The Perfect Princess (23 page)

“And what about you, Rosamund? Why did you go to
Newgate? You’ve already told me you thought I was as guilty as sin.”

The arch look vanished, and she said seriously. “It was sheer bravado on my part. Callie challenged me, and I accepted. But I want you to know that that is one decision I shall
never
regret.”

Of course, her words moved him. His arms tightened around her, pulling her closer and he kissed the top of her head. “If your mother could see you now,” he said, “she would be proud of you.”

She looked up at him, her expression arrested. “Do you think so?”

“I know so! You’re your mother’s daughter, and who should know better than I?”

Her smile was tremulous at best, and swiftly faded when she felt his body tense. “What is it, Richard?”

“Listen!”

Then she heard it, horses’ hooves, thudding on the soft turf. A troop of riders was approaching the bothy.

“The mist must be clearing,” he said. “It’s time.”

Her face crumpled. “No! Richard, no! There’s so much more I want to say to you.”

“Don’t panic!” His hands grasped hers. “For my sake, Rosamund, you’ll do as I told you.” Then more gently, “I would do anything to spare you this, but I can’t. If you lose your courage now, think what it will do to me. My dearest girl, everything passes. Even this will pass. I want you to be happy. I want you to forget me. Now go!”

White-faced and trembling, she stumbled to the door. At the threshold, she turned. “It’s all right, Richard. I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. I shall never forget you. And I haven’t given up hope, so don’t do anything foolish.”

“Rosamund—”

But she was through the door.

You fool! he
thought savagely. What possessed him to play the romantic hero? If he’d wanted her to forget
him, he shouldn’t have kissed her, shouldn’t have betrayed how much he cared for her, shouldn’t have invited her to confide in him.

But how could he help it? A man on the threshold of death could be forgiven for wanting to take something for himself, especially from the only woman who had ever mattered to him. If he lived to be one hundred, she would be the one woman he would never forget.

He smiled grimly at the unconscious irony of his last jest.

When he heard the jingle of spurs as men dismounted, he got up and checked his pistol, then he positioned himself so that the light would fall on him when they came through the door. He hoped to hell that they knew how to shoot straight.

It would have been better if he had left Rosamund in the bothy while he went out to meet them. Better for him, but not for her. He didn’t want her to see his end.

Rosamund’s voice came to him, strident, commanding, as befitted a duke’s daughter. Or maybe as befitted her mother’s daughter. She was still trying to save him. He swallowed hard, then braced himself for what was to come.

Many minutes passed, then the door began to open.

“Don’t shoot, sir!” said a voice he recognized.

Richard slowly lowered his pistol. “Harper?” he asked incredulously.

Harper chuckled. “You has the luck o’ the devil, Colonel Maitland, sir! Mr. Templar is here. And Lord Caspar. They’ve come to rescue you. Don’t that beat all!”

I
t didn’t feel like a rescue to Richard. When he came out of the bothy, he was surrounded by a horde of mean-faced menacing minions, who looked as though they wanted to kill him.

“They won’t hurt you, Richard,” Rosamund called out. “They’re loyal to the duke.”

Loval to the duke?
What did she think this was—the Middle Ages? A closer look revealed that they were all dressed in blue coats and gold frogging, the duke’s livery. They were servants, but their livery was misleading. He knew war veterans when he saw them, and this lot looked as though they’d seen many a battle.

Hugh Templar spoke up. “Just do as they say, Richard, and you’ll be all right.”

Harper said, “Now, don’t stiffen up like that, Colonel, sir. They’re on our side. Their feathers are ruffled ’cos you abducted Lady Rosamund, but they won’t do you no harm.” He chuckled. “Or she’ll have their guts for garters, and they knows it.”

With three of the few people he trusted all saying the same thing, Richard relaxed his guard a little.

“Get his gun and any other weapons he may be concealing on his person.”

The speaker was standing beside Rosamund, and Richard had no difficulty in identifying him as her brother, Lord Caspar—tall, handsome, unsmiling, and with the haughtiness of an aristocrat. Richard disliked him on sight.

There was some jostling as two of the Devere men began to search him for weapons. They took away his pistol and the blade he kept in his boot. Someone else stood on his toes. But Harper barked out an order and, like the trained soldiers they were, they fell back and left a space around him.

Rosamund started forward, but her brother’s hand shot out and grasped her arm, keeping her by his side.

Hugh came up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. He bore it stoically. He didn’t want to talk about his health. He just wanted to know what in Hades’s name was going on.

“Richard,” said Hugh, smiling. “Thank God, you’re all right.” His smile faded. “I know, you want an explanation of why I’ve come after you, but this isn’t the time. There’s a troop of militia close by. I don’t think they know about us, but we can’t be sure. We must ride out of here at once.”

Rosamund cried out, “But he’s not fit to ride. Can’t you see he’s on the point of collapse?”

No one paid any attention to this outburst. A horse was brought to him, the same horse that had run off when they fell off it. He didn’t know if he had the strength to mount it.

Rosamund said something passionate, though inaudible, to her brother, who merely shrugged his broad shoulders; Hugh frowned; Harper cupped his hands and bent down to hoist Richard into the saddle.

“Come on, Colonel, sir,” he whispered. “You can do it.”

Lord Caspar’s bored voice cut across Harper’s. “Mount up or hang. It’s all the same to me, Maitland.”

The men in blue livery laughed.

Richard gritted his teeth, put his booted foot into Harper’s cupped hands, and mounted up.

Some time later, Major Digby and his troop of militia came galloping up to Dunsmoor’s front doors. His face was mottled with fury. His hands on the reins were not gentle, and his mount stamped and whinnied as it felt the pressure of the bit when he reined in.

He was furious because he now saw that Maitland’s bodyguard had led them on a wild-goose chase while, in all likelihood, Maitland had made good his escape. But he wasn’t sure and he didn’t know what to do for the best, search the house or go after Maitland, supposing they could find his trail in this fog. But having encountered Harper, at least he knew that they were on the right track. The information that George Withers had passed on had proved reliable.

He was out of the saddle in an instant, with Whorsley and several soldiers close behind him, guns drawn, taking the stairs two at a time. He hammered on the front door, and when no one answered, ordered his men to break it down.

Once inside, Digby yelled, “Search the house. He may still be here. And watch out for his bodyguard. He may have doubled back and be hiding here, too. And if you find Lady Rosamund, treat her with kid gloves.”

It didn’t take them long to discover that the house was empty, but had been recently occupied. The fires were still burning. And when Whorsley found the notes in the little study, they had absolute proof that Maitland had recently been there.

Whorsley said, “This is odd.” He was reading Richard’s
notes. “He’s going over old cases. It seems as though he’s trying to make a connection between them and Lucy Rider’s murder.” He looked at Digby. “Is it possible, do you think, that he didn’t kill her?”

Digby snatched the notes out of Whorsley’s hand and stuffed them in his pocket. Through his teeth, he said, “That’s not important. Our job is to find him and bring him in.”

“But if he’s innocent, shouldn’t we pass these notes on to—”

“No! Why muddy the waters? He was found guilty by a jury. That’s the end of the matter as far as the law is concerned. Do you really want to see him back as chief of staff? Believe me, we’re doing the Service a favor by just doing our job.”

“What do we do now?”

Digby walked to the window and looked out. They might as well be marooned on a desert island. They couldn’t go chasing all over the downs in this mist.

His sense of frustration brought bile to his throat. If only they’d come straight to the house and not gone charging after Harper! That Maitland had bested him yet again was not to be borne. But Maitland couldn’t travel fast if he had Lady Rosamund with him.

He’d find him and bring him back in chains. Then the prime minister would reward him for a job well done. Chief of staff. He’d like that. The reverie was tantalizing.

He said, “We wait till the fog lifts, then we’ll begin a proper search.”

No more was said about the notes they had found. Digby didn’t think they would make any difference to Maitland’s conviction, but to be on the safe side, when no one was looking, he threw them in the fire.

Their progress was slow, but not, thought Richard grimly, because he couldn’t keep up. It was the fog that
kept them to a snail’s pace—and, bless her, Rosamund. Just when he thought he couldn’t stay upright in the saddle one more minute, she would call a halt and say that she had to stretch her legs. She was doing it for him, so that he could catch his breath. He wanted to acknowledge the kindness, but as soon as she dismounted, she was hemmed in by the Devere retainers. Her brother was making very sure that there would be no more words between them.

Reality had caught up to them, as he had known it would. He had no quarrel with reality. He was used to it. He just wished there was a way of sparing Rosamund.

He gleaned odd scraps of information at their various stops. Hugh, he learned, had made some sort of bargain with the duke, an advantageous bargain, but that would all be gone into when they reached their destination. Digby and Whorsley from Section C and a troop of militia were hot on their heels. They had to press on, Hugh said.

Harper was more revealing. He’d run smack into Digby and Whorsley, he said, who were holed up in the local tavern, so he’d sent Rosamund back to the house to warn Richard, then tried to lead them away, and had run smack into Lord Caspar and Hugh.

“I didn’t know it was them,” he said. “I thought it was all up with me. Soldiers in front of me, soldiers behind me. Then I heard Mr. Templar’s voice calling to me out of the fog, and I knew I was among friends.”

“Then what happened?”

He grinned. “Then I showed them a shortcut to the house, while Digby and company went chasing off in the opposite direction.”

“But how did Lord Caspar and Hugh know about Dunsmoor?”

Harper shrugged. “I dunno. You’ll have to ask Mr. Templar.”

But that Richard could not do, because Hugh was on rearguard duty in the event of the enemy overtaking them. There were scouts riding ahead as well. This didn’t feel like England. This felt like Spain, when he worked with the partisans behind the French lines.

His eyes strayed to Lord Caspar. He had to give credit where credit was due. The man seemed to know what he was doing. And maybe he deserved Lord Caspar’s hostility. He had, after all, abducted Rosamund. What he could not tolerate was the man’s breeding. Some men truly believed they were born to rule, and his lordship gave every indication that he was one of them.

Hour after weary hour, they plodded on, occasionally passing the odd shepherd or farmer who were tending their flocks. It gradually came to Richard that they were traveling in a north-easterly direction. He had assumed they would go south, toward London, but they were leaving the villages and hamlets behind and entering a more barren terrain.

As they climbed, the fog thinned, but dusk was beginning to chase the light away, so the visibility hardly improved. Suddenly, out of the wispy vapor, there emerged a stark fortress, complete with towers and crenellated battlements.