A Scandalous Adventure (22 page)

“Dieter!” she cried out. “I was only trying to help.”

“As usual, my sweet, your interference has done more harm than good.”

“No!” She leaped up suddenly and ran for the stairs to the balcony.

This distraction gave Dieter a chance. He made for the rear door, only to run right into the waiting arms of Josef and the rest of Max's men.

Susannah opted to follow Helga. She could not see any reason to allow the baroness to escape. When she reached the balcony, one of the doors was standing open and she could hear laughter, hysterical laughter.

The baroness came out slowly, still laughing, and waving a sheet of paper. “You've lost as well,” she finally managed to say. “We've all lost. She's gone.” She looked down at the confused faces below and shouted, “She's run away! Your precious princess has run away. She's made fools of us all.”

In the first flush of victory Max and Conrad had embraced and pounded each other on the back in manly and brotherly exuberance. Max had embraced Susannah with a somewhat different but even more enthusiastic exuberance.

Then reality intruded. There were things that had to be settled, decisions that had to be made.

A physician was called to deal with Hugo's wound. It was not dangerous, but Hugo was nonetheless a problem. They were, after all, in Hugo's castle surrounded by Hugo's presumably loyal servants and members of his regiment. Those soldiers may not have been aware that Hugo was intending to usurp the throne, but that meant they had no idea why the prince and Captain Staufer were here, in effect usurping that baron's castle.

Nor were they pleased to find themselves surrounded by the Royal Guard. The rivalry between the two regiments had grown notorious over the years, and they bristled at being given orders by General Bergen.

It wasn't until Prince Conrad appeared and reminded them that their oath of loyalty had been to Sigmaringen, not to Baron Herzlos, that they settled into a kind of sullen acceptance.

A bandaged Hugo and a snarling Dieter were taken down to the cells to join the guards already chained there. The previous residents had been members of the princess's escort who had taken exception to her confinement. The guards didn't know how they had come to escape. All they knew was that their beer had tasted a bit odd—but not too unusual to drink.

Conrad and Max thought that Helga could not be confined with her brother in the dungeon. Susannah did not see why not, but she knew that men had these odd fits of what they considered chivalry. At any rate, Helga was locked in the room that had earlier held Princess Mila. She did not seem particularly pleased about this and tried to claim feminine weakness that had enabled her brother to lead her astray. Susannah intervened and made clear that Helga could quietly accept the princess's former quarters or she could share her brother's cell.

Eventually, the prisoners had all been provided for, the hunting lodge had been secured, sleeping quarters had been arranged, since it was much too late for a return to Nymburg, and everyone had been fed. But once all that had been taken care of, the euphoria of victory faded.

Prince Conrad sat at the head of the table with Max and Susannah on his right and General Bergen on his left. The dishes had been cleared away, and once the wineglasses had been refilled, the servants were dismissed. The candles on the table flickered in the drafts that seemed to be everywhere in Krassau, but still provided reasonable light.

They now had to face their final problem—Princess Mila. She was gone—that much the brief, jeering note for her captors had made plain. But where?

She had also left a letter to be delivered to her father. That would, presumably, contain more information. But it was addressed to her father, Prince Gottfried. Conrad, Max, and General Bergen were all agreed. They could not read a letter that was addressed to someone else. So there it sat, on the table within reach of each man but untouched.

Susannah now understood her mother's exasperation when her father was describing various diplomatic or parliamentary maneuverings. Men clearly had no common sense. They were perfectly willing to try to kill each other with swords or any other weapon that came to hand, but they boggled at reading a letter addressed to someone else.

“This is ridiculous. Suppose that letter contains information about some danger she is running into? Or some danger she is creating for others? You could be putting people at risk with your silly scruples.” She took the penknife out of her pocket, warmed the blade in the candle flame, and slipped it under the seal on the letter.

The men gasped or choked or growled but made no move to stop her as she unfolded the missive.

Then she leaned back in her chair and began to read—silently. It was a lengthy letter. She smiled understandingly a few times and nodded more often. Once she emitted a sympathetic sigh.

When she turned to the third page, Max exploded. “Damnation! What does she say?”

She considered asking if their scruples extended only to reading the letter themselves but not to hearing someone else read it, but she decided she had teased enough. “Well, much of the letter is devoted to telling her father what she thinks of him in less than devoted terms. I'm afraid, Your Highness, that she was not enthusiastic about marrying you.”

She couldn't resist. She stopped talking and returned to reading.

“Suse!” Max looked ready to throttle her.

“Countess!” The prince stretched out his arm to point his finger at her. “I would hesitate to put you in the dungeons, but you could be required to share Helga's room.”

She smiled and put the letter back on the table. “I'm sorry. You can read it yourselves. Princess Mila, it seems, is in love with a Lieutenant Bauer. It sounds as if he was in charge of her escort?” She raised her brows in inquiry.

The prince and the general looked blank but Max nodded. “Yes, I think that was the fellow's name. Pretty fellow. All spit and polish.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Well,” Susannah continued, “it seems that he was sufficiently enterprising to engineer her escape from Hugo's imprisonment, and they have gone off to be married. She is not too clear on where they intend to settle. She mentions South America, but that's rather vague.”

“But that's wonderful!” The prince slapped his hands on the table and beamed at them all. “There is no way Gottfried can expect me to marry his daughter after this. And so I am free to marry Lady Olivia.”

The others looked at him with varying degrees of consternation.

While in many ways she thought Prince Conrad would be very fortunate to have Olivia as his wife, Susannah couldn't help feeling that having Olivia's mother as a mother-in-law, even tucked away in Naples, would be something of a drawback for a prince.

Max muttered something about Prince Gottfried and the chance that he might make more difficulties than Conrad realized.

But they were all tired. The problems would have to wait until tomorrow.

Some time later, Susannah lay half beside, half on Max, with his arms holding her in place.

“You aren't going to try to sneak off in the morning, are you?” Her words came out as a drowsy murmur.

A deep chuckle was the first response. “No, no more of that. From now on, we go together.” He turned his head to drop a kiss on her hair. “It must be back to Nymburg and the palace tomorrow. But soon we will return to Ostrov. There is so much I want to show you.”

“Soon.” She sighed contentedly.

Somewhere south of Stuttgart

Once he had assured himself that the only actual damage his wife had suffered was to her hat, Lord Penworth turned to the carriage. That had suffered more grievous harm.

It stood tilted at a sharp angle, one wheel in several pieces. The coachman, who had been hired along with the coach, regarded it balefully. “It cannot be repaired,
mein Herr
. It must be replaced.”

“That is obvious,” snapped Penworth. “It must be replaced, or we must hire another coach. Which is likely to be accomplished more quickly?”

The coachman raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Who knows?”

Penworth closed his eyes and prayed for patience. He opened his eyes and asked, with a reasonable approximation of calm, “How far is it to the nearest town?”

“Town?” The coachman looked uncertain.

“Or village? Or hamlet? Or any sort of human habitation?” The marquis's calm was rapidly evaporating.

“Phillip.” Lady Penworth put a restraining hand on his arm, and he took a deep breath.

The coachman furrowed his brow and thought. “Ah!” His brow cleared and he smiled. “Not far, maybe a mile or so, there is a village. And with an inn. You and your lady can rest there while we fix the carriage.”

“A mile or so, you say?” Lady Penworth kept her restraining hand on her husband's arm.

“Yes, gracious lady.” The coachman beamed happily. “Down in the valley, and all downhill.”

The coachman's good cheer was severely irritating Lord Penworth. He patted his wife's hand. “We could wait here while the coachman goes for help.”

“We don't know what sort of help he is likely to find in that village,” she said. “Besides, it's quite chilly. No, it's cold. We'll be far better off walking to the village. At the very least, we'll be able to have something to eat and wait out of the wind while the coach is repaired.”

She was doubtless correct. It was cold, and it wouldn't be possible to wait in the coach. Not when it was tilted at that angle. But as soon as they had extricated Susannah—and Augusta and Olivia as well, of course—from whatever mess they had gotten into, he was never going to set foot in another German state.

By the time the victorious prince and his colleagues arrived at the palace, none of them were looking their best. The prisoners didn't even make it that far. They were locked away in the barracks of the Royal Guards. In the guest quarters, to be sure, but still under lock and key, with General Bergen remaining there to make certain they were secured. The rest of them rode into the palace courtyard feeling exhausted and longing for hot baths and clean clothes.

Weary though the prince may have been, he strode into his palace with an assured tread and an air of command that had not always been there. Max could not help feeling an almost paternal pride in the way Conrad had grown into his role. Problems lay ahead, certainly, but at the moment, with Susannah beside him, all was good.

Then they were interrupted by one of the palace officials.

He bowed to Max but spoke to Susannah. “Excuse me, Lady Susannah, but there are some visitors who have been waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me?” She stopped in surprise. “Who…?”

The visitors were no longer waiting. An older couple stepped into the entrance hall. Their clothes were good, better than good, speaking of both wealth and taste, though a bit travel worn and dusty at the moment. The man—the gentleman—stood tall and straight, with an air of dignity about him. The lady beside him, her dark hair barely flecked with silver, had remarkable blue eyes. Familiar blue eyes. Max looked down at his wife. They were Susannah's blue eyes.

“Mama! Papa!” Susannah went flying across the room to their arms. There were hugs and exclamations and assorted inarticulate expressions of relief and delight before she said, “But what on earth are you doing here?”

“When you told us you will not be able to write to us for a while, what on earth did you think we would do?” Susannah's mother said acerbically. “Just sit there and wait?”

“Your mother was imagining all sorts of dire fates when we received Lady Augusta's letter telling us not to write,” said her father, a bit more gently. “We feared you might have been kidnapped or injured or…” He shook his head instead of finishing. “And then when weeks went by without hearing from you…we didn't know what to think.”

“I'm sorry.” Susannah looked stricken. “We thought at first that it would be just a few days, but things got complicated.”

“We have heard a bit about those complications from Augusta and Olivia,” said the mother, not sounding placated. Having recovered from her relief, she was sounding increasingly irate. She was also ignoring Max, even though he was standing right behind Susannah, and his size meant that he was rarely overlooked.

Susannah's parents. Guilt struck him as he looked at them. He had not given enough thought to Susannah's family, even though she had spoken of them often enough, he remembered, and with fondness.

In the ordinary way, he would have called on them, asked her father for permission to court her and all that sort of thing. His family would have met with her family. There would have been negotiations, settlements—all the legal and social formalities.

He just hadn't thought about any of that. Marrying Susannah had seemed so definitely the right thing to do. Or, if he were to be honest, the situation had offered a reason for him to do exactly what he wanted to do and to avoid all those formalities.

Susannah—his wife—smiled up at him, and his face relaxed into an answering smile. She took his arm to pull him forward. He clasped a hand over hers. Her parents might see it as a possessive gesture. Well, that is what it was. He was putting them on notice. If only he did not look so disreputable.

“Mama and Papa, may I present Count Maximillian von Staufer. My husband. Max, these are my parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Penworth.” Susannah sounded half defiant, half placating.

There was a moment of utter silence. It seemed no one even breathed. Then…

“
Husband
?
”

Susannah winced. Her mother's shriek had probably been heard not only throughout the palace but down in the town as well.

“
Marquess
? Your father is a
marquess
?” Max's roar was a good bit lower in pitch, but he did not doubt that it still thundered through the hall.

“How dare you, you blackguard!” Susannah's father advanced and seized him by the collar, ignoring the fact that Max was thirty years younger, several inches taller, and several stone heavier, all of it muscle.

“Villain!” cried the mother as she joined in the attack, swinging her parasol at him. He warded off the blow easily enough, but could barely restrain a laugh. He could not help it. It was so like the way Susannah had tried to drive him off with her parasol the day they met. Her mother was just like her.

“Stop it, all of you.” Susannah pushed her way into the middle, and one of her mother's blows landed on her head with a sharp crack. “Ouch!”

That did bring things to a halt.

Max swung her into his arms, warding off the efforts of her parents to reach her, and pushed back her hair to examine her. “There is no cut, but there may be a bruise.”

“It's all right.” She looked up at him, and her eyes as well as her words assured him that all was well.

He looked up then and announced, “We had best remove ourselves to a less public place.” Still with his arm around Susannah, he led the way into a small waiting room. The footman standing in the hall responded to his glare with alacrity and closed the door on them.

At his gesture, Lady Penworth seated herself in the largest chair in the room. Lord Penworth stood beside her. Even in their dusty traveling clothes, they were far neater, far more polished than he and Susannah. Max suspected that it wouldn't have mattered if he were wearing his dress uniform and all his decorations. Susannah's parents dominated the room. In front of them, Max felt rather like a naughty schoolboy.

He looked down at Susannah, who was looking more nervous than he had ever seen her before. Taking her hand in his, he whispered, “My warrior countess.” Her head went up, and she smiled up at him.

They turned to face her parents, but before either of them could speak, her mother did, looking at Max as if he were a pickpocket on trial. “May I ask how it comes about that you claim to be my daughter's husband when you have known her for what? A few weeks? Not even a month?”

He reddened slightly at the imperious tone—there was some justice to her complaint—but answered softly enough. In English. He reached for his English, feeling at a disadvantage in a language he did not speak well. “I realize it may…seem…hasty, but everything… It has been not usual.”

“Not usual.” Lord Penworth snorted, and his whiskers quivered. “That's putting a pretty face on it. My daughter accompanies an elderly relative to a spa and ends up married to some upstart German fortune hunter. We'll see about that!”

“Papa, stop it!”

Despite his anger at the insult, Max could not entirely suppress his smile. Susannah was leaping to his defense. But it was for him to speak now. Respectfully, he reminded himself. Respectfully. This was his wife's father he was addressing. He clicked his heels and made a stiff bow to the marquess. “My lord,” he began. That was, he remembered, the way the English addressed their noblemen. “My lord, I must make assurances to you that my family is of the highest nobility. No one who knows me would speak of me so.”

“Bah!” Lord Penworth waved a hand dismissively and turned to his daughter. “You seem to have gotten tangled up in some sort of mess here, but don't worry. We will take you home, and if there has been any sort of marriage, which I seriously doubt, we will have it annulled.”

“No!” Susannah's cry was almost drowned out by Max's roar. He put his arm around her shoulders to hold her close by his side and was relieved to feel her arm wrap around his waist. For a moment he had feared…but no. She was his.

“Please, Phillip, this will not help.” Lady Penworth reached out a hand to her husband, who went to her at once. She closed her eyes and seemed to be trying to collect herself. Finally, she lifted her head and sighed. “Susannah, we sent you with Augusta and Olivia so you could keep them out of trouble. What on earth has happened?”

“I know I should have stopped them, Mama, but…”

“No, it was entirely my fault,” Max interrupted. “I never should have permitted this, this playacting in the first place. And when I saw the danger, I should have insisted that they leave.”

“Oh no, that is not fair.” Susannah seized his arm and looked up at him. “You know it is not. You tried to send us away and we refused to leave.” She smiled brilliantly at him before she turned back to her parents. “And it really has been wonderfully exciting. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.”

That seemed to bring her parents to a halt, and eventually, the whole story was told. It could not be said that the Penworths were pleased, but they were no longer out for Max's blood. At least, not immediately.

Finally, Lady Penworth said, “We are all tired, and I know that I, for one, am sorely in need of a bath.” She did not say anything about the others, but the way her eyes flicked over them implied that their need was even greater than hers. “Perhaps we should continue this discussion when we are all more ourselves.”

They might continue to discuss it as long as Susannah's parents wished, but it would change nothing. Susannah was his wife, and his wife she would remain. Max did not care if her father was a marquess or a merchant. He did not care how sudden their marriage might appear. All that was unimportant. He and Susannah were bound together in ways far beyond laws and customs. They had faced danger together already. She was his warrior countess. They would defy the whole world if they had to.

Max rang, and a servant appeared instantly, probably having spent the interim with his ear glued to the door. Lord and Lady Penworth were escorted to their quarters. Susannah started toward her old room, adjoining Olivia's, but Max held her back. With an unexpected spurt of pride and possessiveness, he led her to his apartments.

* * *

It was an odd feeling. She was no longer Susannah Tremaine. She was now Susannah Staufer, Countess von Staufer, and she no longer had to obey her parents. She would listen to them, of course, and consider what they said, but she was no longer required to do as they said. Not that they had ever tried to make her do something she disliked, except maybe be polite to boring guests, but still…

Now she was Countess von Staufer.

People would have to obey
her
.

That heady feeling floated her through a bath scented with elder flowers. It was a truly appreciated bath after all the riding she had done over the past few days, to say nothing of the other unaccustomed activity. The tub was so deep that when she leaned back, the water came up almost to her chin. She lay back and let her limbs just float in the hot water. Her head rested on the rim of the tub while a maid brushed her hair to get all the dust and dirt and tangles out of it.

The feel of the brush on her scalp was so soothing, and the water was so warm, that she closed her eyes drowsily to enjoy the luxury of it all. The rhythm of the brushing changed slightly, becoming firmer and more regular. Hypnotically regular.

A deep laugh made her eyes pop open. “Do not go to sleep,
liebling
. We must dress and dine with your parents and with the prince.”

She sat up with a start, splashing water all over, she was sure, and gasping as she tried to cover herself, which only made Max laugh more. It was just as well that he was not dressed yet either, since the splashes splattered him and the towel that was his only covering. She pointed this out, and he laughed some more.

Then he leaned over and covered her mouth with his, and she stopped worrying about the water. She stopped worrying about anything.

Eventually they were dressed. Her clothes had been brought over from her old room, so to give herself confidence, she wore one of her favorite dresses, a green and blue plaid taffeta dinner gown. Her hair, however, was styled differently. A new maid dressed it in a chignon high on her head, covered with a pearl-studded snood and surrounded by a wreath of ribbons and pearls.

It was all very odd. She was herself and not herself, both at the same time. The new coiffure was more mature than her usual ringlets, and so was suitable for the Countess von Staufer, but the dress belonged to Susannah Tremaine. She had worn it any number of times in London and while visiting her older, married sisters—and even back in Baden. She felt as if she were two people at once.

She was staring at herself in the cheval mirror, still trying to decide who she was, when Max came in behind her. She met his eyes in the mirror, his laughing eyes. Then he reached around and hung a creation of diamonds and pearls around her neck—teardrop pearls hanging from looped chains of diamonds.

She was still staring round-eyed at herself in the mirror when he finished fastening the clasp.

“What on earth…?”

“It is one of the family jewels,” he said with a shrug. “Aunt Magda sent it in case you wanted to wear it while we are here.”

Susannah began to laugh. “And it will show my father that you are not a fortune hunter?”

His smile was only a trifle shamefaced. “That too,” he said. “I must speak with you before we go down.” He led her into the sitting room and seated her on the sofa. He sat beside her and took her hand in his, playing with her fingers before he began to speak. “I had not realized that your father is a marquess. I thought…”

“What did you think?” She was quite curious by now, since she had never before seen Max so unsure of himself.

He still did not look her in the face, but his mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I thought it was Lady Augusta who was the important one, and perhaps Lady Olivia. You were so protective of them, so very proper that I thought…” He laughed slightly and finally looked at her. “I thought you were their companion.”