Lady Olivia gasped and looked distressed. Lady Augusta straightened up, her eyes full of interest.
Susannah frowned in concentration. “That suggests the princess did not leave voluntarily after all. Unless…unless there was a disagreement among her guards? Might he have been trying to keep her from leaving?”
“I wish I could believe that,” Max said. “Unfortunately, the road where he was found leads only to the neighboring estate, which is owned by Hugo Herzlos. She would have had no reason to go there.”
“An unpleasant fellow, that Herzlos. I did not care for him.” Lady Augusta spoke firmly, and then she frowned and added, “Nor did I care for the rest of his family. His sister is presumptuous far beyond anything her title or her person might support. And his father is a relic from an earlier century. Do you think they have kidnapped the princess?”
Max blinked, taken aback. He had been trying to lead up to that gently so that he would not frighten the women, but Lady Augusta was asking as if it were nothing more than an item of gossip.
“You needn’t try to soften it for us, you know.” Susannah sounded impatient. “We could see that there was something wrong before we even reached the castle. You and the general were obviously worried. And Horrible Hugo looked positively astounded to see the princess step out of the carriage. We could hardly fail to notice, so naturally we assume that he is involved in whatever has gone wrong. But I don’t see why he wanted to carry off the princess. Don’t tell me he fell madly in love with her and wants to marry her himself.”
Max laughed shortly. “In love? Not Hugo. But that he might want to marry the princess?” He considered. “That is a possibility. Yes, that is possible. But for that to happen, or at least for it to be of any use to him, Conrad would have to be removed.”
“He cannot mean to harm the prince!” Lady Olivia looked distressed at the idea.
“No, not personally, at any rate. But if Prince Gottfried decides that the princess’s disappearance is an insult to Hechingen and threatens to punish Sigmaringen, there might be riots as there were in ’48, when Conrad’s parents were killed by the mob. Then Hugo could step in to save the situation, rescue the princess, marry her, and claim the throne.”
“The blackguard!” Lady Augusta sniffed her disapproval.
“Would that work?” asked Susannah. A reasonable question.
“Possibly.” Max sighed. “Probably.”
“And his father and sister? Are they involved in this plot of his as well?”
Susannah did ask sensible questions. Max could not keep from smiling at her before he answered. “Helga, yes. The twins are very close, and she has always been part of his plotting, even when they were children. His father, no. The count may be a stubborn old fool, but he would never do anything dishonorable. For Hugo’s plot to succeed, his father would have to be…removed from the picture.”
The three women looked at each other, holding some sort of silent conference. Max broke in to say, “Hugo is confused at the moment. He cannot understand how the princess can be here. Did she escape? Did he kidnap the wrong woman? Until he can speak with his confederates, he cannot act because he does not know what to do. That gives us at least a day or two. We will have you out of the castle and out of the country before he knows for certain that you are imposters.”
They all stared at him. Then they turned away to look at one another, then back at him.
Susannah tilted her head to one side, considering. “It would perhaps be sensible for us to leave,” she said slowly, “but do you want us to leave?”
That was not a question he wanted her to ask, and certainly not one he wanted to answer. He said, “It is not a question of what I want, but of what is needed for your safety.”
They looked at one another again. Susannah looked uncertain, and Lady Olivia was frowning and chewing on her lip, but Lady Augusta sat there stiff and erect and shook her head.
“No,” she said firmly.
“No?” Max didn’t know what to say. He had expected them to be frightened, distressed, worried, perhaps even a bit hysterical. He did not expect a flat refusal—and certainly not from a fragile old lady.
“We gave our word,” that fragile old lady explained with a tolerant smile for him. “We do not go back on our word.”
“How difficult will your situation be if we disappear? Yours and the general’s?” Susannah asked. “It will be apparent that you tried to pass off an imposter. Will you be safe?”
“And the prince,” said Lady Olivia. “What will happen to him? Will he be safe?”
“You see,” said Lady Augusta, “we cannot consider only our own safety. When we agreed to this adventure, a certain train of events was set in motion, so to speak. We cannot very well disembark and leave others to suffer in the crash.”
This was preposterous. Lady Augusta clearly had no notion of the risks involved. Max could not permit them to remain. It was his fault that they were now in danger, and it was his responsibility to get them to safety.
“No,” he said, rising to his feet. “Your offer to help is beyond anything the general and I could have expected, but we cannot allow you to put yourselves in jeopardy.”
Lady Augusta smiled kindly at him, and he felt himself flushing. It was the way his Aunt Magda smiled at him when he said something foolish. “My dear boy,” she said in dulcet tones, “I am sure you mean well, but it really is not up to you to decide what we may or may not do.”
“If we simply vanish, it will put the prince in danger, will it not?” asked Lady Olivia, looking at him solemnly with those huge brown eyes. “And he does not even know that there is danger.”
Why on earth was she so worried about Conrad? It was all very well and good for a woman to have a tender heart, but…Conrad was the prince. It was not for women to rescue the prince. He turned to Lady Susannah. “Lady Susannah, Suse, you saw at the very start that this was a foolish endeavor. Now you cannot let these other ladies persist in an escapade that has turned seriously dangerous. Make them see sense.”
She looked at him for a long minute, but finally shook her head. “I admit that I thought it was foolish at the beginning, but that was because I did not think it would be possible to make people believe that Olivia is the princess. Obviously I was wrong about that. And I also admit that I thought it improper for us to get entangled in your country’s situation. We could, and perhaps should, have refused to involve ourselves.
“However, things have changed. Whether properly or not, we are entangled in this situation, and what we do, or fail to do, will affect others than ourselves. You cannot expect us to turn aside just because we have encountered a few difficulties.”
Then she smiled at him, as if she expected him to understand.
She looked reasonable. She sounded perfectly reasonable. How could she sound reasonable when she was uttering such idiotic nonsense?
“A few difficulties?” Max exploded. “Are you out of your mind, woman? You could all get killed and it would be my fault.”
“You must keep your voice down, dear boy,” said Lady Augusta. “The footmen at the door are not deaf, and I have no idea if they can be trusted.”
He sat down abruptly and closed his mouth. He was losing his self-control as well as his mind, and he’d had to be warned about the most elementary precautions by a white-haired old lady covered in silk ruffles.
“That’s better,” said Susannah. “Now, Lady Augusta is right. It would be dishonorable of us to abandon this cause when we are in part responsible for the current situation.”
“You are not responsible!” He wanted to shake her. “I am responsible. The general is responsible. But not you ladies.”
“Actually,” said Lady Augusta, “the people responsible are the ones who kidnapped the princess. That would be your friend Hugo, it appears.”
Max made a strangled noise.
&n
bsp; Lady Augusta ignored him and continued, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Or one might say that the fault lies with whoever made the decisions that led to the unrest in the country, which in turn made an alliance with Hechingen so necessary. That, I gather, would be Hugo’s father, Count Herzlos.”
“Or Prince Conrad,” put in Lady Olivia regretfully, “for failing to take charge of the country himself.”
“At this point it no longer matters who is to blame,” said Susannah. “But if we run away, we leave the field to Horrible Hugo and Helga the Hag. It may sound petty, but I cannot bear the thought of letting them win.”
“Neither can I,” said Olivia. “Imagine her setting herself up to give orders to the princess. I know I’m not, really, but she didn’t know that.”
“Stop that!” Max was outraged. “You cannot turn this into a joke by giving them silly names. These people are dangerous. You must not forget that at least one man has already been killed.”
“True enough,” said Susannah, “but silly names remind us that they are not infallible. If they were, we would not be here and they would not be so confused. And I refuse to let them drive me away as if I were some timid little mouse.”
“Bravo!” said Lady Augusta, beaming a smile at Susannah. “I knew you had it in you. No child of your parents could be a coward.”
“You don’t understand.” Max rubbed the back of his neck as he shook his head. “During the riots in ’48, when Prince Conrad’s parents were killed… If Conrad had died as well, Count Herzlos would be the prince now and Hugo would be his heir.”
“Ah,” said Susannah. “Hugo looks at Conrad and thinks, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’”
Max glared at her. “It is not funny. And then there is Helga.” He paused.
“Can women rule here?” asked Olivia. “Could she be the princess?”
“She thought at one point that she might be. There was talk of a marriage between her and Conrad.” A corner of Max’s mouth twitched up. “I’m not sure where the talk started.”
“So there is personal animosity here as well as ambition.” Lady Augusta frowned. “A dangerous combination, but one I have encountered before. We need only keep our wits about us.”
Olivia was frowning. “It does all seem a bit unfair.”
“Unfair?” Susannah looked confused.
“Yes. I mean, the way their father kept ignoring them or dismissing them as unimportant, when the baroness would probably have made a very good princess. She’s so beautiful and regal. I’m sure she looks more like a princess than I do.” Olivia lifted an apologetic shoulder.
Max snorted. “She would have eaten Conrad alive.”
Susannah swung around on him in annoyance. “That is a criticism of Conrad, not of Helga. Or do you think a woman must never have any ambition?”
“No, of course not,” Max said quickly, though he was inclined to think so. But he didn’t want to argue with Susannah about that.
Olivia was continuing on her own line of thought. “In fact, the count seemed to deliberately humiliate both his children. That isn’t right. You can hardly blame them for resenting it. I feel rather sorry for them.”
That won Susannah’s attention. “Olivia, stop that right now. They do not deserve your sympathy. Your own parents were far worse—the best that can be said of them is that they generally neglected you—but you don’t go around kidnapping people or getting them killed.”
“Well, of course not.” Olivia looked horrified at the suggestion.
“Quite right,” said Lady Augusta. “You can feel sorry for them after we have stopped them.”
And that was that as far as the ladies were concerned. Struggle as he might, argue as he could, Max could not budge them from their purpose. It was a battle he could not win. He had expected Susannah to see that it would be far more sensible for them to leave immediately. Although he admired her courage, the thought of her in danger tied knots in his gut.
There was nothing he could do except try to see to their protection. He would bring some of his own people to the castle to serve them and to stand guard at the door. They agreed to keep together and to be cautious about allowing anyone into their rooms. A promise to be on their guard was the most he could get from them.
There was to be a grand ball in four days’ time to celebrate the princess’s arrival, and three weeks after that, the betrothal would be solemnized in the cathedral. Prince Gottfried was expected to be present for that occasion, and they could hardly expect their masquerade to fool the princess’s father. That gave them twenty days in which to find the princess, get her into her proper place in the palace, and somehow explain all of this to the prince.
The ladies seemed convinced it could be done. Ha. The more Max thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.
But that plan would keep Susannah here.
She should not be here. It was insanity to keep her here where she would be in danger. How could he be so selfish? He should insist that she leave.
But how could he let her go?
Susannah escorted him to the door. Before he left, he seized her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, holding her in a fierce embrace. “Ah, Suse, if you come to any harm in this, I will never forgive you.”
Fourteen
If she had been asked, Susannah would have been hard pressed to say just what she had expected after the dramatic events of the previous day. However, she was reasonably certain that a lengthy, interminable tour of the Nymburg castle would not have been high on the list.
She trailed listlessly behind the others. Aunt Augusta would probably tell her to stop behaving like a ninny, but Aunt Augusta was too busy flirting with the general to notice Susannah’s behavior. Olivia would normally have asked what was wrong and fussed over her, but Olivia was hanging on Prince Conrad’s arm, too engrossed in whatever he was saying to notice anything else. As for what her mother would say—Susannah did not want to think about that. Fortunately, her mother was back in England, busy spoiling her grandchildren, and had no idea what her youngest daughter was doing.
Susannah was not feeling neglected and ignored. Well, perhaps a bit. But not neglected by Olivia and Aunt Augusta. She was delighted that they were able to enjoy themselves under the circumstances. Really.
What bothered her was that after the tumult of the revelations last night, after that parting embrace, Maximillian von Staufer had simply vanished. Poof. He was nowhere to be seen. He had left no word of explanation. No letter, no message. Nothing.
Had she completely mistaken his feelings? Perhaps the embrace had just been a kindly gesture, designed to encourage her. That seemed unlikely since he had been trying to discourage her. She did not think she had misunderstood, but it was possible that she had.
And how to explain her own reaction? It was not as if she had never been held by a man before. She was almost twenty-two years old, after all, and she had been out in society for ages. London was hardly a nunnery, and she had her share of curiosity. But never before had she experienced an embrace that dissolved her bones and set off fireworks inside her. Last night, however, when Max had held her in his arms, she’d felt as if she had finally come home, as if she was at last where she belonged.
This was nonsense. She had to stop thinking this way. She should not start thinking that it meant anything special to him or to her.
She should not think there was anything more than attraction in her feelings for Max. Not really. Just because he was so big and strong and handsome and dashing and laughed as if he would defy the world. Just because he made her laugh too. Just because his arms around her made her feel safe and protected. She gave herself a shake and straightened her back. This was infatuation, nothing more. And his determination to protect her? Lady Susannah Tremaine did not need to be protected. Her parents had raised their children to be independent and self-reliant.
She stiffened her back and tried to feel self-reliant. It would be easier if that melting warmth deep inside her would go away.
Given the heated direction her thoughts were taking, it was obvious that she had been reading too many novels of late. Tonight she would have to take up something dry and boring. Thucydides, perhaps. Greek history always put her to sleep.
Meanwhile, she needed to pay some attention to her surroundings. The prince may have thought he was showing his bride-to-be her new home—and from the soft glances that Olivia was resting on him, she was playing her part as the princess a bit too well—but Susannah wanted to study the geography of the castle. They had determined to stay and play their parts until Max and the general found out what had happened to the princess and where she was now. However, it would be wise to find an escape route or two, just in case.
Insisting on carrying on with this masquerade when Max wanted them to leave was not, perhaps, the most sensible thing she had ever done. She did not intend to examine her motives too closely. Even so, she was not so foolish that she did not realize there was danger in this enterprise. “Secure your line of retreat” was a piece of advice that she intended to follow.
As they ascended still another staircase—more marble and more statuary—to turn down still another corridor—more tapestries and more windows overlooking a courtyard—she was learning this could be more difficult than she had expected. Over the past five centuries, princes had been altering the castle and adding what seemed to be an endless array of halls.
The tour had taken them through the medieval great hall with its cavernous fireplace, stone floor, and vaulted ceiling. That was where the first ruler, a Hohenstaufen count, had held court. Then they had traversed a Renaissance throne room with its coffered ceiling and checkerboard floor. That was the work of the first prince, Rudolf. Now they had reached the seventeenth century and were admiring the intricately carved paneling with its acanthus leaves and grotesque animals. Above the fireplace was a huge carving of the royal coat of arms. The lions rampant on either side were as large as the real beasts would be. The fourth Prince Rudolf had presided here.
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