“The kitchens are down the back. There are no cellars to the castle. It would flood otherwise like the fields at the back.”
Celine nodded and guided Lady Kathryn around the bottom of the stairs. She froze as shouts emanated from the great front door, louder and louder until the hall buzzed with sound.
“They’re not going to get my castle you know.” Lady Kathryn stood stock-still in the hall, looking at the front door. She turned to Celine. “I remember them laughing when my son died.” Her eyes, so clear, looked through Celine. “When a person forgets who they are there isn’t anything more to look for than disease which no man can beat.” She gazed proudly at the hall. “I’ve lived the oldest of my family beyond all my friends, my husband, my son.” Lady Kathryn lifted her chin. “And even my son had a full life. He wasn’t struck down in his prime. He played the field for too long before finding his wife. Probably why he caught syphilis even though he wouldn’t admit it. Barking like a dog I tell you! The shame of it.” She shook her head and turned to Celine with a frown. “Lydia, what are you doing here?” She shrieked as Robert thundered into the hall. “And what is that? A bear!”
Celine rubbed her forehead. “Lady Kathryn, we really must leave the castle. We will go out by the kitchen door.”
Lady Kathryn frowned. “Won’t they see us out there? Last time one of them waited forever to get a glimpse of my son and ask him all sorts of impertinent questions about the family. My son spilled an embarrassing jumble of information before the servants could drag him inside.”
Celine hitched her arm under Lady Kathryn’s and marched purposefully down the hall to the kitchens, away from the thundering hubbub outside. “Robert has checked outside.” She stopped suddenly causing Lady Kathryn to trip. “Robert. How are we going to get Lady Kathryn away from the castle? We can’t expose her to the courtyard.”
“Already thought of, my lady. I will carry her to the nearest farm. Gabbers and some of the servants have gone already and will make it up for her. The farmers have a soft spot for Lady Kathryn. She kept them going when their crops spoiled and her son didn’t, ahem, couldn’t help them out. She has a real head for numbers.”
Celine blinked. “Interesting. Can you find her coat please?”
“She doesn’t have one, she hasn’t been outside in a long time.”
Quickly Celine pulled off her coat and threw it around Lady Kathryn’s shoulders. “Into the kitchen, quickly.”
The hearth was dead in the kitchen. Only Alasdair waited, perched on the kitchen table, his legs outstretched in front of him.
Celine busied herself fussing over the fur coat for Lady Kathryn as Alasdair straightened his legs and stood up.
“We are the last ones,” Robert said softly. “I’ve explained to Celine here that I’ll carry Lady Kathryn. The maid will come along with me too. She’s a good girl that one.”
Alasdair nodded. Celine pulled the coat around Lady Kathryn’s small frame.
“Now I look like a bear!” Lady Kathryn said excitedly. Celine nodded. “A bear on an adventure.” She looked at Celine and frowned. “Make sure you avoid your husband, Lydia. He tried to come to my room two nights ago but I wouldn’t let him in. He was asking all sorts of questions about a scarf. Why would I let him in to answer those sorts of questions?”
Celine gasped. Lydia’s scarf! She’d left it up in Edward’s bedroom.
Or had she? She’d made every effort to sweep the room to make sure no trace of her stay remained. And she had not picked up any scarf for that matter.
Robert bent down. “My lady?” He put out his arms.
Lady Kathryn giggled. “This is an adventure to be sure.” Robert swept her up as light as a feather as she stepped forward.
Martha bustled to their side, already in a coat and respectable bonnet. “We must away to leave his lordship and lady to their business.”
“I—” Celine stopped as Robert turned round and winked and stepped outside the door into the night. “Where’s Edward?” she asked Alasdair softly as the kitchen door shut again, closing off the freezing blast of air.
“Somewhere in the courtyard. I need to get you to the entrance so that you can get to the coach. He’s caused a bit of a ruckus.”
“I can hear,” Celine said softly. “Why isn’t he leaving towards the farms with the others?”
“He said something about not running away any more. It didn’t do anyone any good.”
Celine could feel the blush starting at the back of her head. Thank god there was little light in the kitchen. “It will certainly be interesting to face the large horde outside with just the three of us.”
“Four apparently. Lord Colthaven has been imprisoned in the coach.”
Celine chewed at her lip. Lord Colthaven seemed to be far too intricately bound up in the affair to have been merely imprisoned in the coach.
“Come, we must leave. Edward will be wondering where we are.”
“Have you a gun for me?”
Alasdair shook his head. “No. When the old Lord was alive it was too dangerous to keep weapons in the house. And when his mother started to lose her grasp on reality it was deemed not such a good idea either. She is too good a shot.”
Celine nodded and pulled out her small knife. “I’ll follow you then.”
Alasdair jerked his head and walked slowly to the kitchen door. “Once we are around the castle walls, it is but fifty yards to the coach. I’m to set the horses off. You are to get inside.” He opened the kitchen door and shivered. “Good luck, my lady.”
“We’ll both need it,” Celine muttered as the cold air enveloped them. Keeping a low profile against the dark wall, she ran behind Alasdair’s fast moving shadow. The grass was short underfoot here, with the occasional patches of ice that hadn’t been worn down by the constantly circling guards. The cold wall curved slightly. Behind them the path across the fields sank into darkness and ahead the glow of the courtyard flickered out into the night.
“I’ve never seen a fire burn like that,” she whispered. Alasdair turned and put a finger to his lips. He advanced forward until he could put his head around the great gatepost. Jerking his whole body backwards, he scuttled towards Celine.
“They are chasing something. Some of them are laughing. Others are getting angry. I think we have only a few moments to act before we are noticed.”
Celine nodded. “In that case, we must go.” Taking a deep breath she pulled her skirts up and crouching low, ran to the gatepost.
Without looking back, she stepped out into the melee of the courtyard.
CHAPTER 34
Edward tensed as the fires in the courtyard flickered and swirled as the soldiers ran hither and thither, trying to catch the once confused, but now extremely angry, wild pig that he had let loose on the slippery cobbles.
Two men had already been gored by the rampaging pig that Edward had caught back in the forest. A clout on its head had rendered it senseless, until it had started to wake up, just as Edward was hauling it around the castle walls. He had barely managed to hold onto the sack as the pig had broken free outside the courtyard. It was serendipitous that the pig had been disorientated by the darkness and had run instead straight into the courtyard instead of down the ornamental drive.
He’d slipped into the courtyard after the pig, moving through the shadows towards where the coach stood, the horses nodding their heads, as they became increasingly unnerved by the hullabaloo.
Would she come?
It was getting later.
Had she given up on him and taken the easy road across the fields?
He couldn’t, he realized, do this without her. Edward slipped a hand under the chin of one of the nodding horses and murmured soothingly in its ear. Slowly it brought its head down to his and lowered its stamping foot to the cobbles.
The coach door opened. “I say…who’s out there? What’s all that noise about?” the figure called.
He couldn’t not
show his face. “Edward, Lord Colthaven. Just stay inside the coach. We are here to rescue you.”
The figure paused. “All right then.” Lord Colthaven withdrew back into the coach, shutting the door with a click, and then a clang.
The bloody man had bolted the door!
Cursing, Edward ran alongside the coach in the shadows of the courtyard wall. He tried banging quietly. “Lord Colthaven, leave the door open. We will need to get in.” But his voice was drowned out by the shouting and the pounding of footsteps.
He glanced back at the gate and watched in horror as a fleet-footed figure joined the mad capering chasers. It did one circle of the courtyard and then hurtled towards the coach, as the soldiers realized that instead of chasing the pig, they should have been chasing the intruder.
Where the hell was Alasdair?
“I’m here, my lord!” Alasdair’s lithe figure hurtled past him, hugging the wall. He bounded on to the coachman’s perch and with a ‘Hah!’ threw down the reins on the startled horses.
“Alasdair, stop!” he yelled, as Celine ran for the coach door as the horses broke into a trot. “She won’t be able to get in!”
He ducked as a bullet zinged past his ear. Raising his head out of his hands he saw a soldier on the opposite side of the courtyard standing stock-still reloading his musket. An English musket, just like that in the drawing of the leather tube. By god! No wonder Mr. Khaffar had been unconcerned about the theft from the armory. He’d stolen the muskets to arm his own men!
Horror dawned as the man began to pick up his gun again. “Alasdair, wait for Celine!” he yelled again. But Alasdair couldn’t hear either. He had hunkered down over his perch. Edward ran forward and jumped, catching the outlying brass lamps that edged the black coach. He swung precariously for an instant over a fast turning wheel before pulling himself up onto the roof of the coach. He kneeled, before throwing himself flat as a bullet zinged across the top of the coach. Banging on the wooden roof he yelled again, “Open the door,” but still Lord Colthaven either didn’t hear, or was too frightened to do what Edward said.
He pulled himself forward on his lower arms, fist over fist through the rushing air to the edge of the coach. They had made it across half of the courtyard. Alasdair was managing to hold the horses’ pace for now, but sudden jolts and lurches indicated that soon, the horses would be on a full on gallop.
“Celine!” he called despairingly, his cry punctuated by the discharge of yet another gun. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t even running after them. He shuffled round on his stomach and crawled laboriously to the other side of the coach as it lurched to the left to make it through the narrow gate. He looked down over the side of the coach, drawing back quickly as the axles scraped along the wall. If she had ever been there, she would never have stood a chance.
Edward let the coach swing out of the gate and onto the drive. Hauling himself back over the edge of the coach he smashed the forward window with his elbow and knocked out all the glass, wincing as it cut at his fingers. Grasping at the jagged window edge, he bent and pushed his head inside the calm of the coach.
Only to be met by the barrel of a very familiar musket.
He stared at the wide eyes of Lord Colthaven, whose russet hair gleamed in the darkness of the coach. “Lord Colthaven, it’s only me, Edward, we are trying to rescue you. Let me get in.”
The tip of the musket jolted upwards, pointing towards Edward’s face. “How do I know you don’t want to kill me?” Lord Colthaven narrowed his eyes and with an unusually calm and sure hand, closed the ledger that he had been reading.
“Of course I don’t want to kill you. Look, just let me in. I’m about to fall off out here!”
Lord Colthaven’s reply was drowned out by the blast of a shotgun. Edward hid his face in his arm as the locked door opposite splintered around its lock. Small fingers appeared in the hole made by the shotgun blast. Edward stared as Celine threw open the door and slid into the carriage. Using the end of the smoking shotgun she batted the musket out of Lord Colthaven’s hand and pointed the gun back at Lord Colthaven.
“Come in, Edward. We haven’t got all day,” she said glaring at Lord Colthaven.
Edward glanced upwards. The blast of the shotgun had caught Alasdair’s attention. Lifting one hand off the coach Edward pointed down the drive with a shaking hand.
He thought he’d lost her. But like a phoenix from the ashes she had appeared yet again. A sudden jolt of the wheels flung him back hard against the coach, banging his head against its roof.
“Edward!” Celine shouted sharply. “Stop hanging around outside.”
Why did it feel like they were already married, when in truth they were very far from the fact? Pushing his head in through the window he crawled over the stacks of ledgers, slithering in with his feet until he had at last gained purchase on the windowsill to push himself all the way in. He swung his legs over the books and dropped into the narrow space occupied by Lord Colthaven, Celine, and her very powerful shotgun.
Edward put a hand on the barrel of the gun. “I think you can put the shotgun down now, Celine.”
She blinked at him. Her clothing was torn, her dress in tatters, a large red welt creasing the side of her face. “I’d prefer to hold onto it,” she retorted sweetly. “Until I find out why Lord Colthaven stole belongings from my room, and was wandering around your home at all hours.”
“They weren’t your belongings,” Lord Colthaven drawled. “They belonged to my wife.” His voice broke on the last word, his calm demeanor momentarily cracking. “I realized as soon as I saw you wearing them in the hall when you arrived.” He looked down at the floor, and then back up again at Edward. “I have so little mementoes of my wife that I wanted to have them. I was just so scared of the situation.” He took a deep breath. “I would have asked for them if there had been time.”
Edward nodded. There had been so little time to do anything in the mad scramble to leave the house. “Celine, where did you go? Celine?” She wasn’t listening to him, her eyes hard on Lord Colthaven’s face. “Celine?”
“Go where what when?” she murmured.
“In the courtyard. I couldn’t see you, you disappeared.”
“Under the coach. I was trying to avoid the hands of one of those soldiers.”
“Under the coach!”
“Mmm yes. Robert had tied the shotgun to one of the wheel axles. Unfortunately the coach started moving as soon as I got it off.
“But how did you stay under the coach?”
Celine sniffed. “I balanced the shotgun on the axle and hung on for dear life. My heels and my bottom will never be the same again.”
“I can imagine.” Lord Colthaven smirked.
Celine frowned, and inched her shotgun up again. “Your wife ran away from you.”
Lord Colthaven smiled weakly. “What woman hasn’t wanted to run away from a man at one time or another? She was pregnant. And hysterical. But luckily my loyal servant Khaffar located her and brought her back to me.”
Edward watched as Celine frowned. It was hard to imagine the battle hardened Khaffar as a servant.
Lord Colthaven gave a great sigh. “And then after she had our son, she died. So quickly, just slipped away. I have never married again since.”
“Where is your son now, Lord Colthaven?”
“I don’t know.” The man’s face whitened. “Lord Granwich sent him into the lion’s den in Bisbal and he never came back. I don’t even know where my son’s body is buried.” He looked up at Celine. “He was a lot like you, you know. All action.” A pulse throbbed on his jaw.
His eyes sliding sideways was the only warning Edward had. Before Edward could dive forward, Lord Colthaven kicked the gun from Celine’s hands and launched himself at her. But with a twist of her hips she rolled backwards, catapulting him out of the unlocked coach door that swung on his hinges. A gentle thud and a groan were the only sounds that heralded his landing on the soft snow by
the side of the fast passing drive.
“What did he do that for?”
Edward stared over Celine’s shoulders as Lord Colthaven’s body passed from sight. “His behavior just doesn’t add up.”
“He’s still got the scarf. It isn’t here in the carriage.”
“He gave us a reason for that.”
“A terrible reason.”
Edward shifted uncomfortably. “If I lost you I might want to hold on to something of yours. Like a watch for instance.”
Celine’s white face pinked at the edges. She fiddled with an object in her skirts. “Would you? Oh!” Edward frowned as she suddenly looked away and poked her head out of the open door again. “There’s another coach coming up the drive under the elms—Bloody hell! The castle is on fire.”
“What?” Pulling Celine back into the coach Edward thrust his own body through the door and looked back at the castle. A spire of smoke began to drift gently in the cold air about the castle, flames just visible along the rim of the battlements. The fire hadn’t been started in the courtyard, someone from within had started it in the attic! “Oh god,” he groaned. “Grandmama.”
Celine stared at him. “I got her out of the castle. She was enjoying a ride in Robert’s arms.”
Edward relaxed. “I knew you would. It’s just—” he sighed. “She always threatened to set fire to the curtains which was why the attic was so ideal. We thought there would be less chance of her being able to demolish us all if she did anything silly up there. But now with us gone, the castle is going to burn.”
“It’s stone. Surely it will stand strong.”
Edward lowered his head. “Some fires are so strong that not even the stones can withstand them.” He looked back up to see Celine staring at him. “Frozen by day see, but once the fire becomes hot enough, that fire will be burning all through the night.”
“Frozen by day, burning by night,” Celine whispered.
“It’s Khaffar!” Alasdair shouted banging on the top of the coach. “Khaffar and Granwich in separate coaches. They’re going to collide in the middle. You’d best make a break for it. I’ll try and head them both off.”
Maddening Minx Page 25
