Free Deadly Peril by Lucinda Brant Page A

Department regulations and official secrets.” Plantagenet Halsey shook his head and chuckled. “That Sir Gilbert Parsons, he’s up on all the do’s and don’t’s, ain’t he? Officious little turnip! You must’ve snapped a few quills in frustration in your time, workin’ for him!”
    The old man was trying to lighten the mood, but one look at Alec and he knew he’d taken the wrong tack altogether. It was obvious that even after all these years, his nephew’s experience on that particular diplomatic posting still affected him greatly. He could see it in the way his arms in their white linen shirt sleeves were stiff at his sides, with his long fingers curled about the polished edge of the window seat frame, and so tightly the whites of his knuckles were visible. It was as if he was forcing himself to remain seated and calm when he felt anything but composed. And most telling of all, his nephew could not look him in the eye.
    Plantagenet Halsey instantly tempered his cheerfulness. He sat beside Alec and said in an altogether different tone, “You know you can tell me anythin’. I’ll listen. I’ll never judge.”
    Alec took a few moments to steel himself before he spoke. Thinking back on events within Herzfeld Castle still had the power to make him nauseated. Since his escape he had done his utmost to consign the ordeal to the far reaches of his memory, and with every intention of it remaining there. Reading Olivia St. Neots’ note at Bath about Cosmo and Emily’s plight had brought the harrowing experience hurtling out of oblivion to again take center stage. What was worse, what paralyzed him with dread, was that he knew precisely what awaited him in Midanich, and if he hoped to save Cosmo and Emily he would have to succumb; there was nothing he could do to extricate himself from the inevitable.
    And if what had happened in the final weeks of his time at the castle was personally traumatic, the months preceding his imprisonment haunted him. He had become too close to the Margrave’s heir, Prince Ernst, and matters had escalated to a point where he had not only put his life, but also the lives of a Countess and her young son in peril. He had been so naïve and trusting, so arrogantly self-assured, he had not foreseen the dangers of what was to come, firstly from his friendship with Prince Ernst and his sister the Princess Joanna, and then from his affair with the Countess. Then again, he doubted anyone could have done so, so complete was the sinister subterfuge. That, of course, was of no comfort to him.
    “Yes, I do know that,” he finally replied to his uncle’s assurances. “Thank you. I wish—I wish I could confide in you. But you do not need to be burdened with this. And, selfishly, I don’t want your high opinion of me to change.”
    “That will never happen!”
    Alec grinned at the fierceness in his uncle’s instant reply and he relaxed.
    “Do you know, while I was in that fortress prison, it was thoughts of coming home to you that kept me resolved? That, and not wanting to disappoint you.”
    “You’ve never disappointed me, m’boy, and that’s the truth. I should’ve added that you can not tell me, if you so wish. It is entirely at your discretion.” The old man’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Are those two young people in for the same ordeal you experienced?”
    “Dear God, no!” Alec assured him quickly. “That’s not to say what they are experiencing isn’t an ordeal, but I am hopeful—and I must remain so—that they will be treated as political prisoners, and be accorded every civility. They are merely the bait. I am the one the old Margrave’s children want.”
    “Children?”
    “Prince Ernst and his sister, Princess Joanna. Ernst is the newly-elevated Margrave. But it is his sister who rules, through him.”
    “I guess they didn’t like you runnin’ off like that, eh? Not used to being defied, is my guess.”
    When Alec showed surprise, Plantagenet Halsey