Silver in the Blood (17 page)

Dacia nodded. Lou looked at the queen's eyes, seeing the sorrow behind the kindness.

“And you are visiting your mothers' homeland for the first time?” The king had a deep, calm voice. Lou found it soothing.

Another nod from Dacia. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she added.

“How delightful to meet you,” the queen said. Her voice was light, cultured. “It is so good to see you again, Ana Katarina.” She looked at Lou and Dacia with a ghost of a smile. “Did you know that your aunt was once one of my attendants?”

Both girls shook their heads, wide-eyed. Aunt Kate, a lady-in-waiting to the queen? The queen against whom their family was plotting?

“She was indispensable,” the queen said, nodding at their surprise. “I was very sorry to see her go to America with her sisters, but I understood that the lure of the new and exotic was much stronger than the need to stay and pour my tea.” Queen Elisabeth had a little twinkle in her eyes now, and Lou observed that it made her look younger.

“And are you back for good, Katarina?” The queen looked up at Aunt Kate with a hint of challenge, and Lou found herself reassessing the older woman. She had lost her only child years before, and grief still weighed on her, but there was steel beneath it.

“That rather depends on my nieces,” Aunt Kate said coolly. “They are going to be deciding how long they will stay in Romania tomorrow night.”

“Oh, is that right?” The queen looked only mildly interested, but the king's face had gone tense and white.

“We're having a family dinner, and hoping that will provide
entertainment enough to entice them to stay,” Aunt Kate said smoothly.

Lou couldn't be sure, because of the beard, but she thought that the king swallowed.

She couldn't stand the tension any longer. Her mother was staring over the queen's head as though Her Majesty wasn't even there. Radu hulked behind them like a mute bodyguard. Aunt Kate was being oddly enigmatic . . .

“Your Majesty,” Lou said to the king, her voice barely above a whisper from disuse. “I am so honored to be here. Thank you for all you've done for our country.” She gave another little curtsy.

King Carol looked as if he'd been struck by lightning.

“Thank you, Miss Neulander,” he said hesitantly.

The tension in the room was humming now, and Lou looked at the strings of the harp to see if they were vibrating. They weren't, but Lou still felt that they should be. When the butler knocked they all flinched, and Lou almost shrieked, but she bit her lip just in time.

“Prince Mihai Dracula, Lord John Harcastle, and Mr. Theophilus Arkady,” the butler announced.

Prince Mihai, Lord Johnny, and That Awful Man came in and bowed to the royal couple. After greetings had been exchanged, much to Lou's shock, That Awful Man turned and bowed to her.

“Miss Neulander, I wish to beg your forgiveness for my behavior at our first meeting, and the occasion after that. It was very bad of me, and I hope that I have not caused you lasting distress. Please accept my humblest apologies.”

Lou felt her cheeks turning red, but for once it was with anger
and not embarrassment. Everyone was looking at her, and it was unthinkable that she should refuse his apology, but she truly wished she could. He hoped that he had not caused her lasting distress? Of course he had, and she was sure that he knew he had, and Lord Johnny knew as well! Dacia had put him up to this apology, and now she was forced to accept.

Prince Mihai did not seem to think that it was fair, either.

“What is that you say? You offended this young lady?” He gave That Awful Man—Mr. Arkady, Lou supposed she should call him—a wrathful look.

“We were on the same ship, coming from America,” Arkady said, his spine straightening. Lou noticed that he was very tall, taller than Prince Mihai or Lord Johnny, and that he was not much older. “I wished to make the young lady's acquaintance, but am sadly lacking in social graces.”

“I can imagine,” Prince Mihai sneered.

Lou felt as though she had been rescued from one bad situation and thrown into another. She no longer needed to accept or decline Mr. Arkady's apology; no one was even looking at her now, but Prince Mihai and Mr. Arkady seemed on the verge of coming to blows. She did not find the idea of having men fight over her exciting. And why did Prince Mihai care? She had a sneaking suspicion that Prince Mihai just loved to cause trouble, and she didn't feel like catering to his whims.

“It's all in the past,” she said calmly, and turned back to the queen. “I believe you write books, ma'am?”

The queen seemed to understand, and smiled at Lou in a knowing way.

“Indeed I do,” she said. “I find that it gives me a deep sense of fulfillment.”

“I should very much like to read one of your books,” Lou said, ignoring her mother's poking at her side, and That Awful Man's stares.

“You are a good child,” Queen Elisabeth said. She looked over Lou's shoulder, at Dacia and Radu, who were standing side by side. “I can see in your eyes that you two are also very good. I shall send you some of my books; I think you will enjoy them.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Lou said, and heard Dacia and Radu echo her.

But the queen was not finished. “Ana Katarina,” she said, turning to Aunt Kate, “the world grows ever more terrible. Youth should be treasured, not forced to leave their innocence behind too soon.”

“Elisabeth,” King Carol said with a warning in his voice.

But the queen only looked at Aunt Kate, and so did everyone else. Aunt Kate stiffened, and her face was still. It was not one of her famous, quelling Looks, but another expression entirely, one that made her look older, almost as old as the queen.

“The world is hard,” Aunt Kate said finally. “And sometimes we have to make the decision to be just as hard.”

“Come now,” Prince Mihai said jovially. “The world doesn't have to be as hard as all that! Some decisions are very easy to make! I have known your family all my life, and I find that they make decisions very easily. They are loyal, intelligent, and courageous, as well.”

Dacia made a strangled sound.

“Dogs are also loyal, intelligent, and courageous,” Lou said, rather louder than she had intended.

She heard a soft huff of breath from Dacia, and her cousin took her arm. “Quite, LouLou! Do you recall my father's old beagle? The very characteristics that Mihai has just listed!” She turned her bright eyes on Prince Mihai, and Lou could see that her cousin was no longer as enamored of the prince as she had been. “Now it seems that you no longer have room to take Mr. Arkady to task for his manners, since you yourself have just given our family an even more left-handed compliment!”

“Really, Mihai,” King Carol rumbled. “I do not think that this is the time or the audience for your particular . . . grievances.”

“It is never the time for my grievances,” retorted Prince Mihai. “But it will be, soon. Your Majesty.”

The venom in his voice caused Dacia to gasp and Lou to take a step back. It did not appear to surprise anyone else in the room, however. Aunt Kate merely raised her eyebrows, giving the room in general one of her Looks, and then beckoned to her nieces.

“I think that should be our cue to leave,” she said. “Please forgive us, Your Majesties. I fear we are not good company.”

“It isn't you, dear ladies,” the king said in a low voice as they curtsied.

“It seems to be all of a piece,” Aunt Kate said enigmatically, but the queen understood, and gave a small, bitter laugh.

“Oh, Ana Katarina, do think about what I said, my dear. For the sake of your nieces, if not for yourself.”

Lou was expecting her aunt to make some disparaging remark, or to put the queen off with a cool reply at the very least, but
instead Aunt Kate merely bowed her head and said, “I will consider your words.”

“And that,” Dacia whispered to Lou, “is the most surprising thing of all.”

Lou could only nod and take Radu's offered arm, releasing Dacia. Any strength she might have had was gone, and she felt like a marionette with the strings cut.

 

FROM THE DESK OF MISS DACIA VREEHOLT

13 June 1897

Dear Lord Johnny,

I am sorry that we did not get a chance to speak more privately yesterday at the palace. And you hardly need me to spy on Mihai, since you arrived together, and we left soon after. I find that I was not at all amused by Mihai's heavy-handed attempts at chivalry, if that is what they were. Or by his equally high-handed treatment of Their Majesties, who seemed all kindness and honor.

What is afoot?

You surely know, and you must tell me, particularly as it concerns me, my dear Lou, and our family. I would ask you to call, but the household is in an uproar preparing for this evening. There is to be a special dinner and then a ball . . . I think. An entertainment of some kind, at any rate. It is most odd. Lou and I are being petted and groomed as though we were about to be married . . . Horrible thought! If you know anything more that concerns me, I demand that you reply at once!

Dacia V.

 

THE DIARY OF MISS MARIA LOUISA NEULANDER

13 June 1897

My papa has gone, and he has taken the twins with him.

They are only going as far as Hungary, to a hotel in Buda-Pesth, and there they will wait for me. My papa promised that he would send for me as soon as the family would allow it, and from Buda-Pesth we will go to Paris so that Dacia can get her fill of shopping, and see the cathedrals and romantic little streets.

This is what my papa told me, but I know that it is false comfort. He cannot send for me, any more than I can leave. I am being trussed and dressed like a lamb for the slaughter, and I do not know if I will ever see my dear papa again. Nor do I think he left of his own free will. I believe that he left with my brothers out of concern for their safety as well as his own. I do not blame him for leaving me behind, as Lady Ioana has made it clear that she wants me here, and I do not think I am in the kind of danger that my father and brothers are in.

But I am in danger. We all are.

So, good-bye, darling Papa! I love you so! And David and Adam, my little brothers: be good, and know that I love you also!

Maria Louisa Neulander

Dacia wished that Romanian food weren't so
heavy
as she stood between Lou and Radu, waiting for Lady Ioana to speak. They had dined well, in the traditional manner, which meant several courses of grilled meats, cabbage, potatoes, and more spicy mamaliga. She wished that she hadn't tied her sash quite so tight, and slipped her fingers under the edge of the thick red cloth to try to loosen it a bit.

She was busy trying to do this when Lady Ioana took her place in the middle of the crowd. The entire Florescu family was there, and had eaten somberly at the feast in the massive dining room with its heavy table and low-beamed ceiling. But now they were all standing in the clearing behind the manor, and this was stranger and more ominous than eating in near silence in a room that had torch-smoke-blackened beams.

There were no formal gardens here, only a little grassy area before the trees of the forest took over. There was a large flat
rock in the center of the clearing, and Lady Ioana stepped up onto it without any assistance. For an old woman who carried a cane, she could certainly move well when she needed to, Dacia reflected.

No longer fiddling with her sash, Dacia gave her grandmother her full attention. A stillness had fallen over the family that made Dacia even more nervous than she already was. Radu was making a noise low in his throat that she could just barely hear. Looking at his face, which showed his whole attention focused intently on Lady Ioana, Dacia wondered if he even knew he was making the sound at all.

Lou's cold hand slipped into Dacia's, and Dacia squeezed it by way of reply. Whatever it was that everyone had been hinting about was going to happen now, that much was clear. But what was it? Dacia looked around, but could see little beyond the ring of torches that had been placed in tall holders around the clearing. It was the dark of the moon, and though the sky was bright with stars, the forest loomed black, blocking the starlight.