Deadly Peril (12 page)

“I did have a month of complete bed rest,” Selina said in a small voice. “Before Alec—”

“No more
reconciliations
, Selina. Do you understand me? I won’t have you and Alec sharing a bed outside of wedlock, again. That not only results in-in—
consequences
, it invites scandal. Particularly when you are both less than discreet.”

“But… We were discreet,” Selina contradicted. “We rarely left the apartment. We—”

“You were seen at the Louvre by Lady Russell—
kissing
. That woman is an inveterate gossip. Naturally, now everyone knows what is going on between the two of you!” The Duchess sniffed loudly when Selina dared to bite back a guilty smile. “No more vulgar public displays! It is beneath you—
both
.”

Selina lowered her lashes. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“With his brother barely cold in his grave, and rumors Alec had a hand in Delvin’s murder, he can’t afford to have society whispering about him—or you! If it weren’t Emily’s and Cosmo’s lives that are in the balance, I would dare suggest this mercy dash to Midanich a godsend for the two of you, to at least calm the gossips, for them to focus on someone or something else while we are abroad. Do you understand me, Selina?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Good. I am most serious. You may think me a prudish old lady, but if I do know one thing about vigorous males it’s that they are potent. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after your cavort in Paris you’re breeding again, and you don’t even know it yet!”

Selina gasped. “Aunt Olivia! I assure you—”

“Can you?” The Duchess looked her up and down and raised her arched brows. “Can you truly assure me you are not breeding, my dear?”

Selina took a moment to contemplate her answer, and shocked herself with her response. “No. No, I cannot.”

“There, then! So perhaps you will now accord my advice the seriousness it deserves.”

“You have every right to your anger, Aunt,” Selina responded despondently. “If I had not invited Alec to Paris… if I’d hurried to Berne to meet Emily and Cosmo instead of remaining with Alec, they would not now be locked up!”

“I will not allow you to blame yourself. That is a wasteful exercise. Truth be told,” the Duchess added as she stood and shook out her quilted petticoats, Selina doing likewise, “had you rushed to meet them you too, would now be locked up with them.” She linked arms with her niece and walked through to her sitting room. “Come. Let us do something useful. We may just have time before dinner to start sorting through my jewelry collection for pieces to put in those little concealed pockets. The first will be a ruby necklace that once belonged to my mother-in-law. It’s a gaudy piece and I never wore it. But I could not in good conscience rid myself of it without cause.” She gave a trill of laughter edged with hysteria, then became instantly somber. “I can think of no better cause than offering it as part of the ransom, can you?”

“I cannot,” Selina agreed with an understanding smile.

“I only pray that the ransom will satisfy their captors. God help them if it does not! I hate to think… Oh, my dear girl, why is this happening?” the Duchess demanded, her façade of strength slipping away. “My head—my head is full of all sorts of terrible imaginings!”

Selina put her arms around her.

“Please, Aunt, we cannot begin to imagine what has happened. If we do, we will surely go mad. We must simply play our part to make certain Emily and Cosmo are released. I have every confidence in Alec making it so. We must be steadfast in that belief.

“Yes. Yes, of course. You are the voice of reason, and I—I am being a wet goose! I will be good and not let my mind wander.”

Selina kissed her cheek.

“We shall both be good.”

They said no more. Yet, contrary to their confident smiles and their determination not to fill their thoughts with all sorts of alarming notions, their inconsequential conversation, while they pawed over the Duchess’s considerable collection of jewels and rare gems, blanketed their thoughts—thoughts that were all for Emily and Cosmo, and how they were being treated. It was easy to delude themselves, sitting as they were in a pretty sitting room in St. James’s Square, London, that Emily, as granddaughter of a duchess, and Cosmo, as nephew of one, were being accorded every civility at a foreign court. Self delusion was all the hope left to them, the reality in Midanich, quite beyond their comprehension.

E
IGHT

HERZFELD CASTLE, MIDANICH

S
IR
C
OSMO
M
AHON
had been held captive long enough to know every inch of his cell—he refused to call it a room. Every crack in the white-washed wood paneling; how many strips of wood made up the polished parquetry flooring; the number of knots to the fringe of the small rug in front of his bed set into the wall. Counting was all that was left to him, that and his memories of home. But he tried not to think of his beloved England. What he wouldn’t give to see the dome of St. Paul’s rising into a soft blue sky. He vowed never again to take for granted such a majestic sight, or to complain about the recklessness of chairmen dashing in and out of London traffic endangering the lives of their passengers, or bemoan that the parks, particularly the Mall, were being frequented more and more by all sorts of riffraff. And if his valet wanted a full day off every fortnight to visit his ailing mother in Hoxton, he could have it. He was such a sentimentalist and so much affected by thinking of family and friends that more than once, at night, under cover of darkness, he curled up in a ball on his bed and sobbed like a child.

During the day, he forced himself to count his blessings. They were small, but blessings nonetheless. A blue-and-white tiled Dutch masonry heater in the corner kept him warm, and so warm that sometimes he opened out the small mullioned window, despite the icy winds that forever whipped about outside. And he was thankful for that window, for it allowed him to see the passing of day into night, to see the winter sky, the stars, and the falling snow. It provided normality to his lonely days. He watched the castle’s inhabitants going about their daily lives: Servants scurrying across the courtyard between different wings of the palace, soldiers marching in formation, the same ginger cat in pursuit of a mouse. Sometimes, if he kept his attention on the bank of windows directly opposite, he would see movement; once a window opened and a face appeared. But instead of calling out or trying to catch the attention of the person who peered out, he shied away, as if not wanting to be seen. It was an instinctive reaction and it made him question if isolation was sending him mad.

Snow was a blessing. When he was escorted on his walk along the parapets, he no longer had to avert his gaze from the decaying heads stuck on pikes, a grotesque reminder to all what happened to deserters and traitors. The snow blanketed this macabre warning in white. But perhaps he was becoming immune to such grisly sights? Though there had not been a new head added to the pikes in a month. He counted that as blessing, too.

His Irish valet Matthias was not a blessing—he was a godsend. He had no idea how Matthias kept up his optimism but he did, and having a visit from him did wonders for morale. He looked forward to seeing him, and for the rest of the day after he’d been shaved, he was pulled out of his melancholy, convinced he would be rescued—that Alec was on his way.

And then, a month into his captivity, he made a thoroughly reckless decision, one born of his frustration at the situation in which he found himself. Once made, he could not back down. It was to have far-reaching consequences he could never have imagined.

He learned from Matthias that all males at court were barred from wearing facial hair of any kind. The decree dated back to the Margrave’s grandfather, Margrave Maxim, at the turn of the century. Maxim had made the decision after learning the Russian Emperor Peter, styled “the Great”, had brought in such a decree in St. Petersburg, not only amongst the nobles, but every male serf within the new Russian capital.

“It’s an odd thing to do, ban beards and mustaches, wouldn’t you say, sir?” Matthias asked in his lilting English, and in a low voice, one eye on the guard who stood to attention by the door. He was deliberately being slow to set out his shaving implements next to the bowl of warm soapy water so there was time for conversation, his master seated close by, holding the blue and white patterned shaving bowl under his chin in readiness, “I know it ain’t the fashion to wear a beard or mustaches, but if a gent left the hair on his face, who’s to tell him he can’t? Not his king, that’s certain. It wouldn’t pass our Parliament, would it, sir?”

“It certainly would not,” Sir Cosmo agreed. “If such a ludicrous bill ever made it to the Commons, the chap who proposed it would not only be laughed at, he would also be carted off to Bedlam as a lunatic!”

“That’s what I said to the lads below stairs. I said we
English
men have freedoms and rights. As well as freedom of speech, we can read what we please, and write it too! And we have the freedom to grow our hair on our heads as well as our faces, as long as we pleased, if we pleased. And no one could take that right from us!”

Sir Cosmo chuckled. Not least because Matthias always made a point of stressing his Englishness and in his sing-song Irish lilt. Yet did not consider this at all incongruous, given most of his countrymen considered English occupation of Ireland as an invasion they could well do without.

“Hear! Hear!” agreed Sir Cosmo. “But you had best temper your enthusiasm and your tongue or you’ll be accused of inciting riot amongst your fellow servants. They might throw up their hands and make for the border and a ship to England to see these liberties for themselves.”

“They aren’t employed, and they can’t do as they please. They’re slaves—serfs—who have no rights at all.”

“Indeed? Then that’s even more reason to keep them in ignorance. Poor sots. And I don’t want their disaffection coming back on you.”

“Don’t you worry about that, sir. They wouldn’t think of raising riot against their betters. There’s no fight in ’em. They’d no more take up arms as grow a beard. If you get my meaning.”

“I do. But to ban facial hair seems rather specific, and odd, don’t you agree? I can think of a hundred and one other things worth banning if I was a despot. Stopping a fellow from wearing a beard wouldn’t be on the list, you can be sure of that!”

“Me too, sir. If you’d just hold that bowl a bit firmer under your chin. That’s the way,” Matthias said as he proceeded to make a lather with soap ball and bristle brush. “According to Kurt—he’s a second footman—it has to do with that business regarding the ‘unspoken truth’.”

“Does it?… Interesting… Have you managed to discover what that is—this
unspoken truth
?”

“No, sir. No one can tell me, but I did find out it has to do with the ban on beards and mustaches. And that it has everything to do with their ruler.”

Matthias did not use the word Margrave. Master and servant had agreed that even though they conversed in English any word that might alert the guard—who only spoke the local German dialect—as to the content of their conversation, should be substituted for another.

“But as I only rub shoulders with serfs,” Matthias continued, “I couldn’t tell you what that
everything
is. Not one of ’em has ever been in their ruler’s presence or his sister’s, to point out fact. Their personal servants are in a different wing, and keep to themselves. Now if you’ll just lower your chin, sir, I’ll get to work on that stubble.”

Instead of doing as his valet asked, Sir Cosmo removed the bowl and sat up, leaving Matthias with a bristle brush dripping soap lather onto the floor. The valet’s surprise, then gasp and quick movement to get the lathered brush back to the bowl of soapy water, had the yawning guard standing to attention, suddenly interested in what the fuss was about.

Sir Cosmo shoved the shaving bowl at his valet, snatched the towel from the front of his waistcoat and got up out of the chair.

“No more shaves, Matthias. I have decided to grow a beard!”

Matthias blinked at his master and wondered if imprisonment was finally wearing him thin. After all, while he mingled and talked to people, and roamed most of the servant passages of the palace at will, his master did not. But Matthias was not a thick-head. He realized he was given such freedom to see if he was up to anything untoward for his master, like passing secret notes, or dispatching secret letters, or making contact with secret individuals. All of which he was not. He knew his every move was shadowed by men in the Captain’s pay, paid to report back every word and deed. But Matthias also knew his dear master had no such freedoms, and while he was not mistreated, his master certainly was. Locking him up in a small bedchamber with a view of an inner courtyard many floors below, and with nothing to occupy his mind was tantamount to sticking a monkey in a cage with no mates and nothing to do, not even a branch to swing from! The boredom alone would send any sane creature mad. And this sudden pronouncement was surely proof of that.

Sir Cosmo walked to the window, the guard one step behind, as if he expected his prisoner to squeeze through the small narrow opening and fling himself to his death. Sir Cosmo had certainly lost some fat, but he would need to lose half his height as well to fit through that opening.

“Come sit down, sir,” Matthias coaxed, doing his best to keep his voice neutral so as not to further alarm the guard. “It won’t do to make any grand gestures, not with this lot.”

Sir Cosmo sat on the hard window seat and faced his valet, a quick scowling glance at the guard, who retreated once more to the door now his prisoner was seated.

“Matthias, allow me this one tiny rebellion against my incarceration. I have no say over any aspect of my life, but this—this will suffice to keep my spirits up. I shall cultivate facial hair until such time as I am rescued.” He dared to smile. “If nothing else, it will surely infuriate those who are holding me here. It may even come to the attention of their ruler, and then I may get my wish granted for an audience.”