Maxim crossed the hall like the enraged giant of some ancient fable. It was poor timing on the part of Fitch and Spence that they chose to enter from outside at that precise moment, but when they came face to face with his lordship, they shuddered in sudden worry as he paused before them in a visible temper. When he spoke his voice had the heavy-toothed snarl of a saw.
“If you do nothing else while I’m gone, see to your charge and, on threat of your life, fix the door of my chambers . . .”
Elise had followed him to the base of the steps and stood listening, her hands folded demurely and on her face a look of such innocence a meeker virgin would have been put to shame.
“ . . . that I might spend a restful night free from the attentions”—Maxim jerked his thumb across his shoulder—“of this sorely injured maid.
“And you!” He whirled sharply to confront Elise. She raised a brow and waited with a sweet smile of unerring sincerity. “ ‘Twould not be taken amiss,” he sneered, “if you would assist these hapless creatures and make some use of your time. For the good that is done here, we shall all share.”
He made as if to go, having properly vented his spleen, but Elise stopped him with a delicately upraised hand, seeming the very spirit of virtue. “Oh, my lord, I cannot, for you see I’m a prisoner bidden to contain myself in yon bedchamber and forbidden to venture forth lest I worry my guards.”
Maxim was ready to throw up his hands in despair. The wily wench turned every word against him! Grinding an unspoken retort between his gnashing teeth, he swung away and snatched up his cloak, but before his long strides reached the door he heard her voice raised in further admonition.
“ ‘Twould be advisable, my lord, if you would fetch from town at least a cook to prepare a decent meal, if not a maid or two to tend the quarters properly. I fear your men are somewhat less than adequate with their household duties.”
Her last word was oddly punctuated by his attempt to slam the thick portal behind him. The door was wrenched free of its worn hinges and raised a thick cloud of dust as it crashed to the floor. Maxim mumbled a few threatening comments under his breath and closed his cloak against the crisp bite of the wind and the icy sleet that accompanied it. He crossed to the stables, and a few moments later, when he thundered across the courtyard on the back of the black steed, his men were still struggling to lift the door into place.
Hans Rubert had remained in his small waterfront shop past the time of the usual closing at noon on this particular Saturday, having found a need to make several entries in his journals. He was perched on a high stool before the tall desk and was carefully plying goose quill to parchment when a chilling draft swept his back, and the slamming of the front door made him aware that a customer had entered. One could never be sure about the purpose of clients in this vicinity, and he let his hand rest on a stout oaken cudgel as he swung around on the stool.
His visitor was a tall man, and though his face was hidden by the lowered hood of his cloak, he seemed somewhat familiar. The man stamped snow and icy slush from the soles of his fine leather boots, and Hans Rubert slid from the stool, more at ease with the man’s bearing and finely tailored clothes.
“I beg your pardon, mein Herr,” he began. “Is there something I can . . .” His voice trailed off as the fellow raised his head and full recognition dawned.
“Herr Seymour!” The words were snatched from a throat that was suddenly dry and parched. The green eyes of the other met his with a deliberate coldness that sent chills up and down his spine.
“Master Rubert!” The voice was low and its flatness might have warned Hans of more to come, had he not already been atremble with fright.
“I . . . um . . . jaaa!” The agent’s mind raced. “I was not aware that you were in Hamburg, mein Herr!”
The Marquess ignored the man as he peeled a pair of leather gloves from his hands and shrugged out of the cloak, spreading it over the back of a nearby chair. Small beads of perspiration dappled Rubert’s upper lip by the time Maxim deigned to face him.
“I paid you a healthy advance for half a year’s rent on a town house worthy of the name. A thousand ducats, I believe.” The words rumbled from deep within his chest. “But to my surprise I arrive to find my people ensconced in a draft-riddled, vermin-infested pile of stone.”
“Faulder Castle?” Rubert’s tone seemed to portray his amazement, and he frowned as if bemused by the Englishman’s description. “Why, the last time I was up there . . .”
Maxim answered brusquely, squelching the man’s attempt to justify his deeds. “I’ll warrant the last occupants died in the Crusades.”
Hans’s excuse was silenced by the other’s challenging statement. He saw a dwindling profit and began mentally rearranging numbers in his head as he sought another course of reasoning. “Of course, mein Herr, you must recall that our terms were such that if you could not claim the place before the turn of the year, I was not to be held responsible, and there were rumors of your having met with a disaster.”
Maxim took a step toward the man, and Hans scurried to put a long table between them. The Marquess rested his knuckles on the piece and leaned forward, his gaze so intent as to fairly pierce holes in the other’s head. “I must admit you did not come to me well-recommended.” He paused and Rubert tried to swallow a persistent bump in his throat. “However!” The smaller man twitched at the word as if it stung. “I am aware that perhaps a year or so now past, certain members of the Hansa sought properties in another town and paid an agent a handsome sum to obtain the same for them. When they sought to claim the estates they discovered no payments had been made and that their agent was nowhere to be found. The Hansa are a vengeful lot, not given to merely pursuing the law. Had they word of where this man could be found, I fear they would be ill-met to bear the affront and would seek him out with dire intent.”
Despite the coolness of his shop, Rubert took out a kerchief to mop his glistening brow with a trembling hand. The man had a most persuasive way about him.
Maxim’s voice lowered and took on a confidential note. “I care no whit for the Hansa. They are for the most part cruel and heartless money-grubbers. Had I knowledge of an honest man who caught a handful or two of their coin I might be greatly loathe to spread word of him.”
“I . . . I . . . I . . . of course, Herr Seymour,” Hans stammered. “I am, as you say, only an honest man.”
“My men paid more than enough in rents to buy Faulder Castle and all of its lands.”
“It shall be so!” Hans agreed quickly and, searching in a cabinet for a paper, finally found the deed and hastily put his seal and sign upon it, sprinkled sand to blot the ink, and handed it over. “There!” he chortled. “The place has been a blight since I bought it. I’m glad to be rid of it! It is now yours.”
Maxim took the deed, scanned it, and lifted it to gently blow the sand off its surface before folding the parchment and tucking it within his doublet. “As to the advance on the town house . . .”
“Refunded, of course!” Hans gulped. “I rented the place to my ailing and widowed sister . . . only after hearing tales of your demise, of course,” he hastily added. “I could hardly, in all honesty, keep a double rent.”
Maxim nodded slowly, and the agent withdrew from behind the desk an iron-bound, wooden coffer from which he counted coins to some length, scooped them into a bag, then scribbled a receipt. When Maxim had signed the latter, Hans slid the heavy bag across the table.
“A refund in full, Herr Seymour.” He smiled broadly. “As promised. Is there something more?”
Maxim hefted the bag, then dropped it within’his purse. He donned his cloak and pulled on his gloves. “I find it a pleasure doing business with a man who knows the value of . . . uh . . . an honest way.”
Hans Rubert bet out a long, quavering sigh and finally summoned enough courage to ask, “Then the Hansa will never . . .” He swallowed heavily.
Maxim tossed him a brief salute. “Not from my lips,” he assured th
e fellow and, with the closing of the door behind him, was gone like a gust of wind.
Hans slowly climbed onto his stool and sadly turned back several pages in the ledger to make a brace of corrections and significantly lower totals on a later page. A long sigh wheezed from him as he glumly closed the book The skin of his teeth had been sorely tested this day, but his quick wit and honesty had brought him safely through, albeit somewhat poorer.
Maxim picked his way across the slush-covered thoroughfare and entered a smoke-filled room of an inn. He barely had time to shake a crusting of wet snow from his cloak before a jovial voice bellowed from a corner.
“Ho, Maxim!”
Seymour wiped his stinging eyes with the back of a hand and pierced the hazy gloom to espy Nicholas Von Reijn indulging his second passion at a well-laden table. Maxim waved a casual acknowledgment before he swept off his cloak and spread it over a pair of wall pegs to dry. Stripping off his gloves, he strode across the room to the warm hearth and stood for a long moment, savoring the heat of the roaring fire as he rubbed the chill from his hands. Finally he crossed to Von Reijn’s table and, raising a hand for service, spun a chair into place directly across from the captain.
“Icb mochte Branntwein fraulein” he ordered when a plumpish, sweating young girl with a daringly low-cut blouse arrived. He sat down and leaned back, tilting the chair on its hind legs. “Eins heiss Krug, bitte.”
“Ja, mein Herr Danke.” The girl bobbed a quick curtsey and, with a swirl of skirts, was gone.
Nicholas Von Reijn watched his companion for a moment as he chewed on a well-spiced leg of mutton. If he were a man to judge, he would be of a mind to say there was something troubling his friend, for the man seemed lost in thought and a harsh frown creased his brow as his gaze roamed absently about the room.
Abruptly the merchant captain decided his friend needed a confessional. If not, then his own curiosity was sorely piqued. He laid down the well-gnawed bone and, pushing back the platter, carefully wiped his mouth with a large linen cloth after politely stifling a stentorian belch with the same.
“Maxim?” Receiving no response, Nicholas repeated the name, somewhat louder. “Maxim?”
The Marquess turned with a questioning brow raised, but the serving girl arrived to place a steaming stein of mulled brandy on the table before him. She lowered her tray and waited suggestively.
Somewhat vexed at the untimely interruption of the maid, the Hansa captain uncharacteristically tapped his own purse and frowned her away. Maxim nodded his thanks for the other’s gratuity and sipped from the tankard, savoring the warmth of the brew in his mouth and the heat of it in his belly. A dapple of honey and spice floated on the surface and sent a pungent aroma through his head as he inhaled.
“It is miserable outside, ja?” Von Reijn nodded in answer to his own question. “A bad day for a long ride.”
A noncommittal grunt came from Maxim as he wrapped his hands around the warm stein and let his gaze roam the room again. He vaguely recalled the icy chill of his long journey.
Nicholas pried on. “That old castle is cold and drafty on a day such as this. The inner rooms are probably comfortable . . .” He let the last word hang in a half-question, but Maxim missed the bait and only nodded in distant response as he sipped again from the mug.
Nicholas Von Reijn, seaborne merchant of the world, knowledgeable in seven languages and privy to the subtle nuances of cultures and manners necessary to conduct successful trading voyages, summoned all of his skills to draw out his distracted friend. “Ja, ja! But the girl, she is most comely, is she not?”
The slow nodding suddenly halted. The brows gathered darkly, and the green eyes smoldered as if with a well-kindled rage.
Von Reijn waited a space. Had he breached the reluctant dam? He was about to plunge on, even more boldly to the point, when the front legs of the other’s chair slammed down. Maxim leaned across the table, his manner now intense and urgent as he braced on his elbows. A veritable torrent burst forth.
“Women! Bah! I vow to you, good friend, that fearsome gender is the vexation of all mankind! They have set their minds to bring us all to our knees in groveling despair. There’s no reason to their logic! Nor a whit of fairness or justice in a score!”
Maxim’s words only brought confusion to the captain’s well-ordered mind. He spread his hands and, with a worried smile, sought to wring some sanity from the affair. “Ja, but yur Liebling . . .” He hurriedly corrected himself. “Yur betrothed . . .”
Maxim’s fist slammed into the table. “By damn, I am a responsible man, and ‘tis a soreness to me that my men took the wrong woman, that Arabella remains with her husband, and that her cousin was brought here in her stead!”
Incensed with his tirade, Maxim did not notice that Von Reijn, who dared not voice the words aloud, still moved his lips to form the question, “Wrong voman?” The captain’s eyes widened, and he slumped back in his chair to stare with jaw aslack as his companion raged on.
“Ah, poor Arabella, delicate and gentle to a fault, left to perform the biddings of her father’s avarice. In sadness she was set to wed much against her will and bade to place herself beneath the plunging flanks of that lusting stud . . . while I, quite ignorant of the mistake, rushed upstairs to receive my betrothed and was set upon with fury by a harpy bent to drink my blood and leave me rent to the bone. A vicious wasp! With naught a tender word, she has set herself to sting my soul at every turn!”
Maxim had no care that Von Reijn by now was rigid in his chair. The captain’s face was red, and though his lips were clamped tightly shut, his belly jerked with the effort of subduing his mirth. Oblivious to the other’s struggles, Maxim slapped his hand upon the table and fastened an angry but unseeing gaze upon his companion who bowed his head and, with a napkin, made haste to wipe away the tears that were streaming down his cheeks.
“I vowed to that snippet that I could not, for her own safety, see her sent back with the seas raging with storms, but she has set herself to be a thorn planted deeply in my side to ever pain and prick me until she is plucked and gone from sight. She intends to see her own ends met while strewing mine to willy ned and back She cannot understand my head is forfeit if I venture to return.”
Von Reijn took a long draught of wine and managed to control his spasms while Maxim calmed and likewise serviced his brew.
“Ah ha!” Von Reijn’s mirth almost came out again, but he lowered the glass with care, studious of face. “I see yur plight, Maxim. But tell me, vhat of this damsel? Who is she? Surely one so comely and so fair of . . .”
“Comely?” Maxim almost barked. “Fair? ‘Tis in my mind a slavering wolf upon the moor would cause me less concern. Verily I say, ‘tis only safe to venture near that one with blade half-drawn and shield at the ready if you value the wholeness of your skin.” He sipped from his mug and, with his improving mood, felt his hunger grow apace. He seized a chop and took a bite before he noticed the remaining question in the captain’s eyes.
“Elise Radborne is her name.” He waved a chop and took another bite. “Cousin to the Stamfords. Arabella must have left her chambers for some reason, and this wench was there when my men, not knowing one from the other, wrapped her up and brought her here.” His frown grew sharp once again. “What should I do with the chit, Nicholas? She sets me on edge, and though I would be much relieved to see her gone, they would lift my head from my shoulders if I ventured back to England.”
Nicholas shrugged. “The answer seems simple enough if yu be fond of yur head, my friend. Yu must endure her presence for at least a time. But tell me, Maxim.” He scarcely could control his eagerness as he approached the subject of his first passion. “Since yu have no fondness for this . . . ah . . . person, perhaps yu vould not be against this lady enjoying the companionship of a . . . ah . . . em . . . as you English say . . . a suitor?”
“What say you, Nicholas?” Maxim straightened and stared aghast at his friend, thinking him daft. But then, who was he to dict
ate a man’s fancy? “You would pay court to such a one as she?”
Nicholas hunched his shoulders against the other’s scorn and dipped his head aside with a half-cocked grin. “I find the lady . . .”—he toyed with his glass— “ . . . most delec . . . ah . . . I mean . . . most comely. She has a strong spirit assuredly . . . as vell as a certain grace. She vould be a challenge to a man vith skill and patience.”
Maxim snorted. “I have no say. She is hardly my charge. If she would have you, then I would say good riddance. Mayhap ‘twould distract her vengeance from me. I can only wish you luck and good fortune should you chance upon her meaner side.”
“It is good,” Von Reijn half chortled. He sat back and, spearing a pickled plum with his dagger, nibbled at the morsel. “Vill yu be returning tonight?”
Maxim glanced at the front door. Outside the wind howled and the snow swirled like a maddened dervish, dulling his desire to leave, but it could not be helped. “I suppose I must,” he sighed, “ ‘ere she turns that pair of knobblies into stone.”
Von Reijn chose a roasted apple and, after skinning it, delicately stripped the sweet, tender flesh away. “ ‘Tis plenty enough here to eat, my friend, and yu should be yell-stocked against that journey. Be my guest.” He set a platter of roast duckling squarely in front of him and rubbed his hands in anticipation. “I svear,” he laughed, “the whole of yur tale has brought my hunger to an edge again.”
The two ate in silence for a time, savoring a variety of meats and tastes. When Maxim could eat no more, he washed down the last bite with the dregs of his brandy and declined a plate of thinly sliced beef. “No more, I pray you. No more. I shall slumber in the saddle as it is, despite the cold.”