“Darcy? What on earth are you doing here?” I demanded, relief flooding over me. “You nearly scared the daylights out of me.”

“I can see that.” He took the candlestick from me. “Quite the little tiger, aren’t we? If you hadn’t taken a breath I’d have been lying here with my head bashed in. Rule one of the secrecy game—never breathe.” And he smiled as he took off his coat and hat and perched on the bed beside me.

“I gasped because I caught sight of your head and I saw it was shaggy fur. I thought you were a werewolf.”

“First vampires and now werewolves. What next—witches, fairies? Come to think of it there are some fairies in the castle already.” He grinned. “For your information, it’s only the sort of hat the local chaps wear to go hunting.” He undid the strap under his chin. “See—it has earflaps. Wonderful for keeping out the cold.”

“But what are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you’d gone off with Pirin’s body.”

“I did,” he said. “But I decided I didn’t quite like what was going on at the castle so I thought I’d double back and keep an eye on things. Field Marshal Pirin won’t mind. I left the car in a suitable snowdrift and skied back down again.”

“Did you really just climb up the wall?”

“Not as impossible as it sounds,” he said. “Someone had conveniently left a rope hanging down.”

“What if it wasn’t properly tied? You’d have fallen and been killed,” I said.

“A fellow has to take the occasional risk in life, you know.”

“Not this fellow,” I said. “I don’t want to find your broken body lying on rocks, is that clear?”

He looked at me tenderly and brushed back a strand of hair from my face. “Don’t worry about me. I lead a charmed life. Luck of the Irish.”

“Oh, Darcy, you are so infuriating I could kill you,” I said and flung myself into his arms. My cheek nestled into the wet wool of his coat as he held me tightly. “You smell like wet sheep,” I said, laughing.

“Stop your complaining, woman,” he said. “I’ve plowed through a snowstorm and climbed a castle wall to see you. You should be grateful.”

“I am. Very grateful. You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

“So has anything significant happened since I went away?”

“Not much, apart from discovering for whom the poison was really intended, having evidence planted on me by the secret police, oh, and finding out that I’m engaged to Prince Siegfried.”

“What?” He started to laugh. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

“Deadly serious about all three things.”

“You didn’t really agree to marry Siegfried. Promise me you didn’t.”