Gaelen Foley - Ascension 02

by Princess

  Hearing his voice in the courtyard below as he impatiently ordered his troops about, she walked numbly to the window and spied on him around the curtain.

  He sat astride his magnificent and mean-spirited black stallion. The setting sun rippled through the horse’s black mane and tail, and through Darius’s jet-black hair. It warmed his skin to burnished amber.

  He looked like a god, her husband, she thought coldly. Oh, she could not resist that man. It was one more excellent reason to despise him. He had used those gorgeous looks of his against her, and his soft, irresistible voice to lull her lax morals into a trance, and his delicious mouth—

  All of a sudden, Darius glanced up, as though he’d felt her stare. He saw her at the window. When their eyes met from across the cobbled yard, she felt his flash of hostility. He gave her a harsh look and wheeled the horse away with smooth, Spanish mastery, the reins in one hand, his spurred ankles flexed.

  Arrogant, insolent heathen! she thought angrily. Why was he acting like the one who had been wronged? How dare he?

  She pivoted and marched away from the window, eyes blazing. She was the Princess Royal and, by God, she was not budging from this room until that insolent Spaniard came to grovel at her feet. How she chose to handle this conflict would set a precedent for the rest of their marriage. She did not intend to live the rest of her life being the dupe of his lies.

  If he must be free, let him leave, but if he intended to stay, he was going to have to meet her halfway.

  She called to Pia to help her change out of her traveling clothes into a simple country dress, for they had work to do. The villa needed much repair if it was to serve as more than a temporary residence. For her part, she was claiming the pink bedroom for her own territory. Where that Spaniard would make camp, she neither knew nor cared—or so she told herself. The stable would be a fitting choice, she thought. He was certainly not sharing a bed with her.

  Julia thought she had forgotten how to pray, but from the moment Rafael was out of sight she pleaded with God. Let Anatole be gone—let him be on the ship. Don’t kill this child.

  True to the prince’s word, the physician came quickly to aid her. The kindly man walked her back to her rooms, avoiding the crowds.

  After a nerve-racking wait, she found that, indeed, God heard the prayers of Jezebel, or perhaps it was merely that a larger destiny awaited the young future king.

  Rafael stopped by her door about two hours later and regretfully informed her he had been too late to demand justice of Tyurinov. He had galloped hard all the way to the port, only to find the Russians’ ship had just set sail. He was apologetic.

  She put her arms around him and held him as hard as she could, her eyes squeezed tight.

  The boy didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to get in her door. He simply hugged her in silence for as long as she wanted him to, then he murmured goodnight and said that he would check on her tomorrow.

  As he walked off down the hall, she leaned in the doorway, watching him, her arms folded over her chest. As if he could feel her stare, he turned, saw her, and sent her a little farewell wave with a secret smile. She held up her hand in a slow, answering wave, and knew then that she had to have him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The walls that girded the yellow villa’s acreage had once seemed to embrace him and Serafina, shielding their fantasy love from the harsh outer world, but a week into their disastrous marriage, those same walls marked the boundaries of his cage. He was trapped.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  Darius cantered his black stallion through the gray mists of dawn. Jihad’s exercise comprised a brisk lap around the property’s wide perimeter. The wall streamed past like a long, gray ribbon unraveling on Darius’s right as the horse’s strides ate up the soft, rolling ground.

  The situation with his new wife remained much the same: They spoke little, and then with cold courtesy. In the past, it had been an advantage that they were so much alike, both obstinately proud and wily, but now it locked them at odds, each playing a waiting game to see who would be the first either to apologize or to walk out.

  Beyond the villa’s walls, things were almost as glum. France had declared war. A handful of ships from the Franco-Spanish navy had begun blockading Ascencion to weaken them for Villeneuve’s as yet unknown date of arrival.

  With the French ships riding at anchor just beyond the boundaries of Ascencion’s territorial waters, a fighting line of the king’s frigates was arrayed for the island’s defense. So far, no shots had been fired. For now, it remained naught but a great naval staring contest not unlike his marriage, Darius thought.

  The diplomats were working feverishly to arrive at a peaceful solution, but the whole island was battening down for a siege. Parliament had declared rations and a curfew in the towns. Rumor had it that the king itched to attack.

  Darius could well imagine Lazar longed for a worthy adversary on whom to vent his wrath, the true sources of which were his daughter and his formerly most-trusted man.

  The French were also demanding that Darius be handed over to face trial, but this Lazar staunchly refused. There was no proof but the word of one disgruntled young traitoress that the lone assassin in Milan had been Darius Santiago, respected diplomat for the court of Ascencion, and son-in-law to the king. Indeed, Lazar had played at outrage over the accusation, naming himself and twenty of Ascencion’s leading nobles as Darius’s alibis for the days in question—and who dared call King Lazar di Fiore a liar?

  Darius knew Lazar still considered him a vile, amoral seducer of innocents. The king’s defense of him was merely a political consideration, or perhaps to protect his baby girl, because if there was one thing Darius knew for certain, it was that he, along with the parrot, the cat, and the monkey, was Her Highness’s kept pet.

  Two days ago, however, he had received a temporary lift out of the morass of his emotions in the form of a letter from a British intelligence colleague and friend, Sir James Richards. On leave in Sicily, Richards had sent Darius warning that Prince Tyurinov might not have left the area. It seemed that the glorious Anatole had brought his ship to port at Malta, where he had somehow received warning that Czar Alexander had issued orders to seize him the moment he returned to Moscow. The Russian ship had remained there, but no one had seen Tyurinov himself for a couple of days.

  Richards had also invited Darius to visit him in Sicily if he was interested in being part of what the Englishman termed “an intriguing undertaking.”

  Darius could not imagine what it was, but he longed to go— longed for any work to do.

  Richards was an excellent agent and weapons expert, and no doubt had something ingenious up his sleeve. Darius mulled the intriguing undertaking constantly, as now. He slowed the stallion to a trot, then tugged on the reins, halting as they came to the ridge overlooking the field and the lake where Serafina and he had picnicked, what seemed eons ago.

  His gaze traveled over his lost paradise, shrouded in mist. The distant tree line in the background sprawled, irregular, against the paling sky.

  He ought to join Richards’s team, he reasoned, for what was the point in his being here? On those rare occasions when Serafina even looked at him, it was with bitterness, hurt, and angry reproach in her beautiful, violet eyes. He knew she despised him, but what could he do?

  He felt paralyzed, helpless, and plain scared.

  God, what had he done to his life? he thought heavily. He’d known from the day she was born that Serafina di Fiore would be his downfall. Once more, his prescient Gypsy senses had proved right. He was still reeling from the first time he had kissed her, yet somehow, suddenly, here he was, husband to the goddess of the age. He could exact his husbandly rights whenever he wanted, only he was terrified to go near her. Terrified of the accusations that would come hurling out at him if he gave her the chance to speak. He didn’t want to hear how useless and false and what a failure he was. Not from her. Any day now, his rare, gorgeous butterfly was going to
lift her wings and fly away from him. He was just waiting for it. That’s what a female did when you needed her.

  With his full iron will, he was determined to master his need for her for once and for all, become invulnerable again, yet he knew it was his very silence that was driving her away.

  If you don’t talk to her, you are going to lose her for certain.

  The thought made him impatient. What could he say to her now, when every word from his mouth she judged a lie?

  He squeezed the horse’s midnight sides with his calves and they sprinted the short distance to the lake. There, Darius flung down out of the saddle and tried to feel the way he had felt here before, when it was safe to tell her anything about himself because there were no consequences—it was temporary—he had thought he was going to die.

  The feeling escaped him, just beyond his grasp.

  He couldn’t even apologize, because truly being sorry meant trying to change, he thought as he stared at the lake, and he had no intention of doing so. He respected her too much to give her a sham apology. Couldn’t she see by now that maybe a liar was what he needed to be? That maybe the truth, the full truth about him, was too damned pitiful for him to share with anyone?

  Didn’t she see that sometimes a lie was all a man had?

  While his horse sneaked a few mouthfuls of the long grass behind him, Darius raked both hands slowly through his hair and drew a long, steadying breath. He was trapped.

  I’m going crazy. I am obsessed with her. I can’t hide from her forever.

  Tell her. Tell her everything, said his heart. Trust her.

  The thought was too threatening. He got back on his horse again and rode and rode, circling endlessly within the confines of his cage.

  Julia awoke with the boy curled around her and hazy, candlelit images in her mind of the night before.

  Forever, she knew, the taste of chocolate-covered caramels would remind her of her loverboy. It had been a strange week.

  She had closeted herself in her rooms, crying ill, in order to hide the humiliation of her bruised face from everyone. The only visitor she admitted was Rafael. It was no use trying to discourage the youth from coming to see her. He came every day, supposedly to cheer her up. She knew the inevitable outcome, but, to her amusement, he wanted to get to know her first. She had the dismal feeling he was on a quest to save her.

  All week, their visits had been innocent as she waited for her bruises to heal and calculated what she might be able to get out of this. Every moment in his presence she counted as a blow struck against Darius Santiago. Each day, they sat in her tiny antechamber playing chess, the boy asking her endless questions about herself, most of which she evaded. He must have divined her financial plight, for he had given her an enormous amount of money, no questions asked, saying with simple good-heartedness that he was glad to help a friend in need.

  Of course, the full sum she still owed was three times his generous gift, but she didn’t tell him that. Instead, she began wishing desperately he would wise up and quit coming to see her.

  Each day, her swollen face healed a little more, then, yesterday afternoon, Rafael had showed up at her door with a box of chocolates. They ate the chocolates as they played chess, then suddenly, out of the blue, he had leaned across the table and kissed her. One kiss, that was all, then he gave her a slow, secret smile that very nearly melted what once had been her heart.

  That evening, she had put in an appearance in the drawing room, for she was now able to hide the bruise with light makeup. The prince swaggered in half an hour later, and somehow, around eleven, she wound up in Rafe’s room with him.

  His enthusiasm was boundless, his energy and sheer appetite astonishing, but his touch was nothing short of reverent when he caressed her and took her breast into his mouth. It was all so new to him, the feel of a woman’s body. He was so different from any man she’d ever known. They made love sitting on the edge of his huge, carved bed, but she had soon found herself laughing softly and kissing away his embarrassment, for he came almost immediately the first time. The second time, she knelt astride him, gently making him hold back, teaching him control. He was an apt pupil.

  Very apt, she mused, running a hand down his warm, velvety-smooth back, for the third time, he’d brought her to climax with a tenderness she had not experienced in years, if ever.

  She did not like it.

  The way he had held her afterward had been unsettling. This could not last, obviously. For God’s sake, he was nineteen. She was twenty-seven. He would be king one day. She was a jaded soul. Countless men had lain with her, and yet only this boy, with his sun-kissed hair and reckless grin, had somehow gotten inside of her. She was not sure she could forgive him for that.

  Sooner or later, the queen was bound to learn of their liaison. There could be no worse enemy than Allegra di Fiore when it came to her boy. Fortunately, Her Majesty was preoccupied for the moment with the new baby, her daughter’s scandal, and the threat of war with the French, but she would find out in time, and then what was Julia going to do? She would be asked to leave, and where could she possibly go?

  How stupid of her to let this infant beguile her, she mused. She could only attribute it to the fact that he had found her in her moment of utter weakness—her hopes crushed, her creditors closing in, her face bashed and bleeding.

  Presently, mama’s royal favorite slept like a worn-out puppy atop her, but he didn’t stir in the slightest when Julia pushed against his muscled shoulder and rolled him off her.

  She got up silently and surveyed her surroundings as she began putting on her garters and stockings. She noticed the clock—half-past eleven already. Well, they had stayed up late, she thought. Then the sight of Rafe’s gigantic, cluttered desk caught her eye. With a shrewd expression, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure he was still sleeping, then walked over to the desk and silently began opening the drawers, one by one, and going through them.

  What she’d find, who could say? Experience had taught her she could always unearth something useful. She doubted the boy had any real skeletons in his closet; it was mere force of habit that sent her riffling through his belongings.

  But the gold she struck was sitting right out on his desk, practically begging for her discovery. Gingerly unrolling the large scroll, she sliced the prince a sideward glance to make sure he was still asleep. His brown, muscled body was still, sprawled on the sheets, his baby-face angelic in sleep.

  She examined the parchment. At first she thought it was some schoolboyish project. Then she realized she was staring at highly classified maps of the legendary Fiori tunnels.

  Staring, her heart began to pound.

  There was a myth that King Bonifacio the Black, the founder of the royal house, had ordered subterranean tunnels built throughout the island for the royal family to use in case of invasion or other emergency. In seven hundred years, no one outside the royal family had ever been admitted into the secret—except perhaps that Spaniard whom she hated more than hell itself.

  Her gaze traveled over the detailed drawings.

  You stupid boy. How could you leave this where I would find it? Eyes burning, she looked over at him again, sleeping there, a young Adonis.

  The French were harbored in the bay.

  Put it back, Julia, whispered her feeble conscience. You give this to the French, you take his whole future away from him. Maybe even his life.

  Such a betrayal would kill the very tenderness and simple kindness in him which had moved her so dangerously.

  But the force of habit was too strong. She would be rich. She could go anywhere she wanted. Never again would she have to depend on that most shiftless of creatures, the human male. The boy would have to sink or swim. The world was a jungle, his soft life an illusion. She told herself this was the most valuable lesson she could teach him.

  Let Santiago save him, she thought acidly. She finished dressing quickly, her hands shaking, then walked silently to the door, the scroll in her grasp.
Stepping over the threshold, she paused and stole a final, long gaze at him.

  Something inside of her cracked and broke permanently, at that moment. Bitterness was in her mouth, her whole body shaking.

  Stupid boy, she thought. She turned and left, pulling the door closed silently behind her.

  By midmorning, Darius arrived at the villa once more.

  He left Jihad with a groom and strode into the house, dreading the empty, lonely day ahead. What was he going to do with his time? he wondered. He had already exhausted every shred of work he could think of to occupy himself.

  Walking into the foyer, he passed the morning room where he saw his young wife, writing something at the table beside her breakfast. His stolen glance took in the morning sunlight twining through her silky, sable tresses and gleaming on her skin like powdered pearls. Her head bent over her work, she was twirling a curl around her finger, which meant she was deep in thought, so he hurried past and down the hall to his office without trying to say hello.

  He took breakfast in the library down the hall. The food was like ashes in his mouth, knowing she was so near and yet this was how it was.

  At length, he pushed the food away in disgust and merely drank his coffee, reading for the thousandth time the letter from Richards. An intriguing enterprise . . .

  How good it would be to feel he was of use again and to have something else to do instead of sitting around here, mentally cataloguing all the ways in which he was not good enough.

  Just then, there was a knock at the door and a moment later his too-beautiful, too-highborn wife came in. Her chin was high, her expression one of cool hauteur. Her regal poise terrified him.

  He rose slightly and bowed. “Madam.”

  She sliced him a nod, her gaze fixed on the floor. “I have come to say I am going into town to hire artisans to effect some repairs around here. The grounds are atrocious. The roof needs attention. And obviously, we must have fresh paint. We must also have modern w.c.’s put in and I want new cabinets for the kitchens.” She lifted an insolent look to him, as though waiting for him—no, daring him—to deny her.