The Chemickal Marriage

Grace.’
    ‘Your voice tars you a colonial. How are you here with the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza?’
    ‘Under compulsion, Your Grace.’
    ‘Explain.’
    ‘I am afraid it would require an hour.’ Miss Temple batted her eyes to signal a lack of insolence. ‘I doubt you will find her.’
    ‘Schoepfil will defy me?’
    ‘She is already gone.’
    ‘That is impossible.’
    Miss Temple shrugged. The Duchess folded both arms beneath her heavy bosom, a gesture of discontent.
    ‘Are you acquainted with Lady Hopton? She has also vanished.’
    ‘She is dead, Your Grace. You will find her in an attiring room. Hidden in a niche.’
    That the Duchess did not blanch confirmed that someone had already done so.
    ‘But
why
in heaven’s name?’ Beneath the Duchess’s anger lay genuine confusion. She clasped her hands, the knuckles so thick it seemed to Miss Temple that the woman’s flesh was but a pair of gloves, and the fingers beneath studded with rings. ‘You saw it happen.’
    Miss Temple nodded.
    ‘Do your veins run with ice, girl?’
    ‘No, Your Grace, it is simply that over the course of recent events –’
    ‘Lady Axewith!’ The Duchess grimaced at her own slow realization. ‘LadyAxewith persuaded me to grant the Contessa an audience with the Queen – I did not understand the urgency. And now Lady Axewith is poisoned. Lady Hopton must have known –’
    ‘I expect she had certain conclusions to share with Her Majesty – or, more importantly with you, as you are Her Majesty’s – well, I am not sure of the term –’
    ‘
Friend
,’ the Duchess stated, her flat tone an implicit corrective.
    ‘Friend,’ Miss Temple echoed softly. ‘The Contessa and her allies discovered how to compel cooperation. I say compel, but the truth is closer to enslavement.’
    ‘As
you
were compelled?’
    Miss Temple shook her head. ‘O no – I am not the Contessa’s slave. I am her enemy.’
    ‘But you helped her.’ The Duchess fixed Miss Temple with a threatening glare. ‘That story you told Her Majesty, was it a lie?’
    Miss Temple felt the urge to make a clean breast of everything, but she knew the truth about the Duke, the glass, the books, Vandaariff and the Cabal – all necessary to impart before her tale to the Queen made sense – lay beyond her ability to persuade.
    ‘No, Your Grace. That is the irony of it all. Lord Vandaariff
is
a traitor. The Duke of Stäelmaere
was
murdered.’
    ‘Then why could not the Contessa merely deliver that message? Why did Lady Axewith and Lady Hopton have to die?’
    ‘It is not the truth of the story, but the timing of its delivery. The Contessa is against Lord Vandaariff – and in that she is for the realm – but she is one who thrives on havoc, and in that she is the realm’s enemy. Lady Hopton’s arrival would have muddled the Contessa’s plans when they brooked no muddling. Surely Your Grace knows the realm
is
under attack.’
    ‘There is unrest …’
    ‘If Robert Vandaariff has his way – O I cannot recall the name, but wasn’t there a place – destroyed and forgotten –’
    ‘At least by you.’
    ‘They sowed the ground with salt?’
    ‘That would be Carthage.’
    ‘Would it?’
    ‘Why should Robert Vandaariff seek another Carthage? How could he think such a result within his power? Is he insane?’
    ‘O absolutely.’ The Duchess stared at Miss Temple, a downwards tuck at the corners of her mouth. Well used to this, Miss Temple went on. ‘What you ought to understand – and I don’t know if it is worth the trouble to tell the Queen, that is, whether one actually tells her or tells the Crown Prince or even if one
did
whether it would make a bit of difference – I suppose that is why I’m telling
you
–’
    ‘You are telling me because I caught you crouched behind a chair.’
    ‘Yes, but in trusting Vandaariff Her Majesty’s government has laid itself at the feet of a madman. The highest ranks of your nation are riddled with secret slaves, serving a master whose wealth insulates him from all reprisal.’
    ‘But … but the
Contessa
–’
    ‘You feel her acts more keenly being personally responsible for her presence here.’ Miss Temple knew she’d found the heart of the Duchess’s concern, and risked touching the woman’s arm. ‘You cannot blame yourself. I don’t blame
myself
, because I know the Contessa. Even forewarned she would have found a way. You must not think you have betrayed your Queen – for here you stand, working