Gabbers and Franklin nodded and started for the door.
“Wait please. Gabbers, please can you scrape Lord Colthaven off the hall floor and deposit him in his bedroom. No matter how I feel about the man, he was married to one of my friends. And from what you’ve said was instrumental in persuading the men outside to leave us alone.” Dowager Lady Rochester shuddered.
Franklin crossed back to her put a hand under her arm. “Let me escort you back to your bedroom.”
Dowager Lady Rochester smiled weakly. “Thank you, Franklin.”
Franklin, Gabbers and Dowager Lady Rochester left. Alasdair shut the door behind them to keep the heat from the fire in to the small room. He trod a path backwards and forwards across the carpet.
“I knew he had a new lady, but this is taking it too far.” He turned to face Celine, his face anguished. “What is Edward going to say when he finds out?”
Celine shook her head. “I’m not sure it is relevant what Edward feels about your brother and his activities with his employer. Although it certainly isn’t wise to mix business with pleasure. Believe me. It hasn’t worked for me.”
Alasdair gave a bark of laughter. “That’s because you didn’t entangle yourself with the right person. Or perhaps you did, but he just didn’t know it.”
Celine sat down in the seat by the fire. “You know, Alasdair, I get the feeling that in more than one conversation with you, Robert, Alasdair, Edward even, that when we’ve been talking about one thing, we’ve in fact been talking about something else.”
Alasdair turned an anguished face towards hers. “It is not my secret to reveal. He needs to do it when he is good and ready.”
“Who, Alasdair?”
Alasdair glanced out of the window. “Lord Rochester.”
Celine moved round to stand in front of him. “I beg your pardon? I thought he was away?”
Alasdair fell to a seat and covered his head with his hands. “He is, but he’s surprisingly close.”
“Then I hope he notices that we are in some trouble and finds some help. And we’ll need to come up with an escape plan, because the men out there look deadly efficient.”
Alasdair nodded vigorously. “Mr. Fiske knows the woods like the back of his hand.”
Celine frowned. “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Lord Rochester?”
“We are!” Alasdair gave a howl of anguish. “Oh no! He’s going to kill me.”
CHAPTER 28
Edward stared at Gunvald. “So you would follow her into the gates of hell would you?”
Gunvald nodded dully. He pulled the pieces of twine from his leg. “Luckily Pithadora thinks that I will do more for her than for Celine.” He pulled the last length of twine off with a snap and looked up at Edward.
Taking a deep breath, Edward walked back across the clearing. Gunvald recoiled as he approached.
“Don’t worry.”
“You ask me not to be worried, when a man that can see in the dark, trap wild animals and add up a thousand lines of accounting, approaches, a man that has caused a woman so deeply to fall in love with him that she would do anything for him?” Gunvald’s teeth showed white against the dark. “Where we come from we’d call you a Nykkjen. A nice Nykkjen,” he added quickly.
Edward balled his fists. “Because you think I’m mad?”
Gunvald frowned. “Mad? Whatever gave you that idea? The Nykkjen is a shapeshifter that tricks young women into jumping into his watery lair. I was using the term loosely. And I did say nice. To my mind you are more sane than most.”
“Even though you know I’m a lord impersonating an accountant? I’m not sure I feel complimented by your words.”
“Or an accountant impersonating a lord?” Gunvald raised an eyebrow. “Look. I work with a woman that wears pantaloons and calls herself Silver. My employer is a murderous bitch, and my colleague that I want to save is a headstrong, gun toting maiden trying to impersonate a courtesan. Now you tell me which of them is the most sane?”
“It’s different for me.” Edward put his hand out. For me it is in the blood. Barking like a dog. The thought niggled at him.
“Ha. It’s different for everybody.” Gunvald stared at the twine in Edward’s hands. “You don’t want to tie me up again do you?”
“No. I need to make the trap again.”
“Shouldn’t we be going to get help?” Gunvald asked.
Edward paused as he held the fir branches down again, knotting the twine against the spiky leaves. “It depends on where you’ve left Pithadora.”
“She’s at a coaching inn near Leeds. She sent me to look out for visitors to the castle. She’s waiting for me to send back word.”
“So she’s waiting.”
Gunvald nodded.
“And the men at the castle are waiting too?
“Yes.”
“So how did you know where I was?” Edward grunted as he tied the last pieces of twine to the adjacent tree.
Gunvald drew in a breath.
“I saw you coming from a distance. I wanted to stop all of you, but I was surprised by a lookout. I had to kill him.”
“The man on the road.” Edward licked his lips. “We didn’t see anyone in the distance.”
“I hid in the snow. You forget I come from Sweden. It snows all the time there.”
“You watched me walking across the fields.”
Gunvald paused before answering. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t go back and tell Pithadora what you had seen?”
“There wasn’t time. I had to come and warn you. I couldn’t run after the coach, it was going too fast.” Gunvald stared at Edward in the way men have of staring their opponent out, willing them to believe them, waiting for them to disbelieve them.
Edward pulled his great coat around himself and sat down on a log. “We need to rescue Celine and the rest of the people in the castle.”
Gunvald nodded, his shoulders slumping. “If we get help we might be able to overpower the men.”
“If we get help, we run the risk of whoever Pithadora and the men are waiting for finding out what we are doing.”
Gunvald stared at him. “Surely they are waiting for Mr. Khaffar?”
Edward shook his head. “Yes, they are waiting for him in the way that a man waits for more orders. I’m sure they’ve been ordered to wait for somebody else too though.”
Gunvald tipped his chin up. “You, you mean.”
“Perhaps.” Edward rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “But they could have taken me in London at any time.”
“Celine said they tried to kill you.”
Edward drew his head up, and then put a hand to his lips. “Shhh. I hear something.” Slowly he backed away from the trap he had made, and back towards the other side of the clearing. Gunvald followed stealthily, his large form uncannily light on the hard earth.
He motioned Gunvald behind a tree, and backed himself into the shadows of its branches.
The snuffling of the pigs was loud and immediate. The herd had lived in Rochester forest for years, fed with kitchen slops and the occasional acorns. Each Christmastide a suckling pig was caught and roasted in the Rochester Castle kitchens. Edward was normally the one to catch the beast.
Edward held his breath as the pigs paused on the outside of the clearing, their snouts in the air. He couldn’t hear Gunvald next to him. It was obvious the man was a master of stealth, useful in the line of a master lock picker. He hoped that the fact that Gunvald had spent a few moments where the trap was, wouldn’t put the herd off.
He swallowed as the herd moved forward again through their habitual path beneath the firs. With a short snap, the trap was activated, the fir branch flinging back, a squealing hog caught in the tight twine embrace. The other pigs ran, stampeding across the clearing into the woods beyond, as one of their group was left behind, squealing and grunting in fear.
This pig wasn’t going to be food
for Christmas.
He had a role far more important.
Unrolling the sacking he had taken from his cache of clothes, Edward expertly dropped it over the thrashing pig, and unwound the twine from its back trotter. With four small twists of the sacking, he knotted the makeshift bag and carried the struggling pig back to Gunvald.
“Dinner?” Gunvald whispered hopefully.
Edward shook his head. “Part of the plan to release Celine, my mother and the rest of Rochester Castle.”
Gunvald nodded. “What should I do about Pithadora? I have to go back to her to make my report. She’s holding Silver hostage in case I don’t go back.”
Edward considered. “I won’t be able to start anything until tomorrow evening at the earliest. “But I will need your help. I’ll be watching the castle.” He made a fist. “I want to find out what the attraction is to Rochester Castle.”
“You won’t find that out if Pithadora never comes.”
“Tell her in six hours you’ve seen a coach come in. Say that you saw Celine’s face at the window. That ought to wind her up.”
“Gods yes. She’s brought a hunting bow with her. She’s spent hours tuning it at the inn. She said she learnt how to use it during archery lessons as a young woman.” Gunvald shivered. “Pithadora really is insane. There. I’ve said it.”
Edward paused. “A hunting bow did you say?”
“Yes.”
“Gods.” Edward shivered. The arrows outside of the commode shop. It was Pithadora, and she had been trying to kill Celine, not him. What on earth had set her off? According to Celine, she had known Pithadora for years since she was a child.
“Gunvald?”
“Hmm?” The Swede was readying himself to leave, checking his pockets.
“Does Pithadora mention Celine at all? I mean has she, since she left Melinno Yard?”
Gunvald stopped patting at his pockets. “Once.”
“What did she say?”
Gunvald closed his eyes. “I looked after Celine. And now he wants me to kill the goods. Why didn’t he just deal with this at the start?” Gunvald coughed and rubbed his nose, opening his eyes. “She was muttering to herself in the carriage. Very quietly, but then I have good hearing. For picking locks, of course.” He swallowed visibly. “She wants to send me out to kill Celine, just as she sent another man out, another…lover of hers.” Gunvald shuddered. “She was the one that ordered Lord Anglethorpe’s father to be killed.”
Edward blinked and wiped his face. It was yet more evidence that Pithadora wanted to kill Celine. It didn’t tell him why. But then it did tell him something else.
Pithadora was coming after Celine on someone else’s orders, for someone else’s reasons.
Edward bent back over the sacking and tied another loop of twine around the closed bag. “Go back to the inn. Where is your horse?”
“Two miles away.”
Edward stared. Gunvald shrugged again.
“Did I mention I was Swedish? I’m sure I’ve mentioned our affinity with the snow.”
Edward shivered in his warm coat as Gunvald stalked away and disappeared into the towering trees of the forest.
He picked up the squirming pig and retraced his circular steps back to the shelter of the old oak. There he left the pig in the sacking, and pushing Silent Sally and his knife and twine into his belt, started walking to Rochester Castle.
There were two pairs of guards that marched around the castle perimeter, outside the castle gates. The rest of the guards remained inside the courtyard. The path around the rear of the castle was narrow, the sheer cliff of the castle stones coming down to an abrupt stop next to a dyke and flooded fields behind.
Edward drew in a breath and crouched in the dark snow in the treeline. The stars were just visible through a cloudy mist that hung in the air.
Every year the flooded fields behind the castle froze. A thin layer of ice crusting the tops of three foot deep brackish water that only the most foolhardy would cross.
He’d done it once. On a winter like this just before his father had finally died. Wiping his face with his hands he stood and hunched his shoulders and skirted the protective line of the forest firs until at last he was behind, but still to the side of the castle. Pulling off his waxed great coat, he turned it inside out so that the soft white lamb’s wool showed. Shivering, he pulled the great coat back on and tentatively took a step into the open.
Nobody cried out a warning, or jumped on him.
Running low to the ground he scuttled down onto the first of the maze of dykes. He froze as a light in the distance appeared on the path behind the castle. Bending low he put hands over his head and waited.
The light disappeared around the side of the castle again. It had taken five minutes. Edward ran across the dyke, horizontal to the castle. As he reached the middle he stopped and knelt again, waiting for the next light to appear.
It would take him two minutes to cross the flooded field, and up onto the path. He needed to avoid being seen by the next guards that were skirting the castle perimeter. If he waited until the first set of guards were halfway across, then he had five minutes until the next guards were in the same place. He licked his lips. There was no time to wait until the guards were out of sight. He would have to start crossing the field whilst the guards were still moving.
Falling to his hands and knees he crawled down the side of the dyke and onto the icy surface of the lake-like flooded field. The cold block of ice wobbled precariously below his weight as first his hands reached it, and then his knees and his booted toes.
Edward looked up, waiting as the second set of lights reached the center of the rear of the castle. Putting his head down he started to crawl, counting out the seconds in his head.
Slowly he slid his hand forward, then a back leg, then the opposite hand, and then the opposite leg. Further out onto the ice the thick slab of water became more stable. But there was less snow here, the cold winds whistling across the fields having picked up the large drifts and dumped them towards the edges of the field.
Without the protective layer of snow, the ice had become exposed to the sun and started to melt.
Edward cursed as his frozen hands slid through three inches of water. A hole! A bloody hole in the ice. He inched backwards, still trying to count the seconds. He was already up to two minutes and he was only two thirds of the way across the ice. He crabbed sideways for ten meters and then started forward again.
But again he hit a break in the ice, this a bit further on than before. The hole was larger than just a small break. The middle of the field wasn’t frozen.
Edward stopped moving. Five minutes were up. A light appeared around the side of the castle as the ice gave a long crack beneath him. He tucked his head down and pulled his coat around him, trying to cover his legs with the small cover of snow.
He couldn’t make out what the guards were saying. The light approached the edge of the field. Edward swallowed, his mouth drier than a desert well. He worked the saliva into his mouth and then lifted his head slightly.
“Baaaaaaaaa!” he said. “Baaaa aaa aaaaa!” He tucked his head back in and apologized to all sheep universally for his terrible impression of a ewe looking for her lambs.
The moving light stopped, and paused. He held his breath, almost cheering as the light traveled back to the castle walls. Without waiting for it to stop moving again, he started shuffling across the ice diagonally, skirting where he thought the hole in the ice was. His knees had started to ache, the dull cold of the icy flat and sharp surface flooding through his breeches.
After fifty meters he gave up. He couldn’t risk the guards seeing him again at such a short distance. Then they would realize that the lamb’s wool was merely the inside of a coat, and the sound of the ewe, a sopping wet man.
The hole in the ice had gone. Uncaring, Edward got to his feet and ran as fast as he could across the few last slippery yards, up the steep banks of
the castle mound, and straight onto the wall of the castle.
The castle may have had no secret doorways, secret fireplaces, or secret tunnels.
But it was in fact eminently climbable as a young Edward had found out.
Years of mortar had fallen from the surrounds of the tough and sturdy bricks. Feeling with his numb hands he found the distinctively large foundation stone, sturdily anchored in the center of the castle back. Eight to the side, six up. His hands found the deep hole of mortar. Taking a deep breath and two steps back he sprang forward and putting a toe unerringly onto the hole of mortar, spread-eagled himself across the castle wall.
For a few seconds he fumbled. His arms creeping up and down the stony face until they reached a hold in some shallow depressions.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he had held.
Kicking with his free leg he counted the stones again, his accountant brain picking out the numbers that he needed with ease. “Six to the side, eight up…” He moved his foot into a new depression and heaved, scrabbling with his hands again. “Ten up…Five up…Four to the side, three up…”
He was five meters up the wall when the guard’s light appeared.
CHAPTER 29
Celine sat on the large masculine bed and gazed at the untidy room around her.
Edward was Lord Rochester.
Mr. Fiske, the man whom she loved, was Lord Rochester.
She was sitting in his bedroom, his inner sanctum without ever having met the man. Well, she had met him, but not precisely in the way that one normally met gentility. And to think she’d lectured him on entering another person’s inner sanctum.
Because she’d never been in a man’s bedroom before either.
Celine was no courtesan. She was a woman that put up a front, and walked the walk, but had never managed to seal the deal.
She’d seen a lot though. Pithadora had sent her to work in a brothel, the Hare and Hounds, posing as its owner. Watching as various clients were whipped, stripped, beaten and tantalized, screaming their enthusiasm, shaking the beds with their moans.
Maddening Minx Page 21