By the time he reached his room to change for dinner, Grey felt dirty, irritable, and thoroughly out of sorts. It had taken most of the afternoon to track down Herr Blomberg and convince him to hold his—Christ, what was it? His rune-casting?—at the Schloss. Then he had run across the pest Helwig, and before he was able to escape, had been embroiled in an enormous controversy with a gang of mule drovers who claimed not to have been paid by the army.
This in turn had entailed a visit to two army camps, an inspection of thirty-four mules, trying interviews with both Sir Peter’s paymaster and von Namtzen’s—and involved a further cold interview with Stephan, who had behaved as though Grey were personally responsible for the entire affair, then turned his back, dismissing Grey in mid-sentence, as though unable to bear the sight of him.
He flung off his coat, sent Tom to fetch hot water, and irritably tugged off his stock, wishing he could hit someone.
A knock sounded on the door, and he froze, irritation vanishing upon the moment. What to do? Pretend he wasn’t in was the obvious course, in case it was Louisa in her sheer lawn shift or something worse. But if it were Stephan, come either to apologize or to demand further explanation?
The knock sounded again. It was a good, solid knock. Not what one would expect of a female—particularly not of a female intent on dalliance. Surely the princess would be more inclined to a discreet scratching?
The knock came again, peremptory, demanding. Taking an enormous breath and trying to still the thumping of his heart, Grey jerked the door open.
“I wish to speak to you,” said the dowager, and sailed into the room, not waiting for invitation.
“Oh,” said Grey, having lost all grasp of German on the spot. He closed the door, and turned to the old lady, instinctively tightening the sash of his banyan.
She ignored his mute gesture toward the chair, but stood in front of the fire, fixing him with a steely gaze. She was completely dressed, he saw, with a faint sense of relief. He really could not have borne the sight of the dowager en dishabille.
“I have come to ask you,” she said without preamble, “if you have intentions to marry Louisa.”
“I have not,” he said, his German returning with miraculous promptitude. “Nein.”
One sketchy gray brow twitched upward.
“Ja? That is not what she thinks.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, groping for some diplomatic reply—and found it, in the feel of the stubble on his own jaw.
“I admire Princess Louisa greatly,” he said. “There are few women who are her equal”—And thank God for that, he added to himself—“but I regret that I am not free to undertake any obligation. I have…an understanding. In England.” His understanding with James Fraser was that if he were ever to lay a hand on the man or speak his heart, Fraser would break his neck instantly. It was, however, certainly an understanding, and clear as Waterford crystal.
The dowager looked at him with a narrow gaze of such penetrance that he wanted to tighten his sash further—and take several steps backward. He stood his ground, though, returning the look with one of patent sincerity.
“Hmph!” she said at last. “Well, then. That is good.” Without another word, she turned on her heel. Before she could close the door behind her, he reached out and grasped her arm.
She swung round to him, surprised and outraged at his presumption. He ignored this, though, absorbed in what he had seen as she lifted her hand to the doorframe.
“Pardon, Your Highness,” he said. He touched the medal pinned to the bodice of her gown. He had seen it a hundred times, and assumed it always to contain the image of some saint—which, he supposed, it did, but certainly not in the traditional manner.
“St. Orgevald?” he inquired. The image was crudely embossed, and could easily be taken for something else—if one hadn’t seen the larger version on the lid of the reliquary.
“Certainly.” The old lady fixed him with a glittering eye, shook her head, and went out, closing the door firmly behind her.
For the first time, it occurred to Grey that whoever Orgevald had been, it was entirely possible that he had not originally been a saint. Some rather earthier ancient Germanic deity, perhaps? Pondering this interesting notion, he went to bed.