Steffan clenched his fists as he neared the door on the back side of the castle. The door was locked, as always. He used the key, quickly opened the door, and put the key back in his pocket.
Time was running out. It was only a few days before Alexander would wed Lady Magdalen. Steffan made his way to the back stairs. He climbed the empty staircase to the third floor, to his own bedchamber. To keep up the farce, would Lord Hazen have given his son the duke’s bedchamber?
Steffan walked straight to his own door and opened it. He stepped inside.
The room was completely dark. He strode to the window. If Alexander was here, Steffan welcomed the confrontation. He could hardly wait to demand Alexander admit to him what he and his father had plotted against him.
He could see by the moonlight coming through the window, but no one was in the chamber. It looked just as it had when he left it. He walked to the trunk against the wall and opened it. Steffan’s clothing and belongings still lay inside. Nothing was out of place and nothing had been added to the room.
If Alexander was not sleeping here, then where was he sleeping?
Steffan left the room and looked up and down the hallway. He kept the hood over his head in case he ran into his uncle or his cousin.
He heard voices and footsteps.
Steffan ducked back into his bedchamber, leaving the door open just a crack.
The voices came closer. One was his cousin Alexander, he was sure of it. The other was a woman. They must have stopped before passing Steffan’s hiding place. He could not make out what they were saying.
A third set of footsteps approached. “Ah, the two lovers await their forthcoming wedding,” a voice boomed. His uncle, Lord Hazen. He’d know that loud, obnoxious voice anywhere.
“Father, don’t embarrass Lady Magdalen.”
Lady Magdalen. How could she be fooled into thinking his chicken-hearted cousin was him?
Lord Hazen blustered on. “I’m not embarrassing her. She is as ready to have the vows said as you are. Look at her grin!”
Did Lady Magdalen believe Alexander was the duke? Perhaps she was too afraid to try to escape him and Lord Hazen.
Steffan took the chance of opening the door a bit more and putting his head out so he could see.
The three of them were in the corridor several yards away, standing in front of a bedchamber door. He would wait until Alexander and his father were gone and then Steffan would slip into her room and assure her that she did not have to marry his cousin. He’d sneak her out of the castle and take her to safety, and then he’d figure a way to save both of them.
Soon Lord Hazen’s voice tapered off. Steffan stuck his head out again and—Lady Magdalen was kissing Alexander!
His stomach roiled. What madness was this?
He had not thought she could be so easily duped by Alexander. How could she kiss such a whey-faced, long-necked, fox-nosed man like him?
He found himself disliking the girl. Even though he had not intended to marry Lady Magdalen—his uncle had no doubt forged his name and sealed the proposal letter with his signet ring—Steffan had found her interesting and lovely when they talked together at Lord Thornbeck’s ball. They had read a lot of the same books, and she had a kind, compassionate manner. Indeed, he’d spent most of the ball at Thornbeck talking with her.
Finally, Alexander’s shuffling footsteps passed right by where Steffan stood hidden behind his own bedchamber door. He longed to reach out, clap a hand over Alexander’s mouth, drag him into the room, and threaten him with immediate death if he did not reveal his true identity.
Steffan could not kill Alexander after promising the priest he would only kill in self-defense. But his cousin did not have to know that.
He had to be wise, to wait until he had proof before making his claims known to the world.
His cousin continued to the stairs and soon was gone. Was he going to Steffan’s father’s bedchamber? Was Alexander sleeping in Steffan’s dead father’s bed? Heat rose to his forehead as he itched to chase after him and strangle him for his insolence.
He took a deep breath. It was not enough. He dragged in another and another. Finally, his breathing had calmed enough to allow him to proceed quietly down the hall to Lady Magdalen’s chamber.
Attempting not to make a sound, he tried her door. The handle did not even creak as he turned it. Ever so slowly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
No one screamed. In fact, he did not see anyone in the room at all. Had he gotten the wrong door? But then he heard voices from an adjoining room. The door between the two rooms was partially open, enough for him to see and hear two women talking, probably Lady Magdalen and her maidservant.
He took a step toward them, intent on telling Lady Magdalen the truth and taking her away from here. But something made him stop. He shifted until he could see the two women better.
The servant was wearing the usual white kerchief and blue sleeveless overdress. She was brushing Lady Magdalen’s hair while the lady sat on a stool. Lady Magdalen was instructing the servant on how she wanted her hair braided for her night’s sleep.
“Yes, Lady Magdalen.” The servant put down the brush and started to braid.
The woman’s hair seemed somehow different from Lady Magdalen’s, and when she turned her head to look at the maidservant . . . the eyes and the mouth were all wrong. Even the shape of her face was wrong.
That woman was not Lady Magdalen.
His mind raced as he took a step back. The two women had not seen him, so he kept moving backward as quietly as possible as he let himself back into the corridor.
He raised a hand to his head. “What is happening?” he whispered. He shook his head. There was no reason to save the lovely and interesting Lady Magdalen from his dim-witted cousin because this woman was not her.
“Ho, there,” a guard called from the other end of the corridor. “What are you doing in front of Lady Magdalen’s door?”
“Oh, I am looking for Lord Hazen.” Steffan walked toward the guard. “He asked me to come and—” Steffan struck the back of the man’s neck at the base of his skull, knocking him to the floor. Then he ran as fast as he could down the stairs, taking them three at a time, and leapt for the back door.
He ran outside, then locked the door with his key. He walked at a normal pace toward the menservants’ barracks.
His heart was pounding, partially from his encounter with the guard and from running down all those stairs, but also because of his thoughts.
Who is that woman who was kissing Alexander, and where is Lady Magdalen?
Magdalen herded her gaggle of gray geese down the side of the hill to a large meadow Katrin had told her about. It was too late in the summer for flowers, but she imagined this green grass would be covered in wildflowers come spring.
She had devised a plan. She would send a letter to Avelina, the wife of the Margrave of Thornbeck, and ask for her help. Magdalen could make a pen out of a goose feather. But how would she find ink and paper?
She did not like asking for Lady Thornbeck’s help. Avelina had just given birth to her first child, and she did not need to be bothered with Magdalen’s problems. It would also be humiliating to admit what had happened. Not to mention that it was partially her own fault—Magdalen could not even inspire loyalty in her household servants.
And yet . . . she needed help. She had no power, no money, no friends or family who knew of her problem. Her mother would be outraged, but she hardly had a contingent of soldiers hanging about Mallin waiting to rescue Magdalen from her embarrassing situation.
The geese were ambling about the meadow, making their contented noises—little half honks that sounded like laughter—while they grazed in the tall grass.
They looked safe, so she covered her face with her hands. “Oh Lord God in heaven, I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was muffled and low, but God could hear everything. “I am afraid. I have no one to help me, except Lord and Lady Thornbeck, and I don’t know how to ask them. They are so far away. I need Your help.” What else could she say? “I might ask more specifically, God, for help, but I don’t even know what to ask for. But I assume You know what to do. You are God, after all. So please help me.”
Her way of praying to God was not the usual way, and perhaps it was not the prescribed way, but she had started praying as if she were speaking to her father when she was a child. She would never pray this way if anyone could hear her.
There seemed to be nothing else to do but write a letter to Lord and Lady Thornbeck. And she must write to her mother as well. As humiliating as it might be, they would send help and restore Magdalen to her rightful place.
Now she just needed to figure out how to get paper and ink—and messengers to take the letters.
The sounds of the geese broke into her thoughts. Being alone with them in this open field reminded her of the long walks she used to take. Sometimes she would sneak away so she wouldn’t have to hear her mother’s disapproving words about a baron’s daughter “climbing up and down the rocks like a mountain goat.” And when she went with her father to visit the mines, Mother would say nothing—until she came back.
“Disgraceful for a baron to take his oldest daughter to the mines around those rough peasants,” she would say. “Your father wishes you were a boy.”
“Father, do you wish I was a boy?” she asked him the next time he took her with him.
“No, of course not. You are perfect as a girl. Besides, what need have I of another boy? I already have one.” Then he smiled and patted her on the shoulder, as he was wont to do. But her brother had died not long after her father. Would Father have wished she were a boy if he’d known his only son would die?
Father rarely ever spoke to Mother with affection, and Magdalen secretly believed Mother was jealous of her relationship with her father. Magdalen sometimes felt ashamed for thinking her mother could be guilty of being jealous of her. But Mother had sneered contemptuously at Magdalen too many times for her to believe her mother loved her.
When her father died of an attack of the heart, her sense that she was deeply loved had died with him. Emptiness and loss plagued her for many months afterward, and her grief had been assuaged only when she comforted her younger sisters.
She pulled her hands down from her face and stared at the geese. “What would Mother think if she could see me now, climbing up and down the Wolfberg Castle mount with a bunch of geese?”
“Pardon me.”
Magdalen screamed and spun around. “You frightened me nearly to death.” She could barely speak, she was breathing so hard.
The man she had seen in the dining hall, the new shepherd, stood gazing down at her.
Had he been listening to her prayer? He had certainly heard her speaking aloud.
“I thought I was alone.” She stood and took a step away from him, as he was standing rather close, and picked up her stick.
His countenance changed as he stared at her face, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.
Steffan was staring at Lady Magdalen. But how could it be? Why would the baron’s daughter be tending geese when she was supposed to be marrying the Duke of Wolfberg? But then again, he was tending the sheep.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
Was he ready to tell her that he was the duke she had met in Thornbeck? What if his eyes were playing tricks on him and she was not Lady Magdalen? He certainly wasn’t ready to reveal to this servant girl that he was the duke.
“I don’t know. Do you know me?”
“I don’t know any shepherds.”
If she was Lady Magdalen, should she not recognize him? Perhaps his disguise worked.
“You should have made your presence known,” she went on, “instead of sneaking up on me.”
“I did not consider myself sneaking. You are not very aware of your surroundings, are you?” He couldn’t help staring at her while leaning on his shepherd’s staff. Just as her delicate beauty had struck him when he’d met Lady Magdalen at Thornbeck, this goose girl’s strawberry-blonde hair, green eyes, and perfect mouth and nose made it hard to look away.
Her eyes narrowed, as if she did not appreciate him speaking to her as if she were only a goose girl. “What is your name?”
“What is your name?” she countered.
“Steffan. But I asked you first.”
“It is not my name, but you may call me Maggie.”
What game was this? He might as well play along. He rubbed a hand over his bearded chin as he continued to study her. He had intended to speak a greeting to the girl and then herd his sheep away from her and her geese. He did not like geese, and one was wandering closer and closer to him.
Finally, he said, “Do you always graze your geese here?” If so, he would need to stay away from this meadow in the future.
She looked behind him and seemed to notice his sheep.
“I was told I might graze the geese here.” She lifted her shoulders and looked him in the eye.
He wanted to stay and talk with her, possibly find out if she was truly Lady Magdalen. But geese were evil, and even Lady Magdalen herself could not convince him otherwise.