Tata thumped her cane again, the hollow sound even more pronounced.
“I knew it!” Murian stood, her heart racing, her palms damp. “That must be it.”
“So it must. But why here?” Natasha asked. “In the middle of everything?”
Murian looked around the room, remembering how it once was. “It’s where the settee used to be, for it faced the fire. It is light and easy to move.”
Max was already on his knees examining the boards. “I need a knife.”
Murian came to look over his shoulder.
Orlov hurried up to place a knife hilt-first into Max’s hand.
Using the tip, Max pried up a board. And there, wrapped in a faded red piece of velvet, was a leather journal.
Chapter 23
Murian splayed her hand over the familiar leather cover, the supple leather cool under her fingertips. She started to open it, but Max stopped her.
“We must leave while the guards are gone.”
“I know a way oot,” Will said. “Doon the back stairs. Ye can hide at the bottom while I fetch the wagon and sneak us away.”
“Come.” Max had Golovin and Orlov move the wardrobe, then they all hurried out to the landing, leaving the sadly mussed room behind.
They could hear men speaking, and then footsteps up the main stairway.
“This way.” Will led them down the hall, away from the main portion of the castle. They went down first one hallway and then another, twisting and turning, and Max was glad they’d brought Will.
He finally stopped before a door that had been cleverly cut into the wall. “These are cut throughout the castle and serve as servants’ passages.” He opened the door and led them down a narrow, dark staircase. “When I was a wee one, me mither used to bring me oop and down this way to visit the lord, so we were ne’er seen on the grand staircase.”
“I feel as if I’m in a novel,” Tata Natasha announced, a gleeful tone in her voice.
They turned a corner and were just about to go down another flight of stairs, when a door could be heard opening, light suddenly shining up the stairwell.
Max held up his hand and everyone froze in place. They could hear two men talking.
Will leaned close and whispered. “They said someone has been sent to guard the bottom door. We canna get oot tha’ way.”
Max nodded. “We’ll have to go back into the main part of the castle. What floor are we on now?”
“The third.”
“My bedchamber is on that floor. We’ll go there until we can figure another way out.”
Will nodded and led the way to the next landing. Max moved ahead and carefully opened the door. Hearing nothing, he stepped out and glanced down the hallway. Seeing that the way was clear, he gestured them all to follow. They swiftly reached his bedchamber.
Everyone filed in, Orlov closing the door and locking it.
Tata Natasha looked around. “Your bedchamber is larger than mine!”
“I’m a prince.” He turned to his men. “Move that large table in front of the door. It will at least slow them down. Will, hang this”—he pulled a kerchief from his pocket—“on the latch of the front window.”
“Which one?”
“It won’t matter. My men will see it and know to come.”
Tata Natasha took a chair by the fireplace and bounced upon the cushion. “You have better furniture, too. The settee in my bedchamber is like a rock.”
Murian sat in a chair across from the duchess, the journal held to her as if it were a shield.
Ian rubbed his neck. “Wha’ do we do now?”
“Now we wait. My men will come eventually, and we will do what we must to get everyone out of here safely.”
Will picked up a lamp and lit it, and then brought it to Murian.
She smiled. “Thank you.” She carefully opened the journal, and the familiar writing made her voice thicken with emotion. “Every evening, Robert would write in this book. I can see the lamplight flickering over his hair as he scratched out a few lines.” Her throat tightened, though she had to smile. He’d been so young, so full of hopes and dreams. “The last time I saw him, he was so busy scribbling in this that he barely said good-bye. At the time, I was only going to be gone two days, so neither of us thought it a momentous occasion.”
“Robert loved ye, miss,” Ian added softly. “More tha’ anyone.”
Max’s gaze traveled over her face. “You miss him, and yet you smile.”
“What else would she do?” Tata Natasha asked sharply. “They were married, and he died. I was married and my husband died.” She looked directly at Max. “Sad as it is, it happens all the time.”
Murian agreed. “Life is not always fair, is it? ’Tis just a sad fact. Robert was a wonderful part of my youth. We grew oop together, in a way. We were so young. . . .” She laughed ruefully. “ ’Tis a wonder we managed to be wed so happily.”
She paged through the journal. “I’ll always miss him. But as time passes, so does the pain. Now those memories are like an old friend, and they make me smile. We were fortunate to have what time we did.” She turned to the back of the journal and as she did so, two letters slipped from the book and fell to the floor. She picked them up.
“From Robert?” Max asked.
“Nay. These two are in French. They must be from his mother’s family.”
Max’s gaze fixed on the letters. “Robert’s mother was French?”
“Aye. She died in childbirth, so Robert ne’er knew her. He married me right after his father died. After we’d been married a short time, Robert began receiving letters like those.”
“From his mother’s family?”
“Aye. He said his father had kept them from contacting him, but once Robert inherited the title, they’d realized his father was gone and they began corresponding with him.”
“And the other piece of paper?” Max nodded to the folded sheet of parchment she held in her hand.
She opened it. “It looked like a marriage license, signed by the old earl. But the name . . . it’s not Robert’s mother’s. I dina know— Och!” Her eyes widened, and she looked at Will. “I believe this belongs to you.” She held it out to him.
With a hand that trembled, he took the heavy paper and looked at it.
“Wha’ is it?” Ian asked quietly.
Will lowered the paper, his face pale, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “I ha’ a father after all.”
“The old earl?”
“He married my mither. He ne’er told me tha’, but . . .” Will sniffed. “I think I knew. He was always kind to me.”
Max noted that Murian had paused in reading the journal. He came to stand by her. “What have you found?”
She tapped the journal. “Here it is: December fourteenth. When Loudan’s party arrived.”
Max watched as she bent her head and started to read, her brows knitting as her eyes traveled rapidly over the pages.
He glanced at the two forgotten letters she’d placed on the table at her elbow. “May I look at these?”
Murian, already lost in the words dancing before her eyes, didn’t look up. “Of course.”
“Ye read French, do ye?” Ian said.
“Da.” Max unfolded the missive.
As he did so, Murian read her late husband’s last words. She read slowly at first, hearing the words in Robert’s voice. But then, as the words began to ring in her head, she read faster and faster, until she no longer heard Robert’s voice, but her own.
The words swam before her. Finally, she reached the bottom of the last page. She lowered the journal and stared at the ink as it seemed to move and collide, new words forming in front of her astonished eyes.
“Well?” Natasha asked impatiently. “What’s it say? Was there a duel at all? Or did Loudan murder him, as you suspected?”
Murian shook her head, unable to think clearly enough to speak.
“Lass?” Ian bent to see her face. “Wha’ is it?”
Beside hi
m, Max refolded one of the French missives, a shadow in his eyes.
“Och, Lady Murian!” Will said. “Wha’ does Lord Robert’s journal say?”
She took a shuddering breath. “Loudan was telling the truth. There was a duel.”
Ian grimaced. “Bloody hell! I was afraid of tha’.”
“But there was no card game,” Murian added. “And it was not Loudan who challenged Robert. ’Twas Robert who challenged Loudan.”
“So wha’ was the duel o’er then?” Ian asked.
“Over these.” Max lifted the letters.
Murian’s gaze locked on them, her stomach aching and tight. She nodded. “Robert knew Loudan before we wed. He never told me that.”
“He dinna tell you a lot of things,” Ian said.
“Apparently so. Loudan is the one who put Robert in touch with his French relatives.”
“Loudan?” Ian said, astounded.
“Aye. Loudan somehow knew Robert’s grandmother, saying he’d met her before the war, and how she’d spoken fondly of Robert’s mother and had wished to know her grandson but the old laird hadna allowed it.”
“When did Loudan tell Lord Robert tha’?” Ian asked. “I certainly ne’er saw him.”
“He always visited with a large group of men who hunted together.”
“Ah. Tha’ explains it, then. There were always hunting parties stoppin’ by to rest their mounts and ask fer refreshments. Lord Robert ne’er turned them away.”
“He wouldna,” Murian agreed. “On these visits, Loudan convinced Robert to write to his grandmother. Loudan had Robert dictate, and then the earl translated it into French and wrote the letters.”
“Which Lord Robert then franked and sent,” Max said.
Orlov frowned. “I don’t understand. Were the letters not to Lord Robert’s grandmother?”
“They were, but Loudan always included a letter to his friends, which he tucked inside of Robert’s.”
Murian nodded. “Robert writes that his grandmother was a frail, elderly woman who was so happy to hear from him that he was determined to keep the connection, even though it was illegal to correspond with the French because of the war.”
“Good for him,” Tasha announced.
“Loudan knew ways to get letters in and out of France, and he helped Robert. For a while, all was well. Robert would write letters to his grandmother, and Loudan would translate them for him on his way through, and would read the responses when they came. And every time, Loudan insisted on putting in a note from himself, saying it was mere courtesy.”
“But it was more,” Max said. “Much more.”
Murian nodded. “Robert was too trusting, perhaps, but he wasna a fool. He soon realized something wasna right, so one time, after Loudan had given him a note to include in a letter to his grandmother, Robert first took the missive to the vicar in Inverness, a man fluent in French. The vicar translated it, and Robert was devastated. Loudan was corresponding with the enemy, sending troop locations and times, things Loudan had gleaned from his brother, Spencer. And the earl was using Robert’s grandmother as a courier, too, endangering her as well.
“The next time the earl came to translate a letter, Robert informed Loudan he was going to tell Spencer everything. But Loudan was ready. He pointed out that Robert had franked all the letters. He convinced Robert that Spencer would think him the traitor and not Loudan. That he would lose everything, Rowallen and me, too.” She traced her fingers over the words written in the journal. “Robert feared he would be sent to the gallows and I would be put oot into the cold.”
Ian shook his head. “So the puir lad challenged Loudan to a duel.”
“Aye,” Murian replied. “And was killed. I daresay once that had happened, Loudan saw his chance to acquire the estate, so he made up the story aboot the card game, convinced his friends to swear false testimony, and took his claim to Edinburgh.”
There was a long silence.
Orlov nodded to the letters in Max’s hands. “Your brother was right.”
Murian turned to Max. “Your brother?”
He met her gaze firmly. “My brother, Nik, has his fingers in many pies. He is forever looking for secrets. He found evidence that information about the troops was being filtered to the French. The battle where my friend Fedorovich died was caused by a surprise attack that could only have come from a leak of information.”
“Spencer was involved in that battle?”
“We fought side by side, he and I. We were both almost killed.”
Murian paled a little at that. “Loudan would have benefited greatly, had Spencer been killed in battle.”
“Which is why Nik was certain Loudan was involved.”
Murian nodded. “So that is why you are here.”
“I thought you came to help me!” Natasha said, looking furious.
“As if you tell me everything you do!” Max exclaimed.
“I never keep secrets.”
“Oh? Then why did you invite yourself to a card game with Loudan if you were not privy to Nik’s thoughts about the earl?”
She sniffed. “I might have heard him mention his concerns.”
“And so you acted on your own and used the Oxenburg crown as bait.”
She patted the crown where it still rested on her head. “He could not resist it. I thought I could get him drunk and find out what Nik wished to know. Sadly, it did not work out the way I’d wished.” She scowled. “I’ve never met an earl more able to drink.”
Max shook his head and then turned back to Murian. “Well? What do we do now?”
“Spencer must be told, if we can find out where he is. In the meantime . . .” Murian turned to Will. “Though Robert was brave in his dealings with Loudan, he was not always the best of men. After his father’s death, he found that marriage license among the estate’s papers and realized you were his brother. He withheld that information from you and there was no noble motive behind it.” She placed her hand on the journal. “He didn’t wish to share his fortune, or Rowallen. That was wrong of him, and I would have told him so, if I’d known.”
Will flushed. “Me lady, dinna think poorly on Master Robert. ’Twould be a difficult thing to share, the castle ye were told ye’d inherit. He would ha’ come around—I truly believe it. And had he spoken to me, I’d ha’ told him I’d no wish to claim anything. Bu’ I would ha’ been proud to ha’ him fer a brother.”
Ian sniffed and slapped Will on the shoulder. “There’s a guid lad.”
Murian smiled and closed the journal.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Orlov said. “I can understand why Loudan wished to own Rowallen—it’s a lovely castle, and the lands are rich with game. But why did he throw out the servants?”
“I daresay he wasna sure who Robert had confided in,” Ian said. “ ’Twas safer to get rid of the lot of us than to wonder which of us might slit his throat whilst he slept.”
“Tha’ bastard got away with far more than murder,” Will declared.
“He might have, except for these.” Max held up the letters. “These are two of the missives written by Loudan, in his own hand. Robert kept them in his journal, and I think it was for a reason.” Max looked at Murian. “He feared he might not win the duel. He knew that, with these, you could clear his name, if need be. This is more than enough to convict the earl, and it’s why Loudan didn’t wish you to find the journal. He feared these letters might be hidden with it.”
Ian cursed gruffly. “A fool, tha’ boy, challenging the earl to a duel. A romantic, too, always thinkin’ things would turn out well simply because they should.”
Murian saw the hurt in Ian’s eyes and she arose and put her arm about his broad shoulders. “He believed in what was right. In many ways, he dinna die in vain. We can take care of the earl now. At least we have that and can—”
A commotion sounded outside.
“Speaking of the devil,” Tata Natasha announced.
As soon as she said the word
s, a heavy knock was heard upon the door. “Open this door or I’ll have it broken down,” Loudan said harshly. “And Your Grace, do not tell me you are en dishabille. I know who is with you and you would never do such a thing in front of your grandson, Lady Murian, her protector Ian Bea-gin, and those other fools.” Loudan paused, letting his words soak in, and then he repeated, “Now open this door!”
There was a rustle of voices, as if the guards outside the doorway had grown in rank.
Orlov pursed his lips. “Golovin, what do you think? Twenty? Thirty?”
“No more than thirty. The hall will not hold more.”
They listened closely. Over the muttering, they heard Loudan issuing low instructions, and then footsteps as guards moved into position on either side of the door.
Orlov eyed the door before he said to Max, “This reminds me of Paris.”
“Ah, yes.” Max considered it. “It is worth a try. We will need to move the table.”
“Aye. We’ll have to open the door wide.” They went toward the door.
Ian jumped in front of them. “Wait! Wha’ are ye doing?”
Max bit back a sigh. “Move. We are going to allow the earl to enter.”
“He’ll ha’ us all killed!”
Orlov poofed. “He’s only one man.”
“And his guards? Ye dinna think they willna push their way inside as soon as the door is open?”
“They’ll try,” Golovin answered. “And we may have to knock a few heads. But in order to get through the number of guards that bloody fool has lodged inside this castle, we’ll need a hostage.”
“And who better than the earl himself?” Orlov asked.
“A good brawl and a hostage,” Tata Natasha said with approval. “That is good for the digestion. Tonight, we will eat like Vikings!”
Murian blinked. What did that even mean?
Ian shook his head. “Ye’re puttin’ the lass at risk. I willna ha’ it.”
Max scowled. “You don’t have a say in this.”
Ian puffed up and Murian hastily added, “Ian, think a moment! We’re locked in a room in the middle of a castle, surrounded by guards led by the man who killed my husband. I dinna think it can get worse. Let the prince and his men do what they do best: fight. We’ll help them and—”