“What if he’s busy?” Rubio asked.
“Tell him it’s a favor for an old friend.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You’re looking very rosy today, Emma.” Lady Fanchere smiled as they strolled through the assembly room. “Moricadia agrees with you.”
Emma blushed, her mind very much still on the danger she’d faced last night, and the kiss that had followed. “Yes, Lady Fanchere. I’m happy here.” And ecstatic to discover, after tactfully questioning the maid who brought her hot water this morning, that the Reaper had escaped capture.
“The surroundings are lovely, are they not?”
Emma viewed the spacious interior of this noble building: its marble columns holding the arched and painted ceiling, its large windows facing out into the valley, and its stone fountains, one that ran with steaming hot water from the earth, the other icy from the glacial melt. Both were reputed to have healing powers, and as the morning progressed, the wealthy gathered to sip from marble cups, walk slowly or sit elegantly, and be seen among the modish surroundings and in the sunny atrium. “It’s not the surroundings that make me happy, Lady Fanchere; it’s being in your employ.”
Lady Fanchere laughed musically. “A graceful compliment, until I remember where last you worked.”
Emma smiled, too, so at ease with Lady Fanchere she knew she was being teased.
“But I swear it’s true.” Lady Fanchere would not be dissuaded. “You’re almost blushing. What could be the cause?”
“Perhaps the altitude?”
“After that storm last night, the air is very fresh here,” Lady Fanchere agreed.
Emma felt her face go from rosy to hot. She ought to tell Lady Fanchere about Prince Sandre breaking into her room last night. If she didn’t, Lady Fanchere would find out some other way, and that would put Emma’s character and virtue in doubt. Yet Prince Sandre’s appearance was bound in her mind with the Reaper, her own astonishing courage, and that kiss. She found herself saying, “I might have gotten too much sun.”
“Did you take off your bonnet during your ride with Michael?” Lady Fanchere asked sternly. “With your fair skin, you should be more careful.”
“You’re right, I should be more careful.” In every way. Emma should keep soldiers and princes out of her bedroom, and never, ever should she kiss a ghost.
But still, remembering the night before, and the sensations that kiss had caused, she could find no regret in her heart—or other places.
“Eleonore. Eleonore!” Aimée hurried toward them, looking once more overexcited.
A footman holding three cups balanced on his tray followed.
A diversion for Lady Fanchere. Thank heavens.
“Aimée is so kind, so well- intentioned.” Lady Fanchere rubbed her temple with her gloved hand. “But I only wish that for one moment, she would stop talking, especially about—”
Aimée reached them, out of breath. “Have you heard?” She handed them the cups of steaming water straight from the hot springs, then shooed the footman away. “The Reaper was spotted last night. Here! In Aguas de Dioses!”
Emma froze and held her breath.
“Oh, no.” Lady Fanchere sighed.
“Yes.” Aimée clutched her throat. “He has come for me!”
“Aimée, that’s not possible,” Lady Fanchere said.
Aimée ignored that with a determination that was impressive. “Drink your water, Eleonore. It’s good for the baby.”
Lady Fanchere touched the cup to her lips.
“Emma, you should drink yours, too. You’re all flushed.” Aimée peered into Emma’s face. “You’re not coming down with the plague, are you?”
“I don’t believe so, Lady de Guignard. My health is most robust.”
“Good.” Aimée reverted to her favorite topic without pause. “The Reaper was here, in this very hotel. That handsome Irish scoundrel, Mr. Gillespie Cosgair, said he heard the commotion.” She leaned forward and cupped her gloved hand beside her mouth, and whispered, “They say Countess Martin is here also, and there have been nocturnal visits between their rooms.”
“The Reaper and Countess Martin?” Emma exclaimed in dismay.
Aimée tsked. “No, dear! Mr. Cosgair and Countess Martin. She’s a famous strumpet, but not even she would sleep with a ghost!”
“He’s not a—” Lady Fanchere took a breath. “Aimée, if your only verification was a stranger’s account of some brawl, then that’s a rumor, not the truth.” Her exasperation seeped through her usual calm demeanor. “You must stop repeating gossip, especially about the Reaper.”
Aimée drew herself up to her full height, which still meant she was several inches below Lady Fanchere. “I don’t know about Mr. Cosgair and Countess Martin, but the tidbit about the Reaper is not gossip, Eleonore.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because Prince Sandre arrived hot on his heels.”
Lady Fanchere’s tone became quiet pleasure. “Sandre was here? Is still here?”
“Yes! Yes!” Aimée jumped up and down with excitement.
Oh, no. Emma wanted to sink through the floor. If Prince Sandre was nearby, if he hadn’t left Aguas de Dioses, then Emma really needed to acknowledge the incident last night. “Lady Fanchere, I have a confession.”
Aimée didn’t pause. “I’m telling you, Eleonore, Sandre was after him, but the Reaper summoned the storm and vanished in a bolt of lightning!”
“Oh, Aimée.” Lady Fanchere sounded as if she were in despair.
“I am doomed to die at the hands of either the Reaper or Sandre. They’re stalking me across the countryside!”
“Lady Fanchere, it would be best if you could spare a moment of your attention,” Emma said.
But Lady Fanchere was completely focused on Aimée. “You have done nothing! Why would either one of them want to kill you?”
Emma sighed. She put the cup to her lips; then when the smell hit her, she pulled it away with a moue of disgust. “This is vile!” she exclaimed.
Both women paused in astonishment.
“Yes,” Aimée chirped. “Didn’t you know?”
“Why would anyone drink this?” With a straight arm, Emma held the cup out.
“It’s good for you!” Aimée said.
Lady Fanchere grinned, collected the cups, and gave them to a passing servant.
“So, it’s not the Aguas de Dioses water that put the roses in your cheeks?” Lady Fanchere asked Emma.
“It is most definitely not the water, my lady.” Emma wanted to scrape her tongue.
“Yet Miss Chegwidden looks so fetching this morning,” said Prince Sandre from behind them.
In a flurry, the three women turned and curtsied.
Emma kept her gaze down and wished desperately to be somewhere, anywhere, but here.
A quick glance at Aimée proved she felt exactly the same.
“Now, now, cousin.” He opened his arms and embraced Lady Fanchere, and kissed both her cheeks. “You needn’t be so formal. We’re family!”
Lady Fanchere hugged him with obvious delight. “It is good to see you, Sandre. It’s been too long.”
“You’ve been reclusive. Why is that?” He held her hands.
“She’s increasing,” Aimée piped up.
Prince Sandre started, eyes wide with surprise, then smiled broadly. “Is that true?”
“It was a secret,” Lady Fanchere said crushingly.
“But such good news. Congratulations to Fanchere at last.” He kissed her cheeks again, then turned to Aimée and embraced her, too. “As for you, little cousin—still saying too much about that which should be kept silent. Such indiscretion could get you killed.”
He sounded genial, but the words were cold, and Aimée shrank as if he’d slapped her.
Emma shrank, too, at his public reprimand of Aimée, and because she recalled last night and his visit and the way his eyes had turned to ice when he spoke of the Reaper. The more she heard, the more she realized Sand
re was a truly frightening man.
Lady Fanchere put her arm around Aimée’s shoulders. “I don’t mind, Sandre. The truth will be obvious soon enough, and dear Aimée has been nothing but kind and helpful since she arrived at my home, saddened by Rickie’s death.”
Prince Sandre’s mouth tightened. “Yes, Rickie’s death was a tragedy, and one I promise will not be repeated. We almost caught the Reaper last night. The net is closing.”
“So it’s true? He was here?” Lady Fanchere looked suddenly tired, as if that news were more than she could bear.
Emma took her arm. “My lady, if you would . . . You’ve walked enough, and there are seats in the atrium. Let’s go there, and I’ll find you a cup of water, cold water, from the glacier.”
“That would be pleasant,” Lady Fanchere acknowledged.
“Let me clear the way.” Prince Sandre walked briskly toward a group of Moricadians relaxing on chairs in an alcove. He spoke to the occupants. They scattered. And in only seconds, Emma was able to place Lady Fanchere in a cushioned chair with a view of the glacial wall of ice and the stream that raced from beneath its icy toes.
“Thank you, Sandre. That was very good of you.” Lady Fanchere rubbed the small of her back.
Aimée chafed her hand.
Emma put her shawl around her shoulders.
“I’m not an invalid, you know,” Lady Fanchere objected.
“No, just well loved.” Aimée’s plump, pink cheeks and sunny smile made a mockery of her black mourning gown.
Lady Fanchere lightly touched her arm. “You’re a dear. Now.” She turned to Prince Sandre, and her eyes were unexpectedly severe. “Emma tried to tell me something earlier, and I wasn’t listening. But you seem to know my dear Emma, and I wonder how.”
Emma winced and said, “I should have told you immediately, but—”
Lady Fanchere interrupted, “I asked Prince Sandre for his explanation.”
Emma subsided, so embarrassed at the reprimand and the coming tale, she could do nothing but sit with her hands twisting in her lap.
But Prince Sandre was more than glad to answer Lady Fanchere. He posed, a hand on one hip, and said,
“It is true. Coward that he is, last night the Reaper chose to hide among the weakest and gentlest of the people in Moricadia. He ran upstairs into the servants’ wing—”
“Where you are housed, Emma?” Lady Fanchere asked.
“Yes, my lady,” Emma said in a small voice.
Almost without pause, Prince Sandre plunged on. “And I ran after him, my men on my heels. He hid—”
Lady Fanchere interrupted again. “But not in your room, Emma?”
“I heard the boots thumping as the prince’s men searched,” Emma said.
“Although we searched all the rooms,” Prince Sandre continued, “we didn’t find him. He escaped, and now it is up to us to bring him down.”
“You can’t take down a ghost!” Aimée said. “He’s ephemeral.”
Prince Sandre turned on her, his face savage with impatience. “I have a plan.”
Emma lifted her head and considered him, eyes narrowed. A plan? He had a plan?
“Dear Aimée, don’t be silly.” Lady Fanchere pressed Aimée’s arm with her hand, and at the same time stared reproachfully at Sandre.
Once more, he donned the facade of the noble warrior. “Silly Aimée. You’re so childlike in your belief, almost as if you were Moricadian yourself.”
Aimée tried to speak again.
Lady Fanchere shushed her.
Emma took a breath. Took another breath. Then inserted herself into the conversation. “Your Highness, won’t you tell us about your plan to capture the infamous Reaper?” She was surprised to hear herself sound so calmly interested and so . . . so . . . composed, as if she regularly made conversation with royalty and noblewomen. Had it been only three days ago that she’d massaged Lady Lettice’s feet?
Yet Lady Fanchere cast her a grateful glance, as if Emma had planned her intervention to save Aimée from censure.
And Prince Sandre smiled at her, a man proud of his intentions and the woman who invited him to proclaim his wiliness. “A good question, Miss Chegwidden. Tonight and every night until we hold him crushed in our fist, my men will wait at the crossroads between the lower city and the castle. They’ll place a rope across the road, wait on either side, and when they see the Reaper galloping close, they’ll pull the rope tight. The horse will fall, the Reaper will be flung to the ground, and we’ll capture him. And hang him, of course.” He paused, waiting for praise.
Aimée was shaking her head.
Emma couldn’t speak for dismay. Would Sandre’s scheme work? Would the Reaper die, leaving the Moricadian people without a champion?
“A sound plan, Sandre,” Lady Fanchere said. “I hope that brings an end to this terror that has stalked the land.”
Her turn of phrase displeased Prince Sandre. “The Reaper is not a terror. He is a foolish, measly coward, and I will have his head.”
In a cold, clear voice, Aimée asked, “If he’s a foolish, measly coward, then what are you that you’ve let him roam free for so long?”
Sandre turned apoplectic red from his starched white cravat to his forehead.
Emma wanted to moan. How could Lady de Guignard be so wise and so foolish at the same time?
“Aimée, I think it would be best if you went to rest. I believe you have a headache.” Lady Fanchere sounded coldly angry.
Aimée seemed startled by Lady Fanchere’s tone. She glanced up at Prince Sandre and whispered, “Oh. Yes. I do.” Standing, she curtsied, turned, and scuttled away.
“I do not know how you stand that woman,” Prince Sandre said.
Without pause, Lady Fanchere attacked. “You were in Emma’s bedroom last night?”
He sighed theatrically. “I’m afraid so, but let me offer my assurances that your companion was completely safe in my company.”
“Emma wasn’t alone with you,” Lady Fanchere said. “You said your men were there.”
Emma half closed her eyes, wondering if Prince Sandre would lie, and half hoping he did.
“It wasn’t proper for my men to be in a young lady’s room, so I sent them out.”
Lady Fanchere abruptly stood. “Sandre, if you would, I’d like a moment of your time.”
Prince Sandre nodded as if Lady Fanchere’s request didn’t surprise him. He bowed to Emma, took Lady Fanchere’s arm, and led her away.
Chapter Seventeen
Emma glanced at Lady Fanchere and Prince Sandre, knowing full well she was the subject of their conversation, wondering what Lady Fanchere would say to him . . . but although her future depended on this conversation, it wasn’t what occupied her mind. Instead, she wondered how she could possibly pass a warning to the elusive Reaper.
“Miss Chegwidden?” A stranger’s voice made her turn and stare. His English was flawless. He was handsome, but in an intense, brooding way that made her think he would be an uncomfortable companion. He wore a dark suit and white linens that looked as if they had come from London’s finest tailor—and he looked not at all familiar.
“I’m Miss Chegwidden,” she acknowledged.
“How good to see you again.” He bowed with the seamless elegance of a gentleman born.
So she had met him. But where? “I fear I don’t recall ...”
“You don’t remember me. Of course, why would you?” He smiled at her as if expecting nothing more, although why this man should be modest, she didn’t know. “I’m Raul Lawrence, the son of Viscount Grimsborough. You and I met briefly at a gathering at St. Ashley. You were very young then, but somehow we had a chance to visit, and you know one of my sisters—from school, I believe.”
“Of course.” Still she didn’t recall him, or his sister, either. But she had certainly attended gatherings at St. Ashley, at Christmas and on May Day. And at her boarding school, she had met many noblewomen who noticed her only in passing. Some were kind to the rector’s dau
ghter, others less so. Apparently his sister was one of the kind girls, so Emma pretended recollection.
“How very good to see you again. Are you visiting in Moricadia?”
“I live here.”
“Here?” She looked around the assembly room. Her gaze rested on Prince Sandre and Lady Fanchere, and once again she wondered what was passing between them that made Lady Fanchere look so solemn and Prince Sandre speak so persuasively.
“Not here. But in Moricadia. I own a villa not far from Aguas de Dioses. It’s a bit of a rattrap, I fear, deep in the woods without another dwelling for miles, but I make do.” He indicated the promenade. “Shall we?”
She didn’t really know him. Yet this was a public place, and he was an Englishman. This was proper, and just because she had a niggling of unease didn’t mean she shouldn’t accept his invitation. Rising, she joined him and the other members of Moricadian society as they strolled around the huge room, chatting and drinking their vile water. “What made you settle in this country?”
Mr. Lawrence waved off a footman who offered a cup-filled tray. “I’m in exile, actually. My father’s a bit of a tyrant and I take ill to his hands on the reins. For all that he successfully shoved me down everyone’s throat for years, I’m not well received among the bon ton.”
He sounded like a misfit, like her. Like the Reaper. “Why is that, Mr. Lawrence?”
“I’m a bastard,” he said bluntly.
He had her full attention once more.
“I’m sorry; I’ve left you speechless,” he said. “But it’s true. So I live here among a society that is more tolerant of reprobates and gamblers.”
“Is that what you are?” she asked solemnly.
“Yes. I’m a bit of a rebel, actually.” He paused significantly.
When that sank in, she turned her startled gaze on him. Rebel? Did he say rebel? Did he mean what she thought he meant?
He smiled and inclined his head. “Yes, I think you and I are both rebels.”
She stopped cold.
He put his hand on her arm and gave a little yank. “Keep walking, Miss Chegwidden, and look pleasant and slightly interested.”
She moved with him, thinking furiously, trying to put all the pieces together. Was Mr. Lawrence a friend of the Reaper’s?
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