Free City of Silence (City of Mystery) by Kim Wright

might be precisely what Rayley needed.   As long as
Trevor was overseeing the unit, Rayley could float in this warm sea of ennui
indefinitely, but if he was in charge he would have no choice but to rally.  “Besides,”
Trevor added, more to the point.  “No matter how either of us feels about it, I
must go.  Her Majesty commands it, and our unit dangles in her hands like a toy. 
We can’t depend totally on the funds we raise from periodically arresting
Gerry.”
    Rayley
chuckled them almost immediately grew somber. “That story of Miss Bainbridge and
her friends being mistreated during their transit to the station…Do you think
her version of events was accurate?”
    “Certainly. 
Gerry may be dramatic, but I’ve never known her to be dishonest.”
    “That’s
what I thought.  And do you have any guess as to who the officer in question
might be?”
    “Hard
to say,” Trevor answered.  “It could have been any man on the force, even one
you’d never suspect of such crudity.  The suffragettes seem to bring out the
very worst in our gender.”
    “True,
but for an officer to set upon a group of women like that, women who were clearly
middle class or better…To muffle them with their own scarves…”  Rayley broke
off from that train of thought and abruptly changed the subject.  “Where will you
be traveling with the Queen?”
    “Russia.”
    “Russia?”
    “That’s
what I said.”
    “Good
God, man, you might never come back.  Why would she want to go there?”
    “She
doesn’t.  But it seems the Grandmother of Europe is now focused on the fate of
a particular granddaughter.  One of the girls from the German branch.  Alix of
Hesse, the youngest surviving child of the Queen’s dead daughter Alice, and
thus a bit of a pet, or so I take it.  And the girl has her heart set on marrying
the tsar’s oldest son.”
    Rayley
snorted.  “English girls, even those come by way of Germany, have no business
marrying Russian boys.”
    “Precisely
as the Queen sees it.”
    “The
solution seems simple enough.  The Queen orders the girl to find someone else.”
    Trevor
shrugged.  “I can only assume the situation is more complex than it appears on
the surface.  Another granddaughter is already over there, remember.  Alix’s sister
Ella.”
    “Indeed. 
That’s probably what set the whole plan in motion, the older sister playing
matchmaker for the younger.  And can I assume that the tsesarevich is equally
smitten with the idea of Alix?”
    Trevor
raised a questioning eyebrow at the unfamiliar word.
    “Tsesarevich,”
Rayley repeated.  “It means the oldest son of the ruler, the boy next in line
for the throne.  Like our Prince of Wales.”
    Trevor
puffed out his cheeks and sighed.  “The affection is almost undoubtedly mutual
to have caused Her Majesty this much consternation.  Of course she didn’t
summarize the totality of the family drama for my benefit, she just told me to
pack my bags. And I bowed and backed from the room.”
    There
was a knock on the doorframe even though the door stood open.  The two men
looked up to see Davy leaning in.
    “Another
summons to the Palace, Sir,” he said.
    “Again?”
 Trevor frowned.  “I was just there yesterday.”
    “Perhaps
this foolish trip has been cancelled,” Rayley said.
    “Don’t
think so, Sir,” Davy said, so quickly that Rayley realized Trevor must have
confided in Davy before he’d said anything to him. “Because this time the
request is for both of you.”
     
     
    London
- Windsor Palace
    10:33
AM
     
     
    The
Queen looked dourly down upon the two documents on her desk.  The first was
Ella’s letter, the one begging her to send Alix to Russia and offering
enthusiastic but vague assurances that all within St. Petersburg was well.  You
may have heard that the people in the streets grumble, the letter insisted, but the serfs are like children.   When any member of the royal family
appears in public a cheer goes up so loud