A Noble Groom (Michigan Brides #2)(9)

“Let’s pray there are no collapses in the wall or ceiling.” Matthias stooped low.

Carl’s back grazed the top of the tunnel, and he had to arch his neck at an awkward angle to see Matthias. “I take it my father hasn’t been down here in a while?”

“There haven’t been too many sieges recently.”

The wryness of Matthias’s tone brought a sense of renewed calm to Carl’s spirit. “True.” He inhaled a deep breath of the earthiness of wet soil.

“So where am I going?”

“America.”

Carl stumbled to a halt. “You cannot be serious.”

“Very.”

America was a place for homeless serfs, unhappy peasants, and discontent miners. He’d heard his father tell more than one of his employees who’d come to him with complaints over wages or working conditions, “If you don’t like it, go to America.”

That distant country an ocean away was not a place for a nobleman like him.

“I couldn’t possibly go there.”

Matthias stopped, and his eyes censured him. “What? You’re too good for America?”

“There must be a place more suitable to my status.”

“Well, now you’re penniless and homeless.” Matthias started forward. “So you’ll fit right in.”

“What about England?” Maybe he could find another position as a tutor. Or a professor at one of the universities.

“And if Lord Faust hears of your return?”

Carl sighed. If his former employer, Lord Faust, discovered he’d stepped foot into England, the man would track him down and put a bullet in his heart. Lord Faust wanted him dead just as much as the duke did.

“So there’s no other place?” He scrambled after Matthias.

“No.”

For a moment they trudged in silence, the steady drip of runoff water echoing with their footsteps. The light of the torch illuminated the winding tunnel, aiding their navigation through the roots and stones. The damp chill penetrated Carl’s coat, and he tried to shake off the depressing thought of having to leave his homeland.

He should be grateful. The Lord had graciously answered his prayers and decided to spare his life. He would get to keep his head on his body—if he made it out of the tunnel and the castle without being caught.

But America? Could he really go there? It was so far away. So foreign. A place for poor dissidents. Besides, where would he live?

“You’ll go to live with my brother,” Matthias said as if he’d overheard Carl’s thoughts.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

Matthias snorted.

And its echo in the tunnel confronted Carl and made him stumble with shame. How much did he know about the personal life of this faithful servant who’d been a part of his father’s household for more years than Carl had lived?

Apparently not much.

“I received a letter from my brother two days ago. He wants me to send him a groom for one of his widowed daughters.”

“Wait a minute!” Carl straightened and bumped his head against the rocky soil of the ceiling, sending a shower of dirt down upon himself. “If I must go to America, then so be it. But I won’t marry a complete stranger as part of the deal.”

Matthias stopped and turned. The torchlight cast long, eerie shadows over the walls and turned his servant’s face into that of a ghoul. “Of course you won’t marry my niece.” His voice was hard, and the glimmer in his eyes pierced Carl with a strange shaft of guilt.

Certainly Matthias knew he couldn’t marry a woman who wasn’t of noble birth.

“I’m sure your niece is a nice enough girl.” For a peasant.



The unspoken words hung between them.

“Besides,” Carl spoke quickly, “I won’t marry someone I don’t know or love.”

Suddenly the image of Barbara came to mind, the baroness his father had been pressuring him to marry. She was every bit as noble and rich as he was, but that was about as much as they had in common and ever would.

He refused to consider putting a woman through an arranged marriage—like his parents’. He had witnessed firsthand what a loveless relationship had done to his mother. And he’d vowed he would never make a woman as miserable as she’d been.

“Well, then that’s good.” Matthias resumed his stoop-shouldered motion forward. “Because I wasn’t asking you to marry my niece.”

“Oh.” Carl started after his servant. “If you don’t want me to marry her, what do you want me to do with her?”

“I have already spoken to one of my cousin’s sons, Dirk, who has been saving to travel to America. And he has eagerly agreed to step in as my niece’s husband.”

“Good for him.”

“Yes, it’s a good opportunity for a man like him to go to America and inherit a forty-acre farm.” Matthias stretched the torch out in front as if trying to see the end of the tunnel. “He’s very excited about the possibility.”

“Excited about the farm or the marriage?” Carl couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his question.

“Some people don’t have the luxury of being so choosey about whom they marry.” Matthias’s voice was equally sarcastic.