It was absurd, she thought as she lifted the candle aloft, gave her warm and tumbled bed one last regretful glance, and turned the handle of the door. Therewas nothing to investigate, and even if there were, itwas the depth of madness to do so alone with a candlestick her only weapon. And yet it was not a senseof danger that drew her onward. She turned instinctively left outside the door—in the direction of theblank wall.
Except that it was not a blank wall. She stared at the rounded doorway and the stout wooden door witha frown. She could not possibly have overlooked itduring the day. It was not even as if she had glancedat the wall absentmindedly. She had looked for a doorand had questioned its absence. And yet there wasthe door, as plain as the nose on her face. Unless itwas one of the tantalizing shadows that the candletended to throw on the castle walls. She lifted thecandle higher.
Well, she thought, stepping forward, she had missed it somehow, that was all. The handle was a heavyhollow ring of black metal. She reached out gingerlywith her free hand and took hold of it. It was nofigment of the imagination. It was solid and cold andfelt familiar in her hand. After the merest hesitation—during which time her heart began at last to beat fasterthan usual—she turned it. She knew to turn it inwardto the door rather than outward toward the frame asone would normally do. She knew that the handle wasstiff when turned that way.
Daphne caught herself in the thought and hesitated again before pulling the door slowly outward. Howcould she know that about the handle? She was beingfanciful again. It must come of having led a ratherdull life and of having read too much, though she hadnever before noted the tendency in herself to allowher imagination to run riot. Perhaps she was sleeping.Probablyshe was sleeping. But if so, she was walkinginto what was very likely to turn into a nightmare.
It was pitch black inside the tower, and the candle did rather frighteningly weird things to the twistingstone staircase that went both up and down fromwhere she stood, to the stone wall on the outside andthe huge central column about which the stairs wound.Should she go up or down? Or back to bed? Unfortunately, she realized as the beating of her heart startedto become almost painful, the latter course seemednot to be an option. Neither did going down, thoughthat was where she decided to go when she steppedthrough the doorway. Her body turned itself the opposite way and her feet began to climb. Just as if shewere a useless traveler inside her own body and hadno control over its movements.
There was somebody up there. She stopped more than once, standing quite, quite still and listening, butthere was not the slightest sound. But she couldfeelthat there was someone there. And that someone—whoever he or she was—had the advantage over her.It was true that she had the light and he or she didnot, but by the same token the other person knew forsure that she was there and knew where she was andthat she was a mere slip of a girl feeling none toocourageous though she continued to climb.
There was a round room at the top, from which a narrow flight of steps led up onto the parapet. Theroom had doubtless been used by guards years andyears ago, when the castle was a fortress. They wouldhave slept in the room while one of their number keptwatch above. At least, Daphne thought, that was whatshe assumed—all of it. She did not know about theround room. How could she? She just felt that it mustbe there. Common sense told her that it must. Onlycommon sense. She did not know. She had never beento the castle before and there had been no such roomin the south tower when she had explored it duringthe day.
But there it was—the heavy wooden door at the top of the steps, a door that matched the one leading fromher passageway. Daphne paused again. It was still nottoo late to retreat to the safety of her room. What,after all, was she looking for? Why was she here?Whoever was in that room—she could feel that someone was there—might have heard her approach,though she was wearing soft slippers and was notaware of any sound she had made. Anyway he wouldby now be able to see the light of her candle beneaththe door. But if she turned, she could hurry back toher room before he came out. And perhaps he wouldnot come out. Perhaps he did not want her to findhim.
So it washenow, was it, she asked herself mockingly. She knew that whoever was there was a man? Yes, she knew it was a man. She even knew who hewas. Daphne shook her head and decided to go back.Towers were far more comfortably explored in thedaytime. She would come back in the morning.
But her hand reached out to the metal handle of the door and turned it slowly—the normal way thistime, toward the outside of the door. Her heart wasbeating so wildly that her whole head pulsed. Shepushed the door inward quickly, staying where shewas. It swung open on squeaking hinges.
Her candle, raised over her head again, revealed emptiness. Nothing. No one. So much for fancifulimaginings and nightmares, she thought, drawing adeep breath of relief. So much for dull living and toomuch reading. She had climbed a castle tower, doubtless looking like an eerie specter herself, only to findan empty room at the top of it. Perhaps she shouldproceed all the way up to the parapet and peer outward to see if armies of ghosts were creeping uptoward the castle on specter steeds.
She stepped firmly into the room and took two steps forward—and froze with horror as she heard the doorsqueak behind her and shut with a soft click.
“I startled you,” a man’s voice said. He chuckled. “You look as if you had seen a ghost. I had to hidebehind the door. It might have been someone else.”
Daphne had spun around to face him. He was disconcertingly tall and muscular, and was standing between her and the door. He was dressed only in tight pantaloons and a loose shirt, open at the neck, but itseemed he had probably just risen from the mattressshe had not been able to see from outside the door.Two or three blankets were heaped untidily on it.
He was also, she noticed after the understandable first impression of size and strength, extraordinarilyhandsome. An Adonis, no less. His hair, so blond asto be almost silver, was worn long and tied with ablack ribbon at the nape of his neck in a style so old-fashioned that Daphne had seen it only in pictures.His features were regular, his eyes a startling blue, histeeth white.
He stepped forward and took the candle from her one hand and the bundle from her other.The bundle?She looked down at it blankly.
“Thank you,” he said, depositing them both on a bench and turning back to her immediately. “Haveyou brought me lots of good things to eat? I amravenous.”
Who are you?The words formed themselves loud and clear in Daphne’s mind. Curiously her fear haddisappeared. There was nothing sinister about thisman. Indeed—
“But more for you than for food,” he said, and his eyes softened and kindled all at the same time. Heopened his arms to her.
He was mad.Who are you?
“Justin,” she whispered, stepping forward and lifting her arms about his neck as his came about her waist. She had never been held by a man before. Shehad never even performed the scandalous waltz, sinceher aunt considered it quite improper. She was beingheld now—she could feel him, warm and muscled andunmistakably masculine, from her shoulders to herknees.Justin?
“Margaret.” The name was a caress, spoken against her hair. “It seems a se’nnight instead of a day sinceI saw you last. And held you last.”
“I am afraid for you,” she said, drawing back her head to look up into his blue, blue eyes—oh, so familiar, so beloved. “The hue and cry is growing. Soonthey are bound to—”
He kissed her. Lightly. Only enough to stem the flow of breathless words. But she was so afraid forhim. Sick with fear. He was under their very noses—the very safest place to be, he had said a week before,when he had first come to hide in the tower. But shecould not believe it. Besides, matters had not beennearly as serious a week ago. Every moment of everyday she had expected them to search the tower.
“Hush, love,” he whispered against her mouth. “Hush. All will be well. As soon as they give up looking, I’ll go home and make my confession and mypeace and then do some searching of my own. Andsome questioning. I’ll find those jewels if it’s the lastthing I do. I do not like being accused of theft andseeming to be the cause of the hostility between yourfamily and mine growing into enmity. Especially notnow.”
“But it is not just theft now,” she said. “It is murder, Justin.”
“Murder?” His eyes bored into hers.
“Cleeves, Father’s man, was found dead yesterday morning with a knife in his back,” she said. “He musthave known something. Sebastian says Cleeves toldhim he had seen you take the jewels, but Sebastianwould not believe that of you. Now everyone thinksyou came last night to kill him.”
“Your brother said those things?” he said with a frown.
“So they still believe you are close by, you see,” she said. “You must leave, Justin. You must get awayto France.”
