“I fear that if you—if the-the
Herr Baron
—does not give these people a moment of his time, or at least put in an appearance, mayhem may ensue.”
“
Mayhem
?”
“They are orderly at the present moment, and it would seem all they want is for their grievances to be heard, but as I came indoors, I saw a patrol cross the bridge marching in this direction. After what happened at the docks yesterday—”
“Yes. Yes, I understand. You were right to fetch me.” He stuck out his gloved hand for his hat and settled it over his thick black hair. “Lock that satchel away in my
nécessaire de secrétaire
, then fetch Colonel Müller. Tell him he’s needed outside. The last thing this Herr Baron wants on his conscience,” he added, mumbling to himself as he went briskly down stairs, “are more deaths!”
He nodded for the sleepy porter to open the front door, and in anticipation of the cold, squared his shoulders and settled his chin deeper into the soft woolen muffler snug about his throat. As expected, stepping out on to the top step he was met by a blast of icy air that snapped at his lean cheeks and sent his hot breath into the black night. What was wholly unexpected was the reception that awaited him. As his eyes adjusted to the glare of a multitude of flaming tapers held up into the night sky to bathe him in a golden glow, a rousing cheer of welcome went up amongst the crowd that left his ears ringing and his mind reeling.
Staring out across the sea of upturned expectant faces huddled together and pinched with cold, he was overwhelmed. “Dear God,” he muttered. “What have I done…”
~ ~ ~
As Alec went out Jacob Luytens’ front door, the associate of the British Consul, whom Hadrian Jeffries had correctly identified at the docks earlier that day, came inside via the servant entrance and immediately demanded a bowl of soup and some bread. He then sat himself uninvited on a stool by the open kitchen fire and ate in silence; word sent upstairs that the master was wanted on a matter of urgency below stairs.
Jacob Luytens came fifteen minutes later, having waited until Colonel Müller went off with Alec Halsey’s valet to quell a disturbance in the street by the canal. He was not surprised to see his associate, and he poured them both a cup of tea from the kettle on the hob, a jerk of his head to the cook to take herself off.
“Well?” Jacob Luytens demanded when his associate was unforthcoming and continued to slurp his tea in silence. “You have the ransom?”
“It’s there all right.”
“What? You don’t have it with you?”
The associate eyed the consul as if he were brainless. “It’s in a crate,” he enunciated. “How was I to steal a crate out from under the noses of a dozen soldiers, the customs officials, and the Herr Baron’s manservant, who was sniffing about, watching my every move.”
“Was he? Then we’ll have to steal it out from under their noses on the journey east.” Luytens ground his teeth. “And if we’re lucky we’ll be ambushed and the Herr Baron and his sneaky-eyed manservant will get their comeuppance sooner rather than later! If not, he’ll be incarcerated at Herzfeld Castle soon enough.”
The associate’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t know the Englishman, and can’t say I care to, after what the English put us through in the war. I’m with you there. But you’re about to betray a man you once called friend. Who sat at your table and broke bread with your family. And his country trusts you enough to make you its consul…”
“What are you? My confessor?”
“No. I’m your brother-in-law Horst Visser, and that gives me the right to say what I do. Elsa wouldn’t want you to do this.” He stuck out his bottom lip. “Steal from the English—yes. But betray a friend? No.”
Luytens tossed the drip of tea left in the bottom of his mug on the fire and kept his gaze on the flames. His tone was flat. “Elsa and the boys are safe in Amsterdam. That’s all that matters. And what I do—what I’ve done—I do for them.” He looked at his brother-in-law. “Which isn’t nearly enough, now the Herr Baron has seen fit to deprive me of my peat profit. Can you believe it? He’s offered the entire peat stockpile to Müller to distribute amongst the needy!
The needy
. Damn him! So it’s imperative we get our hands on that crate. Look at it as compensation for lost profit.”
Horst Visser raised his mug of hot tea, as if in salute.
“You’ll not hear a word of complaint from me.”
“You can identify which crate?”
Horst Visser nodded. “Lost peat profit aside, why have you taken the Englishman in dislike, Jacob?”
Jacob Luytens threw up a hand as if it was not worth his energy to repeat, but he knew his brother-in-law would not let it go until he had an answer, so he said quietly, “It’s got to do with Elsa. She told me just like that—threw it in my face like a slap—while we were arguing. I don’t even remember what we were arguing over. But I do remember very clearly what she said. It was about her second youngest boy—”
“Peter?”
“Yes, of course Peter! I know his name!”
“Then why not call him by his name? You’ve always done that. Called him “her son”, as if he’s not yours at all. The boy knows it too. So does Elsa.”
“Because he’s not mine. He’s
his
—he’s Halsey’s son!”
There was a moment of absolute calm, when all both men heard was the spit of the fire and a distant roar, like thunder, of shouting, or was it cheering? There could have been all out war in the streets for all these two cared.
Then Horst Visser shot up off the stool and grabbed his brother-in-law about the throat. He pushed him backwards, through the curtain of heavy pots and pans dangling from iron hooks around the rim of the enormous flue, and now disrupted, swung back and forth and hit both men about the ears; Horst not feeling a thing, while Jacob yelped to be assaulted by a heavy cast iron pan smacking him across the forehead. But Horst did not stop. He pushed his brother-in-law until there was nowhere else for them to go, Jacob’s shoulders slammed up against the ceramic tiles decorating the fire surround, and with his shoes inches from hot ash.
“Take that back, liar! Take it back! Elsa would never break her marriage vows! Never! You’re wrong!”
Luytens stared into Horst’s blood-red face and his first thought was: Why was he the one being punished when it was Alec Halsey who had a case to answer? As ever, the man was touched by fairy dust! But by the savage look in the eye of his brute of a brother-in-law he’d be pummeled to pulp if he didn’t tell him the whole sordid story. So he nodded and was reluctantly let go.
Horst stepped back, but his hands were still balled into fists. So Luytens took a moment to adjust his neck cloth and straighten the front of his plain woolen waistcoat, hoping to give his brother-in-law time to calm himself. He was sure he now carried a lump to his forehead and by tomorrow there would be a bruise. Still, it was better than Horst’s fist in his face and a couple of his good teeth knocked out. Finally, he thrust his hands into his frock coat pockets and let out a sigh.
“That’s what Elsa told me, Horst. As God is my witness—”
“Leave Him out of this!”
“She told me her boy—Peter—was his. That they had an affair. So what was I to do? Disbelieve her?”
“Yes! She must have said it in response to something you said or did. Elsa is a good girl. Always has been. And for some reason only known to her, she’s always loved you.”
“Calm down! Calm down! I know that—
now
.” He gingerly put a hand to his forehead and winced. A lump was already forming. “She found out about Berta and me, and so she thought she’d have her revenge—and it worked… for a time.”
“Ugh! You and your whoring ways. I should beat you just for that alone!” Horst lifted his chin. “Go on. Tell me the rest. Tell me your wife is a faithful wife, or I’ll—”
“Keep your fists down! She’s chaste.”
“Ha! So she
didn’t
let this Englishman between her thighs, and Peter is
your
son, not
his
.”
“Yes. But it doesn’t change the fact Elsa wanted the Englishman to rut her! The only reason she didn’t was because
he
rejected
her
. Now that
is
the truth! She told me she tried to seduce him, but he said that as much as he’d like to take up her offer and bed her, she was my wife and we—he and I—were friends, so he politely declined.” Luytens spat into the fire. “Politely! Pah! I’ve no doubt he was polite!”
“So you have accused your wife of infidelity, your son of being a bastard, and this Englishman of seducing your wife, and none of it is true? And you said all this to me, her brother? You’re not only a bloody liar, Jacob, but a bloody fool! I should smash in your face regardless.” Horst Visser kicked out at the stool hard and it ended in the fire. “Damn the ransom! I hope Elsa stays in Holland and leaves you to rot!”
When he turned to leave, Luytens grabbed his arm.
“Stay! I am a bloody fool, Horst. You can’t walk out! By this time next week we’ll be rich men!
Rich
, Horst!”
Horst eyed him with resentment as he retrieved the stool from the pile of ash and set it to rights. He had never warmed to Jacob Luytens. His parents thought the sun shone out of his arse. He strutted about as if he was hard-working and full of plans for the future. But Horst knew he lived off his parents’ wealth, and his plans were schemes. Horst and Elsa came from a strict Calvinist family. Hard work, clean living and thrift repaid you, not schemes, stealing, and betraying friends. However, war and hard times had made Horst a pragmatist. He’d convinced himself that stealing from foreigners was just a way of taking back what they had stripped from Midanich and its people in the first place. No. He had no conscience about taking the English ransom. But he did about being party to betraying the Englishman and his friends.
“Just find a way of getting our hands on that ransom without getting us shot,” Horst finally said. “I don’t know what’s planned for your English friend at the castle, but I pray you have nothing to do with it, and if you do, that you’re not caught out! My sister and her children still need a provider.”
Jacob Luytens shrugged his unconcern. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be careful. And what happens to Halsey won’t be anyone’s fault but his own. He’s brought it on himself.” He then slapped his brother-in-law’s back as he showed him to the side door. “Who knows! The Herr Baron might come through it all, just as he did the last time… He has the Devil’s own luck. I hope some of that luck rubs off on us. We’ll need it to grab ourselves a king’s ransom. Eh, Horst? By this time next week we’ll be rich men!
Horst Visser wanted to believe his brother-in-law. He didn’t. He had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Next week couldn’t come quick enough.
‘
I
S
HE
ALL
RIGHT
? He’s not been attacked and injured, has he? Selina? Selina, what’s going on down there? Tell me!”
It was the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots, and she was propped up against a bank of down pillows in the big plain wooden bed that was central to the room, a woolen shawl edged in ermine across her shoulders and a pretty night cap with puffed ribbon and trimmed with ruched lace covering her coiffure. She had been unwell most of the day, and so had stayed in bed, feeling green and sipping weak tea between spoonfuls of syrup of ginger and a decoction of ingredients only known to her apothecary, fed to her by her long-suffering lady’s maid, Peeble. She was unsure if such remedies were helping or hindering her restoration to full health, but Peeble insisted she take her medicine, and she was too ill to argue.
The Duchess hated being ill. She hated being ineffectual even more. And she hated being cooped up in a foreign country, in a town overrun with foreign troops who spoke in a language that grated on the ear and made no sense to her at all. She had prepared herself to endure ignorance of the English tongue, but to discover that very few, if anyone, spoke the universal language of French positively scandalized her. She was in a land of ignorant oafs! She wanted to be home. She wanted her own bed and her own food, and the sounds of London outside her window. She was sure she was going to die in this place. And then she thought of Emily and Cosmo and mentally castigated herself for her selfishness. But thoughts of Emily, and what she must be enduring in an even bleaker place than this, brought tears and worry, and her heart would begin to race, and the cycle of sickness, apprehension and feeling sorry for herself started all over again.
Thus anything that provided a diversion was worthy of all her attention. And what was going on outside her window, down in the street that ran parallel to the canal, was vastly diverting. Yet it made her just as anxious because there was a lot of shouting and her godson was down there in amongst a crowd of cutthroats, thieves, and soldiers run amok, if what she had witnessed at the docks while waiting to clear customs was any indication of the rough types inhabiting this uncivilized fortress town.
“Selina! Put me out of my misery! Is he all right? Tell me he is all right!”
Selina reluctantly turned away from the window and let the curtain fall. She was suddenly cold, despite the wearing of a pair of padded jumps heavy with jewelry and coin. But the icy winter night air had seeped through the sill and had chilled her bones. So she bustled over to the masonry heater and spread her fingers to the radiant warmth. It helped, but there was something unsatisfactory about not being able to see a crackling fire, which would have made her feel as if her hands were warmer, even though she knew this for fanciful nonsense.
“Yes, he’s all right, Aunt,” she reassured the Duchess with a tired smile. “He’s doing rather well, considering there’s a great crowd of people all talking at him at once, and waving papers in his face. His valet already has his arms full of what must be petitions, and so a soldier is now following behind him, too, collecting up all manner of written scraps. God knows what they think he can do for them!”
“A great deal, if that display at the docks is anything to go by,” the Duchess grumbled. “That soldier did kiss that intaglio he’s wearing, didn’t he? I didn’t imagine it all?”