Gaelen Foley

by Prince Charming

  She braced herself there with one hand behind her, the other on his shoulder. Her heart raced with wild, reckless thrill while he ended the kiss, slowly lowering himself to his knees on the next step down. She had no idea what he was doing, but she did not possess the strength to protest when he slid her skirts up and parted the slit of her white muslin pantalettes. She tilted her head back in helpless welcome when she felt the pad of his thumb stroke her, and then she gasped as his wet, warm mouth covered her in a fiery burst of icy-hot peppermint bliss.

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned. It was all she could do not to fall down the steps.

  She heard his throaty laugh at her reaction to his debauchery. Then he used his tongue to caress her with the candy before it dissolved entirely, along with her wits. He slid his middle finger into her as he blew gently on her aroused flesh, sending a fresh wave of icy-hot sensation to rack her body with wild pleasure.

  She leaned back weakly on her elbow on the wide marble railing, her other hand still clinging to his shoulder, her riding crop hooked under her finger and trailing down his back, the tasseled tip of it dusting his muscled rear end in tight breeches.

  Her chest heaving, she gazed down in an utter, wanton haze of lust at his blond head between her thighs. He licked her in circles lightly, with exquisite finesse, and he said, “Mmm,” against her flesh, as though he were feasting on soft, melting chocolates and could not get enough. She stroked his sleek, golden hair while he applied himself to pleasuring her with naughty little flicks of his luscious tongue and his fingers moved in and out of her teeming passage.

  God forgive her, but even this shocking decadence wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough but to feel Rafael inside of her, taking what she so longed to give.

  He seemed to sense when she grew rigid, poised on the edge of release. She cried out in anguish when he pulled back and gazed up at her, looking tousled and lusty as a wanton god. One glance into his eyes told her that his control was hanging by a thread. His left hand caressed her thigh, his royal signet ring gleaming gold.

  He wiped his glistening mouth on his wrist as he held her stare feverishly. “Are you ready now to ask me nicely, love?”

  His challenging whisper slammed her back to reality. She stared at him, appalled.

  “Absolutely not,” she forced out with knee-jerk defiance.

  “Ah, what a shame,” he breathed, regretfully brushing her skirts back down.

  She could only stare at him in disbelief, stunned that he would leave her in torment.

  Smiling at her, cool anger turning his eyes steely green, he stood and began walking up the steps past her. “Cheer up, Dani. If I have to suffer, so do you. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Dazedly, she moved away from the marble railing and stood unsteadily on the steps. She was shaking with tumultuous emotion and unfulfilled desire. Slowly, she sank down and sat on the step, unaware that he had stopped at the top of the staircase, clenching and unclenching his fists, and now forced himself to turn and look down at her.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and lowered her head in despair. All the fight drained out of her. She hated him—needed him. Needed him so much. How could he leave her like this, feeling so empty and alone, ashamed of her own wantonness?

  Yet this was precisely what she had done to him on their wedding night, she realized. She heard slow, heavy footsteps as he came back down the stairs to her. He crouched down beside her and leaned close, kissing her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, baby, my precious, I’m sorry.” His whisper was raw. “Let me take you upstairs, angel, please. Please. I need you so badly.”

  Flinching with want, she tried to pull away from him.

  He slid closer. Lifting his hand, he stroked her cheek, her hair. His hand was shaking. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her temple. “Dani, please, this is killing me. You’re my wife. Don’t turn me away. You’re all I think about. You’re the only one I want—”

  “I am afraid,” she said barely audibly.

  “No. No fear,” he panted, grazing his lips against her cheek back to kiss her earlobe. His hand covered her knee. “I’ll make it good for you—”

  “Afraid to have a child!” She closed her brimming eyes in fierce anger. “I’m afraid to have a child. I’m afraid.”

  He stopped.

  There, she thought. She had said it.

  Finally blurted out the truth, the core of fear in the center of all her bravado.

  “I am terrified,” she said. “I am a coward.” She felt him staring at her.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She drew a deep, shaky breath but still could not look at him. “Even if by some miracle your father doesn’t disinherit you, the annulment must stand because I cannot give you an heir. You must find someone else, Rafael. I can’t do it. I cannot.”

  He was silent for a very long moment. “Is it…your health?”

  “My health is sound.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m still not sure I understand.”

  She turned to him at last. “Have you ever seen a woman die in childbirth?”

  “No.”

  “I have. That day in the jail when you asked me to marry you, I knew you would have to have an heir and I thought then that I would face it when the time came. But if I can’t even keep you as my husband, I don’t want to risk dying for you—not that way! I meant it when I said I would’ve taken a swift death at the end of a noose rather than to die that way—in blood, and terror, and screaming. Such screaming as I never heard in all my days—”

  “Easy, there. Easy,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder with a frown of gentle concern. “Dani, not all women die in childbirth. You’re young, strong.”

  “My mother died birthing me, Rafael. Grandfather says she was narrow-hipped, the same as me.” Hearing the frantic note in her own voice, she struggled to appear calm.

  “But Dani—” His voice broke off and he stared at her. The self-assured Rafael seemed flustered and completely routed by her awful, unwomanly confession.

  It was so terribly awkward. But then, ever the prince, he smoothly rose to the occasion. He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him protectively, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Darling, I would never let anything happen to you,” he whispered. “I know you’re afraid. I wouldn’t want to have to go through that myself, but we all must face our fears. I promise you, you’ll have the best physicians—”

  “No doctor can control nature, Rafael!”

  His soft kiss lingered at her temple. “No, my love, only God can do that. But I cannot believe that God would take you away from me now that I’ve finally found you.”

  “Found me?” she said bitterly. “You only wed me to use me, Rafael.”

  He met her eyes intensely for a moment, as though there were something profound that he had to confess as well. But his mouth was grim and pale, and he said nothing.

  Rising to his feet, he raked a hand through his hair and walked away.

  For three days, Rafe put his work between himself and the world. Except for the arduous state occasions when they were required to stand together, eat together, dance together, and play the blissful newlyweds, it was easy to avoid his wife, for he spent most of his time in the administrative block of the palace while she was confined, on his orders, to her pink suite on the third floor.

  He ached with want and with a love that terrified him, but in spite of everything, he refused to get rid of her. Doing so would have been tantamount to admitting to Don Arturo and the bishop and Adriano and everyone else who had warned him against this that he had made a mistake in marrying her, and he was not willing to do that. He had made his vows before God and country. He had to save face, and the plain truth was, hang it all, that he wanted to keep her.

  Why, he didn’t know.

  The memory of her sweet giving that night on the boat, her innocent face flushed with passion and her blue-green eyes filled with sensual bliss, haunt
ed him as the days dragged by.

  So supremely self-assured, he had sought from the start of their acquaintance to seduce her, but he was the one who had been seduced. And he hated it.

  It was Thursday, late afternoon, when his stomach growled, reminding him he had forgotten again to eat lunch.

  Considering the report he had just finished reading, the thought of eating struck him as a trifle unappetizing, in spite of his hunger. No poison had yet been found in the foodstuffs from the royal kitchens, according to the university scientists and physicians whom he had instructed to examine it for any taint. Their methods seemed to him satisfactorily meticulous, and so far all the cats were healthy, but the mere thought quashed his already diminished appetite.

  Instead, he moved on to the next order of business, calling his secretary to show in his next appointment.

  The fat-bellied Count Bulbati sailed into the small, stuffy salon with his pug nose in the air, clearly a man who did not take Rafael di Fiore seriously.

  Rafe could spot the type at a hundred paces.

  Ten minutes into their interview, however, Bulbati’s smug disdain had crumbled. Then he began to sweat. Profusely.

  Rafe continued to grill him casually and without pity, knowing the man had bothered Daniela. Sooner or later, he knew he was going to have to go crawling back to her, and he wanted some kind of meaningful gift to lay at her feet when that time came.

  The ledger books from Bulbati’s jurisdiction under the Ministry of Finance lay open on his desk.

  “A very singular mode of wooing, my lord,” Rafe growled as he looked up from the neatly doctored columns of numbers. “Did you really think you could get her to marry you by starving her out of house and home?”

  Bulbati swiped at his pale, doughy face with a handkerchief. His sweat made the whole room stink. “I cannot fathom why Lady Daniela is accusing me—”

  “Look, you revolting mound of flesh, I’ve had it with your dodging my questions. You and I both know you are guilty. These accounts have been altered and you’re the only one in a position to do that and to profit from it! You are looking at fifteen years or more in prison, my lord!”

  “Your Highness, you don’t understand!” Bulbati squealed. “I’m allowed to skim a small portion off the top for myself! It’s all right, you see. He knows about it—” The count suddenly stopped himself with a look of horror.

  Staring at him, Rafe sat back slowly in his chair and skimmed his jawline with his knuckles. “Well, this is very interesting. Who has given you permission to embezzle funds from Ascencion’s coffers, my lord?”

  Rafe did not show it, but he was a little shocked. He had the feeling he had just opened a veritable Pandora’s box of trouble. Open those books and you will find the real criminal, Daniela had said that night at her villa, shooting straight to the mark in her usual Robin Hood fashion.

  Bulbati closed his eyes, his pasty skin turning a sickly green color. “Oh, what have I done now?” he said to himself. “Caught between a rock and a hard place. Oh, dear, oh, dear me.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  Bulbati turned a suddenly desperate expression on him. “Your Highness, you don’t understand. He will kill me!”

  “Think about life in prison, my lord. That is what you are facing. You have embezzled from the king; you have abused your office, not only to line your own pockets, but to try to get your hands on an innocent young lady. Your actions are dishonorably vile and your words prove you a coward. If you hope for pity, you will find none here, at least not until you begin to cooperate.”

  “If I tell you, I will be in mortal danger!” he whispered, mopping his brow with his damp handkerchief. “I will need constant protection!”

  “From whom? I’m not going to play a guessing game with you, Bulbati. Name this mystery man or you are done for.”

  Sweat poured down Bulbati’s face, dampening his frilly cravat. He tugged at the lacy bow as though he couldn’t breathe. “Please don’t cross him, Your Highness. It’s better just to put it under the rug. I’ll pay back all the money—”

  “His name.”

  “I’m not the only one working for him, you know, a-and it isn’t just the Ministry of Finance! He is more powerful than you know! He has influence in every branch of government.”

  “Give me his name, damn it!” Rafe bellowed, slamming his fist on the desk.

  The man stared like a startled feeder hog, slipped his thick fingers into his waistcoat as though trying to still his heart, then closed his eyes and seemed to gather himself.

  “Orlando.”

  Rafe sat in complete silence for a very long moment.

  It was difficult in that moment to say what he felt. Numb. Reeling. Blank. Then anger flooded him.

  “You lie.”

  “N-no, Your Highness! It is the truth!”

  “You expect me to believe you, an honorless swine, over a duke of the royal blood?” Rafe rose slowly from his chair, glowering. “How dare you accuse my kinsman? Take it back! Where is your proof?”

  “I—I have no proof. I am telling you the truth, Your Highness. It’s true!”

  “It is a lie!” he roared, slamming his fist down on the desk, but the reflex of wanting to believe the best about someone he cared about was not working this time. Horror ran like poison in his veins—not the horror of surprise, but worse, that of recognition. Still he fought it. “Guard!” he barked.

  Bulbati was already scrambling up from the creaking chair and waddling hurriedly toward the door as the Royal Guardsmen posted outside the salon stepped in.

  “Keep this man in custody overnight, but for now, get him out of my sight. We’ll see if he changes his story tomorrow,” he snarled.

  “Yes, sir,” they answered, and took the count away.

  The door closed behind them and Rafe closed his eyes, his temples pounding. Hands on hips, he paced to the window and stared out at the long shadows stretched across the park lawn, nearly blind with fury and utterly routed.

  He did not know what to think.

  In the two years since Orlando had moved from Florence and established himself on Ascencion, Rafe had often sensed that the man was not exactly what he seemed. But Rafe had always felt a bit sorry for his strange, brooding, solitary cousin, who had no immediate living family and no real friends that Rafe knew of. He had supposed Orlando was a trifle jealous of him, as most men were, regrettably. But if Orlando’s rancor ran deeper than surface jealousy, Rafe was not sure he wanted to know it.

  Ever since he had found out that Orlando had gone behind his back to talk to Daniela, Rafe had been wary of his cousin, inevitably. Even if his kinsman’s intentions had indeed been to protect him and the family, Orlando’s private talk with Dani was a breach of trust. That had been a personal matter, but this accusation from Count Bulbati had more profound and far-reaching implications.

  Strangest of all was Bulbati’s repeated statement that Orlando had vast power and would actually kill him if he revealed his name. Rafe frowned to himself. Surely that sloppy swine was lying.

  Why, he had seen Orlando that very morning and had read nothing unusual in his cousin’s attitude. The duke had been present for the meetings of Rafe’s new, woefully green cabinet. He had been glad of his cousin’s presence, since Orlando was older and had more experience than any other man he had appointed.

  Orlando had behaved naturally and Rafe had shrugged off his uneasiness, for if he didn’t trust his own family, whom could he trust? Mulling on it now, that seemed like a hopelessly naive philosophy.

  Julia would have laughed at him for it.

  His arms folded over his chest, Rafe lifted a fist to his mouth as he stood, brooding and motionless, at the window.

  He did not like the train of his own thoughts. He had deliberately avoided becoming a suspicious and untrusting man, because that would have meant that Julia, in her treachery, had won, but this time, he forced himself to imagine the most diabolical scenario. It would not do to be taken by surp
rise.

  Father was ailing. Stomach cancer. Supposedly. As crown prince, he was the heir to the throne and so far had no sons. Orlando had convinced Dani not to sleep with him.

  If both he and Father were dead, the succession of the throne would fall to Leo, with the bombastic Bishop Justinian as his regent.

  The bishop disapproved heartily of Rafe but was zealously devoted to the king and to Leo, as well. No, he thought, the priest was no traitor. However…if Leo was in power, hypothetically, and Bishop Justinian died before the boy-king came of age, who, then, would become Leo’s regent?

  The question made Rafe mildly ill.

  He wanted to think it would be Darius Santiago, his fierce brother-in-law. But Darius had lived in Spain for four years, was out of touch with what was happening on Ascencion, and was, when it came down to it, a warrior, not a statesman.

  Prime Minister Arturo di Sansevero might be chosen—but then, Rafe knew who Don Arturo’s favorite was.

  Orlando.

  And if Orlando got control of Leo, who could say if the child would ever live to see the age of eighteen, when he would come to power?

  The line of his own thoughts sickened him. Surely, surely he was blowing everything out of all reasonable proportion. After all, there was no evidence yet that Father’s illness was anything other than the stomach cancer which had been diagnosed, and as for him, there had been no attempts on his life.

  None at all.

  Suddenly unable to stand still, Rafe pivoted and left the room, striding out into the hall in a rush of determination to have a talk with Orlando’s superior, the old, white-haired Don Francisco, venerated head of the Ministry of Finance for the past twenty years.

  Rafe’s heart was full of foreboding, but he moved with caution, not wanting even to think how the equation might change if and when Dani became pregnant. If she bore him a son, Leo would not succeed to the throne, Rafe’s heir would.