Coronets and Steel (13 page)

“Reality check?”

“Not many castles in LA.”

“Dobrenica is even more beautiful after a summer storm.”

“Does Cooks book bus-tours there?”

He smiled.

Light shafts widened and blended into general brightness as the sky cleared. I sighed finally and said, “An impersonation sounds swashbuckling as all get-out, at least in stories. What would be the purpose in reality?”

“To sting her into reappearing on her own, if she’s hiding from her mother, or even from the idea of marriage. Far more likely her brother’s mixed up in this somehow, though he says he talks to her as little as possible and never asks where she’s traveling. Except when he wants to avoid being in the same city. If you were to show up and be seen by people who know both brother and sister, we might be able to call his bluff.”

“The brother again.”

“The brother again,” he agreed. “Do you want to walk around the ruin?” He held out his arm.

“Better not.” I lifted my foot to the low parapet and pulled up the trouser cuff. “I thought so—it’s swelling up again. I shouldn’t have been so bullheaded about hiking around looking for that stupid suitcase. Anyway, it’s pretty enough right here.” I turned around and sat down on the damp stone. “Though,” I gloated up at him, “you will have to dry clean these pants.”

“A small price to pay to give you pleasure,” he returned promptly, with a bow and a suave hand gesture.

I snorted. “So what exactly would I be doing?”

“You’d be enjoying the sights, the casinos and clubs, and you’d be spending money on clothes.”

“What would this brother have to say to me should we meet?”

“There will be no meeting,” he replied. “Tony seems to be incommunicado. His family says he’s yachting in the North Sea, except one of their townhouse staff told Emilio that he’s on a wine tour in France. He’s notorious for losing cell phones, so he could be anywhere, even holed up in his castle. But he’s not here.”

“He has a castle?”

“Nearly a thousand years old.”

“Is it sinister?” I asked hopefully.

He laughed. “It’s quite large. And it does sit on a peak called Devil’s Mountain. Anyway, by the time he would hear about your appearance—as Ruli—you will have embarked—as yourself—safely on your trip. I’ll send you back to your starting point, I hardly need to add—by plane, or a cruise to Greece and up to Italy, where you can catch a train to Vienna, or wherever you choose. If Tony does turn up in the vicinity, I’ll send you immediately on your way.”

“The rest of her family? Any close friends?”

“They will be dealt with individually. You won’t meet them.”

“So it’s not only the brother you want to fool?”

“Tony and his people, yes.”

“Minions again!” I couldn’t help laughing, and he smiled, but it was a quick, preoccupied smile.

“We’ll be on watch. You won’t have to speak to them, should we see any. And once you’re gone, since they don’t know of your existence, they can’t come after you.”

“I’m not scared,” I scoffed. “I’m trying to figure if this disguise, which does sound fun, would be doing my namesake—who may be a distant cousin of mine—any good.”

He stood a few feet away, staring over the valley.

When he didn’t speak, I added, “I also don’t care to figure as an ignorant pawn in a political skirmish, especially if I’m not to hear the other side.”

He turned that reflective gaze on me as he asked mildly, “Then why are you considering my plan?”

It was my turn to look away. I gazed out over the valley, rubbing absently at my aching ankle. “You’re not going to tell me all the nasty political ramifications, are you?”

“Do you want to hear the nasty political ramifications?”

I hesitated.
This stuff is real to him. His country and its problems are real to him.
I said, “Look, I want to be reassured, if possible, that nothing I do is going to jeopardize Aurelia, er, Ruli. Much easier to think of her as Ruli, otherwise this is way too weird.”

“Meaning I would be willing to jeopardize her?” he asked, brows lifted. Then he smiled, a quick, rueful smile. “I beg your pardon. I know you mean well, and I honor your scruples. But rather than talk up my high principles, let me remind you that she has been missing for some time. From before we ever saw you. Or we never would’ve seen you in the first place. If they do have her, I hope to force them to let her go.”

I nodded. “Good enough. When do we start?”

“As soon as we get you some gear.” He tossed his keys lightly on his palm. “Shall we return to the inn?”

 

As we sat down at a small table in the Gasthaus dining room, Alec told me that we’d leave for Zagreb in the morning.

Those two men I thought of as Graybeard and Mr. Big had made appearances throughout the day, but they did not join us.

“Those two men of your father’s,” I said.

“They’ve worked for the family for many years. Kilber was with my father during the war.”

“Yes, that’s what I wanted to ask. They must have been super young. Like teenagers. And it was Kilber who slipped you the roofie-juice the other day?”

“I must say, he rather surprised me,” Alec admitted, and he blushed, which made me feel slightly less annoyed about the incident. I was beginning to believe that he didn’t go around drugging people. I’d been the unlucky first.

For
him.

“In the war years they all started young. He told me that that sort of trick was a leftover habit from years of dodging Russians.”

My resentment had shifted to Alec’s henchman. “Somehow, with that face, it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Kilber only speaks a few words of English, or he’d join us, and Emilio departed on an errand earlier this afternoon. I suspect you’ll like Lavzhenko Emilio. He too is a Wodehouse fan, but he prefers the Mulliner stories to Bertie and Jeeves.”

“And I suppose that Kilber character reads E. F. Benson while disposing of bodies—drugged or otherwise? What is that, his last name or first? The ‘kil’ part seems most apt.”

“His first name is Klaus, but at home professionals go by last names. First names are only used by family. Kilber saved my father’s life several times during the early Russian years, and he does not like the idea of killing people. Which is why he would use that sleeping pill ruse to knock ’em out.”

Wartime. A totally different paradigm. “All right. Got it. One of the good guys, in spite of his pills.”

A smiling waiter delivered plates of spiced Serbo-Croatian food, and for a time I was too busy to talk. But I did think.

When the coffee was served I said, “You know, I can’t help wondering about Ruli . . .” Then I stopped in case he was worried about eaves-droppers. I cast a look about me. We were alone except for an elderly couple giving their food their undivided attention.

Alec sat back inquiringly, the sapphire on his ring glinting cool blue.

“I was wondering how much I truly look like her, or if you don’t know her.”

“Both,” he replied. “Physically you’re much alike. In personality, you’re not at all alike. Yet, if I’d known her as well as I thought I did, I should’ve suspected the truth long before I was forcibly convinced.”

“Did she grow up in England, too?”

“Only through childhood. In her early teens she was shifted to boarding school in Switzerland, then in Paris, where she spent all her holidays with her mother. When she finished school, they spent their time traveling around Europe to visit friends and relations. Winters in the south, the rest of the year between Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London. Occasionally even back home. Though I understand she’d begun a nightlife on her own a year or two back. That’s when she decided we were to call her Ruli, as Aurelia was hopelessly old-fashioned.”

“And I take it she teased you because your French is school trained?”

“She was annoying about it for four or five years when we were all in our teens. Then her attitude changed. Tony told me that someone had taken her aside, pointed out that a true sophisticate wouldn’t mention the accent but let it, ah, speak for itself. He took revenge by loudly complimenting her in public on how good her accent was.”

“So you spent time with her family?”

“The holidays when I was not with my father, until I was about eighteen. Not long after that my aunt moved to the Paris flat on a more or less permanent basis.”

“So you haven’t seen Ruli much in recent years?”

“Not much,” he agreed. “Don’t worry. Always have a cigarette in your hand. Look bored, never smile outright. As I said before, no one would ever imagine that a double exists. They’ll supply all the belief necessary. You have the force of recent memory to convince you of that, right?”

I choked on my coffee. “What a story to tell at home! How’s her German and her Slavic languages?”

“No Slavic languages. Her German is school trained—much like yours.”

“How does German fit into your background, anyway?”

“German was the language of government, and French the language of diplomacy, until the Second World War. Leftovers from the Hapsburg era. The Dobreni have caught up with nineteenth-century nationalism enough to want to be governed in their own tongue, but all our parents thought it necessary for us to learn German as well as French.”

“I don’t know any Dobreni.”

“Anyone who would want to speak Dobreni to you is going to be intercepted by one of us. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“And what about her short hair? I won’t cut mine.”

“If you put it up the way you did for the ballet in Vienna, it’ll be fine. She still wore her hair up for formal occasions, which is why I was fooled.”

“But we won’t be doing anything formal, will we?”

“No. Remember, no one will be looking for anything strange. It will seem a new whim.”

When we went upstairs a surprise was waiting for me: not only were my jeans freshly laundered, but a pair of expensive new suitcases (empty) plus a makeup case (not empty) and an overnight bag waited in my room. Lying next to them was a department store bag containing a pretty cotton nightgown and a matching robe of soft rose. In the makeup case I found a load of goodies: toothbrush, soaps and shampoo, hairpins of every imaginable kind, and a handsome cedar-backed brush and comb, plus a formidable battery of hairspray and cosmetics.

Alec leaned in my open doorway, grinning. “How’s Emilio’s taste?” he asked.

“Well, fine, I guess! Except .. . .” I brandished a bottle of crimson nail polish in one hand and hair spray in the other. “My look is pretty much beach casual, so I’ve never been into any of this stuff.”

“But Ruli is.”

I snapped my fingers. “Of course! So this is my disguise kit.”

“D’you like the frock?”

“Where?” I turned to the wooden wardrobe in the corner, opened it. There hung a dress, a belted cotton print in shades of blue. “Oh, that’s pretty.”

“He said the dress store owner picked that out when he described your coloring and approximate size. You can shop wearing it. My aunt never permitted Ruli to wear jeans, though she might now. But we’ll stick with what I remember. Be on the safe side.”

“Gee, this is fun,” I enthused.

He smiled. “I’ll tell Emilio you’re pleased.”

“So that was Emilio’s mysterious errand?”

“One of ’em. Emilio’s married, with a daughter and daughter-in-law. I thought he’d make sensible choices.”

“Well, give him my thanks,” I ended a trifle awkwardly.

Alec gave me that airy salute. “Good night.”

“Okey-dokey.” I shut the door. “Good night.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING, bright and early, we were off. Emilio carried down my new badges of respectability and I wore my new dress, and unfortunately my ruined sandals. My ankle was less swollen, and I kept my pace sedate.

Alec was behind me on the stairs. He said, after a few seconds, “You never mentioned any duels with desperados—other than myself—the other day.”

“What?” I stopped, surprised to hear the guardedness back in his voice. “Desperados?”

“On your hike.” He brushed his fingers over my shoulder. His touch was fleeting and impersonal, but it sent sparkle-fire down my nerves.

“Oh,” I said as offhandedly as possible. “That mighty bruise. I forgot. Looks awful, huh? Maybe I’d best get some blouses with sleeves.”

“How did that happen?”

“When I jumped out of the train. Got another biggie, too, on my butt.” I laughed; he smiled, but his brows contracted in quick concern.

The big Daimler smoothly ate up the miles under Alec’s hands, and the time passed agreeably; the three of us talked about favorite books, movies, local history, and the like.

Alec was right about Emilio. I apologized to him for my rudeness on the Glorietta monument at Schönbrunn, he apologized in turn for disturbing me, and after that we got along fine. He never called me by anything except Mam’zelle; he seemed earnest, and a trifle shy, and it was impossible for me keep seeing as a sinister and evil villain a guy in his seventies whose face lit with joy when he talked about Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.