The Prince and I (27 page)

Tata Natasha limped to another window and peeked out a crack in the curtain, her cane thumping as she went. “The heat of the fire has lessened some. There’s a bucket line from the well to the building. It won’t be long now before they’ve put it out.”

She looked at Max. “You’re tall. See those sconces on the wall by the fireplace? You can reach them. Check if they move and open a secret door.”

“A secret door?”

“ ’Tis a castle; one never knows. Murian, see if there’s aught in that trunk against the foot of the bed.”

Max gave Murian a swift kiss on her forehead and then moved to the sconces. Ian knocked on the wardrobe, looking for a false back.

Max examined the sconces. “I take it you’ve found nothing so far.”

“Will discovered a hidden cubbyhole in the desk; there was naught in it but pen nibs.”

“Which wa’ disappointing,” Will said.

Orlov left Golovin guarding the door. “Where shall I look?”

“Check the trim work of these windows,” Tata ordered without pause. “Perhaps there is a piece of wood, a decoration that will remove to disclose a secret pocket of some sort.”

“The sconces don’t move.” Max walked to a large dressing table that sat to one side of the fireplace. “Have you looked here?”

“
Da
. There are no hidden drawers, no false bottoms in the drawers, no nothing.”

He opened a drawer, noticing a neat array of neckcloths to one side, silk kerchiefs to the other. He pulled the drawer free and dumped them all on the floor.

Tata scowled. “We have already
looked
there. Ian, check the marble table by the doorway.”

Ian crossed to the table and peered at it.

Max dumped the other drawers empty and, finding nothing, went to the wardrobe, which was the next piece of furniture in the room. He opened the doors.

“Ian’s already checked that, too,” Tata Natasha said sharply.

“It will not hurt to look again.” Hanging inside were numerous hunting jackets, dinner coats, and pressed breeches, while a row of shiny boots lined the wardrobe floor. He took the coats out, one at a time, shook them out, and then dropped them to the bottom of the wardrobe.

“Ye’re wastin’ yer time,” Ian said. “The earl would ne’er hide something in so obvious a place as a pocket.”

Max ignored him and removed a stack of starched shirts. Lastly, he picked up the boots and flipped them over.

As he turned over the fifth boot, something sparkly dropped from it, hit the floor with a loud
ping
, and then rolled in a circle.

Everyone stared.

“I believe I just found the Oxenburg crown.” He picked it up and examined it, glad to see no damage had come from the fall.

Tata Natasha could not have been stiffer. “He had our royal crown hidden in a
boot
?”

“Apparently so. With so many guards, maybe he didn’t feel the need to hide it that well.”

“Did the fall hurt your crown?” Murian asked from where she was digging in the trunk.

“Not that I can see.” He hefted it. “Bloody hell, that’s heavy.”

Tata came to take it from him. She leaned her cane against the bed and then wiped the crown with the edge of her shawl. “When you wear it too long, it gives the headache.”

“I imagine so.” Max checked the final boots but found nothing more.

Tata stuck the crown on her head, pausing to admire herself in a mirror.

“Tata!”

“It is my last chance. Start looking for that journal. We’ve not much time.” She returned to the window, her cane thumping with each step. “The fire is contained. People are returning to the castle. We must hurry.”

Will closed the last drawer on the desk. “Where else should I look?”

“The small tables by the bed.” Murian slid a glance at Max, and then added, “Be sure you do not just look for secret compartments, but other places, too. Obvious places.”

Will did as he was told.

All was silent as they each hurriedly raced through potential hiding spaces.

Outside, a noise arose. Tata announced, “Loudan is by the drive, yelling at the guards. I think he noticed they left the castle unprotected.”

“Which means they will return to their posts soon,” Max said grimly. “We must leave.”

“We canna.” Murian shut the trunk and stood. “I know it’s in here. Robert kept it in this room, so it
has
to be here.”

Max saw the desperation in her eyes. “Murian, we cannot stay. You know that.”

“There are footsteps coming up the staircase.” Golovin gripped his sword. “Many.”

Orlov hurried to the door and threw it open. “This way!”

Murian plopped her fisted hands on her hips. “I’m not leaving.”

“Murian, it’s not safe,” Max warned.

“I canna walk away from this opportunity.”

“I’ll stay wi’ Lady Murian.” Will left the small tables and came to stand beside her. “Ye’ve stayed wi’ us fer the last year, and I know ’twas no’ easy. The least I can do is stay wi’ ye when ye need it.”

Ian let out his breath in a huge puff. “Bloody ’ell, tha’ means I must stay, too. Oh weel, ’tis no’ often I get a chance to piss off his lordship in such a fashion.”

Murian choked on a laugh, and even Max had to shake his head. But the rumbling outside was growing closer.

Bloody hell, what should he do? The soldier in him warned that they would be trapped if they stayed, but another part of him urged him to do this for her, to take a chance and find the blasted journal. She’d been looking for it so very, very long.

He looked at her and found her heart in her eyes. And she was in his heart. “We stay.”

Orlov winced but nodded. He closed the door with a regretful sigh.

Max turned to Ian. “Help me move the wardrobe in front of the door.”

The two hurried to do so, the heavy wood scraping on the floor.

“Continue searching,” Tata Natasha ordered. “The quicker we find that blasted journal, the better.”

Murian and Will hurried to do just that, Will pulling the mattresses from the bed while Murian searched through the shelves, shaking each book and then stacking it on the floor.

The doorknob rattled. And then rattled again. “Who’s in there?”

“Tasha!” Murian whispered.

Max raised his brows. Not many were allowed to address his grandmother so, but Tata Natasha didn’t look the least surprised.

“You must come out now!” the stern voice ordered through the door.

Murian whispered to Tata Natasha, “Answer him.” A faint smile curved her mouth. “Make him regret it.”

Tata Natasha barked a short laugh, and then she made her way to the door. In her most imperious voice, she called out, “Who is there?”

During the ensuing silence, they continued their search.

Finally, the same deep voice replied through the door, “Yer Grace?”

“Who else? What do you want? Who are you?”

“I beg yer pardon, bu’ I’m Cap’n David MacNoor. Ye are trespassin’ in his lordship’s chamber.”

“His lordship’s chamber? Don’t be ridiculous! This is my bedchamber, you bloody fool.”

A muttering arose at this, and then Captain MacNoor answered, “I’m sorry, Yer Grace, bu’ tha’ is Lord Loudan’s bedchamber, no’ yers.”

“How do you know?” she demanded. “It looks like mine. There’s a bed and a dresser, several, in fact, and two chairs by the fire and—”

“Yer Grace, ye were in the green bedchamber. Lord Loudan’s bedchamber is red.”

“Really? Let me look.”

Murian grabbed another row of books and shook them open.

“Wha’ next?” Will whispered to Murian. “There’s naught in the mattresses.”

“Move the carpets and see if there’s aught here,” Murian ordered. “Mayhap there’s a trapdoor.”

He hurried to roll up the carpets.

Outside, the guard cleared his throat in what he obviously thought was a stern manner. “Yer Grace, I ha’ been standin’ guard on this chamber fer nigh on four weeks. This is Lord Loudan’s bedchamber. I’d bet me son’s head on it.”

“Oh.” Tata Natasha leaned on her cane. “Mayhap I’m mistaken, then. The bedchambers in these old castles, they all look alike.”

“Aye, Yer Grace. Can ye open the door, please? I’ll be glad to escort ye to yer own chamber.”

“That would be fine, except I happen to be nude.”

Silence stretched on the other side of the door. “I beg yer pardon, Yer Grace. Did ye . . . did ye jus’ say ye were n—n—”

“Of course I’m nude! How else am I to take a bath?”

“Ye’re bathin’? Bu’ . . . is there water?”

“No, and there’s no tub, either! Someone is supposed to send both. I’ve been waiting here, in the
nude, for a very long time. I hope I have not caught a cold.”

“Ah. Nay. I dinna. I—ah. Yer Grace, if ye’ll hold one moment, I’ll fetch Lord Loudan and he can— One moment, Yer Grace.”

The sound of his footsteps running down the hall made Tata Natasha snicker. “That will keep them for a few moments, at least.” She turned and limped across the floor, to where Will had rolled back the rug. “While they fetch Loudan, I’ll look in the—” Her cane, thumping with her steps, hit a board that echoed.

For a long second, they all looked at one another.

Tata thumped her cane again, the hollow sound even more pronounced.

“I knew it!” Murian stood, her heart racing, her palms damp. “That must be it.”

“So it must. But why here?” Natasha asked. “In the middle of everything?”

Murian looked around the room, remembering how it once was. “It’s where the settee used to be, for it faced the fire. It is light and easy to move.”

Max was already on his knees examining the boards. “I need a knife.”

Murian came to look over his shoulder.

Orlov hurried up to place a knife hilt-first into Max’s hand.

Using the tip, Max pried up a board. And there, wrapped in a faded red piece of velvet, was a leather journal.

 Chapter 23 

Murian splayed her hand over the familiar leather cover, the supple leather cool under her fingertips. She started to open it, but Max stopped her.

“We must leave while the guards are gone.”

“I know a way oot,” Will said. “Doon the back stairs. Ye can hide at the bottom while I fetch the wagon and sneak us away.”

“Come.” Max had Golovin and Orlov move the wardrobe, then they all hurried out to the landing, leaving the sadly mussed room behind.

They could hear men speaking, and then footsteps up the main stairway.

“This way.” Will led them down the hall, away from the main portion of the castle. They went down first one hallway and then another, twisting and turning, and Max was glad they’d brought Will.

He finally stopped before a door that had been cleverly cut into the wall. “These are cut throughout the castle and serve as servants’ passages.” He opened the door and led them down a narrow, dark staircase. “When I was a wee one, me mither used to bring me
oop and down this way to visit the lord, so we were ne’er seen on the grand staircase.”

“I feel as if I’m in a novel,” Tata Natasha announced, a gleeful tone in her voice.

They turned a corner and were just about to go down another flight of stairs, when a door could be heard opening, light suddenly shining up the stairwell.

Max held up his hand and everyone froze in place. They could hear two men talking.

Will leaned close and whispered. “They said someone has been sent to guard the bottom door. We canna get oot tha’ way.”

Max nodded. “We’ll have to go back into the main part of the castle. What floor are we on now?”

“The third.”

“My bedchamber is on that floor. We’ll go there until we can figure another way out.”

Will nodded and led the way to the next landing. Max moved ahead and carefully opened the door. Hearing nothing, he stepped out and glanced down the hallway. Seeing that the way was clear, he gestured them all to follow. They swiftly reached his bedchamber.

Everyone filed in, Orlov closing the door and locking it.

Tata Natasha looked around. “Your bedchamber is larger than mine!”

“I’m a prince.” He turned to his men. “Move that large table in front of the door. It will at least slow them down. Will, hang this”—he pulled a kerchief from his pocket—“on the latch of the front window.”

“Which one?”

“It won’t matter. My men will see it and know to come.”

Tata Natasha took a chair by the fireplace and bounced upon the cushion. “You have better furniture, too. The settee in my bedchamber is like a rock.”

Murian sat in a chair across from the duchess, the journal held to her as if it were a shield.

Ian rubbed his neck. “Wha’ do we do now?”

“Now we wait. My men will come eventually, and we will do what we must to get everyone out of here safely.”

Will picked up a lamp and lit it, and then brought it to Murian.

She smiled. “Thank you.” She carefully opened the journal, and the familiar writing made her voice thicken with emotion. “Every evening, Robert would write in this book. I can see the lamplight flickering over his hair as he scratched out a few lines.” Her throat tightened, though she had to smile. He’d been so young, so full of hopes and dreams. “The last time I saw him, he was so busy scribbling in this that he barely said good-bye. At the time, I was only going to be gone two days, so neither of us thought it a momentous occasion.”

“Robert loved ye, miss,” Ian added softly. “More tha’ anyone.”

Max’s gaze traveled over her face. “You miss him, and yet you smile.”

“What else would she do?” Tata Natasha asked sharply. “They were married, and he died. I was married and my husband died.” She looked directly at Max. “Sad as it is, it happens all the time.”

Murian agreed. “Life is not always fair, is it? ’Tis just a sad fact. Robert was a wonderful part of my youth. We grew oop together, in a way. We were so young. . . .” She laughed ruefully. “ ’Tis a wonder we managed to be wed so happily.”

She paged through the journal. “I’ll always miss him. But as time passes, so does the pain. Now those memories are like an old friend, and they make me smile. We were fortunate to have what time we did.” She turned to the back of the journal and as she did so, two letters slipped from the book and fell to the floor. She picked them up.

“From Robert?” Max asked.

“Nay. These two are in French. They must be from his mother’s family.”

Max’s gaze fixed on the letters. “Robert’s mother was French?”

“Aye. She died in childbirth, so Robert ne’er knew her. He married me right after his father died. After we’d been married a short time, Robert began receiving letters like those.”

“From his mother’s family?”

“Aye. He said his father had kept them from contacting him, but once Robert inherited the title, they’d realized his father was gone and they began corresponding with him.”

“And the other piece of paper?” Max nodded to the folded sheet of parchment she held in her hand.

She opened it. “It looked like a marriage license, signed by the old earl. But the name . . . it’s not Robert’s
mother’s. I dina know— Och!” Her eyes widened, and she looked at Will. “I believe this belongs to you.” She held it out to him.

With a hand that trembled, he took the heavy paper and looked at it.

“Wha’ is it?” Ian asked quietly.

Will lowered the paper, his face pale, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “I ha’ a father after all.”

“The old earl?”

“He married my mither. He ne’er told me tha’, but . . .” Will sniffed. “I think I knew. He was always kind to me.”

Max noted that Murian had paused in reading the journal. He came to stand by her. “What have you found?”

She tapped the journal. “Here it is: December fourteenth. When Loudan’s party arrived.”

Max watched as she bent her head and started to read, her brows knitting as her eyes traveled rapidly over the pages.

He glanced at the two forgotten letters she’d placed on the table at her elbow. “May I look at these?”

Murian, already lost in the words dancing before her eyes, didn’t look up. “Of course.”

“Ye read French, do ye?” Ian said.

“
Da
.” Max unfolded the missive.

As he did so, Murian read her late husband’s last words. She read slowly at first, hearing the words in Robert’s voice. But then, as the words began to ring in her head, she read faster and faster, until she no longer heard Robert’s voice, but her own.

The words swam before her. Finally, she reached the bottom of the last page. She lowered the journal and stared at the ink as it seemed to move and collide, new words forming in front of her astonished eyes.

“Well?” Natasha asked impatiently. “What’s it say? Was there a duel at all? Or did Loudan murder him, as you suspected?”

Murian shook her head, unable to think clearly enough to speak.

“Lass?” Ian bent to see her face. “Wha’ is it?”

Beside him, Max refolded one of the French missives, a shadow in his eyes.

“Och, Lady Murian!” Will said. “Wha’ does Lord Robert’s journal say?”

She took a shuddering breath. “Loudan was telling the truth. There was a duel.”

Ian grimaced. “Bloody hell! I was afraid of tha’.”

“But there was no card game,” Murian added. “And it was not Loudan who challenged Robert. ’Twas Robert who challenged Loudan.”

“So wha’ was the duel o’er then?” Ian asked.

“Over these.” Max lifted the letters.

Murian’s gaze locked on them, her stomach aching and tight. She nodded. “Robert knew Loudan before we wed. He never told me that.”

“He dinna tell you a lot of things,” Ian said.

“Apparently so. Loudan is the one who put Robert in touch with his French relatives.”

“Loudan?” Ian said, astounded.

“Aye. Loudan somehow knew Robert’s grandmother,
saying he’d met her before the war, and how she’d spoken fondly of Robert’s mother and had wished to know her grandson but the old laird hadna allowed it.”

“When did Loudan tell Lord Robert tha’?” Ian asked. “I certainly ne’er saw him.”

“He always visited with a large group of men who hunted together.”

“Ah. Tha’ explains it, then. There were always hunting parties stoppin’ by to rest their mounts and ask fer refreshments. Lord Robert ne’er turned them away.”

“He wouldna,” Murian agreed. “On these visits, Loudan convinced Robert to write to his grandmother. Loudan had Robert dictate, and then the earl translated it into French and wrote the letters.”

“Which Lord Robert then franked and sent,” Max said.

Orlov frowned. “I don’t understand. Were the letters not to Lord Robert’s grandmother?”

“They were, but Loudan always included a letter to his friends, which he tucked inside of Robert’s.”

Murian nodded. “Robert writes that his grandmother was a frail, elderly woman who was so happy to hear from him that he was determined to keep the connection, even though it was illegal to correspond with the French because of the war.”

“Good for him,” Tasha announced.

“Loudan knew ways to get letters in and out of France, and he helped Robert. For a while, all was well. Robert would write letters to his grandmother, and Loudan would translate them for him on his way through, and would read the responses when they
came. And every time, Loudan insisted on putting in a note from himself, saying it was mere courtesy.”

“But it was more,” Max said. “Much more.”

Murian nodded. “Robert was too trusting, perhaps, but he wasna a fool. He soon realized something wasna right, so one time, after Loudan had given him a note to include in a letter to his grandmother, Robert first took the missive to the vicar in Inverness, a man fluent in French. The vicar translated it, and Robert was devastated. Loudan was corresponding with the enemy, sending troop locations and times, things Loudan had gleaned from his brother, Spencer. And the earl was using Robert’s grandmother as a courier, too, endangering her as well.

“The next time the earl came to translate a letter, Robert informed Loudan he was going to tell Spencer everything. But Loudan was ready. He pointed out that Robert had franked all the letters. He convinced Robert that Spencer would think
him
the traitor and not Loudan. That he would lose everything, Rowallen and me, too.” She traced her fingers over the words written in the journal. “Robert feared he would be sent to the gallows and I would be put oot into the cold.”

Ian shook his head. “So the puir lad challenged Loudan to a duel.”

“Aye,” Murian replied. “And was killed. I daresay once that had happened, Loudan saw his chance to acquire the estate, so he made up the story aboot the card game, convinced his friends to swear false testimony, and took his claim to Edinburgh.”

There was a long silence.

Orlov nodded to the letters in Max’s hands. “Your brother was right.”

Murian turned to Max. “Your brother?”

He met her gaze firmly. “My brother, Nik, has his fingers in many pies. He is forever looking for secrets. He found evidence that information about the troops was being filtered to the French. The battle where my friend Fedorovich died was caused by a surprise attack that could only have come from a leak of information.”

“Spencer was involved in that battle?”

“We fought side by side, he and I. We were both almost killed.”

Murian paled a little at that. “Loudan would have benefited greatly, had Spencer been killed in battle.”

“Which is why Nik was certain Loudan was involved.”

Murian nodded. “So that is why you are here.”

“I thought you came to help me!” Natasha said, looking furious.

“As if you tell me everything
you
do!” Max exclaimed.

“I never keep secrets.”

“Oh? Then why did you invite yourself to a card game with Loudan if you were not privy to Nik’s thoughts about the earl?”

She sniffed. “I might have heard him mention his concerns.”

“And so you acted on your own and used the Oxenburg crown as bait.”

She patted the crown where it still rested on her
head. “He could not resist it. I thought I could get him drunk and find out what Nik wished to know. Sadly, it did not work out the way I’d wished.” She scowled. “I’ve never met an earl more able to drink.”