Deadly Peril (7 page)

As a show of his resolve, and so that you know this letter is indeed genuine, I enclose a curl of Emily’s hair given to me. It will be familiar to you, as it was at Christmastime.

Also enclosed is a safe conduct pass in the name of a Baron Aurich, signed by the Margrave, and with his seal. The pass allows you and members of your party to pass through all checkpoints unharmed, and to receive assistance from the Margrave’s troops should you require it. He takes every precaution to ensure the safe arrival of this Baron Aurich, who I must assume is your good self, though why he addresses you as such and to what purpose, only you and he know.

My dear fellow, I am so very sorry to put your life in such danger, too. Forgive me, I have smudged the ink with my blubbering like a girl. God! To what levels have I descended in this hell!

Luytens will take this, my letter, the authorization and the ransom demand in the diplomatic
portefuille
as far as Emden and then send it on through Holland. Our consul will remain in Emden pending your arrival. You have forty days to comply and then Luytens, too, will be arrested. As he is a native of this country and not ours, he will not be accorded the same courtesy I have received, but find himself flung in the castle dungeon. He tells me only one man has escaped Herzfeld dungeon—your esteemed self. Even the official who dictates this letter to me speaks of that escapade with awe.

For God’s sake, Alec, get here with all speed.

Cosmo Mahon

F
IVE

A
LEC
FOLDED
the letter and slowly removed his eyeglasses. He did not immediately rejoin the others by the fireplace. He turned on the window seat cushion to look out on the expanse of the Green Park, but was oblivious to the view. He did not notice his greyhounds dashing about between the leafless trees, his valet in vain pursuit. His thoughts were miles away, across the North Sea with Cosmo and Emily, and their dire predicament. Then, in an instant, he suppressed his morbidity. He needed to be strong and optimistic, for them and for Olivia, and because he needed to get through the next several weeks of not knowing, until he was back at Herzfeld Castle, and could see them for himself.

There was so much to organize before he could even set sail. The journey from Harwich to Emden was a crossing of some four days, and that on calm seas, before he set a booted foot in Midanich again. Landing at the port of Emden was only the beginning, for then there was the journey overland to Herzfeld, with the chill winds blowing in off the North Sea, and the dragging slowness of travel over a swampy wasteland, first by canal boat and then astride a horse.

He had been given forty days. He had even less time now, because Cosmo’s letter had arrived a sennight ago. There was not a day to waste. Which was just as well. The lack of time and the logistics of travel would now preoccupy his thoughts, and stop them wandering to futile probabilities until he was on his way. So he returned to the fireplace and poured out a second cup of coffee to give himself a few moments to clear his mind, while the others in the room made polite conversation awaiting his response to Cosmo’s letter.

“I wish to keep this for a day or two, if I may,” Alec said to Lord Cobham, indicating Cosmo’s letter. “There is a lot to digest, and I want to be certain I’ve not missed any of Cosmo’s messages to me.”

“Messages? There are messages?” Lord Cobham was clearly surprised and he looked reproachfully at Sir Gilbert. “You told me the backroom fellows had been over every word of this letter and found nothing hidden to report.”

“That is so, my lord,” Sir Gilbert started to explain, when Alec stepped in.

“They wouldn’t know what to look for. This is not written in any known code or cipher because Cosmo doesn’t know such codes. Yet, he has done his best to alert me to certain particulars. For instance,” he continued, looking to the Duchess, “he refers to the curl of Emily’s hair as
given to me
. Not that it was snipped from her head there and then. And he adds
It will be familiar to you, as it was at Christmastime
. He is telling me that the curl of hair sent with this letter is not new. Two Christmases ago, Cosmo showed me a porcelain snuffbox—a gift. Framed in its lid was a curl of blonde hair.” He smiled slightly. “I have no idea if it was Emily’s hair, and I did not ask.”

“So this curl might not belong to Emily?” the Duchess asked expectantly. “Those fiends might not have cut my darling’s hair at all?” When Alec nodded, she closed her eyes on a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God…” But in the next breath she was glaring at Lord Cobham, voice trembling with anger. “You told me it was Emily’s!
You
said if they could cut off her hair what wouldn’t they cut off next, perhaps a finger, if we didn’t do as they demanded!”

“Well, Aunt, they could very well do that,” Lord Cobham protested. “These Continental types are barbarians at best, so I was just trying to—”

“What? Scare the poor woman witless? Insensitive muckworm!” Plantagenet Halsey growled. “I’d always thought you had as much brains as a sea sponge. This confirms it. And you’ve got zero feelin’s to match!”

“Sir! You have no right to malign the head of the Foreign Department with such—”

“You shut your crumb hole! I’ve more right than you!” the old man interrupted Sir Gilbert, and so ferociously the rotund little man stumbled backwards, teacup rattling on its saucer.

“Oh hush! All of you!” the Duchess demanded and looked eagerly at Alec. “What else does Cosmo, say, my boy? Does he mention how they—how Emily is being treated? Her health? Are they being accorded every civility?”

“Cosmo is thankful Emily has the estimable Mrs. Carlisle as her companion, which should give us some comfort,” Alec replied, indirectly answering her questions because he wasn’t prepared to share the contents of the letter with her.

“Yes! Yes, Mrs. Carlisle is with her,” the Duchess said with surprised relief, as if she had just remembered the woman’s existence. “A most excellent woman; my second cousin. Poor as a churchmouse, but I’ve always done what I can for her. If there’s one thing I know about Ellen Carlisle it’s that she is not one to fold in a crisis, and she most definitely is not prone to hysterics.”

“Then she’s just the sort of female Emily needs with her at this time,” Plantagenet Halsey said in a rallying tone.

“Yes. You are right,” the Duchess agreed, and smiled for the first time since entering Alec’s townhouse.

“So I may keep this letter for a day or two…?” Alec asked, repeating his request to Lord Cobham.

“It’s most irregular,” Sir Gilbert said with a frowning shake of his head, “and not Foreign Department policy to allow important documents to leave the department.”

“But as it is now in my house,” Alec enunciated patiently, “then surely that makes it outside the department?”

“I beg to differ, Hal—my lord,” Sir Gilbert continued smoothly, and now in his element. “Lord Cobham is, for all intents and purposes, the department. Thus, wherever he is, so is the department. And so the letter, being here in your drawing room with his lordship present means the letter is in effect still in the department. Thus, once Lord Cobham leaves this room, and you retain the letter, it no longer remains in the department. Do I make myself clear?”

“As mud!” Plantagenet Halsey stated. He looked to his nephew, and said with heavy sarcasm, “And you survived three years as this punctilious pontificator’s subordinate without poking him with your blade?” When Alec merely lifted his eyebrows by way of reply, he slowly shook his head. “I’m in awe of your self-possession, m’boy.”

“Sir Gilbert is in the right. But you have my permission to keep the letter for as long as you need it, Halsey,” Lord Cobham replied haughtily. He coughed into his fist and continued, gaze firmly on Alec, though he could not help a nervous glance at his aunt as he spoke. For all his self-deluded importance as Head of the Foreign Department, with dozens of men’s livelihoods dependent on his favor, when it came to his female relatives, particularly this aunt who was a duchess, he was little more than a quivering blancmange in their presence. A prickle of heat spread across his scalp under his wig, and his cheeks flamed to match the color of his thick red eyebrows as her indignation grew in magnitude with every word of his explanation.

“I had hoped to inform you of the department’s decision in private, but I am sure you—er—um—would prefer that I just get on with it so you can continue with the arrangements for the journey as expeditiously as possible. Sir Cosmo Mahon’s letter requests your presence to negotiate his and Miss St. Neots’ release, and makes no mention of anyone else. But, given the seriousness of the situation, I have decided Sir Gilbert will accompany you. Put more correctly, you will be accompanying
him
. He is—and I don’t need to remind you of the facts, Halsey—the senior member within the department, with vastly more years of experience with Continental types. He was the Minister Plenipotentiary and you his subordinate as
chargé d'affaires
when you were both last in Midanich, so—”

“
Wh-What
? Clive? This is outrageous!
Outrageous
.”

The Duchess had jumped up on her two-inch heels, and so quickly she almost overbalanced. But as Plantagenet Halsey had reacted in a similar fashion and was now standing beside her, he was there to grab her elbow before she fell flat on her face. She hardly noticed, such was her fury.

“I understand you are upset, Aunt Olivia,” Lord Cobham stuttered into pompous explanation, “but this is departmental business and not your concern—”

“Not my concern? So—you—think! It most certainly
is
my concern! And I will make it the concern of the Privy Council if you attempt to belittle my godson by this—”

“Your Grace—Olivia—if you will allow me to—” Alec began, but was just as rudely cut off.

“Alec Halsey is a marquess, a
marquess
, Cobham! Do you know what that is, Clive? Of course you do! One title below a duke. To point out fact, he’s higher up the aristocratic precedence ladder than you’ll ever be! And this, this
person
,” she continued, rudely flapping her fan in Sir Gilbert’s round face, “is-is a—
nobody
who has as much consequence as a-a—
flea
. Do you truly expect
me
to allow a nobody to rescue my granddaughter from a Continental maniac? Well, do you, Clive?
Do you
?”

While Lord Cobham’s brain worked to find a suitable response that would placate his infuriated aunt—his lower lip wobbled uncontrollably—Alec stepped into the breach, and before his uncle could add fuel to the Duchess’s fiery tirade. He said mildly, but not without a hint of exasperation at wanting this meeting concluded,

“Lord Cobham’s decision is an astute one, Your Grace. Not withstanding Sir Gilbert’s experience and intimate knowledge of the Midanich court, by sending him as minister shows the new Margrave that His Majesty’s government bears Midanich no ill will. After all, Sir Gilbert departed the court under trying circumstances, and I—”

“
Trying circumstances
? I was tortured and humiliated!” Sir Gilbert blurted out.

Humiliated, yes, and Alec understood Sir Gilbert’s humiliation. It was not every day the most senior ranking diplomat at a foreign court was expelled; a subordinate, yes, but never the minister. But torture? It was the first Alec had heard of this and he blinked in surprise.

“Tortured?” he asked, concerned, and waited for Sir Gilbert to elaborate.

With all eyes upon him, Sir Gilbert squirmed, cursing himself for his uncharacteristically belligerent outburst. He was suddenly sheepish.

“Two nights locked up without food and then unceremoniously bundled into a coach for the coast, and forcibly put on a boat! That’s torture in my books.”

Alec thought of his own harrowing experience, at the abuse he had endured at the hands of Prince Ernst and his sister, the Princess Joanna, and Sir Gilbert’s assertion was so ludicrous by comparison he could think of nothing to say. So he inclined his head to Sir Gilbert’s definition and suppressed a smile that it took the mention of food, or lack thereof, for the rotund little gentleman to be at his most animated since entering the drawing room. When his uncle rolled his eyes to the plastered ceiling, Alec’s smile widened into a grin.

“You read some mighty tame books, if you think that’s torture!” Plantagenet Halsey huffed in dismissal, a pointed glare at the man’s paunch.

“Listen here, Halsey—” Lord Cobham began, and was cut off before he could launch into a spirited defense of his subordinate

“And yet, despite such depravation, Sir Gilbert has elected to return to Midanich as His Majesty’s representative,” Alec said smoothly. “This will surely indicate to the new Margrave that past wrongs are forgotten by His Majesty. It also lets Margrave Ernst know that you, Sir Gilbert, and English sovereign interests, are not to be trifled with.” Alec looked to Lord Cobham. “No doubt this was what you had in mind to tell Her Grace all along, was it not, my lord?”

“Had in mind…?” Lord Cobham repeated slowly, as if surfacing from a trance. He came to life when Alec continued to look at him expectantly. “Yes! Yes! Couldn’t have said it better myself. That is precisely my reasoning!”

“Couldn’t have said it at all,” Plantagenet Halsey muttered within his nephew’s hearing.

“No one is more in support of His Majesty showing this Margrave we English are not to be trifled with,” the Duchess agreed, somewhat placated. “Sir Gilbert can throw his weight about wherever and at whomever he likes, but what does it matter who is minister of this or anything else when all that is truly important is rescuing Emily and Cosmo?”

Alec kissed the Duchess’s hand and smiled down into her moist eyes.

“My pride is not the least injured Sir Gilbert heads the legation,” he told her quietly. “He is an excellent choice for Minister Plenipotentiary. His appointment frees me up to concentrate exclusively on Emily and Cosmo’s situation. No doubt Cobham and Sir Gilbert have worked out some plan with the help of the department, and His Majesty’s blessing. Perhaps they are going to offer the Margrave favorable trade terms or ships, or whatever else he desires, to aid me in my endeavors? So in effect you have all of us working for the same goal, but coming at the problem from different corners of the room. Does that ease your mind just a little?”