20

T he next morning, Elizabeth continued her hunt for clues by poring through the books she'd borrowed from the castle library. In less than an hour, she finished the children's books without gaining any useful insight. She was left with a collection of legends and an illustrated volume of medieval art. After breaking her fast with toast and marmalade, she decided to start with the compendium of art. Illustrations were faster to skim than text.

Nonetheless, she almost missed it.

There in the final third of the book, on the bottom left-hand corner of the page, was a unicorn. Not just any unicorn, but an ugly, furry beast so grotesque that it would be easy to miss the short, spiraling horn protruding from its hairy forehead.

In fact, Elizabeth had missed the horn the first time she saw the creature: on a fading tapestry somewhere here in this castle.

"Shite. Where did I see this beast before?" She tossed the book aside and reached for her journal, frantically flipping through the pages. "Was it the nursery? No, that would be too easy."

Unlike Adrian and Marjorie, Elizabeth was no artist, so she hadn't sketched the interiors of the rooms she'd searched, much less drawn replicas of associated wall hangings. She had, however, taken pains to jot down anything of note, and a wooly half-bison, half-goat hybrid certainly made the cut.

She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed its horn the first time. Then again, why would she have thought the faded dye on an eight-hundred-year-old tapestry had anything to do with Miss Oak's future orphanage?

"Here!" She jabbed her finger at a scribble on the page, then hurried out of her room to find the wall hanging.

The room was empty now, save for the hideous old tapestry. After a second glance at the legend Arminia had made on Miss Oak's map—

"Ha!" Elizabeth chortled in understanding. "I had to read the ‘legend'! I knew you would have given your sister extra clues."

This room, one floor below what had once been the current earl's nursery, had once been used as Densmore's schoolroom, before he'd been sent off to Eton.

She strode up to the enormous, floor-to-ceiling tapestry but did not touch it. As decrepit as the thing was, it was liable to crumble on contact, and then there would be no clue to follow. In fact, artist or not, she'd be better off sketching what she could before the sun bleached the dyes away completely. Philippa probably had ten copies of medieval art books in her personal library and would be able to compare the illustrations for clues.

Once Elizabeth completed her sketch, she sent up a small prayer to whoever might listen. "Please don't fall apart in my hands," she whispered as she slid a tentative finger between the cold stone wall and the edge of the tapestry.

A breeze tickled her fingertips. Something was most certainly back there.

With delight, Elizabeth glanced around for something to stand on to unhook the tapestry from the high wall. There was no furniture in sight. She hurried out of the room and down the corridor, peeking into every chamber she passed until she found a tall wooden chair, which she dragged back to the schoolroom, next to the wall hanging.

"With apologies, ancient tapestry, you're coming down. Try to hold yourself together."

As carefully as she could, she unfastened the first corner from the wall. The tapestry didn't fall apart, but it did immediately tumble to the floor in an ignominious, dusty heap.

Revealing a large, light-filled window—and an ancient wooden door.

Elizabeth frowned. An exterior door up on the third story of a castle? She kept a careful distance from the threshold as she gripped the chilly iron handle and gave the old wooden door a tug.

It swung open easily, as if its hinges had been recently oiled. On the other side was a cramped stone protrusion a little wider than she was and about as deep as her arm.

The bottom half was a stone ledge, at the right height for a bench. But rather than a smooth seating surface, the center of the ledge contained a hole large enough to drop a pumpkin through.

"A medieval water closet!" she exclaimed, then wracked her brain for the right term. Back then, it would've been called a garderobe , because clothes would have hung here so that the stench of human waste would keep moths from invading and destroying expensive cloth.

"But what does it mean?" she asked in frustration.

The countess's clue had clearly led to this. Was there some private personal hygiene jest to which only she and her husband would understand the reference? Or was the garderobe irrelevant, and the window was the important part?

Elizabeth stepped away from the medieval toilet and took another look out the window. It was the same view as could be had from any of the adjacent chambers: the forest. On the other side of which Richard Reddington lurked like a snake, coiled in the darkness and ready to pounce.

Perhaps it was not the view but the windowsill itself that held the clue. She retrieved a throwing dagger from its secret compartment in her bodice and used its sharp edge to poke at the mortar between the stones in the hopes of finding a hidden cubby or lever.

Nothing. The construction was solid as… well, solid as a rock.

Elizabeth swung her gaze back to the garderobe. The clue must be in the water closet after all. Heart pounding, she checked every stone from the ceiling to the floor, eager to know where the puzzle had led.

Nothing. Again. Yet another dead end. Unless…

She stared dubiously at the gaping stone hole which for centuries had served as a disposal chute for unknown quantities of human waste. Ugh, better not to think about it. Surely the countess would not have hid the next clue in there. Surely .

"Of course she did," Elizabeth said grimly. " I would have."

She held her breath, made a pained expression, and plunged her arm inside the stone canal. To her intense relief, her straining fingers did not scrape against anything disgusting. Either this particular garderobe had never been used for its intended purpose… or, like the hinges of its wooden door, the stone chute had been just as meticulously cleaned and prepared for a future intrepid treasure hunter.

What was she meant to find? Elizabeth wasn't thrilled about the idea of blindly digging around the chute with her dagger. One careless movement, and the blade would fall three stories to the ground below—or be trapped in some medieval waste receptacle, depending on how the disposal system had been constructed.

But before she was forced to make a decision, her fingers touched… nothing at all. A large stone had been removed from the inner chute! She patted inside, walking her fingers around the smooth surface, until her fingernails brushed against something metallic. Odd-shaped and fist-size.

Carefully, she withdrew the object from the stone chute, then stared at it in wonder. It was a small tin bird, complete with movable wings. Likely almost as old as the castle.

Elizabeth hadn't the foggiest notion what this object meant, but she'd worry about that later. The important part was that she was finally closer to solving the puzzle.

She ran to show her peculiar find to Stephen, who immediately rang for a basket of food so they could pause for a picnic on the castle roof to celebrate.

As she explained how the search had unfolded, Stephen didn't seem the least bit missish about digging around inside a garderobe. He was fascinated by the tin bird, with its cunning movable parts.

"You can't keep it," she reminded him. "Or use it in one of your machines. I have to decipher its secret message first."

"Based on the other clues, the bird must symbolize something." He turned it over, again and again. "Flight? Song? Eggs? Spring? Nesting?" He brightened. "Feather pillows? A love of worms?"

"How about a love of sandwiches?" Elizabeth plucked the tin bird out of his hands and tucked it away safe in her reticule. "I'm hungry."

Stephen opened the basket. "Help me with the blanket?"

Together, they unfurled the thick woolen square atop the flat castle roof. They placed sturdy rocks at each corner to keep the breeze from whipping the cloth into their faces.

"Cold?" he asked as they settled onto the wool blanket.

"No," she answered, but snuggled into him anyway.

His expression turned serious. "I hope Reddington doesn't send his dueling envoy until after we've finished our repast."

She knew he wasn't worried about interruptions to their picnic.

"It'll be fine," she assured him. " I'll be fine." Mostly fine. She was currently at sixty percent. Climbing on chairs and leaning into toilets was rarely a good idea.

Stephen's forehead lined with concern. "There's a 0.8683 probability that Reddington's men—"

"—have not trained with swords as long and as obsessively as I have," Elizabeth finished firmly. "I won the fight the moment he agreed to put down his rifles and pick up a blade."

"I'm building you a sword-throwing machine," he muttered.

"Build it for yourself," she retorted. "I don't need it."

She had already told him she was one hundred percent self-sufficient. When it came to swords, that number rose to one hundred and ten. She had dozens of skilled fencing partners, including her sister-in-law Kuni. But as long as Elizabeth was in top form, no one—not even the Balcovian warrioress—had bested her in years.

"I'm fully confident," she promised him.

"You're sure you're not overconfident?"

"I've never shot a pistol, and my ability to aim daggers is middling at best. But I live and breathe swords. I sleep with them. As a child, I was raised by a wild pack of deadly Claymores. They recognize me as their own. I speak their sword language. I'm their sword princess."

"All right, all right." Stephen chuckled despite himself. "I'll stop worrying."

Elizabeth knew better than to think that would happen, but at least they could move on to other subjects. Once Stephen had seen her fight, he would understand. Swords were her devices. Each swipe of her blade as precise as any mathematical equation.

As the sun crested high over the castle, Elizabeth and Stephen sat on the roof, looking out over picturesque Dorset. They turned to face each other at the same time.

"It's a gorgeous view," she said softly.

"Isn't it?" he murmured back.

They were no longer looking out over the square stone crenellations at the low clay valley, or the steep limestone ridges, or the distant chalk downs. They were gazing into each other's eyes, her hands in his, her sword stick lying on the gray stone next to the forgotten picnic basket.

Elizabeth hadn't even tried to see if she could glimpse any of Reddington's red-uniformed men in the woods. Once upon a time, the sight of so many soldiers in one spot would have looked like a veritable feast of delicious morsels. But since coming to Castle Harbrook, she'd had eyes for no one but Stephen.

Smiling, he pulled out a bottle of chilled Veuve Clicquot champagne.

She arched her brows at the notoriously expensive vineyard. "Depleting your cousin's reserves of the good stuff, I see?"

"I ordered a few crates from Madame Clicquot last week."

"A few crates," she repeated. "Let me rephrase. Depleting your cousin's coffers of gold, are we? All of these deliveries must add up to—"

"—a fraction of what I earn any given month," he finished. "I pay for all my expenses myself. I could purchase this castle outright, if it weren't already promised to two other people. I had to plump up Densmore's finances with my own funds in order to settle his accounts and devise more logical investments."

She stared at him. "Your cousin manipulated you into becoming a sitting duck for a literal army and your response was to give him money?"

"Not him," Stephen said. "The estate, which you'll recall at this moment is headed for me anyway. And I am indebted to Densmore for all the times he tried to help me at school. Once I realized the earldom needed my help, I temporarily loaned it sixty thousand pounds. Which I then transferred back into my own accounts with interest once the first investments proved profitable."

Elizabeth choked on her expensive champagne. "Did you say sixty thousand pounds? What exactly is it that you do, again?"

"I told you." He shrugged. "I'm a tinker. I invent things, and sometimes other people want them. When they do, I either sell the invention outright or lease the patents to multiple parties. In England alone, my rolling hinge is part of tens of thousands of wagons and carriages."

"You're as rich as Reddington," she breathed.

"Impossible to say," Stephen demurred. "He has not offered public access to his financial information."

Elizabeth snorted. "The fact that it's close enough that you'd have to compare ledgers to determine a winner… Reddington knows not with whom he has picked a fight. He should've held out for three times the castle's worth."

"I'd prefer nobody knew my financial state," Stephen said. "London is not the town in which to be an independently wealthy bachelor, unless you want every matchmaking mama in Christendom knocking upon your door."

"With axes?"

"Battering rams, more like. I would not know a single moment's peace."

"Then why are you telling me ? Are you attempting to lure me into the parson's mousetrap? Because I must warn you that I am an heiress in my own right, and do not require the financial aid of any man. When Bean passed away, he left each of us a considerable sum. It is the reason we rarely accept payment from our clients. All my siblings are self-sufficient."

"I'm telling you because you asked," Stephen replied simply. "You're not ‘most people.' You're Elizabeth Wynchester, full-time sword princess and part-time berserker. We're friends. You can ask me anything."

"Is that what we are?" she asked. "Friends?"

Stephen plucked her champagne from her hands. He set both glasses a safe distance from the blanket, then pulled her into his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.

He tasted like expensive champagne. Like a man who could have literally anything he wanted. A man who had looked around and decided what he wanted was Elizabeth. If only until they turned up the missing will. Part of her wanted to never solve the riddle. That way, she could stay right here in Stephen's arms indefinitely.

Once the case concluded, so would these kisses. The holiday would be over.

Stephen would return to his laboratory, and Elizabeth would go wherever the next case took her. There would be no more machines, no more taking meals together, no more castle to defend. No more moments like these, locked in each other's arms. No more softness of his lips, or warmth of his embrace. No more Stephen.

So she kissed him now with all she had. A kiss for every moment they had enjoyed together. Another kiss for every moment they soon would live apart. A kiss for every marble and playing card and domino in his contraptions. Another kiss for every stone in the castle, whose strong ramparts kept them together, instead of forcing them apart.

Stephen's hands slid up her sides, exploring all the dips and valleys of her curves. So she ran her own fingers over his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his mouthwatering abdomen… which, come to think of it, really ought not to be covered up by so many restrictive layers. Muscles like these deserved to be set free.

Still kissing, she unbuttoned his coat and pushed the flaps aside. She did the same with his waistcoat. The soft cambric beneath was so thin she could feel every hard plane of his taut abdomen, but it still wasn't good enough. Even linen was too great a barrier to have between her palms and his skin.

She tugged the hem of his shirt up from his waistband. The wind caught it, fluttering the fabric against his chest. She slid her hands beneath and splayed her fingers against the heat of his flesh. He wasted no time exploring her as well.

She gasped as Stephen's hand cupped the front of her breast, trapping her nipple between two of his fingers. That was it. She was absolutely going to make love to this man straight away, here on top of this castle. Who cared about the bloody picnic? They were friends who did naked things like this .

All right, sure, Stephen might not currently be considering full-on consummation. But she would unsheathe her dagger and slice her own garments from her body just to be closer to his. The tryst needn't lead to marriage , so long as it led to pleasure. She would kiss him, stroke him, ride him… anything and everything so long as he responded in kind.

Elizabeth sucked his tongue. The next battle she fought was the one called Win Stephen. It might not happen today, but by all that was holy, before she left this castle—

"Densmooore," came a distant yell.

Oh, very well. The next battle would be with the nodcock screaming at the foot of the castle. But before this mission was over, she and Stephen would find pleasure in each other's arms. This she swore.

"Unbelievable," Stephen murmured against her lips. "Every time I kiss you."

She waggled her brows. "Next time, we can jump straight to the good stuff."

"Kissing is good stuff," he protested. "It's all good stuff. We can—wait. Did you just suggest that you'd like to—"

"Densmooore!"

"I'm coming ," Elizabeth yelled. At least, she might have been coming, if Reddington's men had left her and Stephen alone for a few more minutes. She lumbered carefully to her feet, minding her hips and joints, then straightened her bodice. "I must retrieve my sword."

He handed her the cane with confusion. "Isn't there a blade hidden in here?"

"Yes, but not the right kind. I need one of my dueling swords."

"You have multiple dueling swords?"

"I have a collection of hundreds. I only brought a handful, because I hadn't dared to hope… And now look what's happened. From now on, whenever I leave the house, I'll be traveling with the whole set."