Page 72 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

Chapter 23

A lost princess?

Alistair did not find it as difficult to believe as perhaps he ought.

His heart still ached for the girl she had been, deprived of her family, fighting to keep even her name a secret, because it was one of the few things she had known to be truly and only hers. But now all of that had changed.

She wasn’t lost anymore.

He longed to wrap his arms around her, just as he had done earlier that night. But the very strength of his longing was a warning.

These revelations were for her alone. He’d already heard more than he should.

“Come,” he said to the others, careful not to look at her. “I think we can agree that Herr Schenk presents no danger. We should leave them to work through the details of translating Miss—” A series of surnames swirled in his head, none of them real or right. Changing course, he finished lamely, “Uh, this private family matter.”

He picked up a sturdy brass candelabra, strode toward the doors that divided the drawing room from the library, and threw them open. “You’ll find paper, pens, whatever you might need in here.” He paused to slide one slender volume on German history from the shelf, intending to offer it to his sister, and then at the last minute, tucked it into his pocket instead. “Danny, help our aunt to bed. She must be exhausted. Come, Forster. I’ll have a servant show you to your room.”

Aunt Josephine sputtered but went when Danny touched her arm. Forster hesitated.

As if to reassure both men of his honor, Schenk laid his arm across his chest in the manner of one taking an oath and bowed, clicking his heels together as he did so.

Alistair bowed in turn and left without another word.

After handing Forster off to a somewhat bewildered housemaid, Alistair’s restless feet took him not toward his own bed, or even back to the library, but in the direction of the west wing. Before he had even made a conscious choice of destination, he found himself in the studio.

The walls still seemed to echo with their conversation of earlier that night.

You are not a selfish man.

Oh, but he was. How he had wanted to be able to give her all the things she had never had. But of course what she’d really wanted, really needed, was exactly what some other man was giving her now: a history. And a future. Far from here, and from him.

Slowly, he walked around the room. He’d always hated this place and everything it represented. But now, tangled up in those memories of his father and his past were memories of her. Of the art she had made. Of the passion they had shared.

On the table, he found the drawing of him reclining nude on the chaise. He wanted to touch the flame of the candle to it, to turn it to ash, but he made himself study it instead.

This one is just for me, she had told him as she’d sketched it.

Then she had left the picture behind.

This is how I see you, she had said earlier tonight.

Stripped bare. Dark eyes that should have been soft and sated but instead burned with lust. As if, in spite of having had her just moments earlier, he’d never needed her more.

She had never needed him less.

Snatching it from the table, he strode from the room. He carried the light with him, but the darkness followed. When he shut the door between the church and the cloisters and snapped the iron padlock, it clanged with awful finality.

As if summoned by Harriet’s third noisy yawn in as many minutes, Danielle and Edwina appeared in the doorway of the library. “It’s time for bed,” Danielle announced.

Constantia glanced around the room and squinted at the clock on the mantel but couldn’t make it out. How many hours had it taken for her and Harriet and Herr Schenk—together with the aid of pen and paper, a great deal of patience, and Harriet’s German primer—to sort out a reasonably comprehensible recounting of Constantia’s family history?

In addition to providing Harriet with a lengthy written history of the Friedensfeld dynasty, he had also explained in greater detail first how he had tracked Constantia to and around London, frequently losing sight of her for weeks or months at a time and never getting close enough to introduce himself, and then how he had followed her from London to Rylemoor. Though that part of the story did not in fact involve chasing her from a London alleyway nor breaking chairs in a roadside pub—Constantia had felt a twinge of guilt at the realization her fearful imagination had turned every chance event against him—it had nonetheless been a thrilling tale. Quite by happenstance, he had learned of an accident involving a young woman matching her description and had sought out the physician who had treated her injuries. Once he had managed to ascertain Lord Ryland’s identity and whereabouts, he had embarked upon the difficult journey across the countryside on foot, having long since spent every penny he’d been given for his search. He had arrived in the vicinity of Rylemoor only the day before, encountered Edwina, and had returned tonight intending to plead his case to the earl. But, spying Constantia dressed for travel and carrying her valise, he had attempted to follow her instead, then lost his way in the darkness amid the cavernous abbey ruins. She trembled to think that if she had once again eluded him, or if Alistair had not checked his swing, she might never have learned the truth.

“Mr. Schenk must be allowed to retire,” Edwina gently insisted. Certainly, he had earned his rest. Without waiting for Harriet to translate her sister’s words, he rose and followed Edwina gratefully out.

Seeing that her previous statement had not yet produced the desired result, Danielle folded her arms across her chest and spoke more sternly: “Harry. Bed.”

Harriet rose with a halfhearted protest. “This will all still be here in the morning,” Constantia assured her, lifting her head from what she had been reading long enough to cast a glance over the papers spread across the table.