“Margrave Leopold.”
“
Him
—that you were released and escaped across to Holland. At the time, you said nothin’ and nobody would get you to set foot in that God-forsaken place again. So I’m guessin’ returnin’ will be damned dangerous for you.”
“Yes. It will be.”
“And you tell me that Midanich is now in the midst of a civil war?”
“Believe me, Uncle, civil war is the least of my worries about returning to Midanich.”
The old man sat up. “And you’re still not goin’ to tell me what happened to you while you were there, are you?”
“Best you don’t know,” Alec replied. “It would only disturb you. Thankfully I can’t tell you. I gave a verbal account upon my return, and not to Cobham, but to the Spymaster General Lord Shrewsbury. And then I didn’t tell him absolutely everything. I couldn’t. Parsons was also interviewed.” Alec smiled crookedly over his coffee cup. “I dare say he was damning of me. After all, he blames me for his expulsion from the country. A great loss of face for an ambassador. Though… I’m not sure what rankled him most: The fact he was expelled, or that he was imprisoned for two nights in the castle’s dungeons and thus kept from his dinner. At least he wasn’t tortured.”
“And you were?”
“Yes. I was given a—um—personal tour of Castle Herzfeld’s subterranean vaulted casements. There is a torture chamber complete with medieval implements. Bone-chillingly fascinating…”
Plantagenet Halsey held his nephew’s gaze. “Let someone else play the hero.”
“You don’t mean that. You know I must go.”
The old man sighed and nodded. “Yes, of course you must.”
A commotion beyond the dining room had uncle and nephew looking to the double doors. The next instant, the doors were thrown wide and two footmen stumbled to get out of the way of a determined little old lady in purple silks and strong perfume, her grey hair upswept and festooned with pearls and ribbons. It was Olivia, Duchess of Romney-St. Neots.
“Y
OUR
G
RACE
, how lovely to see you this fine morn,” Plantagenet Halsey said jovially, rising to his feet, his arthritic knees making it slow going. “I just wish the occasion for your visit was a less worrisome one.”
“Worrisome?” The Duchess pulled herself up short and glared at the old man, who had ended his salutation with a bow. “It’s not—it’s not—
worrisome
. It’s a—it’s a—
catastrophe
.”
Alec stepped forward. “Of course it is,” he agreed soothingly, and took the hand the Duchess held out to him, and drew her closer, to kiss first her hand, and then her rouged cheek. “I won’t tell you not to worry. You must. But if it is any comfort, I have already begun preparations for my departure for Emden.”
“Emden?”
“Midanich’s largest port. I set sail at the end of the week.”
“Oh, my dear boy, why is this happening?” the Duchess asked tearfully. “Why is my darling Emily in such a God-forsaken place? Why did Cosmo take her there? They were supposed to be going to Italy to see her mother! Do you think—I can hardly say it because it has kept me up every night since Cobham read me that horrid letter—But do you think—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you think they are still—
alive
?”
Alec squeezed her hand, saying confidently, because he believed this much was true, “Yes. Yes, I do. And I mean to do everything in my power to bring them home safe. That is a promise.”
The Duchess blinked tears away as she looked up into his blue eyes, and for the first time in a sennight she allowed emotion to get the better of her. She let out a sigh of relief and nodded, wanting to believe him. But then she burst into tears, turned away, and allowed herself to be gathered up in the old man’s embrace. It was some time before she was more herself. She apologized for falling apart, and was most embarrassed to discover she had wept all over the front of Plantagenet Halsey’s fine red wool waistcoat. He told her gruffly not to worry herself over a trifle, pressed his clean white linen handkerchief into her hand, and took her through to the adjoining drawing room with its view of the Green Park. Here he sat with her on a silk striped settee while Alec poured her a cup of tea.
“I’ve re-read your note several times since receiving it in Bath,” Alec told her conversationally as he handed her the teacup on its saucer, then perched on a wingchair opposite. From a deep frock coat pocket he produced a folded single sheet of paper and a green shagreen case that contained his wire-rimmed spectacles. “And I’m afraid it raises more questions than it answers, so I hope you won’t mind if I ask you to explain a few puzzling details to me?”
“Oh dear, I can hardly remember what I wrote,” the Duchess apologized, sipping at her tea. “I was in such a state of distress I fear I fainted when Cobham announced Emily was being held hostage. He told me—just like that! As if it were the most mundane thing in the world—”
“Insensitive blackguard!” Plantagenet Halsey interrupted, grinding his teeth.
“More fool than fiend in Cobham’s case,” Alec replied mildly. “Go on, Olivia.”
The Duchess put her cup on its saucer and continued, saying with a sigh, “Yes, he is—both! So once Peeble had revived me, Cobham waved a letter practically under my nose, as if it, too, were hartshorn! I barely heard one word in five of what he was saying. Besides, what did I care about the politics of the place, or who was ruling, or who had started a civil war, or what our British consul has done to help—and on he went! You may smirk at my lack of interest in a country I know nothing about, my boy, but none of that matters, does it, when it is Emily’s and Cosmo’s lives that are at stake! All I wanted to know was if Emily and Cosmo were safe and well. And how does Cobham answer me? He shows me… He shows me—Forgive me, I am not being very strong, am I?”
She thrust the cup and saucer at Plantagenet Halsey and when he took it, rummaged through her velvet reticule for a handkerchief, until quietly reminded that in her fist she had the old man’s. After dabbing at her eyes, then blowing her nose, she sniffed and continued.
“He showed me a snip of blonde curl, saying it was Emily’s and sent as proof she was indeed being held hostage. And a ransom has been demanded. He said the sensible—if you can believe he had the audacity to use the word
sensible
—thing to do would be to prepare myself for the—for the—worst! Well, of course I fell all to pieces again! So you mustn’t take as gospel the details in that letter I wrote you. All that I truly know is that my darling granddaughter and my nephew are prisoners in a far-off land that is at war, and here I sit, unable to do anything, powerless and frustrated, and-and
useless
. I knew you and Selina would return to London as soon as you were made privy to this shocking state of affairs. And here you are, my boy, and already making plans to effect a rescue. You cannot know how-how—
soothing
it is to have you sort through this mess; even Cobham says you are the only one who can help them.”
At that, Alec looked up over his rims from skimming through the Duchess’s note and frowned. “Cobham said that—about
me
? I wonder why?”
“The man’s just statin’ the obvious.”
Alec grinned at his uncle’s categorical affirmative. “Thank you. But why would Cobham say it?”
“I agree with your uncle,” the Duchess said. “But as to why Cobham says the things he does is anyone’s guess! Not even Selina can fathom him and she’s his sister. He wouldn’t even allow me to read the letter he’d received from Cosmo. He evoked some official edict about state secrets, and only those persons in confidence—
persons in confidence
indeed!—with a need to know are to have access to it. If he, too, weren’t my nephew I’d complain about him to the Privy Council, have him removed from his position as Head of the Foreign Department.” She sighed with annoyance. “It is too tedious being related to practically everybody!”
“Yes, it must be,” Alec agreed with the twitch of a smile, a glance at his uncle, hoping he would refrain from launching into an inflammatory speech—as he had done many times in the Commons—on the vileness of nepotism within government, on what he called a corrupt system made up of unthinking relatives preferring blood over ability, to the great detriment of the country. Thankfully, his uncle kept his peace, so Alec added,
“Best to leave Cobham where he can do least harm, Olivia. He’d only apply for another position someplace else, and where he could actually cause a mischief. As it is, he can hardly take a step in the Foreign Department without Shrewsbury breathing down the back of his stock. And as very little of significance happens in the northern countries of the Continent to worry us—”
“Except for civil war, kidnappin’, and ransom demands!” the old man stuck in with a snort of derision.
“Point taken, Uncle,” Alec murmured and dropped his gaze through his lenses to the Duchess’s letter. “You mention here Emily and Cosmo are prisoners of Prince Viktor and there has been a demand for money and jewels…” Again he looked up over his rims. “Quite frankly, I find this impossible to believe—”
“That they’ve been taken prisoner?” the Duchess interrupted swiftly, a catch to her voice; hope rising.
Alec shook his head. “No. Not that. That Prince Viktor would take hostages and make ransom demands. He just isn’t the sort of fellow who would do that. I spent time with him on and off over the period of three years I was in Midanich, and such behavior is out of character. It just doesn’t sit well with his nature. But, then, he was only a boy… As the son of a Margrave he is wealthy in his own right. So making ransom demands is uncharacteristic, and, to put it bluntly, beneath him.”
“Perhaps he’s run mad or run out of money?” Plantagenet Halsey suggested with a shrug. “The Continent has just had seven—or is it ten?—years of war. Can’t be cheap equippin’ an army to send ’em off across the border to run amok in your neighbor’s garden.”
“Will you be serious!” the Duchess demanded, though the old man’s précis of the Seven Years’ War had her smiling for the first time since entering Alec’s townhouse.
“And there’s the fact that most of ’em are inbred. Got to be. They can only marry each other. Insanity must be rife in their family history. So coupled with the lack of funds… Madness and poverty are a deadly combination. Nothin’ to lose if your brain cracks. Oh, except y’life. But if you’re insane, you’d not think of that, now would you?”
“For a man who abhors Lord Cobham’s politics, your views certainly align with his bigoted thinking,” Alec quipped, folding the letter and slipping it into a pocket, along with his spectacles in their case.
When the old man winked at him, he raised his black brows, realizing then that his uncle was doing his best to get a rise out of the Duchess; at the very least, distract her thoughts from her granddaughter’s dire situation. So he fell in with these plans, adding dryly.
“But I suppose you must. You are, after all, one of them.”
“Alec? Are you accusing your uncle of being an inbred madman?”
Alec bowed. “I am, Your Grace. And agreeing that Cobham must be one too.”
“Your Grace must pardon my nephew for statin’ the bleedin’ obvious!”
“Stop it! Both of you!” she demanded and rapped the old man on the velvet knee with the closed sticks of her fan. “I know what you’re about—both of you!”
“You do?” uncle and nephew said in unison.
“You’re trying to divert me from the horrid fact Emily is in the clutches of a Continental lunatic! But I won’t be diverted. Please! Don’t apologize.” She appealed to Alec. “Just be serious a moment, and tell me truthfully that you know, in your heart of hearts, this Prince Viktor isn’t the sort of mad monster who would kidnap a sweet girl and a gentleman who couldn’t hurt a fly and demand a treasure chest of gems and coin. Can you do that…?”
Alec did not hesitate. “Yes, I can do that, but—”
“Oh, thank God!” the Duchess said on a loud sigh and closed her eyes, a gloved hand pressed to the little silk bows of her heaving bodice. And then she caught the word
but
and opened her eyes wide. “There is a
but
?!”
“Yes. Viktor has two elder siblings. A half brother and sister—twins. Prince Ernst and Princess Joanna. Prince Ernst is the Margrave you mentioned in your letter who is holding firm in the north. Castle Herzfeld is located there, on the hill of the coastal port. It is an impregnable fortress. Enormous. Thick outer walls, an inner wall, and a deep moat between both. And in its center a magnificent castle, with turrets, towers, and a labyrinth of palace buildings.”
The Duchess’s shoulders slumped. “So you think it is this brother, this Prince Ernst, who is holding Emily and Cosmo prisoner?”
“Yes. In all probability,” Alec said and huffed his exasperation. “But it’s conjecture until I’ve spoken with Lord Cobham, and read the letter for myself. Only then can I make better sense of this imbroglio, and hopefully have a much clearer notion of Emily and Cosmo’s situation, and what I must do to ensure I bring them safely home. What is it, Wantage?” he asked, as his butler trod lightly across the room.
“Lord Cobham and Sir Gilbert Parsons, my lord.”
Alec had only time to raise his eyebrows in surprise when the Duchess burst out,
“Splendid! I demanded they come here first thing this morning. They’re late. Now you will have your answers, my boy, and then we can finally
do
something!”
Alec refrained from commenting that he would have preferred to call on the head of the Foreign Department in his office, and said to his butler, “Thank you, Wantage. We will see his lordship and Sir Gilbert in here.”
“Yes, my lord,” the butler responded, and with a slight clearing of his throat added quietly, “Mr. Jeffries would like a word…”
“He will have to wait,” Alec said, staring past his butler’s shoulder and out the window at the blue sky above the Green Park. “And so will Cromwell and Mazarin…”
“If I could make a suggestion, my lord…?” Wantage asked, and continued when his master gave a nod of assent. “As Mr. Jeffries is now your lordship’s valet, perhaps he could take the hounds for a run about the park?”
“Yes, perhaps he could,” Alec responded placidly, ignoring his butler’s self-satisfied smile.