The Prince Kidnaps a Bride

by Christina Dodd

  “It’s not that my husband is quick.” Salvinia shoved her cup back and forth in short, forceful gestures. “It’s that I don’t know when he’s put it in.”

  A burst of nervous laughter followed that pronouncement.

  “Is it really so small?” Roxanne was wide-eyed.

  “Like a new potato,” Salvinia assured them. No wonder her brown eyes were sad.

  Sorcha sniffed into the handkerchief. “That’s not Rainger’s problem. In fact, one of the prostitutes at Madam Pinchon’s said he was well endowed.”

  “He’s already visiting whores?” Tulia asked in horror.

  “No, I was visiting them.” Sorcha cradled the wine between her palms, stared into its depths, and wished she could get Rainger’s bare face out of her mind. “He came to tell me it was time to go and Eveleen looked him over and told me he had a large cock.”

  All the women in the kitchen took a drink of their wine. Tulia blotted her upper lip and murmured, “Hot flash.”

  “It’s that, from the moment he had me cast out of the convent—”

  The women gasped in horror.

  That gasp gave Sorcha a great deal of satisfaction. “It’s true. He’s a villain. He set fire to my cell so I had to leave or face putting the convent in danger.”

  “That’s rather clever,” Rhea said thoughtfully.

  Grandmother Sancia coughed and, with a jerk of her head, indicated Sorcha.

  “For a man, I mean,” Rhea added hastily.

  “But Your Highness, I don’t understand.” Looking puzzled and mutinous, Roxanne said, “If it’s not too small and he’s willing to take the time and the noises you were making last night weren’t complaints—”

  Ora thrust a plump elbow in Roxanne’s skinny ribs.

  “I just want to know what’s wrong with him!” Roxanne insisted. “Sorcha, why are you so mad at him?”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” Sorcha said impatiently. “He chased me out of the convent. He tricked me into letting him travel with me all the way across Scotland. He lied to me about who he was and what he wanted. Worse than all that, when he burned my cell he burned my sisters’ letters, too.”

  “The other princesses?” Grandmother Sancia drew back in horror. “He burned Prince Clarice and Princess Amy’s letters?”

  “Yes.” Sorcha relished blackening Rainger’s character. “I didn’t know if Clarice and Amy were alive or dead.” She saw the women’s anxious expressions and assured them, “They are alive.”

  In thanksgiving, the women looked to the cross that hung above the table.

  “I thought my last link to my sisters had turned to ashes. I cried about those letters. He saw me cry.” Sorcha sniffed at the memory of her tears barely withheld. “And do you know what?”

  Every woman in the kitchen shook her head.

  “He had new letters in his saddlebags the whole journey and until this morning, he never, ever let me know they were there.” Sorcha indicated the letters on the table, leaned back, and waited.

  “Men!” Grandmother Sancia shook her bony fist toward the taproom.

  “Well-endowed or not, he deserves to be strung up,” Salvinia said with some regret.

  “He’s as spoiled a prince as everyone back in Richarte claimed.” Tulia filled Sorcha’s cup to the brim.

  “He’s a... a reprobate.” Sorcha stared into the depths of her ruby wine with such heat the liquid should have simmered. “He’s a... a wretch. He’s a miscreant. He’s—”

  “A whoreson,” Roxanne said.

  Tulia shushed her.

  But that was exactly the term Sorcha had been searching for. “Yes. A whoreson! A filthy, slimy whoreson. A disgusting lousy—”

  “Dilberry,” Ora said.

  “Yes. A dilberry.” Sorcha didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded awful. “He’s a ghastly, repellent dilberry.”

  “Devil’s dung,” Grandmother Sancia said.

  “Certainly he’s devil’s dung.” Sorcha relished the phrase. “A steaming, stinking pile of devil’s dung.”

  “A gravy-eyed frig pig,” Phoenice said.

  “Yes, he is the worst, most horrible gravy-eyed frig pig I’ve ever seen.” Sorcha made her pronouncement with a great deal of zest.

  Roxanne put down her cup. “Actually, I think he’s rather handsome and important-looking.”

  Every woman in the kitchen turned and glared at her.

  “Gravy-eyed and a frig pig,” Roxanne said hastily. “I don’t know how I missed it.”

  “I don’t know how you did, either.” Sorcha showed them Clarice’s letter. “Clarice is married to Robert, Lord Hepburn, of MacKenzie Manor here in Scotland. Do you know where that is?”

  “MacKenzie Manor sits just outside the town of Freya Crags.” Tulia turned to Ora. “Your husband rides down that direction when he buys mutton. How far would you say it is?”

  “From New Prospera to Freya Crags is only a day’s ride on a good horse,” Ora answered.

  Sorcha stood. “You mean if I leave now, I could see Clarice tonight?”

  “Yes, but Your Highness, you can’t go by yourself.” Phoenice’s alarm transmitted itself to the other women, who shook their heads. “Prince Rainger may be a gravy-eyed frig pig, but he’s right. Count duBelle’s assassins—”

  Grandmother Sancia spit on the floor.

  Tulia rushed to clean it up.

  Phoenice continued, “Count duBelle’s assassins would find you an easy target. We’re not going to lose you now.”

  “No, you’re not,” Sorcha assured her. “I don’t intend to get myself killed, so give me a well-armed escort. I ride to Freya Crags immediately.”

  As soon as Rainger finished dressing in his new garments—and he was very thankful to wear clothes that fit him—he hurried down to the taproom.

  There he found the men gathered in small, worried groups. Father Terrance. Montaroe the innkeeper. Vernon the butcher. Chauncery the tailor. Alroy, Savill, Paul, Octavius. Two dozen men packed the room and all of them were glancing at the kitchen, then up the stairs, and when Rainger stopped in the doorway, Montaroe said with false heartiness, “Please, Your Highness, come in.”

  “Where’s Sorcha?” Rainger wanted to get this issue of her unhappiness settled right now.

  “She’s in the kitchen with the women.”

  Rainger started after her.

  Father Terrance stopped him with a forceful hand on his arm. “She’ll be all right. They’ll take care of her.”

  “I need to explain a few things to her.” More than a few things, apparently.

  “No. No, you really don’t,” Montaroe said.

  “We need to explain a few things to you.” Alroy took Rainger’s other arm. “Sit down over here.”

  Alroy was the blacksmith. His chest was the size of a bull’s and his shirt bulged with muscle. When Alroy guided, a man moved.

  So Rainger found himself seated by the fire. It was the fanciest, most comfortable chair in the taproom, but Father Terrance pulled up a footstool and sat on one side of him while Alroy guarded the other side, and from the way Alroy crossed his hands over his chest, Rainger knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Montaroe shoved a tankard of ale in Rainger’s one hand and a rasher of bacon on toast in the other.

  Rainger looked at the food and drink, then glanced around at the men, all standing stern-faced with their arms crossed. “What’s all this about?”

  “Drink up, Your Highness, you’re not leaving until we’ve finished our talk.” Father Terrance waited until Rainger took a bite and a drink. He moved his footstool to face him. “In the normal manner of things, you’d be married with your family there to celebrate with you.”

  “Yes.” Rainger waited tensely.

  “The wedding celebration would take days. There’d be dinners and plenty of chances to meet your new relatives and converse with your bride, and perhaps you’d be allowed a chance to sneak a kiss.” Father Terrance accepted his own mug from Montaroe, drained it
, and wiped his mouth on his hand. “On the morning of the ceremony, your father and your uncles would take you aside and give you good advice on the proper handling of your bride during the wedding night.”

  Rainger couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “I know how to handle a woman.”

  “Yes, Your Highness, but the women you’ve handled in the past haven’t been princesses. Possibly they weren’t virgins.” Father Terrance’s voice rose to a low shout. “Certainly they didn’t come downstairs afterward crying as if they’d been torn from stem to stern.”

  Montaroe hastily interceded. “What Father Terrance is trying to tell you is—with a princess as delicate as your bride, you need to be a little gentler.”

  “I made her happy!” Rainger snapped.

  “Of course.” Father Terrance’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’ve never seen a happier-looking bride than Princess Sorcha when she ran in here, glared at us like we were beasts, and ran out.”

  “Eventually she’ll get used to it. Then you can ride her like a mare rather than a filly.” Alroy’s voice rumbled in his massive chest. “It just takes some patience.”

  Rainger started to tell them all to go to hell.

  Then Vernon said, “Even if she doesn’t get used to it, it only lasts a few seconds.”

  Rainger stopped, stunned, and realized his mouth was hanging open.

  “Lots of patience,” Alroy repeated. Standing, he headed for the bar and poured his own ale.

  All the men poured themselves an ale.

  Chauncery leaned against the bar and said, “My wife says my organ is tiny, but even the biggest pipe organ seems small when it’s playing in a cathedral.”

  Rainger ate his bread and bacon and finished his tankard. If they were going to keep talking like this, he needed sustenance. When he’d finished, he declared, “I didn’t hurt her.”

  The men turned to look at him.

  “I took my time.” Half the night in fact. “As sweetly as she sang, I feared you would hear her throughout the inn.”

  “We did,” Montaroe admitted. “But when we saw her this morning, we thought—”

  “That’s not why she was crying.” Montaroe offered another ale, but Rainger thought better of it. He and Sorcha should leave as soon as possible and he needed his wits about him. “She’s angry because she says I made a fool of her.”

  “Ah, is that it?” Father Terrance stroked his chin. “She’s right. I never did understand why you didn’t tell her who you are.”

  “Or why you wore that scarf across your eye,” Chauncery said.

  “I had my reasons.” Rainger did not have to explain himself to these men. For as much good as it had done him, he shouldn’t have explained himself to Sorcha.

  “Well, whatever they are, they’re unlikely to impress her,” Father Terrance said. “Have you never been made a fool of? It’s a painful experience.”

  Rainger had been made a fool of. Julienne had made a fool of him and even now the memory of his naked defense of her made him wince.

  Father Terrance watched him with wise eyes. “Yes, forgiveness might take a bit of time.”

  All right. Rainger would accept she felt the sting of mortification. But her reaction to the other issue was extreme and absurd. “She actually seemed more aggrieved that I burned her sisters’ letters.” He expected the men to laugh.

  “You burned her sisters’ letters?” The length, strength, and unity of the outcry surprised Rainger.

  “Yes.” He debated telling them the rest of it, but it seemed they knew something he didn’t. “And I had some new letters and kept them from her.”

  The collective sighing and head-shaking was prolonged and unnerving.

  “Not that my wife and her sisters get along, mind you, but I made the mistake of stepping between them when they were fighting.” Alroy swallowed and his eyes widened with remembered fear. “I still have the scars to prove it.”

  “They turned on you?” Rainger wanted to laugh at the absurdity of women attacking this strong man.

  “Like a pack of wolves,” Alroy said. “They don’t like each other—”

  Octavius interrupted, “Except when they do.” He tapped his chest. “I’m Alroy’s brother-in-law.”

  Alroy nodded. “But a wise man never interferes where sisters are involved.”

  Rainger rubbed his forehead. His head ached. Not from too much drinking, but from counsel that baffled and confused him.

  “So the little princesses are alive?” Vernon’s eyes were alight.

  “Very much so,” Rainger confirmed

  The men clapped each other on the back, offering congratulations as if they were new-made fathers.

  Their happiness warmed Rainger and told him how much Sorcha had touched their hearts. “Amy lives in southern England. Clarice is married and lives not far from here.”

  “Uh-oh,” Montaroe said.

  The men shook their heads at him.

  Rainger was getting tired of this silent communication they shared.

  “Princess Sorcha is going to want to visit her sister,” Vernon told him.

  “She can’t.” Rainger had already thought of this and he’d made his decision. “We need to get to Edinburgh and on a ship as quickly as we can. When the kingdoms are safe, her sisters can come to visit, but until then—”

  Alroy snorted. “If you think Her Highness is going to let a little detail like assassins stop her from going to her sister after years of separation, you’re more naïve than I can even imagine.”

  “You must be patient, my son,” Father Terrance told Alroy. “He lived in a dungeon for eight years.”

  “That’s the only way a man manages to remain so ignorant of women.” Alroy snorted again. “Well, that and living in a monastery.”

  Rainger rose to his feet and stood toe to toe with the much larger, much stronger Alroy. “You’re disrespectful.”

  “Before you came down, Father Terrance said we were to be your family. Well, I’m talking the same good sense to you I would tell my brother. Princess Sorcha is furious at you. Admit it’s your fault, beg her pardon, take her to see her sister, and crawl until she forgives you.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’ve never heard such nonsense.” More than that, when he’d escaped that dungeon, he’d sworn two vows—that he would go back, kill Count duBelle, and rescue his kingdom, and that he would never crawl again.

  Certainly he had no intention of playing the penitent to his own wife.

  “Sooner or later you’re going to want back in her bed, and an ice queen is a cold bedmate,” Alroy said.

  “She’s not cold.” Of all the facts Rainger knew to be true, this was infallible. “I made sure of that.”

  “Tell me that tomorrow morning, Your Highness.” Quick grins flashed around the room, and Alroy repeated, “Tell me that tomorrow morning.”

  Chapter 21

  Rainger leaned against the door of the bridal chamber and watched Sorcha placing a bottle of wine and brown paper packages in her saddlebags. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m packing.”

  So her fit of temper hadn’t faded yet.

  “That’s a good idea. We need to get to Edinburgh before the assassins discover where we are.”

  “I’m not going to Edinburgh. At least not yet.”

  He straightened. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m going to see my sister. Remember? Clarice, the one who married the Scottish earl? The earl whose estate is only a day’s ride from Edinburgh?” Sorcha’s voice rose. “Did you think I would get so close to Clarice and not go to see her?” Her voice dropped back into the normal range. “Besides, once I get there, Robert will send an escort with me to catch the ship to France.”

  “If you can get there safely,” Rainger injected, whipping scorn into his voice.

  “I can get to Freya Crags as safely as I can get to Edinburgh. More safely, since I’ll be going in the opposite direction the assassins expect.”

 
She was right. Rainger didn’t like it, but in this she was right. “Did you imagine you were going alone?”

  She faced him, hands on hips. “No, I’m pretty sure I can command a guard from this village. Oh!” She feigned surprise. “I suppose you’ll want to come along, too, to protect your investment. After all, you went through a lot of trouble to find the one princess who wasn’t fluffing the sheets with another man.”

  He had come up here determined to make things right with Sorcha. To follow the men’s advice and apologize even though he was right. To convince her to see matters his way.

  But when she stood there like that, so cocky and smart-mouthed, she sent his temper soaring. Where had his merry traveling companion gone? When had she turned into a shrew?

  The men were wrong. Rainger needed to trust his own instincts. Last night, he’d made her his woman. Last night, he’d proved she could be softened with sex.

  Now, using all the considerable intimidation he had at his disposal, he strode toward her.

  She didn’t back up.

  He loomed over her.

  She maintained the same belligerent stance.

  Wrapping his arms around her waist, he lifted her onto her toes and kissed her. Kissed her with all the skill at his disposal and the passion she roused in him.

  At first she didn’t answer. She hung loosely, her hands dangling at her sides, her lips firmly sealed and unresponsive.

  Gradually she came to life. Her fingers clutched his forearms, then slid up his biceps and pulled him tighter into her. Her lips softened under the probe of his tongue. She allowed him into the sweet cavern of her mouth, met his tender search, and, as if curiosity could no longer be denied, she even explored his mouth.

  The sensation of her feminine form made his body leap to life. He remembered all the tender, passionate moments of the night before. He imagined all the fiery, exhilarating love bouts they would have in the future. He wanted her now so urgently he might never have had her. She had become his obsession. He started to back her toward the bed...

  An alarm blasted through his brain.

  They had to leave now.

  But she was reacting to his desire.

  They had to escape Scotland.