Deadly Peril Read Online Free

prisoner, and to throw him in the cells.
    Luytens followed him, saying at his back, “He’s not a common criminal—”
    “He’s no longer your responsibility, Herr Luytens. I’ll send some of my men to fetch the girl. There can’t be too many Englishwomen at the docks.” Westover looked over his shoulder. “And the other Englishman, the one who was secretary here? You’re certain he’ll come?”
    “Yes. For them. I’d stake my life on it.”
    “Good. That’s incentive enough for you to make certain he does.”
    Baron Haderslev, who had rushed on ahead of the Captain, now stopped in the doorway to wait for him. He had recognized the British consul and wondered what Luytens wanted. The man was untrustworthy. Despite his mother being a Midanichian and his father a Dutchman, he was neither, and he certainly wasn’t an Englishman, which meant his loyalties were to no one but himself. A more treacherous individual the baron had yet to meet. His thoughts were interrupted when he was diverted by shouts in a foreign tongue. He heard the name Luytens but the rest of the tirade was impenetrable. It was a tall well-fed gentleman in a tailored coat and powdered wig calling out for the British consul as he was forcibly ejected from the room by two of Westover’s soldiers.
    “What’s going on, Westover?” Haderslev demanded. “Who was that? Why is Herr Luytens here?”
    “The gentleman under arrest is an English traveler. He is going to be very useful to us, and to our new Margrave.”
    Baron Haderslev was intrigued but skeptical. “To Prince Ernst? How so?”
    “Because, my dear baron, he will bring us what the Prince and Princess have craved for a very long time.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Revenge on the Englishman Alec Halsey.”

T HREE
    LONDON ENGLAND,
WINTER 1763
    A LEC H ALSEY and his uncle had returned to London from Bath to a note from Olivia, Duchess of Romney-St. Neots demanding they alert her the instant they set a foot inside Alec’s St. James’s Place townhouse. But both nephew and uncle agreed they should wait until morning. They were travel weary, covered in the grime of riding in inclement weather, and the hour was late. Both knew what drama awaited them the next day, so with a nod of understanding, one to the other, they went off to their respective apartments to bathe and sleep off their exhaustion.
    However, the following morning as they ate a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, bread and butter with marmalade, and sipped coffee, neither felt any more rejuvenated for a good night’s sleep.
    “It’s the worry,” Plantagenet Halsey offered, pushing aside his plate. “Can’t sleep while m’mind is churnin’ with all sorts of possibilities, real or imagined, of what’s happenin’ to those two young people and their entourage. We’ll all feel better when we can do somethin’ about it.”
    “Yes,” Alec replied, preoccupied with his thoughts as he sliced up an apple. “What mystifies me is why Cosmo and Emily were in Midanich at all. It was not on their itinerary, and it’s not the usual destination, even for those who travel to the northern kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, or even as far as St. Petersburg. In fact, it’s a backwater in every sense. It has a bland, flat, featureless landscape which is constantly flooding because it is below sea level, and there’s always a gale blowing in off the North Sea. As for the court politics—” Alec swallowed hard. “Suffice that since my return, and with the war, no Englishman has had to set foot across its borders. So it’s not a place for the traveler. One must have a reason to go there.”
    “Your second or third posting was to Midanich, wasn’t it?”
    “Posting?” Alec huffed laughter at the word. He offered his uncle slices of the apple. “It was my second posting. But it’s not where I requested I be sent. I was relegated . I asked for an Italian state, and Lord Cobham saw fit to send me to a Germanic principality, and as the