Michael pushed his mask up onto the top of his head, then left his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. "What's wrong, de Guignard? Is it now a crime to attend a party in Moricadia?"

"A party?" Jean-Pierre looked him up and down. "What party do you attend looking like that?"

Michael glanced at his outfit-black riding breeches and riding boots, ruffled white shirt opened halfway down his chest, a black cravat tied at his throat, and a black knee-length riding coat. He looked down at Old Nelson, done up with bows in his braided mane and white ruffles sewn onto his saddle blanket. "What's wrong? I thought my costume very dashing, and my horse's, too."

Jean-Pierre all too obviously believed not a word. "Dashing, yes, if you're dashing out of the country."

"I thought you were Prince Sandre's top man . . . now that Rickie is dead?"

That barb dug smoothly under Jean- Pierre's skin, making his eyes glow white with an inner fury. "I am."

"Then how is it you don't know about this party? Everyone was invited."

Jean-Pierre paused for a long moment. "Apparently not."

At Michael's jibe, the guards grew nervous. Their horses sensed their disquiet and moved restlessly. The riders tried to quiet their mounts' agitation.

The men-indeed, everyone at the palace-feared Jean-Pierre. Feared him and hated him.

On that fact rested the success of Eleonore's plan.

"I'm sure your invitation was lost-you know how careless servants are-or perhaps it was simply an oversight." Michael started to lower his arms.

Jean-Pierre cocked the pistol.

Michael hastily raised his hands again. "You can invite yourself. It's a masquerade. No one will know you slipped in without an invitation." He used a soothing tone, all the while aware he prodded Jean- Pierre like a foolish boy prods a rabid dog.

But he needed Jean-Pierre angry enough to take action thoughtlessly.

For Michael's part of the plan to succeed, he needed time.

More important, he needed to behave as if time didn't matter.

"Where is this party taking place?" Jean- Pierre asked.

Michael flopped his hands as if they were dying fishes. "My arms are getting tired. Please may I put them down? I'm not fool enough to try to run. You've got a dozen firearms fixed on my chest."

Jean-Pierre glanced at his men, then at Michael, and nodded shortly. He did not, however, lower his pistol.

Michael dropped his hands with a groan, and rubbed his upper arms as if they ached.

"Where is this party taking place?" Jean- Pierre repeated.

"Would you like me to show you the invitation?" Michael patted his bulging saddlebag.

Jean-Pierre didn't even take a second thought. "Yes. Show me the invitation."

Michael tugged the leather flap open. The strap slapped Old Nelson across his rump, and, right on cue, he danced sideways across the path.

Jean-Pierre snapped, "Control that horse."

"I am!" Michael made a play for grabbing the reins, wavered in the saddle, righted himself, and patted Old Nelson's neck until he calmed. "He's aging and cantankerous, and I'm not the horseman I was two years ago . . . before my imprisonment."

"I don't care about your lack of skill or your stupid horse," Jean-Pierre said. "I want to see that invitation."

"I'm trying!" Michael pulled a wool shawl out of the bag.

"What's that for?" Jean-Pierre asked.

"A gift for my hostess." Michael spoke slowly and carefully, as if Jean- Pierre were a social dolt not to know such a thing.

One of Jean-Pierre's men spoke in a low, urgent tone. "My lord."

Michael pulled out a leather holster and a pistol.

"Is that also a gift for your hostess?" Jean-Pierre asked.

"Not everyone I might meet on a dark road is as charming and kind as you, de Guignard." Now Michael allowed himself sarcasm. "Some are actually robbers and thieves, and, of course, there's the legend of the Reaper, with his habit of hanging noblemen."

"My lord," Jean-Pierre's man said again.

"Shut up, Quico," Jean- Pierre snarled in his direction. Then to Michael he said, "You don't believe the Reaper is a ghoul?"

"Of course not. I'm not a child or a fool to believe the ghost of a long-dead king roams the roads of Moricadia." Michael's black leather hat was wide brimmed, shading his face and keeping his expression private, even under this full moon. "The Reaper is most definitely a man."

"So you don't believe the Reaper is Miss Emma Chegwidden?"

Michael locked gazes with Jean- Pierre. "How would a woman with the build of Miss Emma Chegwidden hang a man the size of Rickie de Guignard?"

"Yet she rode in the Reaper's costume, and we will hang her tomorrow for the crime."

"So I hear."

"You know this Englishwoman. She seemed fond of you. Don't you want to save her?"

"Of course I do. But do you really think I would descend into that dungeon to free her?"

"My lord!" Quico sounded desperate now.

"What?" Jean-Pierre turned ferociously on Quico.

Quico pointed soundlessly up the road.

Galloping down the road toward them on a large white horse was . . . the Reaper.

With a shout, Jean- Pierre and his men spurred their horses toward the ghostly, fearsome figure.

Michael watched long enough to see Jean- Pierre launch himself out of the saddle and bring down the Reaper.

Then, quietly, quickly, he stuffed the pistol and Em-ma's shawl back into his saddlebags and rode hell- for-leather toward the palace.

Chapter Forty-four.

Michael lifted his gaze to the palace rising out of the rocky outcrop like a giant, medieval stone crystal growing from the earth. Within its narrow, towering walls, stairways wound up from the kitchens at ground level to the communal areas above that, and to the royal living quarters above that.

And he had personal reason to know those same stairways twisted their way down to the dungeons, deep into the murky caverns beneath the ground.

The palace had been constructed, dungeons and all, by Moricadia's long-dead kings, but when the de Guignards had dispossessed and killed them, the building had taken on a sinister aspect. At night, the cooks banked the fires and fled the kitchens, but occasionally visitors stumbled down in search of hot water or food or a toothache remedy, and even the most pragmatic whispered of ghosts drifting up from the dark depths, their mouths perpetually open to scream in agony.

The postern gate, a small entrance where the servants came and went with supplies for the kitchens, was accessed by a steep, winding path treacherous even in daylight, and there Old Nelson could not go. Slipping from the saddle, Michael took his companion of so many missions into the woods and tied him to a branch. "Wait here. It'll take as long as it takes, but then we'll need you. So, patience, my friend." He looked up through the fluttering leaves at the palace. "I promise I will not linger any longer than I have to." He loosened the reins a little. Just in case.

He climbed the postern path with a loaded pistol in each of his coat pockets, a sword strapped to his belt, one knife in his boot and another up his sleeve. Yet nothing he could carry-no firearm, no blade-could make him secure enough for the task ahead. All he truly had was this plan and the knowledge that he should have been dead a thousand times before. What matter if he died today, as long as Emma lived?

He had been promised that any guards would be otherwise occupied, and it appeared they were. He had been promised the postern door would be left unlocked, and it was. He walked into an empty chamber filled with the deliveries of the day. A crate of fresh strawberries. A dozen sacks of white flour. A crate of live chickens, squawking in protest of their fate. Through the open door, he heard the hum of the kitchen staff as they prepared tea and cakes. He listened to the cook shout at the footman, "For the prince. At once. At once! Else you go the way of the others." She stomped her foot on the floor and indicated the dungeon, then wrapped her hands around her neck and bugged out her eyes.

Lovely female, but at least she had provided Michael with an easy way to find where Prince Sandre was spending his evening.

Michael followed the footman up the stairs; then, in a swift move, he removed the tray from his hands, thrust him into a closet, and pushed a chair under the door handle. The tea steamed in the ceramic pot, the buttercream frosting roses decorated the cakes, the footman thumped and shouted, and Michael balanced the silver tray with a sure hand as he strode toward his destiny.

The de Guignard shield decorated the double doors at the center of the corridor; he gave a brief knock, then entered at Sandre's call.

The office looked different in the candlelight, all polished walnut wood, gilded plaster, fringed oriental rugs, and velvet drapes closed against the night: a hushed, luxurious den where the prince could work and relax . . . alone.

Sandre was indeed alone, sitting at his antique desk in a pool of light provided by a candelabrum of lit beeswax candles. He dipped his pen into his ornate silver inkwell, then wrote studiously on some official document. An Italian glass bowl filled with candy sat at his right hand. A brass sculpture of a noble eagle posed on one corner as if to remind the visitor-or perhaps Sandre-that here was royalty.

Without looking up, he said, "Put the tray on the table."

Michael shut the door behind him, turned the key in the lock, and walked to the desk. With a thump, he deposited the tray at Sandre's elbow.

Sandre stiffened, then slowly ran his gaze from Michael's boots all the way to the brim of his black hat. He sighed. Fixing his eyes on Michael's, he leaned back in a show of careless disregard, and smiled. "You English are so predictable. You've come to save the girl."

"More than that, I've come to confess my crimes. I am the Reaper."

"Of course you are." Sandre's tone was disbelieving.

"And I do know the true heir to the throne of Moricadia, where he is, and how he intends to bring about a revolution."

"Of course you do," Sandre drawled, and casually moved his hand toward the drawer where he kept the loaded pistol.

Michael pulled his own pistol and cocked it. "I don't think so, Your Highness."

With equal casualness, Sandre moved his hand away. Still pleasant and disbelieving, he said, "This is a rather sweet effort on your part. Sweet . . . and worthless. What do you think you're going to accomplish by this except another, permanent visit to my dungeons? You may have gotten into the palace, but you'll never get out again. You can't take Emma away; she's grown fond of me. And what's more pathetic, no one would ever believe you have the intelligence to nightly escape your house arrest at the Fancheres', much less the guts to defy me, kill my cousin, and ride through the night dressed as the ghost of Reynaldo."

Michael smiled at him with genuine amusement.

Sandre jerked his head back as if he'd been slapped. "You don't . . . You haven't . . ."

With one hand, Michael untied the black cravat, pushed his shirt off his shoulder, and showed Sandre the red, puckered, painful gunshot wound. "If Jean-Pierre were a better shot, you would be rid of the Reaper. Better yet, no one would ever know it was the cowardly, broken Englishman whom you dismissed so casually. Now everyone will discover the truth-that Prince Sandre is an overconfident imbecile."

Sandre sprang up and lunged at Michael.

Michael met him with a fist to the chin.

Sandre fell backward into his chair.

Michael stepped out of reach, leveled the pistol between Sandre's eyes. "You left her in the dungeon, day and night, hoping to break her spirit, make her yield to you."

"How do you know that?" Sandre snarled.

"The true king of Moricadia has returned, and he has spies everywhere. In your bedroom. In your kitchen. Among your guard."

A bruise was forming along Sandre's jaw, but he laughed unworriedly. "If that were true, I would have been dead yesterday."

"No, they want you in place. There's no reason for a coup d'etat against a just monarch."

Sandre still smiled, but where he grasped the chair arms, his knuckles were white. "Are you so jealous of me and my darling Emma that you must try to tear us apart?"

With exaggerated patience, Michael said, "Sandre, you're keeping her in the dungeon. If that's what you do with a woman you love, what do you do with a woman you hate?" When Sandre would have answered, Michael held up his hand. "Don't tell me. You hang her on Sunday morning as a lesson to any person who dares defy you."

"I am willing to show clemency."

In a staggering moment of clarity, Michael realized Sandre really did love her, or as much as a creature like him could love.

Sandre continued. "Emma can save herself if she will. All she has to do is marry me."

"She doesn't have to save herself. I'm going to save her." Michael pushed a sheet of paper toward Sandre. "Write out a pardon and stamp it with your seal."

"No."

"I was hoping you would say that." Michael grabbed Sandre by the shirtfront and pulled until he stood. "For over two years, I've been waiting for this, and I intend to enjoy every moment."

"I will die bravely." Sandre fixed his gaze on the gun still trained on his head.

"This? No." Michael slipped the pistol back into his pocket. "Nothing so easy for you."

"Fencing? A duel?" Sandre sounded hopeful. Superior.

"I'm going to beat the hell out of you." Michael lifted his fists. "Somebody had better."

Before Michael had finished speaking, Sandre grabbed his silver inkwell and threw it at him. The heavy metal smacked him on the cheek; ink splashed his eyes and hair; the tarlike smell filled his nose. Leaping up, Sandre grabbed Michael at the site of his wound and brutally twisted.

The still-healing flesh tore. Pain ripped through his nerves. Michael's vision swam with red dots. He fell to his knees.