The Adventuress (38 page)

On the
way back to the hotel, we stopped at the telegram office. Irene sent a message to Milan.

When I asked her to whom the telegram was directed, she tightened her lips and said, “Desperate questions require desperate measures. I have sent for aid.”

“Outside aid? That is not like you, Irene.”

“You would not let me ply my feminine wiles on the viscount; now wait and see to what lengths you have driven me.”

“Surely the viscount cannot be that important!”

“If I am right, he is the key to the whole affair. It is vital to determine... what I was on the verge of determining this morning when you so prudishly interfered.”

“And if the prince had found us with the viscount in a state of undress? I mean the viscount, of course.”

“He would have tsked and wandered off. A great many more scandalous things than that occur in Monte Carlo every quarter hour.”

Somehow Irene had twisted my upright position askew. I changed tactics. “Why are you so certain that the viscount is involved in your investigations? You seem to have picked him out of thin air.”

“On the contrary, he picked me. I found that interesting and asked Alice about him. A dangerous man, she said, one who once had great influence over the prince, one who has lost it since she came into Albert’s life. Did you not hear the prince himself this morning ask the viscount to assist with the royal correspondence? D’Enrique is, and has been for years, the prince’s social secretary. Alice told me that, too, on the night of the concert. He has now, and would have had long ago, access to the palace sealing wax. In fact, only he could be sure that it was an item no one else could duplicate. I believe he is your Jerseyman’s ‘gennelmun’.”

“Would a man with such a title allow himself to be tattooed?”

“Why not? From the gossip I have heard of the prince’s early life, he and his cronies indulged in all sorts of pranks. A tattoo is the sort of debauchery that might appeal to a man of D’Enrique’s rank and reputation. And obviously he has no money, or he would not affix himself to a minor prince in a subsidiary role. He would live his own life.”

“Then you admit that he is no suitable acquaintance for a lady!”

“I admit only that he is a perfectly suitable suspect in this Cretan conspiracy.” She sighed vastly. “This morning I hoped to prove it in front of witnesses—but the equerry was too terrified to aid us, and you were too squeamish to permit the necessary steps.”

“Squeamish?
I do not think I am squeamish, Irene. Reserved, perhaps, but not squeamish.”

She shook her head until her bonnet ribbons rustled. “It does not matter, Nell; I have resolved to take another course. This time I shall unveil the viscount publicly, so there will be no scandal of the sort you fear.”

“How will you do this?”

Irene merely smiled cryptically and would say no more, not even about the mysterious telegram.

Naturally Godfrey was still gone when we returned to the hotel. The man was tireless in the pursuit of information—but I suppose that is an admirable characteristic in a barrister.

Irene picked up the latest communication bearing the palace seal. I realized only now that it must have been the invitation from that vile man to watch him hit an equerry.

“Unfortunately, to convince Alice that I was enough of a sportswoman to be interested in palace pugilism, I had to create one or two wrong impressions.” Irene spoke as if mulling these thoughts, rather than addressing me, but my blood chilled.

“What wrong impressions have you given her?”

“That I—and you—are sports enthusiasts. She invited us for a bicycle tour of the city.”

“On these narrow, steep streets? We could kill someone, or, worse, ourselves. Irene, no!”

“I replied that such exercise was a trifle vigorous for city mice like ourselves.”

“Thank heavens.”

“She then suggested a sail on a small yacht crewed only by two sailors. She found it most thrilling to be so close to the wind and the waves—”

“And the fish and the octopi.”

“But I thought the expedition too time-consuming to arrange.”

“I am relieved.”

“So I consented to join her in a ladies’ exercise class held in a ballroom of this very hotel. Most convenient.”

“Irene! My most vigorous exertion is to change the water in Casanova’s cage!”

“We will need to wear something simple. A tennis skirt and a loose blouse or jersey. No corsets, of course. And flat-soled shoes.”

“Irene, I have no tennis skirt. I have no flat-soled shoes. As for a jersey, from what I have seen of that piece of apparel lately—or from
whom
I have seen wearing it, whether highborn or low—I am convinced that it is not a suitable garment for a lady.”

She pouted with no real conviction, like an actress in a melodrama. “I, at least, can concoct something appropriate. But we must hurry, for we are expected at four.”

“I am amazed that you require my presence, since you found it so hindersome earlier today.”

“This is different, Nell; this is all ladies. You will see nothing to object to, I assure you.”

I could not help feeling that she was underestimating me, but off she went to her bedchamber, leaving me to repair to my own and exchange my walking suit for a house gown.

When next I saw Irene, her attire was even more a disguise than were her men’s “walking out clothes,” although it did nothing to conceal her femininity.

Her skirt was of cream-white flannelette with turquoise-blue wool peeping between the pleats. A striped turquoise-and-cream jersey clung to her uncorseted figure, looking most laissez-faire. The collar was loose, held half-open with a soft tie; all in all, a most nautical ensemble, an overtone of the common sailor in its every line. Her hair was drawn into a queue at the back of her neck, held in place by another soft tie. “Where did you acquire those clothes?”

“Alice,” she said, turning. “She wears them when yachting or for lawn tennis.”

“When
did you acquire these clothes?”

Irene laughed. “When you were conjoined with the maps upon the parlor table.” She made my tedious map-making sound almost scandalous.

“To which I must return. Godfrey shall come back with the information you desire, yet we shall be no wiser as to where the sunken treasure lies than before.”

“Come down at least and see that it is a harmless pursuit I indulge in this time. Then you can work unworried on the maps.”

“Perhaps.” But, too consumed with curiosity to resist, I went—garbed in my periwinkle-blue house gown, suitable for receiving visitors, if not for bounding about.

The ballroom reminded me of the palace gymnasium, save that the floor was a parquet of rich woods rather than an expanse of stone. Irene bounced on the balls of her feet as she tested the floor in her soft-soled shoes. “Excellent. Better for spring,” said she.

“It is almost autumn now,” said I. She gave me a cryptic and somewhat condescending smile.

Three other women were in attendance, each similarly attired. That did not relieve me. They lounged against the opposite wall; indeed, one of them had braced her right foot upon a small stool and placed her hand upon her hip, a most swashbuckling posture for a lady, if I may be allowed to make that observation. Another stood with a cane braced in front of her, a narrow, shining silver cane.

I saw more canes lying about and soon discerned their real form—rapiers, the needlelike swords used in fencing. The same wire-mesh masks I had seen at the palace gymnasium lay scattered hither and yon, looking
lik
e misplaced utensils from Torquemada’s kitchen.

As I eyed this display, Alice entered the room, dressed as casually as Irene, a long scarlet sash looped around her waist and caught low at the back of her skirt in a knot. Her blond hair was in the same simple arrangement as Irene’s.

“Wonderful!” she said. “We shall have new blood in the class—a figure of speech, my dear Nell. I was beginning to anticipate my usual partner’s moves.”

“I am here merely to observe,” said I quickly.

“Of course,” answered Alice, so unruffled that I resented it.

Irene had gone to inspect the foils, flexing one’s thin, lethal length. A woman tossed her a buckskin gauntlet, which she donned.

“Beatrice is our instructress,” Alice said, nodding to the tall, rawboned woman, exactly the sort of female whom I imagined took pleasure in men’s athletics. “Why don’t you show her what level you’re on? You’ll have to be in very poor practice to be my partner.”

Irene nodded, her face as blank as any fencing mask. Beatrice bent to pluck two of these ungainly items from the floor.

“We can dispense with those,” Irene said with a slight smile. “We will hardly go at it that hard the first time.”

Beatrice frowned. “I do not wish to be responsible—”

“Then I will be.” Irene moved to the middle of the floor, hand on hip, foil raised but not engaged. She stood sideways to her sword arm and smiled down the long silver length as coolly as a seamstress might sight down a yardstick.

Alice joined me where I stood near the wall. “This should be interesting. Beatrice is quick and skilled, but Irene is as cold as coins. I did not even know she fenced.”

“Neither did I!”

Alice gave me a startled look. “Perhaps... the masks? It would be a pity if Irene were to acquire a scar.”

But it was too late. Beatrice was annoyed by Irene’s calm air of command, I suspected as Irene intended her to be. She stood sideways to Irene—a taller, broader woman with a longer, more powerful arm; even I could see that. Irene was neither short nor long, but retained a dainty, catlike beauty that one never envisions winning by main force. For the first time, I worried.

Then the blades crossed. I studied the buttons blunting the tips. Suppose one should dislodge? Suppose... The sound of metal foils shearing off each other was like the slice of a giant pair of scissor blades.

The two danced back and forth, one lunging and the other retreating. It did not look like hard work; in fact, there was a graceful dexterity to their motions that I found strangely feminine despite the weapons they wielded. Yet I saw upon Irene’s face the look of utter concentration she wore when immersed in a mental effort that consumed her every fiber. It was play, this ladies’ duel... deadly, serious play.

I cannot describe the sequence of moves, only that despite Irene’s daintier aspect, the line of her arm and the foil seemed made of conjoined strands of steel cable. Larger, stronger Beatrice began to lunge awkwardly and to retreat more frequently. Her feet landed heavily, while Irene’s soft soles still scarcely whispered over the wooden floor. Beatrice’s forehead knotted and she bit her lower lip.

In one instant the foils sliced over and over each other in quick succession. Irene’s weapon was suddenly bent, its point fixed to the jersey over Beatrice’s heart. I feared it would break, had broken, but Irene stepped back and I felt as if a ballet dance had ended.

Beatrice’s face had drowned in a red tide of anger. She whirled on Alice. “Why did you not tell us—me— that your friend was an expert fencer?”

“I did not know.” Alice’s eyes were as large and as round as marbles.

“And I am not,” Irene said with a smile. “I merely playact it.”

“You playact it well enough to need no lessons from me.”

“We all need lessons. I was not sure I remembered enough to engage foils with a stranger.”

Beatrice shrugged, defeated by Irene’s verbal feints as much as by her physical ones.

“You are perfection!” Alice exclaimed, going over to Irene. “Where did you learn to fence so well?”

“Where I learned all things. On the stage. I have sung an opera or two—”

“In America,” Alice said.

“There and about,” Irene murmured vaguely. “My voice is suited to trouser roles, ergo I am expected to carry a sword. Most opera companies have a fencing master, and performers have idle hours, so I studied when I could, purely for my own gratification. But I feared I had forgotten it.”

Alice glanced to Beatrice, who was busying herself among the equipment. “Obviously not. You certainly inspire us, Irene. That is just how I wish to look with a foil—lovely and lethal. And when you suggested fencing without the masks! I know the points are guarded, but still, an accident... this is only a sport, Irene.”

“No, it is not, no more than the viscount’s pugilism is a sport.”

“You saw him then?”

“We did.”

Alice glanced at me, surprised. “You both did? Do you find him as formidable an adversary as I do? We
are
adversaries, you know; we both seek to influence Albert.”

“He is formidable as a bully is formidable. He is not skilled, merely ruthless. But that often serves as well.”

Alice shivered prettily. “You have measured him as a man would, my dear Irene, as if you would be willing to meet him on his own terms.”

“Of course,” she said. “That is the only way to measure such a man. But you mistake me. I would never meet him on his own terms, only on mine, although I might be forced to meet him on his own ground.”

“He worries me,” Alice confessed. “If news of my early indiscretions reaches him, he will know how to use it against me.”

“I would not worry about the Viscount D’Enrique,” Irene advised her. “He will soon have more pressing affairs with which to deal than your long-dead romances.”

Irene handed the foil to Alice, who accepted it awkwardly, and we left.

“What did that gain us?” I asked as we returned upstairs.

“Knowledge,” Irene said. “You see how central the viscount is to the tendrils of this puzzle if he is indeed the ‘gennelmun’? He has it all at his fingertips: treasure and sealing wax; prince and the duchess’s indiscretions. Perhaps Godfrey will have unearthed a likely wreck and a passenger list that names him.”

“Perhaps. Irene, did you have to antagonize that woman? Couldn’t you have let her feel more as if she could have won?”

She paused on the step above me and turned, her face stern. “I was not there to make her feel good, Nell; I was there to learn how well I can still fence. Had I not antagonized her, I could not be sure that she used her full skill and strength.”