Page 12 of Lord Fournier’s Shameless Princess (Scarlett Affairs #4)

“R ainer?” He was a vision. Liesel rubbed her eyes and took a longer look at the handsome fellow standing next to Dirk. She marveled that this new visitor resembled their father. His height, his broad shoulders, and his long, lean physique presented a younger version of their father. Even his dark brown hair waved upon his brow just as their father’s had. She struggled up on her elbows, but the room spun.

Rolf was already licking the long fingers of the man who appeared before her.

“Rainer?” she repeated.

“Yes, Liesel. I am here.” He eased her down to the pillows and bent to put a kiss on her forehead.

But his tenderness could not kill her anger. She shot up, her head reeling. “You left them!”

Dirk rushed toward her and urged her back to the bed.

“No! No. You left them alone,” she accused her brother. Katrin stood beside Rainer, her eyes wide.

“Liesel, forgive me.”

“No. I won’t. I won’t.” She shook her finger at him, but it wasn’t enough.

“What’s wrong?” Nikky stood on the threshold. “Rainer?” The little boy stood there in his nightshirt, blinking in wonder at the tall, regal man who stood with Dirk.

Rainer held out his arms, and Nikky rushed into his embrace.

Liesel fumed and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She’d make certain Rainer…

What did she want her brother to do?

She stood and groped for the wall. Her knees gave out.

Dirk caught her tightly against him. His warmth, his strength, suffused her, and she turned into him and put one arm over his shoulder. “Tell him he failed.”

Rainer stepped forward. “I should hold her.”

“No.” Dirk seared her brother with his gaze. She felt his objection to Rainer’s bark and thrilled to it. What good had etiquette ever done for her? Or Dirk.

She burrowed into him and moaned. Dirk was no man to dissolve at her brother’s ferocity. She smiled that he’d keep her in his hold.

“She’s been ill, Rainer. The same thing as Nikky. She needs rest and quiet.” He laid her down.

She lifted a hand to her brother. “Why do you come here?”

“A meeting with friends in the city,” he murmured.

Why did he sound like he was talking to a child?

“Don’t humor me.”

“No, Liesel. I know the innkeeper.” He threw her a small smile. “Don’t worry, sweeting. I’ll leave now.”

“But…but… No, don’t go.” She’d not seen him in years, and they needed him. Her thoughts blurred one into another. “Mama would not want you to be here. The French…” she whispered, and licked her dry lips. “They will hunt you.”

Rainer leaned close. “Never worry about me, my dumpling.”

She sniffed. “I’m no dumpling, you cad.”

“No, sweet girl,” Rainer said as he ran a hand over her brow. “You are a beauty.”

“Rainer.” Liesel closed her eyes. They were too heavy, and she was so very tired. She shivered and huddled down into her eiderdown.

“Rainer,” Dirk called. “Come with me. We must talk.”

Liesel curled her knees to her chest as someone pulled the thick goose down quilt up to her chin. They could go. She had her older brother once more. She could sleep.

*

“Why are you here?” Dirk closed the heavy wooden door of the linen closet and faced Rainer. The air was humid, but filled with the smell of newly milled soap and lemons. Pink and green rays of light shone through the small stained glass window. The pink gave Rainer the aura of health he did not possess. Dirk had minutes to persuade him to leave.

“I came here to hide. The same as you, Fournier. Who knew you’d have my family with you?”

Dirk ignored his friend’s anger. “A necessity. Liesel came to me from Ettenheim.”

“Ettenheim? What on God’s earth was she doing there?” No sooner were the words out of Rainer’s mouth, he paled. “No. Tell me she was not with the Duke of Enghien!”

“She was. I do not know details. I have not asked. I doubt she will say. She considers his capture her failure.” Like me, she does not wear her failures lightly, and I do not blame her. But neither do I think less of her for them. I love her all the more for having tried.

“But why come to you?”

Dirk threw his friend a look of rueful dismay. Rainer must not have learned much about his mission to save so many Germans from French clutches. He would not take time to reveal his own secrets, especially to Rainer, who could be captured and tortured himself. “She thinks I am reliable.”

“I guess you are, to have come this far with them.”

As a concession, it was small, but Dirk would not elaborate on his own expertise in the art of smuggling people to safety. But he could fill in a bit of Rainer’s knowledge about his missing sister. “Liesel has been busy. The French know quite a bit about her activities. Before Ettenheim, she was in Strasbourg.”

“Dear God! Why?”

Dirk fought a smile. “She was in Paris before that. Working in the kitchen of the French deputy minister of police.”

“You do jest.”

Dirk cast him a wide-eyed stare. “I wish.”

“She worked for Vaillancourt?” Rainer cursed roundly in gruff German. “Why? Why? ”

Dirk contemplated how Liesel’s brother would take another shock. He decided this last bit would humble the man and give Liesel her just rewards. “You can imagine why, Rainer.”

“Nooo. She’s an agent?”

“She knows much,” Dirk said with an inhale. He’d not give away any details of her connections in London. “And has learned much. She’s not suffered too much, but she came to me because she expected the French would abduct your brother and sisters to use as ransom to persuade you to surrender to them. She came to me for aid. And as you can see, I gave it.” Dirk needed information himself. “Now, you tell me. Why do you hide here?”

Rainer breathed heavily. “I was discovered last night in the city.”

As I feared. “And had to flee?”

“I left my four men. We dispersed.”

“None came with you here?”

“None.”

That was a comfort. But not a guarantee of safety. “What happened?” Had Rainer or his men gotten into trouble in Koblenz?

Rainer’s jaw twitched. “Vaillancourt arrived in Koblenz last night.”

“Far out of his usual territory, isn’t he?” Dirk’s sarcasm covered his terror. He paced to the window and back.

“Far from Paris. But I understand Fouché has elevated him to deputy minister over his political police.”

Rainer’s enemy was also Liesel’s. Vaillancourt’s reason to leave Paris was direr than any Dirk had ever imagined. He squeezed his eyes shut. It could mean the deputy was here for both Rainer and his sister. “How many men does he have?”

“Twenty French soldiers. And ten gendarmes from his Paris garrison.”

“So…thirty men?” Dirk ran both hands through his hair. Had Vaillancourt’s agents followed them from Rittenburg? What had he missed along the road? Anything? Any sign? Anyone who tracked them? “Are you sure of the count?”

“My own men drank with his. Vaillancourt comes for me.”

Dirk cursed beneath his breath.

“He wants me, Dirk. Me. Bonaparte killed Enghien for fear of a Bourbon uprising. Bonaparte fears a German uprising against him, led by me. So I am next.”

“And Liesel, too.”

“What? Why?”

“She worked in Vaillancourt’s kitchen in Paris. I don’t know for how long, but somehow she was discovered for who she was…and she fled east. First to Ettenheim. Recently, to me.”

Rainer’s pale eyes lit with fear. “She was always so stubborn, and too bold for her own good.”

Hell, what did it matter how or why Liesel had secured a position in Vaillancourt’s household? If the deputy minister and his contingent were here, he was after Rainer or Liesel or both. What a prize the two crown royals of Rittenburg would be.

“If you know Vaillancourt is here, why are you still here?” Dirk asked. “Drinking openly in the great room is not exactly wise.”

“One of my men was shot. I brought him across the river to Herr Heinrich because I knew he would take care of him. I was having a drink, and then Heinrich was going to hide me. Little did I think I would find you and Liesel here with Nikky and Katrin.” Rainer sank against the door.

Dirk saw now the extent of his friend’s pallor. He was a big man, broad shoulders, long legs, but he looked strained. He’d lost weight. His travels had not treated him kindly.

“Liesel is ill. You saw it yourself. She needs a bed, comfort, good food. We have only just saved Nikky from death.”

Rainer’s blue eyes darkened. “Nikky was ill?”

“Very. Until Liesel recovers, I will not chance moving her far. Which means—”

“I must go.”

Dirk nodded. “Do you have other friends?’

Rainer rolled his eyes. “Oh, I do. Hundreds. Thousands!”

“Choose one, as fine as Hans.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Then find someplace to recover your own health.”

“Never worry about me. Save the others. For that, I am indebted to you.”

“Never. I am honored she asked me.”

Rainer looked him over with narrowed eyes. “You care for her.”

Not a question, but a statement. “I do.”

“Even to take her to your country where they may come to arrest you.”

“They need never know I was there.”

“And if they do?”

“I will deal with that as it comes. My only task now is to see them all safely to my mother in Kent. She will rejoice to have the royal family of Rittenburg in her home.”

“Your mother is still a lady-in-waiting to the queen?”

Dirk nodded. “Her most useful job, she says.”

“Which may keep you from a dungeon.”

“But not from public ridicule.” Dirk preferred not to think of his possible prosecution. “I concentrate only on Liesel’s happiness now.”

Rainer put both hands to Dirk’s shoulders. “If you love her, and she you, marry her.”

A shimmer of delight winged through Dirk. To have Liesel forever in his life, in his bed, would be more grace than heaven should grant him. But reality stung. “I would never disgrace her so.”

“You and I both know you did not ruin that woman.”

Dirk scoffed. “Really? You think not?”

“I do. You are not a man to despoil a lady and leave her in disgrace.”

“Rainer, my friend, you are one of two who believes that.” His mother would crow to learn his friend the Prince of Rittenburg thought him innocent.

They embraced, the strong bond of friendship tying them to each other in spirit.

Rainer stuck two fingers in the coil of his worn scarf. “We must get out of here before we boil.”

They locked gazes and laughed.

“Be swift,” Dirk told his friend.

“Be smart,” Rainer told him. “Some bright day, we meet again.”

“Make a point of living that long, Mein Herr.”

“ Javohl, Mein Freund. ”