Behind the Mask (92 page)

“So, you’ve married my daughter,” Gerhard said. “Do you love her?”

“More than life,” Cameron replied. “And you should know . . . you’re going to have a grandchild.”

Gerhard chuckled. “And a royal one at that. You’re pretty fast, aren’t you, son. But then, I’ve already figured that it was you she stayed with last winter. I sensed she had fallen in love, and well . . . putting two and two together . . .” He chuckled. “My instincts were right, were they not?”

“Yes, they were,” Cameron replied. “It’s destiny, I believe. Speaking of destiny, how did you manage to stay alive all these years if Nikolaus knew you could prove my innocence? I’m assuming he knew.”

“Oh, yes.” Gerhard’s gravity chilled Cameron. “I managed in the hours before I was arrested to make up documents stating in detail what I’d seen, and with enough evidence to back it up. I made four copies and gave them, sealed, to four different people with instructions not to open them as long as I remained alive. As far as Nikolaus knew, my regular visits with four different people were only links in a chain of several people who had careful instructions to keep those documents sealed as long as I stayed alive. He had marvelous incentive to keep me safe, and he could never possibly track down the connections enough to put any of those people in danger.”

“Very clever,” Cameron said.

“So I thought,” Gerhard’s voice became acrid. “Then you ended up dead. My plan was to stay safe long enough to get us both in a courtroom. I didn’t know it was going to take four years. Believing you were gone, I thought I was stuck in this for the rest of my life. I finally reached a point where I was sick to death of living like this, and ready to just give it up for the sake of Horstberg and find a way to expose the truth. Then Nikolaus pulled his trump card.” Gerhard’s voice picked up an edge that bristled Cameron. “The degenerate came to pay me a visit last summer, telling me in great detail of the time he’d spent with Abbi.”

Cameron’s fury burned inside of him. He’d barely known of her existence at the time, but the implications were revolting.

“If the tiniest leak of information came to his ears,” Gerhard added, his voice quivering more with fright than anger, “Nikolaus made it clear that Abbi would be defiled, if not dead.” He sighed. “I had given him incentive to keep me safe, and he had turned the tables, giving me great incentive to keep my mouth shut.”

Cameron felt confused. “There must be more to it,” he said. “If you and Nikolaus both believed I was dead, then my innocence had no bearing on his position. Why would he care?”

“Your innocence is not the issue, my boy,” he said, and Cameron loved the comfortable way they had reconnected so quickly. Gerhard knew well how to pay the proper respect when necessary, but also how to be a friend when it was needed.

“What
is
the issue?” Cameron asked, wondering if Gerhard might have some leverage to help him keep Nikolaus on a leash.

Gerhard spoke with a cautious voice that prickled Cameron’s nerves. “The issue is your brother’s guilt.”

“What
guilt?” Cameron asked, increasingly uneasy.

There was a dramatic hesitance in Gerhard’s answer that let Cameron know he wasn’t going to like it. “Nikolaus killed her.” Gerhard exhaled sharply as if setting the words free allowed him to breathe again.

Cameron’s chest began to burn and his head swam. He was grateful for a well-trained horse beneath him that kept moving at a steady gait. “No!” Cameron breathed, even as everything made such perfect sense that it sickened him.

“Oh, yes,” Gerhard said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Cameron was too shocked to do anything but exchange a sharp glance with Georg, seeing his own horror reflected in the eyes of his friend. “I can’t believe it,” Cameron finally said. “I knew he was a wretch. I’ve said myself that he would stop at nothing, but I didn’t really believe he was capable of murder.” One question burned through his throat.
“Why?
Why would he do such a thing?”

Gerhard let out a heavy sigh before he forged into an explanation. “I was in the dressing room and overheard the argument between you and Gwen, then you left. When I heard her searching for something, I managed to slip behind the draperies in the bedroom, trying to see what she was after. Not two minutes later, Nikolaus came into the room. It was evident that . . .”

“What?” Cameron demanded when he hesitated.

“You’re not going to like this, sir.”

“You’re going to tell me something worse than my brother killed my wife?” he snarled.

“He was the one.”

Cameron didn’t need to hear more to know what he meant. He’d known she was sleeping in other beds; she hadn’t slept in
her husband’s
bed for a very long time. But to know that one of her dalliances had been his own brother left him increasingly sick. He wanted to scream and cry and break something. But most of all he wanted to have his hands around his brother’s throat. And then it just had to get worse.

“You know there were many men,” Gerhard said.

“Yes.”

“I overheard a lengthy argument, sir. They had been involved off and on since before her marriage to you.”

Cameron groaned and leaned forward, assaulted by physical pain. If they hadn’t been surrounded by several officers, who were thankfully out of hearing range, he would have stopped long enough to throw some kind of childish tantrum right here and now.

Gerhard hurried on as if he wanted to get the explanation over with. “She got saucy with him, told him he couldn’t get away with it.”

“With what?”

“That’s what I was waiting to hear. Apparently she had knowledge of something he’d done that would have been a threat to his position with a neighboring country. She plainly threatened blackmail, and then . . . then she said that she had no incentive to support him in his plan to see you undone through false accusations of treason when she would lose her position and some other woman would take it.”

“Oh, help!” Cameron muttered and pulled the horse to an abrupt halt, bending over in an effort to get the blood back in his head. He felt exactly as he had earlier today with a gun at his back, being hauled off to the keep. He was vaguely aware of the officers all stopping while Georg motioned them back to allow comfortable space. Georg dismounted and came to his side, and Gerhard did the same. “I can’t breathe,” Cameron muttered as they helped him dismount and he immediately dropped to his knees. “I can’t breathe,” he repeated.

Georg talked him through taking a deep breath, and another. Then with the finesse that had earned him the position of Cameron’s right-hand man for life, he said gently, “I know this is difficult, but we must hurry. If we don’t return on time, the entire militia will be called out.” Cameron tried to digest what he meant. They’d left two officers waiting. If they didn’t come back, one of them would return and send out a mass reinforcement that could cause unnecessary chaos. He swallowed the pain and the horror and allowed Gerhard and Georg to help him to his feet. He nodded to indicate that he would be all right. He glanced around to see that the officers were circling him at a distance, remaining mounted, their backs turned. Still, they had to know he’d just crumbled. He cursed under his breath and got back in the saddle.

“Forgive me, Lieutenant,” he said loudly. “Let’s proceed.”

Joerger called the order and they moved on in formation. As difficult as it was, Cameron needed more explanation from Gerhard. He needed to know what he was up against. He needed answers.

“Tell me the rest,” he ordered.

“She told him she’d sent for you. She’d sent a message to the pub even before Nikolaus came to speak with her, knowing the messengers were slow and you would get it soon after you arrived. She told Nikolaus she intended to tell you everything if he didn’t agree to her stipulations.”

“What stipulations?” Cameron asked. “Did that come up?”

“It did. She wanted him to call off his betrothal and marry her once you were out of the way.”

Cameron groaned but forced himself to remain steady.
He couldn’t believe it!
In all his endless speculations over what had created this disaster, he never would have imagined such evil and calculated plans against him. He felt so sick he wanted to throw up, and almost feared he might if he didn’t keep his thoughts from wandering too deeply.

He attempted to clear up a point of confusion. “But he wasn’t betrothed at the time.”

“No, but he was in the process of working out a deal that included marriage,” Gerhard said.

“Unbelievable,” Georg muttered.

“That’s when he killed her,” Gerhard said, “with the knife that had been on your breakfast tray.”

Cameron briefly squeezed his eyes closed. How clearly he remembered that knife; he’d pulled it out of her chest only a minute before he’d been caught with the blood on his hands.

Gerhard’s voice became even more grave as the memories were plainly disturbing for him, as well. “I couldn’t believe what I saw. I gasped before I even realized what had happened. Nikolaus realized I was there, and I thought I was as dead as Her Grace. Then he heard someone coming and slipped out through the hidden passageway. I went out the same way, hiding there for quite a while, but knew it was only a matter of time before Nikolaus caught up with me. You showed up a few minutes later, and . . . you know the rest.”

Cameron’s heart thudded painfully.
“What
hidden passageway?” he demanded, passing a fearful glance toward Georg.

“It leads from your bedroom to the outside of the east wall. That’s how he got out without anyone seeing him, and that’s how I got out in time to—”

“Damn!” Cameron rumbled and increased his speed, knowing the others would follow. His
worst
possible nightmares became thunderously real, reiterated by Gerhard’s words screaming in his mind.
Nikolaus made it clear that Abbi would be defiled, if not dead.

After Abbi had eaten a fine supper that had been sent up from the kitchen, Elsa brushed through her hair, and they talked about the impact of this day. Elsa speculated over what the future might be like with all that had changed, but Abbi didn’t even want to think about that. She only longed to be away from here with Cameron, as he’d promised they would be tomorrow.

While Abbi dressed for bed, Elsa unpacked more of her things. When she noticed the documents her father had given her, it was like a dagger going through her heart. Wanting to be alone, she dismissed Elsa and picked the papers up with trembling hands. She broke the seal and held her breath as she unfolded what she held. Her eyes went first to the date: 17 August 1813. She knew it well. The day Blaze was born. The day her father had delivered these papers into her hands.
The day Cameron had been arrested.

She scanned what he’d written. It was lengthy and complicated, and she had no desire to read the details of Gwendolyn’s death. But there was no question as to what she was holding. Cameron’s identity, Cameron’s innocence, Cameron’s right to all that was his—had been within her reach long before she’d even known him. What trouble could have been spared if they’d only known that she’d had this all along!

Deeply troubled by the irony, she hurried to refold the papers and put them away, but one question haunted her and she took them up again, looking only long enough to see who had committed the crime that Cameron had suffered for. “No!” she breathed, and shoved the papers in a drawer as if that might block out the full enormity of what this meant to Cameron. How would he ever be able to come to terms with this? After all he had suffered, all he had been through, how might he cope with learning that his brother was responsible? Thinking of the trial to take place in the morning, she dreaded the truth coming into the open in spite of knowing it was necessary in order for Cameron to remain free and safe.

Enticed by exhaustion, Abbi turned the lamp down low so that Cameron could see his way in when he returned. Then she crawled into the massive bed and tried to sleep, but her thoughts raced madly with fearful questions. Was that why Nikolaus had shown so much interest in her? Had he known she might be a link to her father’s knowledge? Where was Cameron now? Where was Nikolaus? She prayed that Cameron’s ploy to retrieve her father had been successful, and that she had not discovered this too late. At last her need for rest overcame her fears and she drifted into a disturbing sleep.

“Abbi, my sweet.” A deep voice awakened her. She had every reason to believe it was Cameron, but when her eyes adjusted in the dim light, fear strangled her every nerve.

“Nikolaus!” she gasped before he put a hand over her mouth. Looking into his angry eyes, she knew how Gwendolyn must have felt in those last moments of her life. Was this the room where she had been killed? Her terror heightened when she realized he was lying beside her. Thankfully he was on top of the bedding and she was beneath it. She prayed that the barrier remained in place between them.

“I’m going to move my hand,” he said, and she was startled to hear how much he sounded like Cameron. Beyond that, the physical resemblance was vague, but now that she knew they were brothers, she could see the evidence. “But if you so much as squeak above a whisper, you will sorely regret it. Do you understand me?”