The door opened beneath his fist, and he almost fell into the dim foyer.
He regained his balance and, for the first time in his life, he stared up at a woman. She was tall. She also outweighed him by five stones. She probably served as the guard for the whorehouse, and that meant she was physically powerful.
“Yes?” Her deep voice demanded respect and an explanation.
Rainger tried a lie first. “My... brother came in here not long ago. It’s a mistake, he shouldn’t be here... .”
“Your... brother?” The huge woman imitated his tone. Before he could duck, she grabbed him by the collar and yanked him inside.
That settled the issue of her strength.
She slammed the door behind him. “Tell me about your brother.”
“He’s about so tall”—Rainger showed her with his hand—“with red hair and a black cape.”
“I may have met him.” The woman looked down her nose at Rainger. “What can you tell me that would convince me to let you see him?”
“He just sold two horses and he’s proud of himself.”
“If that’s the best you can do, I’m throwing you out the door.” The woman flicked her sausagelike fingers.
Damn. What did she know? Rainger improvised, “He’s never been to a place of this nature and he’s ill prepared for the rigors required.”
She inclined her head. “What else?”
“He’s traveling to Edinburgh with me. He probably mentioned me. I’m Arnou the fisherman.”
“He said not a word about you.” Opening the door, she grabbed the scruff of his neck and prepared to throw him out.
He probably could’ve hurt her, but he didn’t fight women, especially not women who appeared to be protecting Sorcha. Hastily he said, “He’s not what he appears.”
The woman tightened her grip.
“He’s a she!” Rainger blurted.
The woman shut the door... with him still on the inside. She let him go. “Now, why did you tell me that?”
He straightened his clothing. “Because I figured you already knew or you wouldn’t be harassing me.”
“I know a lot of things about that lass, and I know nothing about you, so you’d better start confiding your secrets or I promise you, you’ll never see her again.”
Possessive fury ripped through him. He stepped up to the woman. He fixed his gaze on hers. “Do not tell me I’ll never see Sorcha again. She’s mine.”
For one scorching moment, the woman held his gaze. Then she blinked. “Come with me.” Turning her back on him, she walked down the corridor, leaving him standing alone, fists clenched at his side.
What game was she playing?
Did she not fear that he would attack from the back?
Was she so sure of herself? Of him?
As he debated, she walked out of sight in the dim corridor. “Come!” she called.
He did. She led him to a well-appointed parlor of aqua and gold—but it was empty. The room smelled of paint and mineral spirits... and perfume. Sorcha wasn’t here, and he stood in the doorway as the huge woman seated herself on a delicate chair that looked as if it would break under her weight. “Where is she?” he asked.
“She’s here. She’s safe. I intend that she will remain that way.” The woman pointed to a chair opposite hers. “Sit and talk to me. Convince me I should allow you to see her.”
Instead he stood. “If you’ll just ask her, she’ll tell you that I’m her traveling companion and your suspicions will be lulled.”
“You’re wrong. That girl is an innocent. She has no idea who her enemies are, and I do not intend to deliver her to you without assurances.” Her voice flicked at him like a whip. “Sit down.”
He sat.
“Give me your hand.”
This woman made him wonder if he’d fallen into delirium. He gave her his hand.
She examined the shape, looked at his nails, turned the palm upward, and stared at it, apparently arrested by... the fact it was clean? The depths of the lines? The slash across the fingers of his right hand... the slash Count duBelle had made with his cane?
He waited for her to comment on it, but when her heavy lids lifted, she stared into his eyes and said, “Your fingers have touched death.”
He stared back. His brain absorbed the impossible information: this woman knew what had happened. How was that possible?
It wasn’t possible. Only one man living knew what had happened that night, and he was far away, and he never spoke of it. Not even to Rainger.
But this woman didn’t wait for an answer. “You are Sorcha’s prince.”
Did this woman have sources he didn’t imagine? Was she an assassin?
“No. I only suspected. I didn’t know until this moment.” She watched him as if she knew his very thoughts. “I am Madam Pinchon. I’m the owner of this establishment and have been for more than five years. Yes, I will kill you—but only if you have ill intentions toward that girl. Does that calm your suspicions?” When he didn’t answer, she smiled. “No. Of course not. Your suspicions are well founded and part of your being. But I warn you, Prince, you’re making a mistake not trusting that girl.”
“I trust her.”
“Enough to tell her who you are?”
“I have my reasons for not revealing myself to her.” And he carried weapons on him right now. If this woman, this Madam Pinchon, tried to kill him, he would respond with all his strength. If she’d hurt Sorcha, she’d live only long enough to suffer.
She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and pondered him as if he were a puzzle. “So you’re her prince, but you’ve never met.”
“We grew up together.” An exaggeration, for he’d lived in the palace in Richarte and Sorcha had lived in Beaumontagne, but at least once a year their parents had traveled to see each other. Rainger couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know Sorcha.
“But she’s traveling with you. Why doesn’t she remember you?”
“I’ve changed.” An understatement.
Madam scrutinized his face, half covered by a rag. “There’s nothing wrong with your eye.”
“No.” Let her know he was a powerful, healthy man capable of defending himself and Sorcha.
“Just as she is disguising herself, you’re disguising yourself. But why? Why don’t you tell her who you are?”
“I have no assurance she’ll meekly go with me to be wed, and I can’t lose her now. Too much depends on our union.”
“What masculine madness leads you to believe she’ll wed a man who lied to her?”
“When we return to Beaumontagne, she’ll have no choice.”
“You’re a fool. Too much royal crossbreeding, I suppose.” Standing, she started for the door. “Come with me. Sorcha’s downstairs in the kitchen, eating with the girls.”
He followed on her heels, his mind whirling. He should be more alarmed about the possibility of walking into a trap, but—“Eating? With the girls?”
“Perhaps I should say—eating a meal with the girls.” She burst into laughter and, setting her feet carefully on each tread, led him down the narrow stairway.
This easily could be a trap with Sorcha as bait, so he loosened the knife strapped over his ribs and sturdy truncheon hanging off his belt. The kitchen door was ahead. From inside, he heard the sound of light feminine laughter and, above that, Sorcha’s voice telling a story.
Her glee stopped him in his tracks. She sounded young, carefree, and memory tossed him back to a day in the gardens of Beaumontagne... .
He wandered the palace disconsolately. He was lonely. The adults were busy talking about the recent troubles in the kingdom and though he was sixteen, they’d told him he wasn’t old enough to give his opinion. He was too old now to play with the princesses. They romped like puppies when they should show some decorum and when he told them so, they shredded him and his dignity.
Yet the sound of Sorcha’s voice brought him to a halt, then had him sidling forward, keeping to t
he shrubbery.
When he got in position he saw that she stood on top of a wall, declaiming the part of Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing and doing so with such vigor, he cringed when she said, “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
Her broad delivery and sweeping gestures made her sisters collapse with laughter, and he watched undetected, separated by two years and an inflated sense of superiority.
But that hadn’t stopped him from noticing that his fiancée, though she was acting like a hoyden, had blossomed into a pretty girl. She had a shape, the kind of shape that made his body stir. His father said that a well-built barn made Rainger’s body stir—which was true, but it was also true Sorcha had developed rounded breasts and a waist that Rainger could span with his hands. Her hair was still carroty, but her dark lashes and brows were like black velvet settings for her sapphire-blue eyes, and her smile warmed him.
Unfortunately, it warmed everybody. She was the perfect princess, and he got sick of his godmother and his friends and two courts, his own and Beaumontagne’s, saying he wasn’t good enough for her. Everyone always punched his shoulder to show they were joking—but they weren’t.
She always did her schoolwork, behaved well at ambassador visits, and charmed his father.
He suffered from pimples, adolescent surliness, and inopportune cockstands that occurred during court presentations.
Only Countess duBelle really understood him. Her smiles, her stroking of his arm, her surreptitious touches on his knee had gone far to build his opinion of himself—and those inopportune cockstands.
Yet today, seeing the princesses being carefree and affectionate, he wished he could join them and that their lives could be like they had been when they were young.
Returning to the present, he grimly reflected that their lives would never be like that again.
Madam Pinchon indicated a carved wooden screen against the stairway. “Stay behind that. Listen. Do not speak. Do not reveal yourself.”
“But why?”
“Because in this place and at this time, Your Highness, I am in command.” She glanced at the truncheon hanging from his belt. “With that by your hand, you’re safe enough.”
“I do know how to use it,” he assured her.
“I’m sure you do.” She disappeared into the kitchen to a chorus of greetings and the clinking of silverware. “Dear Sorcha, are you satisfied with your meal?”
“It was very good,” Sorcha said, “although not as good as Eveleen’s explanation of blowing the hornpipe.”
Rainger jerked his head back so quickly he thumped his head against the wall. Fortunately, with all the laughter no one heard him.
What had these women told Sorcha?
He heard a chair scrape across the floor. “They’ve explained men to you?” Madam asked.
“All about them.” Sorcha sounded incredibly cheerful for a cloistered virgin who had just been told the facts of life. “I expect I’ll now be able to manage whatever husband I have to marry quite well.”
Rainger peered through a hole carved in the screen, but the angle was wrong to view the kitchen.
“Remember, managing a man is all about understanding his thoughts before he does—which shouldn’t be difficult, because men have so few of them.” The relish in Madam’s voice told Rainger quite clearly how much she enjoyed tweaking his nose out of joint.
He moved from side to side, wanting to see Sorcha. He’d be able to judge her condition by her expression. And he needed to survey the situation, to judge the danger.
“So ye’re bound t’ be wed, are ye?” one of the ladies asked Sorcha.
“Eventually. I’ll have to be. I have to give Beaumontagne an heir.” Sorcha sighed with pathetic wistfulness.
Moving with the stealth he’d learned in the last few years, Rainger slid out from behind the screen and glanced in the kitchen. He saw tall windows at the tops of the walls, and a long table cluttered with dishes. Madam Pinchon had positioned herself in an immense chair at one end. Half a dozen scantily clad ladies were seated on benches. Sorcha sat in between a blonde and an auburn-haired beauty, and she looked perfectly at home. More than that, she looked happy and so feminine he wondered how she ever fooled anyone at all.
“Perhaps yer husband will be a prince.” The lovely auburn-haired woman spoke.
“Yes, Eveleen, he’ll be a prince.” Sorcha grasped the female’s arm and in a tone of mock dismay said, “But I’ve met my share of princes.”
Madam shot him a meaningful warning glance.
He backed behind the screen again. The kitchen held nowhere an assassin could hide. He would keep his guard up, but for the moment he believed they were safe.
Sorcha continued, “Princes have warts and bad teeth and they’re old and they smell... The best prince I ever met was my fiancé, Rainger, and he was no prize—God rest his soul.”
What had been wrong with him? All right, he’d been selfish, vain, and given to airs, but compared to the other princes, he’d been quite a catch. Pressing his ear against the screen, he silently urged her to expound more.
“What was wrong with this Rainger?” Madam asked.
“One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” Sorcha said primly.
“When you get right down to it, you shouldn’t speak ill of the living, either.” Madam spoke forcefully enough for him to hear. “If this Rainger was a waste of good teeth, then he was and it’s too late for him to change.”
“He did have good teeth. He was a very handsome boy.” Sorcha sounded wistful.
“Good looks go a long way toward soothing my distaste,” a pert voice said.
“So tell us what was wrong with him,” Madam commanded.
Yes, tell us what was wrong with him.
“When we were children, he was all right. A tease, but not bad at heart. But he didn’t have my grandmother to teach him humility, and as he grew, he believed the things his courtiers told him. He thought he was wonderful. He was not.”
A little less eagerness to speak ill of the dead wouldn’t be amiss.
“He believed he was better than me because he was a boy, because he was older, and because we were betrothed almost as soon as we were born.”
“He didn’t have to do anything t’ win ye.” Eveleen spoke again.
“Exactly. He was stuck with me—that’s what he said, stuck with me—and he valued me not at all. Not as much as his horse or his dog.”
But I value you now. You are my key to the kingdom. I’ll make sure you know it, too.
“And I assure you, I’ll be a good ruler. He wouldn’t have been. He didn’t understand tact or how to manage people.”
But I’ve learned. I’m managing you right now.
“He believed his way was the only way and everything he did was right.” Sorcha laughed, but her amusement held a bitter edge.
Sorcha’s scorn flicked at Rainger’s pride. Yes, he’d wanted her to explain what she disliked, but not so vehemently.
She finished with, “I would have done all the work and he’d have gotten all the credit.”
A scathing review of his character, the kind that left him breathless and aggrieved.
“But all princes are much the same.” Sorcha made a noise that sounded like a shudder.
“She’s got a worse time of it than we do.” The blond woman spoke.
“Poor princess.” Madam sounded sympathetic. “We should give Sorcha a gift.”
“Advice on how t’ geld a man?” The pert cheerfulness in the lady’s voice made Rainger flinch.
“No, Helen,” Madam said patiently. “I was thinking a nightgown guaranteed to make the wedding night ordeal go quickly.”
“But you’ve been so kind to me already.”
Sorcha means it, the little fool.
“You’re the most entertainment we’ve had in weeks. Come on, stand up, let’s look you over.” At Madam’s command, chairs scraped again. After a moment, she said, “She’s about your size, Hel
en. Give her that new lace nightgown.”
Rainger eyed the screen, then the door. If he moved the screen a little bit, he could look inside the kitchen.
“Ah, not that one!” Helen’s voice expressed disappointment.
“I’ll buy you a new one.” Madam’s tone made it clear she’d brook no argument.
But if he moved the screen, he ran the chance of being spotted.
“All right!” Without sparing a glance toward the screen, Helen flounced out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
“I’ve met two men on this journey who’ve known I’m a woman,” Sorcha said. “The nuns dressed me, but they must have made a few mistakes. You know the female form better than anyone.”
“And the male form.” Eveleen laughed.
“And the male form,” Sorcha conceded. “Can you help me look less female?”
Rainger’s princess was nothing if not practical.
“We certainly can,” Eveleen said. “There’re men who request that, ye know.”
Rainger knew what Sorcha was going to say before she said it.
“Why?”
“Sometimes men like t’ play games,” one of the ladies told her.
“That’s something to remember,” Sorcha answered.
More of her note-taking on how to handle a man, no doubt.
In a brisk, no-nonsense tone, Madam said, “Let’s see your hair. Hm, yes. The color of your hair’s unfortunate, but it’s thick. Let me loosen your braid.”
Rainger hadn’t thought he would see Sorcha with her hair unbound until their wedding night. Now, when he had the chance, he was eighteen frustrated inches away from the spectacle.
He heard a shuffling, a murmuring. Then the prostitutes gasped.
“It looks like a silk of indescribable value,” Eveleen said.
Madam Pinchon cleared her throat. “The color’s not so unfortunate after all. And it has a nice wave.”
Picking up the screen, Rainger shuffled around until he had the kitchen, and Sorcha, in his sight. He shoved the rag off his face and pressed his face to the carved hole.
The Prince Kidnaps a Bride Page 10