Виктория Холт - The Judas kiss

"It's incredible," he said.

"No, perfectly credible. Herzog Schwartz was spying for someone whose interest it was to remove that sheet."

He was looking at me oddly. "Who?" he said.

"I don't know."

"Pippa, you don't think I ordered it to be done?"

"You!"

"Well, if you are looking for a motive, who stands to gain most?"

"Conrad ... you didn't ..."

"Of course not."

"Then who could?"

"That is what we must find out."

"There is only one reason why it should be necessary to do it," I said.

He nodded. "If there was a child ..."

I cried: "There must be a child. Why otherwise should Francine have told me that there was? Why otherwise should it have been necessary to remove that sheet from the register?"

He was silent. I could see that he was stunned.

I went on: "If we could find the child ..."

"He would be the heir to the dukedom," he murmured very quietly.

"And you would be free, Conrad, to make your own life."

"If that child exists ..."

"He does exist. He must. Someone wants to hide the evidence of the marriage. He must be here ... somewhere near, perhaps. I am sure he is Francine's son and the true heir to the dukedom."

"We'll find him."

"And then?"

He took my face in his hands and kissed me. "You and I will have the freedom we want."

"And Freya?"

"She will probably have to wait until the boy grows up. How old would he be?"

"About four years old."

"A long time for Freya to wait."

"And you would be free, Conrad. But ... Freya would be hurt."

"It would be no slight to her. It is merely that the positions of power would be changed. If we can find that boy, I shall be free to act as I wish."

"I think I have found the boy."

"What!"

"His foster mother will not want to give him up and I am sure she will lie about his origins. But I feel certain of it."

"What have you discovered?"

"It is Katia Schwartz. Poor woman. She gave me the paper out of gratitude to Francine. It will be hard if through doing so she will lose the child."

"You have seen the child?"

"Yes. He is the right age, fair-haired, blue eyes and his name is Rudolph, which I know my sister's baby was called. She wrote to me about him and this is rather vital, I think. He had a toy—a troll, she told me in her letter—and he sucked one of its ears for comfort. When I was at the Schwartz home I saw the child; he had a troll and it came out that he sucked one of its ears for comfort and had been doing so since he was one year old."

"I will have everything checked concerning the woman. I will find out every detail concerning the child."

"If this could be proved true ..." I whispered.

He said with a little laugh, "I believe you are a witch. You come here in disguise ... you discover secrets that have baffled everyone else. You enchant me. What are you, Pippa?"

"I hope I am the one you love. That is all I want to be."

Then we talked of how we would proceed and what we would do if we could prove that the child in the forest was indeed the heir to the dukedom.

"I should have to be here until he was of age," said Conrad. "It would be my duty to hold the dukedom for him and to help teach him how to govern. We should have to spend long periods in the Grand Schloss but our home could be Marmorsaal. Oh, Pippa ... Pippa ... can you imagine that!"

I could and I did.

He said, "I will set everything in motion tomorrow. It should not take long. Katia Schwartz will have to prove that the child she has with her is her own. If we get the answers we want, then we shall let it be known that Rudolph was lawfully married and had a son. That will be the best possible news."

It was about two hours later when I left the inn. As we were about to go Conrad said to me, "I didn't want to tell you before—I thought it would spoil our time together—but in two or three days I have to go away. It will only be for a week or so. I have to return with our guests from Sholstein. There are certain treaties I have to work out with them. When I come back, whatever happens, I want you to come to the Marmorsaal. No more dallying. Unless of course we find our heir, then we shall have a wedding. Instead of living together in respectable sin, we shall be together in openly virtuous convention ... all that every subject in this dukedom could wish."

I could see that he took the matter more lightheartedly than I did and I was faintly disturbed. Would he regret just a little giving up that supreme power? Did it mean more to him than a regular union with me?

I thought he was the sort of man who could have been completely happy as long as I was there. My uneasiness increased. If an outsider had come in and been asked whose interest would be best served by hiding the marriage of Francine and Rudolph and the existence of their child, his answer would surely be Conrad's.

I shook myself free of such feelings, and reminded myself that he had been as eager as I was to find the child. He had kept the sheet from the register and said he would put it under lock and key, for it was unsafe for me to carry it around.

That had seemed the right thing to do when he said it. But I wished I could throw off my doubts.

It was two days before I saw him again, and he would be leaving the day after that. He came to the Graf's schloss unexpectedly when neither the Graf nor the Grafin was at home. Freya was riding with Gunther and a party. I think Tatiana was with them.

When I saw Conrad arriving my heart leaped. There was a great fluttering below because there was no-one to receive him. I heard him in the hall, putting them all at their ease with that affable manner of his which earned him so much popularity.

"Leave me," I heard him say. "I will amuse myself until the Graf returns." I had started to come down the stairs and he saw me. "Ah," he cried, "here is the English governess. Perhaps she will entertain me for half an hour. It will be good practice for my English."

I approached him and bowed. He took my hand and kissed it, after the custom.

"Let us go somewhere where we can chat, Fraulein ...

"Ayres, my lord Baron," I said.

"Oh yes, Fraulein Ayres."

I led the way into the small room which opened from the hall. He shut the door and laughed at me.

"For the life of me I couldn't remember your name. Darling Pippa I know well ... but Fraulein Ayres—she is a stranger to me."

Then I was in his arms.

"It is unsafe here. ..." I said.

"Soon we shall be free of such restrictions."

"Have you found anything about the child?"

He shook his head dolefully. "There is no doubt that the boy you saw was the son of Katia Schwartz. She was raped in the forest, so we do not know the father's name. The midwife who attended her has been questioned. She tended the birth of the child and looked after Katia afterwards. The boy was healthy, named Rudolph and several people will testify that he has been living with his mother ever since."

"But the fact that she knew my sister ... that I found the troll..."

"She knew your sister, yes. That has never been denied. The troll is a common child's toy. Children all over the country have them ... and I am told it is a custom for them to keep them and even suck their ears and toes. No, it is clear that Katia Schwartz's boy is her own."

"He must be somewhere else then."

"If he exists, we'll find him."

"How?"

"I can have discreet enquiries made. Depend upon it, if that boy exists we shall find him, for without him the sheet from the register is of no consequence."

"It is to me, even if we cannot find the boy, for it proves that my sister was telling the truth. It proves that she was not Rudolph's mistress but his wife. And if she was telling the truth when she wrote of the marriage, it follows that she was when she wrote of the boy."