Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

H is captor had no notion how to properly take prisoners, that was clear.

He’d bound Philip to a chair in the corner where he had a clear view of the room, the doors and windows. And they’d used leather throngs to bind him instead of rope. Leather, as any man who had experience tying up another could attest, stretched.

The guard hadn’t even checked Philip for weapons.

Admittedly, he’d been in bed, and who would wear their weapons to bed? That he’d been sleeping was the only excuse Philip could offer for having been seized so easily.

At least he was wearing clothes. He’d been so weary after dinner and the long interview with her cousin that he’d taken Melisende’s advice to rest. He’d agreed to let Bruyit look after her for the meantime, and he’d barely managed to shrug off his coat and boats before he tumbled into their bed and a firm, deep sleep as if he’d fallen off a cliff.

More fool he. He’d relaxed his vigilance for an instant, and look what happened. This was all his fault.

“Where is the duchess?” Philip growled. The man guarding him wore an insignia he didn’t recognize, but it had to be Rudolf behind this. He’d conned them with some tale of a common enemy, and now he’d launched his attack. His minion didn’t understand English, but surely he recognized the name.

“The duchess,” Philip barked. “Mel-i-sende. Where is she?”

His bonds still held tight, the leather abrading his skin. He twisted his wrists back and forth anyway, welcoming the burn. What he deserved for his carelessness, though Melisende didn’t deserve whatever her cousin meant for her.

The man yawned and looked out the window, studying the rising moon. It was full and enormous and hung low among the mountains, casting an eerie light over everything, nearly as bright as day but quicksilver instead of gold.

“ Wo ist die Herzogin ?” Finally, the German came to him.

The guard sniggered. “ Sie ist nicht hier.”

“Then where?” Philip snapped.

The guard tapped the hilt of the sword at his belt. “ Ruhe ,” he said, which Philip guessed meant ‘shut up’ or some equivalent.

He twisted his wrists. The leather was warming against his skin, becoming pliable.

“And the servants?” He wasn’t sure of the word. “ Die Diener .”

His so-called guard chuckled. “ Du bist jetzt ein Diener, Engl?nder .”

He was fairly certain he was being reminded he was a servant now. Or a prisoner. “I’m not English,” Philip riled. “I’m Irish.”

“ Und ein Spion ?”

That word he knew, thanks to an assignment to ingratiate himself witha fellow spy sent by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in London to probe British sentiments around Prussia’s war over the succession in Bavaria.

“I am not a spy,” Philip said in English. “I prefer to think of myself as an informant.”

A log tumbled apart in the fireplace, sending up a shower of sparks and diverting the guard’s attention for a moment. Philip sensed movement behind him and stiffened, waiting for the blow.

“The others is all tied up belowstairs.” Gin’s whisper floated from behind one of the tapestries, the one of the maid seducing a unicorn into her lap. “Guarded.”

“Melisende?” Philip whispered back.

“Dunno—” Gin bit off the rest as the guard turned from the window.

“ Hast du etwas zu sagen, Spion ?”

“A question. When do you plan to let me go?”

The guard chortled. “ Wenn die Herzogin ?—”

A thundering blow made the door to the stair shudder. The guard’s head whipped toward the portal and he scrambled to draw his sword.

“Knife,” Philip hissed to Gin. “Right boot.” He tipped his head. “By the bed.”

He should have left his waistcoat on and hidden the knife within it. He ought to have kept on his boots. He should have known the appearance of her cousin meant mischief and stayed on his guard. If Melisende was hurt because Philip had let down his guard for a moment?—

Where had the blackguard taken her? Philip held his breath as Gin crept toward the bed, keeping low to the floor, while the guard was occupied with bellowing at the door.

“ Was ist ? — ”

The door flew inward and Bruyit charged through it. The hair on one side of his head was matted and sticky with blood, and hellfire leapt from his eyes. With a roar he launched an enormous fist at the guard’s face.

The blow would have flattened him had it landed. The guard ducked and sidestepped, thrusting with his sword. Bruyit danced aside.

“Got it.” Gin dove and surfaced with the leather sheath holding Philip’s Swiss-made hunting knife. His favorite.

Bruyit was slow, clumsy, the blow on his head slowing him down. The guard turned at Gin’s exclamation. Philip shouted a warning as the guard reached to his belt, swung his arm up, and threw his own knife straight at the boy’s back. Gin’s eyes flew wide with an oof as he stumbled forward, Philip’s knife falling from his hand.

Bruyit swung a meaty fist, knocking the guard aside as he stumbled toward Gin, catching the boy before he fell to the floor. Philip’s knife skidded toward the fireplace, skimming the polished stones of the floor.

Phillip threw himself after it, chair and all. It was a simple wooden folding chair, with a flat and uncomfortable seat, and he hoped the age of it meant the thing would break apart at the first impact.

No luck. The chair simply folded, making him stumble. He used a leg to bat his knife away from the hearthstone, heat singing the side of his face as he barely kept from tumbling into the flames. A sudden jerk pulled him backward; the guard caught the arm of his chair.

Philip flipped himself just in time to see the man raising his sword, shouting a curse he’d heard Melisende use. Leaning back, Philip kicked his bound feet toward the guard’s chest. He stumbled backward into Bruyit, who felled him with a swipe to the temple. The guard sprawled on the stone floor, inert.

Philip edged toward his knife, watching Bruyit cradle Gin’s prone body. The boy lay with eyes closed, breathing shallow.

“Will he be all right?”

“Her,” Bruyit said gruffly. “Can’t leave her. Cut’s deep.”

“Can you get her downstairs to the others? Though I imagine Rudolf has more men about.”

“It ain’t the German but th’ other.” Bruyit rose with a creak and swiped up Philip’s knife with a mighty paw. With a brief yank he freed the blade from the sheath. Philip strained his wrists apart as Bruyit cut his bonds. He caught the knife as the man flipped it to him and freed his feet while Bruyit picked up Gin.

“The other?” How many bloody assassins were after her? Philip sheathed his knife and stabbed his feet into his boots.

“Carinthia. The duke. He put my lady in the dungeon.”

“The dungeon.” Philip’s skin crawled at the memory of the dank, dark corridor. They’d searched it, as they’d searched everywhere, but he’d been more than relieved when a quick survey of the chambers below the old keep proved fruitless. Evil lurked in such places.

“The duke’ll ’ave a key, though I dunno where he went to. He means to find the patent.” Bruyit kept his eyes pinned to Gin’s pale face as he headed for the door.

“Help the others if you can.” Philip shrugged into his coat, then belted his sword in its scabbard around his waist. “I’ll see to my lady.”

He lit the stub of a candle from the fire and shielded the stick with his hand as he crept along the corridors of the castle, following the map in his head. Bars of moonlight fell through windows and arrow slits, slashing the floor and walls with quicksilver. He’d entered a world turned inside out, where light was a betrayer and only the shadows were safe.

So Carinthia was behind this. Her stammering cousin had been right. Philip wouldn’t trust Rudolf as far as he could throw him; he recognized a coward when he saw one, the kind of man who would turn over one of his blood if he thought it would save his own scrawny neck. But the fear in Rudolf’s eyes had been real, and judging from the way the guard who’d captured Philip had fought, Carinthia was dangerous. He hired skilled men, and he’d promised them something they wanted badly enough to kill for.

If Melisende was hurt…Philip’s heart blocked his throat. He evened his breath, not allowing shock to overtake his body. It dulled his senses and slowed his reaction times. He had to think. He had to rescue Melisende, then form a plan for overpowering and defeating her devilish brother-in-law. But he had to find her first.

The guard at the entrance to the dungeons looked as if he enjoyed the place no more than Philip did. Philip debated plunging his sword through the blackguard’s heart, but killing a man from behind, with no warning, seemed like something Melisende would disapprove. She’d be in a better position to negotiate peace with Carinthia if they left his men bruised but alive. He stunned the guard with a blow to the temple and watched him crumple to the cold floor with a spurt of vicious satisfaction that was unlike him. For his own part, Philip didn’t enjoy violence. But harming a man who was hurting Melisende gave him a primal burst of triumph.

The guard didn’t, as Bruyit had warned, have the keys. Philip set to work with his knife. The Meinhardins had apparently never feared their enemies escaping and therefore had no need for a sophisticated lock. He soon slid the heavy deadbolt back and pushed open the wooden door.

“Melisende,” he called, keeping his voice low in case there was a second guard inside. But who would volunteer for that job? The dungeon was black as pitch. He retrieved his candlestick and listened.

“Philip? Philip.” Her voice was strained and rough, as if she’d been crying. Or screaming for help. “I’m here. In the oubliette.”

Of course a medieval castle high in the mountains would have an oubliette. It was the worst torture Carinthia could have inflicted on her; she hated confined spaces. “I’m coming.”

“Thank God you’re here. I feared I might go mad.”

He followed her voice to the grate set into the floor. Marks on the stones showed where it had been recently moved.

Through the opening in the grate he glimpsed her face, pale and tear-stained. “I have to set the candle aside. Don’t go anywhere.”

A sob met his jest. “There’s barely enough room to stand. This place is designed to break a person.” She paused, taking an unsteady breath. “How many days have I been here?”

“A few hours. Steady, my love. I’ll have you out in a shake.” He locked his hands around the grate and braced himself to yank.

“You’ll go nowhere,” said a voice behind him, deep, rough, amused. The man spoke in German, but his meaning was clear. “In fact, you’ll join her. What a loyal husband, eh, Melisende? Following you to your grave.”

“Philip, run!” Melisende screamed, but the warning came far too late. The steel blade of a sword already lay at his throat.

“The Duke of Carinthia, I presume.” Philip spoke to Melisende through clenched teeth, cursing himself a thousand times for a fool. He deserved to have his head sliced off, though Melisende didn’t deserve to witness that.

“Andrej—” She spoke in German too quick for Philip to follow. No doubt negotiating for his life. Like an utter idiot he’d come to a foreign country where he didn’t speak the language—any of them—and thought he, with his skills of picking locks and lurking at doors, cheating at cards and conning information out of people, was going to help him protect Melisende against an assassin.

He had failed to protect the woman he loved, and she was going to be hurt because of him.

He held her gaze while the negotiation devolved into shouting on Carinthia’s part and a guard roughly pushed Philip’s shoulders. As soon as he dropped into the pit, Melisende rushed into his arms. He cradled her while the heavy grate shrieked into place over their heads and Carinthia laughed. Philip could guess at the content of his words, derisive enough in their tone, as the tread of nail-studded leather soles departed.

“I’m so sorry, my love. I got myself caught.”

“Is it terrible to say I’m glad you’re here?” She raised her face—he felt the movement—and he pressed his lips toward her in the dark, finding her cheek. She turned her head to meet his lips and kissed him as if she were drowning and he were the rope.

“I don’t want to die here,” she sobbed between kisses. “But I thank God I won’t die alone.”

“You are not going to die.”

“I was about to go mad, and that is nearly the same thing.”

She clasped both hands to the sides of his face, stroking his jaw—she did love the feel of his stubble—and deepened the kiss. Even in the depths of the dungeon, with no light and only dank, fetid air surrounding them, his passion for her flared instantly to life. The thrill of Melisende in his arms superseded all else, thoughts of his own incompetence, thoughts of torture.

“Carinthia won’t let you die,” Philip said between kisses he spread over her face and down her neck. He could taste the trace of her tears. He had never seen Melisende cry, not when her father lay ill, not when they’d been watched in Voronsky’s library by all those avid leering faces. Not when she saw her future narrow to a forced marriage with Philip, and not even when assassins aimed a knife at her heart. Philip could run his blade through Carinthia without remorse for the mere fact that he had brought fear to this brave, steel-boned, indomitable woman.

“He will, if I don’t give him the map.” She clung to the collar of his coat with more than her usual possessiveness; she gripped him with the cold claws of terror.

“Where is the map?” He kissed across her décolletage, pushing aside her shawl. She shivered.

“I still have it.”

Philip tapped the stiff panel of her stomacher, raising his eyebrows before he remembered that, in the near total dark, she couldn’t see. Somewhere above them, off to the side, the candle in his chamberstick still flickered, but he’d only taken a stub. It would burn out in an hour, maybe less, and their one glimmer of light—of sanity—would disappear.

“Then you bargain with him. The map for your release.” He slid his fingers behind the panel, stroking her lovely breasts. Her breath went uneven, and she pressed against him. Solace, certainly, but he knew the signs of her arousal by now. And if she were aroused, she would not be crying or mad with fear.

“I won’t do it. He’ll be a worse duke of Merania than my uncle. What Rudolf told me is starting to make sense. Carinthia keeps his people in tyranny with taxes and unjust laws. His favorites prosper while the common people starve. And Magret—” She gave a little moan. “Magret is not, never has been some shrinking lily. If she keeps to her castle then it is because he is holding her prisoner. It must be why my father and I have not heard from her because he won’t allow it.” She huffed an angry breath. “I won’t give my country to such a man.”

“Then the alternative?” Philip said gently.

“I’ll die here, with you in my arms.” She slid her hands around his neck, pressing so close to him he knew she felt his arousal in return. His mind blanked for an instant when she slipped her tongue inside his mouth and tangled with his. Blood roared through his lower body, demanding the bliss he would find with her.

Her, and no one else. No other woman had meant to him, or would mean to him, what she did. He hadn’t needed a threat to their lives to make the truth obvious. He’d known from the moment she stepped forward in the parlor of Fauconberg House and made a promise to be his companion for life that he wanted that from her in truth.

“I do not plan to die here, and I do not plan for you to die, either.” He leaned her back over his arm so he could plunge his tongue into her mouth in return, plumbing the silken depths.

“Make love to me, Philip,” she whispered.

Against the wall of their clammy prison, or on the floor? Yes . His mind blacked again as she shifted a hip, rubbing the heavy fabric of her skirts against his cock.

“Slowly, love. We have all night.”

“No. Now.” With a swift yank she loosed the fall of his breeches and grasped him in her hand. Philip sucked in a breath at the contrast, cold air and hot flesh, Melisende’s demand. He heard rustling and guessed she was gathering her skirts.

“I want you inside me,” she muttered against his lips, pulling him toward her as she slid down the roughly hewn sides of their prison to the floor. “ Now, Philip.”

“At my lady’s command.” He didn’t need light. He knew her body as he knew his own. He tossed aside the layers of silk and linen petticoat and slid his hand up her stockinged leg. His fingers met soft buckskin, and he chuckled.

“Are you wearing your breeches beneath your skirts?”

“It’s cold in this drafty castle.” She reached between them and squirmed out of her extra article of clothing. “And I thought I might need them for climbing.”

“Well, now I need them off.” He helped her peel the bucksin away and beneath found smooth, trembling woman, her flanks like poured cream, her sturdy thighs, and between her legs, beneath a nest of silk, the pinnacle of heaven. She guided his bare shaft to her entrance, ready for him. As hungry for him as he was for her.

He didn’t care that they were locked in the deepest cell of a dungeon. He didn’t care that the air smelled as if something had died there centuries ago. He didn’t care that the filth of the floor would never come out of his coat or the knees of his breeches. Melisende wanted him. He was the luckiest bastard alive.

“And I want you completely this time.” She pressed her hands along his back beneath his coat, following the curves of muscle, urging him inside of her. “With me. Wholly.”

“Not wholly.” He’d never before come to completion inside of her. They brought each other pleasure in many creative ways, as many as they could think of, but had avoided the risk of procreation. “You could fall pregnant.”

Her laugh was mirthless, more like a sobbing catch of air. “It hardly matters if he’s going to let me die here.”

She tipped up her hips and he was inside her, and thought slammed out of his head as sheer need took over, intense and primal. There was nothing so exquisite as being inside her tight channel, hot, wet, holding him. Nothing so exquisite as her gasps that told him the same pleasure shot through her, a cord of connection between them.

He found the angle he knew she liked and stroked her, feeling her thighs tighten around his back, feeling on his cheek the gasps that said she was climbing toward climax. He loved how she shimmered in his arms, how ecstasy refracted between them, a nearly visible energy. She threw back her head with a keening cry and clenched around him, her body taut as she flared and came apart like a star falling from the night sky, and he sucked in his breath, the pleasure near to pain. God in heaven, she was beautiful.

He felt the warning tightening in his balls, the strain of his own pending release, and withdrew. He turned on his hip and with a few quick pumps spent his seed on the floor beside them.

Slowly her breathing settled. She dragged her hands along his back, his shoulders, dancing her fingers along the back of his neck. Philip shuddered and buried his face in the delicious curve of her breast. She rested her chin on the top of his head.

“You didn’t stay with me,” she said quietly.

He kissed between her collarbones, those elegant arcs. “No. I am not going to tie you to me with a child.”

He wanted to. A primal joy, as nearly as keen as release, bit through him at the image of Melisende heavy with his child, a child they had created through their love. “If you carry my babe, I take away your choice. And I want you to choose me, Melisende. Not because you were forced by your father or propriety or your friends or your position.”

He leaned on one elbow and kissed her jaw. “When this is all over, and you’ve won,” he whispered, “you have a decision to make. And if you come to me—if you choose me—I want it to be for me alone. Because you adore me wildly, utterly, and you cannot live without me. Do not want to live without me.”

He pressed a kiss to her lips, but she gave him only the faintest response, a slight pucker, as if he’d stunned her. Her breath still came uneven.

And she didn’t answer. Didn’t assure him she loved him as he loved her, wholly, beyond reason, beyond doubt. His heart seized in his chest, curled like a pill bug in defense.

He cleared his throat and gestured toward her hip, belatedly aware she couldn’t see him. “Don’t put your hand there in my—ah. I imagine there’s a sticky spot on the floor.”

“No, it will go down the drain.”

Philip darted out his hand, finding her shoulder as she propped herself on her elbows. “There’s a drain in your oubliette?”

“Yes,” she said, and he heard her donning her breeches. “The sewer runs beneath all the main rooms, including the dungeon. How else do you think the waste gets out?”

He nearly laughed. “Then how do you keep your prisoners from escaping? They could just go through the sewer.”

“Save there’s a grate at the end to keep invaders out. There are holes along the roof that catch the rain and the water simply carries all the effluvia out of the castle and down into the Kostengraben. Very effective, and we never have to see it again.”

“Washes it all away, does it?” His thoughts racing, Philip pressed a kiss to her lips, or where he thought her lips should be in the near-total dark. “Straighten your gown, darling. I’m getting you out of here.”

She lay perfectly still, as if frozen, while he rolled to his side. “Washes away,” she whispered.

“Yes, the Romans called it a cloaca, and the word has been adopted to describe the body part of some animals which is used for?—”

“Washing away,” she nearly shouted as she sat straight up. “Not sins. Not the chapel. The sewer .”

Was she going mad now, after all she’d withstood so far? “Don’t fret, love. I have an idea?—”

She clamped a hand around his wrist, preventing him, for the moment, from rebuttoning his breeches. “The map says the treasure is buried ‘in the place where all is washed away.’ Philip, they took the chest and put the document in the one place no one would ever look. In a place it would be utterly impossible to find without a map and key.”

Finally, he caught on. “You think the patent is hidden in the sewer?”

“It has to be. It’s the only way the map makes sense. It kept leading me to the old chapel, but we’re below the chapel— directly below, I think. That must be what the odd symbol was trying to tell me.”

She fumbled in the dark, and he heard the crinkle of paper as she withdrew the map from the hiding place that had served her well all the way from Calais, no doubt adding an extra layer of insulation from the Alpine cold as well as stopping an assassin’s blade in Luxembourg.

“I’m not going to read it in the dark, my love.”

“Well, hold it while I find my tinderbox.”

Philip choked on surprise. “You’ve had a tinderbox? All this time?”

“Yes, in my pockets, along with a candle. And a ball of string, actually, like Theseus in the labyrinth. I didn’t want to find myself in a remote part of the castle where there was no torch or no window. And look, here I am.”

Rustling followed, the familiar sound of her skirts moving. He still hummed with satisfaction from their joining, yet the sound never failed to interest him.

Philip kept the laughter from his voice. This brilliant, unexpected woman. “Why didn’t you light the candle, then, instead of sitting here in the dark?”

“I was keeping it for when I really feared I would go mad. I was waiting for the hallucinations—I’m told that’s the beginning, you see. I thought they were starting when I heard your voice.” She patted his cheek, her voice full of satisfaction. “But it was you.”

“I am, as always, at your service, my lady.”

“Then hold this, too.” She pressed a beeswax candle into his palm.

She lit the candle from the tinderbox, revealing the truly compressed space of their prison and—his heart jumped at the sight—another iron grate set into the floor. It was crusted by centuries of grime to the stone, but not bolted, and Philip’s Swiss-made knife stood up to the task.

“It will make noise to move it,” he whispered when he was finally able to lift a corner. They hadn’t been whispering before, and there were no other voices in the dungeon, but with escape a real possibility, he felt the need for stealth.

Candlelight danced in her wide, solemn eyes. “We’ll replace it behind us. That will slow them down a bit. But let me remind you there will be another grate at the end.”

“We’ll deal with that when we get there. Any need for your string?”

“No, there’s only a slight curve to the passage, and of course some slope.” She showed him the relevant page from the map, and he could see now how the mapmaker had tried to indicate a passage underneath the chapel. Philip would have done a better job, but the original maker might have been operating from memory, or under duress.

Melisende watched as, with a few strained heaves, Philip moved the ancient grate aside enough for them to wiggle through. She held her candle above the darkness, whence came a very distinct odor.

“I imagine there is, ah, some trace of—you know. Our numbers are few, but we have been using the facilities as intended.”

“I’ll buy new boots for your triumphal entrance into Merania. Hand me the candle.”

A quick inspection showed that the tunnel was large enough to allow a person to walk through it, if bent over, and, in a Romanesque feat of engineering, a small stone shelf ran along one side. Made to permit passage for a person who might have to free a stoppage at some point, Philip guessed. Clever engineers. Philip handed the candle to Melisende and went first, then, once he had his footing, reached for her.

“I’ve been thinking.” Her voice echoed against the damp stone as they crept along, Philip ensuring the shelf would hold his weight before he proceeded. “Carinthia found out I was coming, no doubt from his cursed spies—apologies, no insult intended to present company.”

“None taken.”

“And he must have been watching to see where I would go. Frau Huber knew this, which is why she pretended to supply all the castles. But somehow he knew I was here—I can’t imagine how?—”

“He was probably watching your cousin,” Philip remarked, holding the candle aloft. The smell of the passage was strong, but not as terrible as the usual privy. The ingenious technique of collecting rainwater worked in their favor, given the regular afternoon thunderstorms that seemed to mark the Alpine summer.

“I imagine he knew we were here from the moment we arrived,” he added. “So much for our stealthy escape.”

“But why didn’t he try to kill me long before?”

“Because it would save him trouble if you found the patent first. Then he could simply take it from you, rather than having to search himself. That’s what he was after when that thief stole the book you bought from the Duchess of Hunsdon, remember.”

She held silent a long moment as they inched along. “And what’s to stop him trying to take it from me if we find it now?”

Philip snorted. “If it’s the document or your life, which are you going to choose, Melisende?”

Silence met him, punctuated by the echo of their damp footsteps. Philip swung with the candle to face her, shock bracing his system. “It’s worth your life ?”

He recognized that mutinous set to her jaw, the flare of her eyes. “Yes.”

He shook his head, trying to clear the confusion. He might love her, but he didn’t understand this woman at all.

“It’s my father’s legacy, Philip. My family’s legacy. Their right. My uncle doesn’t get to usurp from a good ruler, a just ruler, simply for his own ambition. And Carinthia has no right at all. Meran in her tower sacrificed herself, marrying one of the invaders to protect her land and her people. I suspect my sister did much the same, marrying Carinthia to give him some pretense to a family claim, to keep him invading with force. The more I reflect, the more I think that was at the heart of the row she had with my father. She bargained herself away, fearing war if my father rejected Carinthia and his ambition. I can do no less than they did. I will sacrifice myself if need be.”

“No,” he said, anger steeling his voice. “You won’t. You will live to fight. We’ll go to Vienna. We’ll find allies. We’ll…I’ll talk to Fox back in London. Perhaps the British can spare some soldiers, or make a bargain with Austria. Prussia, if need be. I won’t let you?—”

“Philip,” she said gently, “stop.”

“ No . I won’t have you be harmed because?—”

“Stop, darling.” She lifted her eyes to a focal point above his head, then lifted his hand holding the candle. “Look.”

He turned to face forward.

Ahead of them glowed the dull gray of predawn, a gradual lightening of the shadows, showing through the squares of the grate that framed the glimpse of the mountains at the end of the passage.

And above the top of the drain, tucked into a deep shelf carved out of the thick castle wall, sat three small wooden chests, each bound shut with iron bands and a heavy iron lock.

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