Carla Kelly (24 page)

“Not within recent memory.” He looked at the count with what he hoped was a pleasant but firm expression. “And now, Count, please take me to my wife.”

“Indeed,” Almanzor said promptly, as though responding to a cue. He locked Leger inside the room, and handed the lamp to Jesse, after dismissing the old servant.

He was silent then, and Jesse was grateful. He concentrated on each passageway, and every staircase, but with a sinking feeling found himself hopelessly confused. The castle was a labyrinth, probably built this way on purpose centuries ago to fuddle any warlord trying to conquer it. Well, I am fuddled, diddled and scotched, Hippocrates, he thought as they traversed yet another corridor, climbed yet another set of stairs, narrower now, and obviously in an older part of the sprawling building.

He forced himself to be calm. The last staircase spiraled up inside a narrow tower. His confidence returned, because he knew he could find this structure again, provided he could get outside and walk the grounds. When the count, wheezing now, stopped at the only door and began the search for the key, he looked up and noticed a trapdoor that must lead to the roof.

The chamber was circular and small, and lit only by a fire in a brazier. He could barely make out Elinore in the gloom, sound asleep in a bed with heavy curtains drawn back. I have wandered into a fairy tale, he thought in amazement. Here we are, living in modern times, except for this castle in Spain. He went to the bed to see Elinore.

She stirred when he sat down beside her, but did not waken. He touched her hair, pleased to see that it was clean, and that she wore a simple nightgown. Beautiful lady, he thought, if I kiss you, will I break a spell, or make things worse? He kissed her cheek, then returned to the count. He bowed. “Count, you have taken such wonderful care of Elinore. Could I not stay with her tonight?”

“Alas, no,” the count replied, shaking his head. He shook a finger at Jesse. “I think you are a naughty man. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring. Why should I believe that she is your wife?”

“Surely she said so.”

“Oh, yes, yes, but who can believe a woman?”

You can believe this one, he thought as he looked at Elinore. And trust her with everything you own. “She doesn’t lie, Count,” he said, unable to disguise the emotion in his voice. “I trust you will allow me to see her again in the morning.”

“Possibly. Come, come! Wouldn’t you hate to wake a sleeping princess?”

You, sir, are certifiable, he thought as he followed the count from the room, down the winding stairway, and into the first of several halls. He had nothing to say to the old man, and pointedly ignored his chatter. He tried to remember where he had come, but gave it up for a bad business when he finally realized that the count was returning him to his quarters by a different route.

“You shouldn’t sulk,” the count told him when he unlocked the door. “Good night,” he called out. “What is it you English say, ‘Good night, sleep tight’?”

Disgusted with himself, Jesse leaned against the door. To his irritation, he looked toward the bed to see Armand Leger smiling at him. “I do not understand why you think any of this is amusing,” he snapped.

“Captain, I’ve never seen you so down pin before.”

Startled, he looked closer into the gloom. “Private Harper?”

“At your service, Chief,” Harper replied. His little army stepped from the shadows by the tapestry. “I never did find a lock I couldn’t pick, sir.”

Jesse laughed. “And I don’t supposed you ever tried to avoid one, either, eh? Thank goodness for that.” He looked around. “Where is Private Wilkie?”

“I expect him along any time now, sir. He followed you and that old rip.”

Jesse found the nearest stool and sat on it. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

“’Course not, sir,” Harper replied, his expression slightly offended. “Wilkie is an expert.”

Jesse shook his head. “And here I was certain you two were the most useless soldiers in the entire army. What could I have been thinking?”

Harper ducked his head modestly. “Gor, Chief, that’s all right. We’ll let it go.” He inclined his ear toward the door. “Here ’e is now.”

Jesse strained his ears. He heard nothing beyond a few scratching noises in the vicinity of the lock, and then Wilkie sidled through the barely open door. While Jesse stared in dumbfounded amazement, he closed it quietly, fiddled with the lock less than a minute, then smiled. “We’re locked in again now.” He nodded to Jesse. “Captain, I know right where she is.”

“Amazing. Can you get her out in the morning?”

Wilkie shrugged. “Piece a’cake, one way or t’other. It’s a different lock, an older one, but we’ll get her out.”

Harper grinned at his companion and clapped an arm around his shoulder. “’E’s not very humble, sir, but I like’um.”

“You’re both rascals and scoundrels and any self-respecting officer worthy of a king’s commission would slap you in irons the moment you reach the lines at Torres Vedres,” Jesse said, biting off each word. He paused and considered the matter for the last time. “Thank God that you had the stupidity to cast your lot with me, instead! Men, I am in your debt,” he concluded simply. “What can I do now?”

Harper appeared to be considering the matter. “Begging your pardon, Chief, but all I want in future is for you to not go losing Mrs. Randall.”

“Agreed. I promise not to let her out of my sight.”

“Promise, sir?” Wilkie asked, grinning.

“Cross my heart, Private.”

“That’ll do then, Chief,” Harper said generously. “Now I want you to get a good night’s sleep. Wilkie and I have plans to extricate your wife.”

“Uh, could I ask the nature of your strategy?”

Harper shook his head. Wilkie was already at the lock, opening it silently. “Best not to know, sir.” He followed Wilkie through the door, then stuck his head back in. “All you got to know is that Wilkie is also an expert at diversion.”

“I will be involved in her rescue, won’t I?” Jesse asked. “I insist upon that.”

Harper beamed at him. “Chief, you’ll be the hero!” He lowered his voice. “I was nearly nabbed by parson’s mousetrap once. I know them women love a hero. ’Night, sir.”

He didn’t know how he could sleep, but he did. When he woke, the sun was beginning to rise. He sat up in the bed and looked toward the window, where Leger sat, staring out at the morning. The Frenchman motioned him over and pointed out the window. “I think your wife is a very resourceful woman,” he said.

He joined Leger at the window. “I do believe you are right,” he agreed. Elinore—it could only be Elinore—had hung a strip of red cloth out the window at the top of a narrow tower. “I think we can safely say she has no real interest in waiting a month or more to be immortalized by Francisco Goya.”

He heard the familiar scratching at the lock. In a moment Harper was inside the room. He had coiled a sheet over his shoulder, which on closer inspection became a rope made of cloth strips knotted together. He winked at Jesse. “I didn’t learn this knot in the army, but it’s gotten me out of a few bedrooms, sir.”

Jesse took him to the window. “Can it get Mrs. Randall out of that bedroom?”

“Clever’un, your lady, sir,” Harper replied, after a long look. “Let’s do it better. You can get her out of that bedroom, Captain.”

“
Me
?”

“You. Wilkie and I went back there this morning. He can’t pick that lock, but we have a better idea.” He held up the jury-rigged rope. “You’re not afraid of heights are you, Chief?”

Jesse gulped. “I suppose there is not a wrong answer to that one, is there?”

The plan was simple enough. Jesse arranged pillows in the bed to approximate a human body. Leger agreed to spin a tale of late-night woes, the surgeon’s complete incapacitation, and Captain Randall’s burning urge to spend a few more hours in bed to recuperate. He also agreed to distract the count. “I could kill him, Jesse,” Leger said.

“That’s more distraction than he needs, monsieur,” Jesse
replied. “I know he is at least three parts lunatic, but we are allies. Such a deed might cause repercussions we are unaware of now. Please excuse me now. Apparently Harper expects me to be a hero.”

Jesse shouldered his medical satchel with the precious bottles and the tools of his trade and urged Leger to throw the other satchels out the window if he could. “We’ll reconnoiter by the drawbridge there. Do let us hope it remains down.”

He hurried into the hall to find only Harper there. “I should warn you that Wilkie does love a good diversion, sir.”

“And I shouldn’t ask, eh?”

The private grinned, and started to clap him on the back, but obviously thought better of it. “We had best hurry along.”

They quietly traversed the halls, empty of servants. He wanted to pause for one more look at the art in Conde Almanzor’s gallery, but Harper nudged him when he slowed down. They ran down the last corridor and took the spiral staircase two steps at a bound. Harper didn’t even glace at the door, but continued up the ladder and banged open the trapdoor. Jesse eyed the ladder dubiously, but there was Harper above him now, reaching down. He handed up his medical satchel first, then followed it. To his surprise, Harper was standing still on the roof, looking intently toward the wall. “Over there, sir. I told you Wilkie was a wonder.”

In the distance, smoke billowed from a stone building that looked like the stables. Harper gave a low, admiring whistle. “I think even Wilkie exceeded his expectations, sir. Best blaze I’ve seen since the time he and I…well, I’d best keep that to myself.” He made a motion to kneel on the flat roof, then grimaced. “Lord love us, Chief, I’d wager no one has swept off a pigeon dropping since the Inquisition.”

“A reasonable assessment, Private,” Jesse said.

Harper knotted a loop in the sheet. “Come here, sir. Now you get to play hero.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that, Harper,” he replied, but held up his arms while Harper dropped the loop under his armpits. “Now, you will hold tight?”

“You’ll be safe as houses, Chief,” Harper said. “Of course, it’s a good thing you’re a little fellow, if you’ll pardon me.”

Jesse looked down. Directly below him was a small balcony that he knew opened on to Elinore’s room. He had rappelled down a cliff at Ronda once to set a broken leg. After a moment’s ignominious swing, he found his feet and walked down the wall while Harper played out the sheet. He landed on the balcony, lost his balance, and fell into more pigeon droppings, but then Elinore threw open the window, which caught him on the side of the face.

“Oh, I am sorry!” Elinore said as she pulled him in, then hugged him.

Jesse hugged her back, then tried to brush the droppings off his trousers, only to discover that some were fresher than others. He grinned at her and held out his dripping hand. “Harper said this would make me a hero. D’ye think so?”

“Only if your wife were truly daffy, which I am not,” she replied, belying her words by beaming at him. She handed him a towel.

“Captain Randall? Mrs. Randall?”

Elinore went back to the balcony and looked up. “Private Harper? He’s fine, even though I just hit him with the window. Oh, I am, too.” She stepped inside. “Jesse, he said there is a sudden change of plans, and that we should look into the courtyard.” She turned back. “Horses!”

He joined her on the balcony, and put his arm around her waist because he wanted to. She looked back at him in surprise, then thrilled his heart by leaning against him. “Is that Wilkie?” she asked, pointing.

“I think so.” He looked closer, which put his cheek wondrously close to hers. As usual, she smelled better than he did. “There’s someone with him. I believe it is Monsieur Leger. My, but that smell of smoke is strong.”

Just then the sheet rope began to sway. Jesse looked up to see Harper descending. I thought we were to go back up and escape through the building, Jesse thought. He looked again at Wilkie and Leger, with horses. Elinore went back inside for her cloak and medical satchel.

Soon Harper stood beside him on the balcony. “
Gracias
,”
he called, looking up, then gave the rope a tug, and stepped out of the way when it dropped.

Jesse looked up, but could see no one. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Who is helping us?”

Harper shrugged. “Chap says he knows you, Captain. At least, I think that’s what I think he said. My Spanish ain’t much better than yours and his English is puny.” Swiftly he tied the sheet rope to one of the iron balustrades on the balcony. “I’ll let you down first, and then I’ll send Mrs. Randall.” He grinned and nudged Jesse. “I wish you could carry ’er down and be a really big hero, but I’m not sure my rope is up to that. Go now.”

Jesse snatched up his shoulder satchel again and pulled the loop over his head, fitting it snugly. By the time he reached the end of the rope, Wilkie was there with the horses.

The rope was too short to see him to the ground, so he jumped, wincing at the tinkle of glass inside his shoulder satchel. The fragrance of oil of cloves rose around him as he dusted off his trousers again. He glanced inside his satchel at the bottles, and pulled out the cloves and the potassium iodide, victims of his clumsiness.

“Kindly don’t look up my skirt,” Elinore called down, and he looked up automatically to see her begin her descent. When she reached the end, Jesse took her around the waist and pulled her down in front of him on his horse.

“Handsome legs, Mrs. Randall,” he said, and got a dig in the ribs for his pains.

“I told you not to look.”

Laughing, he handed her down to Wilkie, who quickly gave her a leg up onto a horse. “Wilkie, I must congratulate you on these horses,” he said.

The private shook his head. “Sir, I ’ad nothing to do with these horses. And that fire? I never set it. ’Pears to me you have a guardian angel.”

Startled, he looked up as Harper descended. Who
is
that who helped Harper on the roof, he asked himself. And why aren’t we having any trouble in this courtyard? “Since we don’t appear to be in control of this situation, have you any idea what is going on, Private?” he asked Wilkie.

As Harper dropped to the ground, and with considerable
help from Wilkie, found his way onto the remaining horse, Jesse turned to Leger. “Monsieur Leger, did the count even come to our room?” he asked.