She froze, staring at him, inexplicably frightened all of a sudden, but not in a physical sense.
“It’s all right,” he whispered as he stood, holding her gaze.
Her heart was pounding. The key was within reach, but she was frozen like a doe before the hunter as he came to her, touching her shoulder, turning her to him. He drew her gently into his arms and enfolded her in his embrace, brushing his cheek softly against her hair. She closed her eyes in the drugging shock of recognition, for the feel of him against her echoed back from a thousand dreams.
She opened her hand upon the lightweight wool of his lapel, barely daring to touch him, while her mind whirled slowly. He is holding me. Prince Rafael is holding me. A dream, of course. She would wake tomorrow and forge on alone again, but for now she drank in the warm strength of his arms around her, the heady scent of his cologne.
She heard the soft sound of his sigh above her as he cradled her in his embrace, and she marveled at how natural, how right it felt to nestle against him this way. She felt his large, warm, gentle hands slowly caress her, up the length of her back from her waist. Then he tilted her chin upward with his fingertips.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Her eyes were wide. Her world tilted as Rafael gazed at her.
“I should like very much to kiss you,” he said quietly.
Her eyes filled with anguished pleading. She tried to shake her head no, but he only nodded yes, reassuring her with a small, exquisitely tender smile.
She despaired, staring miserably at him. Rafael closed his eyes, lowered his head, and kissed her.
The caress of his lips was as soft as the beat of a butterfly’s wings. His mouth was warm and silky atop hers. Her eyes drifted closed and a sigh rose from the depths of her spirit. She felt his lips curve in a smile against her mouth at the shivery sound. He pulled back only slightly.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he whispered.
She made a sound of distress in her throat, refusing to open her eyes, despising him for the longing he had released in her with but one chaste kiss. Then he pulled her more firmly into his arms, sliding one arm around her waist to bring her closer to his body. He pressed a kiss to her forehead as though she were a child, then he kissed her brow, her eyes, her cheek, her ear. She swayed dizzily against him, her chest heaving. He steadied her in his arms, holding her as carefully as though she were made of fine china. Ducking his head, he began kissing the curve of her neck, caressing her throat lightly with his other hand.
It was the most deliciously dizzying sensation she had ever experienced, his lips grazing her skin like moist satin, his heated breath tickling under her ear. She took him into her arms, unable to resist, closing her eyes as she held him to her. She touched his long, golden hair in wonder, slowly stroking its velvety length. His strong, long-fingered hands caressed her back, her arms, her sides. Her skin felt fiery, impossibly sensitive. She was weightless, lost in clouds of bliss, and shaking. His caresses turned hot, urgent.
When he gathered her closer still, a shock of pleasure rushed through her at the contact of their bodies pressing together every inch down the length of them both. She heard her own quivery sigh and his hungry growl in his throat. He gripped her buttocks, pulling her up hotly against him. She cried out softly, a dazed, single note of confusion, desire, and need.
“Ah, God, you are so sweet,” he panted, kissing his way back up to her mouth.
She felt him trembling as he captured her face between his hands and kissed her mouth again and again, coaxing her lips apart. Confused, she yielded tentatively, and then he showed her what kissing really was. His mouth slanted over hers and she felt his tongue meld with hers, stroking, dancing. Surprise burst through her, and pleasure, and then Rafael was ravishing her with a deep, slow kiss that shattered her where she stood clinging weakly to him.
Little remained of her self-control, but with the small ounce of will she still retained, she was appalled at herself. How could she let herself fall under his spell this way? She tried to turn her face away but he gently brought her back with the soft but authoritative pressure of his fingertips upon her jaw.
“Don’t be afraid, sweet,” he said in a ragged whisper, smiling slightly, his breathing deep. “It’s nicer if you kiss me back, you know.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, a breathless lie.
“You don’t?”
“No!”
His soft laugh brimmed with gentle chiding. “Look at me, Daniela.”
She dragged her eyes open mutinously and found him gazing down at her with a faint, tender smile. Though his lips were moist and full with kissing, his eyes were like a green sea, storm-tossed with desire.
“What?” she muttered, nearly sulking.
“Has no one ever kissed you before?” he asked very, very gently.
She dropped her head, turning scarlet. How mortifying for him to guess. She stood trembling in his arms, head down. She had never felt more vulnerable. But he touched her under her chin, lifting her gaze to his once more. As his stare moved wistfully over her face, his expression turned melancholy.
“What a lovely, innocent creature you are.” He caressed her cheek with one knuckle, his gaze following his touch. Then he slowly shoved his hands in his pockets, as though to stop himself from reaching for her again. He stepped back rather awkwardly and put his head down. “Maybe you would like to just…go for a walk with me. I could show you the gardens. They’re beautiful by moonlight. We could talk….”
His voice trailed off as she stared at him in wonder.
“Ah, never mind,” he said in a low, heavy voice. “What a bloody debacle—I’m truly…I’m truly sorry about this, Lady Daniela. You are a lady, but I felt…I don’t know. I’m sorry. Go, please, you’re better off. Take the key on the table. I put it there for you.”
“You intended for me to escape?”
“God’s truth, I don’t know what I intended.” He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, they were full of naked loneliness, his slight smile one of misery. “Go,” he whispered. “This hall of lost souls is no place for you.”
But she didn’t flee when he gave her the chance.
“Maybe no place for you, either,” she said softly.
He met her gaze without a trace of arrogance, silent for a moment. “Perhaps I have nowhere else to go.”
She felt her reckless heart reach out to him. Holding her breath at her own foolhardiness, she took a step toward him and slid her hand up his chest.
He watched her, his jaw clenched, as though he struggled to hold himself back. Then she heard his breath catch with desire in his throat as she curled her fingers around his warm nape. Pulling him down to her, she kissed his lips gently for a long moment.
He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his embrace and returning her kisses in smoldering desire—desire that exploded in seconds into a raging blaze of passion. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tasting him again and again in glorious abandon. She clenched his hair in her hands, caressed his smoothly shaved face. His answering need was so overwhelming she was barely aware of him maneuvering her toward his sprawling, mirrored bed.
Ever so gently, he eased her down until she sat on the edge of it, her body weak and trembling with the stormy, newfound emotion of desire. He sank to his knees before her, never pausing in kissing her. Slowly his kisses traveled down her neck to her chest. His hand captured her breast and his kisses moved lower. She dropped her head back in bliss, cradling him to her as his warm breath penetrated her gown, molding soft silk to the tautened, sensitive tip. He teethed her lightly through the silk; breathing his name, she arched against him, letting his body slide nearer between her thighs.
“I want you, Daniela. I want you,” he whispered. His deft, elegant hands caressed her chest and throat, but she had not even realized he had smoothly unfastened her gown until he began slipping her sleeve down over her right shoulder, kissing the crook of her neck.
In a sudden flash of horror she came to her senses, remembering her bandaged right arm.
Too late.
He had already moved her sleeve lower, and now he saw. He was frowning at her bandaged wound. “Daniela, what did you do to your arm…?” But his voice trailed away.
She stared at him, her heart in her throat.
He furrowed his brow, glanced up into her eyes, then froze with a dawning look of thunderstruck recognition.
Dani’s eyes widened with fright at the fury that flooded his dark green eyes.
“You,” he whispered as though the breath had been knocked from him.
Everything seemed to move slowly. She pulled out of his grasp, shoved past him off the bed, and ran, yanking her sleeve up over her shoulder again. She had barely taken two steps before he clutched her dress from behind.
“Get back here!” he roared, rising to his feet.
She shrieked, but he didn’t let go of her dress, and suddenly it tore at the sleeve. She looked frantically over her shoulder and saw him staring at her gunshot wound, which told him beyond a doubt that she was the Masked Rider.
“You! Goddamn it!” he bellowed. “Not possible!”
“Leave me alone!” she screamed.
When he reached for her, she threw a punch, but he caught her fist and spun her, snatching her arm up behind her back. His grip didn’t hurt, but was implacable.
She thrashed before him. “Let me go, you heathen brute!”
“What are you doing here?” he demanded furiously.
“How dare you come here?”
The grandfather clock in the sitting room began chiming midnight with long rolling bongs. As they struggled, both of them suddenly froze when a huge boom sounded in the distance. The blast rattled the windowpanes and shook the paintings on the walls.
Mateo and the others were making their escape! she thought wildly. She had failed to create the needed distraction—because she had been too busy in here kissing him!
“I said let me go!”
Spinning about face, she brought her knee up hard between his thighs.
He yelped.
“Serves you right, you bad, wicked rake!” she cried as he doubled over to the floor.
With a garbled cry of fury, Rafael grasped for the hem of her skirt, but she yanked away, mere inches beyond his fingers. Grabbing the key off the table, as the final chime of midnight tolled, she fled.
CHAPTER
SIX
With a speed born of pure survival instinct, Dani ran.
Dodging the costumed guests in her way, leaping down the marble steps two at a time, she raced from the halls of decadence as though the devil were at her heels. She fled past the jugglers and the peacocks on the lawn all the way down the drive.
The guards at the gate didn’t hinder her exit. Her lungs were burning, but she forced herself onward, running the half-mile down the road to the city, until at last she tore into the piazza, only to find herself in the midst of a full-tilt riot.
Chest heaving, she stood there in her torn ball gown looking around her in disbelief.
The blasts of Mateo’s bombs had set off the mob as well. Already suspicious about the king’s unheralded exit, the crowd that had gathered for the hanging in the morning had taken the explosion as their cue, rising up with a roar against the soldiers patrolling the square. Dani turned and saw a four-foot hole blown in one wall of the jail. It was still smoking. In the other direction, another fire had been set in a city already parched with drought. People were jeering the soldiers as though they no longer feared their bayonets. Others had begun looting the front row of shops, while another group, in a seething frenzy, was working to pull down the gallows which the prince’s men had built earlier that day.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Dani heard herself shouting furiously, but no one listened. She brushed a strand of hair back from her face and looked around angrily.
Any moment now, one of these hotheaded paisanos was going to say or do the wrong thing to the heavily armed soldiers and this skirmish was going to turn into a bloodbath—and if those fires weren’t put out immediately while they were still a manageable size, the townspeople were all doomed. She could only hope that Mateo and the others had escaped, as planned, and would soon be away on the boat bound for mainland Italy.
Dani kept yelling at the people around her to calm down, but it quickly became clear that the Masked Rider was the only one who might possibly carry the authority with this crowd to command order. Already pushing through fighting knots of people, she made her way to the livery stable where she had left her equipment and her horse.
Quickly she got rid of her ruined blue gown and changed clothes in the stall, hiding behind her horse. She saddled her horse, then swallowed hard as she pulled on the infamous black satin mask, knowing that the moment she appeared as the Masked Rider she was going to be arrested. She had no choice. She had caused enough trouble tonight and she had to prevent the outbreak of violence.
Several moments later, the Masked Rider came galloping out from a side alley to burst into the throng.
“Look!” people began shouting.
Dani’s gelding reared, but she managed to keep her seat, shouting in boyish tones at the top of her lungs, “Peace, people! There is nothing to fear. Calm down and go back to your homes!” She urged her skittish horse through the crowd. As tense moments passed, she saw that she was beginning to have an effect. “Don’t just stand there! Go help those soldiers put out the fires!” she angrily ordered them.
People fell back from her path, staring up at her, touching her horse as though for good luck as she passed, but the soldiers had also seen her and warily edged closer. She knew her time was running out.
“Listen to me! Go home to your families!” she repeated emphatically. “Behave the way King Lazar would want you to!”
“The prince has thrown him aside!” someone yelled.
“Who told you that?” she demanded. “Do you have proof?”
The man said nothing, merely giving the crowd and Dani a sullen look.
“I thought not. Go home and quit spreading these lies.” She moved on. Nearing the newly built gallows, she found a small crowd of young peasant men trying to tear it down. “They can lock you up for destroying government property,” she warned.
“Whose side are you on?” one shouted at her.
Before she could answer, a familiar voice reached her. “Dan!”
She looked over and turned ashen beneath her mask to see Mateo shoving through the mob. Oh, no! Why is he still here?
Glancing fearfully in the other direction, she saw more soldiers striding relentlessly toward her, still a short distance away. When they came for her, Mateo would be recaptured.
Without a second’s hesitation, she urged her horse toward her friend and blasted him with her fury. “What the hell are you still doing here?”
“Waiting for you! Come on, the wagon’s just at the edge of the square!” he hollered, his brown eyes fiery, his dark curls tousled.
“Damn you, Mateo!” She swung down off her horse. “That wasn’t in our plan! You know I can’t leave Grandfather. Now get on this horse and ride!”
“Do you think your grandfather would want to see you stay here and hang? I’m not leaving you here to die. You’re coming to Naples with us.” He grabbed her wrist and started dragging her away.
“Let go of me!” she shouted, wrenching her hand from his grasp. “You go, now! Your family needs you! I’ll keep the soldiers busy, just get away! Go, please. They’re coming—”
And suddenly their time was up. Prince Rafael’s soldiers were upon them.
Dani drew her rapier with a cry and stepped in front of Mateo. “Let him go! It’s me you want!”
The soldiers refused; Mateo scoffed at her attempt, and the minute her heedlessly brave friend threw the first punch, all hell broke loose. The rowdy and riled Ascencioners began brawling with the prince’s soldiers throughout the square.
Mat
eo was holding his own, but big Rocco came lumbering into the fray to watch his back. Dani was caught in the middle, buffeted back and forth like a buoy in a rough tide, thrown about by the press and crush of the much larger men all around her. Her sword was no good at close quarters. She cast it off, resorting to fists, elbows, and kicks, dodging lightly away from savage blows struck at her.
Suddenly a blow caught her in the face, blindsiding her. She went reeling, tripped back, and landed on the flagstone with the breath knocked out of her.
For a moment she lay there gasping like a fish caught on dry sand, then she groaned as the soldiers came and scraped her up off the ground, clamping her in manacles with the others.
Within fifteen minutes, Mateo, Alvi, and Rocco Gabbiano were back in jail.
This time, Dani was with them.
The ball carried on, the reveling guests oblivious to the kingdom’s brush with rebellion in the city square not even a mile away.
Rafe had been apprised of the situation, however, and waited tensely for news. He stood at the railing above the ballroom and threw back a draught of whiskey. He was angry, tense about the riot in progress, with a host of questions about that infuriating redhead swarming in his mind.
Who was she and how the hell had she done it? How had she breached security? The peasant child, Gianni, was gone, of course. Why had she come here, risking her neck to free him? What was her plan? Had she orchestrated the riot?
Impatient for word of her, he pushed away from the railing and walked back into the room, where his friends were clamoring for her blood. Most had been robbed by the Masked Rider. The news that the outlaw in question was a young girl had humiliated them to the point of rage. They had all been bested and wanted revenge. Listening to them chilled Rafe’s blood.
“I’ll be there to see her hang!” Niccolo said, though he had been flirting with her less than an hour ago, a fact that probably only intensified his venom.
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