by Princess
The thunder and lightning had stopped, but rain coursed in little waterfalls from the eaves of the porte cochere. It was a warm night.
As Serafina stood waiting under the iron chandelier, she glanced up at the moths swarming around the sturdy candles, risking their wings over the fire. Then, through the screen of rain, she stared out at the dark landscape, seeing in every pooled shadow Henri with his broken neck, or Darius wrenching his knife out of Philippe’s breast.
She could not believe she was the object of so much conflict and international commotion.
She shrugged deeper into her smartly tailored, pearl-gray traveling gown and studied her elaborate military escort. The coach was flanked by armed men on horses, Darius’s handpicked squad of about thirty men.
Her parents stood in the doorway while Darius jogged ahead, going lightly down the steps to the coach, where he opened the door for her, his head ducked slightly against the downpour. As she hurried toward him, he glanced into the roomy interior of the coach as if checking it for monsters, then he offered his hand and assisted her inside.
She settled into the velvet squabs, struck by the fanciful notion that she could almost pretend they were newlyweds and he was taking her away from her family as her husband.
The thought pained her.
She leaned toward the coach window and blew her parents a kiss, pausing to watch them standing together, arm in arm, with the light of their love almost visible around them.
I will never know how that feels, she thought in strange detachment.
Meanwhile, Darius walked up and down the line of men, checking on everyone one last time. His black Andalusian stallion had been tethered to the back of the carriage. He tugged on the horse’s lead rope to make sure it was securely tied, gave the restless animal a brisk pat on the neck, then strode back up to the side of the coach. He accepted two rifles from a subordinate and sprang up into the roomy coach with her.
He turned his back on her to secure the rifles in the rack above his seat, but he sat down at last on the velvet seat opposite her, tugging his impeccable black jacket neatly into place. He leaned over, slammed the coach door, and flipped its three locks into position.
He stared at her for a second with an intent look, his eyes slightly narrowed, as if he were scanning a mental checklist. He sliced her parents a crisp wave out the window, then banged on the coach to signal the driver to move.
They were off.
Serafina stared at him, wide-eyed in the dark, her heart in her throat as it finally sank in that she truly had gotten her way. For the next few days, perhaps even a week, she had Darius Santiago, her idol, her demon, all to herself. She wasn’t sure if she was ecstatic or terrified.
Neither of them spoke as the jostling vehicle gathered speed.
The cavalcade clattered through the gates and pulled out onto the puddled road. Open fields soon gave way to sparse woods, and still they said nothing. Their silence seemed to magnify the rolling, creaking noises of the coach, with the rain drumming on the roof. The ground rose; their destination lay in the cool, forested highlands of Ascencion.
Though Serafina tried to fix her attention on the landscape rolling by, the weather made it too black to see much. From time to time she peered anxiously into the man-shaped pool of shadow across from her. She could feel Darius watching her. Unspoken questions hung on the air, filling the claustrophobic space of the coach.
Fear whispered through her as he held his silence until she couldn’t bear it anymore.
“How does your shoulder feel?” she attempted meekly.
In answer, he merely pinned a chilling, luminous stare on her, half his dramatic face contoured in shadow, half in the rain’s lurid glow.
She shrank back slightly against the squabs. “Don’t be mean. It was Papa’s decision. I only told the truth.”
He said nothing.
“Darius,” she pleaded softly, “you’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared. Christ, don’t you know that by now? Don’t you see what I am?”
“No, what are you?”
He shook his head in disgust. The road wended. She looked away, staring out the window for all she was worth. They passed a farm in a vale. The road continued to climb.
She heard him move, heard the click of the little door to the compartment under his seat, then she could feel him come nearer. He put a pillow on one end of her seat. He held a blanket in his hand.
“Lie down.”
“I’m not tired—”
“Yes, you are. It’s three in the morning. That’s past even your bedtime.”
“You don’t know my bedtime.”
“One-thirty.”
She stared at his black silhouette for a long moment, taken aback. “How do you know that?”
“Gypsy magic. Understand something, my dear,” he said blandly. “You wanted this arrangement. You got your way, and now you’re going to have to live with it. You will sleep when I say sleep, wake when I say wake, eat when I say eat, breathe when I say breathe. For the next week or so, Your Highness, you are mine, and I will not tolerate any nonsense out of you. Cry if you don’t like it. See what it gets you.” He threw the light blanket at her. “Now lie down and don’t make another sound.”
She was outraged. On the other hand, she knew when argument was futile.
Bristling, she decided there was no point in being uncomfortable. She spread out the blanket over her and lay down on her side, resting her head on the pillow. She unfastened the top button of her high-necked traveling gown, and as an afterthought reached down and slipped off her doeskin boots. They dropped, first one, then the other, onto the carriage floor.
Darius was very still, then he moved toward her and tucked the blanket under her stockinged feet.
She stared at him as he settled back into his seat, braced his elbow on the edge of the window, and rested his cheek in his hand. There was a silence of several minutes.
“Darius?”
He sighed without looking at her. “Yes, Serafina?”
She hesitated. “I’m worried about you, Darius.”
“Serafina.” He cast her a weary look. “Don’t make a project of me.”
“I can see you are unhappy. Am I to turn a blind eye to your sorrow, after all you’ve done for my family and for me? Am I not to care for you at all?”
“That’s exactly right,” he said sharply. “You are not to care for me and I am not to care for you, and that’s the end of it.”
She stared at him. “We can’t even be friends?”
“Friends,” he scoffed. “What does that mean? No, we cannot be friends.”
“Oh,” she said softly, wounded. Then, after a moment,
“Why?”
“Why,” he merely echoed. There was a very long silence, filled with the pounding of the rain on the coach’s roof. Then he spoke again, and his voice was very quiet. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous for the great Santiago?” She lifted her head from the pillow but he refused to meet her stare, gazing out the carriage window at the night.
“Go to sleep, Your Highness,” he said very quietly.
She knit her brow and laid her head back down on the pillow, watching him in silence.
Darius went on staring out into the darkness, his finely chiseled face expressionless, the blue reflection of raindrops on the glass sliding down his face like silent tears.
At last, she fell asleep, and only then he looked at her.
For a long time, he just stared while she slept, her luxuriant sable curls flowing around her, one pale, graceful hand hanging from the seat, bobbing slightly with the rocking of the coach. He forced his gaze away, raking a hand through his hair with a slow, carefully controlled sigh.
He yearned for a smoke.
For hours, he stared at the black nothing of the landscape, gazing at Serafina now and then, wondering what the hell he was going to do.
He’d had himself mentally prepared for death in a state
of empty calm, no easy trick for someone whose survival instincts were so savagely powerful. All he had wanted was to stay numb until his job was done, but that trick was impossible when he was anywhere near her. She made him feel . . . so much. All he had wanted was peace, but she roused a storm in him, like the winds stirring the sea into a fury. Pain flooded and crashed inside his emptiness: He had ignored it too long, and now he feared there was more of it inside of him than any man could bear.
I have to get out of here.
Ah, but where could he go that these furies would not chase him? He had journeyed often to distant lands—deserts, mountains, seas. It was himself he could not escape.
He could only pray that that sweaty ox Orsini would catch the spies in time for him to make his rendezvous in Milan on schedule. How he was supposed to conduct himself with the Princess Royal in the meantime, Darius had no idea. He was not sure how he felt about her at the moment, only that it was not the simple matter of calm, responsible duty he ought to feel.
He trusted her.
He didn’t trust her.
He craved her.
He feared her.
Obviously she had some kind of designs on him, as her insistence on his coming here with her showed. Perhaps she was thinking of a fling before her wedding, he thought a trifle bitterly. Another rich girl’s adventure with the boy from the streets.
He lowered his head. The thought that she might want something like that from him hurt, but as he gazed at her, sleeping there like an angel, he couldn’t believe it of her.
When they finally arrived at the villa, Darius gathered her into his arms and carried her inside. He stepped over the threshold and went up the stairs, his cut shoulder aching slightly under her slim weight. He found the best bedroom and laid her on the bed. She didn’t wake.
He pulled the light cover over her and stared down at her pale, lovely face in the dark, stroking her hair softly for a moment. His heart clenched. Why me? Why the hell are you fixed on me when the whole world is in love with you?
He shook his head to himself, at a loss.
She stirred a little, turning her delicate, heart-shaped face, then stilled, one hand loosely curled near her cheek on the pillow.
He leaned down and kissed her smooth forehead, then left without making a sound.
CHAPTER SIX
Serafina’s eyes fluttered open to a pale pink room suffused with golden light.
She lay quite still, hovering between waking and sleep in that moment where there was no future and no past, and all was bliss. A fresh, summery mountain breeze blew in through the open window, stirring a few strands of her hair to tickle her cheek. She merely lay there, soaking in the wonderful light and the feeling of soul-deep calm.
She heard her maid’s voice outside and realized the coach must have arrived bearing those household staff members Darius deemed trustworthy, along with the supply wagons carrying the rest of her luggage and the soldiers’ provisions for their extended stay.
Darius.
She gave a slow, luxurious stretch and folded her arms under her head, smiling up at the ceiling like a satisfied lover, a bride waking after her wedding night.
Vaguely she recalled him carrying her into the villa and placing her gently on this bed. She was still garbed in her traveling gown.
Too bad he didn’t undress me, she thought wryly. On second thought, if the greatest lover in the kingdom ever decided to take her clothes off her, she had blasted well better be awake to enjoy it.
Don’t even joke about it, she chided herself, a shadow falling across her sunny mood as she thought of her husband-to-be.
Anatole had already warned her about his rules and expectations, and she knew he would be on the lookout for any interest she showed in another man, however innocent. It seemed that the fact she had refused all marriage proposals for the three years since her debut had led him to conclude she was a vain coquette who enjoyed the limelight and thrived on male flattery.
He had dared to say to her that she needed taming. Oh, he had been very frank about his conclusions, rudely questioning her morals, nearly hinting that he doubted her chastity.
Papa would have put him through a wall if he had heard Anatole speaking to her that way, she thought. Her brother, Prince Rafael, would have called him out. What Darius would have done to him, she didn’t dare imagine.
Fortunately, she had been alone with him, a chaperon walking several yards behind. She had swallowed the blazing retorts she could have given him, striving at least to make a show of obedience. Her country needed his armies, she had told herself over and over. Bearing the general’s arrogance was a small price to pay to protect Papa. How could Anatole know, after all, that the real reason she had been holding out for so long was that she had been waiting in vain for her Spanish knight to come to his senses?
Obviously, she was the one who needed to come to her senses, she thought with a scowl.
Restlessly, she got up from the bed and pushed these thoughts away, pleased with her own resiliency after last night’s ordeals. Perhaps it was the mountain air, but she could not remember the last time she had slept so peacefully.
She glanced about at her surroundings. The villa was not a grand place, she gathered, if this room was any indication. The plaster on the walls was wavy, a spider had built a palatial web in the corner, and everything was dusty. Beneath her stockinged feet, the floorboards creaked noisily as she walked toward the vanity, fearing to see what sort of tangle her hair was in without its hundred strokes the night before.
She paused to gaze down at the colorful but faded tapestry rug arranged on the floor spanning the foot of the bed. It depicted a fantasy of eternal spring, a celebration of life, with youths and maidens dancing around a maypole, and the world in flower around them.
Loosening her dress with an absent expression, she was gazing down wistfully at the pastoral idyll when suddenly a low-toned Spanish voice broke into her thoughts.
Glancing, wide-eyed, toward the window, she tiptoed over and edged one corner of the sheer white curtain aside, peeking down at Darius. She clenched a handful of the gauzy curtain, feeling giddy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, she thought with a sinking, inward little sigh.
The color of his complexion was glorious, golden-bronze in the morning light, while his jet-black hair was slicked back, still slightly damp from his morning ablutions, she presumed. She indulged herself in a leisurely study of the lean, elegant length of him from this safe distance.
His muscled build was sleek, elegant, and superbly athletic, not bulky and herculean like Anatole’s. His arms were powerful in pristine white shirtsleeves, his waist flat in the snug black waistcoat. Her eye followed the sinuous curve of his back, then slid downward appreciatively to the charming curves of his backside.
The palace ladies were right, she decided with a private smile. Every inch of him was quite perfect.
He stood with his assistant on the steps leading down from the porch. As Alec scribbled down every word he uttered, Darius squinted against the sun and watched his squad at their tasks with a critical eye. In his right hand he held his sword, point in the dust. He was twirling it idly with a flick of his nimble, thief’s fingers, while in his left he held a cup of coffee.
Presently he took a sip, then lifted his sword and propped it jauntily over his shoulder, scanning the men present, she supposed, for someone worthy of practicing against him. Though he was an acknowledged master of the dagger, the sword, guns, cannons, cavalry, and even some oriental weapons with names she couldn’t pronounce, daily training was fundamental to his spartan credo.
Well, she thought, as his physician, she did not intend to allow him any swordplay for at least three days until his gash had had a decent interval to begin healing.
She spun away lightly from the window and hurried to freshen up and dress, eager to go to him.
Located about twenty miles from the royal palace and the capital city of Belfort, the D’Este Villa had
been built in the Baroque period, fallen into ruin, then was restored thirty years ago in the violent period of upheaval during the king’s youth in exile, when Genoa had ruled Ascencion with an iron fist.
Behind its fortified wall, the five-hundred-acre property was designed for self-sufficiency. There was a garrison with a barracks and a small magazine and a stable that housed fifty horses. Chicken coops, sheds for goats and sheep, and a stocked pond kept the kitchen supplied.
After laying the sleeping princess in her bed, Darius had spent the night getting rained on and carrying out a hundred necessary tasks overseeing the process of turning the country villa once more into an army camp. He made sure the horses were stabled, the armaments and powder kegs properly stored in the magazine. He’d held a brief meeting with his squadron, assigning men to their posts in the four quadrants of the property, dispensing other orders.
Overnight, one of the two wagons carrying his men’s provisions arrived, reporting that the other had become stuck in the mud miles down the road. He sent a contingent out to dislodge it, and when it arrived, he found it was also carrying the four savage guard dogs he had ordered. The wild barking of the animals gave him a headache, born partly from hunger. He marveled that the noise didn’t bring Serafina out to look around, but hers was the slumber of the innocents.
Finally, he had inspected the wall, walking the entire perimeter to make sure all areas were in good repair. By the time the rain stopped and the sun rose amid the morning’s fog, he’d turned the initial chaos into a well-oiled military machine.
Now he was exhausted, but he still had to organize his head-quarters in the villa’s little library. He had maps of the local terrain to review as well as correspondence to catch up on and the books of his own small ship-and-trade firm to balance, and the ongoing headache from his worthless inherited holdings in Spain to be answered.
His shoulder hurt. He was half-starved but breakfast wasn’t ready yet, so he stood on the wooden porch, smoked a final cheroot, and took satisfaction in watching the order he had created, each man under his command doing exactly what he should be doing, exactly when he should be doing it.