The Runaway Princess (10 page)

With both hands holding Evangeline's bottom, Dan
ior lifted her, spread her legs around his hips, and sealed them together.

She'd overwhelmed his restraint, all right. She'd overwhelmed it too well.

Her skirt remained between them only because her weight rested on it. Her feet lay on the table, her hands clutched his shoulders. The position utterly lacked dignity, and she didn't care. All she cared about was the sudden hard pressure of him between her legs. She hadn't known she wanted him there. She did. His hands moved along her buttocks, pressing them together, and she rocked against him, igniting the same flame in her that scorched him.

Rational thought burned in the conflagration, leaving Evangeline at the mercy of this sweet agony. Heat rolled through her in waves, linked to the thrust of his hips, the taut glitter of his gaze, the strength she experienced beneath her hands. This was like riding a wild horse; she didn't know how to handle him, she didn't know what he would do next,
but each buck and lunge carried her further along some unexplored path, and she wanted the journey to go on forever. Yet she sensed it couldn't, that somewhere there existed an ending that could satisfy her.

“Please, Your Highness, please . . .”

And as if the words brought him back to sanity, he stopped. She could almost see him reining in the passion, and she wanted to pound on him and shout, No!

But she didn't. She'd just discovered a well of passion in herself she hadn't suspected; the established wariness of a lifetime didn't allow her to exhibit any more of her emotions. Not until she understood them and where they would lead her. And then—maybe never.

“Why do you call me that?” he asked. His voice had a rasp to it, as if he'd run too far or fought too hard.

Tentatively she brought her legs around to the front of him. “Call you what?”

“Your Highness.” He allowed her to slide down him.

It was an excursion fraught with peril, with the friction of two bodies already overheated with a mixture of passion and frustration. She didn't dare stop; she scarcely dared go on. She clung to the conversation, inane and aimless as it was, using it as a distraction. “You are a highness. Aren't you?”

“Not to you.” Her toes touched the ground, yet he held her for one last moment. “To you, I am Danior.”

Yes, he was. In her mind, he was. Not a prince, not a highness. Just Danior, a man she knew too
well on too short an acquaintance. When she thought about how well, she couldn't meet his gaze, couldn't contain the blush that covered her whole body.

“Do you want me to let you go?” he asked.

Now she looked at him. “Yes!”

“Then, like you, I will demand that you call me by my name.”

When your enemy is backed into a corner, that is the time to negotiate.
Apparently, he had read the same sixteenth-century Italian mediator as she had.

Well, of course. He was a prince, and princes had to know the fine art of parlay.

“Danior,” he prompted.

She couldn't ignore the hands that still held her against him, or the fact that his arousal had not subsided. One had to know when to admit defeat. “Danior.”

Without gloating—he showed more control than she did—he helped her stand on her own. She stood swaying, her knees shaking, but he kept her close with his hands on her elbows. “Look at me,” he said.

She didn't want to. To meet his eyes would be distressing and somehow dangerous.

“Afraid?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped to his. “Of you? No.”

“Good. I don't want you to fear me.”

His chin was set, his mouth was straight, his eyebrows knit over his serious eyes. If she were given to alarm, his expression would have sent her scurrying.

“I want you to realize how it will be between us. This marriage will not be polite and bloodless like
most royal marriages. Like the marriages of both our parents. You and I have a fire between us, and what we'll do will be heated and sweaty and beyond our control.” He corrected himself. “Beyond your control.”

She didn't care for that. “What about your control?”

He smiled, a brief, restrained curve of the lips, and straightened. “I assure you, you wouldn't like it if I lost control.”

“You just did!” He had. She knew he had.

“If I had totally lost control, my dear, you would be flat on your back with your legs in the air.”

The crudity was somehow more menacing for his lack of inflection, but he calmly picked her up and moved to the bed. He sat her down, and her heart gave a thud. Was he going to join her after all? It would be adventure, just as she wanted, but she now knew the danger was too great. A beast lurked within him, cloaked by a thin layer of civilization. He even admitted it.

And something lurked within her, too. A wanton? A madwoman? A woman so driven by loneliness that she responded to the first man who touched her?

She pulled her legs up to her chest, shut her eyes, and wished she were back in East Little Teignmouth, ruining her vision as she pored over an ancient, blotted manuscript in safe solitude.

Instead she heard a splash of water, and looked to see Danior filling the cracked basin from the bucket. He came back to her, sure, silent, almost kind, and set the basin on the floor. Sticking out his hand, he said, “Give me your foot.”

She stared at him, then at his empty palm, without comprehension.

“Your foot, Evangeline.”

She didn't understand him. Not at all.

Grasping her ankles, he straightened her legs to dangle off the edge of the mattress. As efficiently as a nursemaid, he reached to her knee, untied her garters, and stripped her hose away. If this was seduction, he didn't know how to go about it, she decided.

Dipping her foot in the water, he used a rag from the ragbag to wash the calluses and leathery soles that should have proved she was not a princess but a woman who walked where she had to. He didn't seem to see that, but shook his head over the bruises. “We'll have you boots before we start again, I promise, and some thick socks to protect this delicate skin.”

Her toes curled as he stroked across her sensitive arch, and she took back her condemnation of his seductive abilities. This service could prove beguiling if she let it. “Why are you doing this?”

Placing her foot in his lap, he dried it and reached for the other. “Washing your feet?”

“Washing my feet, giving me food, carrying me on your back. Why should you be so kind to someone you think is a runaway princess?”

She thought he wasn't going to answer, he paused so long.

But when he did, she wished she hadn't asked.

“Because I want you dependent on me for everything—the air you breathe, the food you eat, the water you drink.” His voice hummed with intensity, his
dark brows drew together, and his eyes lured her to believe. “When you marry me, I will give you everything.”

“I can't marry you. I'm not the princess.” But her voice faltered.

“Your Royal Highness, it's time to drop this facade of independence and remember who will be your strength for the years to come.”

She swallowed, her independence threatened, not by him but by her own weakness. God help her, she had lost everything—her money, her clothing, her home. She didn't know what she was going to do now, and this man was offering her an easy solution. Go and be the princess, no one will ever know, and she would have someone else to depend on besides herself.

Danior must have been watching her, and seen too clearly the longing etched on her face. “That's it,” he murmured. “Give in. It'll be easy, you'll see.”

“Easy until the real princess shows up.” Evangeline offered her up like an offering on a silver salver. “Sooner or later you need to find out where she is.”

“I have her.” He touched the middle of her forehead with the flat of his thumb, and she felt too clearly the calluses caused by experience and hard work. “I'll addict you to the taste of me, to my scent and touch. When I'm done with you, you'll be bound to me by the strongest fetter in my forge.”

She suspected she didn't want to know, but she had to ask. “What is that?”

“Passion.” Still on his knees, he leaned over her and brushed a final, intimate kiss on her lips. “You'll depend on me for passion.”

You'll depend on me for everything, Evangeline.
You'll depend on me for passion.

Evangeline woke to find herself clutching the pillow between her legs. But a sack of feathers was no substitute for Danior, and she was no substitute for his princess.

Angry, aroused and dismayed, she sat up on the cot. This had never happened before. Never. Nobody else's kisses—not that there had been many—but none of them had excited her enough to weasel their way into her dreams. She'd read about
amour
. Mrs. Ann Radcliffe wrote novels of terror and mystery, and the youthful Evangeline had been addicted to them.
A Sicilian Romance
had thrilled her to her curling toes and
The Mysteries of Udolpho
made her swoon with adolescent delight.

But this . . . this was something else. Obsession or passion or . . . Danior's fault. Yes, this was all Danior's fault! And if she didn't get away from him there would be dire consequences.

Like she'd give in and go to his bed, and he'd find out she wasn't the princess and abandon her. Or worse, he wouldn't realize she wasn't the princess until it was too late, and all chance of uniting Serephina and Baminia would perish.

The fate of two countries rested on her ability to get herself out of this convent and far out of Danior's reach. Perhaps then when he searched, he would find the real princess.

And Evangeline knew how to escape. She closed her eyes to shut out the sight she wished to ignore.

A coil of rope. The iron ring from the key. A likely sized window, unencumbered by locks, protected by the sheer drop below it. And her own endurance and knowledge.

She was no fair flower of the nobility to be protected and cherished. She was an orphan child, and on her knees she felt the calluses she'd earned through years of scrubbing orphanage floors. Her hands were the same, callused beneath each finger. She owned many fine pairs of gloves—or had, until that blast in her room, and she could blame Danior for that, too—and she liked them for more than the genteel air they gave her. They also hid the proof of her common upbringing.

And her knowledge—all of it lurked there in the periphery of her mind.

She knew how to descend the cliff on that rope. The native Swiss did it to rescue those who strayed too far from the beaten path and fell, mostly goats, although there were a few humans—those mad Englishmen who traveled the country on their Grand Tour. Evangeline knew this because Leona
corresponded with one of the Swiss mountaineers.

Evangeline had reveled in Leona's foreign correspondence. Each letter that had come through her hands, each word she had translated had lodged in her brain, and she had been proud of her memory before. Now that proficiency was likely to get her killed.

How long had she slept? How much time did she have?

She hastened to the window and climbed on the table.

The afternoon light cast the tower's shadow across the meadow and into the trees, emphasizing its height, underscoring the need to hurry, and showing that, without a doubt, the drop was just as sheer as she remembered.

She glanced at the door. There were less dangerous ways to escape. She knew how to pick a lock, and that sharp, narrow implement used to dig weeds would easily fit in the keyhole. But if she succeeded, what would that earn her? Nothing, if Marie Theresia was telling the truth. If everyone here in the convent really thought she was the princess and the savior of their countries, then when they saw her sneaking across the entry they would block the outer door until someone could call Danior.

She looked out at the window again and caught her breath at the vista spread out so far below. Sadly, having Danior stop her from escaping seemed the ideal solution right now.

That was not acceptable.

Picking up the coil of rope and a pair of rusty pruning sheers, she chopped a length long enough
to wrap around her twice. With that, she fashioned a crude seat, and tied it onto the iron ring. She wrapped the contraption around her. The seat would bear her weight as she moved down, protecting her from a fall that would leave her mangled and bloody.

“That would serve him right.” She slapped the seat on the table, then dragged the remaining coil of rope to the stone column, tied it—she knew how to do that knot, too—and slipped the other end out of the window, hoping against hope the rope wouldn't reach the ground.

After all, she couldn't go then, but her conscience would be clear. She would have tried.

Whispering a prayer, she leaned out and looked.

The contemptible rope lapped at the highest boulders surrounding the base of the cliff. From there she could climb to the ground and make her escape, and her heart jolted with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

Stupid thing, anticipation, but she wasn't afraid of heights, only of falling, and if the seat worked as described, she would not fall. No, she'd have the adventure of her life.

She dragged the rope back up, all the long way back up, and placed it beside the seat and the ring. Wiping her sweaty palms on her chemise, she donned her petticoats and her green gown, trying futilely to smooth the wrinkles away. And when she saw the series of little rents created by the brambles, tears welled in her eyes.

The gown had cost her over two hundred pounds, an unbelievable sum, and to a woman in
dire need of adventure worth every pence. The silk had flowed across her body like a dream, making her almost believe she was, in truth, a princess. She loved it for what it represented—wealth, freedom, and a frivolous dream she dared pursue. Now the dress was ruined.

Well. She straightened her shoulders. There would be other gowns. Valiantly she ignored the fact that she no longer had two hundred pounds, nor two pounds, nor even a ha´penny. Leaving here was an act of courage for more than one reason. A woman in her straits could be sent to the workhouse.

She tied the garters that held her thin silk stockings, then pulled on her slippers. The sole of one was almost gone, battered by last night's flight, but she couldn't wait for the new pair of boots promised to her. Especially since she had the strong idea Danior would want to place them on her feet himself.

You'll depend on me for everything.

Terrifying words, for she wanted to depend on Danior.

The day was waning. By the look of the shadows, it was after five o'clock. Danior would be in with supper soon; she knew it like she knew her own name. “Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall,” she announced to the walls. Taking the bread and cheese from the tray, she tied her makeshift supper in a clean rag from the ragbag. That she fastened around her waist. Taking up the goblet, she gulped down the wine and hoped the spirits would dull her pounding dread.

The seat had to wrap around her waist and tie into the ring—not a problem. And between her legs and into the ring—a big problem. Gently she cherished the gown's fine silk between her palms. Ruthlessly, she found a tear in the front and with a quick jerk, ripped the skirt up to her knees. She repeated the procedure at the back, then trussed her petticoats all the way up around her waist and her gown almost that high. Her calves were showing, but who would see them?

She found gardening gloves and donned them. She tied herself into the seat, the ring in front, then looped the long rope through and leaned against it. The knot at the column stretched and held. The knots of the seat stretched and held, and the length of rope slipped through the ring. She could control it with the grip of her hands. This was going to work. It had to work.

Grimly, she sat on the wide stone of the windowsill, then inched backward. She maneuvered one leg out—into nothing. Nothing was up this high except for a light breeze, laden with the smell of freedom. She gritted her teeth. Getting out the window was the worst part, she assured herself. Even if she fell she could catch herself with the grip of her hands. All this would take was a little courage.

Too bad her stock of
that
had been so depleted.

Her knee slipped off the edge and scraped across the rough stone. Then she bay on her stomach and worked her other leg free. Slowly, she slid backward until she dangled, held up only by her increasingly frail-looking arms. Pulling her feet up, she placed them flat against the outer wall, her knees bent to
her chest. She would straighten her legs when she started. When she let go.

Slowly, she released one hand. The rope held more of her weight now. She hung, attached to the building by a death grip, with one arm. The moment had come, the moment when she must signify her trust in the rope, the knots she'd produced, and the Swiss mountaineer's knowledge. She looked at her hand, fingers clenched around the sill, tendons on the back raised and taut. She looked at her arm, saw the muscles bulging with the strain of holding her weight.
Just let go
, she told herself.
You'll be all right
.

And if not, the prayers over her body would be many and immediate, because she'd scream all the way down.

On that resolve, she released her hold and snatched at the loose end of rope.

She didn't fall. She hadn't fallen. She let her breath out with a whoosh.

Cautiously she straightened her legs so that her body formed an L, then she took her first tentative step down. The rope held steady. She took another, and another. The rock wall was almost smooth beneath her feet. The distance between her and the window widened, and she wasn't foolish enough to look down. Her knees trembled as she walked down the wall, but that nuisance was minor compared to her growing exhilaration. This was fun. This was adventure.
This
was what she'd dreamed of!

Tossing prudence to the wind, she pushed both her feet against the wall and gave a big bounce, just as the mountaineer had described. For a moment, it
was like flying, a pure birdlike release from the autocracy of gravity.

Then her hand slipped. Her breath lurched. She grabbed hard, catching herself before she gained too much speed. Her feet struck stone and she skidded to a stop, her toes bent inside her slippers, her soles scraping along the weathered rock. She hung, trembling, and risked a glance down.

The boulders at the base of the tower were both too far and too close. From this height, they probably wouldn't kill her, but they would break every bone in her body.

Then she looked up. She was more than halfway down. Her hands burned inside her gloves, and she tried no more mountain goat leaps. Instead she descended steadily, her sense of triumph expanding with each step. She looked down occasionally now, and each time the boulders appeared closer. Closer.

They were here. She walked her legs down the wall and onto the flat surface of a rock Her knees were shaking, she noted. Blisters throbbed on her palms, and somehow during the climb a sharp edge had sliced through one of her soles; the bottom of her foot was bleeding.

But she was down. She had made it. Her fingers shook in delayed cowardice as she worked to free herself from the knots, and she kept glancing up at the window, sure Danior would stick his head out and roar at her.

She mocked herself for giving him credit for intuition when the man didn't have an intuitive bone in his body. Yet in his determination to bring the
princess back to Serephina, he had assumed almost mythical proportions to her.

The last knot gave way, and she allowed herself one quiet shout of glee. Then, using her battered hands and feet, she climbed off the boulders and jumped onto the grassy meadow that surrounded the convent. Falling to her knees, she kissed the blessedly level earth. Rising, she walked backward toward the edge of the forest, staring, amazed, at the rope dangling from the window so high above.

She was here. She was free. She had succeeded!

Turning, she ran toward the shadow of the trees.

Right into the arms of the revolutionaries.