Think, think. Instead she drew her blade from her boot and made a quick feint.
Lord Reginald drew back a step. He was no longer smiling. “Why were you following me?” he demanded, then repeated the question in halting German.
“Geld,” replied Arianna. Money. With luck, he would believe this was robbery gone awry.
His shoulders relaxed slightly. “Geld,” he repeated. “Unfortunately, you’ve just purchased your own demise. I can’t afford to let you live.” He too had a hidden sheath, and out slipped a knife twice as big as hers. “Boys shouldn’t go up against men.”
And men shouldn’t underestimate women. Arianna had no intention of crossing steel with him. As long as Lord Reginald remained ignorant of her real identity, she held the upper hand. A trap could be set to catch him at treason.
But first she had to escape.
He made several quick probing jabs.
Arianna retreated, drawing him along with her. The wall was at her back. But so was a small ladder leading up through an opening to the loft. She had also spotted a bench with an open bottle of liniment perched on its edge.
“Tsk, tsk. A wrong move, boy,” drawled Lord Reginald. “You’re now right where I want you.”
Grabbing the bottle, she flung the stinging liquid at his face, then bolted up the ladder rungs as fast as she could. A quick jerk, a hard heave and the ladder landed alongside her.
Lord Reginald’s vicious oath reverberated in the darkness below. “Bloody imp of Satan, I’ll cut your guts into garters.” His fingers grasped the edge of the opening. A big, muscled man, he apparently meant to hoist himself up and finish the job.
A wrong move, Lord Reginald, thought Arianna, slamming her boot down and feeling bones crack under her heel.
Still he came on.
As his snarling face appeared in the opening, she spun around and sprinted to the open end of the loft, where a thick rope for hauling the bales of hay was looped through a pulley attached to the ceiling beam. Catching hold of the iron hook in midstride, she jumped, giving silent thanks for the vagabond years spent sailing around the Caribbean. Her momentum swung her in a wide arc, the rope held taut by a bracket anchored to the wall.
Arianna landed hard on the stone floor, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. Breathless, she took a moment to recover. Ahead of her, the corridor was only a few steps away . . .
With a muffled roar of rage, Lord Reginald snagged the rope with one hand on its swing back and launched himself into the air.
Oh, bloody hell. Staggering to her feet, Arianna whipped out her knife and slashed the rope just above its knot.
A low whistle of wind was followed by the fleshy thud. She turned to see his body lying crumpled in a heap behind an iron anvil. Creeping close, she gingerly nudged him face up.
If you live by the sword, you must be prepared to die by the sword.
Swallowing hard, Arianna couldn’t help but recall one of Henning’s favorite aphorisms as she stared at Lord Reginald’s own knife protruding from his chest. Strange, but she felt no real remorse. The man was a cold-blooded murderer who had planned to plunge Europe into chaos. Be damned with pity—he was no longer a threat to peace.
But was Rochemont still a force to be reckoned with? She stripped off her smock and checked the priming on the Tsar’s magnificent pistols. It was high time to locate Saybrook and find out.
24
17 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1¾ cups flour
2 oz. semisweet chocolate, preferably 54%, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons dark rum
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1. Heat oven to 325°. Grease a dark metal 1½-qt. gugelhupf mold or bundt pan with 1 tbsp. butter. Add ¼ cup flour and shake to evenly coat the inside of mold. Invert and tap out excess flour; set mold aside. Set a medium bowl over a 1-qt. saucepan of simmering water. Add chocolate; melt. Stir in rum and set aside to let cool slightly.
2. Sift together remaining flour, cornstarch and salt; set aside. In a bowl, beat remaining butter, confectioners’ sugar, lemon zest and vanilla using a handheld mixer on medium speed until mixture is pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating after each addition. Add reserved flour mixture to butter mixture in 3 additions, beating to combine after each addition. Set batter aside.
3. In a large nonreactive bowl, beat egg whites with handheld mixer on high speed until frothy. Sprinkle in sugar and beat to form stiff, glossy peaks. Whisk ⅓ of egg whites into reserved cake batter to lighten it. Using a rubber spatula, fold in remaining egg whites to make an airy cake batter.
4. Fold ⅓ of the cake batter into the reserved chocolate mixture to make a chocolate-flavored batter. Spoon half of the remaining cake batter into the buttered mold. Spoon all the chocolate batter into mold and top with remaining cake batter. Using a butter knife, swirl the chocolate batter into the cake batter to create a marbled effect. Smooth the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Transfer cake to a rack; let cool. Unmold cake and dust with confectioners’ sugar.
It was quiet, the shadows still and solemn, like sentinels standing silent guard on the storage room.
“Perhaps a little too quiet,” said Saybrook under his breath. He flattened himself against the cabinet and ventured a look at the doorway. The latch was reset, the cases untouched, the Champion’s Prize aligned exactly as he and Henning had left it the previous night.
“So why do I have an odd feeling that something is not right?” The earl frowned, the lines of anxiety deepening around his eyes as he looked around the room. But before he could answer his own whispered question, a key turned in the lock, the metallic click echoing like cannon fire off the suit of parade armor propped in the corner.
Rochemont entered. He appeared agitated, and after fumbling with the bolts, he merely shouldered the door shut and hurried to the center of the room. Swearing, he put down his lantern, peeled off his crimson gauntlets, and carefully pulled a small silver case from inside his ceremonial surcoat. The bandages were gone, but the comte’s elegant hands were still swollen and scabbed. Another oath rasped from his lips as he worked the lid open.
Saybrook could just make out the contours of a slim glass vial nestled on a bed of red velvet.
Setting the box aside, Rochemont dragged the metal case containing the Champion’s Prize out from its spot by the cabinet. Another key, another procession of clicking noises, and the top lifted. The comte sat back on his haunches and muttered something in French. Rather than remove the ornate eagle from its nest, he rose abruptly and approached the cabinet.
The earl held himself motionless.
Rochemont rummaged around inside for a bit, then returned to his work spot and propped a trio of medieval broadswords against a stack of wooden boxes. Each of the three hilts was festooned with a different color of semiprecious stones—reds, greens, blues—and he spent several moments contemplating how they looked next to the gold-threaded splendor of his embroidered doublet. The blue seemed to win the duel, for he edged it a bit apart from the others.