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.“Thank you, Sandre.That was very good of you.” Lady Fanchere rubbed the small of her back.Aimée chafed her hand.Emma put her shawl around her shoulders.“I’m not an invalid, you know,” Lady Fanchere objected.“No, just well loved.” Aimée’s plump, pink cheeks and sunny smile made a mockery of her black mourning gown.Lady Fanchere lightly touched her arm.“You’re a dear.Now.” She turned to Prince Sandre, and her eyes were unexpectedly severe.“Emma tried to tell me something earlier, and I wasn’t listening.But you seem to know my dear Emma, and I wonder how.”Emma winced and said, “I should have told you immediately, but—”Lady Fanchere interrupted, “I asked Prince Sandre for his explanation.”Emma subsided, so embarrassed at the reprimand and the coming tale, she could do nothing but sit with her hands twisting in her lap.But Prince Sandre was more than glad to answer Lady Fanchere.He posed, a hand on one hip, and said,“It is true.Coward that he is, last night the Reaper chose to hide among the weakest and gentlest of the people in Moricadia.He ran upstairs into the servants’ wing—”“Where you are housed, Emma?” Lady Fanchere asked.“Yes, my lady,” Emma said in a small voice.Almost without pause, Prince Sandre plunged on.“And I ran after him, my men on my heels.He hid—”Lady Fanchere interrupted again.“But not in your room, Emma?”“I heard the boots thumping as the prince’s men searched,” Emma said.“Although we searched all the rooms,” Prince Sandre continued, “we didn’t find him.He escaped, and now it is up to us to bring him down.”“You can’t take down a ghost!” Aimée said.“He’s ephemeral.”Prince Sandre turned on her, his face savage with impatience.“I have a plan.”Emma lifted her head and considered him, eyes narrowed.A plan? He had a plan?“Dear Aimée, don’t be silly.” Lady Fanchere pressed Aimée’s arm with her hand, and at the same time stared reproachfully at Sandre.Once more, he donned the facade of the noble warrior.“Silly Aimée.You’re so childlike in your belief, almost as if you were Moricadian yourself.”Aimée tried to speak again.Lady Fanchere shushed her.Emma took a breath.Took another breath.Then inserted herself into the conversation.“Your Highness, won’t you tell us about your plan to capture the infamous Reaper?” She was surprised to hear herself sound so calmly interested and so.so.composed, as if she regularly made conversation with royalty and noblewomen.Had it been only three days ago that she’d massaged Lady Lettice’s feet?Yet Lady Fanchere cast her a grateful glance, as if Emma had planned her intervention to save Aimée from censure.And Prince Sandre smiled at her, a man proud of his intentions and the woman who invited him to proclaim his wiliness.“A good question, Miss Chegwidden.Tonight and every night until we hold him crushed in our fist, my men will wait at the crossroads between the lower city and the castle.They’ll place a rope across the road, wait on either side, and when they see the Reaper galloping close, they’ll pull the rope tight.The horse will fall, the Reaper will be flung to the ground, and we’ll capture him.And hang him, of course.” He paused, waiting for praise.Aimée was shaking her head.Emma couldn’t speak for dismay.Would Sandre’s scheme work? Would the Reaper die, leaving the Moricadian people without a champion?“A sound plan, Sandre,” Lady Fanchere said.“I hope that brings an end to this terror that has stalked the land.”Her turn of phrase displeased Prince Sandre.“The Reaper is not a terror.He is a foolish, measly coward, and I will have his head.”In a cold, clear voice, Aimée asked, “If he’s a foolish, measly coward, then what are you that you’ve let him roam free for so long?”Sandre turned apoplectic red from his starched white cravat to his forehead.Emma wanted to moan.How could Lady de Guignard be so wise and so foolish at the same time?“Aimée, I think it would be best if you went to rest.I believe you have a headache.” Lady Fanchere sounded coldly angry.Aimée seemed startled by Lady Fanchere’s tone.She glanced up at Prince Sandre and whispered, “Oh.Yes.I do.” Standing, she curtsied, turned, and scuttled away.“I do not know how you stand that woman,” Prince Sandre said.Without pause, Lady Fanchere attacked.“You were in Emma’s bedroom last night?”He sighed theatrically.“I’m afraid so, but let me offer my assurances that your companion was completely safe in my company.”“Emma wasn’t alone with you,” Lady Fanchere said.“You said your men were there.”Emma half closed her eyes, wondering if Prince Sandre would lie, and half hoping he did.“It wasn’t proper for my men to be in a young lady’s room, so I sent them out.”Lady Fanchere abruptly stood.“Sandre, if you would, I’d like a moment of your time.”Prince Sandre nodded as if Lady Fanchere’s request didn’t surprise him.He bowed to Emma, took Lady Fanchere’s arm, and led her away.Chapter SeventeenEmma glanced at Lady Fanchere and Prince Sandre, knowing full well she was the subject of their conversation, wondering what Lady Fanchere would say to him.but although her future depended on this conversation, it wasn’t what occupied her mind.Instead, she wondered how she could possibly pass a warning to the elusive Reaper.“Miss Chegwidden?” A stranger’s voice made her turn and stare.His English was flawless.He was handsome, but in an intense, brooding way that made her think he would be an uncomfortable companion.He wore a dark suit and white linens that looked as if they had come from London’s finest tailor—and he looked not at all familiar.“I’m Miss Chegwidden,” she acknowledged.“How good to see you again.” He bowed with the seamless elegance of a gentleman born.So she had met him.But where? “I fear I don’t recall.”“You don’t remember me.Of course, why would you?” He smiled at her as if expecting nothing more, although why this man should be modest, she didn’t know.“I’m Raul Lawrence, the son of Viscount Grimsborough.You and I met briefly at a gathering at St.Ashley.You were very young then, but somehow we had a chance to visit, and you know one of my sisters—from school, I believe.”“Of course.” Still she didn’t recall him, or his sister, either.But she had certainly attended gatherings at St.Ashley, at Christmas and on May Day.And at her boarding school, she had met many noblewomen who noticed her only in passing.Some were kind to the rector’s daughter, others less so.Apparently his sister was one of the kind girls, so Emma pretended recollection.“How very good to see you again.Are you visiting in Moricadia?”“I live here.”“Here?” She looked around the assembly room.Her gaze rested on Prince Sandre and Lady Fanchere, and once again she wondered what was passing between them that made Lady Fanchere look so solemn and Prince Sandre speak so persuasively.“Not here.But in Moricadia.I own a villa not far from Aguas de Dioses.It’s a bit of a rattrap, I fear, deep in the woods without another dwelling for miles, but I make do.” He indicated the promenade.“Shall we?”She didn’t really know him.Yet this was a public place, and he was an Englishman [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]