Chapter Thirty-Nine
Niki had spent longer with Freddie than he had meant to, but the other man seemed desperately in need of a sympathetic ear, and he knew Roberta was fond of him.
He was like a sort of honorary brother. They had proceeded to Freddie’s rooms down in the bowels of the castle.
There were dungeons here—no longer in use—and an armory for weapons and quarters for guards.
This was where Freddie strategized with the bodyguards—some of whom could be heard snoring next door.
After a couple of large drinks, Freddie had become quite chatty.
He had spoken about his childhood and the days at the orphanage where he had been placed as a baby.
Not by his grandmother, like Gabriel, or by the former Duke of Northam, like Charles, but by no one in particular.
If someone had ever known who he belonged to, they had never come forward.
After his first attempts to find his relatives, Freddie had given up.
“I am proud of my friends, I love them like brothers, but I have had to make my way in the world entirely on my own. First in the army and then in the government.”
“I am sure your friends are right to be proud of you,” Niki said. “Not many of us can succeed without help.”
“And I have succeeded,” Freddie said proudly. “But now…” He dropped his head into his arms. “I need someone to share my life with me, and I thought I had found that person.”
Niki felt a wave of empathy. He knew what it was like to feel alone, to long for a connection with someone else, and until he had found Roberta, he had wondered if he ever would find it.
“Don’t give up,” he spoke before he could stop himself. “I see the way Matilda looks at you. She needs you as much as you need her.”
Freddie peered down into his empty mug and then took out his pocket watch and squinted to read the face of it.
“I have taken up enough of your time.” And then, as if just realizing, his hazel eyes grew comically wide.
“It is your wedding night, sir! Dear God, what must you think of me? I am as selfish as Tomas.”
Niki chuckled. “I had my wedding night, remember? But yes, I am looking forward to another one.”
At that moment, the door to the guard room crashed open and someone stood there, breathing hard, wild-eyed, his hair standing on end. Freddie stood up so quickly, his chair fell over behind him.
For a moment, Niki did not recognize his cousin. Had the boy come to apologize?
“Tomas?” he said. “What…?”
“Cousin! Freddie! They have taken Roberta!”
Niki was there in an instant, taking the boy by the shoulders, hardly noticing the red mark on his white face. “Who has taken her? What are you talking about, Tomas?”
Freddie eased him gently but firmly away. “Tomas,” he said, “tell us what has happened. Calmly, if you please. Niki, you need to listen because I fear my head is spinning and I will require your help.”
Tomas’s gaze was now fixed on the man he had earlier said he hated, looking at him as if he was his only hope.
“Focus,” Freddie spoke firmly. “You are safe, Tomas. Now speak.”
The thought popped into Niki’s head that Freddie would make a good father, and then he pushed it away and concentrated on what the boy was saying.
At first, he spewed out a mishmash of information, but with Freddie’s careful questioning, it began to make sense. Chamberlain Francis had asked Tomas to come to a room where he had seemed to be offering him what Tomas knew was not his to give.
“He said I was to take your place, Niki,” Tomas said, obviously still shocked by the conversation.
“That the country needs to return to the old ways. I told him what I thought of that,” he added, proud of himself.
“He—he didn’t like it. And then I said I was leaving, and he slapped me.
” His eyes were wide, as if he still couldn’t believe such a thing had happened to him.
Niki imagined this privileged boy had never been slapped in his life.
“So you tried to leave, and then what? How does Roberta come into this?” Freddie asked patiently while Niki wanted to scream.
“Roberta was outside the door. She had heard everything, and they knew it. They caught her, and me, and the chamberlain said they would take us into the forest. To deal with us there.” He swallowed, eyes flicking to Niki, but whatever he saw there was too hard for him to bear, and he looked again to Freddie.
“We went down some stairs at the side of the castle. There was a garden and a wall, and I think the stables were nearby. I got away, and I ran. I couldn’t stop and free Roberta, I knew they would not let me, but I thought if I found help… ”
“You did the right thing,” Freddie reassured him, briefly clasping his shoulder. He turned and opened the door to the other room, shouting loud enough to wake the sleeping men. “Up, all of you! We have work to do!”
Tomas and Niki stood together as the guards threw on their clothes, listening to Freddie at the same time. They strapped on weapons and loaded pistols, and all the while, Freddie was giving them instructions.
“We don’t know where they’ve gone,” he said, “so we should spread out. There may be tracks, so be aware of that. Take torches so we can see. And dogs. Do we have dogs?”
Niki spoke, relieved there was something he could help with. “Yes, in the kennels. I will fetch something of Roberta’s, so they have the scent.”
As he said the words, the enormity of what was happening suddenly struck him, and he staggered. Tomas caught him and held him upright. “I am so sorry, Niki,” he said in a choked voice. “I should have stayed. I should have—”
“No,” Niki responded, his own voice shaky. “You did the right thing. Freddie will find her. If anyone can, then it is he.”
Tomas nodded miserably and glanced at the other man, who was so obviously in charge.
Niki hoped he was seeing Freddie in a new light, that he was a man to be proud of rather than whatever Tomas had previously thought of him.
When this was over, he would speak to Matilda, he would make things right, but first, he needed Roberta safe again in his arms.
Bleakly, he asked himself why he had not told her how much he loved her. What did it matter if she didn’t love him? He should have told her and held her close while he could. Please God that he would still have that chance.
Roberta stumbled again. The coat they had given her was far too big, dragging on the ground and tripping her up.
It had been hanging in the stables, and it smelled like hay and horses, but to her that was comforting.
And she supposed she should be grateful they had bothered to give her something to keep out the cold.
Maybe it meant they weren’t going to harm her after all?
But the hopeful thought barely lightened her dark fears.
She would have liked to tell Chamberlain Francis what she thought of him, just as Tomas had done, but she kept quiet. All her hopes were on the boy—that he would bring her help—and if she upset the chamberlain, he might decide to deal with her before she could be rescued.
Before Niki came for her. Because she had to believe he would find her; it was too heartrending to think this was the end of what was supposed to be their long and happy life together.
As they rode through the night-black forest, she clung to the man in front of her. He was a poor rider, and she knew she could soon outdistance him if she had the chance to take his horse, but again, it would be risky, and she wanted to stay safe. For Niki.
The strange thing was, this felt like the dream she had been having off and on for months. The night in the forest and her feelings of desperation. Except that in her dream, she had believed it was Niki who was in trouble, but it turned out it was Roberta.
“This way!” The chamberlain was a very good rider. Roberta wondered again if his infirmities had been a pretense. Or perhaps now that he was finally doing what he had planned, taking over Holtswig, it had given him a new lease on life.
The man she was clinging to attempted to turn his horse to the left, following his master.
The animal refused, throwing up its head, but he dragged at the reins and made matters worse.
Now the horse was rearing up on its hind legs, and Roberta felt her captor struggling to stay in the saddle.
All that was needed was one hard shove to the side to send him to the ground.
Roberta scrambled forward until she was astride the animal and held on tightly.
She had not meant for this to happen, but now that it had, she had no choice but to make the most of it. Only a weak fool would sit and wait to be recaptured and led meekly to her slaughter. Despite her hopes, Roberta had no illusions when it came to Francis’s plans for her future.
She dug her heels into the animal’s flanks, and it galloped off along a different track, leaving the chamberlain and his henchmen behind.
She could hear them shouting, but as she put distance between them, their voices faded.
Ahead of her, the track was leading steeply upward, and she could see more of the sky, glimmering with stars.
She must be lightheaded because she almost felt as if she could fly up into it, like Pegasus.
When she dared to glance backward, there was the flicker of torches through the trees, but they were too far below her to be the chamberlain.
Her breath caught, and she knew. It was Niki. Could he reach her in time, before the chamberlain and his men?
A moment later, she burst through some shrubs and discovered she was on top of a bluff, overlooking the castle.
The many windows were lit up, as if everybody was awake.
Roberta knew where she was then. This was the favorite place Niki had brought her to on their first ride together.
She turned her mount, circling the small area, looking for another way out, but there wasn’t one.
When she reached the cliff’s edge, she could see the riders with the torches, and they were getting closer.
But behind her came the dull thud of hooves and the muffled voices of her pursuers.
They were closing in, and she had nowhere to go.
And then she remembered. The High Wire. That narrow track that Niki had once traversed, so dangerous he had not wanted to tell her how to get down onto it. But he had told her, and now she made her way to that spot and looked over the edge.
There was a narrow ledge leading down from the top of the bluff, so narrow it barely looked wide enough for a horse and rider, but it must be.
Niki had done it. The ledge went on until it was some twenty feet from where she was now, clinging perilously to the face of the bluff, while on the other side was a dizzying drop.
Roberta glanced behind her again and knew she had only minutes to make up her mind.
Roberta urged her mount forward. The animal was not happy, but she reminded herself she was good with horses.
She could do this; she could. She spoke softly, encouragingly, and it took the first step onto the narrow ledge, and then another, and they were moving forward.
She pressed as close as she could to the cliff face and did not look at the drop below.
And a moment later she heard Francis calling out to her.
“Roberta! Come here! You have nowhere to go. We might spare you if you come to us now.”
Might spare her? The chamberlain needed to work on his persuasive skills.
Roberta kept moving, slowly, quietly. One step at a time.
She had traveled some distance now, around the front of the bluff, until she was on the other side.
A glance showed her that the ledge continued on until it rejoined the forest some way ahead, but hadn’t Niki said something about a gap?
She needed to keep going. If the chamberlain knew of the High Wire, he could easily ride down to where it ended and trap her.
Roberta knew she could not go back from whence she’d come; it was impossible.
Behind her, up on the lookout, she heard Francis’s furious shout.
And then he said something in the old tongue that sounded like a curse, and Roberta shivered.
Whatever happened next, she knew she had done the right thing by escaping from that madman.
Even if she did not make it over the gap and fell, even if she never saw Niki again, he would know she had tried her very best to get back to him.