Page 3 of The Duke’s Price (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #18)

3

L iliana was Ruth’s and Bella’s first problem. She was a spy for the Duque de las Sombras, but she was also lazy and venal. Putting her out of the picture was as easy as inviting her to spend three days on her knees and then suggesting that she might prefer to see Ruth and Bella to the convent and then slip away to visit her boyfriend for a couple of days.

A gift of a silver coin was enough to clinch the deal. Ruth and Bella happily promised not to tell anyone that Liliana had abandoned her post, especially Don Carlos, and just like that, they were free of their minder.

“I hope she has enough sense not to return to the castle when she learns we are gone,” Ruth said. Don Carlos could be vicious when he was crossed.

Bella took the pragmatic view that Liliana brought any consequences on herself. “If she was trustworthy, it would not be a problem. If I could trust her, she would come with us. If Don Carlos could trust her, she would refuse to leave us.”

Madre Katerina nodded. “Liliana must work out her own salvation. Let us consider ours. Princess, it is time for me to take my remaining sisters out of Las Estrellas to the southwest. We shall join those who have already left in another convent of our order.”

“Those who have already left?” Bella repeated.

“I saw this day coming months ago,” said Madre Katerina, “and have been sending small groups of the sisters on ahead. We have not forgotten the lesson of St Teresa of Jesus.”

The Convent of St Teresa of Jesus had been sacked, and the nuns violated and murdered. They had taken in French soldiers who were too sorely wounded to keep up with the retreat from Vitoria, and the public story was that those soldiers had risen from their beds to destroy their hostesses. The persistent whisper was that Don Carlos de las Sombras had taken exception to Spanish nuns offering Christian charity to Frenchmen, even those who were dying. That rumour said he and his guerilleros had carried out the desecration.

“We shall leave tonight,” said Madre Katerina. “A group of volunteers will remain behind to attend Mass tomorrow morning, and will then follow us. We will have nearly two full days for our escape, and should be at the pass of the wolves by the time they know we have left the convent. Then you shall continue on to France, and we will make our way to our sisters.”

It was all organised then. They would go the way of the wolves, take the journey over the mountains into France, and then the duke would claim his reward. Ruth’s trepidation was tinged with a certain eagerness to know what Richport could teach her—a highly inappropriate response. When Madre Katerina proposed they join the nuns for Vespers, Ruth was as eager to agree as Isabella.

After Vespers, they changed into men’s clothes that Madre Katerina provided. “We have been saving them from the poor box against this necessity,” she explained. She wrinkled her nose. “They have been washed and mended.”

Ruth, who was much the same height as the average Estrellasan, found clothes to fit her easily enough. As for Bella, they had to tie a bit here and tuck a bit there, but with a loose coat over the whole, she would pass well enough.

The sun was setting when they went down into the crypts under the monastery, carrying their own clothes in a pack on their backs. It was not a trip for the squeamish, for the nuns of the Convent of Our Lady of the Stars had been buried there for hundreds of years, since the convent was founded. Madre Katerina led the way with a lamp, the prioress brought up the rear with another, and everyone else followed in single file between.

Ruth was astonished that only ten nuns remained in total, from a monastery that had once held more than fifty. With her and Bella, that made a dozen roughly dressed men—in appearance at least—who headed past the dozens of ossuaries, small rooms full of shelves holding bones.

The stone passage sloped down, switched back several times, and finally ended in what appeared to be a solid wall. Until Madre Katerina pressed the rock to one side, and the end of the passage rolled out of the way with a groan and the crunch of stone on stone.

The same noise sounded behind them when all were through the door into a rougher tunnel, this one more of a natural cave than a formed passage.

Madre Katerina did not stop, but continued on. The tunnel forked twice. Madre Katerina made her choice of paths without hesitation. They had been walking for what seemed like a long time, and now the tunnel was sloping upward, on and on, sometimes so steep that they climbed steps that had been chiselled into the rock. Then the walls of the tunnel widened, and the roof, which had varied from just above their heads to yards taller, suddenly soared out of sight in the darkness.

“Be aware,” Madre Katerina said, her voice quiet but carrying in the silence. “If any bats remain in the cave, they will be disturbed by the light. Do not be afraid. They will do you no harm.”

But the warning was unnecessary, for the bats, if there were any there, left them alone. As they walked on, Ruth could see a lighter triangle ahead of them, growing larger by the moment, and when Madre Katerina covered her lamp, it was the cave’s entrance. The prioress, too, closed the cover of her lamp, so they walked in shadows through the rest of the cave.

They stepped out onto a shelf of rock half way up a hill. The sun was behind the mountains and the early stars were out, though the western sky was still aglow. They had gone down one hill and up another, so they looked across a valley at the town walls, with the castle looming above the town.

“Goodbye, Monteluz,” Bella said quietly. “I shall return.”

“May it be so, God willing,” said Madre Katerina. “Our path lies above us, my daughters. We have a long climb before we dare light the lamps again. Let us begin.”

They passed over the ridge and down the other side before the moon rose, and with the two lamps once more lit, they travelled far into the night. At last, as the sun rose, Madre Katerina called a halt at what appeared to be a small shepherd’s hut built against the rock face. “We shall rest for a while, my daughters. This valley leads to the Path of the Wolves. We shall leave after we have slept. By nightfall, we shall be beyond the borders of Las Estrellas.”

The prioress led the way inside, and one woman after another disappeared into a hut that looked as if it would be a squeeze for two. Bella exclaimed as it was her turn. “So that is how…?”

A moment later and Ruth followed, and understood Bella’s surprise. The hut had been built to hide a cave that opened beyond its entrance into a cathedral of a cavern, which must have had openings to the outside, for it was not entirely dark.

The nuns, who must have been told what to expect, were unrolling blankets at a camp site on one side of the cavern, and soon Bella and Ruth had a blanket roll each. Bella seemed to drop to sleep as soon as she settled in the spot allotted to her. Nothing kept Ruth from doing likewise—not worry about the future, not the hard ground, not the sounds made as others settled, not even the ache of muscles unaccustomed to quite so much clambering up and down mountain slopes.

When she woke, it was to the disorientation of not being in a familiar place. Not in a bed, either. Ah yes. She and Bella were in a cavern under the mountains that surrounded Valle de Las Estrellas, with ten nuns. And the sound that had awoken her was the murmur of voices—three men in low-voiced conversation near the entrance.

No. She recognised one of the voices. That was Madre Katerina. In the half-light, Ruth did not recognise the other two. Had they been found? Surely the good mother was not selling them out. Ruth felt for her knife. She had unstrapped it, sheath and all, from her ankle before she went to sleep, and fallen asleep with her hand on it. Ah yes. There it was.

Her movement must have attracted Madre Katerina’s attention, for the nun came over to her and said, in a whisper, “Are you awake, Miss Henwood? I want you to meet your guide.”

Once upon a time, in his innocent youth, Perry had enjoyed walking in the countryside. Those days were long past, but even if he had retained the taste, this was not walking but scrambling along—and sometimes off—mountain paths not wide enough for a goat. It bore no resemblance to a stroll, even a vigorous stroll, in green and pleasant England.

Homesick, Richport? Oh, how his friends would mock!

“Not far to go now, excellensia ,” said his guide, for perhaps the tenth time this hour. Perry and Walter, his valet, had parted from the rest of Perry’s men just outside of the main pass from the Valle de las Estrellas, at around the time he would normally be eating breakfast. Even if he had wanted to leave Walter, his old friend and companion would not have gone. They had been together since Walter was a young man, and Perry a boy, blessedly barefoot, escaping from the restrictions of his tutors and other keepers.

They had been up before dawn to leave the castle. “It is a three-day trip to Barcelona,” Perry had explained to Carlos. “At least. We must be on the road as soon as we can.” Carlos had been unflatteringly happy to see him go.

Perry had ordered horses, or perhaps a couple of the nimble-footed little mountain donkeys, to be waiting for him and Walter with the guide, but apparently the path to the pass for which they were aiming was unsafe for equines. And so, he and his valet trudged, climbed, and clambered in the wake of the guide, who was not even breathing heavily on the frequent stops he commanded because, “You English are not used to our mountains.”

It was humiliating how necessary Perry found these halts, even if he would have liked to pretend they were just for Walter’s sake. His valet was ten year’s Perry’s senior, which made the man—oh lowering thought—fifty-four on his next birthday.

“How are you coping, Walter?”

“I’ll just about do, sir,” said Walter, which was as close to a complaint as Walter would ever come.

“Is there a problem, excellensia ?” the guide asked. Perry and Walter had been speaking English, so Perry repeated their exchange in Spanish for the guide. “I asked my friend how he was, and he said he was well.”

“See that rock, sirs? The one that looks like a wolf’s head.” The guide pointed along the ravine they were currently skirting, and sure enough, Perry could see the rock he meant.

“That is at the opening to the pass. We shall be there in one hour…” he made a rocking motion with one hand—which Perry took to be a visual metaphor for ‘maybe’ or ‘more-or-less’. “Then we shall rest for a while,” the guide continued. “The meeting point is further up. The pass divides, with one fork coming down here into Spain. The other is the one we want. It leads to France.”

“Well then,” said Walter, getting to his feet. “sooner begun is sooner done.”

It was evening—the evening of the third day—by the time they reached the so-called wolf’s head—actually, it had looked more and more like one as the viewing angle changed. Tomorrow, they were to meet Miss Henwood and the princess. Tonight, they would camp here on the hillside, and without the comforts that Perry usually took for granted.

“What a feeble creature you have become,” he scolded himself. “A night without a bath or a feather bed is not going to kill you.”

As it was, however, his inability to sleep owed nothing to the discomfort of the ground. The wolves started their chorus not long after the sun set, and the three men sat listening with their backs to a rock, feeding the fire in front of them one stick at a time to keep it burning.

The howling moved from place to place, but never approached near enough to raise their wariness to outright fear.

A couple of hours after full dark, just as the moon rose, they heard sounds of movement. Broken twigs. The soft shift of stones underfoot. A whispered curse set all of Perry’s senses alive. Miss Henwood!

The voice that announced the new arrivals was not hers. “Fernando?”

Their guide replied, “Mateo, is that you?”

Three men trekked out of the darkness. No. One man and Perry’s two ladies, dressed in men’s clothes, and behind them the shadowy shapes of half a score more. “Miss Henwood, Princess,” Perry said. He didn’t take his eyes off those approaching, but relaxed a little when neither of his ladies seemed concerned.

“Ruth and Bella,” the princess corrected him, sharply. “Miss Henwood and the princess remain in Estrellas.”

Fair enough. “I beg your pardon, Miss Bella.” The others were now close enough for him to recognise one of the men as Madre Katerina.

“Well met, Excellency,” said the nun. “You have made good time. We did not expect to see you until tomorrow. Mateo, we have no need to stop for the night, since Richport and Fernando are here already. We shall carry on into Spain while the others make their way into France. The more space we can put between us and the border, the less chance that Sombras will catch up with either party.

A wolf howled and the remaining travellers—all nuns dressed as men, Perry realised—shifted closer together.

“That’s the way, sisters,” said Madre Katerina. “Keep close together. The wolves, if they are hungry enough, will attack a person on his or her own. They will not disturb a large party such as our own, and it is only an hour or perhaps a little more to the horses that Matteo has ready for us.”

Miss Henwood and Bella looked hopefully at Fernando, but he didn’t notice, as he was focused on the mother superior.

“You will take care, Madre ,” he ordered. “I do not wish to have to explain your demise to my mother.”

“ I shall take care, cousin,” said Matteo. “I also have to answer to my mother.”

Madre Katerina smiled fondly at them. “Matteo and Fernando are my nephews, Ruth,” she said to Miss Henwood, “and the best guides in the mountains. Go with God, my daughters. My sisters and I shall pray for you.”

“And we for you,” Miss Henwood replied.

They hugged, and then each of the nuns needed to hug the governess and the princess, but after that, the two parties quickly parted, the larger group heading down the obvious road, and Fernando going first up a slope where randomly placed stones formed a stair of sorts. “Stay close together,” he ordered. “I do not want to be fighting off wolves. We have perhaps thirty minutes more to our horses. How close behind us do you expect the pursuit, honoured ladies?”

“We do not expect to be missed until tomorrow, when people arrive for Mass,” said the princess—Perry had better get used to thinking of her as Bella.

Fernando nodded his satisfaction. “We can stop and wait for dawn,” he decided. “We will still be five or six hours ahead of them, even if they have a tracker good enough to see we broke from the main group.”

He grinned, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. “And we are about to go downhill over solid rock. Take your time, and don’t slip.”

When they heard the wolves again, closer this time, he merely said, “They will, God willing, cover our scent with their own. Even El Diablo’s dogs will not be able to find us.”

Their haven for the rest of the night was a hut that defied logic to seem almost smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside.

Bella and Ruth—if the princess was to be called by her first name, then the governess would be as well—were assigned one of the two cots that lined the walls. They were tall enough that they would have to sleep snuggled together with their knees bent, Bella with her back tucked up against Ruth’s front.

“I am too long for these beds,” Perry pointed out. “I shall sleep on the floor. Walter, you and Fernando take the cot.”

“Take the loft,” Fernando suggested, pointing to a ladder, but when Perry looked, the loft was even smaller than any of the cots, so the two ladies took that spot and Fernando and Walter had a cot each.

Perry wrapped himself in the blanket that Fernando gave to him, and tried to make himself comfortable under the table, which was the only space available to him. I am getting too old for this.

Despite his misgivings, he slept, to be woken out of a deep sleep by the sound of a gunshot. He sat up and was reaching for his own gun before he was fully awake, which was probably why he forgot about the table and fetched his head a blow.

“What is it? Don Carlos?” he asked as he stood, this time being careful to avoid the table. Walter and Ruth turned to look at him. All he could see of the princess was her feet hanging over the edge of the loft bed.

“The wolves,” said Fernando, who was standing on the ladder to fire out the window.

“They are trying to get at the horses,” Ruth told him, “but Fernando says the brush fence will hold. We are shooting to give them cause to abandon the attempt.”

Walter handed Perry a second loaded pistol as Fernando got down from the ladder to reload his rifle. Perry climbed until he could rest his elbows on the bed and take aim at the shadowy shapes that circled relentlessly around the brush stockade.

One of them yelped, and Bella crowed with delight. “I got one,” she said.

“Let’s see if I can get another,” said Perry. He took careful aim and fired, and was rewarded with another yelp.

After a few more casualties, the wolves gave up, melting into the darkness. Perry didn’t think any of them were seriously injured, but he wasn’t going out into the night to check.

“I shall make some breakfast,” Fernando offered. “It will be first light in an hour or two.”

He built up the fire and put a pan over it, into which he poured oil from a flask out of his pack. A string of onions hanging by the fireside sacrificed one of their number to be chopped and added into the oil, then he found several crusty Spanish rolls in his pack, broke them into small pieces and dropped them into the frying pan, too.

His pack produced a long sausage of the type they called chorizo. Sliced, this too went into the mix, and finally, he dropped several eggs on top. Perry idly wondered how he had managed to carry eggs in his pack without breaking them, but the smell of the dish took priority over such idle curiosity.

It tasted as good as it looked, too, served though it was in an odd miscellany of chipped plates, bowls, and even a mug.

The horses were still safe inside their enclosure when dawn arrived. Perry had had a vague notion of a steed like those he normally rode—a noble creature with a lineage longer than Perry’s own, and his could be traced back to the Conqueror. These were not those horses. These animals were a tough mountain breed—short, stocky, intelligent, and nimble-footed.

Perry kept his opinion of their unprepossessing appearance to himself and concentrated on making friends with the one Fernando said would be his for the ride. “Malhumorado is the biggest fellow we have, English, and you are a big man,” he said. “He is an obstinate beast, though.”

Malhumorado translated as bad-tempered, which was not encouraging.

“His Grace can handle him,” said Walter, stoutly. “His Grace can ride anything.”

That put Perry on his mettle. If he was thrown, he would dent his valet’s pride as well as his own. Besides, the beast’s name amused him. Death would show he could ride Malhumorado.

Walter’s form of address reminded him of something else that needed to be agreed before they made their way down into France. “Monsieur De-Ath,” he announced, pronouncing both syllables in the Belgian fashion and pointing to himself. “Quentin De-Ath, merchant from Belgium, holidaying in France with his wife and daughter. My second wife,” he pointed to Miss Henwood. “Madame De-Ath.” The princess was next. “My daughter by my first wife, who was, shall we say, Spanish? Mademoiselle De-Ath.”

Miss Henwood nodded her agreement. The princess glared at him. Obviously, Miss Henwood had shared with her pupil what he expected in return for his help in their rescue, and the girl was not amused. She would just have to get used to it.

Fernando bowed. “Senor and Senora De-Ath. Senorita. We should be on the road. We do not know how long we have before they pursue us.

The horses agreed with that sentiment, clearly keen to put as much road as possible between them and the stockade in which they had been besieged. Since they were all competent riders, Fernando agreed to let the animals have their heads, at least for as long as the road was relatively smooth and flat.

Those conditions lasted until the pass opened out onto a steep mountainside and the road took a sharp turn. It must have been five or six miles from the stockade, and even Malhumorado was content to be reined into a walk.

After that, both riders and horses had to concentrate on picking a path up and down slopes and in between boulders, as the road narrowed to single file then widened again, curving with the mountain side and never the same from one stride to the next.

When their guide finally called a halt at a flat spot where they could see out into the plains, they had been riding for hours and were still negotiating the narrow windy road along the mountain range. “We will let the horses rest, while we have something to eat and perhaps a little siesta,” Fernando said.

Much though Perry wanted to hurry on to the plains, he had to agree. The horses had shown tremendous stamina, but they were tired. So was Perry, and if he was feeling the effects of the strenuous ride, Miss Henwood and the princess must be exhausted.

Perry’s plans to further Miss Henwood’s seduction would have to be delayed. The woman was exhausted to the bone and very likely aching from a long ride. When he did seduce her, he wanted her to be awake enough to enjoy it.

Fernando and the horses left them in the mid-afternoon, just outside of a small village set among the foothills. Ruth dismounted with the others and walked a little to try to stop her muscles from seizing up. She had not ridden so far in years, and everything ached. In Las Estrellas, nothing was more than half a day’s ride from the castle.

Fernando said, “Follow the road. It is not far—perhaps a few minutes. There is an inn in the village, and you will be able to hire a carriage there.”

“How far by carriage to the nearest town?” the duke—De-Ath—asked.

“Two hours, perhaps?” Fernando answered. “But the ladies are tired, Senor.”

Ruth certainly was, but she also understood De-Ath’s reasoning. “Bella and I can continue,” she said. “If Don Carlos is chasing us—I hope he has gone after the good sisters instead, but if by some chance he has come after us—it will be easier to evade him in a town.”

De-Ath gave her an approving nod. “Exactly. If you feel you can manage it ladies, I think we should continue.”

Bella and De-Ath’s man, Walter, agreed, so that’s what they did. The carriage they were able to hire from the inn was a tired old thing, with worn springs, tattered upholstery, and an elderly postillion. But the horses were good enough, and they made it to Saint Gerard before dark.

Once there, De-Ath refused to stay at the inn to which the postillion took them. He shouldered his own bag and picked up Ruth’s, and Walter did the same for Bella. Once again, Ruth followed his reasoning. If Don Carlos asked at the village, this was the inn to which they’d be sent.

The innkeeper at the Le Vieux Moulin, which they found by dint of walking to the other end of the town, admitted to having rooms. De-Ath hired two, and asked for baths to be sent up to both.

“You will be sharing with Bella, dear wife,” he told her. “And I shall share with Walter. Lock your door, and let no one in unless it is either me or Walter.”

Oh. How considerate of him . Of course, Ruth was relieved that he did not intend to deflower her tonight. Annoyed, perhaps, that he was being considerate, for he was far easier to resist when he was being arrogant and demanding.

Not that he was easy to resist. Tired as she was, she kept thinking about that kiss. That amazing, absorbing, all-consuming kiss. Some part of her was disappointed she was not about to discover more. It was ridiculous, and she didn’t want to dwell on it. A bath, some dinner, and a good night’s sleep. That was all she wanted.

She should not be feeling as if she had been short-changed.