“Did you, now? I’m not surprised.” Sophie forced a smile at Darla. The girl was so bold. It gave Sophie a sick feeling, in spite of her efforts to remain indifferent. But Sophie was glad she hadn’t gone with Lorencz. She certainly would never trust him now.
“Lorencz said he asked you to stroll with him. But he says he won’t be asking you anymore. Only me from now on.”
“I’m so happy to hear it, Darla, because I can’t stand the man myself.” The low, vile, stinking weasel. “He is such a bore.” Sophie scolded herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but the look on Darla’s face was worth it.
“You’re the one who’s a bore, Sophie. You’re just scared and weak and … and … alone. And you’ll always be alone.”
Sophie held the bread dough she was kneading in both hands, her teeth clamping tighter as Darla went on.
“The duchess hates you, and you’ll never be anything but a sad, lowly scullery maid. You’ll probably never marry or bear chil —”
The ball of dough in Sophie’s hands hurtled through the air. It was almost as if she were watching someone else throw it. The floury dough hit Darla smack in the face, then it fell on the floor with a dull splat.
Darla’s face was smudged with flour. She let out a strangled cry and lunged toward Sophie. Sophie turned and ducked behind Petra’s slightly rotund body. Darla grabbed at Sophie’s hair, but Sophie slapped her hand back. Darla lunged again and Petra grabbed Darla’s face in a pinching grip.
“Get out of here with your disgusting boasts and mean talk.” Petra shoved Darla’s head backward, forcing her to stumble back.
In spite of the flour covering Darla’s face, Sophie could see she was turning red, her eyes glinting dangerously. She turned and stalked out of the room.
Sophie felt triumphant for a moment, but then tears pricked her eyes, though she wasn’t sure why. They seemed to be tears of pity. Perhaps Darla only behaved the way she did because, just like Sophie, she only wanted love. But the way she was going about it, she didn’t seem likely to get it.
Chapter
7
Duchess Ermengard seemed very impressed with the song Gabe had sung for her the previous night. He’d played his admiring troubadour role well, he knew, and it was now clear to him he had won her confidence with each warbled note.
Now he only had to figure out a way to steal Sophie away from the duchess. If he kept plying Sophie with stories of his family, she would surely go with him. But how could he keep the duchess from sending her guards once they’d escaped? Now that he’d seen the number of men she had and how powerful they were, he knew it was too risky to try to hold off the entire battalion by himself. He should go home, tell his father Sophie was the duke’s daughter, then come back with a contingent of his father’s soldiers to force Duchess Ermengard to let them take Sophie. But he just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her, even for one day, much less for the two weeks it would take him to go to Hagenheim and return. What would stop the duchess from killing her stepdaughter and commanding all the other servants to deny there ever was a servant girl named Sophie?
Gabe walked down the stone corridor, having been summoned to play for the duchess yet again. He had been working on another song. It wasn’t finished, but he thought he would play a bit of it for her anyway.
He opened the door, and there she was, sitting on her imposing chair, flashing the same creepy smile. He gave her a few compliments as he took out his lute and prepared to play. This ruse is becoming easier by the minute.
He began singing the song he’d written late last night and into the morning. He extolled her silky black hair, red lips, and blue eyes and sang some verses about her virtue and generosity that he knew weren’t true, but he had been thinking about Sophie again when he wrote it.
When he glanced up, she was staring at him as though he had turned into an offensive bug and she was contemplating how to crush him. Her face had turned even whiter, if that were possible, or more of a grayish color, actually. Her lips had also turned bloodless under their red stain. What had he said?
Then it hit him.
The duchess had green eyes.
He was caught. The song he’d sung for her yesterday had extolled their emerald hue, so he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t noticed.
“Who is this song about?” she hissed.
“Why, y-you, of course. Of course, Your Grace.” I’m a dead man.
“You were talking with that scullery maid last night during the evening meal, were you not?”
He tried to swallow, but there seemed to be a ball of wool caught in his throat. O God, save me. I’m doomed.
He nodded.
She stood to her full height — at least as tall as Gabe — and walked across the room to the window. She simply stared out at the gloomy, half-lit forest. The only thing that moved was her lips as she pursed them tighter and tighter.
“Your Grace, forgive me for the oversight. I am still working on the song. Let me perfect it and play it for you tonight.” He smiled, hoping he looked confident and casual, while inwardly he was flaying himself.
But she didn’t look as though she were listening to him, and her face became more and more thunderous, as though the cloud that was hanging over her was turning black before it unleashed its torrent.
She will murder me where I stand.
Finally, she turned to him. That disturbing half smile, more frightening than her menacing grin, was on her face again as she took a step toward him. “You have come here to spy on me, haven’t you?”
Had he? No. He had come to rescue Sophie.
“No, Your Grace. Of course not.”
She took another step. He forced himself not to back away from her.
“Who are you?”
“I am Gabe, Your Grace.”
“Perhaps you think you know who Sophie is. Who told you?”
She stepped closer.
“Told me what, Your Grace?”
“That she is Duke Baldewin’s only daughter.”
The back of his neck tingled. If she was telling him this, she must have decided to kill him. “Everyone knows Duke Baldewin’s daughter is dead. Sophie is only a scullery maid.”
“Oh no,” Duchess Ermengard crooned in a silky, low voice as she slowly walked toward him. “She is Sophia Breitenbach, daughter of Baldewin Breitenbach, Duke of Hohendorf, and the fairest beauty in the Holy Roman Empire. Is she not?” She stopped only two feet in front of him, her white teeth glowing between her unnaturally red lips.
It was no good to lie. Besides, if he was going to die, he wanted to be right with God.
“Sophie is very beautiful, it is true.”
“The most beautiful. Admit it!” Her voice rose in both pitch and intensity. “You think she’s more beautiful than I am!”
Her eyes were two glowing green orbs. Her expression was one of outraged discovery.
“And you are no lowly peasant.” Her voice lowered once again and her eyes narrowed. “I do believe Duke Wilhelm had a son … a son named Gabehart. But Gabehart was not betrothed to a duke’s daughter. No, no. As I recall, his older brother, Valten, was to marry Duke Baldewin’s only child. So which one are you? Are you Valten, assuming your brother’s name? Or are you actually stupid enough to be Gabehart?”
Her evil catlike eyes seemed to bore into his soul, like a wild animal surveying her prey. Gabe shuddered.
“And if you are Gabehart, why did not Valten, Sophie’s betrothed, come to rescue her?”
Gabe cast about in his mind for a strategy, a way of escape from this room and this woman. But the windows were shut and bolted. He could possibly unbolt one and jump out the window, if he took everyone by complete surprise, although he was so high in her tower room he’d probably break something when he hit the ground. The only other option was to physically overpower her, which also appeared to be a gamble. For now, he would tell the truth in an effort to keep her from becoming enraged again. The moment she called for her guards, his
lot was hopeless.
“I am Gabehart, second son of Duke Wilhelm of Hagenheim. You are right, Your Grace. I was wrong to try to fool you. Valten couldn’t come because of a broken leg. But I am here only to see if what an old woman said was true. About Sophie.” As he spoke, he tried to think of a way to overpower her. She was almost close enough that he could grab her. But perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary. Perhaps she would let him leave.
She stepped around him, getting between him and the door leading to the corridor.
Duchess Ermengard opened the door while keeping her eyes on Gabe. She screamed, “Guards!”
Gabe ran toward the window, but before he could even get it unbolted, guards rushed into the room, the sharp swish of their swords being drawn from their scabbards, their boots pounding on the flagstone floor. He struggled with the rusty bolt, and just as he shoved it free and threw open the window, two burly men grabbed Gabe’s shoulder. They threw him to the floor. He hit the flagstone with the side of his face. As the darkness started closing in on him, the last thing he heard was a crazed, high-pitched cackling.
When she saw that Gabe was unconscious, Duchess Ermengard pointed a finger at the closest guard. “Get Lorencz.”
As she waited, she envisioned ways she could dispose of the foolhardy boy laid out before her feet. The only question was how long to draw out his pain.
Once the huntsman arrived, Gabe was taken away to the dungeon on her order, leaving her alone with Lorencz.
He reached out to take her hand and kiss it, but his eyes gave away his fear. She ground her teeth. “How dare you think that girl is more beautiful than I am.”
“Your Grace, I —”
“Don’t speak! You have become enamored with her too.” That useful girl Darla had told her everything, from how Lorencz had failed to get Sophie to trust him enough to take a walk with him, to being so heartbroken he got drunk with Darla instead. “I shall kill this silly, interfering Gabehart of Hagenheim for thinking she is the fairest. Though what shall I do to you? I already asked you to kill her. Why haven’t you, pray tell?”
“Your Grace, I simply haven’t had many opportunities. In fact, I was finally able to get her alone just yesterday, but that — that boy was skulking about, and even intruded upon us in the woods. You didn’t want any witnesses, as I recall.”
She gave Lorencz her coldest smile.
“Your Grace, you can’t think the girl means anything to me. The only woman with whom I am enamored is you.”
She detected fear in the way his scar turned pale. “Good. But your punishment for letting your eye wander is …” She leaned closer. “Why is it that everyone seems to like her?” She tapped her fingernail against her chin, deliberately drawing out the moment to see if he would squirm. Instead, he kept his face impassive. The only indication of his distress was the barely detectable rapid rise and fall of his chest as his breathing quickened. He knew full well what she was capable of.
“She is an insipid little creature. I could break her in half with my bare hands. What do you see in her, dear huntsman?”
“Not me, Your Grace.” Lorencz smiled and shook his head, an attempt to look unconcerned. “She is nothing to me. You are the woman I think about, the one I dream about.”
“Very good.” She stepped forward and placed her hand under his chin, letting her fingernails glide along his skin, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “I am pleased to hear that. And now I have one thing I want you to do for me.”
“Anything, Your Grace.”
“As I told you before, I want you to kill Sophie. And I want you to do it today.”
He blinked several times, as if trying to hide his feelings and not look horrified, but she saw his repulsion. Weakling.
“Of course. How?”
She took her time answering him, savoring how his expression twisted with each moment. She had misjudged him. He had more of a conscience than she had given him credit for.
It was a pity.
There was no purpose in thinking up creative ways to kill the girl, as enjoyable as that would be. Now that it was time for Sophie to die, it would be done expediently.
“Take her into the woods. Tie her up and plunge a dagger into her heart. I don’t really care how you do it, just make sure it’s done without witnesses. Then bury her in the ground where no one can find her.” She poked him in the throat with her fingernail as she emphasized, “No one must find her.”
Lorencz’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
She studied him, trying to see into his thoughts. She must have proof the girl was dead, but it had to be something no one else would recognize as belonging to Sophie. Duke Wilhelm would surely come digging around, and if he could find definitive proof of Gabe or the girl’s death, it would ruin everything.
She smiled at Lorencz and pressed all five fingernails of her right hand into his chest. “You will kill her … and you will bring back her heart … to me. If you fail me, you will die. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You may go.” She raised her brows and flicked her wrist at him.
Lorencz bowed his head and left.
Once she had evidence of the girl’s demise in her hands, she would taunt Gabe with it. Seeing how he was infatuated with her, it would be the perfect mode of torture, outdoing anything she’d previously imagined. Once he was sufficiently broken, she would poison him and let him die a slow, agonizing death as he realized the fairest beauty in the Holy Roman Empire, the girl he’d written songs about, was dead. And Duchess Ermengard would remind him it was because he’d thought Sophie was more beautiful than she. It was all his fault. Because he’d come snooping around when he should have stayed home.
She walked over to the mirror on the wall and stared at herself. She imagined Sophie standing beside her. The girl was younger, her skin was smoother, her smile more sincere, her eyes larger and brighter. Then she imagined Sophie’s eyes closed in death, her skin growing dark gray, then falling away until there was nothing left but a skull.
She laughed. No one could love the girl if she was dead — not Lorencz, not the servants, not even Duke Baldewin.
Sophie would no longer be the fairest.
As soon as Gabe woke up, he knew where he was. The smell of human waste and the damp, cold stone against his body made it quite clear.
His head throbbed. He touched his cheek and looked at his hand. Only a little blood. He pressed on his swollen cheekbone gingerly. He didn’t think the bone was broken.
He groaned as he sat up, resting his head in his hands. How would he get out of this?
God, have I already ruined everything? I’ve barely been here a day and look at me.
His mother always said his lack of caution would lead to trouble. It seemed she was more right than she knew. Sophie had warned him as well, but he’d thought she was overstating the duchess’s dangerous nature and volatility. After all, what reason did that woman have to imprison him?
Cruelty. Jealousy. She didn’t need a reason. She was insane.
The worst thing was that he could no longer help Sophie. How would he rescue her now?
He thought of his mother again and felt a stab of guilt, thinking about how sick with worry she must be. God, please get me out of this.
He was the irresponsible son, the one who sneaked away with his friends when he was supposed to be studying. While Valten was practicing jousting and sword fighting, Gabe was pulling pranks on the old stable master, switching the horses in their stalls and painting white stars on all their foreheads. No wonder Valten’s gifts and standing so surpassed his own. God, forgive me for grieving my mother.
Guilt used to assault him every time his mother looked at him with concern — and sometimes disappointment — in her eyes. But he’d continued with his foolish behavior. The guilt hadn’t been enough to stop him.
He still remembered how devastated his mother had been when his sister Elsebeth drowned at three years ol
d. They’d all been distraught, but his mother had cried for days without stopping. Her eyes, her whole face, became so puffy Gabe almost hadn’t recognized her. He’d been frightened by the depth of her grief, and he’d wondered if she would die too.
Gabe didn’t like remembering his sister’s death. He’d been playing nearby when she’d fallen into the lake. Elsebeth had been splashing at the edge of the water, and he’d assumed she was enjoying herself on the bank. He hadn’t even noticed when the splashing stopped. The rest of the day was fuzzy; only bits and pieces stuck in his memory. He’d been very young, only six years old, but he recalled the heavy weight inside him, a feeling he now knew was guilt. At the time he’d felt as if he’d been bad, as if Elsebeth’s death was his fault. After all, he was her older brother. He should have watched out for her, protected her, saved her.
And he felt the same way now about Sophie. Sophie needed him. He was supposed to keep her from danger. He should have been wise enough and cautious enough not to get thrown into the dungeon. I’ve failed everyone.
He looked around at the bare, cold dungeon and imagined Sophie spending days and nights here. The unfairness of her being locked in this awful place made him burn to exact justice on her behalf, made him long to put his hands around the duchess’s neck and choke her. But here he was, completely helpless to rescue himself, much less Sophie.
The poor girl had been subjected to the horrors of living under the duchess’s thumb her whole life. He wanted to see her rescued from this place, living a happy life in freedom. God, don’t let me fail!
Would Valten appreciate her? Would he cherish her, understand what she’d been through? Gabe would make sure Valten treated her right.
If he got out of this alive.
Right now he wasn’t exactly in a position to make anyone do anything. Sophie might never meet any of Gabe’s family unless he escaped from this dungeon.
Gabe went over to the one window, which was at eye level, and took hold of the bars. He yanked and tugged, hoping to feel them give a little, but the bars didn’t budge. He tugged again. Same result.