Lord John and the Hand of Devils (11 page)

Chapter 5

Dark Dreams

O
nce more he was late for dinner. This time, though, a tray was brought for him, and he sat in the drawing room, taking his supper while the rest of the company chatted.

The princess saw to his needs, and sat with him for a time, flatteringly attentive. He was worn out from a day of riding, though, and his answers to her questions brief. Soon enough, she drifted away and left him to a peaceful engagement with some cold venison and a tart of dried apricots.

He had nearly finished, when he felt a large, warm hand on his shoulder.

“So, you have seen the gun crew at the bridge? They are in good order?” von Namtzen asked.

“Yes, very good,” Grey replied. No point—not yet—in mentioning the young soldier to von Namtzen. “I told them more men will come, from Ruysdale’s regiment.”

“The bridge?” The dowager, catching the word, turned from her conversation, frowning. “You have no need to worry, Landgrave. The bridge is safe.”

“I am sure it will be safe, madam,” Stephan said, clicking his heels gallantly as he bowed to the old lady. “You may be assured, Major Grey and I will protect you.”

The old lady looked faintly put out at the notion.

“The bridge is safe,” she repeated, touching the religious medal on the bodice of her gown, and glancing pugnaciously from man to man. “No enemy has crossed the bridge at Aschenwald in five hundred years. No enemy will ever cross it!”

Stephan glanced at Grey, and cleared his throat slightly. Grey cleared his own throat and made a gracious compliment upon the food.

When the dowager had moved away, Stephan shook his head behind her back, and exchanged a brief smile with Grey.

“You know about that bridge?”

“No, is there something odd about it?”

“Only a story.” Von Namtzen shrugged, with a tolerant scorn for the superstition of others. “They say that there is a guardian, a spirit of some kind that defends the bridge.”

“Indeed,” Grey said, with an uneasy memory of the stories told by the gun crew stationed near the bridge. Were any of them local men, he wondered, who would know the story?

“Mein Gott,”
Stephan said, shaking his massive head as though assailed by gnats. “These stories! How can sane men believe such things?”

“I collect you do not mean that particular story?” Grey said. “The succubus, perhaps?”

“Don’t speak to me of that thing,” von Namtzen said gloomily. “My men look like scarecrows and jump at a bird’s shadow. Every one of them is scared to lay his head upon a pillow, for fear that he will turn it and look into the night hag’s face.”

“Your chaps aren’t the only ones.” Sir Peter had come to pour himself another drink. He lifted the glass and took a deep swallow, shuddering slightly. Billman, behind him, nodded in glum confirmation.

“Bloody sleepwalkers, the lot.”

“Ah,” said Grey thoughtfully. “If I might make a suggestion…not my own, you understand. A notion mentioned by Ruysdale’s surgeon…”

He explained Mr. Keegan’s remedy, keeping his voice discreetly low. His listeners were less discreet in their response.

“What, Ruysdale’s chaps are all boxing the Jesuit and begetting cockroaches?” Grey thought Sir Peter would expire from suffocated laughter. Just as well Lieutenant Dundas wasn’t present, he thought.

“Perhaps not all of them,” he said. “Evidently enough, though, to be of concern. I take it you have not experienced a similar phenomenon among your troops…yet?”

Billman caught the delicate pause and whooped loudly.

“Boxing the Jesuit?” Stephan nudged Grey with an elbow, and raised thick blond brows in puzzlement. “Cockroaches? What does this mean, please?”

“Ahhh…” Having no notion of the German equivalent of this expression, Grey resorted to a briefly graphic gesture with one hand, looking over his shoulder to be sure that none of the women was watching.

“Oh!” Von Namtzen looked mildly startled, but then grinned widely. “I see, yes, very good!” He nudged Grey again, more familiarly, and dropped his voice a little. “Perhaps wise to take some such precaution personally, do you think?”

The women and the German officers, heretofore intent on a card game, were looking toward the Englishmen in puzzlement. One man called a question to von Namtzen, and Grey was fortunately saved from reply.

Something occurred to him, though, and he grasped von Namtzen by the arm, as the latter was about to go and join the others at a hand of favo.

“A moment, Stephan. I had meant to ask—that man of yours who died—Koenig? Did you see the body yourself?”

Von Namtzen was still smiling, but at this, his expression grew more somber, and he shook his head.

“No, I did not see him. They said, though, that his throat was most terribly torn—as though a wild animal had been at him. And yet he was not outside; he was found in his quarters.” He shook his head again, and left to join the card game.

Grey finished his meal amid cordial conversation with Sir Peter and Billman, though keeping an inconspicuous eye upon the progress of the card game.

Stephan was in dress uniform tonight. A smaller man would have been overwhelmed by it; Hanoverian taste in military decoration was grossly excessive, to an English eye. Still, with his big frame and leonine blond head, the Landgrave von Erdberg was merely…eye-catching.

He appeared to have caught the eye not only of the Princess Louisa, but of three other young women. These surrounded him like a moony triplet, caught in his orbit. Now he reached into the breast of his coat and withdrew some small object, causing them to cluster round to look at it.

Grey turned to answer some question of Billman’s, but then turned back, trying not to look too obviously.

He had been trying to suppress the feeling Stephan roused in him, but in the end, such things were never controllable—they rose up. Sometimes like the bursting of a mortar shell, sometimes like the inexorable green spike of a crocus pushing through snow and ice—but they rose up.

Was he in love with Stephan? There was no question of that. He liked and respected the Hanoverian, but there was no madness in it, no yearning. Did he
want
Stephan? A soft warmth in his loins, as though his blood had begun somehow to simmer over a low flame, suggested that he did.

The ancient bear’s skull still sat in its place of honor, below the old prince’s portrait. He moved slowly to examine it, keeping half an eye on Stephan.

“Surely you have not eaten enough, John!” A delicate hand on his elbow turned him, and he looked down into the princess’s face smiling up at him with pretty coquetry. “A strong man, out all day—let me call the servants to bring you something special.”

“I assure you, Your Highness…” But she would have none of it, and tapping him playfully with her fan, she scudded away like a gilded cloud, to have some special dessert prepared for him.

Feeling obscurely like a fatted calf being readied for the slaughter, Grey sought refuge in male company, coming to rest beside von Namtzen, who was folding up whatever he had been showing to the women, who had all gone to peer over the card player’s shoulders and make bets.

“What is that?” Grey asked, nodding at the object.

“Oh—” Von Namtzen looked a little disconcerted at the question, but with only a moment’s hesitation, handed it to Grey. It was a small leather case, hinged, with a gold closure. “My children.”

It was a miniature, done by an excellent hand. The heads of two children, close together, one boy, one girl, both blond. The boy, clearly a little older, was perhaps three or four.

Grey felt momentarily as though he had received an actual blow to the pit of the stomach; his mouth opened, but he was incapable of speech. Or at least he thought he was. To his surprise, he heard his own voice, sounding calm, politely admiring.

“They are very handsome indeed. I am sure they are a consolation to your wife, in your absence.”

Von Namtzen grimaced slightly, and gave a brief shrug.

“Their mother is dead. She died in childbirth when Elise was born.” A huge forefinger touched the tiny face, very gently. “My mother looks after them.”

Grey made the proper sounds of condolence, but had ceased to hear himself, for the confusion of thought and speculation that filled his mind.

So much so, in fact, that when the princess’s special dessert—an enormous concoction of raspberries, brandy, sugar, and cream—arrived, he ate it all, despite the fact that raspberries made him itch.

H
e continued to think, long after the ladies had left. He joined the card game, bet extensively, and played wildly—winning, with Luck’s usual perversity, though he paid no attention to his cards.

Had he been entirely wrong? It was possible. All of Stephan’s gestures toward him had been within the bounds of normalcy—and yet…

And yet it was by no means unknown for men such as himself to marry and have children. Certainly men such as von Namtzen, with a title and estates to bequeath, would wish to have heirs. That thought steadied him, and though he scratched occasionally at chest or neck, he paid more attention to his game—and finally began to lose.

The card game broke up an hour later. Grey loitered a bit, in hopes that Stephan might seek him out, but the Hanoverian was detained in argument with Kaptain Steffens, and at last Grey went upstairs, still scratching.

The halls were well lit tonight, and he found his own corridor without difficulty. He hoped Tom was still awake; perhaps the young valet could fetch him something for itching. Some ointment, perhaps, or—he heard the rustle of fabric behind him, and turned to find the princess approaching him.

She was once again in nightdress—but not the homely woolen garment she had worn the night before. This time, she wore a flowing thing of diaphanous lawn, which clung to her bosom and rather clearly revealed her nipples through the thin fabric. He thought she must be very cold, in spite of the lavishly embroidered robe thrown over the nightgown.

She had no cap, and her hair had been brushed out but not yet plaited for the night; it flowed becomingly in golden waves below her shoulders. Grey began to feel somewhat cold, too, in spite of the brandy.

“My Lord,” she said. “John,” she added, and smiled. “I have something for you.” She was holding something in one hand, he saw; a small box of some sort.

“Your Highness,” he said, repressing the urge to take a step backward. She was wearing a very strong scent, redolent of tuberoses—a scent he particularly disliked.

“My name is Louisa,” she said, taking another step toward him. “Will you not call me by my name? Here, in private?”

“Of course. If you wish it—Louisa.” Good God, what had brought this on? He had sufficient experience to see what she was about—he was a handsome man, of good family, and with money; it had happened often enough—but not with royalty, who tended to be accustomed to taking what they wanted.

He took her outstretched hand, ostensibly for the purpose of kissing it; in reality, to keep her at a safe distance. What did she want? And why?

“This is—to thank you,” she said, as he raised his head from her beringed knuckles. She thrust the box into his other hand. “And to protect you.”

“I assure you, madam, no thanks are necessary. I did nothing.” Christ, was that it? Did she think she must bed him, in token of thanks—or rather, had convinced herself that she must, because she wanted to? She did want to; he could see her excitement, in the slightly widened blue eyes, the flushed cheeks, the rapid pulse in her throat. He squeezed her fingers gently and released them, then tried to hand back the box.

“Really, madam—Louisa—I cannot accept this; surely it is a treasure of your family.” It certainly looked valuable; small as it was, it was remarkably heavy—made either of gilded lead or of solid gold—and sported a number of crudely cut cabochon stones, which he feared were precious.

“Oh, it is,” she assured him. “It has been in my husband’s family for hundreds of years.”

“Oh, well, then certainly—”

“No, you must keep it,” she said vehemently. “It will protect you from the creature.”