“But you can’t find your Key?” Ivan prompted.
“Papa looked for it as soon as he could. And again as soon as the police let us in here. Grandpapa kept it here.” Hector moved to the bed which had been stripped.
The mattress had four huge divots where the police had excised large samples, presumably for testing in the lab. All the bedding was gone. The bed was surmounted by a tall carved headboard. In the center, elaborate swags and nymphs supported the huge heraldic crest that for three centuries the Grand Dukes had slept beneath. Hector fiddled with the boss on the shield and it slid up to reveal a plain panel. A pair of small doors lay behind the panel.
“That can’t be opened if there’s someone in the bed,” Ivan pointed out.
“Not if he was conscious. Papa lifted the mattress by himself when he found Grandpapa. But how did anyone know the cache was there unless Grandpapa told him? Which he would never have done. Never.” Hector took a tiny key out of his pants pocket and tried to open the small doors, but they caught on the mattress when they had only moved a crack.
Ivan and Steve gave Prinze Hector a hand to shift what was left of the thick mattress. Ivan peered into the recesses of the cupboard that the doors concealed. There was only a small, ornate stand inside the little cabinet. “May I?” he asked.
“Go ahead.”
Ivan could tell that the stand had held an object of great power for many years. The aura of the Key was infused into the wood and metalwork. “Is there anywhere else Prinze Reinhardt might have put the Key?” he asked.
“We have searched Grandpapa’s entire hoard. It’s gone.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the Chateau Lind or with the medieval perfection of the tiny village of Loire-du-Bois that sat outside it. Late March in the Loire Valley was a time of green leaves and fragrant flowers. The air was full of bird song, the woods were full of tender shoots, the vines were covered in a haze of green. Back in the Gulf of Bothnia, the Severn Islands were being pummeled by yet another savage winter storm.
Yet Christina felt heartsick here in the beautiful golden stone chateau that her ancestors had built to escape the worst of the long Swedish winters on Lind Island. The original castle had mostly been demolished in the seventeenth century and this beautiful mansion constructed over the ruins. It held nothing but pleasant memories for Christina, but this year she was restless and unhappy.
As always, Uncle Thorvald and Aunt Inga had given her the same bedroom. This pretty third-floor room was easily guarded, for her security was of the first importance to her family. Today the countryside of the Loire drowsed in the early summer heat, but Christina felt bored. She would far rather have been on Severn Island where the freezing wind still swept the ice clogged Gulf of Bothnia.
In just a few days, the Grand Council would meet for the Spring Session. The bulk of their deliberations would have to do with the attack on Lord Voros’s island of Tarakona. But it would also be the session at which five young dragon lords would apply to begin their official Mate Hunt. Felipe would announce his and so would Ivan. Why couldn’t she feel about Felipe as a young woman should feel about her destined mate? Why was she still dreaming about that rat Sarkany?
She flung herself onto the blue and white ruffled cushions that graced the high four-poster bed and gazed discontentedly up at the canopy. She knew she was a treasure. Hadn’t she been told so her entire life? For years, she had felt as if she were waiting for her life to begin. It hadn’t been so bad when she was at school in the States. But since her graduation last year she had felt constrained. Despite her work on the family’s investments, she hadn’t enough to occupy her.
Her jewel chest was sitting on top of the bow-fronted dresser basking in the afternoon sun. She should move it before the ultraviolet bleached color from the wood. But as soon as she picked it up, somehow she found she once again was holding Ivan’s amber necklace. Its glowing golden beauty had not become less seductive.
This had to stop. She laid it back into its case and hid it in the most secret and hidden drawer of her jewel chest. Under her breath, she said a word of power before she buried the jewel case in the bottom drawer. She was going to marry Felipe as she had promised. She had to stop hankering for Ivan Sarkany. Right this minute. Felipe didn’t deserve a wife who was infatuated with another dragon.
Before she could start brooding again, she booted up her laptop and called her almost-fiancé. Felipe looked tanned and fit. But not particularly pleased to see her.
“How was Argentina?” she asked.
“Hot. I’m a little busy, Christina. We can’t talk long.”
“When will you get here?”
“I don’t know.” Felipe sounded distracted. “I’ll be there for two days before the match. No, no,” he contradicted himself and Christina heard the busy tapping of his fingers on a keyboard. “No, I have to meet with those fellows from Deutsche Bank.” He tapped some more. “How would Lisbon on the fifteenth suit you?”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to Lisbon either,” Christina pointed out. “Since the Grand Duke Bulow died, I’m pretty much on lockdown. Uncle Thorvald has ordered me to the Chateau Lind. I meant when will you get to Loire-du-Bois?”
“I may be delayed. What is so urgent? You could just tell me right now. This is a secure line,” he coaxed.
“Uncle Thor wants to announce our engagement at the party, Felipe,” she said. Baldly. “Are you ready for that? They’ll want us to set a date too.”
“Hmm. Well, whenever you want, Chris, I’m easy.”
“Unless there’s a polo match that conflicts,” she said tartly.
“I’ll send you my schedule right now,” he assured her. “You can work around that.” Chrissy thought she heard the murmur of voices behind Felipe, and then a soft giggle. “Oh, that reminds me, what do you think of the new Deutsche Bank bond issue?”
“Stay away from it.” Felipe tapped his way through Christina’s three-minute explanation. “Got it,” he said. “Maybe I don’t need to meet with those jokers.” His voice trailed away. Christina heard another giggle before he ended the call.
And the worst of it was, she wasn’t even a tiny bit jealous.
There was a gentle tap on the door. Christina called out a welcome and her mother came in looking displeased. She skirted the massive bed and went over to the unshuttered windows and looked out into the courtyard below. “Your uncle says the Estremauras have been delayed. They cannot make it until the second week of the party.”
Why hadn’t Felipe just come right out and said that? She sat on the bed. Could she tell Mamma that she felt trapped? It seemed all they had done since arriving at the chateau was discuss her betrothal, but she still had not mentioned her doubts. What was the use, when plans had been so many years in the making, and when both clans had exchanged so many sureties? Her marriage was a done deal whether or not it had been announced.
“Don’t you think that we should give Felipe a chance to back out if he wants to?” Christina heard her own words with disbelief.
Lady Severn gaped at her daughter. “Why would he want to back out? You’re a prize.”
“Felipe and I are friends, Mamma. But there is no great passion between us. Since I saw him at Christmas, he might have met someone else.”
“Don’t you want to marry Lord Felipe?” Anna Lindorm asked. “It’s been arranged for years.”
“I know. And many pledges have been exchanged between the Lindorms and the House of Estremaura!”
“Well, yes,” Anna looked embarrassed. “It is a little old fashioned, but your uncle is old fashioned and so are the Estremauras. Even for dragons. Your uncle naturally wanted a bride price, and the Estremauras demanded a dowry.”
“I know. I know. But it makes it hard for us to change our minds.” Christina shut up. What was the use? She knew that she had to marry Lord Felipe and become the next Duchess of Estremaura. She had known for most of her life. And she
liked Felipe, she really did. He was a fine man. But she had never dreamed about him as she dreamed of Ivan. His scent did not fill her nostrils and make her crave release. Surely this senseless passion for that jerk wasn’t going to derail her family’s carefully thought out plans?
Uncle Thorvald might be a stuffy old relic, but he was also a kind and honorable dragon, and she owed him both allegiance and affection. He had chosen wisely for her. Felipe was as honorable as all the other members of his clan. He was handsome, intelligent, kind and amusing. So what if he was obsessed with polo. She felt much the same about skiing and sailing.
He would make a good husband and a good father. Against those virtues, what did that reprobate Ivan Sarkany have to offer? A fucking one-night stand that she could only hope neither Felipe nor any member of her family ever heard about. This lingering fury with Ivan Sarkany was as useless as her yearning. She had to remember that he hadn’t left her because she couldn’t marry him. He had enjoyed her and decided one night was enough. Nobody liked rejection, and despite being valuable, that necklace was rejection spelled out in capital letters.
The connection she had felt with Ivan, that soul deep bond that still made her quake, hadn’t been enough to tempt him to a second round. He had found her less than enthralling and that was fucking that. There was nothing there to make her shame her entire family by rejecting Felipe Balcazar Mendez.
* * *
It was midnight and the mortal inhabitants of Juist Island were presumably asleep or at least indoors. Ivan, Steve and Hector stood together deep within living green walls of the maze that formed a part of the formal gardens of the Huis von Bulow. Even though the alleyway was narrow and the shrubbery high, they could all see the very top of the Palladian Palace.
“He stood here,” Hector said. “We’ve had rain since, but two mornings after Grandpapa was found, I could still detect that dragon’s spoor.”
Ivan inhaled deeply. He smelled a mortal — he supposed the gardener, but underneath the faintest tinge of dragon scent. “The gardener has been busy here,” he said. Holden nodded.
Hector looked sheepish. “In the confusion after the police arrived, and the funeral and everything, no one gave the gardeners instructions. The police didn’t even get as far as the maze. So Ehrmann went ahead and gave the shrubbery its usual weekly tidying — pulling out dead branches, sweeping the paths, and so on.”
“Hmm.” Ivan led the way out of the twisting alleyway and onto the broad graveled carriageway that swept up to the house in two huge semicircles. The three men stood and looked up at the palace with its rows of columns and two story high pediment above the front doors. “But no one has gone up the outside of the castle to Prinze Reinhardt’s window? Correct?”
Hector shook his head. “We didn’t think it mattered. We had all the proof we need that he entered that way.”
“How do you think he did it?”
“If I had to try to climb up to the second floor, I would take dragon and fly up to the stone pediment and use the statuary on either side as stepping stones to let me down to Grandpapa’s window. It would be easier to climb down the stonework to the shutters than to try to land on that narrow windowsill.”
Ivan nodded. “I think you’re right. A botched landing would have been a noisy mistake.”
“That bastard made no mistakes.”
“Unless you count assassinating the Eldest of your House a mistake,” Ivan said politely.
Hector’s grin was savage. He inclined his head gravely. “Yes, in that he erred.” His words were a primitive promise.
“I’m going up,” Ivan said.
“I’m going to give the maze another going over,” Holden said. “See if anything pops out at me that I didn’t notice earlier.” He prowled away.
Ivan stripped off the slacks and sweater he was wearing and began his change. His legs thickened and grew squat, scaly and even thicker. Purple wings as broad as the sails of a Viking longboat sprouted from his back. His head grew two fearsome black horns that curved like scimitars over his long skull. Fangs as sharp as steak knives gleamed white in his huge mouth. Hector watched his morph with courteous interest but did not comment until the change was complete.
“You’ve hurt yourself, cousin,” He pointed to where Ivan’s long neck met the scales of his powerful flight muscles. “You’re bleeding.” He reached up to put a cautious fingertip on the spot, and jerked his finger away “Hey, that’s hot.”
Ivan did not respond. In dragon, he had no power of speech. But what could he say to Prinze Hector von Bulow? Your mistress marked me and made me her abject slave? He thrust off with his powerful hind legs and in a single bound, without so much as needing to flap his extended wings, he reached the peaked pediment. He needed no illumination to see the shallow scrapes made on the stone by the talons of a dragon much smaller than him.
Ivan set his forehand claws into the marks. They were about the right shape, but the wrong size. He turned. He had made a second set of marks with his hind claws. This confirmed that the villain was smaller than he was. Smaller than the Bulows, if it came to that. And he devoutly hoped it would.
The statue of Minerva showed no marks, which was as it should be if the villain had known where he was going. The opposite statue of Hermes was scored on thigh and outstretched arm. Ivan had no difficulty stretching a limb across to the frieze that visually divided the second floor from the third. He noted the chips in the plasterwork and grasped instead the stone balustrade that had been out of the intruder’s reach. The dragon’s scent had penetrated the porous sandstone. Despite the rain, the odor clung. Unfortunately, Ivan could not identify him.
He achieved Prinze Reinhardt’s window easily. He did not enter the room, but doing so would only have entailed climbing over the sill. He turned and spread his wings wide and glided down to where Hector waited on the grass. Returning to human was, as always a little painful, but Ivan was proud of his rapid morph. He was pulling on his shorts when Hector said, “Forty-three seconds.”
“And that’s with me taking time to look at his spoor, Hector. The rain has washed the stone clean, but I still picked up his scent. He also scratched the moldings, and chipped the frieze. But if he made a speedy entrance, it would explain why your sword bearers didn’t see him when they were patrolling. You should have the evidence photographed.”
Hector nodded. “I’ll think about it. But do you think the police are going to believe that an animal killed the Duke?”
“Probably not. But you might need something in the way of counter evidence if they arrest Uncle Wilhelm.”
“I’ll get it done. You know I can’t believe how quickly you got up there. Forty-three seconds,” he repeated in disbelief.
“He could have taken his time once he was in the room and returned to human. Waited until the coast was clear before flying off.”
“How do you know he took human in the house?” Hector demanded.
“He gave your grandfather a shot of sodium pentothal. He had to have human hands for that, and for opening the cabinet in the bedstead.” Ivan said absently. “You know, the Old One would have been out of it almost immediately. We have been assuming all along that it was your grandfather’s death that was sought. What if the Key was the object all along?”
“Sodium pentothal is known as truth serum,” reflected Hector. “Do you suppose that the thief interrogated Grandpapa and got the location of his secret hoard?”
“I do. Perhaps he misjudged the effect of that dose on an old man — and a shifter. Drugs usually have a more powerful effect on shape shifters. It’s always hit and miss with pharmaceuticals. More likely he didn’t care if the Duke died.”
“He wouldn’t even take aspirin,” Hector said. His voice was rough at the edges. “He was so sensitive. We thought at first he had taken Percocet — the bottle was open and several tablets were gone, but they found none in his body.”
“So that is why the first reports spoke of suicide,” Ivan murmured.
> “Yes, it looked as though he had taken enough to kill himself. But the autopsy showed he had nothing but sodium pentothal in his system.”
“The question now is: Did you recognize that bastard’s smell? For I did not.”
“No, but I will remember it if I encounter it again,” Hector said.
“Have you reported the missing Key to the police?” asked Ivan.
“We thought it futile,” replied Hector.
“If we recover it, we might be able to tie the villain to the murder. Report it,” Ivan advised. “Give them the photographs.”
“And when they ask their embarrassing questions about why an iron key was swiped and a houseful of loot was not?” Hector asked unhappily.
“Make something up,” Holden advised as he came out of the maze buttoning his shirt. Ivan assumed he had taken bear to sharpen his senses. “This time I went into the heart of the maze,” the bearshifter said. “The trail I followed was faint, but at the center there is a statue and three benches.”
“I know,” Ivan said.
“Some dragon sat there recently,” Holden reported. “The same one I smelled in the sitting room of the princesses.”
Hector looked abashed. “We have had a lot of company,” he explained. “I’ll come and see if I can sort the scent out.”
The three men went back through the maze to the statue of Venus who stood coyly covering her breasts and sex. Holden stood silent and let the prince take his time sniffing at each bench.
“This one,” von Bulow said.
“Do you recognize it?” Ivan asked coming over for a sniff of his own. This time the odor was familiar.
“Felipe Balcazar Mendez,” said Hector promptly while Ivan nodded in agreement.
“What was he doing in your shrubbery?” Ivan asked in surprise.
“Didn’t you know?” Hector said. “Mamma and Grandmama were staying on Dragonera with the duke and duchess when they heard that Grandpapa had died. The Estremauras insisted on flying Mamma and Grandmama back in their private plane. Felipe came for the funeral and took them home again.”
Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3) Page 9
