Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,96

ancestors used to own,” I said.

“Then he’d want to strike at the Romanian royals, not a Bulgarian prince, wouldn’t he?”

“Which brings us back to my mysterious Mr. X,” I said. “Lady Middlesex’s companion, Miss Deer-Harte—” I stopped as Darcy started laughing. “She can’t help her name,” I said. “Just stop it and listen. Miss Deer-Harte is a professional snooper. She claims she saw the same man creeping along one of the corridors at night and then she saw him lurking in an archway at dinner the first night. She says it was the archway immediately behind where Nicholas was sitting and she thinks he was casing the joint, as Lady Middlesex put it.”

Darcy got up and walked over to the fire, taking off his wet coat and throwing it onto a chair. “Have you told anybody about this except me?” he asked.

“I didn’t know who to tell,” I said. “We’ve managed to keep it from the royals so far. Count Dragomir is the only one who could institute a thorough search of the place and he might well be involved.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Darcy said. He perched on the low chair by the fireplace and started to unlace his boots. “I may do some snooping of my own, but in the meantime don’t let anyone know that I’m back. If you’ve no maid at the moment, all the better because I can hide out in here.”

“You’re not going to start snooping now, are you?” I asked.

“I have just made my way through a snowstorm and climbed a long way up a rope and I’m whacked out,” he said. “Move over. I’m coming to bed.”

He snuggled in beside me, wrapping me into his arms. “Now that you’re betrothed to the heir to a throne I could probably face the guillotine for this,” he whispered and kissed me. I tried to respond to his kiss, but the tension of everything that had happened kept intruding.

“I’m sorry. It’s no use,” I said. “I’m so upset by everything that I can’t stop thinking and worrying.”

“Don’t worry about this leading to anything, because it’s not going to,” he said. “I’m so tired that I could fall asleep on the spot. In fact . . .”

And I saw his eyelids flutter shut. He looked adorable with his eyes closed, almost like a child asleep, his eyelashes unfairly long for a man’s. I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“Damn Siegfried,” I muttered, even though a lady never swears.

My own eyes were drifting shut, lulled by Darcy’s rhythmic breathing, when a terrible clattering sound, accompanied by an unearthly scream, jerked me awake. It sounded as if somebody had thrown every pot and pan in the castle down a flight of stairs. I leaped out of bed.

“What was that?” I asked.

Darcy opened his eyes lazily.

“Probably a servant dropped a tray of dishes. Go back to sleep.”

“No, it was worse than that,” I said. I grabbed the nearest cardigan, reached for my slippers and went out into the dark hallway. It seemed that the sound was loud enough to have woken other people. Siegfried was standing there, looking like a ghost in his long nightshirt. Oh, God, imagine facing that specter every night.

“Georgiana, mein Schatz, did you hear that noise?”

“I did.”

“Do not worry. I shall protect you,” he said, moving forward cautiously.

From below came shouts. Siegfried and I made our way to the nearest staircase.

A group had already gathered at the bottom of the spiral stair. They were bending over what looked like a suit of armor.

“Who can have knocked one of our suits of armor down the stairs?” Siegfried demanded. “What is happening here?”

The servants stood reverently at the sound of their master’s voice.

“Highness, I heard the noise and came running,” one of them said. “It appears that—”

He never finished the sentence, as a loud moan came from within the armor. Someone wrenched the visor open and a very human pair of eyes looked up at us. And the occupant groaned again.

“What is the meaning of this?” Siegfried demanded. “What foolery were you playing?”

“I was ordered to keep watch,” the man said, his face twisted in pain. “Chief Patrascue set me on guard duty. He told me to disguise myself in this way.”

“Ridiculous man,” Siegfried snapped. “He had no right. These suits of armor are precious state heirlooms, not to be worn like carnival costumes.”

“My leg,” the man groaned. “Get me out of this contraption.”

Just as they were extracting him with care a figure in black came flying toward us.

“What