“You’re—not angry with me?”
“Why would I be?”
“You just abducted me! Terrified me! You”—she glanced around her—“bring me to a cellar!”
He touched her cheek gently. “I’m sorry, there was no other way. I’m a wanted man here, and you were with a palace guard. I was on my way to the chalet to speak with you. It appeared you were being escorted to the palace. Once there, I wouldn’t have been able to reach you.”
“But a cellar!”
“I can’t afford to be seen by anyone, Helga. I am being searched for diligently. And now you will be searched for as well until I take you back. I wanted to talk to you in private, out of the cold, without being seen by anyone. I didn’t have many options. I remembered this old place, far from the roads, far from any village.”
“This cellar is not warm,” she pointed out, hugging her arms.
“But it’s not freezing, and we won’t be here long.”
“You intend to take me back to the chalet?”
“If you want to go back, yes.”
“Why—did you want to speak privately with me?” she asked cautiously.
“I found out that Alana was taken to the king’s chalet to visit you. It was an obvious trap for me. That was too much information to be given of her whereabouts.”
“You would have willingly walked into that trap?”
“No, I wouldn’t have been able to get to her, not surrounded by guards as she was. But I only found out about her trip this morning, a day after she began it. I saw her returned to the palace before I started up the mountain.”
“To see me,” she said uncomfortably.
“To see you, yes. I visited your old house, but others live there now. I had no way to find you, until I heard she went to see you and where. Now, I do need to know what that visit was about. And you can tell me how she has fared. You do know, don’t you?”
Color drained from her face. She tried to turn around so he wouldn’t see it. He put his hands on her shoulders to stop her. He was alarmed now, thinking something bad had happened to Alana.
“Tell me!”
“They—they think she’s mine.”
“What?” he said incredulously.
“They think she’s my daughter!”
“How?” he got out before he realized, “My God, that’s why Frederick didn’t tear heaven and earth apart looking for her, isn’t it? You made him believe you saved his daughter?”
“I had to! I let you in! They would have killed us if they found out!”
His mind was moving frantically ahead. So many other things made sense now. But she was crying again. Keening loudly again.
He asked gently, “What did you tell the other nursemaid when she returned?”
“She knew. She was terrified, too. I convinced her we would both be blamed if she didn’t agree I had switched the babies to keep the princess safe. After we agreed, she went to report what had happened. I remembered too late that there was one man who had seen the princess recently, the physician who had been tasked to check on her. Others came first, telling me how sorry they were that my baby was missing. I barely heard them. I knew the truth would come out as soon as the physician arrived. I was paralyzed, they thought with grief, but with fear, because he would recognize that the baby left behind wasn’t Alana Stindal.”
“He never arrived to do that?”
“He did. He’d been told before he got there that the princess was safe and he looked at my child and said, ‘Yes, she is, thank God.’ ”
Leonard frowned. “Was he part of the plot to have her killed?”
She laughed a little hysterically. “No, just a man who didn’t do his job. I thought he’d had a good look at her the day he came to check on her, but I can only guess that he had too many things on his mind, in particular, his anger that a man as important as he was had been sent on what he considered a lowly task. That grievance he made clear with how abrupt he was with me that day.”
