Coronets and Steel (28 page)

“I thought I’d show you one more thing.”

“What’s that?” Surely he’d know where Dorike was. Wasn’t his castle on Devil’s Mountain?

“The Eyrie. First built in 1210, everyone always says it’s a fascinating old pile. And the view from the towers is the best in the entire country.”

“Oh! Sounds wonderful.” How perfect was that? Straight to his castle—and maybe we could stop at Mina’s on the way to it, or on the way back. “How long a drive is it?”

“Not very.”

As the road wound ever higher, the scenery opened into sudden vistas overlooking lacy waterfalls, plunging valleys that vanished into shadowy mystery, and striated cliffs that hinted at dramatic tectonic shifts millions of years before.

Before I brought up Mina, time for a last test. “I know it’s none of my business, but how exactly do you and Alec disagree?”

He shrugged. “Thought you weren’t interested in politics.”

“No, but I am in people.”

Shading his eyes with a long hand and driving with the other, he said, “Alexander and I have . . . let us say . . . two different plans for regaining our autonomy. He arses around without doing anything, like his old dad.”

“Anything what? You mean social and fiscal change?”

“No, I mean getting rid of potential trouble.”

“Fighting? You can’t take on Russia—that’s like a gnat going after an elephant.”

He laughed. “A gnat can bring down an elephant if he does it right,” he said. “Never mind. You’re interested in people, not politics, and I am interested in both. Tell me, did Alec send you here to make your search?”

“No. He thought I went to Greece. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. It was no one’s business. Certainly not his.”

“What? Even your people?”

“Pe—oh, family. No, I’m not telling ’em until I know everything. How would you like to tell your mother that her brand new relatives all think she’s a ba—” I choked off the word and stared at Tony in total dismay.

He flashed that rakish smile. “Bastard? No, I would not like to tell my mother she is a bastard.”

“Dude! I’m sorry.” I grimaced. “I didn’t think about what it would mean. To your family. If he did marry Gran first.”

“A proper cock-up, eh? Though it might be worth it, to see the expression on my mother’s face.” He laughed, hair tangling in the wind as he downshifted, and the car jetted up the narrow road.

I
’D FINALLY MET Rupert of Hentzau.

“It’s your timing,” he went on, pleasantly and kindly. As if we shared a big joke together. “If accident really landed you here just now—this month, this week, even—it almost makes me believe in cosmic forces, or at least in cosmic humor.”

“I’m not here to cause trouble for anyone,” I stated.

“But you already have.” His tone was unaccusing, even friendly.

“Then I’ll make amends. On my own.”

“I salute you for being so cooperative.” He flashed a grin at me, his teeth white and even, a reflected sun glinting in those black eyes which made them not lazy at all, but acutely direct.

My danger sense—obviously hibernating until now in the Clueless Tent—finally woke up. Except there’d been no threats, no dire hints, not even any anger. We’d had a lovely picnic and pleasant conversation . . . but I was not on my way back to the Waleskas.

So far I’d agreed to everything. On the surface, no trouble. Maybe it was time to make it clear I wanted to go back.

He was driving faster, in spite of those lengthening shadows, accelerating hard on the straightaways, and taking corners with tight control and scarcely a touch of the brakes. The lowering sun’s rays slanted between lichen-boughed trees, splashing molten light in speckled patterns here and there in the deepening shadows. The grass at the verge blurred at our speed; the farther scenery changed like a fast-forwarded video.

“How much farther is this Eyrie?” I asked.

“Another half hour or so.”

“It’s getting late, and Madam Waleska expects me. And I’d hoped to get my errand done before we returned.”

“What is your errand?” he asked. “We’ll make time for it. I promise.”

No way was I mentioning Mina until we were safely on the road back to town. “Tell me about the Eyrie?” I asked.

“It’s built in four layers on top of the highest mountain in the country, which is called Riev Dhiavilyi. Oldest part of the castle laid down in 1210, with sections added every three or four centuries afterward. Portions of it are comfortable, I assure you. All the amenities—except, unfortunately, a phone. The cables, which aren’t reliable even at the best of times, were destroyed by some enterprising Russkis on a raid a few years back, and between one thing and another we haven’t been able to restore them.”

“So is this a sightseeing tour, or—”

“An extended visit to the home . . . lair . . . seat, depending upon your partisanship, of the blackguardly von Mecklundburg family. Full of history and scenic as bedamned. You’ll like it, I assure you.”

“
If
this is an invitation,” I began.

“Hey. Bear with me! I’m trying to make it sound like one,” he returned, flashing another grin—all in fun, utterly without threat.

But the wheel was in his hands, and his foot on the accelerator.

Okay, I walked right into this one.
I gripped my hands in my lap.
Let’s see if I can walk right out again.

“. . . a stream-fed pool, though the weather’s rarely warm enough for outdoor bathing,” he was going on. “And not long ago, to get ready for a visit from my whingeing sister, we hauled a DVD player and a few boxes of films and shows up there. Were you born in the States? I rather wondered if all that wank I heard repeated last night after you left was a payment in kind. Not that I blame you a bit, you understand. I think I would have done the same myself.”

I said numbly, “I take it you’ve had your sister up there all along. No wonder you weren’t searching.”

“I get away whenever I can. Large as the place is, sometimes I need to put a country between myself and her bleating or I might have to, as my stiff-arsed British cousins say, extend the patio.” He grinned, taking the seriousness out of the threat.

“Why stick her up there at all, since you don’t like her company?”

“There we return to your detested politics, Cousin Kim. I would so hate to bore you.”

“I wonder how you can look your poor mother in the face!” I remembered her reaction to me in the chapel: the shaking hands, the tense eyes. “What a crappy thing to do.”

“She should be grateful to me for taking Ruli off her hands. You’ll give Ruli sympathy and company, and she’ll use you as a handmaid. And maybe—with any luck—you’ll help her discover a sense of humor. I do appreciate the lack of hysterical invective, by the way.”

I kept my hands in my lap and my head averted, face as calm as I could manage, though I was furious. One thing for certain: if he was holding his sister, then having both of us would give him an edge over Alec that I did not intend he should have.

So I had half an hour to think of an escape. When I did act, I couldn’t give him the slightest clue beforehand.

Tony took the corners at enough speed to cause the car to lean. I hated the idea of jumping out and maybe falling down a cliff. But even if I didn’t fall, a sprint along the road wouldn’t do any good. He could stop the car and be after me in about five seconds flat. If he could run as fast as I could.

A quick glance at Tony. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other hand shading his eyes as we moved in and out of deepening shadows. Despite the idle pose we were racing at a dangerous speed for these mountains roads; his open shirt rippled in the wind, revealing the black T-shirt that showed the contours of his arms and the outline of six-pack abs. Tony might act like Mr. Laid-Back but he was in shape. He was also at least half a foot taller than me. Considering the fact that we shared a lot of athletic genes, there wasn’t much chance I’d win a fistfight or a foot race.

I squashed a strong wish to be back at Sedania, where I could grab one of those swords from over the mantel. Too late for that. I’d have to watch for another chance.

First, hide my intention. I sighed. “Madam Waleska will be looking for me if I don’t show up soon.”

“She knows you’re with me,” he replied. “Since she believes you’re my sister—using a fake identity for some reason—she won’t question your giving it up to go home. The family will talk for years to come about the night Ruli von Mecklundburg danced at her daughter’s wedding. You are a mystery, Cousin Kim. What is your name? Is it Atelier?”

“If it will annoy you, I’d be happy to change it to Dsaret,” I said sweetly.

“Don’t be angry! Think about the serenity of a mountain retreat. Everyone gasses on about how healthy the air is—I suspect that’s because it’s too cold up there for germs. I’ll keep my promise to help you to discover your proof that Grandfather Armandros was a bigamist. And with twin sisters! My respect for him grows daily. Have you any clues to go on?”

“Nothing.” To bolster my image of meek acceptance, I added, “I was hoping you might get me past the red tape so I can check the official records.”

“Which official records?”

“Any of them.”

“For church records, you’d go to the bishop in Riev. All of the royal funerals, coronations, baptisms, and most of the marriages—except the hasty ones—were conducted right there in the cathedral. You didn’t ask?”

“No. At first I didn’t speak the language well enough, and then, well, things started happening too fast.”

“What makes you think these records haven’t been gone over thoroughly, at least once?”

“I want to see them for myself,” I stated, glad the engine-noise hid the sudden slamming of my heart as I spotted dust ahead in the trees. Someone coming?

“I’ll get an interview for you, though I suspect this is familiar ground.”

“Thank you.” I tried not to sound excited as I saw my chance ahead.

Tony had slowed to drive onto an old wooden bridge which spanned a rushing river some thirty feet below. As he passed the center, with a noise of bleating and more dust rising in clouds, a flock of sheep converged on us from the other side. They had surrounded the car within seconds, and Tony was forced to slow to a stop. He leaned back, muttering an unheated curse. He kept the car in gear, one foot on the clutch, other on the brake; one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the gear shift—

I pulled my feet up and flung a leg over the car door.

Tony reacted with startling swiftness, jamming the gear into neutral and reaching for me. He managed to grasp my right ankle with his fingertips.

I had enough presence of mind to restrain the urge to kick out at him, which would have enabled him to better his grip. Jerking my ankle against his thumb, I snapped free and whirled out of the car.

“Shit.” He laughed. “Don’t be a fool.”

The car was closer to the left side of the bridge than the right. So I only had a few sheep to dodge around—stumbling as one butted against me in silent protest—before I reached the rail of the bridge and could run along beside it.

Tony rammed the hand brake on, jumped out and came after me, and despite the sheep, he was beginning to close the gap with such speed it was time for desperate action.

So I vaulted over the bridge rail and stood on the outer edge, clinging tightly to the rail with my fingers. Below was a sheer thirty foot drop to the rushing water.

He stood in the center of the bridge with sheep swarming around him and lifted his hands. “Kim,” he said with some exasperation, “come back here. Please.”

“I don’t want to go to your damn castle,” I snarled through gritted teeth.

“Right.” He took a slow step toward me, and I slid away along the rail. He stopped. “I’ll take you back to town.”

I needed to go about six more feet before I would be over the middle of the river. A quick glance down showed that depth could not be judged, and too close to the sides was the white water indicating rocks.

Tony held his hands out wide. “Truce?”

“What is it,” I demanded, ignoring his offer, “about the guys from this place? Do you always pull the pirate shtick on women? No wonder they run off.”

He laughed. And took another step.

I slid away, watching him unwaveringly—and knocked against a stanchion. I clutched feverishly at the rail to steady myself.

Tony bit off an exclamation. Then said with care, “You didn’t have trouble with Alec, did you?”

“If being knocked out and stuck on a train qualifies as trouble, yes.”

He had reached the rail about eight feet from me. Leaning idly against it, he gave a crow of laughter. “
Alec?
I’d love to’ve seen that.”

“I wish you had been in the starring role,” I retorted.

“So that’s how he got your cooperation in Split.”