JoAnn Wendt (17 page)

“See that you teach him to ride in slow, easy steps, as I have demonstrated.”

The groom’s sulky expression came just short of disrespect. Well aware of the folly of insulting a Bladensburg guest, the groom checked his temper.

“’Tisn’t His Grace’s way,” he muttered.

McNeil turned and stared the man down.

“It is
my
way,” he said in a voice that left no room for negotiation. “You would do well to adopt it. In fact,” he added with a cold little laugh, “I insist!”

He was satisfied at the scared, cowed expression that passed over the groom’s face. Then, lest he totally humiliate the man and stick his son with the consequences of the man’s temper, he quickly strode off without a backward look.

Behind him, a small vulnerable voice rose, calling after him.

“Up?” the voice pleaded. “Up?”

Forcing himself to ignore the endearing summons, he straightened his shoulders and hurried down to the boat dock. Everyone was assembled, sitting in the canopied barge, sipping wine, waiting for him. Eunice Wetherby had saved him a seat beside her. The two fat aunts smiled and looked at each other like a pair of pleased conspirators.

* * * *

A hunter’s moon, huge and heavy, crouched upon a forested hilltop and flooded the Rhine River with invading white light as McNeil launched his skiff, unfurled its single sail and watched the sleeping port of Koln shrink behind him. The night was hushed and quiet. Everyone slept, except for an occasional dog baying at the moon.

McNeil grasped the tiller and bent to the night’s tense work. He’d taken every precaution. The Wetherby party was now staying in Koln, on the estate of Lord Wetherby’s German cousin. McNeil’s room overlooked balcony and garden. At this moment, a candle burned at his writing desk and a man— who seemed, at a glance, to be McNeil — hunched over a
book
at the desk. The man was Jenkins, his first mate on the
Caroline.

The sail upriver from Koln to Bladensburg ate up two precious hours, McNeil judged, gauging time by the rising of the moon. He was careful to sail close to the shadowy shore with its overhang of trees, and he eluded the river’s customs houses by lowering the mast and slipping under the chains that stretched from river island to shore.

When the ruins of the castle keep reared its head in the bright moonlight, he drew a deep breath of relief. So far, so good. He beached the skiff in a stony cove south of the boat dock. Shucking boots and stockings, he jumped into the cold water and dragged the boat ashore. Barefoot, he ran through trailing willows, then scrambled up the rocky slope that led to the ancient castle yard. In the bright moonlight, the tumbled ruins cast deep, velvety shadows. Sprinting from shadow to shadow, he worked his way through the yard and up into the terraced gardens.

Bladensburg slept. River rats running freely in the garden and castle yard were a sure sign of it. The only unbolted door would be at the night steward’s post. McNeil had studied the man’s habits during the Wetherby party’s two-week stay. At precisely midnight, two o’clock and four o’clock, the steward marched out with a lantern to patrol the grounds. The steward’s route was the same each night: the gardens, then the stables, then the castle yard as far as the keep, then down the stone steps to the boat dock, back up the boat stairs, again through the garden and into Bladensburg Hall for a pint of beer. The duration of the patrol was thirty minutes. Sixty minutes if a housemaid awaited the steward at the boat dock.

Breathing raggedly, McNeil settled into the shadows to wait. Time passed. The moon continued to rise. At last, the night steward’s door creaked open. Lantern light bobbed into the night and swung through the garden. When the lantern bobbed down to the second terrace, McNeil shot for the door, eased it open—and let himself in.

He listened. All was silent except for the pounding of his own heart. A lantern burned on the steward’s untidy table, and a cat slept curled on a chair. The smell of beer was heavy.

Drawing on wool stockings that he’d secreted in the breast of his dark shirt, he moved swiftly down the long polished corridor that cut Bladensburg Castle in two. At the wide center staircase, he crouched in the shadows, listening. Nothing. Skipping the second and the ninth creaking steps, he moved up the staircase and into the upper corridor, then into the nursery wing.

Out of nowhere, a cat suddenly meowed. He froze, cold sweat breaking on his forehead. The cat came padding to him out of the darkness. She arched against his ankles, mewing, begging for a scratch. He scratched the cat’s ears to quiet it, then gently pushed it away.

Noiselessly, he stole down the corridor to Robert’s sleeping-room and put his ear to the door. This would be the crucial part. He was aware that a nursemaid slept on a cot in an adjoining room, keeping her door ajar in the event the child awoke and cried out for her. Taking a deep breath, McNeil put his hand to the brass door latch. As his fingers touched it, the latch suddenly began to turn of its own volition. He lunged away, leaping into the shadows and pressing his body tight to the wall.

The door opened without sound. A blond, braided head peered out cautiously, looking up and down the corridor. A whisper broke the silence.

“Vilhelm?
Is you? Vilhelm?”

McNeil gripped the wall. He held his breath.

The woman wandered out into the corridor, glanced first in McNeil’s direction and then in the opposite direction. Giving a breathy giggle, she flew down the hall, her white flannel nightdress flapping. A shadow appeared suddenly at the end of the corridor. There was a flurry of whispers. Another furtive giggle. The couple disappeared.

McNeil released his breath slowly. Darting back to the door, he listened again and then let himself in. The room was bright with the light of the huge hunter’s moon. A door on the far wall stood ajar, and from it came the deep snores of still another sleeper. It was the second nursemaid. Quietly, he stole across the room and closed out the stout German snores and huzzahs.

He drew back the sleeping-curtains at the boy’s bed and sat to waken Robert gently. He touched his cheek.

“Robert?”

With the alacrity of the innocent, the child woke. Having never experienced fear in the safety of his bed, he exhibited none now. He merely blinked in curiosity. As his dark eyes studied McNeil in the moonlight, a lopsided smile grew on his lips.

“Up?” he croaked in a sleepy voice.

“Shssh. Shssh, Robert. We’ll play ‘horse’ later. Will you come with me?”

For answer, the child sprang up and flung himself into Garth’s arms.

“There, there,” he whispered, choking at the sweetness of his son’s response. He patted him awkwardly. “We’ll play a game, Robert. In the game you must be very, very quiet. Quiet as a mouse. Can you do that?”

“Yes!”

“Shsssh!”

“Shsssh,” the wide-eyed child mimicked, trying to please.

Garth grinned despite the tense sweat that was beginning to bead on his forehead again. Digging into his pocket for the sweetmeats he’d brought for just such a contingency, he popped one into Robert’s mouth. The baby’s eyes lit with delight. He chewed solemnly and silently, licking the sweet drool that seeped from the corners of his mouth.

“There, old man,” Garth whispered, tucking an extra sweet into the chubby, eager fist. “That should keep you quiet as a mouse.”

* * * *

Harrington was waiting on the wharf in Koln. Already the sky was a leaden gray, and a thin pink line was forming on the eastern horizon as the skiff bumped gently against the pilings.

“You’ve the landau?” McNeil snapped tensely, handing up the sleeping bundle.

“Ay, Cap’n. The horses are strong and fresh.”

“Head directly for Amsterdam. Change horses as often as needed. Travel day and night, if need be. Settle the boy aboard the
Caroline,
and Harrington—”

“Cap’n?”

McNeil stared at the small bundle and fought the urge to go to Amsterdam himself. No. That would be stupid and foolhardy. When servants at the Koln estate of Lord Wetherby’s cousin came into his bedchamber with his morning chocolate, McNeil must be in his bed, as though he’d passed the night in sound sleep.

“Treat the boy as though he were your own flesh and blood,” he said at last to Harrington. “Dress him in clothes suitable for play. Give him plenty of food and plenty of sunshine. Let him get dirty if he chooses. I want him to look like—like an Amsterdam street urchin.”

Harrington’s ruddy face wrinkled in perplexity. He stared at the child sleeping peacefully in his arms.

“Who be the lad, Cap’n?”

McNeil laughed softly.

“What a forgetful old bastard you are, Harrington. The boy is a beggar orphan. You found him yourself in the alleys of Amsterdam. You rescued him, saving him from certain starvation.”

Bewildered, Harrington blinked.

“I did, Cap’n?”

“You did. And I congratulate you, you charitable old sea dog.”

Garth smiled wearily, and at last Harrington’s canny, trusting grin came into play.

“That I did, Cap’n. I well recall it.”

McNeil grinned, then tiredly looked up at the lightening sky.

“Off with you, then,” he said.

“Right, Cap’n.” Wheeling round, Harrington hurried with his sleeping bundle down the wharf to the waiting landau where two sleek chestnut horses pricked up their ears at his approach.

Harrington stopped and swung around.

“Cap’n? What do I call ‘im?” he called back in a loud whisper. “What be the little lad’s name?”

McNeil rubbed his jaw wearily, the tension of the night draining away.

“How should
I
know?” he hissed. “You found him. That makes
you
his godfather. You name him.”

“Me?”

Harrington broke into a slow grin.

“Why, Cap’n—
Trent
be his name. After me own pa, Trent Harrington.”

“Trent, it is. Now, go. Hurry. God be with you.”

He waited until the landau clattered off, its wheels rattling softly over the cobbled streets of Koln. The echo of the landau faded, melding into the soft bump-bump of the skiff nudging the pilings. When he could hear the landau no longer, he shoved off. Daybreak’s wind was fresh and cool, sweet as a prayer. As he maneuvered the skiff into its home cove, he cast one last anxious glance at the town of Koln and its empty cobbled streets. “And God be with
you,
Trent,” he breathed. “God be with us both.”

* * * *

“It is a great tragedy,” declared the fatter of the two aunts as she sat at the table, shoveling the last bit of meringued plum jelly into her mouth.

“A great,
great
tragedy,” echoed the second aunt in predictable fashion as she gazed round the banquet table, blinking at each person in turn.

The fatter aunt stayed her spoon against the crystal dish. “It quite takes the pleasure out of a holiday upon the Rhine. Do you not agree, Captain McNeil?”

McNeil opened his mouth to utter some bland, noncommittal response, but evidently no response was wanted, for the aunt merely gave him a vague smile and chattered on in all directions.

“Steward? See to the wine, please. Lord Wetherby’s goblet is quite neglected. As is Lord Sutherland’s. And I fear our dear Captain McNeil may expire of thirst if something is not done immediately.”

She paused for breath. “La, I am ever so fearful that the pathetic little body will come floating up to the surface of the river one day, just as we are attempting to enjoy an outing on the barge. La! I daresay my heart should fail me at such a sight.”

“I should faint,” Eunice put in quietly, gazing up at McNeil with a shiver of helplessness.

McNeil roused himself to smile fondly at her. He had to, he reminded himself sourly. Eunice Wetherby was now his “intended,” his betrothed.

He frowned at the wineglass as it was being filled, then picked it up and drank. Events had made the betrothal imperative. The duke’s head steward at Bladensburg was no fool. With swift, Germanic thoroughness he’d launched an immediate investigation into the marquis’s disappearance. He’d scrutinized the guest list. Suddenly it had seemed imperative to have a sound reason for being attached to the Wetherby party. What better reason than being betrothed to Eunice Wetherby? It would squelch any suspicion the duke might have. And Robert would be safe. . . safe. . .

Eunice was smiling at him possessively. He lifted his glass and sipped again. The betrothal papers had been signed. He’d negotiated the dowry with Lord Wetherby at the young man’s insistence. Lord Wetherby suggested two thousand pounds. McNeil could do nothing but agree. However, Lord Wetherby hadn’t ten pounds, let alone two thousand. Wetherby had asked if he could borrow the sum from McNeil? To hold in trust until the marriage took place?

For the sake of his son, McNeil had checked his temper and had written a draft on his London bank for two thousand pounds. He knew he would never see that money again. But, for the boy? And for the memory of Flavia?

“Oh, I should faint also, if the little body came floating up. Indeed I should,” murmured Eunice’s mousy, mild-mannered companion. The young woman spoke seldom, and McNeil thought her about as remarkable as wallpaper. Her rare outburst finished, the unremarkable Abigail Turner faded back into her meringued plum jelly and fell silent.

“Stuff and nonsense, the nursemaid likely sold the infant,” said Lord Wetherby, who was bored by the two-week-old topic. “Anyone for a hand of whist after dinner?”

Cautiously, McNeil stirred the waters, saying, “Perhaps the marquis of Bladensburg did
not
drown. Perhaps he was abducted and is being held for ransom.”

“Whist?” Lord Wetherby tried again, hopefully.

But it was too late. McNeil’s interjection stirred up a new buzz of excitement among the ladies. Feminine voices burst out like a spring shower.

“There has been no ransom demand.”

“The child’s nightdress was found, wet and washed up on the riverbank.”

“The child’s footprints were found in the wet mud.”

“The duke believes him drowned. It is said the duke is in an insane fury. He will close up Bladensburg.”