The Transatlantic Conspiracy Read Online Free

their chaperone . . .
    â€œOh, my word!” Cecily suddenly exclaimed.
    â€œWhat?” Rosalind asked, alarmed.
    Cecily reached out with her free arm and pointed across the chamber.
    â€œIt’s the Kaiser!”
    â€œThe . . . ” Rosalind craned her head and lifted herself on tiptoes to try to get a better look over the crowd. “Where?”
    It took her a few moments of searching, but her eyes eventually fell upon a stern figure standing high above the swarm, at a podium directly in front of the great gilded archway that led to the railway platform, which was concealed behind a velvet curtain.
    The emperor of Germany looked regal and imperious with his white uniform, a polished breastplate, and a proud upturned mustache. So much finery. Her father would have worn a plain suit and a hat. Unlike Cecily and Charles, the Kaiser struck Rosalind as hopelessly old-fashioned, almost childlike: he was either a medieval knight playing at being a head of state or a head of state playing at being a knight, and Rosalind didn’t know which was worse. It was rather the state of monarchs in the modern world, she realized. They were overgrown children who clung to the past at all costs, afraid of being swept away on a tidal wave of progress.
    â€œWhat’s the smile for, Rose?” Cecily whispered.
    â€œI’m just excited about getting aboard,” Rosalind lied. But she almost laughed out loud. In spite of her enchantment with the London social scene, maybe she was more American than she’d been willing to admit. Father would certainly be proud if that was the case.
    After a pause, the Kaiser began to address the crowd in guttural German. Rosalind knew she was in for a hideously long and boring speech. For a moment she didn’t know whether to regret her poor understanding of the language or to be glad of it.
    â€œIs he saying anything important?” she asked Cecily, whose German was far better than her own.
    Cecily listened, lips pursed. Then she shrugged. “Oh, the usual. Momentous occasion, the glory of the event, the joining of two great nations bound together by, oh, I don’t know, probably a mutual love of eagles or something.”
    â€œTush,” Rosalind said, clucking her tongue at Cecily, but she smirked. When she turned back to the podium, her view was blocked. The three reporters who’d been chasing the starlet had planted themselves, more or less as one, directly in front of her.
    â€œUm . . . ” Rosalind began, drawing back a pace.
    â€œPlease to excuse me, Fräulein,” one of the men said, speaking in heavily accented English, “but am I correct to be thinking that you are Fräulein Wallace?”
    The question startled her. She’d prepared herself for being recognized once aboard the train, but with all the chaos, she had not expected anyone here to recognize her, least of all some newspaperman. Still, she knew her father would want her to be honest, and surely there was no harm in confirming her identity.
    â€œI am, yes,” she said. “But how did you know that?”
    A second reporter pushed his way forward and touched the brim of his bowler hat.
    â€œJohn Gervais, Miss,” he said. “ The Times . We recognized you from your picture.”
    He held up a copy of his own newspaper, dated three days earlier, and offered it to Rosalind for inspection. She took the paper and stared in astonishment at the sight of her own face—lacking clarity due to the print, but more or less recognizable—set to one side of the front page, under the heading industrialist’s daughter to accompany maiden voyage of underwater train.
    Rosalind seethed silently, biting her tongue to avoid an outburst. Father really had used her to advertise the train—and in a very public way that he’d also chosen to keep from her. How dare he? How dare he?
    But she kept smiling and said, with great self-control, “Oh my goodness. I