Deadly Peril (46 page)

Alec explained how the drawers worked. Emily put the pieces upon the chessboard and Alec invited the Prince to come forward to take a closer look at this most marvelous invention. The Prince duly stepped forward, the delight writ large on his handsome features. He was so taken with his gift from the English King he could hardly contain himself. He wanted two chairs drawn up to the table so he and Alec could play at a game of chess.

But would not His Highness prefer a game of backgammon? asked Emily as she put away the chess pieces without his permission. He nodded. Of course! But he did not see a surface on which to play at backgammon. Emily then invited the Prince to push on a particular part of the board with one of his fingers, but to be very careful he did so gently, so as not to startle those present.

He did as requested and as he did so, he felt the surface of the table give way. Such was his surprise that he leapt back, fearing the table was about to collapse. It did not. The opposite occurred. A section of the table rose up out of nowhere and opened out as if by magic into a backgammon board. The Prince not only took another step back in astonishment, he then rushed up to the table to assure himself it was not a trick of sorts.

He was so taken, so excited, that with Emily’s help he folded the backgammon board away again, all for the pleasure and excitement of watching it pop up again as if by magic.

The court applauded. The Prince invited his courtiers to come forward and inspect the table for themselves, and such was the intense interest that the Prince forgot there was to be dancing. Until his mother reminded him, then excused herself for the rest of the evening. The baby was being particularly active, and she needed to rest. Before the General escorted her away, she kissed the groom’s cheek, then the bride’s, wished them happy and a long life together. And with a twinkle in her eye ordered her son to let the happy couple retire for the evening well before the dancing was over; they could make more pleasant use of the limited time they had together before Alec was to join the Prince, his General, and the army marching on Herzfeld on the morrow.

That brought Alec out of his half-sleeping reverie. Blinking in the semi-darkness, he sat up on an elbow and pulled his long black curls out of his eyes. The velvet curtain on his side of the bed had been drawn back and tied off, giving him a view into the room. It was illuminated by a candelabra on the table, and the orange glow from the fireplace. Two lackeys were pouring scented water into a hipbath before the hearth. A third lackey was setting the room to rights, while his valet rummaged about, picking up various items of discarded clothing—clothing strewn across the bedchamber. So, too, was half the bedding. Part of the night they had slept—no, they had
not
slept—in front of the fireplace. His gaze darted to the window seat, to the scatter of cushions; they’d not slept there either.

He fell back on the pillows with a grin and stared up at the pleated canopy for all of five seconds, supremely happy. Resisting the urge to kiss his wife so as not to wake her, and resigned to the inevitable, he threw back the coverlet with a sigh and fairly leapt out of bed. He meant to cross to the hipbath, just seven paces away, but was confronted with Evans, standing directly in front of him holding a tea tray.

He was naked and she had frozen.

“Good morning, Evans,” he said conversationally, casually took the tea tray from her fixed grip, placed it on the bedside table, then stepped past her and went to his bath.

“Good-Good mor-morning, my lord,” Janet Evans finally squeaked in a dry throat, still frozen, but better educated than she thought she would ever be about her dearest Selina’s lord and master.

H
ADRIAN
J
EFFRIES
was securing the buckles of Alec’s knee-high jockey boots when Selina came through to the dressing room, wearing the coverlet like a Roman Senator, mass of mussed curls tumbling about her shoulders like an apricot cloud, and carrying a cup of tea.

Alec looked up from watching his valet and smiled. “Good morning, my lady.”

“Good morning, my lord.” She held out the cup of tea with a shy smile. “Evans thought you might like some tea before you set off.”

Alec took the teacup. “How thoughtful of her.”

“Evans also thought it would be a good idea if I told you my news now, before your departure. She said it will give you something to think about other than what you must confront in that horrid castle. That it will give you the strength required if you are called upon to surmount the insurmountable.”

“Then it is best we heed Evans’ advice; she has never let you down yet.”

When Selina nodded but did not continue, he realized that whatever it was she wished to tell him, she wished to do so in private. Hadrian Jeffries did not need to be told. He thought so too, and he rose up from his haunches, and with a short bow to Alec, and not a glance at her ladyship, was about to excuse himself. But Alec addressed him directly, Selina going to the window, drawn by the noise of departure down in the cobbled courtyard outside the turret—the movement of wheels and horses hooves and men’s boots on the cobbles, of barks of command, and conversation.

“Tell His Highness I’m only a few minutes behind you.” He stuck out his hand and when his valet gripped it said, “Be careful. Keep your head down. Don’t play the hero. I need you alive. Her Grace and my uncle need you alive. Don’t let Parsons bully you. You are in charge of my family’s safety. If for any reason you deem the situation too dangerous, it probably is. So find shelter, keep yourself and them safe, and wait for reinforcements. General Müller’s men will find you, eventually.”

“Yes, sir. I will. I won’t let you down.”

Alec smiled. “Of course you won’t. Thank you.”

“Sir! Forgive me. There is one last task I forgot to perform, and I must.” Jeffries went to a darkened corner to retrieve a sheathed sword and leather sword belt. They belonged to Alec, confiscated at Wittmund by General Müller. Jeffries now returned them with a small bow. “With the General’s compliments, my lord.”

Selina waited until the valet had helped secure the belt and sword under Alec’s frock coat then departed, before she came away from the window. She had been watching the soldiers make ready in the semi-darkness under the orange glow of dozens of tapers; officers mounted on their magnificent Frisians in all their military finery; wagons loaded with supplies, and a dozen or more lackeys running in and out between these vehicles, horses, and soldiers, attending to last-minute requests. All brought a sense of the enormity of what lay ahead, for these men, and for Alec, and what the outcome of this day would mean for them all. Herzfeld was only an hour away. By sunrise, they would be in the thick of the fighting, ready to die for their cause. She was certain those left behind with her at the
Schloss
—the women, old men, children, and the infirm—would hear the roar of the fighting and each deafening cannon blast, and live every heart-stopping moment with them.

Was it any wonder she wanted the day over with before it had even begun?

Alec met her halfway across the room and took her in his arms. He kissed her forehead, then leaned his against hers for a moment, and they stood silent, enjoying the moment of stillness. But the activity and noise below soon intruded, and both were gripped with a sense of urgency. For Selina there was no other way to say what was on her mind, so she just came out with it.

“I’m pregnant.”

Alec chuckled, disbelieving. “That was quick! Is this the best ploy Evans could manage to have me stay?”

Selina took a step away, pulling the coverlet closer, and looked up into his blue eyes. There was no amusement in her dark eyes or in her tone.

“No. It’s the truth. I conceived in Paris, when you came to stay. We’ve not made love since—until last night.” She smiled hesitantly when he continued to stare at her, dazed and mute. “We think—Evans and I, and I am sure a physician will confirm my calculation, I am so very good at figures, as you know—the baby is due mid summer. So plenty of time yet to find our way back home, to Delvin. Your son should be born at the estate, don’t you think? I’m not telling you this to make you stay with me. I-I want you to rescue Cosmo, and bring him, my aunt, and your uncle—well, he’s my uncle now, too, whether he likes it or not—back here to be reunited with Emily and me. We can then make the announcement together, about our marriage, and about the-the baby. Evans and I just thought you should know that whatever awaits you at Herzfeld, whatever unpleasantness you are forced to face, you have us—your wife and child who love you—waiting for you.”

She smiled through her tears and swallowed in a dry throat when Alec, too overcome to speak, dropped to his knees and hugged her, face buried in the coverlet. A hand to his black curls, she gently held him against her, and let the tears stream down her face.

This was how a lackey found the couple, sent by the Prince to hurry the Baron Aurich along. The sun, such as it was, would show itself on the horizon in the next hour. The weather being favorable, there would be a cloudless sky, and they would march with the sun directly in their eyes. The servant took one look into the silent dressing room and retreated as quietly as he had entered it, reporting that the Baron was on his way. What he had witnessed between the couple was no man’s business but their own, not even that of his future Margrave; but it was a memory he would keep for the rest of his days.

~   ~   ~

E
VERYTHING
WENT
according to the plan discussed and agreed over Prince Viktor’s map table. In fact, it was so perfectly executed a clean-shaven General Müller (he could not enter the castle with his mustache for surely that would give the game away) with Alec as his hostage, dared to glance at one another in surprise when one of the heavily-studded doors in the portcullis was slowly cracked open, and they, with four of the General’s most skilled assassins, were granted entry into Castle Herzfeld.

W
HILE
G
ENERAL
M
ÜLLER
’
S
party were being escorted by members of the Margrave’s personal bodyguard across an eerily deserted quadrangle with only a ginger cat as witness, Prince Viktor and upwards of forty soldiers were stealthily making their way along the sandy shore at the base of the castle’s northwestern battlement, an imposing red brick wall that was some ten feet thick and which rose thirty feet into the air. The North Sea had retreated enough at low tide to provide a wide strip of wet sandy beach, and there, where Alec had advised the Prince, was the hole in the wall—the mouth of the sluice drain, no taller than a man when crouching, from which Alec had escaped a decade earlier. As unassuming and ineffectual as this drain mouth appeared, it was the Achilles heel for a fortification deemed impenetrable and which had only ever been successfully breached once, and that a hundred years earlier.

And just as Alec described, once inside the drain, and with their tapers lit, the passage was easily if uncomfortably navigable. With Prince Viktor leading, the soldiers quickly scurried through this section of the drain, either side of a deep channel which carried all manner of waste away from the castle at high tide. They then scrambled up a set of shallow spiral steps, and found themselves in a much larger tunnel that allowed them to stand tall. They were now in the casements which were a series of interconnected tunnels and rooms that ran under the battlements and under the main palace building. This particular tunnel led straight to the dungeon. They found the heavy iron grill, bolted as predicted.

Here the air might be less dank but it was unbearably fetid. Alec had failed to mention, and was something he had probably deliberately forgotten—the Prince understood why—the indescribable and overpowering stench. Dipping the tapers to cast light at their boot heels, the Prince and his men found themselves ankle-deep in human excrement, and the bones and rotted flesh of recently mutilated victims of torture.

More than one soldier turned and heaved and splashed the contents of his stomach across the tunnel walls. Soldiers scrambled to quickly rearrange their stocks and mufflers to cover their mustachioed noses, to help block the overpowering smells. The Prince ordered tapers to be set upright, and his men to keep their gaze heavenward, to remain quiet and ready. All did their best to ignore the stench under their feet, listening for signs of life above, and waited silently, if impatiently, for their comrades to find them, to slide the bolt and lift the grate.

A
LEC
WAS
ESCORTED
across the castle grounds between the shoulders of two of General Müller’s men. General Müller walked ahead, and in front of him were two of the Margrave Ernst’s unsuspecting personal bodyguards, who led the way. Just as the party turned down a corridor inside the main palace building, two of Müller’s soldiers marching behind Alec, quietly dropped back and slunk away to disappear in the shadows. In their place, one of the soldiers at Alec’s side fell back, and the General took his place beside Alec. The ruse worked. When the bodyguards came to a halt at a set of ornate bronze and walnut double doors, where two guards stood either side of two liveried footmen, these escorts were none the wiser two of Müller’s men were now loose in the castle.

The assassins made their way down into the casements, to the dungeons, one to search out the cells, looking for Sir Cosmo, the other in search of a particular heavy iron grate. This iron grill was only ever opened by lackeys required to dispose of bodily waste and of the bodies of torture victims, or prisoners who had died in their cells, by natural means or foul. They were supposed to cart the remains through the tunnel as far as the sluice drain, and there offload the bodies and the body parts into the channel, knowing that when the tide rose, the sea would rush in and take away these hapless victims to an unmarked watery grave. In practice, the lackeys saw no point in exerting themselves, and often opened the grill and tipped the contents of their buckets directly into the tunnel. Only when the stench became overpowering and noxious fumes wafted up through the grill did they bother to shift the human waste and detritus further along the tunnel to the drain.