Lucian stood beside him, one foot braced against the crenel in the wall. “That’s something, I suppose,” he replied evenly. “At least she’s out of Bavia, or soon will be. Phaedra is safe with Barrett, after all.”
Rafael emitted a humorless chuckle. “Yes,” he agreed. “But is Barrett safe with our sister?”
Lucian smiled wanly at the question. “What will you do without him?”
For a moment, Rafael could not answer. He felt as though his right arm had been severed with Barrett’s leaving and yet, now that he’d had time to think, he was more charitably inclined. Barrett had tried to tell him that he loved Phaedra and he, Rafael, had not taken his friend’s declaration seriously. He’d been so certain that Barrett would see, as he’d seen, the impossibility of a union between a princess and a soldier.
“Perhaps it’s better that he’s gone,” the prince replied, at considerable length. “Why should Barrett hang beside me? Bavia isn’t his country, it’s mine.”
“Why indeed?” Lucian agreed. “What do you plan to do with Annie Trevarren, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Rafael met his half brother’s gaze. “I do mind,” he said. “But I’ll answer: I don’t know. Haslett’s ruffled dignity precluded Annie’s traveling with his party. There is a ship off the coast, but I wouldn’t trust anyone other than Edmund Barrett or her own father to get her safely aboard, and I can’t leave the keep long enough to do it myself.”
“Quite a conundrum,” Lucian remarked. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered me as an escort for the lovely Miss Trevarren?”
“I’d sooner consider the head of the rebel army,” Rafael answered pleasantly. “Which is not to say that you shouldn’t leave on your own. Your dislike for me won’t save you from them, Lucien.”
“Is it too late to prove myself a loyal and repentant sibling?” There was a familiar, wheedling note in Lucian’s voice that struck a painful chord in Rafael, reminding him of the little boy Lucian had once been. Rafael had been fond of that child, though, like Phaedra, he had not known him well.
“Yes,” Rafael said. “It is.”
Lucian was silent for a few moments, watching the sunlight dance and play on the sea. “So be it,” he said finally. Then he turned and walked away, leaving Rafael to his vigil.
Annie waited in her chambers for a summons, trunks and bags packed, but none came. Finally, at eight that evening, Kathleen appeared, bringing a supper tray. The maid’s eyes were downcast as she brought the food to the small table situated near the fireplace and set it down.
“I suppose you’re angry with me, too,” Annie said, feeling uncommonly lonesome.
Kathleen looked up. “Angry? Oh, no, miss. But I’m afraid for you, right enough. The rebels won’t wait long now, and they’re not such poor soldiers as you might think from what happened the first time they attacked the keep. They’re inside the walls already, in numbers that would surprise you.”
Annie glanced at the food Kathleen had brought without appetite. She dreaded eating, but knew she must, for the sake of her child. No doubt in coming days, she would be called upon to do other things she did not want to do as well, in order to protect the baby.
She sat down at the table and gestured for Kathleen to join her.
“Were they waiting for the wedding to be over?” she asked.
Kathleen took the second chair. “Some of them were invited guests, miss,” she said sadly. “People who call the prince friend, or cousin.” She paused. “Or brother.”
Annie had been pouring tea for herself, but she set the small china pot down with a thump. “Do you mean Lucian is …?”
Kathleen reached out a firm hand and stopped Annie from bolting to her feet. “No need to hurry off to the prince with the news,” she said. “His Highness has known the truth for a long time.”
“Damn Lucian,” Annie whispered, feeling the sting of his betrayal even though it had never been directed at her.
“He’s a rotten apple, all right,” Kathleen conceded, “but you can’t judge the rest of the rebels by him. They’re ordinary folk, for the most part, like Tom Wallcreek.” At the mere mention of that man’s name, the maid flushed bright pink.
Annie’s heart did a skidding lurch, then righted itself. She’d been right, then—the maid was enamored with Tom. Was there more to it than that?
“Kathleen, are you one of them?”
“No,” was the earnest answer, and Annie believed it. “But they’re going to win, miss, and their leader’s put a price on the prince’s head. He’ll hang, they say, before the month is out.”
In her mind’s eye, Annie saw Peter Maitland’s slender figure standing on the scaffold, watched him fall through the trapdoor. It was only too easy to imagine Rafael meeting the same fate.
She pushed her chair back a little way, unable to touch her food, and put her hands to her face. “Dear God, Kathleen, what am I going to do?”
Kathleen answered with conviction. “You must tell the prince about his child,” she said. “I know you wanted to do it in a certain way, miss, but the fact is, the right moment may never come.”
Annie rose slowly to her feet and nodded. “Yes,” she murmured. “I’ll tell him. Now.”
“God go with you,” Kathleen said gently.
After some searching inside the castle, Annie ventured out into the courtyard and saw Rafael on the parapet. Still wearing her trousers and shirt, she climbed nimbly up the stone stairway and walked along the battlement until she reached his side.
“Has my ship sailed?” she asked.
He engaged in a somewhat bitter smile. “Yes. But I still haven’t abandoned hope that your pirate of a father will arrive and take you away from here.”
“You might have more to fear from Patrick Trevarren than the rebels,” Annie said, her voice shaking a little. “He’ll want you to do right by his daughter.”
Only then did Rafael turn his head to look at her. “There can be no denying that Patrick will be furious when he learns I’ve deflowered such a prize. Let us hope, for your sake, that he gets to me before my own countrymen do.”
Annie bit her lower lip, then blurted out, “I’ve heard rumors that they’re already within the keep’s walls. The rebels, I mean.”
Rafael nodded. “There can be no doubt of that.”
“And Lucian—”
He held up a hand. “Yes, I know that my brother is a Judas. Please spare me another hearing of the fact.”
Annie could no longer avoid what she’d come to say, and it nearly destroyed her, having to use otherwise wonderful news as a club. She held her breath for a moment, like a swimmer about to plunge into freezing water, then spilled the jumbled contents of her heart.
“I’m going to have a child.”
For a moment, Rafael looked as he might have done if Annie had pushed him right off the parapet. He said nothing at all for the longest time, and for Annie the world stopped turning, the stars fizzled, and the sun and moon dissolved to dust.
“Surely you’re mistaken,” he finally muttered.
Annie shook her head.
“The fainting spells …?”
Annie nodded. “And other things. It’s true, Rafael. Now, what do you intend to do about the situation?”
Rafael’s answer startled her completely. “Marry you,” he said, taking her hand and dragging her toward the stairway. “Find that priest and send him to the chapel,” he called to a soldier up ahead. Then he turned and looked down into Annie’s eyes. “At least there’s a proper dress for you to wear, and wine and wedding cake, too, if the locusts haven’t consumed it all.”
“Rafael—”
He was pulling her down the stairs. “I’ll hear no maidenly protests,” he said, over one shoulder. “My child will have a name, if not a father.”
Annie stopped cold and dug in her heels. “What do you mean, ‘if not a father’?”
Rafael wrenched her into motion again. “We’ll discuss that later, Miss Trevarren. For now,
let’s just get ourselves married.”
After that, everything happened in an even greater hurry. Annie was given no more opportunity to protest, for Rafael abandoned her in the center of the courtyard and disappeared into the chapel. Moments later, the bell in the tower was ringing, and the population of the keep rushed to investigate.
Some of them surely thought the prince had gone mad when he put his head out of the belfry window and shouted that there would, after all, be a royal wedding in St. James Keep, and within the hour.
Annie wanted the marriage above all things, but she had a hollow feeling in her heart as she went inside to don Phaedra’s magnificent gown and veil. There was a kind of madness in Rafael’s actions, and he was, after all, only taking her to wife because of the child.
He had not even promised to leave the keep with her and seek safety in France, or spoken of a shared future at all.
Half an hour later, resplendent in a bride’s garb, Annie was escorted down the main staircase and across the great hall by Kathleen and two of Rafael’s soldiers. The chapel and courtyard were packed, as they had been during her performance earlier in the day, and Annie had a weird sense of going backward in time.
It was all real enough, however. The organ music thundered, and Rafael stood at the front of the chapel, beside the same priest. Lucian caught her eye as she hesitated on the threshold, and she saw such malice in his face that a shiver trembled down her spine.
“Go to him,” Kathleen said, giving her a little push from behind.
Annie took a stumbling step toward her bridegroom, full of trepidation and ecstasy, fearing the future and at the same time hoping for miracles. Rafael held out a hand to her, and it was that gesture that drew her the rest of the way.
Even when she’d reached Rafael’s side, and could feel him standing next to her, strong and solid, Annie feared she was only dreaming. If she awakened to find herself alone in her room, she thought, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
She listened to every word the priest said, stealing an occasional glimpse of Rafael out of the corner of one eye. The assembly was asked if anyone could give just cause why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony, and Annie held her breath. Though there was some shuffling in the pews at this point—enough to make Rafael turn and sweep the congregation up in one grand glower of warning—no one spoke up.
Annie responded when a response was requested of her, and tried not to think beyond the moment.
Finally, the priest pronounced them man and wife and said, “You may kiss the bride.”
Rafael bent his head, his lips a breath away from hers, and whispered, “My Princess Annie.” Then he kissed her, albeit with such chaste restraint that Annie opened her eyes and stared at him in surprise.
He chuckled and hooked her arm through his, saying in a low voice, “Don’t worry, my love. Ours will be a wedding night to remember.”
Foreboding brushed Annie’s spirit like the wing of a mourning dove. Rafael sounded as though he thought that was all they would have, that single night.
The prospect was unbearable for Annie. Losing Rafael would be infinitely harder, should the worst happen, now that he was her husband. The idea of being parted from him was too painful to entertain, so Annie permitted herself to pretend the world wasn’t going to end at any moment.
After the ceremony, an impromptu reception was held in the great hall. Rafael was cheerful, even buoyant, drinking toast after toast and singing raucous songs with friends and soldiers. That his enemies numbered among both groups did not seem to trouble him.
Annie, for her part, wanted only to be alone with her new husband. To her, every moment was precious.
The drinking went on and so did the singing. Annie smiled and accepted congratulations from people who had probably been gossiping about her in the shadowy corners of the hall. She danced with Rafael, when a gypsy band struck up a tune on fiddles and mouth harps, the skirts of Phaedra’s wedding gown making the rushes whisper on the stone floor.
It was after one in the morning when Rafael finally took Annie’s hand and led her toward the staircase. A great cheer went up when he whisked her off her feet and carried her to the second floor, and Annie blushed. She had always been too forward for her own good—or so said the nuns at St. Aspasia’s—but having everyone in the castle know she was about to be formally bedded was disconcerting.
Rafael did not take his bride to his chambers, however, or to hers. Instead, he strode along the passageways toward the back of the keep, and Annie realized with some surprise that he was not the slightest bit drunk. The singing and the toasts and the boisterous celebration had been some sort of act.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, thinking it a reasonable question.
Rafael smiled. “Away from here,” he replied, setting her on her feet with a teasing frown. “You’ve already been eating for two, I see.”
Annie laughed. “Cad! No gentleman ever refers to a lady’s weight.”
He took her hand and set out again, at full stride, pulling her behind him. “I will refrain,” he said, “from the obvious response to that remark.”
Presently, they came to one of the castle’s many rear-staircases and started down. They walked out into a garden, and Annie was pleased to feel a soft, misty rain touch her skin. After the heat of the crowded hall and the exertion of dancing, the sensation was a welcome one.
At the edge of the garden, a buggy waited, hitched to a single horse. The groom in attendance touched his hat in silent acknowledgment.
Rafael lifted Annie into the seat, then climbed up beside her and took the reins. “Remember,” he said, flipping a coin to the stable hand, “you haven’t seen a sign of us.”
The groom smiled and touched his hat again.
Soon, the buggy was bumping and rolling through the orchards. Up ahead, Annie could make out the shapes of the forest, and catch an occasional sparkling glimpse of the lake. She had guessed by then that Rafael was taking her to the spare little cottage, where he had taught her the first lessons of pleasure.
She rested her head against his shoulder.
The cottage had been prepared; there were lamps burning, the sheets were fresh and the covers turned back, a fire flickered on the hearth.
Rafael had carried Annie over the threshold, as tradition demanded, and her heart brimmed as she looked around at their private hideaway.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” she said, before she could stop herself.
Rafael, standing behind her, kissed her bare, mist-dampened shoulder. “Forever is too much to ask,” he replied.
Annie flinched at the reminder and turned in his arms. “Why did you marry me?”
He bent and brushed her lips lightly, teasingly, with his own. “No questions, Princess. I love you, and if tonight is to be all we have of eternity, let’s make the memory worth cherishing.”
Annie could not speak, but her eyes filled with tears, and her heart brimmed with bittersweet emotions she had never felt before, let alone named. She trembled as Rafael turned her around and began working the tiny buttons at the back of the dress.
Completing the task, he pushed the gossamer fabric down over her shoulders, then her waist and hips. The splendid gown made a glittering cloud at her feet, and she turned slowly to face him before stepping out of it.
Rafael’s gaze consumed her as the firelight danced over her camisole and petticoats. She saw a muscle pulse in his jawline and stood on tiptoe to still it with the softest of kisses.
He groaned when Annie boldly removed his jacket and tie, then unfastened his stiff collar and threw it aside. When she began opening his shirt, he stopped her by taking her hands in his and holding them against his chest.
“Annie—” he began hoarsely.
She shook her head. “Don’t, Rafael. Don’t say anything about tomorrow, or next week, or next year.”
Rafael raised one of her hands to his mouth and kissed her palm, sending silver fire rushing th
rough her veins. He didn’t speak, but traced a shivery path along the underside of her wrist and the tender skin of her inner arm with his lips. By the time he’d reached the satiny flesh in the crook of her elbow, Annie was unable to hide her trembling.
She made a breathless plea of his name.
He denied her the quick, fierce conquering she craved and continued to find and kiss the most vulnerable hollows and pulse points on her body. When he laid her on the bed at last, it was only to nibble at the backs of her knees at his maddening leisure.
Rafael took away Annie’s petticoat, and the drawers beneath, and finally, the camisole, opening it inch by inch. The ritual took so long that Annie felt feverish by the time it was over and could not make herself lie still.
The prince stripped away his own clothes, and in the dancing firelight he looked like a magnificent savage returning triumphantly from the hunt. Annie reached for him, and he fell to her, burying his face in her neck for a moment, as if to breathe in the scent of her, and memorize the substance. Then, with a low, primitive sound, born somewhere deep in his chest, he slid down to take her nipple.
Annie cried out in pleasure and welcome, arching her back in instinctive invitation, but Rafael was still in no apparent hurry to consummate their marriage. He stroked her side and hip and thigh with a slow, continuous motion of one hand and took his time at her breast.
She began to fling her head from side to side on the pillow, beyond verbal pleas now, but Rafael only moved to her other nipple, and took greedy suckle from it.
Annie was wild when he began trailing his lips down over her rib cage and stomach. She bucked like a wild thing set free when he took her completely with his mouth, plunging her fingers into his hair and trying to press him even closer.
He withdrew a moment before the universe would have realigned itself and watched her with an unreadable expression in his pewter eyes.
“Rafael,” she gasped, amazed that she could still speak the same language, “I love you. And I need you so much.”
Princess Annie Page 30