Chapter Eleven #2
Ethan moved in to stand beside Miss Tibthorpe. He said nothing, but his stance made it clear he’d heard the exchange.
The count snarled at Tibby, “Where is she? Where is ze princess?”
“Which princess do you mean?” Tibby said calmly. “I am acquainted with several.”
The count gave a growl of frustration and glanced suspiciously around the room. Spotting a pair of small shoes behind a curtain he pounced. “Aha!” He dragged back the curtain and pulled out a small boy.
“Oy, watcher doin’? Lemme go, ya big ape!” Jim pulled free with a string of bad language that in normal circumstances would have had Mrs. Barrow reaching for a bar of soap to scrub out his mouth with. She beamed proudly at him from the doorway.
“The stolen crown prince, I believe,” Gabe said to Sir Walter. “He learned that language from the gypsies, no doubt.”
“Pah, he is nothing but a beggar boy!”
“Who are you callin’ a beggar—” Jim began before he was hushed by Mrs. Barrow.
The count stabbed an accusing finger at Tibby. “This woman knows Princess Caroline!”
Sir Walter pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Do you, madam?” he asked.
Tibby gave him a cool look. “Princess Caroline of Zindaria? Yes, of course I know her. She was one of my most distinguished pupils. I also had the honor of instructing the current countess of Morey, and Lady Hunter-Stanley as well as the Honorable Mrs. Charles Sandford.” She smiled graciously at Sir Walter.
“Then where is she?” The count ground out.
Tibby looked down her nose at him. “Princess Caroline left my care when she was fifteen years old.”
“You have exchanged correspondence,” the count alleged.
Tibby raised an eyebrow. “Naturally. I correspond regularly with all my girls.”
The count snapped his whip against his boot. “She was coming here, to you! She said so in her letters.”
Tibby raised both eyebrows. “Reading other people’s letters? How very dishonorable.”
“Pah! Do not evade ze question. She made arrangements to come here with the boy.”
Tibby gave a faint smirk. “Did she? Really?”
Count Anton frowned. “What do you mean?”
Tibby smoothed her skirts placidly. The mouse teasing the tiger. Gabe bit his lip. She was enjoying this, he saw. Getting even for a little of what she had suffered at his hands. Count Anton snapped his whip against his boot, harder and harder, his temper mounting, his pale eyes boring into her.
Eventually she said, “What one writes and what one does are often quite different.” She looked at the squire. “And if people who read letters not addressed to them go off on wild goose chases as a result, well…” She bared her teeth at the count in the pretext of a smile.
The count stared at her, goaded. His slender fingers flexed as if itching to throttle her. Ethan did not take his eyes off the count. He folded his arms and his jaw jutted pugnaciously.
Gabe stepped forward. “That’s quite enough. If this princess was writing letters to arrange visits to her old friends, and you read them, why the devil are you telling everyone I kidnapped her? I’ve a good mind to have you up for slander! Sir Walter, you are my witness.”
Sir Walter cleared his throat. “Now, Captain Renfrew, I’m sure there is no need for that. The count didn’t mean anything by it, I’m certain. Did you, Count?”
There was a tense silence. The count knew he was on thin ice. After a moment he said stiffly, “Perhaps my informant made a mistake.”
“Yes, yes, a mistake.” The squire gratefully seized on the excuse.
He turned to Gabe. “It was the horses, y’see.
The count was told the princess was in a vehicle drawn by matched grays, and as everybody knows, the only grays of any quality in this area are yours.
That was the error. Must have been some other grays passing through. Some other lady.”
Gabe gave the count a hard look. “Indeed.” The Zindarians were horsemen: of course they’d notice his grays.
The squire was grateful for an excuse to leave. “My apologies for the misunderstanding, Captain Renfrew, and Miss Tibthorpe, for the disturbance. After you, Count.” He gestured toward the door.
The count hesitated, then stalked into the hallway, his face pale with anger and frustration.
Jim slipped ahead in the hallway and pulled open the front door. As the count, with very bad grace, stormed past, Jim said in a cheeky voice, “An’ good riddance to bad rubbish, yer slimy yeller snake!”
Balked of his prey, the count slashed his whip hard across the boy’s face. Jim screamed with pain as he crashed against the wall.
Callie sat on the bed upstairs with her arm around Nicky. She had been trying to stay calm, reassuring her son that there was nothing wrong, merely that Count Anton was downstairs and she didn’t wish to speak to him.
Nicky seemed to accept that, sitting quietly, docile and obedient.
To distract herself from what might be happening downstairs, she asked him about his riding lesson. But Nicky didn’t respond. After a moment he said thoughtfully, “Count Anton wants to kill me, doesn’t he, Mama? And become prince in my place.”
She stared at him, shocked. She’d tried to keep it from him. How long had he known?
He added, “That’s why we are hiding up here in your bedchamber. Mr. Renfrew and the others are going to save us, aren’t they?”
“Yes, darling, they are.”
“And we will wait here until it is safe to go down again.” He was pale, she saw, and his eyes were troubled.
And suddenly Callie realized what she was doing. She was sitting up here, hiding like a frightened rabbit.
Teaching her son to hide like a frightened rabbit.
Sending other people to risk themselves for her sake.
Tibby’s cottage had been burned to the ground. She had lost everything because of Callie, and yet Tibby was downstairs, facing the man who’d imprisoned her then burned her home.
Not hiding like a frightened rabbit.
In the last few days Nicky had started to glow with confidence; now he was pinched-looking and anxious again.
Callie was ashamed. She’d let her fear rule her. She looked down at her small son and recalled the conversation she’d had in the kitchen about the life she was giving him, a life of running and running and running.
She had escaped from Zindaria. She was now in a country where Count Anton’s insidious influence was not so pervasive.
Here there was less chance of maidservants and grooms being in his pay, owing him fealty, being terrorized. Here he was the stranger, the foreigner—not her.
Here, people believed her. Her fears had not been dismissed as female foolishness. She’d been taken seriously. And she had support.
So what was she doing hiding like a rabbit? Filling her son with fear and teaching him to be helpless in the face of it.
Here and now the running was going to stop.
“Mr. Renfrew said something interesting the other day,” she told Nicky. “He said, ‘A battle is not always won on brute strength alone.’”
Nicky tilted his head up at her and considered the words. “You mean we cannot beat Count Anton in a proper fight, but there are other ways to defeat him?”
She smiled. “When did you get to be so clever? Yes, my love, that is exactly what it means.”
She stood and looked thoughtfully around the room.
She had no weapon to defend herself and her son.
In Zindaria she had owned a small pistol—Rupert had given it to her and taught her to use it after the attempt on Nicky’s life where her earring had been torn out.
But the pistol had disappeared after Rupert’s death.
She might not be able to fight the count, but she could certainly bluff. And for bluffing, she had just the weapon.
She opened the bandbox and from beneath its false bottom took out a circular bundle.
“What do you want that for, Mama?” Nicky whispered.
“When you have nothing else to fall back on, my son,” she told him, “remember who you are and where you have come from. The strength will come.”
She unwrapped the bundle and took out her mother’s diamond tiara. It was the only thing she had of her mother’s, and she loved it dearly. She stood in front of the mirror and put it on her head. It looked ridiculous with her traveling clothes, nevertheless the feel of it gave Callie strength.
“I have this to fall back on,” Nicky told her and showed her a long black cane with a silver handle. It was nearly as big as he was. “I found it in the wardrobe.”
She smiled and tiptoed to the door, just to listen. She had no intention of showing herself unless she was forced to.
She was just in time to hear, “An’ good riddance to bad rubbish, yer slimy yeller snake!” followed by a child’s scream of pain.
Nicky leapt up. “That’s Jim. He’s hurt Jim!” And before Callie could stop him Nicky had dashed out of the room.
He ran toward the stairs, yelling at the top of his lungs in Zindarian, “Leave him alone, you bully! I command you to stand back!”
In one hand Nicky brandished—good God, Callie thought. It was a sword! Where on earth had he found a sword?
She raced after him. As Nicky pelted screaming down the stairs she saw the count turn. There was a feral light in his eye as he produced a long-bladed knife and turned it toward the small boy hurtling toward him.
“Nicky, nooo!” she screamed.
Gabriel turned at the sound of Nicky yelling.
In a split-second reaction he reached out and caught Nicky in mid-flight just as he reached the foot of the stairs.
In seconds he’d taken the sword from Nicky, passed him back to Ethan, and had the sword at Count Anton’s throat.
The knife in the count’s hand wavered, then dropped to the floor.
Nicky was saved. Callie stumbled and almost fell. She clutched the banister and steadied herself. Her son was not yet out of danger. Gabriel had saved him from the knife, but there was still the law to be dealt with. Her knees wobbled. But it wasn’t over yet.