Royal Blood (25 page)

“How can a stranger have come into the castle, my lady?” Dragomir asked. “You have seen for yourself—there is only one gate and it is guarded at all times. The only other way in would be to fly.”

“Or climb up the wall?” I suggested.

He laughed. “You have been listening to the rumors of vampires, have you not? No man in his right mind would attempt to climb the castle wall.”

“So none of the servants has reported seeing a strange young man—pale, with fair hair?”

“No, my lady. None of the servants has seen any kind of stranger in the castle. They would have reported to me instantly if they had. I’m afraid your English lady friend is letting her imagination run away with her. Remember how upset she was when she first arrived here. Of course His Highness, your betrothed, has light hair. Perhaps she saw him.”

I wrestled with taking this one stage further and telling him that I had seen the young man myself and his portrait had hung in my room until it was mysteriously changed for another one. But Dragomir decided this for me by saying, “Pardon me, Highness, but I am wanted elsewhere.” And he backed away from me.

I was just considering how strange it would be if I really were a princess and people had to back away from my presence, when Lady Middlesex came over to me, with Miss Deer-Harte in tow.

“Well, there’s a turnup for the books,” she said. “I see you’ve made a good match for yourself. The queen will be pleased. My congratulations.”

I managed a weak smile and nod. “I asked Dragomir if any of the servants had reported seeing Miss Deer-Harte’s young man, but he dismissed the idea that there could be a stranger in the castle.”

“I know what I saw,” Miss Deer-Harte said emphatically. “And I’m going to prove to you all that I was right. He can’t escape in this weather so I’ll spot him eventually and I’m wearing my whistle. As soon as I see him I’ll blow it to attract attention.”

“Watch what you’re saying, Deer-Harte—here comes that awful man.” Lady Middlesex glanced over her shoulder. And sure enough, Patrascue, with a couple of his men in tow, had entered the drawing room. Although everyone else was dressed for the evening, he was still in a black street coat with the collar turned up. He stood in the doorway, looking around. It was as if an icy blast had entered the room. The women froze in midconversation. Patrascue waved his hand lazily. “Do not let me disturb you, Majesties. Pray continue.”

He spotted me and women stepped aside for him as he made a beeline for me. “I hear that congratulations are in order. So you changed your mind and accepted his offer, did you, English Lady Georgiana? Soon you will be one of my people. I look forward to that day.”

Again I felt the threat: soon I will have control over you. But I managed a gracious nod and words of thanks.

“The men have not yet left the dinner table, Mr. Patrascue,” the queen said in her clear French voice. “I suggest you leave us ladies to finish our coffee and brandy in peace.”

“Majesty.” Patrascue managed a semipolite nod and retreated again. I heaved a sigh of relief.

“Don’t let that man upset you, my dear,” the queen said, extending her hand to me. “I can’t think why he is so interested in you, but ignore him. We all do. Come and have a glass of cognac. You look quite pale.” And she led me back into the fold.

Soon after, the men joined us. Siegfried and Nicholas came over to us. Siegfried took my hand and pressed his cold fish-lips against it. Uck. If it was that bad against my hand, I dared not think what it would feel like actually kissing him.

“You are a very wise girl,” he said. “May I congratulate you on your good taste. You will lead a happy life.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say back. I merely tried to force a smile and wished that the floor would open up and swallow me. Fortunately Matty didn’t suggest dancing again so I wasn’t forced to dance with Siegfried. Instead a roulette wheel was brought out and what seemed to me like large sums of money were soon being wagered.

“How old are you now, Georgiana?” Siegfried asked me.

I told him I was twenty-two. He placed a stack of chips on twenty-two. “In your honor,” he said. “I feel sure you will bring me luck.” And sure enough, the wretched wheel landed on the number the very next spin. Siegfried smiled and pushed a mound of chips over to me. I put random chips on the board, without the slightest idea what I was doing, and it seemed that I couldn’t lose. I noticed that both Patrascue and Dragomir had entered the room and were standing watching in the shadows.

“I think I had better give you back your chips before my luck turns,” I said when I could stand the tension no longer.

“Your luck will not turn while you are with me,” he said, “and of course the winnings are yours to keep. You will need to start preparing your trousseau.”

When I went to cash them in I was amazed and delighted to find that I had apparently won several hundred pounds. On any other occasion this unexpected windfall would have brought relief and jubilation. Tonight it was like a condemned man hearing that his horse came up on the Derby.

As soon as I was able I slipped away, up to my room. Still no sign of Queenie. I felt a growing knot of fear in my stomach. People didn’t just disappear without reason. One person had been murdered already. Had Queenie stumbled upon the killer and been in the wrong place at the wrong time? If it was our light-haired young man, then she had seen him in her room and could identify him. Of course then so could I, which might mean I was also in danger. I went across and peered out into the night. It was snowing gently now and outside was the silence that only comes with snow.

“I wish you were here, Darcy,” I said into the night. “I hope you’re all right.”

I latched my shutters, pulled the heavy drapes back into place and stood staring at the dying fire. My nerves were wound as taut as watch springs. In one day the head of a secret police had threatened me with jail, I had found that I was engaged to the repulsive Siegfried and my maid had vanished. Not to mention that there had been a murder in the castle. I certainly couldn’t go to bed not knowing what had happened to Queenie. I lit a candle and made my way up to her room again. But it was untouched. The hallways and stairs were deserted. I really didn’t know what else I could do. I stood peering down one dark passageway after another. Dragomir had promised to send servants to look for her and I didn’t know my way around half of the castle. I had no choice but to go back to my room and get ready for bed.

I lay there for a long time, unable to sleep. I was just drifting off when I heard a scraping noise outside my window, then the rattle of my shutters. I sat up, awake and alert. I had latched the shutters from inside, hadn’t I? I stared into the darkness, wishing the heavy drapes weren’t covering the windows, every fiber of my being poised for flight. Nothing moved. There was no more sound. I relaxed. It must have been a sudden gust of wind that had rattled the shutters, nothing more, I told myself. But just to be on the safe side, I went to the mantelpiece and retrieved that candlestick again.

I lay there, gripping the candlestick, and began to feel rather silly. I was worrying too much, I told myself. Queenie had slipped and fallen down some disused stair. She’d probably twisted an ankle and would soon be found. And there was no such thing as vampires. Even as I had this thought I felt a waft of icy air strike my face and the curtains moved. Then, as I stared in horror, a white hand appeared between the curtains and a figure slipped noiselessly into my room.

Chapter 28

My bedroom in the middle of the night
Friday to Saturday, November 18 to 19

I sat up, gripping the candlestick. The dark figure came closer to my bed, moving with catlike grace. As he pulled aside the bed curtain and bent toward me I raised the candlestick to strike. Then I saw his silhouette against the fire. His head and neck were covered in fur. I must have gasped as I raised the candlestick because a hand grabbed my wrist as another hand came over my mouth.

“Don’t make a sound,” said a voice in my ear.

I stared up at him, trying to make out his features in the firelight glow. But I recognized the voice all right.

“Darcy? What on earth are you doing here?” I demanded, relief flooding over me. “You nearly scared the daylights out of me.”

“I can see that.” He took the candlestick from me. “Quite the little tiger, aren’t we? If you hadn’t taken a breath I’d have been lying here with my head bashed in. Rule one of the secrecy game—never breathe.” And he smiled as he took off his coat and hat and perched on the bed beside me.

“I gasped because I caught sight of your head and I saw it was shaggy fur. I thought you were a werewolf.”

“First vampires and now werewolves. What next—witches, fairies? Come to think of it there are some fairies in the castle already.” He grinned. “For your information, it’s only the sort of hat the local chaps wear to go hunting.” He undid the strap under his chin. “See—it has earflaps. Wonderful for keeping out the cold.”

“But what are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you’d gone off with Pirin’s body.”

“I did,” he said. “But I decided I didn’t quite like what was going on at the castle so I thought I’d double back and keep an eye on things. Field Marshal Pirin won’t mind. I left the car in a suitable snowdrift and skied back down again.”

“Did you really just climb up the wall?”

“Not as impossible as it sounds,” he said. “Someone had conveniently left a rope hanging down.”

“What if it wasn’t properly tied? You’d have fallen and been killed,” I said.

“A fellow has to take the occasional risk in life, you know.”

“Not this fellow,” I said. “I don’t want to find your broken body lying on rocks, is that clear?”

He looked at me tenderly and brushed back a strand of hair from my face. “Don’t worry about me. I lead a charmed life. Luck of the Irish.”

“Oh, Darcy, you are so infuriating I could kill you,” I said and flung myself into his arms. My cheek nestled into the wet wool of his coat as he held me tightly. “You smell like wet sheep,” I said, laughing.

“Stop your complaining, woman,” he said. “I’ve plowed through a snowstorm and climbed a castle wall to see you. You should be grateful.”

“I am. Very grateful. You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

“So has anything significant happened since I went away?”

“Not much, apart from discovering for whom the poison was really intended, having evidence planted on me by the secret police, oh, and finding out that I’m engaged to Prince Siegfried.”

“What?” He started to laugh. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

“Deadly serious about all three things.”

“You didn’t really agree to marry Siegfried. Promise me you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t actually, but he thinks I did. His father announced the engagement at dinner tonight, so I could hardly leap to my feet and make a scene in front of all those people, could I?”

Darcy was scowling now. “What on earth gave Siegfried the idea that you were going to marry him?”

“I suppose I gave him too much encouragement last night.”

“You encouraged him?”

“I had to find a way to keep him from going up to visit Marshal Pirin,” I said. “So I begged him to dance with me. Then he said something to me this evening, but Matty was talking at the same time and I didn’t quite hear what he said so I smiled and nodded.” I looked up at him hopelessly. “What am I going to do, Darcy? I have to get out of it without causing an international incident.”

“For now you’d better go along with it, I suppose,” Darcy said. “Don’t worry. We’ll sort it all out somehow. At least you don’t have to worry about Siegfried trying to slink into your bedroom at night. So what about the other matters? You say you’ve found out that the poison wasn’t intended for Pirin?”

I nodded and told him about the glass. His face was grave. “So it was intended for Nicholas. Have you mentioned this to anyone else?”

“To Nicholas himself. I thought he had a right to know and to be extra vigilant. I don’t know if he’s told anyone else. He might have told Matty for all I know.”

“That would have been a mistake. It may be all around the castle by now.”

“At least the poisoner is warned that we know the truth. He’ll hardly dare try it twice.”

“But he may try something else instead. It’s all too easy to dispose of a person in a place like this.”

“I know,” I said. “My maid has disappeared too. I’m so worried about her. I can’t think where she’s gone.”

“And you said the secret police attempted to plant evidence on you?”

“What appeared to be the vial of cyanide showed up in my trunk.”

“That idiot Patrascue, I suppose.” Darcy scowled again.

“You know about him?”

“Oh, yes. We’ve met before.”

“He was so angry that you’d managed to escape with the body. He was rather horrible, Darcy. He threatened me with prison.”

“What on earth would have made him suspect you? I know he’s not very bright, but—”

“I think he was just trying to frighten me into implicating Dragomir,” I said.

“That makes sense. It sounds like his modus operandi.”

“But I didn’t allow him to intimidate me. I think he was rather miffed.”

Darcy was staring into the firelight. “I wonder if he has anything to do with the disappearance of your maid, then. He’s taken her as a bargaining chip, maybe?”

“How horrible. I shall be furious if he’s done that. She’s a simple girl, Darcy. She’ll be scared out of her wits.”

Darcy’s arm tightened around my waist. “Don’t worry, I’m back now. We’ll sort everything out tomorrow.”

I nestled my head back against his chest and closed my eyes. “I hope so,” I said. “I just wish someone would find the murderer and make everything right again.”

“So you’re no nearer to finding out the truth?” Darcy asked.

“If the poison was intended for Nicholas, then I suppose it’s possible that we’re dealing with a trained assassin, or even an anarchist who climbed in, using that rope you found, planted the poison and climbed down again. The only thing against that theory is that there don’t appear to be any tracks leading away from the castle.”

“You’re overlooking something else,” Darcy said. “Someone in the castle must have let down the rope for him. That means that he had inside help. More than one person is involved.”

“We know that only Dragomir and the servants were anywhere near the table,” I said, “but there is a mysterious Mr. X we have to factor in. Remember I told you a strange man came into my room and bent over my bed, and I thought he was a vampire?”

Darcy nodded. “And I told you it was a case of the wrong room.”

“Well, I’ve looked all over the castle and I haven’t seen him anywhere again. Except that his portrait, or the portrait of someone very like him, was hanging on the wall when I first arrived and then someone changed it for the one you see now. Why would anyone do that?”

Darcy shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“If he wasn’t a vampire, if he was a real person, then it is someone who knows the castle well. Perhaps the portrait was of one of his ancestors and he realized that it resembled him closely so he sneaked in and removed it.” I sat up, suddenly realizing something. “Dragomir,” I said. “He told me his family used to own this castle, and there is a portrait downstairs that looks just like him. What if this is another family member? Apparently they were driven from their castle by the Turks after a failed uprising. They expected their neighbors to help them, but nobody did. So what if this is a revenge killing?”

“Hardly,” Darcy said. “That family was driven from the castle more than two hundred years ago. I know that vengeance is a strong force in this part of the world, but the current royal families of both Romania and Bulgaria only came to their thrones in the eighteen hundreds. They really have no ties to the Balkans. They were set in place by the European powers, and, as you know, Nicholas is from the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line, like yourself. A Transylvanian dynasty could have no feud with them.”

“Count Dragomir is bitter that he is now a glorified servant in a castle his ancestors used to own,” I said.

“Then he’d want to strike at the Romanian royals, not a Bulgarian prince, wouldn’t he?”

“Which brings us back to my mysterious Mr. X,” I said. “Lady Middlesex’s companion, Miss Deer-Harte—” I stopped as Darcy started laughing. “She can’t help her name,” I said. “Just stop it and listen. Miss Deer-Harte is a professional snooper. She claims she saw the same man creeping along one of the corridors at night and then she saw him lurking in an archway at dinner the first night. She says it was the archway immediately behind where Nicholas was sitting and she thinks he was casing the joint, as Lady Middlesex put it.”

Darcy got up and walked over to the fire, taking off his wet coat and throwing it onto a chair. “Have you told anybody about this except me?” he asked.

“I didn’t know who to tell,” I said. “We’ve managed to keep it from the royals so far. Count Dragomir is the only one who could institute a thorough search of the place and he might well be involved.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Darcy said. He perched on the low chair by the fireplace and started to unlace his boots. “I may do some snooping of my own, but in the meantime don’t let anyone know that I’m back. If you’ve no maid at the moment, all the better because I can hide out in here.”

“You’re not going to start snooping now, are you?” I asked.

“I have just made my way through a snowstorm and climbed a long way up a rope and I’m whacked out,” he said. “Move over. I’m coming to bed.”

He snuggled in beside me, wrapping me into his arms. “Now that you’re betrothed to the heir to a throne I could probably face the guillotine for this,” he whispered and kissed me. I tried to respond to his kiss, but the tension of everything that had happened kept intruding.

“I’m sorry. It’s no use,” I said. “I’m so upset by everything that I can’t stop thinking and worrying.”

“Don’t worry about this leading to anything, because it’s not going to,” he said. “I’m so tired that I could fall asleep on the spot. In fact . . .”

And I saw his eyelids flutter shut. He looked adorable with his eyes closed, almost like a child asleep, his eyelashes unfairly long for a man’s. I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“Damn Siegfried,” I muttered, even though a lady never swears.

My own eyes were drifting shut, lulled by Darcy’s rhythmic breathing, when a terrible clattering sound, accompanied by an unearthly scream, jerked me awake. It sounded as if somebody had thrown every pot and pan in the castle down a flight of stairs. I leaped out of bed.

“What was that?” I asked.

Darcy opened his eyes lazily.

“Probably a servant dropped a tray of dishes. Go back to sleep.”

“No, it was worse than that,” I said. I grabbed the nearest cardigan, reached for my slippers and went out into the dark hallway. It seemed that the sound was loud enough to have woken other people. Siegfried was standing there, looking like a ghost in his long nightshirt. Oh, God, imagine facing that specter every night.

“Georgiana,
mein Schatz
, did you hear that noise?”

“I did.”

“Do not worry. I shall protect you,” he said, moving forward cautiously.

From below came shouts. Siegfried and I made our way to the nearest staircase.

A group had already gathered at the bottom of the spiral stair. They were bending over what looked like a suit of armor.

“Who can have knocked one of our suits of armor down the stairs?” Siegfried demanded. “What is happening here?”

The servants stood reverently at the sound of their master’s voice.

“Highness, I heard the noise and came running,” one of them said. “It appears that—”

He never finished the sentence, as a loud moan came from within the armor. Someone wrenched the visor open and a very human pair of eyes looked up at us. And the occupant groaned again.

“What is the meaning of this?” Siegfried demanded. “What foolery were you playing?”

“I was ordered to keep watch,” the man said, his face twisted in pain. “Chief Patrascue set me on guard duty. He told me to disguise myself in this way.”

“Ridiculous man,” Siegfried snapped. “He had no right. These suits of armor are precious state heirlooms, not to be worn like carnival costumes.”

“My leg,” the man groaned. “Get me out of this contraption.”

Just as they were extracting him with care a figure in black came flying toward us.

“What has just transpired?” the newcomer asked. He peered down at the suit of armor. “Cilic, is that you?”

“Yes, my chief, it is I,” the man said.