But Hendrik grinned. “Sure she can. Give me a few minutes to shoo the adults into the den and close the gate on it. They tolerate me, since I feed them occasionally.”
“The adults aren’t tame?”
“They are, but only for Geoffrey. I don’t have his patience.”
“Neither do I,” Ella said. “I let him bring one of the pups into the house sometimes. They are adorable at this age. But as soon as they start chewing on the furniture, they go back to the pack.”
It didn’t take long for Hendrik to get the two adults locked into the den and open the outer gate for Alana to come inside the pen. Despite the cold and the falling snow, she spent a delightful hour playing with the baby wolves. Christoph had warned her to keep her gloves on. Good advice. Their sharp little teeth were catching on her gloves and would have shredded her fingers. But they were just being playful. It was hilarious when she threw snowballs for them. They would chase after each one, then dig around in the snow trying to find the ball that had broken apart as soon as it landed. The mother growled menacingly from the other side of the fence for quite some time, but Hendrik talked to her reassuringly and she finally lay down. She wouldn’t take those golden eyes off Alana though.
Behind the gate, Ella noticed Christoph’s tender smile as they watched Alana’s antics. “So you do like her, eh?”
Without taking his eyes off Alana, he replied, “What isn’t to like? She fascinates me.”
“Then you aren’t just her escort?”
“Don’t read more into this than there is, Mother. Besides, she doesn’t want to stay in Lubinia. Like your mother, she wants to return to England.”
“I stayed for a man,” she reminded him.
He put his arm around her shoulder. “And I’m glad you did, or I wouldn’t be here. But there is another reason for you not to get those motherly hopes up. Aside from the fact that she doesn’t exactly think kindly of me—”
Ella immediately scoffed, “Women adore you. What did you do to discourage her good opinion of you?”
“Perhaps someday I can explain if you are still curious, just not now.”
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He nodded solemnly. “I may have to kill the man who raised her. And she loves him like a daughter would.”
Watching the palace gates, Leonard recognized the guard he’d seen at the warehouse the other night. Now the man was walking toward the city. Leonard had followed the hooded man who’d assumed leadership of this clandestine group the other night, but the man had merely gone to an inn to sleep, and Leonard hadn’t gotten back to the inn early enough the next morning to see the man’s departure. The hooded man hadn’t returned to that inn last night, but Leonard planned to check it again tonight. In the meantime, he hoped to learn something interesting by following the guard.
The man wasn’t in uniform today and appeared quite nervous. He kept glancing behind him as if he expected someone from the palace to give chase, but he seemed to relax once the palace was no longer within view. Leonard followed on horseback, slowly. When he saw the guard slip into a cobbler shop and flip the sign on the door from OPEN TO CLOSED, he tied off his horse several shops down the street and waited. A moment later the cobbler left without locking the door and walked away.
Was this their new meeting place? Leonard checked for a back entrance and found one. It wasn’t locked and led directly into the back room where the cobbler worked his trade. It was early in the day. It could take hours for the guard’s contact to show up, and the back room offered no place to hide in case the man wandered back there.
He debated whether to get information out of the guard the old-fashioned way, but he resisted the impulse. The guard had worked for Aldo, and from what he’d overheard, even Aldo hadn’t known whom he was really working for, so Leonard didn’t think he’d get any useful information from the guard. Besides, it was the hooded man he wanted, and all he had was his distinctive gravelly voice to go by.
An hour passed. The guard began to snore in the front room. Leonard glanced around the wall he was hiding behind for a view of the shop’s front room and saw the man had settled into a comfortable chair. With a sigh, he resumed his position flat against the wall and continued to wait.
After another twenty minutes the front door opened and closed, and he heard the distinctive voice he was hoping for. “Wake up, eh.”
“Sorry,” the guard mumbled. “I didn’t know how long you would be.”
“Did Rainier follow his orders?”
“He tried to, but he failed.”
“Good.”
“Good?!” the guard exclaimed. “Did you want him to get caught?”
“No, but that was a hasty decision our employer soon regretted, so don’t try to succeed where Rainier failed. They may have other plans for her now. Was he caught?”
“Yes, and I’m not going back to the palace. He’ll give up my name if he hasn’t already. But whether they brand me a deserter or a spy, they’ll be looking for me, so I’m leaving the country.”
Leonard was furious. They’d tried to kill Alana again, but now had other plans for her? This had to end and soon, so it was time for him to take a more direct approach.
He left the shop silently and retrieved his horse, readying himself to follow his target without losing him this time. If he didn’t get a name today . . .
He got a good look at his target when he exited the shop and mounted his horse. The man wasn’t wearing a hood today, so Leonard could see he was in his mid-twenties and handsome with black hair and a strapping body.
The target rode south out of the city on one of the more traveled roads. In that direction lay a large Bruslan estate, commonly referred to as the Stronghold because it resembled a small city with many fine homes within the low rock walls that surrounded it. The Stronghold had no gate, and with so much activity in the area, no one asked Leonard what business he had there.
His target disappeared inside the main residence, but so many regal-looking men and women entered and exited the building that Leonard couldn’t determine whom the man was reporting to. He wasn’t in there that long, though. When he walked out of the building, he was alongside Karsten Bruslan, but the two men went separate ways without a word, Karsten into a fancy coach, the target back on his horse and riding off at a fast clip back to the city.
Leonard wouldn’t have known the other man was Karsten, old King Ernest’s heir, if he hadn’t heard his name mentioned yesterday at the festival and got a good look at him then. Was it a coincidence the two had departed at the same time? He decided to follow Karsten. Actually, the Bruslans’ favored heir might have the answers he wanted, but even if he didn’t, it was time to stir the pot a little to see what came out.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THEY HAD BEEN OUTSIDE long enough for the Beckers’ annoying neighbor to be gone from the house when they returned to it. In the parlor again, Alana was warming herself at the fireplace and didn’t see Christoph’s father enter the room.
“Kosha seems upset. Did a wild animal get too close to the pack?”
Christoph laughed and nodded toward Alana. “If you want to call her a wild animal.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Alana said drily.
Christoph introduced them, though it wasn’t necessary. The resemblance between father and son was remarkable. The rest of the day continued to be enjoyable. Unlike Christoph, his family was nice and made her feel quite at home.
Ella wanted to know all about the latest English fashions, which brought a few groans from the men. She merely laughed and invited Alana to come with her to the kitchen so they could continue the discussion without boring the men.
But what she really wanted to know was “You like my Christo?”
Alana didn’t blush and managed an evasive reply. “He—takes getting used to.”
That made Ella laugh. “I know he’s different from the English gentlemen you are accustomed to. Lubinian men, they don’t m
ince words, they get right to the point. But he’s a good boy.”
Alana chuckled. Only a mother would call a man Christoph’s size a boy. She liked Ella a lot. Spending time with her, she couldn’t help wondering what her own mother was going to be like. She hoped Helga would be as easy to talk to as Ella was.
She even got to meet Christoph’s baby brother—from a distance, when a servant brought him into the parlor. Christoph grabbed him from the woman, tossed him up in the air until the child was giggling in delight, then carried him over to Alana. But the child was too shy around strangers to let her get close, beginning to cry each time she held out her arms to him.
Wesley joined them for dinner. Sitting between his parents at the table, they both fed him tiny bites of the meal. Christoph, smiling at the boy, leaned over to tease Alana. “He doesn’t realize what he’s missing, to be held in your arms.”
At least he had whispered that, sitting next to her, and no one noticed her blush but him. But a distinctly uncomfortable moment came when the hour grew late and Ella said to Alana, “Come, I will show you to a room.”
Christoph stopped them and with nothing teasing in his tone said, “No, she will have to sleep in mine. She’s in danger. The people who want to kill her are earnest enough to break into a home to get at her.”
“We’re not going to be sharing a bed, Lady Becker,” Alana assured his mother.
“No, you certainly will not be,” Ella agreed. “She can sleep with me, Christo.”
“And where will I sleep?” Geoffrey wanted to know.
Alana thought it was settled until Christoph said, “I’m afraid I must insist, Mother. I’m not going to wake up in the morning to find you both with slit throats. It is my job to protect her, and I’m not going to sit outside your door or mine all night to do it. Propriety is meaningless when a life is at stake.”
“You actually think they would break into this house?” Ella asked.
“They broke into my quarters to get to her.”
A rather mild version, Alana thought, since she’d been in his prison, which was only connected to his quarters. But he obviously didn’t want to clarify that to his family.
Ella finally nodded, but said, “I will have a cot delivered to your room. You will use it.”
Christoph smiled, having won the argument, and told his mother, “Go ahead and show her the way. I’m not ready to retire yet.”
Alana was asleep before he came upstairs. She’d left a lamp burning for Christoph even though the fireplace glowed brightly. After yet another eventful day, she drifted off quickly, staring at the cot on the far side of the room. But when she woke, it wasn’t morning yet, and what woke her was Christoph’s warm body against hers.
She opened her eyes to see him grinning down at her. “You lied to my mother, telling her we wouldn’t share a bed.”
If he really wanted to make love to her, he wouldn’t tease her with a remark guaranteed to raise her moral defenses, would he? To stop him before she was tempted, she warned, “Touch me and I will scream. Your family will come to investigate. You won’t like talking your way out of that one.”
“That I made you scream with pleasure?”
“You wouldn’t!” she gasped.
“Of course I would. I’m a barbarian, remember? But you’ve doused the flames. Get some sleep.”
But he didn’t move! And he was searching her eyes. Was he hoping to see an invitation to stay that she couldn’t voice? Was it there? Is that why he was suddenly kissing her? And it was no simple kiss! His tongue thrust past her lips, luring her straight into his passion.
She tried to fight the feelings that rose up so quickly in response, that fluttering, nearly swooning feeling that she didn’t quite understand, the flush that raced over her skin and brought the heat with it. But it was too difficult to resist any of that, because she didn’t really want to when all her senses were being stirred in such an exciting manner.
He would have to stop this for her, she realized, but she was clinging too tightly to his neck when she said, “We shouldn’t.” So it was no wonder his mouth was hot on her neck now, shivers spreading rapidly through her body.
He had one leg on top of her, and now he slipped that leg between hers. Wearing only her chemise and drawers, she felt the friction all too strongly when he began to slowly rub his leg against her. She started, several times, and held more tightly to him.
“You wear only your underclothes.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Admit you were waiting for me.”
Her eyes flew open. Thank heavens he’d given her the catalyst she desperately needed to kick him out of the bed!
“No,” she gasped, then said more strongly, “I merely forgot to bring a nightgown. And you’re in the wrong bed.”
He leaned back. “Alana, you can’t possibly—”
“Really. You’re in the wrong bed.”
He still hesitated a moment, to gauge again if she was serious. He couldn’t doubt it this time. With a tsk and a sigh, he left the bed and went to the cot. He was naked! She clamped her eyes shut and turned over to face away from him.
“Get some sleep,” he mumbled. “At least one of us should.” Implying he wouldn’t now? She resisted saying she wouldn’t either. Somehow she did.
They got an early start in the morning despite his whole family’s coming outside to say good-bye. The weather obliged with blue skies for a while. The storm had left a white blanket behind, but the sleigh cut steadily through it.
Christoph didn’t say a single word about the previous night. He didn’t seem to be annoyed about it either. But her mother took her mind off Christoph during that ride farther up the mountain, especially when the nervousness seized her again.
He noticed and put an arm around her shoulder to draw her closer. “You’re anxious again? Why? You should be excited.”
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t meeting one of your parents eighteen years late.”
“I can help you to relax.”
She didn’t doubt what he meant. “That’s quite all right.”
She fell silent again, chewing at her lower lip. She should probably have let him get her mind off the reunion because her nervousness grew apace, the closer they got to their destination.
It took a little over two hours to finish the journey. It would have been a much quicker ride if the snow on the road weren’t so thick. Alana even caught a glimpse of the chalet before the snow arrived again. It had looked like a little castle, sitting on a rocky ledge more than halfway up the mountain.
“You might have mentioned ‘grand splendor,’ but, really, I wasn’t expecting something that big up here,” she said right before the view was lost. “Chalets are more the size of a farmhouse, aren’t they?”
“It used to be small. Over the years, it’s been added to again and again. The name merely stuck, despite the size.”
“The king comes up here often?”
“He hasn’t been here since his first wife died. I’ve heard she loved it up here, which is understandable, since the views are magnificent—when it isn’t snowing. But he avoids anything that reminds him of her. That’s why there are no portraits of Queen Avelina in the palace. That’s why I don’t know what she looked like.”
“Why doesn’t the king just close down the chalet if he doesn’t want to use it?”
“Because it’s still useful. Occasionally, he offers it to visiting diplomats. After a few days up here, they return to the capital more relaxed and they are easier to negotiate with.”
Alana laughed. “That’s quite a ploy.”
The sleigh stopped. Her humor departed as Christoph stepped down and reached for her so he could carry her inside, just as he’d done at his home. She was prepared to stop any kissing this time, but he didn’t try. He just set her down inside a large room that seemed too big to be a foyer or entry hall, yet it didn’t serve any other obvious purpose. A half dozen tall statues, male and female, Grecian in design, circled a mammoth fountain, wh
ich currently contained no water, in the center of the marble floor. Large, framed mirrors covered the walls, making the room look even bigger.
“Count Becker, it’s good to see you again. Would you like the same room?”
Alana hadn’t noticed the servant who approached them until he spoke. She gave Christoph a sharp look over that question. “You’ve been here before?”
He shrugged as he removed his coat and fur cap and handed them to the servant. The room wasn’t warm enough for her to do the same. She wondered if he’d admit that occasionally even he needed to spend some time alone, get away from a job that had become more dangerous than it should be.
Once the servant left to put away his coat, he said, “I’ve brought a few mistresses here.” Then, because of her expression: “What? Don’t look surprised. You were the virgin when we met, not I.”
She blushed immediately. “You’re not married. Why bring your women way up here—or were you married?”
He chuckled. “Listen to how indignant you sound, eh? Is that for yourself, or on general principle? Or are you jealous?”
“None of the above,” she snapped. “Forget I asked. What you do is your business.”
“You want to make it your business?”
“No!”
“You protest too much!” He laughed. “But I will answer your question. When a relationship begins to sour, a lot of arguments can ensue. That usually occurs when a mistress wants a more permanent arrangement, which was never part of the agreement. If I wasn’t quite done with her, I would bring her here. It’s probably the isolation, knowing they are stuck here with me until I’m ready to take them back to the city, that turns them amiable again. But it only delays the inevitable a little while, so I stopped making that effort.”
“If all your relationships end so unpleasantly, maybe you should try a real one instead.”
“You mean a wife?” He shook his head. “A wife would require a reasonable amount of my time, which I don’t have to give yet.” Then he grinned. “But I’ll make time for a new mistress—if it’s you.”