Princess Annie

by Linda Lael Miller

  She was striding resolutely through the great hall when it struck her that she was hungry, in spite of all that had happened that awful morning. She would start trembling soon, and develop a headache as well, if she didn’t take the trouble to feed herself.

  Annie headed for the kitchen, only to find Lucian there, having his aristocratic forehead bathed in cool water by a very sympathetic maid. He spotted Annie before she could retreat, and then it was too late to flee for her pride was not going to allow her to be driven off.

  She passed him, with a cool nod, and swept into the pantry, where she helped herself to some brown bread, an apple and a portion of cheese. When she came out, balancing these items along with her writing box, Lucian had dismissed the maid and stood waiting, blocking her way to the door.

  Looking closely at his fine-boned, elegant face, Annie had a flash of insight. Lucian would never be anything but a caricature of his older brother, she realized, and she felt a stab of pity for him.

  “Let me pass,” she said, raising her chin. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “But I have something to say to you,” Lucian responded smoothly, folding his arms. In spite of the thrashing he’d taken from Rafael, he was actually smiling. “I didn’t mean to insult you this morning. I was attempting, in fact, to protect your virtue.”

  The objects Annie was holding shifted, and she struggled, for a few moments, to keep from dropping them. Then she met Lucian’s gaze directly. “I can do without your particular sort of chivalry, Mr. St. James,” she said, in even tones. “Furthermore, I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  He arched one eyebrow. “The way you did in the cottage the other day?” he countered.

  Annie felt heat surge into her face, and in that instant she hated Lucian, truly hated him. She’d had quite enough humiliation since arriving in Bavia without his reminders that everyone in the keep knew about her afternoon of indiscretion.

  “You are a gossip, Lucian,” she said. “Among other things. You need something constructive to keep yourself occupied.”

  He grinned, but there was a tightness to his mouth that frightened her just a little. “It is so refreshing,” he said, ignoring her question, “that you don’t bother to deny what happened between you and Rafael. I warned you about him, Annie. Why didn’t you listen?”

  She lifted her chin. “I will not discuss this with you. Let me pass.”

  He stepped aside, but his reply made her stop after only a few steps. “Rafael will seduce you again. Despite his pretty apologies, his talk of his own doom and his noble predictions of another lover awaiting you beyond some future sunrise, he will make you his mistress, Annie. He’ll set you up in a grand house in Paris or London or Rome or Madrid, and shower you with jewels and gowns and gifts, none of which will shine half so brightly as the things he’ll say to you, late at night, after he’s made love to you. And once you’ve given him what he wants—a sturdy, strapping son with fresh, bold American blood in his veins—he’ll take your child to raise as he wishes and kick you aside like some piece of filth he’s stumbled across in the street.”

  Annie turned slowly and met Lucian’s eyes. “You are wrong,” she said. “If Rafael wanted an heir—and I don’t believe he expects to live long enough to sire one—he would not take a mistress. He would marry, so that the child would be legitimate.”

  Lucian chuckled, and the sound trickled down Annie’s spine like a spill of icy water. “Perhaps in other countries, other families, that would be true. In ours …?” he paused, shrugging. “Things are a little different. Rafael himself is a bastard, sprung from the womb of my father’s gypsy mistress—she was only one of many, of course—and there was never any doubt that he would inherit the crown. It broke her heart, you know—Papa’s first wife, the woman who was supposed to be Rafael’s mother. She went into seclusion and eventually died of grief.”

  Annie retreated a step, and the apple fell to the floor and rolled beneath the cookstove. “None of that is Rafael’s fault,” she said shakily. Nothing in her past had prepared her for such intrigue and ugliness; her own family was a loving and joyous one, and the passion between her parents was something beautiful and pure. “Why do you hate him so much, Lucian? What did he do to you?”

  “Take care that you don’t meet the same end as the prince’s ‘mother,’” Lucian said, before answering her questions. “What did Rafael do to me? He was born first. He stole my birthright and tossed it to the dogs!”

  “You’re mad,” Annie said.

  Lucian went into the pantry and returned with another apple, polishing it on his shirt as he approached. Reaching Annie, he held the fruit out to her, an insolent offering. “Here you are, my lovely. Mind you don’t take a bite and find yourself sleeping for a hundred years.”

  Annie accepted the apple and stood silently in the kitchen while Lucian traced her lips with the tip of his index finger and then walked out of the room, whistling.

  Felicia’s gentle, reasonable words could not comfort Rafael. There were only two remedies for the wildness that had seized him—a violent fencing match or an afternoon in a whore’s bed. Since there were no whores present—and he knew even then that only Annie Trevarren would appease his desires—Rafael decided on swordplay. He sent for Barrett.

  “Poor Edmund,” Felicia commented, watching as Rafael took the rapiers he’d inherited from his wastrel of a father down from the study wall. “He’s too proper and too conscious of his place to let himself win, which means he’ll get the worst of it, and all the time it’s Lucian you really want to skewer.”

  Rafael scowled at his friend over one shoulder. She understood him as virtually no one else did, and her directness was often unsettling. “If I were to encounter my brother just now, I would probably run him through. Barrett is definitely the lesser of two evils.”

  Felicia shook her head. “No, Rafael. Barrett is an innocent bystander, and it’s his misfortune to be loyal enough to obey your insane demands.”

  Although the rapiers were a matched set, Rafael had a favorite and he could always recognize it. He grasped the handle and turned the blade to a silvery blur with a few twists of his wrist. “You should be so obedient,” he told Felicia, without meeting her eyes. “If you were, you would have left this cursed country long ago. You’re a beautiful woman, Felicia, and you are wasted on this wretched place.”

  She sighed and plopped into a chair with a great flurry of skirts and blond curls. Felicia was more fragile than he’d ever seen her, thinner, with dark shadows under her eyes, and he was worried. “I’ve told you before, Rafael. When you leave Bavia, so will I.”

  “Have a care,” Rafael replied lightly, hiding his frustration as well as his concern, “that you don’t wind up making the journey in a box, the way I probably will.”

  Tears filled Felicia’s eyes, and she leaped out of her chair. “Damn you, Rafael!” she cried. “How can you speak of your own death as though it were some sort of joke!”

  He lowered the rapier and watched her as she paced back and forth in a second burst of agitation. “That’s the only way I can talk about it at all,” he said. “For God’s sake, Felicia, you don’t have to stay. Get out of Bavia, as soon as the wedding’s over, if you won’t go sooner, and give up the idea that you can save me from my fate. No one can do that.”

  “No one but you!” Felicia sobbed. “And you’re too stubborn and too stupid to make the effort!” With that, she fled the room, nearly colliding with Barrett in the process.

  “That’s the second time today you’ve made a woman flee a room in tears,” the bodyguard remarked. “Or were there others I don’t know about?”

  “Shut up and fight,” Rafael replied, taking the second rapier down from the wall and tossing it to Barrett, who caught it deftly.

  Barrett shrugged, and they took an outside stairway down to the courtyard, where there was space enough for a battle.

  “According to Miss Covington,” Rafael said, while Barrett was war
ming up his sword arm, “you’ve been letting me win all these years, out of some misguided sense of duty. Is that true?”

  The bodyguard smiled. “You are one of the finest swordsmen I’ve ever run across,” he said. “But, yes, there were a few times when I could have bested you.”

  Rafael was pleased by the honesty of the response, though in truth it stung a little. “Perhaps this is one of those times,” he said, raising his rapier. The sunlight sent sparks tumbling along the length of the blade.

  “Perhaps,” Barrett replied easily, turning to face his opponent.

  The rapiers collided with the melodious clang of steel.

  “Come now,” Rafael scolded. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Barrett laughed and, with a hard swing, nearly sent Rafael’s rapier flying from his hand. “You wouldn’t want the match to end too soon, would you, Your Highness?” he asked. Their blades tangled fiercely, relentlessly, for several minutes. “I didn’t think so,” Barrett replied, his question answered.

  The battle progressed, and the more difficult it became, the better Rafael felt. He fought until he lost all sensation in his arm, until his breath ached in his lungs and his shirt clung to his back and chest, soaked with sweat. He went beyond pain, beyond weariness, and Barren kept pace, though it was plain that he too had already gone well past his own limits.

  Finally, after Rafael had lost track of time, he caught Barrett in a weak moment and disarmed him. The bodyguard’s rapier clattered over the stones of the courtyard, and Rafael turned and walked away, strangely disappointed in the victory.

  CHAPTER 6

  Annie took refuge in a quiet part of the garden near a moss-splotched and crumbling statue of Pan, and seated herself on an equally ancient bench. After sitting still for a few moments, recovering from her confrontation with Lucian in the castle kitchen, trembling with rage and other emotions she couldn’t so easily put a name to, she looked down at the wooden writing box on her lap. The food she had purloined from the pantry had vanished, no doubt having been dropped in her wretched hurry to be alone. Despite her agitated state, Annie was hungry.

  She sighed, stroking the gleaming cherry wood box with an unsteady hand. The hinged lid slanted, making a desklike surface, and there was a small inkwell at the top, along with a place for pens and pencils to rest. Inside were an assortment of writing implements, a few Swiss postage stamps, which would be useless in Bavia, and a good supply of vellum stationery.

  Annie smiled. The lap-desk had been a Christmas gift from her younger sisters—they’d found it together, the four of them, in a little shop in Paris with, so they claimed, no help at all from their mother and current governess. This last assertion was surely an embroidery on the truth, since Gabriella, Melissande, Elisabeth and Christina would not have been permitted to go on such an errand unaccompanied. Patrick and Charlotte Trevarren were not strict parents in the conventional sense, but they cherished their children and made every effort to keep them safe and well.

  Feeling better just for thinking about her family, Annie took out a bottle of india ink, her favorite pen, a small felt pen-wipe and several sheets of paper. She had inscribed the date and the words “St. James Keep, Bavia” in the upper right-hand corner, following that with, “Dearest Mama and Papa and Beloved Sisters,” when all inspiration abandoned her.

  A rustling in the overgrown shrubbery made her stiffen and nearly drop the letter—desk, ink, pen and all. She was in no frame of mind for another encounter with Lucian, nor did she wish to see Phaedra or even Rafael.

  It was with considerable relief that Annie recognized Chandler Haslett. His expression was warm and cheerful; there was a refreshing lack of tragedy about this man, and he seemed a straightforward and even-tempered person.

  Annie wondered, as she returned his smile of greeting with one of her own, what inherent character flaw had caused her to fall hopelessly in love with a complicated man like Rafael. How much simpler it would have been if she could have given her heart to someone who would cherish her affections and return them in kind.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Haslett said, hesitating at the edge of the shrubbery. Annie noticed that he was carrying a small bundle, something wrapped in a checked table napkin, in one hand. He heaved a great, beleaguered sigh, though his eyes were still smiling. “Rafael needs to speak with his gardeners. This part of the grounds puts me in mind of a jungle I once explored. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised to meet up with a white tiger or perhaps a band of screeching monkeys.”

  Annie laughed and slid over a little way on the bench in tacit invitation. Gratefully, Mr. Haslett sat down beside her. His gaze rested on her with kindness, and he held out the bundle.

  Annie accepted the offering, only too aware that her eyes were puffy and her nose was red. “What—?”

  Before she could complete the question, Mr. Haslett graciously explained. “I confess, Miss Trevarren, that I saw you dashing through the keep a little while ago, dropping bits of food as you went. It was plain that you were upset, and I gambled that you might be hungry as well.”

  The gentleman’s kindness undid Annie as nothing else could have. She sniffled, and her fingers trembled slightly as she untied the corners of the bundle. “You are very thoughtful, Mr. Haslett,” she said softly.

  “Please,” he reprimanded, “call me Chandler. We are friends now, are we not?” His tone was gentle and gruff, and it made Annie want to fling herself into his arms and soak his shoulder with her tears—just what she would have done with her father, if he’d been nearby.

  With laudable effort, she held onto her dignity. “Thank you,” she said. The words had barely any strength behind them, but she was certain that Chandler had heard them.

  Setting aside the lap-desk, she took a large bite of cheese. Her companion waited politely until she’d devoured an apple, a generous slice of bread and every last crumb of the cheese.

  “Now,” he said, taking her hand, “would you like to talk? I assure you that I am trustworthy, and you’ll probably find me sympathetic as well.”

  Annie felt stronger already, even though the hastily consumed food had barely had time to settle in her stomach. Still, she had not reached her decision to leave St. James Keep lightly, and the prospect of unburdening her heart—just a little—was appealing indeed.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay in Bavia for the wedding, Mr. Hasl—Chandler,” she confided quietly, brushing bits of cheese and bread from her lap. She’d tossed her apple core into the tall grass, where some small and diligent creature was already laboring to salvage it.

  Chandler looked genuinely concerned. “I’m sure the princess will be gravely disappointed, as am I,” he replied. “Has there been some offense committed—?”

  An offense. Annie took the time to consider the question, making a project of shaking out the checked table napkin in which her food had been wrapped, folding the bit of cloth meticulously, and finally handing it back to her companion.

  “Not exactly,” she answered. It wouldn’t be fair to describe the lovely interlude with Rafael as an offense, however ill-advised it might have been, for she’d enjoyed the experience too well to describe it so. And she wasn’t prepared to recount the things Lucian had said to her in the kitchen, either, for she knew that families were like the wild blackberry bushes that grew around Puget Sound—the roots went deep, even in hard ground, and the thorny vines were always entangled with each other.

  “Something happened,” Chandler insisted, taking her hand. “Did it have to do with Rafael?”

  Annie’s philosophical mood vanished, as quickly as that, and hot color surged into her cheeks. She’d forgotten, at her peril, that practically everyone in St. James Keep knew about her fall from grace the day before, out by the lake. She would probably have bolted from the bench and gone plunging into the underbrush if Chandler hadn’t caught her chin in one hand and made her look at him.

  “I love Rafael,” she blurted out, without intending
to at all. “I love him.”

  Chandler slowly lowered his hand. “I see,” he replied. “And how long have you felt this way?”

  Annie battled a fresh spate of tears. Good Heavens, she hadn’t cried so much since her first lonely nights at St. Aspasia’s, when she’d believed with all her heart that her mother and father had decided to wash their hands of her forever.

  “Since I was twelve,” she said, and though she managed to make her voice sound brave, for the most part, it did tremble just a bit. “Papa and Mama have been Rafael’s friends for a long time, though I daresay they weren’t nearly so fond of his father, and with good reason, it would seem. He came to our villa in France quite often, sometimes with his father, and sometimes alone. I had always adored him, but the feelings deepened that particular year, into something I knew would never change.”

  “You were on the threshold of womanhood,” Chandler said. Coming from another man, the statement might have been improper, but Annie knew he’d meant no harm or insult. And he was right.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled fondly. “It must have been wonderful, falling in love that way.”

  Annie bit her lower lip for a moment, then shook her head. “No, it wasn’t wonderful,” she said sadly. “It was dreadful. Rafael had brought Lady Georgiana with him on that visit, and he proposed marriage to her on a bench under a pepper tree in our courtyard. They’d been promised to each other as children, and the proposal was only a formality, but it came as a terrible shock to me all the same.”

  Chandler took her hand and squeezed it lightly, but his expression was one of benevolent amusement. “Poor Annie. You eavesdropped?”

  Annie laughed suddenly, surprising herself as much as Chandler, even as the tears she’d been battling stung her eyes. “Quite literally,” she replied. “I was in the tree, as it happens, and I fell out, before Georgiana could say yea or nay. I landed at their feet in a heap of crinolines and self-pity.”