“Yes, but unless it comes in the next two hours, it will be too late to save you from marrying him. So we will switch places.”
Margaretha gasped at her mother’s suggestion.
“We are almost the same height and build, and our hair is similar. If I wear your wedding dress and veil, and you wear a veil as well, then we should be able to fool the guards and Claybrook too. It probably won’t buy us much time, especially if he insists on going to the Great Hall and feasting afterward, but it’s worth trying.”
“But I don’t want to escape and leave you here.”
Her mother caught her arm and made her look her in the eye. “If you get a chance to escape, you take it. No one here is in as much danger as you are.”
Her mother’s hand was shaking, even as she held onto Margaretha’s arm, and her expression was more serious than Margaretha had ever seen it. “Yes, Mother.”
“If the guards still think I am you, and if they take me up to Claybrook’s chamber, they won’t be paying as much attention to you. Then you can slip away, down to the dungeon, and through the secret tunnel.”
“But what will Claybrook do when he discovers you’ve tricked him?”
“Let me worry about that. I can take care of myself. I wasn’t always a sheltered duchess, and I might be able to hide something up my sleeve.”
“Like a candlestick?”
“What?”
“I hid a candlestick up my sleeve. That is how Colin and Anne and I escaped. I hit two guards over the head with it.”
“That is a good idea.” Her mother smiled mischievously, making her look like a young girl.
They looked around the room, but there was not a single candlestick in sight. “He must have heard that story as well.” Margaretha’s heart sank a little as they continued to look for anything that might be used as a weapon. They searched and searched, but nothing was small enough to fit in their sleeves — voluminous though they were — that was also hard and heavy enough to serve as a weapon.
Then Margaretha noticed the iron cross hanging above her door. Her mother insisted that all their bedchambers have them. She carried a stool over to the door, quietly set it down so as not to alert the guards outside, and lifted the cross off the nail that held it in place.
The cross was nice and heavy. Good.
“Here, Mother. You can use it on Claybrook.”
“You will have more need of it. You’re sure to encounter guards when you’re trying to escape.”
They argued for several minutes, but Lady Rose finally won.
Margaretha put on her mother’s dress, which was a dark emerald green. Then she found a black headrail, which she used to cover her hair and tucked into the collar of her mother’s gown. She took her black mourning veil, attached it to her mother’s gorget, and looked in the mirror.
“I don’t even recognize myself.” Margaretha giggled at the deception.
In the meantime, her mother had put on the over-decorated wedding dress, with its heavy gold brocade and layers of silk, which were embroidered with silver and gold thread. Then she fastened a fancier gorget to her head, attaching her most heavily embroidered veil.
“No one will ever know you aren’t an eighteen-year-old bride.” Margaretha shivered a little inside. “But are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t want to endanger you, Mother. He is so ruthless, he may kill you if he thinks I have escaped. I don’t think we should do it.”
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t allow him to kill me.”
“Mother.” Margaretha felt ill. “I can’t let you do it.”
“And I can’t let you marry that evil man!” She lowered her voice when she went on. “I lost one daughter, and I won’t lose another if there is anything I can do about it.”
Her sister, the one who drowned when Margaretha was a baby. Margaretha’s chest ached at the pain her mother must still feel over the loss. She must trust God to keep her mother safe.
“All will be well, Mother. I shall believe that God will make a way of escape for you.”
“Yes, and I shall believe my plan will work.” Her mother held her by the arms and stared into her eyes.
“Very well.”
The guards pounded on the door and announced that it was time for them to come down for the wedding. Margaretha ran to the window and gazed out, hoping against her better judgment, knowing that they — her father, Valten, and her cousin and Colin — probably would not be there.
The courtyard was nearly deserted. The only people she saw were two of Claybrook’s guards, and they looked as they always did — no one sounded an alarm, and no one moved or looked particularly vigilant.
Her rescuers had not come.
No matter. She would rescue herself.
Chapter
30
Her mother opened the door to the guards and allowed them to lead her and Margaretha down to the chapel, where the priest and Lord Claybrook were waiting.