The count stared at her, goaded. His slender fingers flexed as if itching to throttle her. Ethan did not take his eyes off the count. He folded his arms and his jaw jutted pugnaciously.
Gabe stepped forward. “That’s quite enough. If this princess was writing letters to arrange visits to her old friends, and you read them, why the devil are you telling everyone I kidnapped her? I’ve a good mind to have you up for slander! Sir Walter, you are my witness.”
Sir Walter cleared his throat. “Now, Captain Renfrew, I’m sure there is no need for that. The count didn’t mean anything by it, I’m certain. Did you, Count?”
There was a tense silence. The count knew he was on thin ice. After a moment he said stiffly, “Perhaps my informant made a mistake.”
“Yes, yes, a mistake.” The squire gratefully seized on the excuse. He turned to Gabe. “It was the horses, y’see. The count was told the princess was in a vehicle drawn by matched grays, and as everybody knows, the only grays of any quality in this area are yours. That was the error. Must have been some other grays passing through. Some other lady.”
Gabe gave the count a hard look. “Indeed.” The Zindarians were horsemen: of course they’d notice his grays.
The squire was grateful for an excuse to leave. “My apologies for the misunderstanding, Captain Renfrew, and Miss Tibthorpe, for the disturbance. After you, Count.” He gestured toward the door.
The count hesitated, then stalked into the hallway, his face pale with anger and frustration.
Jim slipped ahead in the hallway and pulled open the front door. As the count, with very bad grace, stormed past, Jim said in a cheeky voice, “An’ good riddance to bad rubbish, yer slimy yeller snake!”
Balked of his prey, the count slashed his whip hard across the boy’s face. Jim screamed with pain as he crashed against the wall.
Callie sat on the bed upstairs with her arm around Nicky. She had been trying to stay calm, reassuring her son that there was nothing wrong, merely that Count Anton was downstairs and she didn’t wish to speak to him.
Nicky seemed to accept that, sitting quietly, docile and obedient.
To distract herself from what might be happening downstairs, she asked him about his riding lesson. But Nicky didn’t respond. After a moment he said thoughtfully, “Count Anton wants to kill me, doesn’t he, Mama? And become prince in my place.”
She stared at him, shocked. She’d tried to keep it from him. How long had he known?
He added, “That’s why we are hiding up here in your bedchamber. Mr. Renfrew and the others are going to save us, aren’t they?”
“Yes, darling, they are.”
“And we will wait here until it is safe to go down again.” He was pale, she saw, and his eyes were troubled.
And suddenly Callie realized what she was doing. She was sitting up here, hiding like a frightened rabbit.
Teaching her son to hide like a frightened rabbit.
Sending other people to risk themselves for her sake.
Tibby’s cottage had been burned to the ground. She had lost everything because of Callie, and yet Tibby was downstairs, facing the man who’d imprisoned her then burned her home.
Not hiding like a frightened rabbit.
In the last few days Nicky had started to glow with confidence; now he was pinched-looking and anxious again.
Callie was ashamed. She’d let her fear rule her. She looked down at her small son and recalled the conversation she’d had in the kitchen about the life she was giving him, a life of running and running and running.
She had escaped from Zindaria. She was now in a country where Count Anton’s insidious influence was not so pervasive.
Here there was less chance of maidservants and grooms being in his pay, owing him fealty, being terrorized. Here he was the stranger, the foreigner—not her.
Here, people believed her. Her fears had not been dismissed as female foolishness. She’d been taken seriously. And she had support.
So what was she doing hiding like a rabbit? Filling her son with fear and teaching him to be helpless in the face of it.
Here and now the running was going to stop.
“Mr. Renfrew said something interesting the other day,” she told Nicky. “He said, ‘A battle is not always won on brute strength alone.’”
