A Pirate's Wife for Me (38 page)

Narragansett snapped his teeth close to Taran’s fingers.

Taran dropped the carrot.

Narragansett picked it up off the floor and chewed it noisily.

Wahkan's dry laughter sounded like the rattling of autumn leaves. "He is the king's horse, and you have not yet proved yourself worthy to be the king."

Taran placed his hand on Wahkan's shoulder, felt its bony strength, and again he realized — Wahkan was strong, he was resolute, but he was old. "Can you do what needs to be done? Can you carry out our plan?"

"Whether I can or not, I will. Do not worry, my prince. I will achieve whatever is possible in my own time and in my own way."

"I have faith in you."

Going to the door, he looked across the long expanse of lawn toward the house. In a second floor bedroom, he saw a curtain twitch.

"Someone is watching." Wahkan might be old, but his sight was keen.

"Yes, stealthily." Taran took the path through the walled garden to a narrow side stairs that led to the second floor. He moved swiftly through the empty corridor to the bedchamber, hoping to catch the watcher, but the spy had fled. He examined the dust before the window. A woman's medium-sized shoeprint was clearly visible. Who was she? Was she an idle maid hoping to escape Cate's zealous drive to restore Giraud to its former glory? Or was she, like him, in disguise?

His mind went to Zelle, the maid who sought the position of revolutionary leader. He could not underestimate her intelligence or her rage, or ignore the fact that she had known him as a youthful debauched prince. Would she recognize him now? Would she unmask him to destroy their plan?

He wanted to find Cate, to make sure she was safe and to warn her about the letters. He raced up the stairs and changed into his disguise. He gathered his weapons — his dagger and pistol he hid in his boot and his sling. His short sword he wore at his side … allowing him to keep possession of the sword had been a serious mistake, one for which he hoped Davies would soon pay dearly.

He took a chance and tied his blindfold in a manner that allowed him to see through it, and ran back down the stairs. On the second floor, one of the young maids spotted him.

So he stumbled and fell.

She helped him rise, and advised him to slow down.

He thanked her and made a show of groping his way to the top of the stairs. He surveyed the entry.

The mercenary, Fortunato, stood before the king's study. He was a sturdy, strapping young man, rather dull and without guile. Now Fortunato looked bored as he practiced tossing his club in the air and catching it.

The door to the study was closed.

So Sir Davies was within.

Taran adjusted the blindfold so he was in total darkness, and descended, using his cane as a guide. "Young man!" he called. "Can you tell me where my wife can be found?"

It didn't occur to Fortunato to wonder how Taran knew his location. "I last saw her back there" — apparently he waved a hand. "Go toward the kitchen. You can follow your nose." He laughed.

Taran laughed, too — nothing like a cruel joke to lighten the atmosphere — and made a show of banging his cane on the tables and walls as he navigated the large entry and found the corridor going toward the kitchen.

He began to call Cate's name; one of the footmen led him to the housekeeper's room and ushered him inside.

"Shut the door," she said.

He did, and removed his blindfold.

She stood holding a stack of letters, looking at him with a mixture of triumph and terror. "This is it. They're here," she said unnecessarily.

"Where were they?"

"In the vase, in that leather packet."

He took them from her, sorted through them, and examined the wax seals on each folded sheet of paper.

"I believe that one is from Italy." She pointed at a seal that included a symbol of the Vatican. "See the shape of the cross? That one must from Austria. That one from France. Russia. That one … I don't know."

"Nor I. Nor do I care. Can you really do as Davies suggested and open the letters?"

"Without him knowing? Some women could, perhaps. Not I." She put her hand on her temples and massaged as if her head ached. "Every day we stay here, we face a greater and greater possibility that Sir Davies will discover the truth and kill us. Kill … us."

She looked worried and worn to the bone. She had been impatient with him and the servants. She had not been trained to this kind of work. Of
course
she was agitated. He put his arm around her. "I gave Throckmorton a deadline. Only five more days and we'll light the beacon and the revolution will begin."

"Five more days? Are you mad?"

He hadn't realized how anxious she was. "I could hide you in town —"

She slapped him away and plucked the letters out of his hands. "I'll take them to Davies."

"Is something wrong? Are you ill?"

"If I don't stay here, you cannot stay here." Her voice was sharp. "So I'll take them to Davies."

Taran wanted to argue. But the abrupt way she moved and the flash of her eyes made him very aware he would not win this battle. Instead he said, "Delivery of letters is the butler's task. Have Harkness take them."

"Certainly! As you wish! But if we are to discover where Davies places the letters so I can later retrieve them, I've got to go in with Harkness."

She was right. "I will go with you."

She sighed in palpable irritation. "Then get ready. I'll fetch Harkness. I can't wait for a new round of dramatics played out in the king's study."

With Taran on her arm, Cate followed Harkness into the study.

While she settled Taran in a chair against the wall, Harkness intoned, "Sir, your latest deliveries include a vase and a leather valise, and are in the dining room awaiting your inspection."

Sir Davies sat behind the scarred hulk of the king's desk and looked almost as fractious as Cate felt. "What are they doing
there?"

"Sir?"

"Why didn't you bring them in
here?"

"The king always inspected his purchases in the dining room," Harkness said.

"I am not the king!"
"No, sir." Harkness managed to infuse absolute disdain into his agreement.

Sir Davies flushed the deep red of humiliation.

"In the meantime, your mail has arrived." Harkness presented the letters to Sir Davies on a silver platter.

Davies's humiliation turned to rage, and he demanded, "Damn your eyes, where did you get those?"

Harkness's brow knit. "Sir?"

Sir Davies gripped the arms of his chair. "Were these sent in a courier package?"

"No, Sir Davies." Cate kept her hands folded demurely before her. "They were crudely stuffed into your alabaster vase. I found them, retrieved them, and presented them to Harkness. I hope you are pleased."

What could Davies say? That she had snooped into the hidden contents of his vase and discovered what he wished to keep hidden? He took the letters. "You have done well, Mrs. Tamson."

"Thank you, sir." She turned away. Because she knew what he would do.

And he did. Men were so predictable.

"Stay, Mrs. Tamson," Sir Davies said. "You, Harkness — you go."

Harkness narrowed his eyes; he suspected her of illicit behavior with Sir Davies.

She shrugged and waved him away.

On his exit, the door slammed a little too hard.

Taran jumped as if the sound terrified him, and he sat trembling.

In a reassuring voice, she said, "Don't worry, dear husband, no one will harm you here." Turning back to Sir Davies, she said, "I hope your overseas correspondence is satisfactory, sir."

Sir Davies heated the short, thin blade he kept at this right hand. One by one, he eased the razor-sharp steel into and through the wax seals. With trembling fingers, he opened the letters and stacked them. Then head bent, eyes fixed, he began to read.

While he concentrated on his correspondence, she stepped behind him to the sideboard, the one piece of furniture which he had installed in this room, the one piece he had not marred or scarred in any way. The one that had attracted her attention only after he had arrived … and now, at last, she had the chance to examine it.

In a display of housewifely tidiness, she stacked the papers he had scattered on the top. She opened a drawer and noted it should have been deeper, extend farther back into the cabinet. She dusted the surface, and as she did, she ran her fingers around the edges of the wood, seeking a latch, a lock, something. And found a clasp cleverly hidden from sight, and secured with a brass lock.

Hm. Whatever did Sir Davies keep in here in safety and in secrecy? She half-smiled. She thought perhaps she knew.

She glanced at him.

He was still reading, grinning widely, scratching figures on a separate sheet of paper.

She took a chance. She tapped the stack of papers sharply above the back end of the cabinet. It sounded hollow.

By God, she had found Sir Davies's hidden treasure!

His harsh voice made her jump.

"Woman, what are you doing? Get away from there!"

She turned to him, papers in hand, and blinked innocently. "Sir, while you are busy and wished to be private, I thought to organize your —"

"No! Get away from there." He moderated his tone. "I have only two more letters to read, and you're distracting me with your shuffling and your tapping."

"I do beg your pardon, sir. Distracting you was not my intention." She had not succeeded in her intention. Close, but not quite.

He pointed to the place beside his desk. "Stand here where I can keep track of you."

She took her place, folded her hands, and watched him read the fourth letter.

Apparently, he found the contents displeasing, for he muttered under his breath, "Parvenu Portuguese villain."

"Portugal!" she said.

Sir Davies viewed her oddly. "Mrs. Tamson?"

"I confess," she said. "I examined the seals. I am without foreign experience, and viewing correspondence from so far away thrills me. I thought I recognized seals from Italy, France, Austria and Russia. I could not identity Portugal."

Taran took a surprised breath.

Sir Davies's jaw dropped.

Perhaps she should have dissembled, but she was too impatient with this man who cared only for himself and nothing for the world's future well being. He and his ilk had murdered her brother. "What does this villain write?"

"He writes that he will take Cenorina away from me without —" Sir Davies took a breath — "that he will sail into the harbor and conquer Cenorina, and I will be able to do nothing to stop him!"

"Yet I believe the mercenaries in the fortress would be a powerful deterent."

"No one has ever taken the fortress, and so I shall tell him!" He groped for his pen.

She placed it and his inkpot near to his hand.

"Thank you, Mrs. Tamson. You are most" — he ran his gaze up and down her — "most helpful."

She smiled. Coldly. "I live to help my employer in all matters while maintaining a respectful distance to his station."
Take that, Sir Davies!

Sir Davies looked flustered.

She glanced at Taran. He was as disconcerted as Sir Davies. "Please, Sir Davies, write."

After one resentful glance — he seemed to imagine she was ordering him — he did. His large, looping letters filled the bottom of the Portuguese letter, expressing some great emotion that contorted his face and made him breath so loudly it sounded as if a steam engine had invaded the room. When he was done, he folded the letter.

She pushed a lit candle and the stick of sealing wax toward him.

He melted the wax into a blob, picked up the weighty gold seal at his elbow, and pressed it into the wax. He lifted the seal away from the hot wax.

She tilted her head to look at the image. It looked familiar. Like … a lion. In fact, it
was
a lion, with a lion's piercing eyes, pouty cheeks, and a cat-like snout. "That's … very regal." Where had she seen it before?

"Yes." Sir Davies turned the seal toward him, and smiled into the lion's face. "It is the dead king's seal. I have taken it for my own."

Cate plucked the seal from between his fingers and stared, mesmerized, into the golden face. Memory clicked into place. "It looks like the brand on my husband's chest."

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Cate didn't know what she'd said
or why the two men froze in place.

Then two things happened simultaneously.

Taran tore the bandage off his face. He slipped his left arm out of his sling; he pointed his pistol at Sir Davies.

Sir Davies stood, grabbed her arm, pulled her toward him, and stuck the tip of his dagger under her chin.