Page 13 of Lord Fournier’s Shameless Princess (Scarlett Affairs #4)

D irk raised his hand and put his ear to the door. Hearing no one about, he swung it open, peered into the hall, and motioned for Rainer to follow. The prince had already bidden auf wiedersehen to Nikky and Katrin, so he took the stairs down to the gathering room at a clip.

Dirk expected not to see his friend again for years.

If ever.

The words hung in Dirk’s mind as he noted the sound of horses nickering in the stable yard. Rainer was away quickly.

Dirk hurried back to Liesel. She lay upon the bed, crumpled into a small, quivering ball. Her forehead and her hands were hot as summer sun.

He had to work harder to get her fever down. But a glance at the basin told him he needed more water to make compresses. He shook the teapot. He needed more of that, too. He called for Katrin to go down and fetch tea and something to eat.

A hand to Liesel’s brow, he bent, and she stared up at him. Her stunning violet eyes were strained and glassy. “You’re here.”

“Always.”

Her lips curved in a tremulous smile. “I want you near.”

His heart twisted. “I must get more chamomile and mint at the apothecary. But I’ll return at once.”

Her fingers edged along the linen to take his hand. Her shoulders curled as if in pain. “I want no other man…”

He fought the urge to blurt out his own desire for her. But it would do neither of them any good. In such a fever, she would not remember the declaration, and he would not forget.

He secured the eiderdown to her throat. “Don’t go away.”

She had enough awareness of his jest to smile. Did she know how she touched him with words and deeds? He had to hope she never did.

He jogged down the stairs to the main room and saw no one about. That was odd. Where was Hans? Where were those townsfolk who usually came for their lunch and their steins of beer? Where was Katrin? The stable yard? The kitchens?

Alarm winging through him like a vulture, he headed for the kitchens.

Hans burst through the door to the cellars. “Mein Herr!”

“Where is my charge, Hans?”

“ Kommen Sie, bitte. ” Hans urged him to through the kitchen door. “Your little one is in the cellars.”

“ Was ist los?” What’s wrong?

“Soldiers, French, are in the platz . Ten, says my daughter. They come this way.”

“Which way did our visitor go?”

“South. As soon as one of my maids told me of the French, I took the children to the wine cellar. They think it a great adventure.”

“I’m sure the fragrant angel’s share alone will fill them with good spirits. But Hans, I must hide my lady and our little boy. And it should be…”

“Somewhere else. Ja, Ich weiss .” I know.

“Where?” Dirk asked himself more than Hans.

But the man stared at him with narrowed eyes. “The tunnels.”

Dirk recalled the time he, Rainer, Ashley, and Appleby had played there as youths. The long, winding corridors were damp, moldy excavations completed in the time of the religious wars. A few of the passages ended in dead ends. Others meandered onward for a mile or two. Years ago, Hans had shown them three entrances. All were obscured by an overgrowth of vines and grasses. The tunnels were on Hans’s property, had been for generations, and few went there, few knew of it, except his family. He had assured the men then that only his father and he knew the locations. Now, Hans explained only his wife and daughter knew them. “I recommend the main tunnel, Mein Herr. Das Eishaus .”

Precisely. The icehouse, built into the side of a hill, was a stone building of three concentric circles. Only the central one was of use. Inside, Hans and his wife stored supplies for the inn. Dirk recalled seeing wooden crates filled with seasonal vegetables and fruits, shelves with soft rounds of cheese, and chunks of ice they had seized with grappling hooks during the winter from a nearby lake.

Dirk bit down hard on his dislike of taking Liesel to such a place. She was so ill. So fevered.

But truly, if anyplace was safe from Vaillancourt’s reach, it was a house deep in the woods obscured by the flourishing, green growth of centuries—and filled with ice.

Dirk took the stairs two at a time, Hans right behind him. Dirk warmed only at the sight of Liesel resting. He hated to disturb her, but he inched down the bed covers and scooped her into this arms.

She tucked her nose into the curve of his throat. “Why?”

He fought for words to sustain her. “We go on an adventure.”

“Ah. My knight.”

He put his lips to her brow. He burned for her. “My princess.”

“Cold.”

“I know,” he said as he took the stairs with his darling burden. “I’ll get you warm soon enough.”

Waiting at the landing, Hans held one small candle in a silver lamp. Nikky, with his breeches on now, held another. Katrin stood beside him. Hans tipped his head toward the servants’ stairs down to the kitchens, the pantry, and the wine and beer cellar.

As they approached the large double doors, Dirk paused. “Perhaps it is best for the two children to go to the other tunnel.”

Hans agreed, and the four of them hurried down the dank corridor.

If Liesel and Dirk were found in the icehouse, it would be best if Nikky and Katrin were not with them. The French would have to think hard to gain their hostages. For two years, Dirk had not made it easy for them. He would not start now.

But the tunnel was damn long. Liesel was a tall woman, slight of build, but even so, carrying her in the pitch-black corridor wore on him. He had to stop twice to catch his breath.

At last, they reached a dead end of one tunnel and Hans paused. Then he pushed aside a tall wooden shelving that opened to a hole in the wall, and disappeared down a new corridor.

Liesel writhed in his arms. “I am cold.”

“You’ll be warm soon.” What else could he do but lie? “I am with you.”

She moaned, and he grieved with her.

“Come.” Hans appeared and led the way around to a scarred wooden door that looked as if it had been hacked with axes and charred with torches.

Hans closed the door behind them and led the way up a flight of limestone stairs through another door. Inside a true building now, the air was clean and crisp.

“The first ring,” Hans informed him. At ten more paces, another door appeared. “This one is weighted with stone between the wood panels. It takes me a while to slide it open. Come, sit here with your lady.”

Dirk sank to a ledge carved from the stone. His thoughts swam with his friend’s words. Your lady.

He shifted her in his arms and allowed his limbs relief from his burden.

In response, Liesel trembled in her fever. This business of hiding from Vaillancourt’s men did her no good. One day he’d have recompense for this pain the man had caused her. One day…

The scraping of the weighted door upon the stone threshold had Dirk turning to marvel at Han’s strength.

“You must tell me how you can do that so easily,” he told his friend as he got to his feet.

“When you move mountains once a week, you become more capable each time.” Hans closed the door upon them. “Only one more.”

This door, Dirk could see from his vantage. It looked as if it had been recently replaced. Planed and clean of mold, this door seemed nonetheless as heavy as the previous. But Hans bent to his chore to move it open.

Dirk stood with Liesel in his arms. The cold air inside whirled through the door, forming clouds that met his nostrils and made him wince.

He strode inside with her. Two steps in and the true meaning of “icehouse” blasted Dirk’s skin with a thousand frigid knives.

Liesel reared her head, her eyes wide at the assault of cold.

Hans murmured that he had shawls. He strode to an ancient, domed bombé trunk and extracted two. “They are not thick, but they’ll help keep you warm. We put them around our shoulders when we work here.”

Dirk strode to one of two chairs in the room and sat down with Liesel in his lap. “You need more than this.”

“Ja, but we leave what we bring and take what we want quickly. Please listen to me now.”

Dirk worked at covering Liesel with the wool shawl. “You will leave us.”

“I will. If the French come to the inn, they will want to speak to the proprietor. My wife can hold them off for only so long. My daughter is too young to manage soldiers or gendarmes.”

“I understand. Go.”

Hans took a large flask from the shelves behind him and grabbed two silver mugs from another below. “Schnapps. Drink it. There is not much here to eat except raw potatoes and carrots we cut days ago. No cream or cheese, I’m sorry to say. We took it all into the kitchens yesterday.”

“I’m grateful for the schnapps, Hans. Although I hope you can return before I pass out in a stupor.” Dirk regarded Liesel. “I cannot feed her spirits for her fever.”

Hans raised a finger. “I have ice!” He spun away to the far wall and took down an earthen pitcher.

Dirk could hear the crystals sloshing against the pottery as Hans brought it to him.

“Pour, will you please?” He was eager to give Liesel a drink, and he could use some, too. He flexed his fingers. “My hands are numb.”

Hans had a grin on his fleshy face as he filled two small mugs with icy water. “All right! Now I go.” Peeking back into the room before he closed the door, he said, “All will be well.”

Dirk smiled to reassure his friend, who had done everything he could to help hide them.

Now he had to ensure Liesel survived this wickedly cold room.

“Here you are, my darling.” He tried to get her to part her lips for a sip of the ice water. But she scowled and turned her head away. “Please, you must drink.”

“No.” She swatted at his hand. “Cold in here.”

“I know, sweetheart, but we must stay here only for a little while.”

She wrapped one arm around his torso and nestled into him. “You’re warm.”

With you in my arms, in this ridiculous frozen hideaway, yes, I am.

“I want to crawl inside you.”

He shut his eyes. Curled her close. “I know.”

“Would you—?” She let her head loll back against his arm. Her stare held madness and feverish desire.

“What?” He was taken, enchanted by the ramblings of a lady so ill, she knew not what she said. He smiled as he threaded his fingers through her rich golden hair.

“Would you have me?”

“Yes, darling.” Was he losing his mind to admit such a thing? What did it matter what he had or hadn’t said? Rainer had noticed Dirk cared for his sister. Katrin and Nikky had mentioned it. They all had eyes to see. “Were we free, I’d have you.”

“Not like him.”

Him. The one who’d abused her.

“Iceberg,” she muttered.

Dirk twitched. Her reference, in any other circumstance, would have made him laugh. But here, freezing as they were, for her to make a mash of her intended’s name only fired his anger. “He won’t ever have you.”

She whimpered and snuggled into his care. “He hit me,” she murmured.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She focused on him as she weaved in her delirium. “I am so sorry. I will kill him for you.”

“Oh, good,” she said. “I knew you would. I love you,” Liesel whispered, a broken sound of despair.

With his mind so full of anguish, he had almost missed her words. Hell, he was an idiot to discuss such vital matters with a severely ill woman. Still, he must, mustn’t he? What she remembered, if anything, of this conversation in this dungeon of ice had to be his objection to her sweet regard.

“Oh, my darling, no. I am no man to love.”

“You are,” she cried, and kissed his throat, his jaw, then put two fingers to his lips. “You are my knight, Dirk Fournier. Mine.”

Hot tears stung his eyes. But he urged her close to him and fought his desire to kiss her back. Instead, he silently cursed his struggle and arranged her thin shawl between them. No fabric, no layers of iron or brick or stone, could bar his heart from loving her. Only his ethics. They—essential to his integrity as they were—became more fragile every minute with her so close, so dear.

How could he clear his name and take her to wife? Employ his list. His damn list.

He knew not how many minutes later, but Hans finally reappeared and opened the door to freedom and warmth. Dirk carried Liesel back to their room, their bed, where he climbed in beside her to share his body heat and calm her from bouts of chills. By dawn, she was still, curled against him—and cool.

By that afternoon, Vaillancourt’s raiding party had left the town, headed south. Rumor said they tracked Rainer. Dirk arranged for the four of them to leave Koblenz the next night in a hired traveling coach going northeast.