The Runaway Princess

by Christina Dodd

  She whimpered slightly, and her stomach growled again. She was still sleepy, but the hunger was winning.

  Briskly, he added, “Not that I couldn’t eat them all myself.”

  Her slanted eyes snapped open, mahogany brown and sparkling with irritation. “All right. I’ll get up.”

  Her stomach growled again, and he grinned. She didn’t grin back. For all her royal qualities, his dear wife bore hunger poorly.

  Her gaze swept him with regal disdain, and his grin faded. How dare she deny her bloodlines? She might not bear a resemblance to the child he remembered, but he’d seen that mien on a dozen portraits in the Palace of the Two Kingdoms, where they would wed.

  “If you would turn your back, I would rise,” she said haughtily.

  He discovered in himself a heretofore undetected desire to tease, to refuse and watch her struggle to maintain her dignity under his vigilant eyes. But uneasiness prickled between his shoulder blades and warned him it was time to move. He needed to get Evangeline to Plaisance, where she would be safe, not loll around like some Oriental pasha indulging in a frolic.

  Last night he had laid his claim, and he’d always been a most restrained lover. So such playfulness had no place. Standing, he bowed. “As you command, Your Highness.”

  He moved to the fire and knelt beside it to turn the spit. The rabbit sizzled as it browned, fat dripping into the flames. All Evangeline had to do was put on that poor, bedraggled gown. Then he would feed her, and they’d be on their way.

  Perhaps he should show her the bush where her clothing had dried.

  But when he glanced around, he found the clothes were gone. Irresistibly, his gaze slid toward her figure as she picked her way down to the pool. She’d wrapped herself in the rug and held her clothing close to her chest.

  She wasn’t naked as he imagined, a seductive Aphrodite clad only in golden light. An ugly brown blanket swathed her—and she was just as seductive.

  He jerked his gaze back to the crisp, sizzling meat of the rabbit. But he heard her splashing, and glanced again.

  Clearly she didn’t trust him; she’d hung the blanket on the trees between them.

  Damn it. The obvious mistrust the curtain represented infuriated him. Never mind that it was justified; she was his woman, and except for a few formalities, his wife. He’d told her he loved her. He’d guided her into the rites of pleasure. She should trust him implicitly now. So why didn’t she?

  For that matter, why was he still so . . . so . . . dissatisfied?

  He shifted on his haunches. All his life he’d been a man deliberately restrained in his desires. There had never been a woman who could make him forget himself in ecstasy. Such excess was his father’s style, and he had taken care not to emulate his father. Even in the most intimate embrace, he held himself back. He gave the lady fulfillment and himself a climax, but he never shared himself. A man who expected too much was greedy, and such greed boded ill.

  Yet last night he had almost let go.

  He couldn’t. He didn’t. It was Evangeline’s first time, and only an animal would have used her with vigor and unfettered excitement.

  But he’d wanted to. Moderation had been almost beyond his control, and even now in the light of day he wanted . . . something more.

  At Château Fortuné, she had been disconcerted by the mere act of kissing. Even now he couldn’t subdue the smile that kicked up the corner of his mouth. She’d accused him of licking her. If she only knew where he longed to lick, she would have been more than disconcerted—she would have been appalled.

  But she had learned rapidly, and last night those first, struggling scraps of desire she’d displayed had blossomed into a splendid passion.

  So they would blossom again.

  He pulled his knife from the holster in his boot and laid it across the flat rock that would serve as a platter. And listened to her splash as she performed her ablutions in the pool. He imagined going to her, taking her hand, leading her back to the bed and showing her his real self.

  Closing his eyes, he fought the urge. It would be so easy. Only a thin blanket served as a barrier . . . a blanket, and years of knowing that if he ever unchained the beast within himself, he would ravenously seek his mate and take her until they both expired in the conflagration.

  And Evangeline was his mate.

  “Are you ready?”

  He opened his eyes and stared at the woman standing across the fire from him. She shivered slightly beneath the blanket she held over her shoulders, but under that she had donned every bit of her clothing—clothing that had disintegrated even more than he had realized. The hem of her gown was shredded. Triangular tears showed the passage of each thorn and branch. A long rip split the front, and her knee poked out, covered only by a sheer petticoat almost as ragged as the skirt. A faint dew covered her skin from her bath, and the gown clung to her legs and her bosom.

  For a man poised on the edge of control, she presented an almost overpowering temptation.

  And she didn’t even realize it, for she had eyes only for the rabbit.

  “What?” he said.

  “Are you ready?” She squatted opposite him. “Can we eat?”

  Silent, shaken by the images his mind conjured, he stared at her open-kneed stance and wondered if she had somehow divined his suffering and tormented him on purpose.

  “I’ve never been this hungry. I think it must be the altitude or the fresh air or the—fresh air.” Moving back from the fire, she sat on a log and arranged her skirt so it covered her legs. With a glance at him, she brought the edges of the blanket up, too. “Did you catch the rabbit yourself? I know how to snare a rabbit. I read about it once. You’ve been up a long time, then. Thank you for letting me sleep, I was exhausted, but I’m feeling much better now. My foot has miraculously closed. Those herbs are very effective.”

  She wore her old shoes, and through the split in the sole he could see that she’d rebandaged her wound after her bath. He needed to examine it, but . . . he couldn’t touch her. Not yet.

  “On the other hand, it’s not the herbs, is it? I remember what Rafaello said about the royal touch, and I’ve done enough research to know about the old superstition. A king’s touch heals, correct?”

  Dragging his gaze away from that one triangle of exposed skin on her bosom, he grunted and opened the bag. Groping among the contents, he brought forth the pieces of hardtack, and laid them on the heated rocks around the fire. Removing the skewered rabbit from the makeshift rotisserie, he laid it on the flat stone, too.

  “You’re very modest,” she said. “Most men would leap to claim such a talent, and certainly this laceration is much improved. It’s healed enough that I can walk down the mountain by myself.”

  He noted she rocked slightly, her hands clasped over her knees, and he realized that the normally reserved lady was babbling. She couldn’t look him in the eye, and silence made her uncomfortable. Of course; she was nervous, not knowing the etiquette of a man and a woman who had experienced the greatest intimacy of all.

  Maybe she was afraid he would jump her again.

  Maybe she was reading his mind.

  Resolutely, he pulled himself back from the brink of licentiousness and said, “It’s an old wives’ tale.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed, a doe on the verge of flight.

  “The royal touch. It’s an old wives’ tale.” On a plank of bark, he laid out chunks of tender rabbit and a handful of blueberries, concentrating on the task with all his will. “Most of the stories surrounding our monarchy are, of course, but they give us tradition and pageantry, and those are the ties that bind us to our people and our people to us.” The urgent need to mate, he noted, diminished as he spoke. Expressing his opinions to the one woman who could truly comprehend them gave him a sense of gratification and, more important, a measure of command.

  “You think your sovereignty is maintained by myth?” she asked, sounding incredulous.

  Careful not to touch her fingers—re
straint could only stretch so far—he handed her the makeshift plate. “Our sovereignty, and if I didn’t, I would have to believe in magic. Which of course, I do not.”

  Twenty-two

  Evangeline balanced her plate on her knees and took her first bite and her second, her features smooth and serene with enjoyment. Danior thought that in her hunger she hadn’t heard him, but she lifted her gaze from her plate and stared at him. “I don’t understand. What about Revealing? If that’s not magic, what is it?”

  She popped a series of blueberries in her mouth, and as he watched her chew, ladylike and starving, stubborn and defiant and everything he wanted in his princess, an idea came to him—an idea so devious he thought his father would be proud.

  Elaborately casual, Danior served himself and leaned back against a rock. “The whole tale is, I believe, suspect.”

  “Suspect?”

  “A thousand years ago a king and a queen quarreled so harshly the country was torn in half, forming the two kingdoms.”

  “What’s suspect about that? It’s recorded in the histories of all the surrounding principalities.” Her voice changed and took on a scholarly tone. “And historically speaking, such a split was not unusual. Peasants owed allegiance to the lord who protected them from marauders. If the king and queen couldn’t protect their people together, a split was inevitable and probably in the best interest of the farmers, who form the backbone of any medieval domain.”

  He stared at her expounding on medieval society, noted that her eyes were alight with interest, and thought she hadn’t lied about doing research, at least. Obviously, she loved facts.

  And the other girls at the convent must have teased her about her scholarship, for she flashed him a guilty glance and mumbled, “Forgive me.”

  “Why?”

  “Boring.”

  “Not to a future king.”

  She muttered something else, but under her breath.

  He guessed what it was. “I’m pompous?”

  “How did you know what I—” Filling her mouth with flatbread, she crunched defiantly.

  “Our hearts are one.” And if not their hearts, then their minds. He had begun to understand how her mind worked—a useful tool for handling an unpredictable woman such as Evangeline.

  Obviously, the thought of having joined hearts with him didn’t fill her with the ecstasy he expected or his father had predicted. If anything, she looked dismayed as she finished chewing.

  Blast it. Why couldn’t the woman just react as other women did? Why did he have to keep thinking about new ways to handle her?

  She swallowed, then picked up a berry between two blue-stained fingers and concentrated all her attention on it. “What part of the legend of the Two Kingdoms do you find suspect?”

  “That nonsense about Santa Leopolda.”

  “You don’t believe in Santa Leopolda?” Her fingers closed, squashing the berry, and he couldn’t tell if her appalled expression was from the waste of food or from his blasphemy.

  “Oh, I believe there was someone who put the crowns and the scepters in the crystal case and used a special lock to close it.” He took a breath and tested Evangeline. “And stole the rings set with the royal seals while she did the deed.”

  “Stole them?” She looked up, appalled accusation directed at him. “She didn’t steal them. They’re under the velvet the scepters are resting on.”

  Danior took a bite of rabbit. Evangeline was falling into his trap without even a pause. “But there’s no way to prove that, since the rings can’t be seen.”

  “Leona told me that Santa Leopolda placed the rings under the scepters, and Leona certainly seemed to know the history of the Two Kingdoms.” Evangeline’s eyes snapped with indignation, even as she continued to pick meat off the bones. “Why would you think Santa Leopolda stole them? And why do you think there’s a special lock that closes the case? The legend says that when she shut the case, fire ignited along the seam and sealed it.”

  “By magic.” He made mockery of the word.

  “It is impossible to open, you know.”

  “It’s not impossible.” That he truly believed.

  She rapped her knuckles lightly on her plate and almost knocked the food to the ground—a true sign of her agitation. “Seven hundred years ago, the case was stolen by the Leons, by your family. Who kept it in your family stronghold for two centuries. If the case could have been opened, they would have done so and claimed the kingdom.”

  “They couldn’t claim the kingdom because that would have proven the prophecy wrong.”

  “The prophecy says that anyone who can open the crystal case has the right to wear the crown within, take the title of king or queen, and reunite the Two Kingdoms.”

  The trap was closing around her, and he was conscious of an almost imperceptible relaxation within himself. “Is that what the prophecy says?”

  “You know it does,” she said, magnificently impatient with him. “And you can’t tell me no one in your family tried to open that case! I heard that sometime while they had it, it was dropped from a castle tower onto the rocks below.”

  Finishing his meal, he threw the plate into the fire. “I heard that, too.”

  “And it never shattered.”

  The flames blazed higher, reducing the bark and bones to ashes. He stared into the flickering light and pondered Evangeline’s arrogant and unconscious self-betrayal. “England is a country notorious for being smug and bumptious. However did you hear such a detail about such an insignificant land so far away?”

  “Leona taught me everything I know about Baminia and Serephina.”

  “The language and the history and the legends.”

  She heard his skepticism, for she said, “Oh, why won’t you believe me? You don’t doubt that I learned to descend a tower on a rope, or to kick a man where it hurts, or—”

  “How a man and a woman make love?”

  Crimson crept into her face, but she met his eyes without flinching. “Yes, I learned that from books, too. So why won’t you believe that Leona loved to talk about the Two Kingdoms? She must have been Serephinian or Baminian, and in exile after the revolution, and wanting to talk about her home.”

  “Anything is possible.” He didn’t care about her imaginary Leona. He only cared that she had betrayed herself, and he wanted her to admit the truth.

  For once, she would tell him the truth.

  “Now, about that lovemaking . . .”

  “You’re distracting me on purpose!” she cried.

  She baffled him with the twists and curves of her mind—maybe he didn’t understand her as well as he hoped. “Distracting you?”

  “Because you don’t want to talk about your family stealing the crystal case and dropping it out of the tower in a despicable attempt to rule the Two Kingdoms without the Chartrier family interfering!”

  Her very indignation gave her away, and satisfaction rolled over him.

  She must have seen the complacency imprinted on his features, for she pointed one slender, greasy finger at him. “And get that expression off your face. I’m not angry because I’m the princess, I’m angry because I’m English, and the English always root for the underdog!”

  “Of course,” he said smoothly.

  “You’re maddening.” She took a long, indrawn breath. “Any woman who marries you will spend her life fuming.”

  “I won’t allow that.” He caught her gaze through the small ripples of heat created by the fire. “The woman who marries me will be gloriously happy. I will demand it.”

  She challenged him with a lift of her chin. “You don’t always get what you want.”

  “I will this time.” They sat still, silently testing each other for character and determination, neither giving way until he nodded and made judgment. “You, dearling, are my princess in waiting.”

  “I am not anybody’s princess. Santa Leopolda predicted it would take a thousand years before a prince and princess were born at the right time to marry,
fulfill the prophecy, and unite the countries. Now, when you should be out searching for Princess Ethelinda so you can take command of your country, you are sitting here with me.” She picked among the remains of her meal for the last blueberries. “I’m not the princess, and I can’t open the crystal case.”

  If she worried about her capability to open the case, if that was the reason she denied her destiny, then he well understood and would soothe her misgivings. “You won’t have to. I will.”

  “How?” She flung out an arm. “We’re on our way to Plaisance. Suppose we get to the city without being killed. Suppose we are taken to the Palace of the Two Kingdoms, there to rest and wait for our wedding. Suppose we rise on the morning of Revealing, dress in the garments of the ancestors, and go to the town square. Suppose we climb the steps to the cathedral and stand in front of all of the people of Serephina and Baminia who have gathered to see the miracle. Suppose that together we place our hands on the crystal case—and suppose nothing happens.”

  Standing, he went to the pool and washed his hands.

  Her voice took on a pleading note. “Suppose for one moment I’m right and you’re wrong. Suppose I am not the princess. The magic will not work. The people will kill us.”

  He went to the bed and dismantled it, folding the cloak and the rug, scattering the branches.

  “And all because you’re a thickheaded swine.”

  She bristled with exasperation, but he gave her insult the consideration it deserved.

  That is to say, none.

  “A thickheaded swine?” He placed the blankets into the bag. “On the contrary. I’m being inordinately clever.”

  Agitated, she pitched her plate into the fire. “We don’t dare take this chance.”

  He took up the container of herbs and walked to her. “It’s time for me to examine your foot.”

  “Really, it’s not hurting . . .” Her voice trailed off as she viewed his determination. “I suppose there’s no escaping you.”

  “There never has been.” Kneeling before her, he removed her shoe and unwrapped the bandage. The wound had indeed closed. The edges of the thin red slash looked clean, and nowhere beneath the skin were there pockets of purulence. Evangeline was a healthy young woman, the pond’s heat and sulfur had worked to cleanse the cut, and the royal maywort had promoted healing.