The Prince

by Katharine Ashe

  “We will speak of this later,” he said, moving onto the landing.

  “We will speak of it never,” she said behind him.

  He was not overly fond of spirits. His father had been a man of great faith, and Ziyaeddin had not learned an appreciation for the flavor as a boy, nor for the muddling effect it had on the mind. Now he went to the dining room and found the cognac. Blotting his bleeding hand with a kerchief, he drank down the glassful. Then he poured a dram for her.

  Her footsteps clattered swiftly down the stairs. She passed the dining room and went out of the house. Through the window he saw Joseph Smart: quick stride, head down, no satchel.

  He donned his coat and followed her out, but she had disappeared. It was Sunday; she could go to neither her favorite pub nor the library.

  From the mews behind his house he commanded his horse. Daylight had gone and the rain had begun to fall in earnest. The streets, always quiet on Sundays, emptied.

  He searched for an hour before finding her. She was not a fool, and she had walked to New Town where watchmen could be found even at this hour and in this weather. This alone gave him some hope; she was not so far removed from reason that she had lost her wisdom too.

  “You have a horse,” she said without looking at him, continuing along the footpath. She looked like a street waif, sodden and anemic. Her voice was weary but level now. “Did you purchase it at Haiknayes?”

  “I borrowed it. Has this happened before?” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “And you conquered it.”

  “Conquered?”

  “Yes, Saint George. You conquered this dragon, I must assume.”

  “I believed I had.”

  “My hand is bleeding. Would you do me the favor of returning home and tending to the wound?”

  She halted, and a great shudder seemed to pass through her. She nodded, turned about, and started walking again.

  “Will you take this horse?” he said.

  “I don’t know how to ride astride. And you cannot walk the distance.”

  “Ride with me.”

  “I will walk. You may ride ahead. I will go directly home.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you,” he said.

  “I cannot lie. I am not allowed to.”

  “What of Joseph Smart?” he said.

  “Joseph is not a lie.” Her lips were gray, her eyes hopeless. “He is the most honest part of me.”

  He rode to her side and reached down, and she allowed him to lift her onto the saddle before him.

  She did not look at him. Settled snugly between his thighs, with her back against his chest and her body between his arms, she twisted her fingers into the horse’s mane and allowed the rain to patter onto her face.

  Silently he damned fate several times, and also that madness in him that made him want her even while she was both ill and utterly unaware of him. Yet holding her, even in this manner, was a sublime pleasure he would not trade for all the world.

  He thought she slept. But when they approached the house she swung her leg over the horse’s neck and slid down to the ground in a single quick movement. She went directly inside, and Ziyaeddin deposited the horse in the mews.

  After changing into dry clothing he went to the kitchen in search of tea.

  “Forgive me,” she said from the doorway behind him. She still wore the wet coat and trousers and whiskers. Her body quivered like the vibrating wings of a bee.

  “You needn’t ask my forgiveness,” he said.

  “You must forgive me,” she said tightly. “Say the words.”

  “You are forgiven. Where—”

  “Am I? In truth?”

  “In truth. Where is your medical kit?”

  From the pantry she drew forth a small leather case and unlatched it. It seemed to be a miniature version of her medical chest. The neat organization of the contents was a marked contrast to the disorder of her bedchamber, the foyer, and the parlor.

  “Show me your hand,” she said.

  The wound was minor. But he had known she would put an injury before all else, and return here to tend it if he asked.

  She barely touched him as she cleaned the incision, applied salve, and wrapped it with a thin piece of linen.

  “I can control it,” she said.

  “Obviously not of late.” He flexed his hand.

  “It will be uncomfortable for you to hold a paintbrush for several days. You should not have used your dominant hand.”

  “I am, admittedly, unpracticed in the art of defending myself from broken bottles.”

  “When I was ten years old, I collected more than bottles and papers.” Packing the bandages and salve away, she kept her head bent. “At that time it was much worse than now.” She lifted her eyes. “You cannot help me.”

  “And yet.”

  “You are—”

  “Dashingly heroic? Tenaciously protective? Impressively coolheaded?”

  “Difficult to live with.”

  He suppressed his smile, for her lips remained taut, her entire face a study in tension.

  “It seems you are moving with ease,” she said. “Have you done as I prescribed?”

  “I have.”

  “Is there pain?”

  “Very little, thanks to you.”

  “How went your visit to Haiknayes?” She stood stiffly, so unlike her, as though chastened. Or defeated.

  “I went to London,” he said.

  “Mrs. Coutts said you were at Haiknayes.”

  “That is what I told her.”

  “It hardly matters,” she said dully. “Since your purpose in going was to be away from me, any destination served.”

  “My purpose in going was not to be away from you. I regret that you believed it was.”

  Disbelief colored her eyes, yet also a crackling defiance.

  “What was your purpose?” she said.

  He turned toward the kettle. “Change out of that wet clothing and then return here for a cup of tea.” He looked over his shoulder. “Can you?”

  “I can. You won’t—”

  “I will discard nothing. I will touch nothing. Tonight.”

  After a hesitation, she left.

  When she appeared in the kitchen again she was wearing the blue gown, but it hung on her body as on a clothes stand. He placed the biscuit tin on the table.

  “Eat ten of those,” he said. “At once. Can you do that for me?”

  She took up the teapot and poured. “Why London?”

  “Not until I see you eat.”

  “That—”

  “I have rules too, Miss Shaw, including refusing to converse with a woman who has not eaten a meal in a month.”

  “Not a month,” she said, nibbling a biscuit. “I was not pining away after you, you know.”

  “I did not suppose that you were.” He folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. “When was your last meal?”

  “I eat at the pub. Mr. Dewey is accommodating to my needs.”

  “I won’t be.” He waited until she met his gaze. “Not in this. Elizabeth, tell me what I must know to help you.”

  “You cannot help with this,” she said firmly. “It has nothing to do with you except that it is difficult for me to be alone. To live alone. When I must live among others, I am more able to quiet the rules. A bit.” She turned her face away from him and seemed to stare at nothing. “No one else can help me. I learned that long ago.”

  “Then tell me what you must do to help yourself.”

  She consumed another biscuit.

  “The rules you spoke of,” he said, “they are voices telling you what to do?”

  She shook her head, and relief wound its way through him.

  “Not voices. My voice. My thoughts. My reasoning.”

  “There is nothing of reason in saving stacks of used paper.”

  “There is to me.”

  “What is it, then? Do you believe they are valuable in some manner?”
r />   “No. Not valuable.” She closed her eyes. “Me.”

  “You?”

  “Each scrap . . .” Her hands fisted. “They are pieces of me. Don’t you see? Can’t you see how I cannot—”

  He grasped her hand.

  “This is a piece of you,” he said, rubbing the pad of his thumb across her knuckles. “This clever piece. And this,” he said, reaching up to brush the wild curl from her brow. “Not those old lists.”

  “I know. Rationally, I know.”

  “I am assuming that rationally you knew this a month ago too.”

  Drawing her hand away, she fisted it on her lap. “They are pieces of you too.”

  “Of me?”

  “At first.” She drew a shaking inhalation. “Notes I took while making the prosthesis. And . . . other things . . . about you.”

  A list of Edinburgh cobblers. A museum ticket.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She stood abruptly. “I was frightened.” Her arms were rigid, her fists tight by her sides.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Not you. Not frightened. About anything.”

  “Yes. You left here barely able to move without pain and I imagined you on that road to Haiknayes and I was worried for your safety. I realize it was ridiculous. I know that you have traveled all over the world and survived much greater danger than a short journey into the countryside. But I could not cease worrying.”

  “So you saved scraps of used paper?”

  She shook her head. Her lips parted, the pale pink revealing dry shadow within.

  “Elizabeth, what do scraps of used paper have to do with your concern for my safety on the road?”

  “If you had come to harm while away from here,” she said, the cords of her neck straining. “It would have been because I discarded them.”

  “That is irrational.”

  “Of course it is!”

  “Elizabeth Shaw, your mind is extraordinary. Agile. Brilliant. And chock-full of rationality.”

  Drawing her lips between her teeth, her throat working, she nodded.

  “I am here,” he said. “I am safe. Can you discard the papers now?”

  “No,” she said shakily.

  “Why not?”

  “It only began in that manner.”

  “Began?”

  “At first I was not allowed to discard scraps associated with you. Then scraps associated with the house. Then . . .” Her throat constricted again.

  “Any used paper?” The collections of oddities in cartons and boxes as well, no doubt.

  She nodded. Her body wavered.

  He pushed the teacup toward her. She sat again and wrapped both hands around the porcelain, but her eyes darted toward the doorway, as though she would spring away to the parlor in an instant.

  He touched her jaw and guided her face back toward his.

  “You overcame this before,” he said. “How?”

  “I am so ashamed. I hate myself for it. And you will hate me too, if you don’t already.”

  “I do not,” he said, sitting back and distancing himself from her when all he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and assure her how thoroughly he could never hate her. “How have you bested this in the past?”

  She was silent.

  “When you do not obey the rules,” he said, “what happens?”

  “I . . .” She shook her head. “They tear at me. Obeying brings such”—her throat jerked—“such relief.” Her eyes were pools of desperation, but thought too. “But when I am able to deny a desire, it weakens.”

  Would that his desire functioned similarly.

  “That’s good news,” he said. “How do you deny it?”

  “It is . . . difficult.” Her fingers pressed into the tabletop. She glanced at the doorway again.

  Standing abruptly, she grabbed the teapot and refilled both of their cups. Then she went to the stove and lit the fire beneath the kettle.

  “I distract myself with other tasks,” she said to the kettle. “That helps.”

  “I see.”

  She looked skeptically at him. “Do you?”

  “I am trying to.”

  “Sometimes I only partially concede to the desire. That often lessens the heat too.”

  “The heat?”

  “My father once said that the desires seemed to be like a fever in me that wished to consume everything rational.” A smile flitted across her eyes. “He is a physician.”

  Even this hint of pleasure on her face loosened Ziyaeddin’s chest.

  “When you were a girl, the fever did not consume everything. For here you are.”

  “You mustn’t look at me like that, as though I have already succeeded. You do not understand.”

  “Explain it to me. I am going nowhere. Not again,” he added.

  Her eyes were full of doubt. But also determination.

  “It was not your departure that caused this. That is your arrogance interpreting it.”

  He bit back a smile. “Is it?”

  “I did not know you when I was ten years old.”

  “No.” When she was ten years old, he had been shackled to an oar in the belly of a ship. “Though I should have liked to know you then.”

  Her gaze shifted away.

  “My father took us to London. I was accustomed to relocating. But that move was different. We had left all our furniture here. There was so much . . . newness.” Her hand gripped the kettle’s handle. “That was when the rules multiplied.”

  “What sort of rules?”

  “All sorts.” She stared at the wall. “There were a precise number of strides to be taken between the carriage and the front door, lampposts to be touched on each walk to the park, a special handwriting I could only use for certain tasks, pages of books that must be memorized before I could continue to the next, a rag dog to be arranged in bed exactly each night before I could fall asleep. One night I remember, I could not find the dog. I tore my bedchamber apart searching for it. The maid had washed it and it was hanging wet from a hook in the kitchen. I could not put it to bed properly, so I held it in my arms until morning and did not sleep. I took a horrible cold. That is the only time I can remember being ill in my entire life. Shortly after that, I began collecting useless items.

  “I made life in London impossible for my father. We returned to Edinburgh prematurely.” A smile came hesitantly into her eyes. “When I began studying medical texts, all the rules quieted. The worst of them faded entirely. You are thinking that I am studying medicine now,” she said, the tip of her forefinger tracing the kettle handle, “yet this has happened. Again. That is what you are thinking, isn’t it?”

  He was thinking how he wanted that busy fingertip on him. All of her fingertips.

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  “While you were away Mr. Bridges assigned me to my own operations.”

  “Congratulations.” He could not make himself look away. Watching her move—any part of her—was pleasurable pain he should not have denied himself for even a day.

  “There is quite a lot of responsibility in being the lead surgeon. And winter always brings many patients to the infirmary. Also, the new course in practical anatomy is much more challenging than last session. I’ve a lot of work. I have been skimping on sleep.”

  The image of her curled into a ball on top of his bed would never fade.

  “When you are exhausted,” he said, “the rules grow stronger. Don’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “I beg your pardon for leaving.”

  “It isn’t your responsibility. I should be able to command my own thoughts and actions. I am a grown woman.”

  An exceptional woman. Even light flesh and dull pallor could not hide that.

  She lifted her lashes and he was caught inside the blue—his desires, his heartbeats, his every wish.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “I must conquer this dragon myself, Ziyaeddin.”

  Hearing his name upon her lips again sent his
foolish heart into wild somersaults.

  Unnatural stillness shone on her bare features now.

  “Havā-tō dāram,” he heard himself whisper.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I am here, Elizabeth. Allow me to help.”

  Her shoulders dropped a bit. “Forgive me for sleeping in your bed.”

  “I am absolutely unable to accept an apology for that.”

  Flinty pleasure sparked in her eyes.

  “In my bedchamber,” she said, “there are too many tasks to be done perfectly each night. Saturday night I was beyond exhaustion. To avoid having to do all the tasks, I promised myself I would do them later.”

  “Later?”

  “After I slept. Then I fled. The only place in the house where there was nothing to be done was in your bed.”

  “Not precisely what a man wants to hear.”

  “This is not amusing.”

  “No, that actually was amusing. Tragic. Nevertheless, amusing.”

  Slowly her eyes widened, and he dared hope she was thinking what he was: that she belonged in his bed.

  “I forgot to do the tasks when I awoke yesterday, and when I left the house I did so without my satchel,” she said. “I was so angry with you that I didn’t even think about them.”

  He laughed.

  “You mustn’t laugh! Usually when I am angry the rules are even louder and impossible to resist, not quieter.”

  “Are you able to resist them often?”

  Setting the kettle upon the iron pad on the table, she sat again.

  “After London I taught myself to. Rather, I bribed myself. I gave myself prizes for succeeding.” Her brow furrowed. “I feel like a perfect fool telling you this.”

  “Prizes?”

  “I made a list of the rules.”

  “Another list?”

  “A good list. At the top were the rules I found easiest to refuse. At the bottom were the most difficult. I began at the top, refusing to obey the easiest first. When I succeeded every day for a sennight, I rewarded myself with a gift.”

  “Can you use that tactic now?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “I have everything I want.”

  He stood up and set cup and saucer in the washbasin. “There must be something that you want, however small, which you do not yet possess. An idea will come to you.” He went out of the kitchen and she followed.

  “You won’t—”