Steffan watched Magdalen as she sat on the floor of the round tower room stitching up a tattered blanket and alternately looking out the window at the beautiful view.
How long would they be alone together in this room? It was getting more and more difficult not to tell her his feelings. And yet, part of him never wanted this time to end. But when help arrived, it would end. It could happen any day. Lord Thornbeck could come riding up to the castle with all his guards and soldiers. The guests would arrive soon as well, and Steffan would expose his uncle for the evil schemer that he was—if his uncle didn’t kill him first.
“Tonight I’ll go look in one of the tower rooms for my portrait.”
“Is that one of the places you played as a child?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if it’s the place Jacob meant. It could be a place I no longer remember. It could be anywhere.”
“I want to help you search.” Magdalen’s green eyes were placid but intent, her lips full and perfect.
“You are very beautiful. Honestly, I was surprised when Lord Thornbeck did not ask you to marry him.”
She laughed, her eyes sparkling as she covered her mouth with her hand. The sound of her laughter made his chest expand.
“I cannot say any handsome young men have ever asked me to marry them, except for one earl who later broke our betrothal when he realized our copper mines had run out. And your uncle.”
“I am sorry that happened to you. Please forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive. You did not create the misunderstanding. Lord Hazen did.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do not give it a moment’s thought. Besides, even though I will no longer need to get married, I shall be in high demand by impoverished noblemen everywhere, as soon as they hear that our mines in Mallin have iron ore.” She smiled triumphantly.
She was right. The thought of those impoverished noblemen caused heat to rise up the back of his neck. How dare they look at Lady Magdalen as a means to wealth? She was so much more than that. She was brave and kind and compassionate. They wouldn’t be able to appreciate her . . . the way he did.
Still staring down at her mending, she said, “I suppose you will be glad to finally have your house all to yourself again when your uncle is defeated and your cousin is sent away.”
He thought for a moment. “Now that you say it, it will be rather sad.”
She looked up at him. “Why?”
“My grandmother is dead, as well as Jacob, and my uncle has dismissed all the servants that I knew and depended on. And I will also miss you very much . . . when you’re gone.” His chest constricted just saying the words.
She looked down again. “I should think you’d be glad to get rid of me. I must be a reminder of a terrible time in your life.”
He stepped toward her. “I have enjoyed every minute I’ve been with you.”
She stared at him, her mouth open. She said quietly, “I have enjoyed every minute with you too. I thought you were a bit unkind at times, but you’re not.”
“You thought me unkind?”
“But you are not.”
“Why did you think that?”
“I suppose it was because you were very angry when I first saw you. And because you said you never intended to marry for love.”
He sat back. “Is that why you were shouting at me before Agnes came to force you to work inside the castle?”
She pursed her lips. “It was because you were trying to keep me from going back home, and for completely selfish reasons. You only wanted me as a witness, to help you get your place back.”
How did this happen? He hadn’t wanted to start an argument.
“You are right. I was being very selfish. I was not thinking of you at all, and I am truly sorry. You had every reason to dislike and distrust me then.”
“You were deceitful.” She looked down, her voice quiet again. “But you had every right to say you didn’t want to marry me. I was only shocked that I had come to Wolfberg because of your uncle’s wicked plot.”
This was getting worse and worse. Her face was drawn and sad, and she wouldn’t even look at him.
“Magdalen, I was distraught and distracted that day. I did not know then what I know now. I feel very differently . . . about everything. Especially you.”
She gave him a sidelong glance from beneath lowered lashes, then looked away.
“Besides that, I did run to your rescue that day when Agnes forced you to go inside the castle.”
“I remember.” Her grimace turned into a tiny smile. “Chivalrous to the core.”
How did she make him feel warm, pleased, and unsettled all at the same time?
“It’s getting colder.” She shivered and rubbed her arms.
He leaned over and closed the window facing the sea and then walked to the window facing the castle gate and closed it too. It was nearly dark and would be a cold night.
Magdalen rubbed her arms. How much longer would they be in this tower room? Every time her hand brushed against Steffan’s, every time he drew close and looked into her eyes, she wondered if she’d reveal her feelings to him without even intending to, if he could see it on her face, or if she would blurt it out. But that would make things uncomfortable for both of them.
“Shall we go look for your portrait now?”
He hesitated, looking out the window. “I suppose it is late enough. My uncle will be in the Great Hall now.”
Magdalen followed Steffan out of the door and down the twisting spiral stairs. They did not even whisper, and soon Steffan stopped at a door. He tried the handle and it opened. They walked inside and he closed the door behind them. The room was quite dark.
“I will open the window,” Steffan whispered.
She realized she’d been holding on to Steffan’s arm, so she let go. He moved quietly across the room. She heard him unlatching some shutters, and then light spilled in as he swung open the shutter.
While Steffan took a small wax candle out of his pocket and worked to light it, Magdalen strode to a pile of old tapestries illumined by the twilight coming in through the window and started looking through them. Dust rose from them, burning her nose, and she sneezed.
Steffan got his candle lit and set it on a small table beside a ragged old trunk in the corner. He opened the trunk and started looking through it.
Soon, Magdalen had looked through the entire stack of tapestries, and when she was certain no portrait was hidden among them, she moved to a wooden box. Perhaps the portrait was inside. She opened it easily, as there was a hole where the locking mechanism should have been.
She tipped the box over, but nothing was inside. The box did not even have any hiding places along the back.
“Are you finding anything?” She hurried over to where Steffan was taking things out of the old trunk and putting them on the floor beside it.
“Only a lot of junk.”
Magdalen glanced around the room. There was nothing else for her to search, so she went over to the large fireplace and looked inside. Perhaps there was a hiding nook inside it, as it did not appear as though anyone had built a fire in it in a long time. She found nothing, but her bare feet were black with soot.
Steffan stood behind her.
“Oh! I didn’t know you were there.”
“Wipe your feet with this.” He handed her a cloth.
“Good idea.” They didn’t need her black footprints leaving Hazen’s men a perfect trail.
“The portrait isn’t here.” He planted his hands on his hips. “But we should keep looking.”
And so they searched another room, as no one slept in that wing of the castle and it was mostly deserted even in the daytime. After half an hour, they were satisfied it was not in that room either. One by one they searched all the rooms in the east wing that were unoccupied and not near Lord Hazen or Alexander’s bedchambers. They found old clothes, blankets, and toys that had belonged to Steffan and Gertrudt, but no portrait.
Magdalen reached up to push the hair out of her face, which had come loose from her braid, and found Steffan watching her.
“We should stop for the night.”
“Is it still night?” She glanced at the window. The gray half-light of dawn was beginning to show through.
“Not for much longer.” Steffan sighed. “At least we know where the portrait is not.”
She would have laughed if she’d had the strength. They trudged back up the stairs. They were almost at the top when Magdalen stumbled. Steffan caught her arm and kept her from falling.
“Thank you.”
“Are you well?”
“Just tired.”
They both fell onto their makeshift beds and were soon asleep.
Steffan’s back ached from all the searching he and Magdalen had done the night before, and he sat whittling a piece of wood. Magdalen was still asleep, but the sun was high and his thoughts would not seem to leave him alone.
A sound came from the door like a key turning in the lock. Steffan jumped to his feet, clutching his knife.
The door opened, and Alexander and Agnes stood looking at them.
Steffan leapt at Alexander with his knife aimed at his coward’s heart.
“Please! Wait!” Agnes threw her arm across Alexander’s chest.
Alexander held out a loaf of bread. “We mean you no harm. We brought you food.”
“What sort of trickery is this?” Steffan glanced behind him to make sure Magdalen was all right. She stood by the window with wide eyes and her hand over her heart.
“It’s no trickery. If we wanted to harm you, we would have brought my father up here. We simply wanted to tell you that we intend to help you regain your rightful stations.”
“And why would you do that?”
Alexander’s normally pale cheeks reddened. “I never wanted to pretend to be you. My father . . . he would not listen to reason. He has gone mad with greed and a sense that he deserves whatever he wants. And Agnes feels the same way I do.”
“Is that true, Agnes?” Magdalen asked. He could tell she wanted to believe them, but after all Agnes had done to her, she was not certain if she should.
“I am sorry.” Agnes took a step forward, then glanced at Alexander. “It was my father’s idea all along. But I am sorry for doing it. I . . . I was wrong.”
The boldness in Agnes’s eyes put him on his guard. “No one turns from evil to good so quickly and easily.” Steffan gripped the knife and stepped closer to protect Magdalen if necessary. “Who else knows we are here? Whom did you tell?”
“No one. Last evening we were taking a walk and we heard you laughing. We saw that this window was open, and it’s normally closed. We also heard that some food had been stolen from the kitchen during the night.”
Steffan glared at him, trying to think of how they might escape.
“I can understand your anger and mistrust,” Alexander said, “but I tried to talk Father out of it. He had discovered there was valuable iron ore in Mallin’s mines through a mining expert who had once been employed by the baron. This expert explained that whoever ended up mining the iron ore would become quite wealthy. So Father had me pretend to be you and marry the heiress of Mallin. If I had not gone along with his plan, he would have killed me.”
“We have known each other since we were children, Alexander, and I have never seen you so humble, meek, and mild. Why the change of heart? Why do you care?”
Alexander did not answer for a moment, staring off to the right. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t want you to be harmed. I didn’t want that on my conscience. I am not the unfeeling person my father is. I am not like him.”
Perhaps that much was true. Alexander never struck him as being the same sort of heartless, greedy person as Lord Hazen. Whiny and fearful, yes. But he had been a child. Perhaps he had grown up and decided to turn away from his father’s wicked ways. Still, Steffan and Magdalen had been betrayed too many times not to be cautious now.
“My plan,” Alexander went on, “was to protect Lady Magdalen from my father. I thought I could at least do that much to redeem myself in God’s eyes. And then . . . I discovered the woman I married was not Lady Magdalen, but a pawn in her own father’s scheme.”
Magdalen crossed her arms and eyed Agnes across the room. She obviously was doubtful of his assessment of his wife’s situation.
“Nevertheless, I fell in love with her. I told her the truth about who I was, and she told me the truth as well. I can’t bear to think of my father trying to separate us.” He put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and drew her to his side.
“Changed by love.” Steffan’s voice conveyed ridicule, and he cringed at his own bitterness.
“Anyway, we brought you some food.” Alexander held out a cloth bundle. “I understand why you would not trust us, but if there is anything else we can do for you . . . We want to prove that we are sincere.”
Steffan felt the scowl fading from his face. But when he pictured himself walking toward Alexander and accepting the food from his hands, he also pictured his cousin shoving a knife between his ribs.
“You can put the food down there.” Steffan pointed to the floor.
Alexander bent and placed the cloth bundle on the floor and the loaf of bread on top.
“Will you forgive me, Magdalen?” Agnes asked from across the room.
Magdalen was quiet, then said, “I do forgive you, Agnes, and I forgive your father, even though he’s not sorry.”
“Do you forgive me, Steffan?” Alexander held his gaze.
He didn’t want Magdalen to think less of him. She was so generous herself. “Ja, I forgive you, Alexander.” And then he felt a warmth inside and realized he really did forgive him. What else could he do? Christians were forgiven and therefore must forgive. But the feeling flowing through him could not be from himself. He’d been angry with his cousin for too long.
But Steffan did not intend to let his uncle get away with what he had done, killing Jacob, and many others, no doubt. Hazen had not repented, and neither had Agnes’s father. They deserved punishment, and Jacob deserved justice.
“Thank you.” Alexander looked genuinely relieved and even smiled. “We will leave you now.”
“Alexander.”
His cousin turned to glance back at him.
“Does your father know we are here?”
He shook his head. “He knows you left Mallin and came this way, but he thinks you are hiding in the woods nearby. But you should be careful.”
Steffan nodded.
The two of them backed out the door and were gone.
Magdalen shut the window, then latched it closed. “Oh, Steffan, I’m so sorry.” She burst into tears, bowing her head and covering her face with her hands.
He crossed the room, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her to his chest. “Why are you sorry? What heinous crime have you committed?” He said it playfully, hoping to stop her tears.
“It is my fault they found us. I was the one laughing. How could I be so careless?” She sniffed, her cheek pressed against his chest.
“Don’t worry. If Alexander and Agnes are telling the truth, they will not tell Lord Hazen.”
“Do you think they could be lying?” She lifted her head, her eyes shiny with tears and wide with fear. He wanted to protect her so much it made his chest ache.
“It is possible.” Then he said, more softly, “It is hard for me to trust my cousin. I’m not even sure I should, but if they wanted to betray us, why would they bring us food and ask for forgiveness? It doesn’t make sense.”
She pressed her cheek against his linen shirt and patted his shoulder. “I know.”
She was trying to comfort him. Again, his chest squeezed painfully. She was so tenderhearted. He did not deserve her. But he very much wanted to.
“All we can do now is wait on God to save us.
“And search for my portrait.”