Chapter Nineteen

A s soon as the knock sounded at her door, Elaine flew past her maid and wrenched it open. She could not disguise her disappointment that it was not Denzil who stood there, only Mr. Harris, alias Prince Friedrich.

“Your pardon, ma’am,” he said, “but has his lordship returned?”

“Not here.”

“Nor to our rooms. You have received no word?”

“None. Will you help me look for him?”

“Of course. I will just—”

“Good afternoon, Miss Talbot,” a cheerful voice said from the passage, quickly followed by the figure of a very young, ill-dressed man. Because he was alone, it took Elaine a moment to recognize the Vale twin, Lawrence.

“Oh goodness! Lawrence, how unexpected. What—”

“Delilah said we should go to the theatre. Leona’s gone to fetch Rod and Julius and whoever else is at home. In fact, we can probably get the mad Russian along with Aubrey, if we play our cards right.”

“Lawrence, what do you know of my brother?” Elaine asked urgently.

Lawrence shrugged. “Only that Delilah has the matter in hand. She always does, you know.”

Elaine tried to make allowances and discount the admiration of a devoted little brother, but somehow, when she looked at him, she believed him. “And the… Mrs. Harris?” Elaine said. “I don’t think she should go to the theatre at all now that this has happened.”

“You are probably right,” Friedrich said unhappily. “But she will not hear of it. She insists on going. Don’t worry, I shall keep my brother-in-law close.”

*

“Get off me!” Delilah cried, as fingers like steel closed around her wrists. “I have a gun!”

Her words certainly seemed to cause her attacker to change his grip. Her wrists were released so suddenly that she would fallen backward with her own momentum had he not seized her and held her hard against him.

By contrast, his voice was curiously soft and muffled as he murmured, “Delly! Oh, my sweet Delly, how are you here?”

The voice washed over her in painful, wonderful relief. “Denzil, is it you? Is it really you? I cannot—” She seized his face between her hands, recognizing the contours, the scent of him, even in the darkness. “Oh, thank God!” Sheer relief flooded her. She scarcely knew what she was doing as she pressed demented kisses to his cravat and chin and jaw, the only bits she could reach until his head swooped down in the darkness and his mouth landed on her cheek and then her lips.

She sobbed with utter gladness as she kissed him back, salty tears streaming down her face and lips.

“You love me,” he whispered in wonder. “You still love me a little.”

“Oh God, I love you more than life . I could not bear it if she’d killed you. I am so sorry, Denzil, I only just realized…”

The rest of her words were lost in another frantic kiss, after which he drew back enough to say unsteadily, “You only just realized that you love me to distraction?”

“Oh no, I always knew that ,” she said. “About Elise. It’s there in the documents. The assassin never has a pronoun in the original German documents, except once, and it’s sie . Not as in they , but she . Elise joined the company only recently and would never have got the role if Reggie hadn’t insisted. The clues were always there. Oh, and Denzil, it’s to be at the interval after the first act. That was in there, too, disguised as an order for refreshment. The princess must not come—”

“On the contrary, she must, or we’ll never catch them.”

“But there will still be nothing to tie the shooting to Karl, only to Elise.”

“Karl means to kill Elise, pretending he is defending Irena. Then she can never accuse him.”

“How can you know that?”

“She told me. She still means to kill Irena, and to elude capture after. I wouldn’t put either past her.”

Delilah stared at him. Impossible to make out his features, his expression. “You almost sound as if you like her.”

“I almost do, since she was instructed to kill me and didn’t. But how did you get here? Please tell me Elise did not shove you in here, too?”

“Oh, no. I found a trapdoor from the theatre. Once I knew the assassin was Elise, I came to tell you, and we discovered you had left the talks in response to a note. You always knew the assassin was part of the theatre, so I suspected you had either come here or found the actors’ lodgings. Elise was here early… How did she catch you?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re out of here. Can you find the way out again?”

“It will be hard in the darkness. You made me drop my candle. Let’s find it.”

Searching for his hand, she seized him by the wrist and heard his hiss of pain. She released him at once.

“What is it? Are you hurt?” she demanded, frightened again.

“Devil a bit. Ah.” He bent and picked up a candle. “Unfortunately, we can’t light it.”

“Yes, we can. Is there a table?”

He led her a few steps through the darkness and stood the candle up on the table. “Mine burned out, but at least it destroyed the rope around my wrists first.”

She heard the smile in his voice as he heard the flint striking. In a moment, she had the candle lit and was able to see his poor, burned wrists and hands.

“That must hurt…” she said in distress.

“Not as much as my head, though I deserve that for carelessness.” He held up the candle and, hand in hand, they walked forward.

At the padded door, he stopped. “Delilah? Will you marry me, now?”

“I’ll marry you any time you like,” she said unsteadily. “I’m sorry I was so foolish. I was just so hurt because I thought you liked me, and then it seemed you had just been using my attraction for your own ends.”

“I was. To make you love me and marry me. I made a mess of it.” For a moment, he buried his lips in her hair. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“We’ll have to be quiet. Elise is in the theatre.”

“Well, we don’t want her to know I’m free. It’s almost six of the clock. We have an hour before the play begins, and we need to make good use of it…”

*

Elise did not shine in the first act. Not that she cared. The play had become a chore she could not wait to shake off. She was more than happy to walk off to very mild applause, because she would never again step onto the damned stage. Besides, it gave her a reason to sulk and hold back from the others.

No one spared her a glance as they hurried off to their dressing rooms for their short break.

Go home, boys and girls, the play is finished! Smiling to herself, she went to the familiar pile of ropes and plunged her hand in until it closed around the little pistol she had left there an hour ago. She had seen the princess from the stage, in the box where she should have been two weeks ago. Now she was there, Elise’s employer beside her. Not too close, of course. He would not want to be shot by mistake if her aim were off.

Her aim was never off. The pistol felt light and lethal in her fingers as she strode into the wings. She already knew exactly where to stand. She had worked it out before the first night of the play, which seemed a lifetime ago now.

Without fuss, she raised the pistol and aimed it straight at Princess Irena. She looked like a nice woman. Pity.

She pulled the trigger. And heard only a faint click. What the…? In sudden, unprecedented panic, she squeezed the trigger again, and still it did not fire.

The blood drained dizzyingly from her face.

Someone had found the pistol and removed the ball. She was discovered.

She spun away just as someone screamed in the auditorium, “Assassin! Stand back!” Karl, of course.

Damn, she would not be shot in the back! She turned to face him, saw his pistol level with her head.

And then, beside him, she saw Lord Linfield. Impossible! He smiled.

Karl’s gun did not fire either. He threw it down in rage, and Elise laughed. Linfield had saved the princess and saved her too.

But who the devil had saved Linfield?

She could not wait to find out. She bolted behind the stage, heading straight for the stage door because the other actors had no clue that anything was wrong. She should have a clear line from where she stood to freedom, only as she jumped forward, she collided with a large, tall man, so hard that all the breath was knocked out of her body.

Both her arms were seized.

Of course. Linfield had planned ahead, cut off her escape routes.

One of her captors wore an eye patch. The other was young and gloriously handsome.

“Oh, please, sir, let me go!” she begged the younger man piteously. “I am so frightened…!”

“Stow it,” growled the one-eyed man. “Perhaps it’s time you gave us the name of your employer.”

It went against the grain. She did, after all, have a code of honor.

But this was an emergency, and the fool was already responsible for too much fiddling about when they should have been killing and safely out of this wretched town.

“Oh, I’ll give you everything . Names, times, and motives,” she said amiably. She smiled. “If you let me go afterward.”

*

The theatre was in uproar. Prince Friedrich had pushed his wife behind his sheltering body. Only the very observant, like Denzil, would have noticed that Friederich shielded her not only from the stage but from her brother, who now threw his pistol to the ground in rage.

Denzil dragged his gaze from the vanishing assassin to Karl.

“I unloaded it,” he explained.

“You imbecile!” Karl roared. “Now the assassin will get away! Call the Watch! Arrest that man!”

“Actually,” said the tall, military figure of Major Roderick Vale from the doorway of the box, “I am afraid it is you who must come with us.”

“I? I am trying to defend my sister, while this dolt—”

“Unloaded both guns,” Cornelius Vale said. “He saved your sister while you tried to shoot the only witness to your crimes. This way, sir. I believe Prince Friedrich will look after his wife.”

“How can he, how can anyone, with that madwoman still free?” Karl screamed.

“Oh, I doubt she’s free,” Major Vale said. “Our brothers should have her in custody, and I imagine she is doing a good deal of talking.” He grasped Karl’s arm and hauled him outside, where Cornelius caught his swinging fist and raised it behind his back.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” said Denzil as the Vales hauled Karl away protesting in outrage.

“Are we really sure it was Karl?” the princess asked in a small voice.

“Quite sure,” Denzil said gently. “The assassin confessed everything to me, and I’m sure is doing so again to whomever will listen. Besides, we have documentary proof. There is absolutely no other reason for the existence of these documents. Miss Vale discovered the final meaning,” he added as Delilah and Elaine came in from the box next door. “If you will just excuse me, I’ll nip downstairs and make sure all is well.”

Elaine and Lady Launceton came in to sit with the princess. Delilah’s hand crept into Denzil’s, and he smiled as they hurried along the passage to the stairs. Most people were in a huge hurry to leave the theatre. Others were avidly asking questions and demanding to know what had happened. Denzil and Delilah weaved between them, down the staircase and through the foyer toward the backstage area.

Elise was sitting in the porter’s little box, hemmed in by Julius and Aubrey Vale. She might have been making conversation at a tea party, apart from the stunned expressions on the faces of Delilah’s brothers.

Catching sight of Linfield, she stopped talking.

Delilah squeezed his hand, and he found her care inexpressibly sweet. In fact, the whole afternoon of humiliation and pain had been more than worth it just to feel her passionate kisses on his lips. Her words of love had cocooned him in warmth and a fierce determination to be worthy. The woman in the porter’s box was a very different prospect. She chilled his blood, and yet, oddly, he imagined he understood her.

“I suppose I have you to thank for unloading my pistol,” she greeted him without noticeable ire.

“No, that was me,” Delilah said, drawing the assassin’s attention in a way Denzil didn’t quite like. “There seemed to be nowhere to conceal such a thing in your costume, so I knew it had to be hidden close to where you would leave the stage and to the place from which you could best take aim at the princess’s box.”

Elise’s eyebrows flew up. “Really? Quite the clever-clogs, are you not? Wait, though I know you too, don’t I? You’re bloody Nell’s friend, the translator. I should have known you were trouble, letting me go through the motions to show my intent to the world, but drawing my claws, as it were. Who exactly are you?”

“Our sister,” Sir Julius growled with a pride that brought the color to Delilah’s face. She did not realize how her own family valued her.

“And my betrothed,” Denzil said, which earned him sudden, searching looks from the Vale brothers.

Elise glanced from one to the other, a faint smile on her lips. “I suppose I owe you for unloading Karl’s pistol, too. Not that he can hit a barn at twenty paces, but think of the carnage. I haven’t decided yet whether I prefer death or imprisonment.”

“Fortunately, that isn’t up to you,” Denzil said pleasantly.

Elise sighed. “Very well. Tell me. How did you get out from the cellar in time?”

“My betrothed rescued me,” Denzil said.

Elise blinked, then laughed. “How wonderful! Captured and freed by women. And you don’t even mind, do you?”

“Not the freeing part,” Denzil said. He glanced at the outer stage door, where a tall man in black stood, clearly waiting for her. The man looked oddly familiar, but then, a good many events in Blackhaven recently had commanded the services of the magistrate and constables.

“He burned his hands freeing himself from your ropes,” Delilah said, her voice tight with indignation.

“Dear me,” Elise drawled, though her gaze flickered to the bandages just visible at Denzil’s cuffs. “I shouldn’t have left the candle. A lesson in carelessness. Oh no.”

Nell and Reggie came bolting into the passage from the dressing room area. “Lah-Lah!” Nell exclaimed, embracing her daughter with unprecedented affection. “What on earth have you been about? That woman…” Catching sight of Elise, she slowly pushed Delilah to one side and looked her rival up and down. She sniffed. “I take it back. You are not a bad actress after all. Come, Reggie, let us go home.”

“My dear,” Reggie said willingly and tenderly, bowing her toward the man in black, who flattened himself against the outer door to let them pass. Elise watched them, a cynical smile on her lips.

“Is she ready for gaol?” the man at the door asked impatiently.

“Yes,” said Denzil.

“No,” said Elise. “Another matter in which I seem to have lost a say.” She walked out of the box between the Vale brothers, and the man at the door grasped her by the arm.

“You do have guards with the carriage?” Denzil said uneasily.

“Oh yes,” said the man in black, and took her away.

“Something familiar about that fellow,” Aubrey said, frowning.

“That’s what I thought,” Denzil agreed. His stomach suddenly jolted. “Louis Delon! Anna’s husband.” He bolted for the door.

Behind him, Aubrey said, stunned, “I only met the fellow yesterday! How did I not see…”

The carriage was vanishing up the street. But through the back window Denzil could see Elise’s uneasy face and Anna Delon’s smiling one. Anger, outrage, and finally humor passed through him as Delilah’s hand grasped his once more.

“Won’t she go to prison after all?” Delilah asked.

“Not a conventional one. I think she might have changed sides, if Anna has saved a soul.”

“Who is she?”

“That is a long story.”

“She’s Lord Tamar’s sister,” Aubrey said unexpectedly. “And she does turn up in the oddest places.”

“She doesn’t have Prince Karl in there too, does she?” Denzil asked uneasily.

“No,” Delilah said, nodding to the left, where the unmistakable figure of Mr. Winslow, the magistrate, and his genuine constables were forcing the struggling Karl into a carriage.

“Thank goodness,” Denzil said mildly. “He will stand trial under Hazburg law.”

Absently, he caressed Delilah’s palm with his thumb.

On his other side, Sir Julius said, “Did I hear you make an offer for my sister, Linfield?”

“I trust it meets with your approval,” Denzil said.

“If it meets with Delilah’s,” Julius said evenly.

Delilah, blushing and beautiful in the lamplight, smiled and nodded.

“Then you may call upon me tomorrow,” Sir Julius said.

It was generous, and suddenly not enough. “I would like to take Delilah for a walk on the beach. We have had a difficult day with much to discuss. I will escort her safely home.”

Sir Julius’s eyes narrowed. Aubrey, who had just engaged himself to Henrietta Gaunt, the most beautiful girl in Blackhaven or anywhere else, nudged his brother and received a scowl, quickly followed by a breath of laughter.

“Delly?” Sir Julius demanded.

“I would like a walk on the beach of all things,” Delilah said, meeting her eldest brother’s gaze squarely.

Sir Julius shrugged. His rather hard face softened. “Then bless you, my children,” he said, and Delilah laughed, hurrying toward the shore with her hand firmly in Denzil’s.