A Scandalous Adventure

by Lillian Marek

  That dismissal must have been for the servant. Footsteps faded and a door closed. Was Helga still there?

  Yes.

  “What can have happened to your men?” Her voice. She sounded uncertain. Max took some pleasure in that. It was high time her assurance was shaken. She should be the one worrying for a change.

  “Either Staufer was killed in the ambush and they were afraid to tell me, or he escaped and they were afraid to tell me. Either way, my little plan to blame the princess’s death on him has been ruined.” Dieter laughed again. “Pity. I would have enjoyed destroying Staufer’s reputation along with his life.”

  A sudden onslaught of rage choked Max. He did not realize that he had stepped forward until he felt Susannah’s hand holding him back. Even so, he had to breathe deeply several times before he could nod to her and ease back.

  “But what are we going to do now? What if everyone accepts that imposter? That…that creature!” Helga was starting to sound more panicked than merely worried.

  “Yes, her appearance did put a crimp in your brother’s plans, didn’t it? Now here we are with the real princess tucked up in the tower and no way to reveal her without admitting that we kidnapped her in the first place. A pretty puzzle.”

  “You find this all amusing? Well, it will be your neck as well if we don’t find a way out of this. Don’t think you’ll be able to escape.”

  “I assure you, I have never thought that you would fail to throw me to the wolves if you were caught. I would naturally do the same. What, did you think I had joined in your little plot because I was besotted with you?”

  There was the sound of a slap, a sucked-in breath, and then another slap, followed by a cry from Helga. Footsteps stumbling, then hurrying, and a slammed door. Then more footsteps, unhurried, and a door closing with a creak.

  Silence.

  Max waited, but the silence continued. Finally he nodded to Susannah and slowly inched the door open. He stepped out, sword in hand, and found himself in the Great Hall, a cavernous room with stone walls, barely illuminated by a dozen torchères bearing fat candles and an iron chandelier hanging from the beamed ceiling some thirty feet above them. Long windows on one wall must have allowed plenty of sunlight into the hall during the day, but now they were only stark, black oblongs, unsoftened by any draperies.

  An oak table in the center of the room might have had some function in the past, but at present it held nothing but an empty decanter and an empty glass. A fireplace large enough to roast an ox was cold and empty. A stone staircase along the wall rose up to the balcony that circled the hall, presumably providing entrance to various chambers. It was there that the princess was most likely to be found.

  Motioning Susannah to wait, Max began to climb the stairs as quietly as he could, but boots on stone steps did not allow silence. Any noise he made was drowned out, however, by a commotion at the front of the building. Before he could get very far, one of the rear doors was flung open and Dieter appeared. He halted abruptly on seeing Max.

  A dozen expressions flashed across his face—surprise, anger, confusion—before he settled on unholy pleasure and drew his saber. “How kind of you to drop by, Max. It seems my plans may work out after all.”

  Max dropped down off the stairs and landed in a swordsman’s crouch. His own pleasure welled up in him. This is what he had been longing for—an open battle. He threw his head back and laughed. “You sent four men after me, and they did not succeed. Do you really think you are my match?”

  “Yes!” snarled Dieter, and he drove at Max.

  A flurry of thrusts and slashes were beaten back with no trouble, and the two separated and began to circle to room, each watching for an opening.

  * * *

  Susannah watched from the door in horror. They were smiling. Both of them were smiling, as if they were enjoying this. Were they out of their minds? Another flurry and clash of swords. She closed her eyes. Silence again. She opened her eyes. They were circling again.

  They were out of their minds, both of them.

  The door burst open, and they both jumped farther apart, thank heaven! In came Hugo, with Helga right behind him. They were in a state, wild-eyed and almost hysterical.

  “The prince!” gasped Hugo. “He’s here!”

  “So?” drawled Dieter, not taking his eyes off Max. “If they all die here, your troubles are over.”

  “He’s not alone, you fool,” cried Helga. “He has a troop with him, and General Bergen as well.”

  “Ah. Then it seems we may have lost. Pity.” Still keeping his distance from Max, Dieter took a quick glance around the room.

  The door opened again, and this time the prince strolled in, still pulling off his gloves. “Dear me, Cousin Hugo, have you been allowing your minions to play with swords? You know Angriffer has never been a match for Captain Staufer.”

  Angriffer ignored the prince, but Hugo slammed the door and barred it, throwing his back against it to face the room.

  The prince gave him a pitying look. “You’ve lost, Hugo.”

  “That doesn’t mean you win.” Hugo drew his sword. “I can at least make sure you die too.”

  Conrad tossed aside his gloves and drew his sword as well. “This is foolishness. You have never been able to match me when we duel.”

  “No?” Hugo sneered. “But perhaps I just thought it politic to let my cousin the prince win.”

  In a moment the room was filled with the sound of sabers clashing and sliding and an occasional shout from one of the swordsmen. They had all stopped laughing and watched each other with deadly intent.

  Susannah had no idea what to do. What she wanted to do was tell them all to stop acting like idiots. When her brothers and their friends started fighting, she had been able to stop them by dumping cold water on them, but they hadn’t been using swords, at least not real ones. They had also been small boys at the time. Cold water would be unlikely to work this time, even if she had any.

  She didn’t even dare try to distract them. Perhaps if she opened the door, the troops the prince had brought would be able to separate them safely. She started to edge her way around the hall when she noticed Helga. The baroness was also edging her way along, but she was trying to get to Max and Dieter. And she had a knife. It was unlikely that she was planning to use it on Dieter.

  Susannah quickly reversed course. The swordsmen were all moving so quickly, attacking, retreating, leaping from side to side, that Helga was having difficulty positioning herself behind Max. Her concentration on them gave Susannah a chance. One of the torchères was close to Helga. Susannah reached it just as Helga was raising her knife, and she sent it crashing down on the baroness. The weight of it knocked Helga to the side, and the candles went rolling about.

  The clatter, combined with Helga’s screech, momentarily distracted Max. With a shout of victory, Dieter charged, only to step on one of the candles and go flying himself, losing both his footing and his sword.

  On the other side of the room, Hugo let out a screech as well when Conrad’s blade pierced his shoulder, and he fell to his knees.

  Max recovered more quickly than Dieter and kicked his opponent’s sword to the side. Dieter rose slowly to his feet and backed away, with a glare for Helga.

  “Dieter!” she cried out. “I was only trying to help.”

  “As usual, my sweet, your interference has done more harm than good.”

  “No!” She leaped up suddenly and ran for the stairs to the balcony.

  This distraction gave Dieter a chance. He made for the rear door, only to run right into the waiting arms of Josef and the rest of Max’s men.

  Susannah opted to follow Helga. She could not see any reason to allow the baroness to escape. When she reached the balcony, one of the doors was standing open and she could hear laughter, hysterical laughter.

  The baroness came out slowly, sti
ll laughing, and waving a sheet of paper. “You’ve lost as well,” she finally managed to say. “We’ve all lost. She’s gone.” She looked down at the confused faces below and shouted, “She’s run away! Your precious princess has run away. She’s made fools of us all.”

  Thirty-six

  In the first flush of victory Max and Conrad had embraced and pounded each other on the back in manly and brotherly exuberance. Max had embraced Susannah with a somewhat different but even more enthusiastic exuberance.

  Then reality intruded. There were things that had to be settled, decisions that had to be made.

  A physician was called to deal with Hugo’s wound. It was not dangerous, but Hugo was nonetheless a problem. They were, after all, in Hugo’s castle surrounded by Hugo’s presumably loyal servants and members of his regiment. Those soldiers may not have been aware that Hugo was intending to usurp the throne, but that meant they had no idea why the prince and Captain Staufer were here, in effect usurping that baron’s castle.

  Nor were they pleased to find themselves surrounded by the Royal Guard. The rivalry between the two regiments had grown notorious over the years, and they bristled at being given orders by General Bergen.

  It wasn’t until Prince Conrad appeared and reminded them that their oath of loyalty had been to Sigmaringen, not to Baron Herzlos, that they settled into a kind of sullen acceptance.

  A bandaged Hugo and a snarling Dieter were taken down to the cells to join the guards already chained there. The previous residents had been members of the princess’s escort who had taken exception to her confinement. The guards didn’t know how they had come to escape. All they knew was that their beer had tasted a bit odd—but not too unusual to drink.

  Conrad and Max thought that Helga could not be confined with her brother in the dungeon. Susannah did not see why not, but she knew that men had these odd fits of what they considered chivalry. At any rate, Helga was locked in the room that had earlier held Princess Mila. She did not seem particularly pleased about this and tried to claim feminine weakness that had enabled her brother to lead her astray. Susannah intervened and made clear that Helga could quietly accept the princess’s former quarters or she could share her brother’s cell.

  Eventually, the prisoners had all been provided for, the hunting lodge had been secured, sleeping quarters had been arranged, since it was much too late for a return to Nymburg, and everyone had been fed. But once all that had been taken care of, the euphoria of victory faded.

  Prince Conrad sat at the head of the table with Max and Susannah on his right and General Bergen on his left. The dishes had been cleared away, and once the wineglasses had been refilled, the servants were dismissed. The candles on the table flickered in the drafts that seemed to be everywhere in Krassau, but still provided reasonable light.

  They now had to face their final problem—Princess Mila. She was gone—that much the brief, jeering note for her captors had made plain. But where?

  She had also left a letter to be delivered to her father. That would, presumably, contain more information. But it was addressed to her father, Prince Gottfried. Conrad, Max, and General Bergen were all agreed. They could not read a letter that was addressed to someone else. So there it sat, on the table within reach of each man but untouched.

  Susannah now understood her mother’s exasperation when her father was describing various diplomatic or parliamentary maneuverings. Men clearly had no common sense. They were perfectly willing to try to kill each other with swords or any other weapon that came to hand, but they boggled at reading a letter addressed to someone else.

  “This is ridiculous. Suppose that letter contains information about some danger she is running into? Or some danger she is creating for others? You could be putting people at risk with your silly scruples.” She took the penknife out of her pocket, warmed the blade in the candle flame, and slipped it under the seal on the letter.

  The men gasped or choked or growled but made no move to stop her as she unfolded the missive.

  Then she leaned back in her chair and began to read—silently. It was a lengthy letter. She smiled understandingly a few times and nodded more often. Once she emitted a sympathetic sigh.

  When she turned to the third page, Max exploded. “Damnation! What does she say?”

  She considered asking if their scruples extended only to reading the letter themselves but not to hearing someone else read it, but she decided she had teased enough. “Well, much of the letter is devoted to telling her father what she thinks of him in less than devoted terms. I’m afraid, Your Highness, that she was not enthusiastic about marrying you.”

  She couldn’t resist. She stopped talking and returned to reading.

  “Suse!” Max looked ready to throttle her.

  “Countess!” The prince stretched out his arm to point his finger at her. “I would hesitate to put you in the dungeons, but you could be required to share Helga’s room.”

  She smiled and put the letter back on the table. “I’m sorry. You can read it yourselves. Princess Mila, it seems, is in love with a Lieutenant Bauer. It sounds as if he was in charge of her escort?” She raised her brows in inquiry.

  The prince and the general looked blank but Max nodded. “Yes, I think that was the fellow’s name. Pretty fellow. All spit and polish.” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Well,” Susannah continued, “it seems that he was sufficiently enterprising to engineer her escape from Hugo’s imprisonment, and they have gone off to be married. She is not too clear on where they intend to settle. She mentions South America, but that’s rather vague.”

  “But that’s wonderful!” The prince slapped his hands on the table and beamed at them all. “There is no way Gottfried can expect me to marry his daughter after this. And so I am free to marry Lady Olivia.”

  The others looked at him with varying degrees of consternation.

  While in many ways she thought Prince Conrad would be very fortunate to have Olivia as his wife, Susannah couldn’t help feeling that having Olivia’s mother as a mother-in-law, even tucked away in Naples, would be something of a drawback for a prince.

  Max muttered something about Prince Gottfried and the chance that he might make more difficulties than Conrad realized.

  But they were all tired. The problems would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Some time later, Susannah lay half beside, half on Max, with his arms holding her in place.

  “You aren’t going to try to sneak off in the morning, are you?” Her words came out as a drowsy murmur.

  A deep chuckle was the first response. “No, no more of that. From now on, we go together.” He turned his head to drop a kiss on her hair. “It must be back to Nymburg and the palace tomorrow. But soon we will return to Ostrov. There is so much I want to show you.”

  “Soon.” She sighed contentedly.

  Thirty-seven

  Somewhere south of Stuttgart

  Once he had assured himself that the only actual damage his wife had suffered was to her hat, Lord Penworth turned to the carriage. That had suffered more grievous harm.

  It stood tilted at a sharp angle, one wheel in several pieces. The coachman, who had been hired along with the coach, regarded it balefully. “It cannot be repaired, mein Herr. It must be replaced.”

  “That is obvious,” snapped Penworth. “It must be replaced, or we must hire another coach. Which is likely to be accomplished more quickly?”

  The coachman raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Who knows?”

  Penworth closed his eyes and prayed for patience. He opened his eyes and asked, with a reasonable approximation of calm, “How far is it to the nearest town?”

  “Town?” The coachman looked uncertain.

  “Or village? Or hamlet? Or any sort of human habitation?” The marquis’s calm was rapidly evaporating.

  “Phillip.” Lady Penworth put a restrain
ing hand on his arm, and he took a deep breath.

  The coachman furrowed his brow and thought. “Ah!” His brow cleared and he smiled. “Not far, maybe a mile or so, there is a village. And with an inn. You and your lady can rest there while we fix the carriage.”

  “A mile or so, you say?” Lady Penworth kept her restraining hand on her husband’s arm.

  “Yes, gracious lady.” The coachman beamed happily. “Down in the valley, and all downhill.”

  The coachman’s good cheer was severely irritating Lord Penworth. He patted his wife’s hand. “We could wait here while the coachman goes for help.”

  “We don’t know what sort of help he is likely to find in that village,” she said. “Besides, it’s quite chilly. No, it’s cold. We’ll be far better off walking to the village. At the very least, we’ll be able to have something to eat and wait out of the wind while the coach is repaired.”

  She was doubtless correct. It was cold, and it wouldn’t be possible to wait in the coach. Not when it was tilted at that angle. But as soon as they had extricated Susannah—and Augusta and Olivia as well, of course—from whatever mess they had gotten into, he was never going to set foot in another German state.

  Thirty-eight

  By the time the victorious prince and his colleagues arrived at the palace, none of them were looking their best. The prisoners didn’t even make it that far. They were locked away in the barracks of the Royal Guards. In the guest quarters, to be sure, but still under lock and key, with General Bergen remaining there to make certain they were secured. The rest of them rode into the palace courtyard feeling exhausted and longing for hot baths and clean clothes.

  Weary though the prince may have been, he strode into his palace with an assured tread and an air of command that had not always been there. Max could not help feeling an almost paternal pride in the way Conrad had grown into his role. Problems lay ahead, certainly, but at the moment, with Susannah beside him, all was good.