While Christoph laughed harder, Alana couldn’t suppress a big yawn. Nothing could have pointed out more clearly that she was at the end of her reserves to deal with someone like Christoph Becker. He was indomitable. That might be a benefit to her father, but it wasn’t to her.
But she tamped down the panic that had made her argue with him. She didn’t really think she was in any danger yet when no one other than Becker knew she was here. And Boris, depending on how much he’d overheard. And possibly her father—that was if the captain had even informed the king about her. He’d had time to do that while he’d left her in that cell. . . .
Christoph snapped his fingers to get her attention on him again. How rude! She would have said so if he didn’t warn first, “If I stand up to escort you to your bed, you’re going to see just how much I’d rather drag you to mine. Boris!” he shouted, and the servant quickly came out of the kitchen and caught the ring of keys the captain tossed at him. Then Christoph warned Alana, “For the last time, go now, while I still let you. You will be safe back there, even from me.”
She flew past Boris, who had to run to keep up with her. She didn’t have to understand everything the captain had just said to recognize his threat was sexual.
She ran all the way to her cell. She didn’t enter it immediately. She checked the door at the end of the corridor first to make sure it was locked as he’d said. It was. She came back and had to push the drape aside to enter the cell. She didn’t say a word to Boris, who was standing there waiting to lock the door. She cringed as she heard him do so. The bed was fully made up with bedding, and a smaller brazier was lit and tucked into a corner, filling the room with a comfortable heat. How nice. A cozy prison, she thought sarcastically.
She dropped onto the bed, too exhausted to think about it anymore. She didn’t doubt she’d be asleep in moments, despite . . . She pushed tiredly back to her feet. The captain might not fear for her life, but she had that dread deep inside her, knowing someone had tried to kill her before and would try again. And he’d left her vulnerable.
She glanced about the room for something, anything that she could use as a weapon. She considered the chair. But it was too sturdy, and smashing it apart to obtain a sharp piece of wood would make too much noise. The pedestal table wasn’t sturdy. She flipped it over, stood on top of it, and tested each leg. One was loose enough for her to kick with her boot several times, then yank off. The table leg would serve as a club, a clumsy weapon, but she took it to bed with her and tucked it under the blanket.
She prayed she wouldn’t sleep so deeply that she’d fail to hear an intruder approaching. She prayed she wasn’t a fool for clinging to propriety instead of accepting Christoph’s offer to let her spend the night in his bed. But recalling how pleasurable she’d found his kisses before discovering what a barbarian he could be, she knew she wouldn’t be entirely safe there either.
• • •
Frederick knelt between the two graves, one marked by a large gray stone, the other marked by a small white stone. The snow had stopped falling but had left a layer on the ground that quickly wet his knees. He didn’t even notice. The pain in his chest was too strong. They had both been too young to die. Mother and child. Wife and daughter—his!
Avelina had only been twenty when he’d made her his queen, twenty-one when she bore their child. She had been bleeding when he left Lubinia, complications from childbirth. The doctors had known. She wouldn’t let them tell him. His meeting with the Austrians was too important because it involved a renewal of their alliance. She thought she would have recovered by the time he returned. She died before he did. And he came so close to losing Alana, too, in his grief over Avelina’s death. But he lost her anyway because he’d listened to his advisers instead of following his heart.
“I was afraid you were coming here. You had that look earlier. It breaks my heart to see you grieve like this.”
Nikola Stindal had silently approached. She bent and put her arms around his neck, her cheek to his. His second wife, Nikola, had only been sixteen when he’d married her. He’d promised her mother he wouldn’t touch her until she was eighteen. That had been difficult. She was as beautiful as his first wife, and while their marriage had been arranged for political reasons, it had soon turned to love. But even her comforting touch couldn’t ease this pain tonight.
“I’ll give you another child, I swear I will,” she told him earnestly.
“I know.”
He didn’t doubt she would. Even now she suspected she was pregnant again, but if she was, he was hesitant to announce it to put an end to the unrest the rebels were perpetrating. It would just terrify her all the more and end the pregnancy prematurely like all the others. She’d wanted her other pregnancies kept secret, as Alana had been kept secret, but he’d refused. After all, that secrecy hadn’t helped Alana.
The threat hanging over their lives was a nightmare for Nikola. He’d been told countless times that her fear was what kept her from bringing a pregnancy to fruition, fear that her child would be stolen or killed, too. She hid it so well. Only occasionally did she cry in his arms.
He had been giving serious thought to sending her away this time if she was pregnant again. That was the only thing that might give her peace.
“Come, it’s not safe out here in the ward,” she said. “You know Christoph doesn’t trust all these new men he’s had to recruit because of the rebels.”
Frederick stood up, but only to turn and embrace Nikola tightly. “You needn’t worry about that. The new men are paired with those that are trusted.”
She sighed and asked hesitantly, “What has reminded you so strongly of your loss tonight?”
“The arrival of another impersonator who thinks this grave is empty.”
“Did you see her?”
“I am afraid to, afraid I will kill her with my own hands for pretending to be my child, when my Alana lies here in this ground!”
“You must stop blaming yourself for that. I know you think they followed you hoping to find you undefended—”
“As they always hope to do! And they saw me with her! They guessed correctly who she was and killed her as soon as I departed!”
“Her fall could have been an accident. It’s not your fault!”
“I should not have visited her so often.”
“How could you not? She was your daughter.”
“I should have brought her home! She would have been better protected here. Instead I listened to those old advisers who were so afraid of my line ending. Hide her, they said. Keep her safe in secrecy. Let my enemies think they succeeded, so there would be no more attempts to take my heir from me. But they found her anyway. My God, I should have killed that whole family, every last Bruslan in Europe!”
