With a flutter of anxiety, Charlotte realized she was drifting away into a sort of waking sleep.

With a strength born of fear, she struggled back to reality. Cold, miserable, clammy reality. Charlotte stepped down hard on a stone, feeling the bite of it straight through her sodden slippers. That was real, just as the damp cling of her muslin skirt against her legs was real.

“You don’t want one of these statues for the gardens of Girdings, then?” Charlotte’s lips were cracked and clumsy, her voice rusty. Talking to Robert would keep her awake, at least. She had a feeling that she looked even worse than she sounded. The hem of her once fashionable dress was caked with mud and it clung to her legs as she moved, making the going even more difficult than it would otherwise be.

Robert’s hand tightened on her arm, with a pressure that was unmistakably an embrace. “And scandalize all your ministers of state on the roof?”

There was a tenderness in his voice that made Charlotte’s heart clench in a very inconvenient way.

Irritation, she told herself. It was the intimation of intimacy that irked her. He had no right to be bringing up that night on the roof. He had forfeited the right to that when he changed his mind the first time.

On the positive side, there was nothing like a bit of romantic turmoil to bring one fully awake.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said contrarily, keeping her head down and her eyes on her hem. “It’s been awfully quiet for them up there. A little scandal might do them good.”

“They would probably tumble off their perches with the shock,” Robert replied idly, helping her over a rough patch of ground.

“They might be stronger than that.” Charlotte could feel her heels beginning to dig in. “Perhaps they want a little variety.”

“Or,” said Robert, missing the point entirely, “perhaps they’re made of plaster and don’t really care.”

“Stone,” Charlotte corrected, kicking her skirt out of the way. “Not plaster. It’s stronger.”

She could feel his steps slow as he paused to look down at her. Charlotte resolutely kept her own eyes on the ground, struggling forward one labored step at a time. If he didn’t realize why she was upset, she didn’t want to tell him. Especially since she wasn’t quite sure why herself.

“We can rest for a moment, if you like,” he suggested, with infuriating solicitude. “At least get you out of the wind.”

If she stopped, she might never move again. And it would be just as cold wherever they were.

“And let the Frenchman catch us up?” she countered. “How far are we from the caves?”

Robert pointed directly ahead. Above the trees, an immense golden orb dominated the horizon, shimmering with reflected moonlight. It looked, thought Charlotte, like a scepter sculpted for the king of a race of giants.

“Do you see that gold ball?”

“It would be hard not to,” she said, and was a little ashamed of quite how snappish she sounded. “What is it?”

“Medmenhan’s church,” said Robert. “I was told that it is positioned directly over the deepest part of the caves, the bit they call Hades.”

Dizzy and miserable as she was, Charlotte appreciated the conceit. “It’s like Dante’s Divine Comedy, with Inferno below and Paradise above.”

“And Purgatory in the middle.” Robert pronounced the word with a grim relish that made Charlotte wonder, for the first time, if he might not be in a sort of purgatory, too. She risked a sidelong glance in his direction. He had assumed leadership of their expedition so easily, taken charge of her so casually, that she had assumed this must all be little more than a lark for him, all in a night’s work. Including the improper proposals.

Before she could find a cautious way of broaching the topic, Robert said briskly, “Medmenham’s mausoleum covers the back entrance to the caves.” Turning his head, he raised his voice ever so slightly to carry to the people behind them. “As we approach, it’s probably best if we try to be as quiet as possible.”

“What’s that?” Miles called out.

Robert mimed lowering of voice by raising one hand and bringing it slowly down. Miles looked abashed. Charlotte swallowed her grin before Robert could see it; it looked too much like his own.

At the gates of the mausoleum, the men arranged themselves in a triangular formation. Behind them, Charlotte saw Henrietta ease her pistol out of the folds of her pelisse. Charlotte couldn’t quite recall what she had done with her own pistol. She thought she might have left it in the carriage. Since the carriage was back in London, three hours by river, she doubted it would do her much good.

The mausoleum sounded quiet enough to her. All she could hear was the sodden slap of the tree leaves and the labored rise and fall of her own breathing. But the men were clearly primed for battle, cloaks off, pistols at the ready. Charlotte, who had always dreamed of brave battles with banners flaring, felt at a loss. This was no formal joust at which she could wave her veil and cheer her champion; if anything, it would be an ambush.

But who was ambushing whom? Charlotte’s fingernails bit into her palms as the men burst through the entrance of the mausoleum.

They were greeted with resounding silence. There was no scramble of booted feet on wet grass, no jostling for weaponry, no grunts or battle cries, just the sound of their own labored breathing.

Aside from its scattering of masonry, the grounds of the mausoleum were entirely empty.

Miles straightened from his fighting crouch. “Where is everyone?” he demanded indignantly.

Charlotte and Henrietta ducked under the archway into the mausoleum. It was as eccentric in its design as the rest of the grounds, open to the elements, dotted with arches and monuments and other classical effluvia, in no particular pattern that Charlotte could discern. Between the granite walls and the barren ground, it did, however, succeed in conveying a decidedly grim impression. That, at least, seemed in keeping with Charlotte’s notion of a mausoleum.

“There should be someone here.” Robert prowled around the side of an urn, looking more than a little bit irritated at being balked of his battle. “Wrothan wouldn’t have left his prize unguarded.”

Charlotte saw no need to voice what they were all thinking, that there would only be a need for guards if the King was, in fact, on the premises. After their long, miserable journey, failure didn’t bear thinking of.

“He would need someone on hand,” she said instead. “Someone to bring the King food at intervals.”

“Poor ton to starve the King,” seconded Miles.

“Poor business sense, too,” said Lieutenant Fluellen cheerfully. “You can’t ransom a royal skeleton.”

“So where are they?” asked Henrietta, as indignant as a hostess whose guests had failed to appear for dinner.

“Down in the caves with the King?” suggested Miles. “If I wanted to guard someone, I’d jolly well stay close.”

“There was someone here,” muttered Robert, squinting at the ground around the perimeter. “Do you see this?” When he straightened, he was holding a long-stemmed clay pipe. “The bowl is still warm.”

“Cheerful place for a smoke,” commented Miles, grimacing at the funereal monuments.

“But a logical place if one was about to go underground,” said Lieutenant Fluellen thoughtfully. “The guard must have popped up for a smoke before going back down into the caves.”

“Guard or guards?” asked Charlotte, looking anxiously around her. She kept thinking she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, only to turn and find yet another urn or arch.

Above it all, the gold-tipped spire of the church looked smugly on. The entrance seemed to lie at the other side of the mausoleum. Could the entrance to the caves lie through there? Despite Robert’s assertion that the back entrance to the caves lay through the mausoleum, she had yet to see it.

“Three guards at most,” said Lieutenant Fluellen authoritatively. As all the others looked at him, he shrugged. “Well, it just sounded like a logical number.”

“All down in the caves,” said Miles, rubbing his hands together.

“If they’re here,” said Robert repressively. “We might be barking up the wrong tree entirely.”

“Or down the wrong cave,” said Charlotte.

“What about the church?” asked Henrietta, squinting at the nondescript granite façade of Medmenham’s church. With its rough stone, square bell tower, and squat design, it looked more like a fortress than a place of worship. “If I were your Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was, I would prefer to hide my monarch aboveground.”

“Excellent thought!” said Lieutenant Fluellen, a little too heartily. “You and Lady Charlotte can investigate the church while we inspect the caves.”

“I second that.” Miles’s relief was palpable. “Divide and conquer and all that.”

No one pointed out that it was enemies who were supposed to be divided, not allies.

Henrietta kept quiet because she had already decided that she was right and the others were wrong; Charlotte could tell from the set of her friend’s shoulders that she was already planning her “I told you so” in elaborate and loving detail. Charlotte held her tongue for the opposite reason. If they did encounter a cadre of hardened villains (or even not so hardened villains) down in the caves, she and Henrietta would be more trouble than help. She had no illusions about her own utility in a battle. It might be nice to seize a moment of glory, to strike a blow for King and country as she did in her daydreams, but she knew, realistically, that she was far more likely to trip over her own skirt, walk in front of someone at a crucial moment, or be captured, dragged to one side, and used to make Robert, Miles, and Lieutenant Fluellen throw down their weapons. All things considered, she and Henrietta were more use to the King out of the caves than in them.