‘I’ll find out,’ the senior guard said grimly. He looked at the man they were holding. Rose’s bullet had clipped his skin, a surface wound. One of the guards had roughly bandaged it to stop it bleeding. The man stood now between two guards, grim-faced, silent. ‘As we’ll find out who this is.’
‘And who’s paying him,’ Erhard said heavily. ‘Can you triple your numbers here tonight, using trusted people only? I want people outside and in the corridors.’ Then he turned to Rose. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again. ‘We weren’t prepared. You’ll be safe now.’
‘I had Nick,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ The old man’s eyes met Nick’s. ‘Without you…’
‘It was Rose who did the shooting.’
‘Thank you both,’ he said grimly. ‘My two…’He hesitated, and appeared to think better of what he’d been about to say. ‘We’ll keep you safe,’ he said roughly, and turned and walked away, signalling the guards and their prisoner to follow.
They were left alone.
‘I think we should go fetch Hoppy,’ Nick said, and as they walked out of the sitting-room door they had to walk past two burly security guards.
Two more appeared from nowhere and escorted them to the kitchens.
They retrieved Hoppy. Their guards followed at a respectable distance as they made their way upstairs again.
‘Not your room,’ Rose said urgently, hugging Hoppy close, and Nick nodded.
‘Okay, sweetheart,’ he said. There’d still be blood on the floor. He could understand. ‘But I’ll walk you to your door.’
‘Not…’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I meant
The security guards behind them had paused. They stayed, impassive. Maybe they didn’t follow English, Nick thought hopefully.
‘Of course,’ he said. It was totally understandable that she didn’t want to stay in the bedroom by herself, he thought. So why his heart should lurch…
‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and they didn’t say another word until they were in her suite with the door locked behind them. Securely, with a key, and the key stayed on the inside of the door, with a bolt besides.
Rose placed Hoppy on the floor. Hoppy looked up at his mistress, and gave a sleepy wag of his tail; it was four in the morning, after all, and a dog had need of beauty sleep. He hopped through to the big bed in the next room, leaped lightly up onto the pillows and proceeded to go back to sleep.
‘Great watchdog,’ Nick said, and smiled.
‘I think we’re safe tonight,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘It’ll have been Jacques.’
‘Probably,’ he said.
‘And Julianna.’ She was still deathly pale. Dressed only in her chemise, she was shivering. It was warm enough, and the fire made it more so, but still she shook. ‘Julianna’s my sister,’ she said, distressed. ‘I never dreamed…’ She shuddered. ‘She must hate me. I never thought. Back home this seemed so simple, but how did we ever think we could do it, take over a throne just like that? You know, somehow, because Julianna was planning to do it herself, it seemed possible. Feasible, even. Marry you. Have the great adventure. Save a country. It’s the stuff of storybooks where there are happy endings and everything’s resolved by…I don’t know kissing a frog.’
She hiccupped on a sob and he reached for her and tugged her against him, holding her, simply holding her as she sobbed and sobbed. The front of his shirt grew wet from her weeping, but still she wept, great, shuddering sobs that wracked her whole body.
He held her for as long as it took. But finally she cried herself out. He felt her body go limp. He was half- supporting her. She felt so…So…
So much his wife.
That was what it felt like. It felt like he had all the time in the world. It felt that indeed this was his wedding night, or more, that this was his wedding moment. He’d sworn never to fall in love, but he had, he had. If she’d been killed tonight…
He kissed her gently, wonderingly, on the top of her head, and maybe he shuddered himself for she drew back a little and looked up at him in the firelight.
‘I’m s-sorry,’ she said, hiccupping slightly as she tried to find her voice. ‘I don’t cry.’
‘I can see that about you.’
‘No, really,’ she said, and somehow she made her voice firm. ‘I don’t. I don’t know what I’m about tonight.’
‘You shot a man,’ he said gently. ‘How you did that…’He felt his gut clench at the thought of what she’d done. ‘How the hell did you do it?’ he asked, thinking it through. ‘To wake up and get the gun and actually fire the thing?’
‘I’m a vet,’ she said simply.
‘I’m not sure that that explains it fully.’ He tugged her close again, not because he needed to-oh, fine, yes, he needed to-but not for comfort. Just because this was Rose.
His wife!
‘I deal with big animals,’ she said.
‘And?’
‘And I had to learn to deal with firearms. The first time I ever needed to…Well, there was an injured bull. There was no way I could get near it, but I couldn’t leave it. The farmer handed me his gun and expected me to use it.’
‘He handed
‘Farmers get attached to their animals. It’s hard to put them down.’
‘So you did.’
‘Not that time,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t. I…Well, the farmer had to do it, and it took him two shots and he cried. I went home that night and said I couldn’t do it, and my father-in-law said he’d take the practice back over for a week while I did a firearms course.’
‘He what?’ Hell. ‘Where was Max in all this?’
‘Ill. He was only well for a short time.’
‘So you had to do the shooting?’
‘Not often.’ But he could hear it in her voice-too often.
‘Did you want to do big-animal stuff?’
‘I’d started vet school wanting to look after dogs,’ she said, and sniffed. ‘And cats and canaries and kids’ tortoises. Cases where sheer strength isn’t an issue when an animal’s in pain.’ She was hugged against him as naturally as if she belonged there. ‘But the family needed me.’
‘Max’s family. And now your family’s trying to kill you,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a rum deal.’
‘No.’ She hugged him a bit closer while she thought about it. Which was fine with him. More than fine. ‘I asked for this,’ she said at last. ‘But it’s been a shock…that Julianna would…’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe she didn’t know.’
‘Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t even Jacques.’
‘Do you think whoever it was really meant to kill us?’
‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying to her. The man behind the gun hadn’t hesitated, he had aimed at the figure in the bed with one thought in mind. He’d have been expecting there to be two in the bed. Maybe the far side of the bed had been in shadow, but he’d had six bullets in the chamber. He’d come to kill. He’d even brought a knife as a back-up, to finish the job if he had to.
Rose knew it as well as he did. He felt her shudder and held her tighter.
‘Julianna’s my sister,’ she whispered bleakly. ‘My family. There’s no one else.’
He couldn’t bear it. ‘There is someone else,’ he said, pulling her hard against him so strongly that he could feel her heartbeat against his. ‘You have a husband. As of today. It’s time someone took care of you. It’s time.’
‘You’re only here for four weeks or so.’
‘I’ll stay for as long as you need me.’
