The Runaway Princess (5 page)

When she did, she made a noise not unlike that of a chicken producing its first egg. She could have incapacitated him; she knew how in some rational part of her mind. But reason fled before the proof that, yes, Evangeline Scoffield could make a man lustful.

And also, that Evangeline Scoffield did not have the slightest idea what to do with that man once she had done so.

Placing his hand on her shoulder, he tipped her back toward the pillows and stated his goal. “Once I have compromised you, Your Highness, you will have no choice but to do your duty, and that is to return with me to the city of Plaisance in time for the Revealing—and our wedding—and unite our countries as the prophecy foretold. There, in the Palace of the Two Kingdoms, you will bear the royal child which I have placed in your womb, and we will live with the contentment of knowing we have done our duty.”

A pang of pity for the true princess rippled through her. Then as he bent over her, a pang of panic for her own plight made her shudder. “You'd do this in cold blood?”

Something shifted in his blue eyes. “Cold?” he said. “I promise you'll not complain of a chill.”

A sudden, sharp conviction that he was laughing at her made her tug away. He caught at her and they rolled, wrestling briefly. Finding herself pinned against the headboard, her wrists pressed against the carving, she glared balefully as his head lowered to hers.

“Relax,” he murmured as his lips touched hers. “This is the best part of our duty. You'll see.”

Silken whispers of enticement, his lips drifted over her face. They stroked the eyes he claimed to recognize, paid reverence to the high cheekbones that had so set her apart, and, as gently as a butterfly descending on a flower, they settled on her mouth.

Seduction, she reminded herself. Cold-blooded seduction for a very practical purpose.

But Danior had spoken the truth. There was nothing cold about this. She could almost smell the singe of their connecting flesh.

Then the sound of shattering glass jerked his head up. Evangeline caught a glimpse of a round, black, shiny missile flying through the air. It bounced off the bed. With a metallic thud, it landed on the floor.

“What? . . .” she tried to say, but Danior hurtled off the bed and dragged her behind him in one motion.

She stumbled off the dais and fell to one knee.

He tugged her to her feet. “Run,” he said. “A bomb. It's a bomb!”

“A bomb?” Evangeline said stupidly. Then, “A
bomb!”

Dropping to her knees, she twisted her arm.

Danior lost his grip on her.

But as she scrambled back toward the bed, he roared, “Where do you think you're going?”

“My money.” She lunged under the mattress. “I have to get my money!”

Her fingertips had just touched the precious bag when he seized her from behind by her sash.

“Damn you, woman.”

She screamed and fought, but he hoisted her over his shoulder.

“You're not dying on me, too.”

He sprinted from the room. His shoulder bones battered her ribs, while she cried out and stretched toward the open doorway where her money, her precious money, remained.

They had almost reached the main hall when the flash of the explosion blinded her. The blast made her ears ring. The concussion of air sent Danior stumbling forward.

When Evangeline opened her eyes, she saw flames shooting from the doorway of her luxurious bedchamber.

Danior swung around and faced the conflagration. A shudder swept him. “Just like before,” he muttered.

Pandemonium sounded from the dining room. Gentlemen and ladies, some holding napkins, some dabbing their mouths, crowded the doorway. They gaped at Danior and Evangeline, then at the inferno down the corridor.

Evangeline pressed her hand to her chest. “It really was a bomb.” A bomb. In her bedchamber. And she'd lost everything. “My money. My future.”

“Be quiet,” Danior snapped.

He didn't understand. He'd never been hungry. She grabbed the waist of his trousers and jerked as hard as she could, and she hoped those manly parts he was so proud of trekked clear up his spine.

“Damn!” Danior slammed her down on her feet—feet that tried to run, but got nowhere. “Try that again and I'll . . .” He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “We'll be lucky if we escape to have a future, you and I. Don't you understand? They've found us.”

She didn't understand. Why should she? The cosmic threat that he saw so clearly meant nothing to her. She only understood that when this matter of the princess was cleared up, Evangeline Scoffield would go back to England and face the poverty she had feared her whole life. Scrubbing at her wet cheeks with her fists, she whimpered, “My bookstore. It's gone.”

Danior bared his teeth, but before he could shake her, a ripple surged through the guests. Ladies squealed as two darkly clad men charged through, knocking all aside with no deference to gender or age.

Danior waved to them, and like wraiths they closed around Evangeline. With a glance, each summed her up. Despite her tear-stained cheeks and wild eyes, they apparently found her of noble aspect, for they bowed their heads in one short, jerky nod. Then they turned to Danior, and the remote homage they had paid her became a very personal devotion. These men were Rafaello and Victor, she supposed, the ubiquitous bodyguards, and they clearly adored their master.

“The bastards'll be waiting outside,” one said. He wore subdued, elegant clothing, but he tugged at his cravat and hunched his shoulders. Although he spoke fluent French, his lips barely moved, as if the act of articulation was arduous.

“They're waiting for us to run out.” The other man was refined from the graceful sweep of his short cloak to the even trim of his fingertips, and he spoke easily, with the polished delivery of an aristocrat.

Yet whatever their differences, the three men communicated with the ease of those who had been together for years.

Their master spoke. “Take care of it, Rafaello.”

The aristocrat turned to the throng spilling out of the dining room. With a perfect, upper-class English accent, he called, “I say, I think that was a bomb. Do you suppose more will come flying through the dining room windows?”

As a diversion, it worked well. Well-clad people shrieked as they streamed into the large sitting chamber.

The maître d'hôtel bounded out on their heels, and Evangeline screamed, “Henri! Help me!”

Danior's big hand covered her mouth, cutting her off, but Henri barely glanced her way. Instead he stared at the flames that ate at the château, and shrieked at the servants, “Get buckets! Pans! Anything! Start a line from the kitchen well, or we'll be out in the snow this winter!”

“Don't look for help from him,” Danior murmured to Evangeline. “His livelihood is going up in smoke. And Your Highness—it's your fault.”

He took his hand away, and when she kept quiet, he let go of her. But it didn't matter. She was incoherent. Her fault? How was this her fault?

Futilely Evangeline hunted for a handkerchief. The madness around her was sweeping her up. The shouting and increasing hysteria made her wonder if she would make it back to England at all. Or if others might agree with Danior and somehow deduce that this catastrophe was her fault. After all, the world had run mad.

She sniffed and dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand.

“Women.” Danior stuck a clean square of linen in her hand.

As if she weren't going to cry after all this! She wiped her eyes, then hiccuped and pressed the material to her mouth, wishing desperately she could blow.

“It'll be safer outside,” Rafaello shouted, his voice aimed above the hubbub. He made shooing gestures,
and although a few rational voices raised objections, the hysterical herd advanced toward the exterior door.

Victor tossed a cloak over Danior's shoulders. When Danior turned up the collar, he covered the white of his shirt and cravat, and his somber figure became positively grim. Then the men joined the flow of refugees, carrying Evangeline in their midst. When she tried to wiggle away, Danior simply grasped her arm and hustled her along.

These men with their conservative clothing and their obvious tension stifled her. Worse, the two bodyguards looked remarkably like Danior in their height and coloring, and she had no doubt they were of like temperament.

She was surrounded by bullies.

Even in a crowd, their stature should have made them stand out, but as they cleared the threshold to the outside, they bent their knees to make themselves shorter and to blend in with the crowd.

The throng scattered along the verandah and out into the garden, encouraged by comments from Rafaello, their harrying guard dog. “It'll be safer away from the building,” he called. And, “This is all Napoleon's fault. I imagine his Frenchies are trying to liberate him.”

“Why would anyone toss a bomb here to free Napoleon?” Evangeline asked logically.

Her unwanted companions ignored both her comments and her dramatic sniffling, staying with the crowd until they reached the deepest shadows. Then they broke away, hastening toward the stables. At some prearranged signal, Rafaello and Victor picked up speed, leaving Evangeline with Danior.

Danior tugged her into the shadows of a tree and held her there, unseen by the stable boys who ran past them, lugging washtubs full of water.

“Help!” she yelled. “I need—”

“Be quiet!” Rudely, he pulled her close and shoved her face into his chest, holding her by the back of her neck as a tomcat did with a field mouse, then he moved them farther from the path, farther from human activity.

It didn't matter. She could shout all she liked. She could struggle. No one paid attention. No one cared about one woman's kidnapping. Not when the château was burning.

The shouts of the toiling servants almost drowned out Evangeline's subdued lament. “Who did this thing?”

She wasn't still crying, not really, but the slow leak of moisture from her eyes must have wet his shirt, for he answered, “It was the revolutionaries.”

Her mind blanked. Revolutionaries? What did he mean, revolutionaries?

Yet Danior seemed to think she knew what he was talking about. “That's why we've got to go, and quietly, too.”

“The revolutionaries.” She tasted the word, not liking its flavor.

“Damn their souls.” He vibrated with outrage.

“But I thought Serephina and Baminia were safe.”

“They are safe. We have to get there.”

For some reason, she had not even considered visiting the two countries, although she knew they weren't far.

For good reason, it seemed.

“Look.” He turned her so she faced the rocky heights. “Serephina is just over that line of cliffs.”

A chill ran up her spine. “So close.”

“Yes, but the cliffs run for miles from east to west, and we have to go around. The horses are good, trained in the mountains, and with luck we can cross the border in two days.”

“Only two days.” To escape him and go back where the world was sane.

His hand rotated slowly, soothing the muscles on her rigid neck. “Despite my best efforts, Dominic's band has grown active again.”

“Again.”

“Yes. And you remember what happened last time.”

“I do?” She searched her mind. Leona had never mentioned any problems.

“It was a time of great sorrow for all of us.”

She wasn't sure, but she thought he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

“Dominic's gang wants the end of the monarchy, and they'll get it any way they can—by our deaths, if necessary.” He turned her back into his arms. “That's why we must convey you back to Plaisance and fulfill the prophecy.”

She detected something in his voice; chagrin, perhaps, that he hadn't been able to control the situation by himself.

Speaking into the soft linen, she asked, “Is that why you said this bomb was my fault?”

“I spoke without thinking. It is not right for me to blame you. But surely you understand now that your letter was unacceptable.”

“The letter.” He'd mentioned the letter before. “Just what did the princess say in that letter?”

Obviously irritated, he answered, “You know very well what you said.”

“But I am not Princess Ethelinda.”

With a great deal of satisfaction, he retorted, “As far as Dominic is concerned, you are.”

With both hands, Evangeline muffled her gasp of
horror. Danior was right. Revolutionaries, men who considered bombs an art form, now thought she was a princess. “Because of you—Your
Highness
,” she said. As she struggled free, she made his title an insult. Looking up at his face, she saw the stark contrasts of hollowed eyes and brows and flesh made pale by the rising half-moon. For the first time since the bomb exploded, she forgot about her money. “
You
led these revolutionaries to me. They've been following
you
.”

“Yes. Incredible as it seems, somehow they discovered our tracks.”

The damnable man was right. It didn't matter whether she was Princess Ethelinda or not. If revolutionaries had indeed found them—and she had no reason to believe Danior was lying about this—then she, Evangeline Scoffield, was in danger. And this madman prince was her only savior.

Her only current savior
, she corrected herself. She'd always saved herself before, and she would
find a way out of this dilemma, too. She'd use him to help her flee this place. When they were well away and had lost the revolutionaries, then she'd escape back to England, and face the consequences.

Resolved to resume control of her life, she asked, “Where are Rafaello and Victor?”

“They've gone to the stable to get our horses.”

Scanning the area, she caught a glimpse of movement along the path. “There they are,” she started to say.

Danior's hand covered her mouth in a swift, silencing gesture. His voice spoke softly in her ear. “Quiet.”

She could see them now, two strangers. Dressed in black, they walked just off the edge of the path. The light of the burning château showed her nothing of their features, for they wore black scarves. She could see only their intense, narrowed eyes, which darted back and forth as they scanned the shadows. A woman ran along the trail, panicked by the fire. They caught her, and Evangeline saw the flash of a blade as they held it under her chin. She cried out in fear. They slapped her and shoved her away, and she fled, whimpering. She wasn't who they sought.

Evangeline was.

The pistols they held gleamed in the light of the flames.

Pistols. Oh, God. She'd read about the harm a pistol could do. The damage to the muscle and bone of a limb, making amputation necessary. Or to a vital organ, with the result being . . . death. Her heart gave one hard, appalled thump, then accelerated to a nauseating speed. She stared straight
ahead, afraid to move, and barely breathed as they passed.

At last Danior said, “They're gone.”

Red dots swam before her eyes, and her knees gave way.

Danior caught her as she slid down. “Don't worry, little Ethelinda. I won't let them get you.”

“I'm not Ethelinda,” she said faintly.

“Of course not, Serephinian eyes,” he mocked.

“I told you I was an orphan.” She took great breaths of cool air. “I don't know who my parents were. But perhaps they came from these mountains.” Perhaps they had fled the revolution Danior spoke of. She might even be noble. A countess, or a duchess.

He stiffened. “We are royal.”

“I am common,” she retorted.

“If that were the truth, it would be a tragedy, for a commoner and a prince may not marry.” His voice grew as rich and strong as Turkish coffee. “And I have every intention of wedding you.”

British society was divided by class, but Evangeline didn't like such pomposity there, and she found she cared for it even less coming from this already overbearing prince. “And what dreadful thing would happen if a prince married a commoner?”

“It is not proper, as you very well know. Fish mate with fish, birds mate with birds. If those who are royal by divine right mix their blood with the lower classes, it is against the natural order.”

“Your people must love you,” she said sarcastically.

He answered simply and with great certainty. “They do.”

And why did she care, anyway? If the people of Baminia and Serephina wanted to be ruled by a stuffed shirt, it didn't matter to Evangeline. She would escape this mess somehow. “What if this Dominic has the real princess and you're wasting your time with me?”

“If Dominic captured the princess, he'd be announcing it from the tops of the cliffs. He knows I'd come after her . . . you. He has dreams of holding a tribunal, as the peasants did in France, and trying us for the crime of being royal, as if killing a crown prince would lift him from the foulness in which he revels.”

He was a snob about the common people, but he hated the revolutionaries, and with no ordinary hate. Some instinct prompted her to ask, “Are the princess's parents still alive?”

“
The princess's
parents died in the rebellion of ninety-six, as did mine, and you know this very well.”

In seventeen ninety-six, she had been four. “There was an actual rebellion?”

“Of short-lived duration, but a dreadful tragedy nevertheless.”

Suspicion crowded her mind once more. This story couldn't be true. Nothing fit. “If your parents were killed, why haven't you been crowned king?” she asked suspiciously. “You should have been crowned as soon as you reached your majority.”

“I can't be crowned king until I marry you, Princess Ethelinda.” His baritone whisper vibrated
with frustration. “That is the part of the prophecy to which I am bound, and that is why I must have you, so stop playing the part of an ignorant observer.”

How could Leona have failed to mention this vital part in the history of Serephina and Baminia? And what other things had she failed to mention?

“I don't like this,” she muttered.

“Neither do I.” He scanned the area. “Victor and Rafaello—they've been gone too long.”

She, too, looked around, trying to convince Danior, and herself, that she was no weakling, no feminine sniffler who had to be protected. She had to be strong, bold, crafty. She'd had to be to survive the orphanage.

Then she ruined the effect by shivering.

“You're cold,” he said, although she would have sworn he paid her no heed.

“I will survive.” She'd been colder, she comforted herself. Of course, not for a long time. And a body got used to heat on a regular basis. But she would toughen up.

“Good, because there they are.” Gripping her arm, he pushed her ahead of him. Then he slowed. “But they haven't got the horses.”

The bodyguards sprinted up to them, and Victor panted as he spoke. “Horses . . . chased away. Stable . . . a trap.”

Danior didn't seem surprised, or even at a loss for a plan. “We'll walk.”

“Walk?” Evangeline wiggled her toes inside her thin-soled evening slippers. “Where?”

“Where I lead.” Danior firmly guided her with the flat of his hand in her back.

Victor and Rafaello led the way, skimming swiftly and silently toward the cliffs. Evangeline followed them, and Danior strode behind her, his hand ever ready to catch her should she fall—or should she try to escape.

He didn't need to worry. Escape, at least right now, wasn't part of her plan.

As the shouts of the guests and the faltering flames of the spa faded, darkness closed in around her. She found herself aware of the stillness of the night, and aware of her companions. The silence, the pale moon, and the ever-increasing darkness heightened the evening's chill. They reached the shadow of the cliffs and there turned to pick a path along the base among the stones that had fallen from above. Ahead of her, Rafaello and Victor moved so smoothly, so fluidly, that they might have been wolves rejoining their pack. She knew they were there, yet she could scarcely see them. Behind her, Danior was equally invisible. The gravel beneath her feet crunched, and she knew Danior must be walking the same path, but although she strained, she could hear nothing. This trek was eerie and horrible, cold and exhausting. She shivered occasionally, then constantly, the cooling air breaching the thin silk of her gown with ease. Not even her exertion kept her warm. Each breath hurt her lungs, and although she tried, she couldn't control her harsh breathing.

The further they walked, the more brambles sliced at her legs, the more loose gravel covered the path, and the more painful each step became. She began to complain under her breath, then to
whimper very, very discreetly. Finally, she stubbed her toe on a jagged stone. “Ouch!”

“What's wrong?” Danior sounded distinctly annoyed.

“These shoes are not for trekking across uncharted territory filled with rocks and bugs.” She slapped at a lingering mosquito. She had been walking for over an hour to who knew where with total strangers as companions and revolutionaries behind them, and she thought she'd been very brave. Surely Danior could acknowledge that.

Instead he snapped his fingers, and, silently, Victor and Rafaello moved to her side. She stopped and stared as they bent, crossed their hands, and clasped them behind her—and waited.

A chair. They were making her a chair. If she had any doubt about their sincere belief she was their princess, this act of servitude dissolved it completely. They willingly offered themselves as a sedan for her comfort, over rugged terrain in the middle of the night.

“Hurry,” Danior the boor said tersely. “We must arrive by dawn.”

“Where are we going?” she demanded again.

He answered her this time. “To the convent.”

A convent. Sanctuary.

Placing her hands on the bodyguards' shoulders, she seated and steadied herself. They lifted her, and for one brief moment, memory stirred in the depths of her mind.

Of sitting between two people as they held her in a seat made of their hands, the scent of their fear palpable, their breathing labored as they hurried up
and down mountain paths similar to these. And she, too young to understand their haste, yet gripped by the need for silence and an unchildlike dread of some thing that hid in the darkness just beyond sight.

Then the party started forward almost at a trot, Danior in front, the other three behind, and the memory sank into the abyss from which it had come.

“Your Royal Highness, you're cold,” Rafaello murmured.

“No.” The night air flowed past her, but she gathered warmth from the men.

“You shivered.”

“A ghost walked over my grave,” she answered.

Danior turned on them and said ferociously, and far too loudly for her taste, “There's going to be an army of revolutionaries trampling over your graves, and very soon, if you don't lower your voices.”

He was glaring. She didn't even have to see him to know it. When he was satisfied he had sufficiently cowed them, he moved on. Softly she assured Rafaello, “It's nothing.”

He placed his mouth close to her ear. “If you wish, you may take my cloak.”

Now this was what a real prince should be like! Evangeline thought triumphantly. Then the triumph faded. He wasn't the prince, he was the bodyguard. She wasn't the princess, she was an impostor.

“Sh,” Victor warned.

Toady, Evangeline thought. But Rafaello seemed thoughtful, almost human despite his resemblance to Danior and that odd dedication he displayed. “I'm warm enough,” she whispered.

Danior's head half-turned, and she ducked. She shouldn't care what he thought, but in her room back there he had somehow intimidated her. Probably, she thought grumpily, it was that barbaric fanfare about placing a babe in her womb and thus forcing the marriage. He didn't frighten her; oh, no. She had seen what had happened to poor little Joan Billby when she'd gotten caught with a bun in her oven. Her mistress had thrown her out, and if Leona hadn't taken pity on her, Joan and the baby would have been forced into the poorhouse.

Yes, that was it. Evangeline was frightened of being left alone, pregnant, and in despair, when Danior discovered she wasn't the real princess. She was
not
afraid of that extraordinary possessiveness he displayed, or the brief taste of smoky passion.

The path slithered along the foot of the cliff, rising and falling. The bodyguards labored, walking sideways with her weight between them. They were in magnificent condition, but with each upward grade they breathed a little harder. Yet they were making good time, and probably they would soon be at the convent.

At the convent. Could she appeal to the holy sisters for sanctuary?

She watched the broad, dark shoulders that traveled the trail before them.

Or would Danior make up some tale about her being mad and in need of confinement? She'd be put in a cage and put on exhibit for hoards of sniggering travelers who would say, “I knew she was a nobody.” Or she'd be manacled to a stone wall and forced to take cold water baths until she lost her
mind and fancied she was the princess. She'd admit it then, and be treated like royalty all her days.

Or be killed by Dominic.

And she'd have to marry Danior.