She watched him, and he watched her, two adversaries locked in undeclared, unarmed combat.
“Re ... im ... bursement.” Like the yokel she knew he was not, he sounded out the syllables, as if he’d never heard of such a word. “You want me to tell you what I desire in re ... im... bursement.”
She waited, wondering how he could appear both menacing and protective, affable and intimidating.
“Your Highness.” His hands dropped away from her hair and onto her bare shoulders. They were rough, a workman’s hands, and long-fingered... a lover’s hands.
They moved, his palms stroking the smooth curve of muscle, his fingertips tracing her collarbone, his caress a promise of retribution.
She watched, mesmerized, panicked, amazed as her skin flushed a delicate pink, wordlessly confessing her agitation and desire.
She’d been wrong about a man before, but she didn’t think she was wrong this time. This man wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. Using nothing but his expression, his touch, and his strength of character, he promised her pleasure. The kind of pleasure so intense as to make her weep.
“I will deal you in this round, Your Highness, and show my cards if you care to look. I will protect you and keep you from harm, and when you are satisfied I have kept my word, then I’ll present my fee.” He leaned down and with his lips by her ear, he whispered, “To you. And you’ll pay.”
* * *
Where was she? King Jerome spoke easily with several likely suitors. No one could tell from his demeanor that he worried because his daughter, trained in the most minute matters of protocol, had disappeared for the past hour.
Yet his knuckles were white from gripping the arms of the throne, and his gaze constantly searched the ballroom, hoping to see her as she stepped out from behind a marble column, expecting her to stroll up to the formally-dressed orchestra and request a waltz, anticipating her reflection in the gilt-trimmed mirrors.
Why had she vanished? Had she gone to treat the headache, or gossip with the women, or... dear God, was she bleeding to death in one of the many crannies in the palace, while the orchestra played and he made carefully unworried conversation?
He tried not to panic. Since the incident five years before, he’d been prey to these forebodings. Laurentia didn’t know the truth of what had happened. Nor did any but a select few.
He could have asked Chariton, of course, but Chariton was checking the preparations for tomorrow’s festival.
Nodding as if he actually comprehended a French count’s babbling, King Jerome surveyed the ballroom, thankful for the dais that set him above the crowd.
There. There was Francis, walking in from the corridor with a frown puckering his even features. He’d gone in search of the princess; had he found her?
Stopping, Francis made conversation with a lady of impeccable lineage, and King Jerome relaxed infinitesimally. If Francis thought the princess was in danger, he would have returned at once.
But where was she? So many strangers milled about. So many suitors sought her. What was she doing? Even Weltrude, Laurentia’s personal tyrant, scowled.
Then Laurentia entered the ballroom—almost at a run.
King Jerome half-lifted himself to his feet.
Color burned in her cheeks, and her clothing was rumpled. She glanced about wildly and plunged into the crowd.
An unknown gentleman followed close on her heels.
Anger, concern and then, finally, delight buffeted King Jerome as he sank back onto the throne.
He didn’t know the fellow who watched his daughter with such hungry eyes, but beneath the surface sophistication King Jerome observed an undercurrent of fiery emotion, and he recognized the gentleman’s look of intent as he followed the princess Laurentia.
Without taking his gaze from the young man, King Jerome summoned Weltrude with a crook of the finger. “Why haven’t I been introduced to that young man?”
Weltrude’s bony hands flexed into fists—the lady hated any insinuation she might have been negligent. But although King Jerome normally took the time to smooth her ruffled feathers, right now he had no patience. Couldn’t the woman see the situation required swift action? That fellow moved after Laurentia like a man with a purpose. If Laurentia’s father wished to determine his suitability, he would have to interrogate him at once. Genially, of course. With all appearance of hospitality.
“Dominic of Sereminia arrived late, Your Majesty,” Weltrude apologized.
“Bring him to me.”
As always, when he gave her a direct order, she stiffened. Then she moved to do his bidding.
As she sliced through the crowd like a cutter through unruly waters, he once again wondered how he could have been so wrong in his initial judgement of her. Within weeks of his queen’s death, a thirty-year-old Weltrude had applied for the position of first lady-in-waiting to the twelve-year-old princess. Her references had been impeccable, but more than that, King Jerome had suspected she belonged to some vanquished royal family. He had hired her in the hopes she and Laurentia would become friends. But although Weltrude’s service had never been less than perfect, she had shown neither compassion nor understanding for Laurentia as she dealt with the loss of her mother. As the years had gone on, thirteen of them now, Weltrude’s sensibility had hardened into dogmatism. Yet Laurentia insisted Weltrude remain in their service; like him, Laurentia hesitated to release a servant without good cause.
Without appearing to, Weltrude was moving briskly after Dominic. She managed to catch him by the arm just as he reached Laurentia, saw the impatient shake he gave, saw him tense as Weltrude spoke to him, saw him glance toward him.
King Jerome smiled genially, knowing full well Dominic of Sereminia dared not disobey.
But he could, and did, subject Laurentia to the full glare of his displeasure.
She, too, glanced at her father, then lifted her chin at Dominic in open defiance.
My God, what intimacies had occurred between those two that they could quarrel without words? King Jerome couldn’t imagine—doubted if he wanted to imagine. But he knew that Dominic wanted Laurentia desperately, with all the ardor and depth of emotion King Jerome wished for her.
If the young man lived up to his promise of passion, King Jerome would help him catch her.
Chapter Five
Did the king suspect? Did he know?
Dom strode across the ballroom toward the beaming monarch and wondered if this assignment would be his last. Yes, King Jerome was smiling, but while in his cradle Dom had learned not to trust royalty. An aristocrat could rend a man to bloody bits on a caprice.
And Dom knew that this time he deserved exactly such treatment. He had told the princess he was a mercenary and a bastard, and that was the truth ... but not the entire truth.
He had been sent to Bertinierre on a mission.
Somewhere in the Pyrenees March 1829
“I don’t kill for money anymore. I’m retired.” Dom slouched against the wall, hands on the wooden table and carefully relaxed, revealing no sign of strain to the man sitting military-straight in the chair across from him.
“A mercenary.” Marcel de Emmerich smiled slightly as he tapped his fingernail on the damp, worm-eaten table.
“One who conquers for vast sums of money. You have rather failed in that department, I hear.”
Of course de Emmerich had heard. He had summoned Dom to this stinking little public house on the edge of nowhere for just that reason. Because he knew Dom was desperate, although he didn’t know why. Being the man he was, de Emmerich thought greed had brought Dom here, when in fact he was tangled in the bonds of affection and obligation.
A child depended on him. Not even his child, but the child Dom had come to think of as his last chance for redemption.
“I believe you have a way with the ladies.” The sputtering candlelight softened de Emmerich’s appearance, effacing the smallpox pits and giving a faintly yellow cast to his pale flesh. His teeth were pocked with bla
ck. He wore the uniform he had designed for himself, with subtle touches of gold braid and porcelain buttons. He looked like a catchpenny nobleman, earning his title by gaining influence over Pollardine’s frothblower king and conferring it on himself.
He was so much more.
“So you’ve given up being a mercenary and have become a gigolo instead,” he said.
Dom kept his hands still, his expression disinterested. “A man of my antecedents learns to be versatile.”
De Emmerich studied him, seeking the weakness he sensed existed beneath the composed exterior. Inevitably, he found it. “That last little tiff in Greece decimated your band.”
Dom’s hands didn’t twitch. “I lost some good men.”
“You lost all your men,” de Emmerich corrected.
Dom would wager he could kill de Emmerich in a fair fight... but he never made the mistake of thinking de Emmerich fair.
“Yes. All of them.” Dom allowed a smile to twitch at his mouth as he told the lie. “So I’ll be of no use to you, and I’ll be on my way.” Placing his hands flat on the table, he shoved back his bench— and saw the flash, heard the whistle of a blade past his ear. It stuck in the wall, the thin dagger rattling like a dying man’s last gasp.
De Emmerich leaned forward, his eyes glittering with something slimy, vicious. “I don’t need your men. I need only you. I will pay you twenty-five thousand crowns Pollardine when you complete the job. Now sit.”
Dom sat.
Reaching his long arm across the table, de Emmerich pulled the knife out of the half-rotted wood and slipped it back into his sleeve. Summoning the cowering barmaid, he said to Dom, “I will buy you a drink and tell you what you will do.”
For twenty-five thousand crowns Pollardine, Dom would have risked any danger. But it was not danger de Emmerich wanted from him, but shameful treachery.
Now, as Dom stood at the foot of the dais, he wondered if that sword King Jerome kept at his side was entirely ornamental, or if Dom would soon feel the sharp edge against his neck. He deserved it, he knew.
As King Jerome stood and walked toward him, Dom was hard-pressed not to flinch.
But the king stepped off the dais and took his arm.
“Come into my study,” he invited. “We’ll have a brandy.”
“A brandy.” Dom limped through the ballroom, his hip aching from the earlier exertion. Every gaze pressed in him, examining him, weighing him, but he cared about only one.
The princess watched with round-eyed dismay as her father led Dom away.
Dom grinned at her. If anyone was more alarmed by this turn of events than he was, it was Princess Laurentia. Surely that was a good thing.
“Don’t you like brandy?” King Jerome asked, almost as if he cared about any man’s opinion but his own.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I find brandy goes well with cigars.” Cigars, stored in a handsome box, kept in the pocket of Dom’s well-tailored suit, and all of it, even the man himself, bought by de Emmerich. Dom was aware of the irony, yet he concealed his wariness with an assumption of ease. “I have some of the finest cigars here, if you would like to indulge.”
The king slapped his hand on Dom’s shoulder. “Excellent! Yes, and we’ll have some conversation.”
“Conversation?” Why? The question hovered unspoken between them.
“I’d like to get to know you, Dominic of Sereminia.” King Jerome turned down the long corridor.
Dom turned with him, noting that the uniformed guards stood at attention as their monarch walked past. He breathed easier when they didn’t fall in behind—hopefully a continued a sign of health.
Yet he wasn’t completely relaxed, for when they halted at a closed door, protected by two more guards, one of them stepped out to turn the knob and Dom went for the knife in his sleeve. He stopped just in time, his fingers on the hilt. Luckily the king didn’t appear to notice, and the stupid guard looked puzzled.
What a foolish country, that a man could almost draw blade while standing beside the king!
But as they stepped into the broad, book-lined chamber and the door closed behind them, he found his wrist grasped in King Jerome’s fingers.
The king stared into Dom’s face, and all trace of friendliness had evaporated. “We aren’t eating anything in here, lad,” he said. “There’s no need for a knife.”
So the king was perhaps not a fool. Yet did he know what Dom had come to do? Dom thought not, for if he did, Dom wouldn’t be visiting the royal study, lavish with wood trim and maroon brocade, the huge fireplace alight, the desk a behemoth of royalty. No, if King Jerome knew of Dom’s intentions, Dom would instead be an inhabitant of the royal dungeon.
So Dom moved to ingratiate himself, and advance de Emmerich’s plot. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but after the attack on Princess Laurentia, I find myself uneasy.”
Dom expected to have to give explanations. He did not expect King Jerome’s ruddy complexion to visibly pale, or that the older man would clutch his arm so vigorously he cut off Dom’s circulation.
“Attack?” King Jerome snapped. “When? Where?”
So the king and the princess were as fond as they appeared to be. Dom stored that information away.
“Tonight, Your Majesty. On the terrace.”
King Jerome moved toward the door. “I’ll call the guards.”
“No!” Dom stopped him with one emphatic word. “No, please, Your Majesty, she’s in no danger in the ballroom, and I want you to hear me out.”
Halting, King Jerome muttered, “No, of course. We mustn’t cause alarm. Not now.” Wheeling away toward the sideboard, he commanded, “Tell me.” His voice was strong, but his hand shook as he lifted the decanter.
Protocol demanded Dom stay away; good sense brought him to King Jerome’s side. “Your Majesty, allow me.”
King Jerome surrendered the decanter and sank into the nearest armchair as though his knees would no longer hold him. Yet he stared at Dom imperiously, silently demanding an explanation.
“A man dressed in the royal livery tried to abduct Princess Laurentia as she stood on the terrace.”
“A single man?”
“No accomplices.”
“You saw this?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Dom poured two brandies into crystal snifters. “Her Highness screamed and struggled while I seized the villain, and when he dropped her, I gave chase.”
King Jerome accepted one of the glasses. “You caught him, of course.”
Kings. They expected everything to proceed as they wished. A brief surge of bitterness caught Dom and held him suspended. Then, as he had always done, he controlled it. “No, Your Majesty. I am cursed with a hip wound which makes running difficult.”
“Where did you get such a wound?”
“In battle, Your Majesty, in Greece.”
The king leaned back in his chair and studied Dom long enough to make him want to squirm. “Who are you, Dominic of Sereminia?”
Who was he? A knave who plotted to inveigle his way into Laurentia’s life. When first Dom had stood in the shadows of the ballroom and watched her dance with her father, he’d been critical. He’d decided Laurentia wasn’t beautiful, not really. She was a little short for his tastes, small-boned and delicate, and when he imagined having her beneath him in bed—and he’d allowed himself to imagine it far too intently and with too much detail—he thought he would have to keep his passion under tight control or risk hurting her.
But he was in no hurry. He’d get the job done; he always did.
So he’d gone out onto the terrace for a smoke.
Having Laurentia come out later had been a stroke of luck. Having an attacker appear had been a bigger one. Dom had reacted on instinct, and as always, instinct had served him well. Getting himself hired as her bodyguard was even better than being her pseudo-suitor. It kept him closer to her and the secret she guarded—the secret he must discover.
So after the excitement was over, he had done his best to captivate her,
this dainty, privileged princess.
What he hadn’t expected was that she would captivate him. She had turned out to be witty and self-deprecating, with a sense of humor he admired and an intelligence that rocked him back on his heels. And when Radcote had stepped out and with meticulous civility tried to freeze him out, she hadn’t allowed it. She had defended him.
He would have laughed if he hadn’t been so touched.
Yet when they’d stepped inside and she saw his face, she’d reacted with horror. Horror, as if he were deformed, as if he carried the stain of his illegitimacy on his forehead, as if she knew the degeneracy of his past and read the treachery of his soul. The old doubts had leaped up like hell’s flames to burn him, and he’d reacted. Just reacted, lashing out, alerting her to the danger she courted in his company.
But now he had the chance to redeem himself. If he could just convince King Jerome that he and he alone could adequately guard the princess ... “Who am I?” he repeated. “I’m the bastard son of the old king of Baminia, and a mercenary.”
King Jerome’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. You’re one of old Leon’s sons. Has anyone ever told you you look like your brother, King Danior?”
Dom worked the carved wood box of cigars out of his pocket. “Yes.” Opening it, he presented it to the king.
King Jerome selected one. “A tender subject, is it? No wonder you came here to try your luck with Laurentia.”
“I don’t expect to wed her.” Dom took a cigar, too, then snapped the box closed.
“Competition too much for you?” Closing his eyes, King Jerome sniffed the cigar and smiled.
“I don’t imagine—”
King Jerome waved the unlit cigar. “Yes, yes, I know. You think you can read my mind. It’s a handy skill to have, young man, but I assure you you do not have it.”
“Of course not, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.” Except that Dom knew damned good and well what the king was thinking—that a bastard could not be a prince. Well, Dom didn’t want to be a prince. He just wanted to live like one. “I don’t need to tell you that the incident tonight was serious. If I hadn’t been there, Her Highness would be gone. So I propose that I—”
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