How To School Your Scoundrel (29 page)

Olympia moved briskly forward, into the square and the full light of the morning sunshine.

“Here are your princesses!” he bellowed, in German.

A stunned silence rushed across the crowd, from the near end of the square all the way to Holstein Cathedral, standing in majesty at the other. Tears stung Luisa’s eyes at the sight of those proud Gothic spires, soaring into an eternal blue sky.

Olympia stood aside, and the crowd parted.

Hatherfield and Somerton led the two of them forward, she and Stefanie, before the shocked faces of the townspeople. Many of them she recognized, from one encounter or another. She smiled and nodded, as she’d been trained all her life to do. Somerton’s hand was steady in hers, his body a bulwark against danger.

In the center of the Kirkenplatz stood the same platform, under the same oiled canvas canopy, she had known all her life. The festival always began at the official behest of Prince Rudolf, dressed in his ceremonial best, ringing the ancient brewer’s bell that was brought out from the royal armory every year for the occasion. Speeches, singing, a prayer led by the bishop. She gazed out at the vendors’ stalls, the young dancers in their traditional costumes.

This was Holstein. This was
hers
. Gunther, Dingleby, this band of foreign men who had dived in like vultures, to scavenge the wealth and commerce of her country for their own purposes: They had no business here.

With every step, she gained in confidence.

“Guards!” Gunther called out, into the silence. “Arrest them! Arrest the foreign agents!”

But the guards around the platform didn’t move.

As she passed, people began to bow. One by one, the inhabitants of Holsteinton dropped to their knees in the cobbles, and then, in her wake, started up a cheer.

Her blood stirred. The tears welled at the corners of her eyes. She had endured months in exile, in order to win back their hearts. She had married a powerful man as her consort, in order to win back their hearts. She had tried to conceive an heir, in order to win back their hearts.

But she hadn’t needed to, had she? She, Luisa, was sufficient by herself. She was their princess. No one else in the world could serve them so devotedly as she could.

On her right, Hatherfield leaned down into Stefanie’s ear and whispered something. She laughed and whispered back.

They reached the platform, where Gunther had fallen silent. He gazed down at them contemptuously. He was wearing some sort of uniform, bright red in the morning sun, without trim or medals of any kind, except for a set of handsome brass buttons.

“Step down, Herr Hassendorf,” said Olympia, in a booming parliamentary voice that traveled to the far ends of the hushed cathedral square. “Your time has passed.”

Gunther straightened himself to his full impressive height. “I do not take commands from strangers.”

“I speak for the people in this square. The people of this state.” Olympia waved his hand. “Their wishes, I believe, are quite clear.”

“Are they? And who are you, to speak on their behalf? An Englishman, by your accent. A foreigner.” Gunther sent a quick nod into the crowd.

Somerton intercepted the nod. His body tensed next to her, thrumming with alertness.

“I am the Duke of Olympia, the brother of Princess Louisa, first wife of Rudolf and mother of his three daughters. I am the uncle of the princesses of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, and I have brought them here to restore them to their rightful rule over this fair and persecuted land.” Olympia had chosen his words carefully, and he spoke them with all the command of one of England’s highest dukes. He towered over the crowd, literally and figuratively, and though Gunther Hassendorf stood above him on the platform, he seemed somehow diminished.

“The princesses! The princesses!” someone called out, and a hundred voices echoed him.

Gunther held up his hand, trying to silence them, but the chants only grew louder.

“You cannot turn back the clock!” he shouted. “An archaic system, propped up for centuries to oppress the masses, to . . .” The rest of his sentence drowned in the swell of voices.

Olympia pounded his walking stick into the cobblestones. “Move aside, Hassendorf! It’s over for you.”

Gunther made a frantic signal into the crowd.

In a flash, Somerton stepped before Luisa and Stefanie, blocking them both with his massive shoulders.

A loud crack shattered the air. Somerton staggered back, holding his arms out as a shield. Just before his full weight crashed into Luisa’s body, Hatherfield lunged around the two sisters and caught him under the shoulders.

A patch of blood blossomed on the left sleeve of his jacket. “He’s hit!” Luisa screamed.

“I’m all right.” His voice was labored. “Just a nick. To the left, Hatherfield. The man in the navy jacket. His companion, too.”

Hatherfield was already bolting into the crowd, scattering the townspeople in his path. Luisa bent over Somerton’s arm. “It’s not a nick! A doctor!” she called out. “A doctor for my husband!”

But the crowd was roiling with panic. No one heard, no one stepped forward to help.

“There’s no time,” said Olympia. “Can you walk, sir?”

“Of course, damn it!” snarled Somerton.

Olympia stepped between Stefanie and Luisa and took their arms. “To the platform, now!”

“But . . .”

“Now!”

Somerton took her other arm, and he and Olympia dragged the both of them up the steps to the empty platform, where the bishop cowered in the corner, next to the canopy pole. There was no sign of Gunther.

Olympia pushed her to the front of the platform. “Speak to them!”

“I can’t!”

“You’ve got to! You’re the princess. You’ve got to be the princess. You’ve got to show them, Luisa.”

Somerton curled his arm around her elbow. “You can do this, Markham.”

She stood there at the edge of the platform, her silver white dress rippling in the breeze, and stared down at the scene of chaos before her: men and women running, children screaming, the smell of sausages burning the air. A scuffle broke out near a cluster of vendor stalls. That man standing there by the cathedral door—was he holding a pistol, ready to shoot? She saw her father’s body, Peter’s body, white and still among the Schweinwald leaves; she looked down at her husband’s blood-soaked arm, held stiffly by his side.

She had never felt more exposed.

“You can do this.” Somerton’s low voice in her ear. “Show them there’s nothing to fear. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

His solid weight filled the air beside her. His determined hand warmed her arm, impossible to doubt.

“Speak, my love. You were born for this.”

She opened her mouth and filled her lungs with air.

“
Mein Volk!
” she said.

No one heard.

“
Louder
,” her husband whispered.

“
Mein Volk!
” she called out. “My people! Calm down! There’s no need to panic!” She turned to the guards, who formed a protective line at the bottom of the platform. Protective of her. Her blood warmed, sending confidence like an incandescent light through every vessel of her body. “Guardsmen! Ten of you to the left, ten to the right. Restore order to the crowd.”

The men marched off at a fast clip, ringing the square.

She straightened. “My people! The guards are here. The shooter . . .” She searched the crowd, and picked Hatherfield’s golden brown head in the eastern fringe, where he was holding a navy-suited man in an unshakable headlock. Relief flooded her. “The shooter has been apprehended! There’s no need for fear!”

Somewhere, in that roiling mass of confusion, a calm began to spread. A few people stopped, and a few more. A young man drifted back toward the platform, gazing at her with an idolatrous half smile.

How she must look, standing up here in her silvery dress, and her hair catching the light. She must seem glorious.

She held out her arms. “Holsteiners! Show them we’re not afraid. Show them we won’t allow our fates to be determined any longer by an organization of half-mad zealots from abroad.”

Her voice was carrying over the crowd now, from deep down in her chest, in the way Dingleby had once taught her. The tide was turning. More people drifted back. Watching her. Listening to her.

Somerton touched the small of her back. She drew in another deep breath.

“My dear people, I have been in exile these many months, since a small group of evil men assassinated my father and my husband and assumed control of this state in the fear and confusion that followed. I have taken shelter in England, with my uncle the Duke of Olympia, and with this man, the Earl of Somerton, who has guarded my person and my honor with the utmost fidelity.”

A stir of interest.

“I return to you now in hope of regaining the honor that was so briefly mine, that of ruling my beloved state, in which I was so fortunate as to be born and raised, as the inheritor of a most noble line of princes.”

Another stir, louder this time.

She held up her hand. “But I will not do so against your will. I ask you, the people of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, whether you would have me as your princess. Whether you wish me to lead you, in partnership with a new parliament of your own election, with all the zeal and devotion and ardor for justice in my power.”

A low roar began to build, like a wave coming to shore.

She spread out her arms. “Will you, my beloved subjects? Will you allow me to return to your castle, to lead your government, as Princess Luisa of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, daughter and heir of the great Rudolf?”

The roar built into a wall of sound, a continuous and joyous noise of approval, and Luisa’s heart beat so madly, and her mind sang with such elation, that she hardly noticed that Somerton’s hand had long since fallen away from her arm.

And it was not until the roar of approval changed to a collective and horrified gasp, that she realized something had gone dreadfully wrong behind her.

•   •   •

T
he pride in his heart hurt his chest, eclipsing the dull throb in his injured arm.

The Earl of Somerton watched his wife stand before her people, glorious in the morning light, all beauty and eloquence and pure Markham dignity. He was dimly aware of the awed silence hushing the crowd, and then the growing swell of approval.

She’s mine
, he thought, incredulous, and then, the natural corollary:
I’m hers.

Hers, her servant, body and soul.

All at once, his future opened before him. What he had been placed on this earth by God to do. He was here to protect Luisa, to guard her against all enemies, to serve and support her. To be her master, when, exhausted by the responsibility of command, she needed someone to command her; to be the captain of her guard, when she needed someone to execute her commands.

To give her relief. To give her what wisdom and cunning he possessed. To give her his great physical strength, to give her the sole use and pleasure of his body, to give her his fidelity and loyalty to the end of his life. To give her laughter and companionship and the children who would carry her legacy into the unknown future.

To
give.
He, who had only ever known how to take.

He tore his gaze away from her sunlit cheek and surveyed the crowd before them. Hatherfield was discreetly transferring two men into the custody of the guardsmen. The slyness of Olympia, summoning his new ally to the cause.

Hassendorf.
Where was Hassendorf?

Somerton whipped around, and as he did so, an extraordinary sight caught the corner of his vision.

He came to a standstill.

A man strode toward the platform, a man unlike any other Somerton had ever encountered. He was six and a half feet tall, with short white hair that bristled from his head. The left side of his face was extraordinarily handsome, sculpted by the gods.

The right side of his face was missing an eye and half of a once sturdy jaw.

The Duke of Ashland.

The Duke of Ashland, whom Somerton had cuckolded fifteen years ago, thoughtlessly conceiving a daughter with his shallow and beautiful wife.

The Duke of Ashland, now married to Luisa’s younger sister Emilie, who was supposed to be on an extended honeymoon on the far side of the world, on the Duke of Olympia’s private, state-of-the-art, twin-screw propeller steam yacht.

But a cabled message might reach anywhere in the world in days, and a particularly fast state-of-the-art yacht, built for speed, might conceivably steam through the Suez Canal to the Venice railway terminus in a matter of less than three weeks.

Ashland held a revolver in his left hand. The other hand did not exist.

As Somerton watched in shock, rooted to the wooden floor, Ashland approached at a brisk march and raised his revolver.

Instinct gathered in Somerton’s muscles, launching him between Luisa and the poised revolver, to shield her with his body.

But Ashland, breaking into a run, waved his empty sleeve in the other direction. To the back of the platform.

Somerton swiveled.

The Duke of Olympia was locked in struggle with Gunther Hassendorf, who held a lighted torch in his left hand and a wicked, long-bladed knife in the other. The duke, weakened by eight long days in the dungeon of Holstein Castle, was losing the fight, inch by inch.

Ashland had no chance of a clean shot.

Somerton moved his battered body into a run, just as Hassendorf caught his booted foot behind Olympia’s exhausted leg and sent him tumbling to the wooden boards of the platform.

Without the slightest hesitation, Hassendorf leaped onto a chair, lifted his torch high, and set the canvas canopy alight.

The fire spread across the oiled cloth in an instant.

Somerton launched himself into the air, directly into Hassendorf’s outstretched and unprotected middle. Together they toppled to the floor in an inhuman crash, Hassendorf bearing the brunt of Somerton’s enormous weight. He stared up at the earl with bulging eyes and lifted his left hand.

Too late, Somerton remembered the knife.

He tried to twist his body to avoid it, but he was hopelessly entangled, hopelessly bruised, his left arm useless, and Hassendorf’s other arm locked against his back. The liquid heat of the canvas overhead already singed his back. He closed his eyes and gathered every last atom of strength in his failing muscles.