment. His cloak swirled rather impressively around him. "Your Majesty, this has gone on long enough. I do not wish to put your daughter through any more pain. I should like to plead guilty to the murders."

The king stepped toward him. "You, old friend? You tried to kill Prince Nicholas? But why? Why would you do this?"

"I have my reasons," Dragomir replied. "Let us just say that this is my ancestral home and I am avenging the ghosts of my ancestors for the wrongs done to them."

The door behind us was thrown open, letting in a great gust of cold wind. "Don't be ridiculous, Father," said a voice and the elusive Vlad stepped into the room. By daylight he was even more handsome than his portrait, but there was something wild about his eyes and in his right hand he held a gun.

"Father? He called you Father?" the king stammered.

"That's right," Dragomir said. "He is my son. I couldn't marry his mother because of her lowly rank but I have done my duty by him. I paid for his schooling and sent him off to study in Paris. And I love him as any father loves his only child."

"And now he's trying to show his n.o.bility and take the blame for something he didn't do," Vlad said. "I attempted to poison Prince Nicholas. I put a gelatin capsule containing cyanide into his red wine at the start of the meal. I planned to be well away by the time it acted. I was not about to let him have the woman I love. I am just angry that I failed. I shall not fail a second time."

"Vlad!" Matty ran toward him. "How could you? I trusted you. I loved you. I never thought for an instant . . ."

"For you, Maria," Vlad said. "I did it for you. I didn't want you to be condemned to marrying someone you didn't love, when you loved me."

"We went through that before," Matty said. "I told you that my duty to my family came first and always will come first. Now put that gun down. You're not going to shoot anyone."

"Stand aside, Maria." Vlad prodded her with the barrel of the pistol.

"You'll have to shoot me first," she said, eyeing him calmly and defiantly.

"Of course I don't want to shoot you." His voice had risen dangerously.

"I'm not going to let you shoot Nicholas," Matty said, "or anybody else."

"Why do you always have to be so b.l.o.o.d.y n.o.ble?" Vlad demanded.

"Because I was born to it," Matty said.

"d.a.m.n you," Vlad shouted. "d.a.m.n all of you to h.e.l.l."

Without warning he grabbed Matty around the throat and pulled her in front of him. "She's coming with me," he said. "Did you think I was going to give you up that easily?"

"You're mad. Let go of me," she gasped as the arm tightened around her throat.

Nicholas took a step toward them.

"Stay back," Vlad warned. "I won't hesitate to shoot her, you know. I have nothing to lose now. In fact, why not? Shoot her and then myself. At least we'll be together in death."

He was dragging her back to the door, which had now swung shut again. He was reaching behind him with the hand that held the gun when suddenly the door came flying open, catching him in the side of the head and knocking him off balance. As he staggered, Nicholas and Anton fell on him and overpowered him, while Patrascue dragged Matty clear. Vlad cried out in pain as he was pinned to the floor and Nicholas wrenched his arms up behind him.

In the doorway stood a grimy, disheveled and bewildered-looking Queenie.

"Sorry, miss, I didn't mean to hit n.o.body, but they said you was in here," she said. "He's going to be all right, ain't he?"

"Princess Maria is going to be all right, which is all that matters," I said.

Chapter 32.

November 24 Finally going home. Can't wait.

After that only one strange thing happened, or possibly two. Vlad was locked in one of the old dungeons until the pa.s.s was cleared. When the snow melted sufficiently, two days later, the cell was found to be empty. Matty and Dragomir both swore that they had not helped him to escape, and indeed the only way out of that cell block was past a door that was guarded at all times. As far as I have heard he has never been found. And I was awoken one of those nights by what sounded like the flapping of large wings outside my window. By the time I got up and managed to open the shutters, there was nothing to be seen.

Lady Middles.e.x departed, accompanying Miss Deer-Harte's body home to England. She was a changed woman, subdued and grateful for any little kindness, the bullying and bl.u.s.ter gone out of her like a p.r.i.c.ked balloon.

Matty and Nicholas were married as planned a few days later. Nicholas's father decided not to postpone the wedding, decreeing that the period of mourning for the field marshal would begin after his state funeral, which would be conducted with all the pomp and ceremony and, hopefully, appease the Macedonians. I thought Nicholas was being jolly understanding, considering everything, but he seemed to be genuinely fond of Matty and she of him. As we dressed for the wedding Matty drew me aside.

"We're friends again, I hope."

"Of course," I said.

"You don't still think that I sent you down that oubliette?"

"Since you almost fell down it yourself, I have to believe that you didn't," I said. "Vlad must have been hiding and pushed the b.u.t.ton after you'd gone past."

"How awful if you hadn't managed to get out."

"It's all right. I'd have eaten Queenie," I said, laughing.

"Poor thing. She was frightfully brave, and she did save you, even if she didn't mean to."

We fell silent.

"I couldn't really vouch that Vlad was in bed with me all night," she said. "He could well have slipped out and pushed that English woman down the stairs."

"Or his father did it to protect him. I don't suppose we'll ever know now."

"I don't know what I was thinking," she said at last.

"I do," I said. "Vlad was awfully good-looking."

She smiled sadly. "Yes, he was, wasn't he? And I was alone in Paris and ripe for romance, and he appeared, my childhood playmate now turned into a gorgeous man. And what's more he was no longer a servant's son but a confident man-about-town. I was innocent and self-conscious and no man had ever looked at me that way before. It's no wonder I fell madly in love." She looked at me, pleading for understanding. I nodded. "But I should have seen," she said. "He took too many risks. He courted danger. He has the heritage of his terrible ancestor, after all."

"I think you'll find happiness with Nicholas," I said.

"He has been very understanding and kind," she said. "It could have been far worse. Speaking of which, I'm sorry that you are not going to be my sister-in-law."

I haven't yet mentioned that Siegfried and I had a little talk. He told me that after he heard about my wanton behavior with Darcy there was no way he could consider marrying me. I tried to keep a straight face when I said I quite understood and wished him well.

"You realize you have ruined my reputation forever, don't you?" I said to Darcy afterward.

Darcy grinned. "Which would you rather have-a sullied reputation or a lifetime of marriage to Siegfried?"

"So that's why you said it, wasn't it? You didn't really think either of us would be considered suspects in the murder of Miss Deer-Harte. You thought Siegfried would never marry me if he knew I'd spent the night with another man."

"Something like that," Darcy agreed. "My only regret is that we spent that night sleeping."

"I liked it," I said. "It felt so comforting having you beside me."

He slipped an arm around my waist. "I liked it too," he said. "But that doesn't mean I'm not open to other nocturnal pursuits with you, at a more suitable time and place."

"There will be other opportunities," I said.

And so the wedding took place with all the pomp and ceremony one expects at royal weddings. I wore my tiara and the smashing fur-lined cloak over my Parisian dress. I looked so good that even Mummy was impressed.

"If you weren't so tall you could go to Hollywood and try a career in films, darling," she said. "You have inherited my bone structure. The camera loves us."

Trumpeters heralded our procession down the aisle of the castle chapel. The organ thundered. A choir sang from the gallery and the congregation was resplendent with crowns and dashing uniforms. Nicholas and Matty made a handsome couple. There was only one small thing-she wore a thick collar of pearls, so I never did have a chance to see her neck up close. So I suppose I'll never really know, one hundred percent, whether Vlad really was a vampire or not. But I'll tell you one thing-I was really glad for once to be going home.

Queenie echoed those sentiments as we stood on the deck of the Channel steamer as it docked in Dover. "I ain't half glad to see the coast of good old England again, ain't you, me lady?"

"Yes, I am, actually, Queenie."

Belinda had got wind of a house party at a villa in the south of France and was headed to Nice. She was going to try the car-breaking-down-outside-the-gates trick again and begged me to come with her. "Think of it: sun, good food, gorgeous men," she had said. It was tempting, but I had turned her down because I wasn't the party-crashing type; also I sensed that Queenie had had enough of being abroad, and I felt it was my duty to get her home safely. Besides, I too longed for the familiarity of life in London, even if it would include Binky and Fig at close quarters. At least I knew where I was with them. At least they didn't grow fangs in the middle of the night. And Darcy had promised he'd be back in London shortly, after a little matter he had to look into in Belgrade.

I glanced at Queenie's vacant moon face. I was actually coming home with a nice amount of money in my pocket, thanks to those roulette winnings. I could afford to pay a maid for a while, especially now that Binky and Fig would be buying the food. I took a deep breath, feeling that I might well regret what I was about to say.

"Queenie," I said, "I'm willing to keep you on as my maid, if you are prepared to learn how a lady's maid behaves properly."

"You are, miss?" She looked thrilled. "I did all right then, did I?"