“Yes, I met him last night.”
“So he said.”
“Did he have something to do with my presence here?” If that was true, she owed him a very great debt.
But Lady Fanchere waved that suggestion away. “Not at all. I was fatigued, so we returned early from the ball. As you may know, Michael is under house arrest, and we’re responsible for his custody. Last night, he went to his bedroom in the dowager house”—she waved a hand out the window—“which I assure you is luxurious and befitting his station despite the bars at the windows and the door, and we locked him inside.”
“Ah.” It was silly of Emma to scorn Durant’s easy acquiescence to his imprisonment. Obviously any resistance on his part would be futile and lead to his injury. But to go like a lamb to the shearing . . .
“This morning, after we had discovered you on the doorstep and identified you as Lady Lettice’s companion, Michael suggested, and my husband concurred, that I need a paid companion.” Amusement cut a quirk into Lady Fanchere’s cheek. “All the highly fashionable ladies have them.”
“I am grateful, my lady.” The thought of having a secure future with this woman brought tears to Em-ma’s eyes. But . . . “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t appear to be the type of person to, er—”
Lady Fanchere interrupted, “Care about keeping up with all the other highly fashionable ladies? No. I don’t care. But Lord Fanchere’s lineage is not so exalted as mine, and he does. So I indulge him.”
Emma inclined her head in reply and in thankfulness. “In that case, let me assure you I am well versed in a companion’s duties, as well as trained in many aspects of medical care.”
“Really?” Lady Fanchere lifted her brows. “Where did you learn that?”
“My father’s parish was poor, didn’t merit the attentions of any kind of physician, and the barber-surgeon in our little town was a drunkard. So Father taught himself to be the de facto physician and I was his assistant. As I grew older and we dealt with females, we discovered women preferred to speak with me of their problems and seek my help. So I am very good with rubbing away backaches and helping dispel pains in the head and feet. It was for those reasons Lady Lettice kept me in service.” Emma experienced a deep satisfaction in knowing Lady Lettice would miss those ministrations. “Although my bag of medical supplies was left in Lady Lettice’s room and, I fear, is irretrievable, let me assure you I am especially good with ladies who are with child, so I can be of special assistance to you.”
Lady Fanchere rocked back in astonishment, and asked fiercely, “How did you know that? How did you know I am breeding?”
Oh, heavens. Had Emma put her foot wrong already? “I’m sorry. Have I spoken out of turn?”
Lady Fanchere stood, walked to the window, and looked out for a long moment. Finally, she faced Emma. “I’ve been married almost twenty years, since I was eighteen, and I have always failed to conceive. I’ve been to spas. I’ve prayed at shrines. I’ve tried every remedy medical science and the Church could suggest. And at last, our dearest desire has come true and I . . .”
“You fear to tell the world of your joy before it has come to fruition.”
“Exactly. I can’t keep it a secret forever, of course, but until I’m sure I’ll carry the baby to term, I have been most discreet. So again, I ask—how did you know?”
“As with all happily increasing women, you have a glow about you.” Emma smiled at her. “May I say that in my experience, a woman who is slow to conceive does not necessarily have trouble producing a healthy child.”
“Thank you for that.” Lady Fanchere nodded. “I think you and I will do very well together, Emma Chegwidden.”
A knock sounded, and before Lady Fanchere could call permission, the door opened. A man of perhaps fifty stood there, tall, bald, and distinguished. Emma pulled the sheet up, but for all the attention he paid her, she might as well have not been in the room. Instead, he extended his hand to Lady Fanchere. “My dear, I bear sad news.”
She rose and hurried to his side. “What has happened?”
He put his arm around her waist, pulled her in to lean on him, and looked into her eyes, his deep concern obvious. “Your cousin Rickie was killed last night . . . by the Reaper.”
Chapter Seven
“One more time, Aimée. Tell me what happened to my cousin Rickie.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times since this morning, Your Highness.” Aimée sat huddled in a straight-backed chair in the middle of the antechamber in the royal palace, weeping from fear and exhaustion. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“Because what you have told me is absurd.” Prince Sandre could barely contain his fury. Aimée had always been a pretty fool, the woman his cousin had married for her fortune and her body and then talked about killing to rid the world of that high, thin voice.
Prince Sandre had always stopped him—no one would have believed it an accident, and the de Guignard family already had a shady reputation. But the irony of having her outlive Rickie had not passed him by.
Sandre knew only that if he yelled at her or threatened her, she would collapse in a damp heap of panic and he would never get the information he needed. So, keeping his voice low and kind, he said, “Now, Aimée. You were riding in your carriage on your way home from the ball.”
“I was telling Rickie about the Reaper.” For the first time in Sandre’s memory, Aimée’s distinctive auburn hair was badly mussed, her plump cheeks looked drawn, and her ivory complexion was blotched.
“He informed you there was no Reaper.”
“That’s what he said, but I knew he was wrong, and this proves it.” She lifted her head and stared pitifully at Sandre. “Do you think that by denying the existence of the Reaper he raised its ire?”
“If there is a Reaper, then it is a man in a silly costume, and I will find him and make him sorry he ever dared to ride my roads and kill my cousin.”
“Rickie said that, too.”
“What?”
“That the Reaper was a man. But he couldn’t be. No mere man could have put my husband to death.”
She had a point. Who in Moricadia had the nerve to lure Rickie de Guignard, tall, strong, and cruel, out of his carriage with the intent to hang him?
Sandre intended to find out. “I must ask how a ghost could tie a noose and string Rickie up?”
“Maybe he frightened Rickie into committing suicide.”
Sandre wanted to take Aimée’s skull between his fingers and crack it like a melon, and see whether there were brains inside, or simply a jingling bell.
She continued. “I saw his body. The only bruise he has is around his neck. How else do you explain his death?”
Sandre flicked a glance at his guards. Two Moricadian men stood immobile beside the door, holding swords, with loaded pistols in their belts. They went everywhere with Sandre. Their jobs were to keep him safe. And Sandre secured their loyalty by keeping their wives and children within easy reach—the whole family lived and worked in the palace. So while he never doubted they would defend him to the death, he did not intend that they would go back to their wives and whisper that the Reaper was the ghost of the old king, or a harbinger of the new king’s arrival, or that the Reaper had a vendetta against the de Guignards . . . and had killed the most fearsome of them all.
Oh, Rickie. We had such fun together.
The world felt as if it had tilted on its axis, but he was not a man who allowed a ghoul to strike down him and his regime. Stroking the bandage that wrapped his palm, he crooned, “Tell me everything that happened.”
“I already told you.” She wore black crepe, the garb of a new widow. She dabbed at her blue eyes with a lace handkerchief. Yet all the public markings of mourning could not convince Sandre she had nothing to do with Rickie’s death. Not deliberately, of course. She was too stupid for that. But as an unwitting dupe to be used in a scheme to take down the de Guignard family.
That would not happen on Sandre’s wa
tch.
“Tell me again.” He paced across the room.
“We got in the coach at the party. Everyone was leaving.”
“Other guests saw you leave?”
“Of course they did! The main road was crowded. It wasn’t until we took the turnoff that it got quiet and . . . and dark. Which made me remember what Lady Lettice had told me about the ghost. So I told Rickie, and that I had a horrible premonition that something awful was about to happen.” Aimée took a breath and looked around, all too obviously worried that Sandre wouldn’t believe her.
He flicked his fingers at her. “Go on.”
“The carriage stopped. Rickie got impatient—you know what he’s like—and got out.”
She was talking about her husband in the present tense.
“My premonition grew stronger. I begged him not to go.”
Her melodramatics were growing stronger, too.
“But he insisted and disappeared into the dark. I was left alone, and I sat and trembled in fear for my husband’s life.”
“The first time you told me this story, you said you fell asleep.”
Impatient at having her monologue interrupted, she said, “I might have drifted off. A little. Maybe once. But I knew something awful was happening and . . . and it haunted my dreams!” Aimée had started to enjoy the attention. “When the carriage began to move, I came to complete consciousness and I called for Rickie. He wasn’t there, so I looked out the window and . . .”
Sandre saw the moment it became real to her again.
She paled, collapsed back in the chair, and her voice became a whisper. “I saw him at the top of the hill, the Reaper, his winding sheet fluttering in the wind. He was staring down at me. . . . I jumped backward and screamed, just . . . I screamed. When I looked out again, he was gone and there was Rickie, hanging by his neck from the tree.”
“Was he alive?”
“No. He was hanging by his neck from the tree.” She repeated herself as if Sandre were stupid.
“When they’re hanged, men don’t immediately die. Some hang there for an hour before they find their release . . . unless their necks are broken.”
“How would I know that?”
“We have public hangings in this country.” Rebellious and rotting Moricadians decorated the lowland valleys where the peasants lived. It was good to remind them how easily and painfully life could be extinguished. “So you did nothing to help Rickie?”
“He was dead! I think. His head was crooked. I pounded on the ceiling of the carriage, so the coachman whipped up the horses and we raced home.”
“Last time you told me, you said he whipped up the horses and then you pounded on the ceiling of the carriage.”
“I don’t remember which came first,” she shouted.
One of the guards gasped.
That caught her attention, made her realize what she’d done, and in a soft, conciliatory voice, she said, “I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I am distraught. But I don’t remember which came first. I only know that Rickie is dead, and the Reaper killed him.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Sandre saw the guards glance at each other. In a hard, cold voice, he said, “I asked that your coachman be brought in for questioning, and do you know what? Your driver was found bound and gagged in Thibault’s hayloft by the stable hands this morning. What do you suppose that means?”
She gasped like a fish out of water. “The carriage was driving itself under the command of the Reaper?”
No woman could actually be so stupid.
But Aimée was. Sandre knew she was, although he had to draw several long, patient breaths to cool his rage. “No. Someone jumped him, tied him, and took over the task of driving you home precisely so this ‘ghost’ could murder Rickie.” Before she could come up with some other stupid explanation, he said, “Your ghost has accomplices who do as he bids when he goes forth on his murderous missions.”
“Oh.” She clasped her hands under her chin, her blue eyes wide with excitement. “Has the ghost killed other men?”
“No. Not yet.” Sandre’s tone was clipped with annoyance. “For the most part, he poses in his silly costume to terrify the credulous and gullible. But last night, he turned deadly, and I promise you I’ll unmask him, and hang him and every man who assists him.”
“You can’t hang the Reaper. He’s already dead,” she told him.
“I will find the man who attacked your coachman and kill him by slow inches until he reveals all he knows.” Sandre was speaking to the guards.
Aimée wasn’t smart enough to realize that, and answered with that lopsided logic. “The servants of King Reynaldo are all long dead, too.”
“They’re alive! The Reaper and his assistants are living men!” Before she could say more, he snapped, “As a sign of my affection, we’re burying Rickie tomorrow in the royal de Guignard plot.”
“I hate that cemetery. It’s spooky.”
“Rickie would wish to be buried there.”
“Yes. It fits him, doesn’t it?” Aimée bit her lower lip. “I need protection.”
“From whom?” he asked sharply. He would never have suspected Aimée was smart enough to know her days were numbered.
“The Reaper will kill me for daring to speak of him.”
Did the woman never listen? Was she oblivious to her own safety? She might have saved herself if she agreed the Reaper was merely a man masquerading as a ghost, but her insistence on his supernatural powers had fed the peasants’ hope—and doomed her. “I’ll have the Reaper in custody before he can harm you.”
Aimée hugged herself, her arms protectively around her chest. “May I leave now? I want to go home and get my maid.”
“And go where?” he asked cordially, wondering all the while if she intended to leave the country.
“To Lady Fanchere. Eleonore is my dear friend. And your cousin. I need her. Need her.” Her voice wobbled pathetically.
Lord and Lady Fanchere were his supporters in all things. Eleonore had been his companion when he was a boy, and still believed he retained his youthful ideals. Fanchere was not so blind to Sandre’s faults, but he knew on which side his bread was buttered.
Yes, Aimée would go to them and tell her fantastic tale. Eleonore would kindly laugh at the story, and that would be the end of that. In addition, it would be good for Aimée to be seen in their company after this visit with Sandre.
“Then by all means, you should go to Eleonore.” He glanced at the window. “But it’s a long drive, and it’s getting late. Remain here until morning.”
“No! I mean . . .” Aimée wildly looked around. “I’m not prepared. I don’t have my maid. No clothing . . .”
He almost smiled to see her squirm like a worm on a hook. “Nonsense. This is the palace. We have hundreds of rooms, ladies’ clothing of every size, seamstresses for alterations, and maids who are eager to serve. Quico’s wife is one of our maids, isn’t she, Quico?”
One of the guards nodded stiffly.
“Her name is Bethania. A lovely woman. Very respectful. Very responsible. She lives to please. Isn’t that right, Quico?”
Quico nodded again, once, his face blank.
“See? Here you will have your own personal guard to protect you and your own personal maid to give you whatever you wish. Most important, you can’t travel in the dark.”
“I can. Really.”
“You’re afraid of the Reaper,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but . . .”
Aimée wasn’t as stupid as she seemed.
Putting his hands on her shoulders, he helped lift her to her feet. He kissed her forehead. “Tomorrow you may go to Eleonore. For tonight, I insist you stay here. I couldn’t bear the guilt if I allowed you to leave and you were killed, too.”
She watched him, her eyes wide and unblinking with terror.
“So you will stay. I command it.” He waved his hand and Quico opened the door for her. As she tottered out of the room, he said, “You may rest ass
ured, in Rickie’s name, I will bring this Reaper to justice.”
She cast him one last, petrified glance, and with Quico at her back, she disappeared down the corridor.
At once a new guard took Quico’s place.
Sandre’s congenial smile faded. He wouldn’t kill her tonight. That would be too obvious. He rang for Jean-Pierre de Guignard, his newly anointed second in command.
“How may I serve you, Your Highness?” Jean-Pierre was a lesser cousin, the son of a sot who had died when he broke his neck riding drunk down the meanest street in the old capital, and a noblewoman famed for her expertise in the French style of love—and her willingness to practice it on many men consecutively. So although Jean-Pierre was clever, well-read, and skillful, he was not welcome in the finer homes of Moricadia, not even those of his de Guignard relatives.
For those reasons alone, Sandre knew he could depend on Jean-Pierre to do everything to prove himself worthy of Sandre’s trust.
But there was more. Jean- Pierre looked like a de Guignard—dark hair, handsome face, muscular build—yet his eyes were a curiously pale blue. There were theories about why they were that color, most of them amusing, vulgar, and involving his mother and the results of her promiscuity. But Sandre had his own theory. He believed that Jean-Pierre was like a dog on the verge of rabies, and that his eye color was a warning provided by nature to protect the unwary. He believed that Jean- Pierre could be trained to be the deadliest man alive. As long as Sandre held the chain, he would be glad to provide the training.
Now Jean-Pierre bowed low, a little too overcome by his promotion, a little too obsequious. This son of a whore understood the precariousness of his position, and he intended to do whatever he needed to secure it.
Sandre liked the ambition, fear and neediness. He could make use of that.
In a low tone, but loud enough for the guards to hear, Sandre said, “I will not have anyone spreading rumors of the Reaper and his revenge. Carefully, tactfully, silence Aimée.”