Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
With his usual efficiency, Georg had managed to bundle everyone into two carriages and they set off right after breakfast.
Lady Evie was carried down on a stretcher, wrapped tightly in shawls and blankets. They transported her lying flat in one carriage, with the help of mattresses and pillows. Only the maid was accompanying her. The second vehicle carried Schneider, himself, and Miss Honeywell.
The latter was sitting across from him, looking thoughtfully out of the window. She had changed out of her ballroom gown to a simple dark blue cotton dress and a woollen coat. She had dark shadows under her eyes, which left him briefly wondering whether she hadn’t slept well.
He certainly had, to his great surprise, on the floor right outside the laundry room, too. He’d awoken with Schneider shaking him by the shoulder. He’d been sleeping deeply, which was rare, for normally he was a light sleeper and would wake at the batting of a fly’s wing.
When Schneider looked at him oddly, he grumbled, “What?”
“You have, I believe, something in your hair.” Schneider gestured towards his right ear. Georg reached for it and pulled out a purple flower.
“And something here.” Schneider pointed at the top of his hair.
Georg reached up and pulled down whatever had adorned the top of his head.
He stared.
It appeared to be a daintily crafted circlet of purple flowers, usually worn by girls in their hair.
“What on earth…?”
Schneider did not move a muscle. “And here, too.” He pointed at his chest.
True enough, there was yet another one of those blasted flowers peeking out from the top of his button hole. He tore it out and tossed it aside with an impatient humph.
“It appears someone has played a trick on you, sir.” Schneider, of course, had to state the obvious, as if that piece of observation hadn’t dawned on him yet.
He stared at the circlet with a frown, then narrowed his eyes as he looked at the door of the laundry room.
It couldn’t have been her…? But no. The door was still closed. Besides, he would have woken up the moment she’d opened the door. Surely?
“It must have been a child,” Schneider put in unhelpfully. “Of the mischievous kind.”
Yes, it must have been. But even so, how had that not awakened him?
He was disconcerted by the fact that he’d slept through the entire event, when he was trained to wake up as soon as a mouse stirred in the room.
He cast a sharp glance at the woman sitting across from him in the carriage.
It couldn’t have been her. She was far too helpless with her movements. Earlier, Schneider had had to lift her across the rubble in the courtyard, left behind when the storm tore the roof from the barn.
She’d stood there, wringing her hands like a tragedienne, incapable of taking even a single step on her own.
Schneider, whose hero-worship of the girl had doubled since her noble sacrifice of her room to a mother with three children, had solicitously offered to help her across the pile of debris that had blocked their way.
“I am ever so grateful,” she’d said breathlessly. “What would I do without you?”
No. That creature would not have had the dexterity to tiptoe not only across his, but also Schneider’s sleeping forms without waking either of them.
As if feeling his assessing stare, she met his gaze. He looked into a pair of wide, guileless blue eyes.
She tilted her head aside and fluttered her eyelashes. “Have we arrived yet?”
They’d barely driven a mile.
He decided that such a question did not merit a reply.
“Not yet, Miss Honeywell,” Schneider replied instead, eagerly. “Wolfsthal is about an hour away from here. We shall arrive anon.”
“Why is it called Wolfsthal? Are there wolves there? How frightening if there are.”
“Not any more, Miss Honeywell. I daresay in the past there were, but they were all hunted down by Hartenberg’s grandfather.
I can assure you there isn’t a single wolf in the vicinity, and if there is, you need not fear, for we shall certainly protect you as I am a most excellent shot.
As is Hartenberg here, of course. After all, he likes to hunt in this area. We are retiring to his hunting box.”
She appeared to be assessing him. “How very reassuring to have two accomplished sharpshooters to protect me from those fearsome creatures.”
He threw her a sharp gaze, but she’d folded her hands in her lap and lowered her eyes.
He looked away abruptly. “Any news from Hofer?” he asked in German.
“No, sir. But we can assume that the post must have been delayed, like everyone else, due to the storm.” A good agent would never let something paltry like a storm delay him. The man had gone missing not because he was held up, but because he was taken down by the enemy.
Georg drummed his fingers against the armrest of his seat. “When the missive does finally get delivered, make sure to notify me.”
“Yes, sir.”
In other words: send out men to search the countryside.
They continued to discuss administrative matters that no outsider would understand even if they were fluent in German.
Miss Honeywell, if she understood what they discussed, was clearly uninterested, and she leaned her head against the side of the carriage and nodded off to sleep.
The sound of the wheels crunching on gravel woke Evie, and when she looked out of the window, she saw that the carriage was driving along an avenue lined with linden trees.
“This is a hunting box?” she gasped. In her mind, a hunting box was an insignificant-looking stone cottage in the middle of the forest, used by the nobility as a place to stay when they hunted in the more remote parts of their estates.
Her brother Julius had such a lodge, but its purpose was entirely practical, to provide temporary accommodation and storage for sporting equipment.
But this! This was not what she had envisioned.
The mansion they were heading towards was a charming little Baroque castle, a dainty gem surrounded by a French formal garden complete with fountains, statues, and geometrically trimmed bushes.
Colourful plants and shrubs were planted in an intricate curling pattern, and in its midst stood a basin with a fountain.
The marble statue in the middle appeared to be a woman with a deer: Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
“When my grandfather visited Paris, he was so taken by the beauty of Versailles, that he allowed himself to be inspired by its art and architecture.” Hartenberg grimaced. “Yet his finances did not allow for more than this little hunting box.”
“Little hunting box?” Evie shook her head, astonished. “This is a castle!”
“I agree,” Schneider put in. “It is the prettiest little castle this side of the Danube. Which might possibly be the reason why you tend to spend more time here than in the city, Your Excellency?”
“Just for hunting, Schneider, mind you. Just for hunting.” The vehicle stopped, the horses snorted, the footmen jumped down to lower the folding steps and open the doors to hand the passengers out.
“Welcome to Jagdschlossl Wolfsthal, Miss Honeywell.” Hartenberg gestured for her to exit first.
This place was so exquisitely pretty, that Evie had to stop and admire her surroundings at every step. The carriage had driven them through the entrance of the square-shaped house, right into the courtyard. The servants were already waiting to help with the unloading.
Hartenberg strode to the second carriage and lifted Clara into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. Evie wanted to rush forward to check on her dear friend, but was told off with a snap. “Step back, Miss Honeywell.”
He tucked Clara carefully against his chest, gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face, and stared down at her for one moment with an arrested, softened expression.
Evie froze.
What was that in his gaze? Tenderness? Protectiveness?
Concern? As though Clara were something infinitely fragile that he had to protect at all costs.
It wasn’t directed at her at all, yet it whirled up a string of answering emotions that she did not understand.
A rush of heat, confusion, and something else prickling under her skin, and deeper the slithering of an uglier sensation.
Jealousy.
That surprised her so much that she dropped the carpet bag she was carrying.
Nellie caught it in time. “Careful, miss, it nearly landed in a puddle, again!”
“Thank you, Nellie.” Evie blinked and shook herself. “Make sure you keep up with His Excellency.” Hartenberg had already stridden ahead.
“Come, Miss Honeywell, let us proceed inside. I believe it is about to rain again.” Schneider offered Evie his arm.
Evie took it, wondering what tangle she’d got herself into, now.