Read Online Another Scandal in Bohemia by Carole Nelson Douglas - Free Book Online Page A

woke you.” Irene spoke without turning or stopping, her words overlaying the music like a recitative.
    I refused to be unnerved by her recognition of my presence. “You didn’t wake me. I never slept.”
    She played a while longer, then her fingers pressed a pair of chords into the keys, holding them down until the last almost inaudible vibration stilled.
    There was a calm fatality in the way she throttled the instrument silent. I caught my breath as she turned to me at last, her face cameo-creamy in the lamplight.
    “You mustn’t worry, Nell. The queen’s confession is a mystery in a minor chord. I am puzzled, I admit, but hardly intrigued enough to act on it.”
    “You would like to,” I accused.
    “True. I am perishing of curiosity, but I am hardly in any position to lift so much as my little finger on the Queen’s behalf. My hands are tied. I cannot go to Prague—”
    “Of course you cannot! If you think Godfrey was perturbed when you ventured back to London and the vicinity of Sherlock Holmes last summer, can you imagine what he would say to your dallying near the King and Prague?”
    “I was speaking for myself,” she said. “And Godfrey did endorse my London trip once I’d convinced him that I’d be unrecognizable. I could visit Prague incognito as well.”
    “What you can do is not the question, only what you should do.”
    “Agreed, and what is it that I should do, Nell?”
    “Nothing! Nothing that rekindles the old wounds you received—and inflicted—in Prague.”
    “You mix metaphors with great dash, my dear girl. One usually rekindles memories or passion, not hatred and wounds.”
    “You know what I mean to say! You yourself admitted that the King is not one to forget a slight. By fleeing his offer—his assumption—that you would be his mistress, by evading his agents across half of Europe, by outwitting his chosen delegate in London, Sherlock Holmes, you have earned his eternal enmity. This distressed young Queen may merely be a tool he uses to lure you back to Bohemia and into his clutches—”
    “A pathetic tool! And how could Willie believe that I would go running off to Bohemia at the first whisper that he has not consummated his marriage?”
    “Curiosity,” I answered. “Your fatal flaw.”
    “I am curious, but I am not mad. I will not be going to Bohemia. I will not be delving into the intriguing intimate confessions of the Queen of Bohemia, poor creature. But I can remain safe at home and speculate to my heart’s content, and that right I claim.”
    “You are married.”
    “What has that to do with it?”
    “You should not think of other men under any circumstances.”
    “Ah!” Her hands lifted as if to strike thundering chords on the piano, then dropped with a sharp slap to her lap. “I am not to think, then, because I am married. I fear not even Godfrey would agree with you on this.”
    “Yet you don’t want him to know of the Queen’s proposal.”
    “Nor do I want him to know of the women’s gossip. Both are... rumors, idle speculation. They can only do harm.”
    “So can your dwelling upon any conundrums that involve the King of Bohemia.”
    Irene smiled slightly. “I do not dwell. I muse. And I amuse myself.” She turned away to lower the key cover without a sound. “But fear not. Wild West horses could not drag me back to Bohemia. And now, back to bed.”
    Irene rose, collected the lamp, and laced a companionable arm through mine as she led me to the stairs. She even shook my elbow admonishingly as we parted in the upper hall.
    “Don’t worry, Nell! Today’s events were tiny, unimportant incidents in the vast, daily flow of present into future. What I really dwell upon is what Monsieur Worth has in mind for my new gown.”
    “Now there,” I agreed, “is a matter worth worrying about!”
     

     
    Wednesday came all too soon for my taste. Also for André’s. Our coachman glowered from the moment he drew up before our country cottage until he