Jacob Luytens sat forgotten at the table, dunking a ginger biscuit in his tea, a silent observer to the exchange between Sir Gilbert and Alec Halsey, and understanding it all. As he understood now, without the need for translation into any language, the universal look of love… of being in love. He watched with great interest the light that came into Alec’s blue eyes, the softening to his lean face, and the small smile that played upon his mouth as he gazed upon the fine-featured English beauty with the porcelain skin and flaming red hair. And while his first thought was the correct one—Alec Halsey was deeply in love with Selina Jamison-Lewis—his second thought was predatory: How to use to his advantage this most interesting revelation.
Luytens was unaware half his biscuit had plopped into the milky depths of his tea.
A
LEC
HAD
NOT
seen Selina or his godmother and their ladies in waiting since the day before, when they had been escorted to the British Consul’s house by Colonel Müller and his men. Olivia had continued to be unwell, and Selina had stayed by her aunt’s side, taking their meals in an upstairs parlor, where it was quiet and uneventful. The Duchess needed time to recover, not only from the sea journey,
The Caroline
being boarded by pirates, and the ordeal at the docks, but the realization she was in a foreign country at war, never mind the bitterly cold weather—any one of which would have been enough to send even the most stoic of elderly aristocratic matriarchs to bed with a megrim.
It was the first and only time Alec was pleased Selina had accompanied Olivia to Midanich. That she was to travel to Herzfeld Castle with him had come as a momentous shock, when Sir Gilbert had shoved letters of introduction signed by Lord Salt under his nose, citing His Majesty’s wishes. Papers he now had in his possession in the diplomatic pouch, and which he could very easily put to the flame as if they did not exist. Without papers, he could then refuse her travel beyond the fortress walls of Emden. That had been his first reaction to the news, such was his fury. But a sleepless night’s reflection, and considering the matter dispassionately, he saw the need to have a female along to tend to Emily, in her incarceration and later, when released. He just wished with all his heart that female was not Selina.
W
ITH
A
SMILE
, a nod and a bobbed curtsey, Hilda was able to make Selina aware that she understood what she wanted and went off to do her bidding. It was signal enough for Alec to excuse himself to the Colonel, who was busy collating the maps on the table, and Jacob Luytens, who sipped his tea in contemplative silence, to approach the love of his life. But the couple had time only for an exchange of smiles, when Hadrian Jeffries materialized in the doorway. Alec knew that the moment for a private word with Selina must again be postponed; he needed to speak to his valet about his day.
Jeffries had spent the afternoon at the docks, overseeing the soldiers loading the trekschuiten for the journey east to Aurich, and by the look on his usually impassive features, he wanted an urgent word with his master then and there. But what intrigued Alec more was that Jeffries had not divested himself of his greatcoat, gloves, and muffler, and over his arm he had Alec’s chinchilla-lined cape and black tricorne hat, as if he were in expectation of his master going out into the chill night air.
“If you would excuse me for a few moments, Mrs. Jamison-Lewis,” Alec apologized.
“I will be with Her Grace,” Selina stated, adding with a thin smile of regret, “Aunt Olivia asked that I fetch you. She needs a word, and tonight would suit her better than tomorrow morning, when I assume we will be setting off at dawn.”
With that, she went back up the narrow staircase to the bedchamber she was sharing with the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots, leaving Alec to peer after her, the unsettling dread in the pit of his stomach returning, knowing her use of the plural of the personal pronoun was deliberate.
“Have you eaten at all today?” he asked his valet, finally tearing his gaze from the now empty stairwell. Hadrian Jeffries looked worn out.
“With the soldiers, sir. At the docks. Some sort of cabbage stew sopped up with day-old bread, but I was hungry.”
“All go smoothly?” Alec asked quietly, drawing his valet down the corridor to the front of the house, so they could speak freely. They might be conversing in English, but he knew Jacob Luytens understood the language well, even if he could not speak it fluently,
“Smooth enough, sir. That is, I accounted for all our portmanteaux, trunks and crates, and they were loaded up without a fuss. And the cabin—called a deckhouse on a barge, so I’m told—has been fitted out with all manner of the comforts brought with us—carpets, bearskin rugs, coal heaters, and furniture. It looks as if the journey is to be a long one, sir?”
“A slow one is more apt. And we will all be grateful for the warmth. There is little protection between us and the North Sea; the land north of here is all marshes and peat bog. I trust the trekschuiten are being guarded?”
“Yes, sir, guarded with their lives, so their commander told his men. So no opportunity for anyone to do any sneaking about.”
Alec thought of the ransom Luytens had mentioned earlier, and asked, “So someone has been sneaking about—looking for anything in particular?”
“Yes, sir. There was. An
associate
of the consul was skulking about the docks while the barges—sorry,
trekschuiten
—were being loaded up and fitted out. He made enquiries of the dock workers, and those soldiers overseeing the loading, about what was in the crates in particular. And as they could not tell him, he started poking about, as if he had a right to be there. When he was confronted, he said he was acting in an official capacity as the consul’s representative. The soldiers found this surprising, and the dock workers could not care less who he was, and he was ordered away or face a firing squad.”
“You are certain he is in Luytens’ pay?”
“Yes, sir. I saw him here at the house at first light. I don’t forget a face or—”
“Thank you, Jeffries. I know that,” Alec said with a smile at his valet’s taking offence. “And the other matter I asked you to take care of …?”
“The woman made a widow at the docks, and her two children? They are with her dead husband’s sister. What I gathered from their conversation, the new widow had warned her husband time and again no good would come of his smuggling activities. I pretended to know only German, and thus they were free and easy with their speech in Dutch before me. And in this way I learned that the widow was more upset that her children had lost their father, and a provider, than any feelings of a tender nature she may have had towards him. Her husband’s sister was more forthright. She said her dead brother was a
vrouwenklopper
—”
“Wife beater?”
“Yes, sir. In fact, the dead man’s sister was blunter than his wife, and said the soldiers had done them all a favor, to quote her, sir—and I do beg your pardon—
by putting a lead ball in that klootzak
.”
“If our coal smuggler was indeed a wife beater, then she is well rid of him, though I do not agree with the methods used of disposing of him! You gave her the coins and the sack of coal?”
“Yes, sir. The tears shed upon that occasion were genuine, and they could not thank you enough for your generosity. As the house had as much warmth as an iceberg, at that precise moment the sack of coal was worth ten times what you gave them in gold coin.”
“No doubt when their house is warm again, they will turn their attention to their good fortune. Thank you, Jeffries. You’ve done very well.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Alec’s gaze flickered over the cape draped over his valet’s arm and the hat in his gloved hand, and he asked the inevitable. “I was about to dismiss you for the evening, and take care of myself. But I fear you have more to tell me, or more for me to do tonight…?”
Hadrian Jeffries saw the tiredness in his master’s eyes and heard it in his voice too, and he dearly wished he could draw him a bath and send him off to bed. But he knew Alec would not thank him if he kept him in ignorance of what was going on outside this very house. He also knew Alec would want to do something about it, and before the soldiers took matters into their own hands, as they had done at the docks—before more innocent lives were lost, however worthless they were considered by relatives and friends alike.
“Yes, I do, sir,” Jeffries apologized as he shook out the cape. He held it open and put it across his master’s shoulders when Alec turned his back for him to do so. “I apologize, but there are two matters that will not wait until morning, particularly as we are setting off at dawn.”
“I suppose I can always sleep aboard the trekschuit…” Alec muttered, chin up to allow his valet to button the cape across the front of his cravat. He forced himself to be more alert than he felt, pushed the diplomatic satchel on Jeffries in exchange for the knitted muffler held out to him, and this he tied about his neck. “What cannot wait until morning?”
Jeffries next handed Alec a pair of fur-lined gloves.
“You remember the old man and his granddaughter you saved at the docks?” When Alec nodded, he continued. “Well, sir, the servants here tell me he’s been to the house a couple of times today, and turned away each time without any of his messages being passed on. And this he told me himself when he spoke to me just now.”
Alec looked up from smoothing the leather glove over the intaglio ring. “I had no idea he’d called. He’s here—
now
?”
“Yes, sir. He and his granddaughter both. They’ve been here since dusk.”
“Since dusk? What does he want?”
“To put his case like everyone else, is my guess, sir,” explained Hadrian Jeffries. “He’s an Englishman—a reverend—and he and his granddaughter were on their way from England to Hannover via Holland when their ship was boarded just like ours and brought across the estuary here. He showed me his documents—one was a communiqué from the Right Reverend Richard Osbaldeston, Lord Bishop of London, and from a cursory glance at his other papers, he is who he says he is, and he is telling the truth—”
“As a reverend, I should hope so! Why the Bishop of London particularly?”
“The letter from the Lord Bishop gives the Reverend Shirley—Samuel Shirvington Shirley to be precise—the authority to marry English people abroad—”
“Any English couple?” Alec interrupted, and cursed tiredness for speaking his wishful thinking aloud—his immediate thought that the reverend could marry him to Selina tonight, before he set out. Such a notion was not only absurdly romantic, he doubted the excuse of being in a war-torn country would be enough for Selina to agree, particularly with him in his role of Herr Baron. She would rightly make some flippant remark about just who was she marrying—the baron or the marquess? The baronial ring would not act in his favor this time. And because he felt the heat rush up into his face at his impetuous remark, and his valet was regarding him curiously, he waved a hand for him to continue.
“Yes, sir. Any couple who are of the Church of England,” Hadrian Jeffries replied. “Such marriages as the Reverend performs abroad are recognized in England as legitimate, as if the bride and groom had indeed been married in an English church on English soil. And as the Reverend Shirley stuck this letter under my nose, I read it, and can verify that it is indeed what it says; it has the Lord Bishop’s signature and seal. According to the Reverend Shirley, he has married hundreds of couples in this manner, from Verona to Paris, The Hague to St. Petersburg. And now, it seems, his services are wanted in Hannover.”
“Why the urgency?”
“He says that if he does not arrive in Hannover within the next month, he may find his license revoked, because there is a couple there—not noble, but related to the Lord Bishop—who require his services post haste. The Reverend did not say so, possibly because his granddaughter was present, but it would seem the young bride-to-be is—” Jeffries dropped his voice and over-enunciated, “—already in the family way.”
Alec closed his eyes for the briefest of moments to stop them rolling to the ceiling, and said with extreme patience,
“The Reverend Shirley must be aware that he is in a country at war with itself? That Emden is under siege conditions, and that no one gets in or out without fear of being killed, if not by rebels scouting for a way in, then by the grenadiers guarding this fort town? And that’s not counting the fact that it is winter, which would see him and his granddaughter freeze to death within a mile of here!”
“Yes, sir. I did point these facts out to him. But he is adamant. Which is why he has requested that he and his granddaughter be given safe passage as part of your traveling party. And why he is still here after dark, waiting to put his case to you personally.”
“Where precisely is
here
?”
“Outside the front door—”
“
Outside
? He and his granddaughter are waiting outside in this cold?”
“Yes, sir,” Hadrian Jeffries replied. “They have nowhere else to go. All the inns are full—well, all the respectable ones are, and he can’t take his granddaughter to the other kind on account of—”
“Yes. Yes. All right,” Alec replied with an impatient sigh. He frowned. “But why have me dressed for the weather? Surely he and the girl can come within doors to speak with me?”
“Yes, they could, sir, but it’s the other petitioners. There’s too many of them.” Jeffries pulled a face. “You wouldn’t want to invite them indoors even if you could.”
“
Petitioners
?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve been lining up since before dusk, now that they know where you’re residing. The line extends for about half a mile, possibly longer, because I walked from the Customs House, and while it does not go all the way back to there, it does snake over three canal bridges, and from two directions.”
When Alec stared at his valet as if he was speaking in riddles, wondering if in his tiredness his hearing was affected as well as his eyesight, Jeffries added with apology,