Mask of Nobility (Scandalous Scions Book 4) Read online

  “Me?” Her mother sat back. “I am the absolute worst person to show you that path, my dear! I would rather read books and traipse about just as you do.”

  Bronwen’s heart fell.

  Annalies patted her hand. “However, I do happen to know two ladies who are just the right people to help.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Silkeborg, Denmark. December, 1865.

  Walking in a snow-heavy forest was not the same thing as walking the hills and dales of Yorkshire, especially when one was wearing hoops and petticoats and all the layers of undergarments necessary to be considered well-dressed. Bronwen tried to contain her petty frustration as the lace on her petticoat snagged once more on the rough bark of a fir tree. She looked around to see if anyone was within sight, then bent from the waist to unsnag the hem, instead of crouching, as a lady would.

  Her bend was arrested before it began, as her corset dug into her hips and under her arms at the unnatural movement required of it.

  With a sigh, she straightened up once more, then bent her knees and sank to the level necessary to work the lace free.

  She paused when she saw a delicate plant hugging the southern base of the tree, tucked into a warm pocket of earth made in the snow by the fall of the sun through the canopy. The leaves were familiar to her.

  “Angelica,” she whispered, remember Agatha’s lessons about wild angelica. The forest around Silkeborg was a herbalist’s delight, with many herbs and medicinals growing wild that were not native to Britain. She could collect and dry herbs for a year and still not have enough.

  Only, she was not in Denmark to harvest plants. With a sigh, she left the angelica alone and rose to her feet, her petticoat free. She had been walking for the single hour her mother had allowed. It was time to return to the town.

  She set off as briskly as possible, tracing her footsteps back through the snow. Here in Denmark, the snow remained thick and white throughout winter, making the landscape a pale blanket of interesting lumps and bumps. Under the trees, the snow thinned, although it did not disappear altogether.

  It was a very different landscape to Yorkshire and utterly different compared to urban London. Even the silence that came with the thick covering of snow was unique. She heard the crunch of snow under her boots and the soft note of wind in the tops of the trees, far overhead.

  It took little time to reach the edges of the town. Silkeborg was a small place, no larger than Northallerton, yet it was the seat of a duchy. Bronwen walked along the river tow path, watching the blue-green water tumble over the shallows, before turning into the main street and walking to the Magistrate’s house.

  The butler nodded formally. He knew no English and Bronwen’s Danish was limited.

  “The Princess?” she asked him.

  He pointed to the room that Bronwen had decided was a drawing room, although it had nothing but upright chairs with flat seats and slatted backs and a plain wooden table.

  It was not the dining room, for that room was considerably warmer and more comfortable. They ate their meals there. Hr. Fisker, the Magistrate and their host, greeted his guests and associates in the dining room, too. He sat by the huge white stove, his feet propped on the rail in front of it, warming his toes, while guests pulled up chairs next to his big armchair.

  This plain drawing room went unused, except for their party of English women, who must puzzle the household with their constant requests for tea.

  Bronwen pushed the door to the drawing room open as she removed her gloves and bonnet. Then she remembered to turn and give the butler her things. She smiled at him.

  He gave her another bow and carried them away.

  With a sigh over the endless details she must remember to pay attention to now, she went inside.

  Her mother was reading a letter, her spectacles sitting on the edge of her nose.

  Lady Natasha and Lady Elisa were both at the table, playing cards. They looked up when Bronwen entered.

  “Right on time,” Elisa said approvingly, glancing at the clock.

  “You have stray hair about your ears, too,” Natasha said.

  “Oh.” Bronwen brushed the curls out of the way.

  “No, work them into the side hair with your fingertips, as I showed you,” Natasha told her. “Or you will spend the rest of the day fighting them.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” Bronwen said, weaving the strays back in and smoothing them over with her fingers. She brushed down her dress, arranging the folds over the hoops. They were the French kind, wider at the back than the front, just as Sharla had said were the fashion in Paris, for they had been bought in Paris. Every garment she wore had been acquired in Paris, in a whirlwind two days of shopping with Natasha and Elisa that had left Bronwen exhausted and nervous in a way that even the most strenuous walking had never done.

  “Is there word from the palace?” Bronwen asked her mother.

  Annalies held up her hand for silence. “Let me finish,” she murmured.

  From somewhere deeper inside the house, an abject groan sounded. It seeped through the walls.

  “What is that noise?” she asked, startled.

  “Hr. Fisker,” Natasha said, frowning at her cards.

  “The Magistrate?” Bronwen said. “He is not in court today?”

  “Apparently not,” Elisa replied.

  The groan sounded again. The note of pain in it made Bronwen shift uneasily.

  Annalies folded the letter with a flick of her wrist. “The Archeduke and his retinue are in Belgium.”

  “Belgium?” Elisa repeated. “Why?”

  “Are they insisting he finish that silly tour of his?” Bronwen asked.

  Annalies shook her head. “While we were in Paris, King Leopold died. They have gone to Belgium in anticipation of the coronation of the new king.”

  “Was Leopold a cousin of yours, Mother?” Bronwen asked.

  “Not directly, although I’m sure if you count back far enough we have ancestors in common,” her mother replied.

  As the groaning sounded again, Bronwen frowned. “And you had to learn that from Father, in Britain? We might have discovered it ourselves, if we had gone to the palace, instead of sitting here for two days.”

  “Oh, you cannot simply call upon the palace,” Elisa said, for protocol and etiquette were her specialties. “You must be presented and not by just anyone.”

  “Very well, then,” Bronwen said, irritation flaring, for the groaning was growing louder. “We should go to Belgium, then.”

  “Not without an invitation,” her mother said firmly.

  “You are the last heir of the Principality of Saxe-Weiden,” Bronwen pointed out. “They would not invite you?”

  “They have not, so far,” Annalies said, her tone still eerily calm. “You must have patience, Bronwen. All of Europe comes to a halt when a head of state dies. In the new year—”

  “We must stay here for Christmas?” Bronwen asked, appalled.

  “It very much depends on when the new king is crowned. It is winter, my dear. Travel can be difficult to manage.”

  “Moldering bodies are even more difficult to manage,” Bronwen pointed out, her teeth together.

  Elisa looked shocked. Natasha, though, smothered her laughter behind her cards, her eyes dancing. “She is just like you, Anna!”

  The pitiful groan sounded once more, drawn out into a wail that made her skin crawl. Bronwen could stand it no longer. She whirled and marched out into the front room of the small house, then over to the door to the dining room. She pushed it open and stepped in.

  Hr. Fisker was bent over in his chairs, his hands to his stomach. When he saw Bronwen, he straightened and glared at her. “You have need of something, my Lady?” His English was bad enough that they had stopped trying to explain that even though she was the daughter of a princess, she was not a lady, but merely Miss Davies. The intricacies of the English peerage appeared to be only slight less complicated than the Danish branch.

  Despi
te trying to stand, Fisker could not manage it.

  Bronwen sank in front of him and looked at his face. “You are in pain,” she said. She pointed to where he clutched his belly. “It hurts.” She reached for her own stomach and grimaced as if she was in pain.

  “No, no,” he said. “It is nothing.”

  “I can help,” Bronwen assured him. “Let me see.”

  “Undskyld mig?”

  Bronwen had learned the phrase meant, roughly, ‘excuse me?’ for many of the locals used it when she attempted to speak to them.

  Instead of repeating herself, she reached for his hand and pulled it away from his stomach, to give her access. A simple probing with her fingers would tell her if the stomach was bloated, or if something more sinister was at work.

  He winced, hissing.

  She looked at his hands, at the misshapen ends of the fingers. “Oh…” she breathed, studying them. “This is what ails you. This is why you sit by the fire. The heat helps.” She tapped the toe of his boot. “Your toes, too, yes?”

  He looked at her miserably, pain in his eyes. She suspected he would groan again, if she were not here.

  Bronwen put his clawed hand back on his lap and patted the back of it. “I can help.” She stood up, sifting through her memory for every tidbit Agatha had ever given her on the treatment of rheumatism, plus anything she recalled from her own reading.

  “Angelica,” she murmured. She bent in front of the Magistrate once more. He stared back, beads of perspiration on his temples. “Does your cook have dry angelica in the kitchen?”

  “Angelica?” he repeated, puzzled. He shrugged.

  “Black current seed oil?”

  He stared back.

  “Borage?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Ukrudtsplante,” he muttered. He frowned. “Weed,” he added.

  “Not to you, it isn’t,” Bronwen assured him. She held up her hand. “I will be right back.”

  She hurried through to the drawing room. The three women looked up as she stepped inside.

  “Aunt Elisa, you must write to Sharla for me,” Bronwen told her.

  “Goodness! Why must I do that?” Elisa asked, as she reached for her folder of stationary.

  “I need every ounce of that turmeric her mother sent her from India last year,” Bronwen told her, leaving once more.

  “Turmeric?” Natasha and her mother echoed.

  “Where are you going?” her mother added, as Bronwen pulled the bell chain and picked up her shawl.

  “Out. There was angelica in the forest. Then, I must talk to the cook about borage and black current seed oil.”

  “What are you up to now?” Annalies demanded.

  “If we must stay here until Christmas, then I must do something or go mad with the waiting. I can help Hr. Fisker, mother. I know I can. The turmeric is a particularly powerful antidote, although I can help him even before it arrives.”

  Annalies studied her. “Very well,” she said. “What can I do to help?”

  * * * * *

  “What is it you read with such a deep frown, Baumgärtner?” Tor demanded. Normally he would not care. Now, though, he was desperate for any distraction. The view outside his window showed dreary, over-crowded streets of Brussels. Even the hostel they were quartered in was hip-deep with princes and dukes. The palace could not accommodate everyone who arrived in Brussels for the coronation. It was rumored even Queen Victoria was to be housed in the Magistrate’s house. Although, she would have the home to herself, while mere dukes and princes must live cheek to jowl.

  Baumgärtner was the only one of Tor’s retinue given quarters near Tor. Everyone else from Silkeborg was located in an even more distant inn, three to a room.

  Discussing news from home would lift the tedium of waiting for an event that had not yet been announced.

  Baumgärtner shook his head and put the letter inside the leather portfolio where he kept his current documents. “Borgmester Østergård sings the praises of a mad Englishwoman visiting Silkeborg. A witch, he says, who has cured Magistrate Fisker of his aches, when the best doctors in the world could not.” Baumgärtner snorted his derision. “Always, the Great English are praised for mere ordinary accomplishments, as if they might hear us and remember.”

  Tor grew still. “A witch?” His heart squeezed. “An English witch.” He sank onto the bench under the window, his breath whooshing from him. “It cannot be…”

  Baumgärtner tilted his head. “You know this woman?”

  “I…might,” Tor said cautiously. “Does Borgmester Østergård give her name?”

  Baumgärtner opened his portfolio and read the letter. “A…Lady Coburg, he thinks. Or perhaps Lady…Davies? He is not certain, for Magistrate Fisker was quite excited when they spoke.”

  “Davies,” Tor repeated. He leaned forward, threading his hands together to hide their sudden tremble. “Miss Davies.” He remembered to breathe. “She is in Silkeborg,” he whispered, stunned.

  “Miss Davies?” Baumgärtner repeated. “A commoner?”

  “You know her, Baumgärtner, so stop turning up your overly delicate nose. You met her in Yorkshire. Why would Fisker confuse her name that way? Unless…perhaps the Princess Annalies is with her. People are often confused by her mother.” His mouth turned up. “Or so I’ve heard.” For Bronwen had delighted in shocking him with tales about her royal mother with bluestocking blood.

  “Her mother is a princess?” Baumgärtner said, his interest perking. “You met her in England? When? Where? Did you get along? Is she pleasing to the eye?”

  Tor held up his hand. “Calm yourself. Bronwen would tell you herself she is not suitable duchess material. You can extinguish that glint of hope in your eyes. The lady would rather wander the dales of Northallerton than dine with dukes.”

  Baumgärtner looked affronted. Then he frowned again. “Wait, wait. Northallerton? She was there? Do you speak of that…that…waif? The one with the dirty hems?”

  Tor leaned back. “The very one.”

  “Oh, dear.” Baumgärtner let out a deep, bitter sigh. “Still, there is Lady Dagmar, who pines for your return to Silkeborg.” Baumgärtner looked at him from under his brow. Perhaps he was trying to look coy. The expression did not suit a sixty-year-old man. “She was devastated when you disappeared in Scotland.”

  Tor thought of the far-too-slender woman with distaste. “If only she could hold a conversation that lasted longer than two minutes.”

  Baumgärtner slapped the desk with the flat of his hand. “One day you must bring yourself to it, your Highness! Putting the duchy at risk in this way is intolerable!”

  “I know, Aldous. I know.” Tor sighed.

  Baumgärtner opened his portfolio one more time. “I will write back to Borgmester Østergård and make further enquiries about this witch woman.”

  “You waste your time,” Tor warned him. “She is a commoner.”

  “She is the daughter of a princess,” Baumgärtner said primly.

  “She will not consider it. I would not let her,” Tor replied. “She would come to hate my life and everyone in it, even if she were mad enough to agree.”

  “She would be mad to refuse you. You are an Archeduke!”

  “Her father is a bastard,” Tor replied, slapping Baumgärtner with the bald, unpalatable truth.

  Baumgärtner shook his head. “You have turned your back upon every princess Europe has to offer. A ragamuffin is all that is left. At least her blood is blue, which is more than can be said for certain about Lady Dagmar.”

  Tor couldn’t help laughing. The puritanical downturn of Baumgärtner’s mouth jolted him into it. “Write your letter, then. Determine for yourself that the Magistrate’s witch is ninety years old and has no teeth left. Then you can marry her yourself.”

  Because it could not possibly be Bronwen in Silkeborg. It was impossible, a mere figment of his hope, which Baumgärtner would crush out of existence with the return mail.

  Chapter Fourteen

&nbs
p; Borgmester Østergård’s coach was an open-topped one, of which he was overtly proud. He ordered the top be folded away while he toured Bronwen, Annalies, Natasha and Elisa about Silkeborg, showing them the little town and discussing his plans to build it into a great city.

  As there were only four thousand people living in the town and there had never been more in the long history of the place, it was unlikely Silkeborg would ever grow enough to become a city. However, Bronwen held her tongue and shivered beneath the fur lap blanket.

  Østergård was a tall man. Height seemed to be a national trait in Denmark. He was also thin, with sharp angular cheeks and dark circles beneath his eyes. His tall top hat made him look even taller. His mustache drooped at the corners as if it, too, wished to add to the illusion of extra height, instead of growing outward.

  He pointed out the row of blacksmiths, the village square, the little artisan shops and the civil buildings, while Bronwen’s mother and Natasha and Elisa looked suitably impressed.

  Bronwen’s attention was drawn by a tragic tableau of people sitting at the tables in front of the café, with steaming coffee cups in front of them. Of the five people at the table, three of them were bent and wizened. They sat in postures that spoke of suffering. No one was talking.

  As if he had just spoken the words, Bronwen recalled Tor’s voice telling her; My own country suffers. There is a sickness that has gripped it for years. People die. Healthy, young people. Old, frail people. Women, children, men. The sickness does not distinguish who it chooses as its next victim. It can strike anyone and every time the symptoms are different. No expert can tell me what the problem is.

  Bronwen turned her head to study the listing people, as the coach passed. She looked back at Østergård.

  “They are ill, yes?” she asked him.

  “They are.” He was barely audible above the clop of the horse.

  “That is why you insisted upon taking us on this excursion, isn’t it?”

  He sat back. “You are most astute, Miss Davies. That was the hidden purpose for my invitation. Although I did indeed want to thank you for your kindness toward Magistrate Fisker and show you a little of our town.”