The Summit In Sight

“It’s been such an age since I last saw Your Excellency — why, I’m as glad as if I’d run into an old comrade-in-arms—”
“Thank you for the invitation, Countess Drake.”

Before Gloria could finish, Herman took a step back and accepted her greeting. A flicker of dismay crossed her face, but she quickly curved her lips into a soft smile.

“It seems Your Excellency finds me a little difficult to be around — I do wish you wouldn’t. There may have been some small friction between us, but we are, when all’s said and done, undeniably family.”

Herman arched a single eyebrow, unruffled. Gloria watched him, smiled with her eyes once more, and brushed lightly at the front of his coat.

“That frock coat you’ve on tonight suits you so well. But then, with such a fine frame to hang clothes on, what could possibly not suit you?”
“I’ll gladly accept the compliment. Your gown tonight suits this ball very well too, madam.”

The remark pleased Gloria; she tittered and pushed out her chest again and again. Beside them, I had to fight down a laugh, having caught the barb hidden under Herman’s words.

Just so. Like those overblown roses, Gloria’s gown was rather overdone as well.

Just then Cedric finished his conversation with the others and came over to us. Smooth as water, he slid an arm around the small of Gloria’s back and greeted Herman.

“Welcome, Your Excellency.”

There was scarcely any inflection to it. If anything, Cedric’s greeting carried a faint edge of insolence.

“Yes. It’s been a while.”
“I hear that even in the social season you stay absorbed in your enterprises. Admirable. I really ought to take a lesson from such diligence and industry myself.”

It sounded respectful enough on the surface, but there was a hard edge buried underneath. Diligence and industry were virtues urged on lower-class laborers; the implication was that burying oneself in business straight through the social season hardly befit a noble.

“That respect too, I’ll gladly accept.”

Herman was hardly a man to miss such things, and he’d surely caught Cedric’s paltry provocation. He simply didn’t rise to it, only offering a faint smile, as if the whole thing weren’t even worth a laugh.

“I’ve heard tell of House Drake’s affairs myself. I’d been rather worried right up until I came here tonight — and there was no need for that at all. To think you’d throw a ball this grand even at so precarious an hour, with the house teetering between survival and ruin. Truly befitting a house of such long and storied lineage.”

It was an open secret that the Drake perfume business had lately fallen into no end of trouble. Word was that several of the exclusive perfumers who blended their bespoke scents had defected to a rival house, and that investors had pulled their funds, leaving the family in dire financial straits.

“…A house of storied lineage — you flatter us. How could we ever presume to compare with House Ernst?”

Cedric answered with a stiff face, only the corners of his mouth lifting. His fist trembled violently, as though he could barely hold it still. Perhaps he felt my gaze, because he hastily hid it behind his back. And honestly, the sight of his pride scraped raw was deeply satisfying.

“Are you truly going to talk business all through so beautiful a night?”

Gloria cut in smoothly, as if to say she’d heard quite enough, then turned abruptly to me with a light proposal.

“Which reminds me, Ria. A little while from now, why don’t you join my husband and me for a waltz? I’ve had them prepare all the pieces you love.”

The whole point of the waltz was that you traded partners with the person beside you. Which meant I might well end up dancing with Cedric, and Gloria with Herman.

Ah. So that was it.

Only now did I understand, beyond all doubt, why Gloria had been behaving so strangely all this while. A dry, brittle laugh slipped from the corner of my mouth.

“I don’t mean anything by it. I only thought it would be good to show everyone how close we are. You and I can’t go on being the talk of society forever, now can we.”

Gloria added it in a rush, as though afraid I’d refuse.

“Let’s do that.”

I gave a soft nod. Gloria blinked her big eyes a few times, looking a little surprised, then readily smiled with her eyes again. For an instant I felt Herman’s gaze settle on me, but I paid it no mind and returned her smile.

As we moved into the central hall, people gathered to Herman’s side. For all Cedric’s nonsense, the nobles of Balter seemed eager to talk business with him, social season or no. Every eye that hoped to forge even the slightest connection swung his way at once.

“Ah, Marquis Valken.”

Of them all, Herman fell into conversation with Marquis Valken, who owned a great many mines. Lately he’d been in talks with the Marquis over the iron ore needed to build the railways.

“It’s been too long.”

It couldn’t have been a full week since they’d last met, yet Herman greeted him playfully, as though the parting had grieved him sorely. He seemed to rather like the Marquis’s brisk, forthright temperament.

“Meeting you in a banquet hall like this, rather than some stiff office — it’s been a while, Your Excellency. And has the Duchess been keeping well through it all?”
“Quite well, thank you, Marquis.”

I meant only to offer a light greeting and slip away, so as not to intrude on their talk, but the hand Herman kept at the small of my back wouldn’t allow it.

“The two of you together like this — it’s a truly heartening sight. I quite envy the two of you, honestly — a man like myself, who must always come to balls like this alone, with no wife at his side, feels it keenly.”

Marquis Valken had lost his wife some years ago and had lived alone ever since. For all his cheerful talk, he plainly had no thought of remarrying; he kept every woman at arm’s length and let none come close.

Some time ago, Mother tried to make a match between Gloria and Marquis Valken.

At the time I’d talked her out of it, saying Gloria’s heart wasn’t yet settled and that we ought to wait a while. Never once dreaming that my own consideration would come back to me as this kind of betrayal. My head so crammed with thoughts, I couldn’t give their conversation my full attention.

“!”

It was then that my eyes met those of one of the servants circulating through the hall with champagne.

A white bow tie.

Unlike the other servants’ ties, his was white. At once I recalled the words the detective Robin had drummed into me time and again.

“You’ll know his face the moment you see it, but just in case, he said he’d wear a white bow tie so you can pick him out from the other servants.”

It was Hans, the man I’d hired through Robin. He fixed me with a deep, steady look, gave a single nod, and slipped away toward the rose garden.

“Forgive me for interrupting, but I find I’d like to step out for a breath of air. Please, do go on talking at your ease.”

In a roundabout way, I told Herman and Marquis Valken I had something to see to. Then, pretending to make for the powder room, I passed down the corridor and out to the rose garden.

“My lady.”

The garden still brimmed with lush roses. From somewhere among them, a voice called to me, very cautiously. Hans, hidden behind a tall hedge, caught sight of me and beckoned me over.

“Everything’s ready. You need only give the word on when to set it in motion.”

He spoke quickly, his voice pitched as low as it would go.

“The waltzes will begin in the central hall soon. If it goes by the book, Cedric and I will most likely be dancing when the last piece, the Emperor Waltz, plays. Carry out the plan once the dance has ended and I’m together with the two of them.”
“Understood. Then I’ll have two drinks with ‘that’ in them ready and bring them over.”

Hans nodded, his face full of resolve. He’d said ‘that’ in place of ‘the sleeping draught.’

“The safe ones I’ll mark with a mint leaf. If it can be managed, I’ll hand them over myself.”
“Good. And once the two of them have slipped away from the central hall, I’ll give the signal myself. The moment I do, come with Mia to where the retiring room has been made ready.”

Moving two people drugged into sleep, and changing Gloria out of her gown, was not something I could manage alone. All of it depended on the cooperation of those I’d secretly smuggled in.

“I’ll raise my hand and touch my right earlobe. That will be the signal.”

With a final word of assent, Hans took his leave first, saying he’d keep a constant watch on things. I walked off in exactly the opposite direction from the one he’d vanished in, and as I strolled a little through the garden, I steeled myself.

Just don’t make a mistake. It will all go well.

The summit was in sight, right there before my eyes.