He considered her a moment. “You sing a very different tune, Lenora. I find this change strangely abrupt.”
She gave a little laugh, swallowing back an edge of hysteria. “Is it not a woman’s prerogative to change her mind? One of the foibles of our weaker sex, I’m afraid. Trust me—it will be amusing for you to have him hear what I have to say.” She forced herself to go on, to drop her voice into a deeper register. “Amusing for you to make him watch what I wish to do, in amends for my childish disappearance.” She looked at Kurt and licked her lips. “I want to make it up to you.”
She watched Kurt’s eyes darken as his suspicion turned into lust. Dear God, how could she hope to control and distract this vicious man until Becker arrived? How could she keep Wolfram safe? And what if Becker wasn’t able to bring help? Her heart hammered until she was sure both men must hear it. But she couldn’t give in to the fear eating at her insides; far too much lay at stake. “I know my mind now, Kurt. This excuse for an imperial knight is the one who did me wrong.” She stepped up to Wolfram to stare at his battered face as she spoke, injecting all her hate and revulsion for Kurt into her words. “I want a true prince. I want a real man who rules with an iron fist, not a false hero who prattles about love.”
Wolfram frowned, and his labored breathing hitched to a stop. She caught his whisper: “Lady?”
But she’d already turned away, walking with Kurt into the castle.
When Lenora delivered the note to Helga written by her father, Herr Weisstagen, the head maid read it quickly. Serving women bustled about Lenora’s old chambers to lay out her bath and a selection of gowns. The activity provided good cover for a private conversation by the fireplace as Lenora stripped off yet another set of the boy’s clothing she’d worn for her return to Rotenburg.
Helga hesitated only briefly before ducking Lenora a curtsy. “It will be my honor to assist you, meine Dame. What Prince Kurt did to you was a wicked sin. After a lifetime of such misdeeds, you can be sure he has little loyalty among the servants. Even the soldiers of the garrison are ashamed to serve a prince such as him. If der Wolfram’s allies can infiltrate the castle, it wouldn’t take much to get the garrison to lay down their arms.”
“What about Frieda?” Lenora asked in a low voice, peeling off her filthy breeches and jacket. With a glance to ensure the serving women weren’t looking, she drew her sheathed dagger from her jacket pocket and hid it for later. If her former lady’s maid formed any suspicion of what they were up to, Kurt would be the first she’d inform.
A hard glint entered Helga’s eyes. “Don’t worry about her, meine Dame. That woman tried to report my Winfried on charges of overpruning the quince trees. As if a master gardener such as Winfried Blumthal does not know how to prune a fruit tree! I’ll ensure Frieda is needed on an urgent matter in town. That postern gate will be unlocked, with no one the wiser.”
“Can you be absolutely sure to have it open before midnight tonight?” Lenora whispered. “You must wait for Lord Becker, then lead him straightaway by the back stairs up to the prince’s chambers with no one seeing you. I’ll keep the Freiherr there, with the prince, so that you and Lord Becker will be able to find us. So much and so many lives depend upon it.” The danger of their situation twisted her insides into a sick knot. Not only Wolfram’s life, but her own, those of Becker and his men, and now those of the loyal servants as well all depended on the success of their plan.
Helga helped her unwind a linen strip from around her chest and leaned in close. “I won’t let you down, lady, I swear it. The postern gate is in the castle wall by the orchard, near my Winfried’s cottage. I’ll make it look as if I’m going to visit him. None will suspect otherwise; we’re engaged now to be married as soon as the revolts quiet down.” The woman blushed and ducked her head. “It was you who set the dogs to barking that night you escaped, wasn’t it? You must have passed close by the cottage.”
Lenora clasped Helga’s hand in a warm grip. “I did pass by Herr Blumthal’s cottage that night. And I’m very happy that you two have found each other. I wish you a lifetime of happiness together.”
“I wish the same for you, meine Dame, for you and your lord husband, der Wolfram. All will work out.” Her voice faltered. “Somehow, God willing.”
But Lenora heard the doubt behind the woman’s kind words. Wolfram was so badly beaten, she feared for his recovery, even if they were both able to escape this deathtrap of a castle with its madman of a ruler.
And time was fast running out.
Chapter 12
They’re demanding that an assembly of the people draw up a constitutional charter, binding even on the prince! They want me to ‘remove the burden of serfdom’ and other laws that have stood the test of time since medieval days! It’s anarchy, I tell you!” Kurt paced his frescoed state reception chamber, his voice ringing in the grand room outside his private bedchamber.
“Tsk, tsk.” Lenora made commiserating noises and tried to look suitably supportive. “You’re right, of course, Kurt. Whatever can those protesters be thinking?”
“Bah!” The prince slashed a hand through the air. “They’re not thinking at all. And did I tell you they want a new hospital as well? Why, next they’ll demand my abdication and seek to turn Rotenburg-Gruselstadt into a republic.”
“Can you imagine?” she said. “A republic, with voting rights for the people!” She looked down to hide her eyes, fearing they’d give away too much. She smoothed the blue silk of her wide skirts and fluffed out the Belgian lace flounce on her elbow-length sleeves. Her mother had ordered the elegant evening gown last spring in London. With a stab of shame, Lenora remembered complaining about the endless, tiresome fittings for her trousseau. It all seemed a lifetime ago.
“There’ll be heads rolling in the street,” Kurt said as he continued his pacing, “just like in Paris!” He stopped where she sat by the velvet-draped windows that framed a commanding view of the castle forecourt and the rooftops of the town of Gruselstadt. “Is that what this rabble wants?”
She curled her lips into a smile for him. “You put up with so much, Kurt. It is most trying, indeed.”
The short spring daylight had already faded to dusk when she’d arrived—bathed and perfumed, dazzlingly gowned, bejeweled, and coiffured, as befitted a princess-to-be. She’d dragged out the paperwork as long as she could, dictating extra clauses to Kurt’s secretary for the annulment documents and quizzing his minister on the theological status of a coerced battlefield marriage. Under their prince’s glare, his underlings were quick to assure her that the marriage held no legitimacy in the eyes of either God or state. The documents they prepared would ensure that she could marry Prince Kurt without fear of bigamy.
While the clerks finalized the paperwork, she entertained Kurt with made-up stories about the buffooneries of the protesters and insisted on hearing in detail about his armed sorties against the local revolutionaries. Although her nerves stretched to the breaking point, she took great comfort when the physician arrived to report on their prisoner. Wolfram’s wounds had been tended; he’d taken a nourishing soup and now rested under heavily armed guard.
“Herr Doctor,” she’d asked him when he finished his account, “is he concussed, do you think? Will he be able to sign his part of the documents?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry, Dame Lenora. That brute’s got quite the thick skull. There’s a cracked rib or two, a gash on his shoulder that’s opened up again, and of course he’s black-and-blue with bruises, but he’s sufficiently rational to sign his name. He’ll be executed soon enough anyway, so the rest doesn’t really matter.”
She curled her fingers into her palms until her nails bit into her flesh. “Exactly, Herr Doctor. Thank you.”
When the documents were ready to be finalized, six burly guards brought Wolfram to the prince’s chambers. Heavy shackles cuffed his wrists and ankles, and he stumbled unsteadily into the room. The swelling on the left side of his face had worsened, leaving his eye a mere
slit among the bruises that trailed down his neck into the open shirt collar and plain jacket of the black clothing in which they’d dressed him.
“Chain the traitor,” commanded Kurt, gesturing to one of the central stone pillars in the vaulted chamber. “Add a gag as well, so I don’t have to listen to any of his revolutionary drivel.”
The guards looped a thick-link chain around the pillar and locked it to Wolfram’s shackles. He had some leeway for motion but couldn’t go far. When they tied on the gag, Lenora saw one of them mouth a shamefaced apology to Wolfram.
A hopeful sign, that.
Kurt walked over to give Wolfram’s leg a hard kick. “Secure enough for now,” he said, sneering. The guard handed the key to the prince, and Lenora noted carefully into which pocket Kurt slipped it.
She signed the annulment documents, with Kurt and his minister witnessing the sheaf of papers as duly sworn regarding the forced and thus invalid nature of the marriage. When she approached Wolfram, Kurt placed a wary hand on the sword at his belt.
“You will sign these documents, Wolfram, to set me free,” she said. “You had me at your beck”—she paused for the briefest of moments, darting him a look—“and call for long enough.” Would he take her meaning, trust her to have arranged a surprise attack on the Schloss with Lord Becker?
Over his gag, he stared at her and reached for the pen. In his slow blink and unfocused gaze, she read the pain that must be clouding his mind. She cursed the doctor under her breath. Her mother was right: medical men often knew so little. She feared Wolfram must indeed be concussed from the blows he’d taken. His hand shook as he signed, and she bit the inside of her lip to stop her own trembles.
Kurt’s people departed, although she insisted they leave the paperwork behind. “The prince and I have more to discuss after dinner,” she explained, casting a coy look in Kurt’s direction.
If the kitchen staff and footmen minded bringing up the six courses of the meal to the prince’s reception room, their training—or fear of their master—allowed them to hide it well. The servants laid out a small dining table by the massive marbled fireplace above which hung an oil painting of Kurt himself, looking as smug as ever.
She tarried over every course. Kurt and Wolfram needed to stay in the chamber until midnight, hopefully without her cursed ex-fiancé subjecting Wolfram to any further torture. To her relief, Kurt seemed content to ignore Wolfram. Or, rather, he’d devised a new form of torture for his nemesis. Throughout the meal, Kurt fed her choice morsels from his hand and, between bites, stroked her shoulders bared by the V of her gown’s fashionably wide neckline. She forced a constant smile and worked hard not to gag.
The evening dragged on, her nerves stretched razor thin. Her willful knight, quixotic and impractical as ever, leaned against the pillar to which he was chained. She read the exhaustion and pain hunching his back, but the foolish man refused to rest his battered body by sliding down to sit on the floor. When the servants finally cleared the last course and placed a tray with small porcelain cups of steaming coffee and a crystal decanter of Schnaps by a low settee for two, she jumped up from the table.
“Kurt, why don’t you dismiss the servants for the night?” she suggested to him. “We have no further need for them and could benefit from some privacy. In fact, why don’t you instruct them that we are not to be disturbed?”
“An excellent idea, Lenora.” Kurt gave her an oily smile.
As he turned to issue instructions to the head footman, she recalled the extent to which the prince’s orders were absolute in the castle. The servants had been trained, on pain of dire punishment, to obey his commands to the letter. The garrison at Rotenburg similarly took its cues from the iron rule of their prince. Without direct command from Kurt, they’d dare take no action on their own.
Perhaps not even to mount a full counterattack, should a crew of revolutionaries manage to penetrate the walls.
Especially if the revolutionaries were there to bring about the end of their prince’s despotic rule.
She strolled up to Kurt and the servant, who was bowing himself out of the chamber. “Yes, we are not to be disturbed under any circumstances.” She laid a proprietary hand on Kurt’s arm. “We care not if the castle is falling down. Is that not so, my prince?”
He looked her over, his gaze lingering on the deep décolletage of her gown, below which her breasts were pressed up against him. “As you wish, my dear.”
She watched his eyes darken. Distracting him seemed easy enough. The question was: could she buy Lord Becker and his men enough time to slip through the castle defenses and disarm the garrison? She and Wolfram’s cousin had agreed that a stealth attack was their best chance of success. Could she hold Kurt long enough at bay to prevent him from harming Wolfram? She read his desire easily enough in his quickened breath and heavy glances. She’d gut him with her dagger before she’d let him bed her, but using his desire against him seemed the most effective way of keeping him blind to the attack she hoped would unfold around him.
“Excellencies, you shall not be disturbed,” said the head footman, with an inscrutable look at Lenora. As he pulled shut the door, she gave a start of recognition: goodness, he was Helga’s cousin, the man who’d initially brought the housemaid to work at Rotenburg!
Kurt walked to the bellpull hanging by the hearth that served as a direct summons to the guards. “I’ll ring for the night watch first, to take this cur away to the dungeons. Now that you’re mine again, we shan’t need him until we stage his execution.”
“Why don’t you leave him here?” she said before he could reach for the velvet pull. The effort to make the suggestion sound casual almost choked her. “I rather like him chained like a dog in your room. It adds a certain piquant thrill to our reunion, don’t you think?”
He raised an eyebrow at that. “I didn’t realize your tastes ran to the perverse, my dear. You’re becoming quite the surprise.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s certainly true that I’m not the same person I was when you saw me last.” She sat on the settee and patted the cushion beside her. “Come, let’s have our coffee and Schnaps. I want to propose a toast.”
He sat too close, of course, and positioned himself to watch—or to be seen by—Wolfram, who glowered at them from the pillar.
“To our reunion,” she said as they clinked glasses.
“To reunions,” Kurt repeated with an oily smile. “And to new beginnings.”
The Schnaps, which she knew to be excellent, tasted like vinegar on her tongue.
“Now that we’re alone, Lenora,” Kurt continued, “and you are a free woman again, tell me about this plan of yours. How do you propose to make up for your betrayal and regain my trust? I suppose you wish to beg leniency for your dog?”
She waved a dismissive hand in Wolfram’s direction. “Oh, I don’t care what you do with him. You intend to execute him, don’t you? A grand public hanging would be an excellent reminder to the people of who is in charge and the high cost of forgetting your rule.”
“You’re not here to argue for clemency on his behalf?” Kurt asked, surprised.
“Not at all.” She made a sound of disgust. “A rabid dog should be put down. The man is an oaf and a fool.”
She poured Kurt more of the fruit brandy. Getting him as drunk as possible seemed wise. Lenora glanced surreptitiously at the mantel clock. The hour grew late, well after eleven already. Her panic churned inside, and the effort not to let it show further stretched her nerves to breaking. With luck, Helga should already be on her way to open the postern gate.
“An oaf and a fool, eh?” said Kurt, taking up his glass. “That’s what you really think of him?”
“Of course—he’s a traitor to his country and to his class. You, on the other hand, are a true nobleman and have a principality in your power. You’re much the stronger man. I admire that strength, Kurt. And I’ve come to understand the value of power, even ruthless power. Giving it away to the masses is the h
eight of folly, as is this buffoon himself.”
“And yet he seems to think he’s leading a noble cause,” said Kurt, considering her with narrowed eyes.
“Oh, he fancies himself quite the hero, no doubt,” she said mockingly. “The fool believes every word of idealistic, romantic nationalism that those protesters spout! He doesn’t see how they’re using him. How can the revolutionaries even think of a strong Germany without powerful princes like you at the helm?” At Kurt’s self-righteous smile, she saw that her irony was lost on him. She feared Wolfram believed her lies as well, for when she cast a quick glance at him, he was beginning to look at her with the same hate-filled eyes he turned on Kurt.
The prince leaned back on the settee and crossed his legs. He examined her over the rim of his glass. “What makes you so sure that I’ll take you back, Lenora? You’re damaged goods now. Not really fit material for a royal bride.”
“To save your pride, we can concoct a story about my bridal nerves or stick with yours about a kidnapping by the revolutionaries. Once we do that, you have much to gain by taking me back.” She ticked off arguments on her fingers. “You retrieve a lost possession. You get my dowry.” She knew the riches she brought to their union formed a significant inducement. Kurt’s principality was wealthy, but he was a man who equated money with power and who always craved more. “I’ll say naught to my father if you reclaim your position as my fiancé; otherwise, my family will sue for breach of suit. And you’ll have me.” She concluded her count and leaned forward to place her hand on his knee. “I regret the humiliation I caused you, Kurt, but I will make you a better wife now than I would have before I ran away.”
Knight of Love Page 16
