The Requisite Courage Read online

  His wife held out her hand, which made Adelaide blink in confusion. “I am Evelyn Lorenz, my Lady.”

  Belatedly, Adelaide took the woman’s gloved hand and shook it with an inexpert grip. She caught an overly strong whiff of bergamot and spices from the woman’s sachet. “I…ah…hello.”

  Siegfried Lorenz merely beamed at his wife’s forwardness, unaware of the social gaff.

  Boyd gave a small, self-conscious laugh. “The world beyond one’s door can be an interesting place.”

  “Indeed, indeed,” Lorenz said, with a chuckle.

  “What brings you to England, Mr…I mean, Herr Lorenz?”

  “Oh, Siggy is a distant cousin to Edward,” Evelyn Lorenz said, with a light trill.

  “I am an industrialist,” Lorenz added, with a proud note.

  “What is an industrialist?” Adele asked, genuinely curious.

  “A captain of industry,” Boyd said. “Although I’m not quite sure what that means, myself, except that it must involve steam and oil and dirty windows.”

  Everyone gave polite laughs, while Adele stared at the portly industrialist. Surely the German agent would not be German himself? Wasn’t that simply too obvious?

  But he was a stranger to her, one of only seven, while everyone else in the room Adele could not bear to think of as a possible traitor to Britain. It was simply too distressing.

  Boyd adroitly manoeuvred Adele about the room, until she had met and spoken with the other five strangers, which was made easier because four of them were couples, and one couple were accompanied by their debutante daughter, who was only sixteen years old.

  The other couple were well into their sixties and after three minutes of conversation, Adele realized that Baron Upton was a friend of her father’s. Regardless of her personal thoughts concerning her father and his many friends, Adele rather doubted any of them, her father included, would betray England.

  By the time the dinner gong sounded, Adele felt useless and out of sorts. Knowing that someone around the dinner table was coldly arranging the murder of the King of England destroyed what little appetite she’d had.

  IT WAS A RELIEF TO be shown to her room by a maid in a starched apron and cap, very much later that night. Adele walked about the Persian rug between the bed and the wardrobe in tight little circles, squeezing and flexing her hands.

  She was letting Melville down. She was not a spy. She couldn’t even hold a conversation with these people without Boyd’s arm to hold and his presence to make them talk. She was pitiful. And the King was still in danger, because she didn’t have a single suspicion about anyone.

  Adele refused to consider Herr Lorenz as a suspect. It was a conceit to think that because he was German, he was a terrible man capable of killing another. She had known many Germans in Cape Town, all of them of sterling character.

  Surely, an agent who had managed to keep his identity from Mr. Melville would remain safely unrevealed by her poor investigation?

  The knock on her door was soft, designed not to be heard by the occupants of the adjoining bedrooms.

  Adele pulled her peignoir in close about her throat and opened the door.

  Boyd Waterman leaned against the doorframe, his smile making his moustache bristle. “Hello again.”

  Adele looked along the passage in either direction. It was deserted. “Boyd, whatever are you doing here?”

  He stepped into the room. “You know why I’m here.” He whipped his arm around her and pulled her up against him. “Mmm… You smell very good indeed.” His moustache pushed against her face.

  Adele gave a squeak and shoved on his shoulders, leaning away from his mouth. “Boyd, let me go!” She shoved harder.

  “Give it up, old gal,” he breathed. “There’s no need to pretend. Hold still.”

  Adele struggled harder. “I mean it, Boyd. Let go!”

  He paused from trying to kiss her and frowned. “You mean it?”

  “Yes, damn it!”

  His eyes widened. “Well, really…”

  Adele shoved at his chest once more.

  Then Boyd laughed and his arm tightened. “Keep your modesty if you want. It doesn’t change the fact that you need attention now you’re a widow. So protest all you like. I know you’re eager.”

  Adele sucked in a breath that felt as if she was inhaling all the air in the room. On top of the little irritations and injustices this evening had handed her, along with her growing sense of failure, this was the last and utter straw.

  She curled up her fist, leaned back and twisted, then swing with all her might for the bridge of Boyd’s rather large nose.

  The crack her fist made sounded very loud—even louder than her thundering heart.

  Boyd staggered back, his hand to his nose, which instantly streamed blood.

  Adele let out a shocked breath and shook her hand. “Hugh was right. It’s better when you tuck your thumb in.”

  “You broke my nose!” Boyd’s voice was muffled and wet.

  “You’d better go to the bathroom and run water over your nose. You don’t want people asking how you got it.” Adele’s heart was slowing. Cool calmness replaced the frantic panic which had been building, along with a growing sense of satisfaction, as Boyd reeled and grunted in pain.

  Adele took his shoulders, turned him toward the door and pushed him through it. Boyd staggered along the passage, his free hand guiding him along the wall.

  Then she raised her hand and examined the knuckles. One of them was scraped. They all hurt. Her whole hand did, actually.

  “Ice,” she decided, and marched in the direction she thought the kitchens lay.

  Ice…and time to think.

  THE INTERCONNECTED KITCHENS WERE DARK, the staff long since gone to their beds. Only the lingering aroma of Duck á l’Orange remained. Moonlight filtered through the high windows and the glowing coals in the very modern oven range provided a little extra illumination, enough for Adele to see the kitchen was not completely empty.

  Daniel Bannister straightened from his lean upon the heavy pine worktable. His grey eyes glittered in the dim light. He had poured himself a stiff drink. The decanter sat unstoppered before him.

  “Oh…I’m disturbing you,” Adele said, her heart sinking.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” His voice was as low as hers.

  “I wanted some ice.” She used a tone that implied it was perfectly natural to seek out ice in the middle of the night while wearing a peignoir and bare feet.

  He considered her for a moment, then stepped over to the counter and lifted one of the champagne ice buckets which had adorned their dinner table. It sloshed and tinkled as he put it on the worktable. “Have at it.” He went back to his whiskey, which was most likely a very good Scotch.

  Only a little vexed, Adele moved over to the bucket and fished out a few lumps of ice and applied them to her knuckles. She hissed at the touch.

  “Wait…you’re icing your knuckles?” He put down the glass and came around the worktable. “Let me see.” He took her hand and turned it so the light from the windows fell on it, examining it. “What on earth did you hit?”

  “A large nose,” she said flatly.

  He smiled knowingly. “Boyd’s?” Then; “Never mind. I retract the question. Here, there’s a way to do it so you don’t drip water everywhere.” He leaned back and whipped a napkin off the counter, opened it and scooped up a good handful of ice from the bucket and dropped it into the centre. He folded the napkin into a long case holding the ice and wrapped it around her hand.

  “Thank you,” Adele said gratefully, as the chill of the ice settled against her knuckles.

  Daniel didn’t move back to his scotch. “I only found out about your husband and your son after dessert, tonight. I’m so sorry, Adele. It must have been hell for you.”

  “It was utterly dreadful,” she admitted. “For quite a while I wasn’t myself.”

  “But you seem to be holding your own, now.” He lifted his hand, gesturi
ng toward her wounded one.

  She smiled grimly. “I’ve just discovered how. I really didn’t think I could do anything like this, but apparently…” She gave a small shrug.

  “Only just now?” His smile was small.

  Adele fussed with the napkin around her hand, adjusting it minutely. “My father had four girls and no sons. He was bitterly disappointed by that. My little sister, Phillipa, died of an infection from a cut when she was seventeen. When they told my father she was dead, he said, ‘Well, that’s one down.’” She studied the folds of the napkin closely. “An education was out of the question when our only use was to be married off to the highest bidder. Father even refused to provide a dowry to sweeten the pot.”

  Daniel made a soft sound.

  Adele didn’t look up. “I’ve grown up with the notion that I’m fit for very little in life. So yes, it is only now I’ve begun to question that. It was deeply ingrained, you see.”

  “Aristotle said that knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

  Adele made herself look at him. There was no pity in his expression that she could see. “I will have to take your word on that.” She shifted, her awkwardness building. “What are you doing, skulking about the kitchen, anyway?”

  Daniel straightened and went back to the decanter. “I suppose one might call it sulking, rather than skulking. I was stood up.” He tossed back the contents of the glass with a jerk of his wrist.

  “So you came here to drown your sorrows?” Adele said lightly. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I came here to figure out why. My pride is not that delicate.” He picked up the decanter and poured.

  Adele let her gaze slide from the top of his thick dark blond hair to the tips of his perfectly polished shoes. “Forgive the indelicate question, Daniel, but I had assumed that very few women would ever tell you ‘no’, no matter what the question.”

  He lifted the glass. “You were the first,” he assured her and drank.

  “No, really. Does it happen very often?”

  He lowered the glass. “I can count the occasions on one hand, and you were two of them. Ginny, tonight, is the fourth. Why do you ask? Feeling prurient, Adele?”

  “Ginny? I don’t remember meeting a Ginny tonight.”

  “You weren’t introduced, but you saw her,” Daniel assured her. “Red hair. Pert nose, and a lovely smile.”

  Adele smiled. “The maid with the big brown eyes? Yes, she is rather pretty.”

  Daniel tilted his head. “You did notice her. Well, well.”

  “And she really stood you up?”

  Daniel’s gaze shifted to the crystal glass. “Refused to even speak to me when I tapped on her door, as we had arranged.”

  “Her door? You were cutting to the chase, weren’t you?”

  “We were going to go for a walk.” He added gently, “Not that it is any business of yours.”

  Adele drummed her fingers. “It might be.”

  Daniel shook his head.

  Adele made up her mind. “Daniel, may I ask a highly personal question?”

  “You mean the previous questions were not impertinent?”

  “Not in the way this one is.”

  “Now I have to say yes just to hear how bad it can get,” he said grimly.

  “Does that mean yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitated. “Are you, or have you ever been an agent working for the Germans?”

  Daniel laughed. It came out of him with an explosive little start of surprise. When he had himself under control, he said; “That is a terrible question to ask.”

  “I realize you could find it insulting--”

  “No, I mean if I was a German agent, I would just say no, and you’d be none the wiser. And why on earth would you want to know such a thing, anyway? I thought you were an uneducated widow just coming into her own?”

  “That’s sort of how I’m doing it,” Adele said apologetically. “Daniel, there’s a conspiracy afoot in this house. The Germans are planning to kill the King, and I’m supposed to figure out who is going to do it.”

  “You?” Daniel drew in a breath and let it out. “I feel like the top of my head just came off and my brains have been given a good stir.”

  “Yes, me,” Adele said, with a touch of impatience. “You just told me your lady friend stood you up, an event so unlikely that in fifteen years of courting women, it’s only happened with two others. It makes me wonder if Ginny didn’t answer the door for another reason.”

  “Ginny is no more likely to be a German spy than you. Even if she were, the last thing she would do is arrange an assignation at a time and place that would interefere with her plans.”

  “Where is her room, Daniel?” Adele pointed. “In that corner of this wing?”

  Daniel grew still. “Lucky guess?”

  Adele lowered her arm. “The north west corner of this wing,” she said. “Right beneath the King’s bedroom.”

  “With a stout floor, no staircase, two dozen guests and a dozen staff between her and the King.”

  “It seems outlandish, but…it is an odd note. Would you mind if we called upon Ginny again? This time, to insist upon answers? Even just check on her? Then I can dismiss the itch between my shoulder blades.”

  Daniel considered her, his clear eyes shadowed by the low light. “Now my damned shoulder blades are itching,” he muttered and put down the glass. “This way.”

  THE NARROW PASSAGE WAS NOT quite without light, for a window at the far end shed a little moonlight, enough for them to make their way without tripping. Adele was glad of her bare feet, which allowed her to move quietly along the runner. Daniel moved silently, too.

  He stopped at the very last white door along the outside of the corridor. On the other side of the passage, the wall was common to the grand drawing room on the other side, but there were no openings anywhere along it.

  “Ginny was hired just for this evening,” Daniel said in an undertone. “Wages, a room for the night, and the pleasure of serving the King, which she valued more than the wages.” He tapped softly on the door, leaned closer and called Ginny’s name.

  “Louder,” Adele said.

  “It might wake people.”

  “You need to wake Ginny. We must speak to her, Daniel. It’s the only way to be sure.”

  He cleared his throat, glanced along the passageway, then pummelled the door with the side of his fist. It still wasn’t very loud. “Ginny!” he demanded. “Open the door! Now!” He was speaking louder than before, but not by very much.

  “Try the handle.”

  He rattled the handle. “Locked.” He stepped back and examined the door from a distance, running his gaze up, over and down the frame.

  “What are you doing?” Adele asked, puzzled.

  “That itching is a burning sensation, now. Stand back.”

  She stepped out of the way. Daniel threw his shoulder against the door. The lock didn’t give way, but the frame did, with a soft cracking of wood. The door shuddered aside and the other half of the lock dropped to the floor with a soft thud.

  Daniel gripped the handle to halt the door’s swing. “Me, first,” he said firmly. “Etiquette can go hang.”

  She nodded.

  Daniel pushed the door open, took a step in and held still, forcing Adele to remain in the corridor.

  Her heart picked up its pace.

  She could see the end of a narrow bed, the covers still smooth, a tall, battered wardrobe, and the edge of a window. A lamp burned from somewhere beyond the door, shedding warm orange light upon the old coverlet and the scratched wood frame of the bed.

  Daniel pushed the door fully open and beckoned. Adele stepped in and around him.

  A bureau against the wall held the burning lamp. A lady’s silver hairbrush and comb, both old and tarnished, sat on the top. A washstand stood before the window. The window was covered with simple lace curtains.

  Adele closed the door, which failed to remain clo
sed as there was no lock. She pulled the pillow off the bed and stuffed it against the bottom of the door to hold it closed.

  “That will slow our departure,” Daniel murmured.

  “It is better to have no one see us going through a maid’s room,” Adele returned, keeping her voice as low as his. “She clearly isn’t here, Daniel. The bed is untouched.”

  “There could be a number of reasons why that is so,” Daniel said, looking about the room.

  “Still, let’s check the room before we leave, hmm?”

  “That’s why you closed the door…”

  She moved around him once more and rattled the handle on the door of the wardrobe. The door swung open to reveal an empty hanger, the rod and nothing else. Someone had placed waxed paper at the bottom of the cupboard, a long time ago. The scent of stale mothballs tickled her nose.

  “Empty,” she declared. To the left of the wardrobe was a second door. “Where do you suppose that leads?”

  Daniel leaned to peer around the edge of the wardrobe door. “Clearly, into the next room.”

  “Yes, clearly. I meant, what is in that room, do you suppose?”

  “Probably another staff member, sound asleep and snoring.” He stepped over and carefully turned the handle, making no noise. “Locked,” he said with satisfaction. “Key is on this side, too.”

  Adele eased open the top drawer of the bureau. It was empty. A ghost of lavender and herbs drifted upward.

  Daniel bent and opened the other two drawers just enough to establish they were also empty.

  Adele turned. There was little room between the bed and the bureau. She didn’t have to take a step forward to lift the bed cover and peer beneath.

  Miss Ginny lay on the dusty floorboards beneath the bed, limbs outflung and folded enough to fit beneath the cover. Her eyes were open and unseeing.

  Adele clapped her hand over her mouth as a tiny, breathless squeak tried to emerge and scuttled backward, cannoning into Daniel. He turned and caught her, keeping her on her feet.