Chapter 27
What am I doing? Luke asked himself. The question was rhetorical, but it felt very pressing, indeed.
He stopped walking and said the words out loud. “What the bloody hell am I doing?”
The clatter of the busy corridor absorbed the sound. Footmen raced to and fro with heavy platters of food and drink. Guards
smoked, loitering on break. The service passage was as tightly populated as the ballroom. There was a glaring lack of band
members, and Luke looked down at his musician’s suit and knew he could not linger. His motives did not matter if he was taken
prisoner.
And his motive, to answer his own question, was to kill Vincent Surcouf. For his crew. For his father. For revenge. An eye
for an eye. Even if Surcouf had fifty eyes, even if Luke gouged them all, justice would not be served. Revenge had seemed
very sweet indeed—nay, necessary—for the better part of a year. It had been essential to his very breath. But that was before
this bloody castle had delivered the two people about whom he cared most. Something about embracing Linus in the dungeon,
miraculously alive; and kissing his wife, miraculously here.
So why in God’s name would he remain here and put himself at risk? For what? For pride? To gloat? For revenge?
I have everything I ever wanted, he thought, more than I deserve, waiting for me.
Revenge will improve nothing. It’s not worth the risk.
No risk that jeopardizes my life with Danielle is worth it.
Luke stepped from the bustle of the passage into the shadows, rethinking his strategy. He looked down. The musician’s suit
had served him well enough. If he walked slowly, and kept his head down, if he chose his route carefully, he should be able
to wind his way to a service door and slip into the night, free and clear. His heart pounded. His chest filled with something
shimmering and buoyant—hope, and relief, and love expanding like a cloud. He wanted to run from this place. He turned and—
“There! That man there!” A shout rose above the din of the passageway. “He plays the violin!”
Luke turned to see one of the guards who’d been knocked unconscious by the nun. He was pointing a finger at Luke.
“The fiddler,” the man sneered.
Luke swore and edged backward. It was too late to run. He dropped against the wall, trying to disappear into the shadows,
but guards were suddenly on all sides. They hauled him up; large hands on his biceps and a sword flat against his back.
“This way, Fiddler,” said the guard on his right. “The comte would see you.”
The comte? Luke thought, struggling to stay on his feet as they dragged him along.
Why would Surcouf want to see him? Luke had been hassled by the two guards before Sister Marie struck them, but only because they thought he was a thief.
He’d not said a name; no one of consequence had gotten a look at his face.
Luke went slack, forcing the guards to drag his full weight. While they struggled, he strategized. Surcouf would recognize
him, no doubt. Oh, the irony. The moment he’d decided to forgo this confrontation, he could not avoid it. Except now he was
at a disadvantage. Instead of charging in or sneaking in, he’d be hauled in by seven guards.
“What use has the comte for a fiddler?” Luke asked the guard, trying to make his shite French accent sound Bavarian.
“He’s not even French,” observed another guard.
“Where is your home?” asked the guard on his left.
“Munich,” Luke said, trying to sound irrelevant and harmless. Meanwhile, he was never more certain about his decision. He
didn’t want to fight a French sadist; he wanted to reunite with his beautiful wife, and live on his estate, and save her little
storybook village, and raise sheep. He wanted to provide peace and comfort. He wanted a workshop for boatbuilding, where he
might work with his father and, God willing, his children. He wanted to die an old man surrounded by his family and in love
with his wife. He wanted to live.
“You caught sight of the princess,” explained one of the guards. “She’s vanished and the comte will speak to anyone who’s
seen her.”
Luke stopped thinking about sheep. His blood turned to ice. He jerked against the guards’ hold to see who’d said it. The man
had been one of the nun’s victims. Dried blood streaked across his temple, coloring his eyebrow red.
“Yes, he did,” agreed another guard. Luke forced himself not to look.
Terror gripped him, but he kept slack and forced them to drag him.
He creased his face into an expression of confusion.
Linus had been spared because he’d surrendered.
Surcouf knew Luke, and he’d enjoy no such mercy.
However, until he came face-to-face with the Frenchman, everyone else should assume he is a harmless fiddle player.
It was his only chance to harbor a small moment of surprise.
He thought back to what the guard said. The princess vanished, and the comte will speak to anyone who’s seen her.
Why would the bludgeoned guards know the woman who’d called for help in that corridor was a princess? She’d been wearing the
crown, but they’d seen her for all of three seconds before the nun had knocked them unconscious. And there would be no shortage
of crowns at this ball.
“What princess?” Luke asked in his fake-German, terrible French accent. The guards had pushed him through the doors to the
ballroom. They loitered at the edge of the dance floor, holding Luke’s drooping form between them. Revelers turned to stare,
bemused or intrigued. Footmen stepped around them. The party danced on.
Luke knew from his reconnaissance that Surcouf would hold court on a raised dais in a side wing of his great hall. He and
preferred guests would have private seating under the watchful eye of a military detachment. They would enjoy their own buffet,
finer wine, and personal attendants. This is where the guards would take Luke. Surcouf was too much of a showman to interrogate
him in private.
“What princess?” Luke tried.
“Shut up,” snapped one of the guards. They moved on, dragging him around the corner of the dance floor.
“No, tell him,” said another. “He’ll be expected to relay the Comte d’Moulac what he saw.”
“Her Serene Highness, Danielle d’Orleans,” explained another guard.
“Daughter of Prince Philip; niece to King Louis. She’s long been betrothed to the Comte d’Moulac but living in exile outside of France.
She’s come home—come here, to this very ball—but the comte cannot locate her among the guests.
Lavigne and Durand have reported seeing a beautiful young woman deep in the castle and she was crying for help.
When they went to her, a robed phantom attacked them with a club and restrained them.
When they came to, the young woman was gone. ”
“You were there, Fiddler,” the wounded guard called from behind Luke. “You saw her.”
“I saw nothing,” Luke tried, his heart in his throat.
“That is a lie. The three of us ran to her. Did you take a blow to the head, too?”
Luke considered claiming that he had, any cursory inspection by Vincent Surcouf would reveal that he was no Bavarian fiddler,
that he was an English privateer who’d approached the man three times this year, demanding the release of Linus Welty. Within
minutes, the dungeon would be checked; after that, the woods behind the castle would be scoured for the missing prisoner and—
Luke was seized by a fear so chilling, he couldn’t breathe. Surcouf knew that Danielle was here; he searched for Danielle. Luke must redirect. He must break free before he was hauled before Surcouf and recognized. He must protect—
“And don’t you dare claim you’ve seen nothing,” threatened the guard with the bloody gash.
“The Comte d’Moulac will end this party, clear the guests, and tear the castle apart, looking for the missing princess.
Given the choice, no man in service wants that.
We’ll not sleep or eat for days. Think back to the corridor; tell the comte every single thing you remember about the girl.
If you weren’t knocked unconscious, you may be the only one who saw which way she was taken. ”
“I saw nothing,” Luke tried again. He scrambled backward, trying to stop their forward motion. Panic was a riptide; he was
suffocated by fear.
“Think harder,” the guard accused, dragging him. “And mind the impertinence. You’ll show only deference and compliance to
the comte. Give him your clearest memory of the girl. Everything you saw, exactly as it happened.”
And then they rounded the corner, and Luke saw the colorful clutch of guests set apart, he saw the dais arranged with velvet
furnishings and potted ferns and tables of food. He saw a formation of armed guards.
What he did not see was a way out.