“No.” Why not? He considered his features one of the most valuable weapons in his arsenal. That, and his expertise between the sheets, but the comeliness had provided his entry into many a bedroom. “She couldn’t wait to escape.”
Clearly, he stretched the bounds of Brat’s credulity. “When women see that wounded-angel face, they always fall in love.”
“Not this one. She’s sharper than the usual good-for-nothing princess.” He’d liked her, so much he’d developed a cockstand big enough to use as a hat rack.
Worse, he had one now, just talking about her. If Brat saw, she would never stop laughing, but fortunately the gloom hid his condition. At least, so he hoped. Trouble was, when a man’s organ developed a mind of its own, there was no controlling it.
Elaborately casual, he leaned back in the hope of making himself more comfortable and draped one arm across his lap.
“Then she’s ugly,” Brat suggested. “So ugly you couldn’t hide your disgust and she noticed.”
“No!” His cock ached, and he pressed his arm against it in the futile hope it would take the hint and subside.
“Old?”
“No.” He didn’t want to talk about the princess and how she looked, with her dark hair fallen around her pale shoulders and her dress rumpled. It would have been amusing that Radcote had thought Dom had had his hand up her skirt, only it hadn’t been his hand Dom was interested in getting up there. “She’s ... attractive.”
Beneath that expensive veneer he’d glimpsed a terrible fear tempered by a hint of steel. She would survive his treachery.
Probably.
“She’s clever,” he said. “That’s why she holds the secret to the kingdom. De Emmerich says there are riches here he can’t explain.”
“Why doesn’t he just march in and conquer Bertinierre?” Brat asked, a practical mercenary to her bones.
Dom knew the answer to that. After accepting the commission, he’d investigated. “De Emmerich isn’t as omniscient as he would like us to think. If he can bring enough money into Pollardine, he’ll be set for life. If not...” Dom shrugged. He didn’t care if de Emmerich lost his position. He rather hoped he did. Yet Dom cared only to complete his mission. “Apparently de Emmerich tried an assassination attempt here some years ago; unsuccessful, of course, and he regrets it.”
“On the king? I never heard that!” Brat eyed him dubiously. “How do you know?”
Her disbelief didn’t bother him a whit. “After he dictated the terms and told me my mission, I demanded information. To succeed, I said. He’s shrewd, telling me just enough to get me in trouble, but—”
“So they send you to seduce Princess Laurentia and get the information out of her...” Brat considered that, and shook her head. “That’s such a delicate scheme. It doesn’t fit.”
Dom didn’t move. Sometimes Brat had insight where he did not, and something had smelled fishy about this case all along. But when a man stuck his head in a barrel of decaying garbage, it took him a while to locate the most rotten of the sardines. “That’s true. He likes to be direct. De Emmerich didn’t plan this, then. But who did?”
Chapter Seven
The private dining chamber off the stone terrace glowed with late morning sunlight, and fresh air faintly scented with rosemary and sea air wafted in from the open French doors. With a flourish, the cook presented the plain food King Jerome preferred—eggs and sausage, steaming rolls, golden melons, and whole oranges. Without ever looking up from his paperwork, King Jerome approved each concoction. The royal chocolatier placed the pot of chocolate over a flame. The nervous taster sampled each dish, and after a cursory wait, pronounced the food free from poison. The butler put the dishes on the small round table between Laurentia and her father, and Weltrude ladeled the food on their plates according to their preferences.
Catching Laurentia’s napkin by the corner, Weltrude flipped it loose, then placed it in her lap. “Is there anything else, Your Highness?”
“This looks delicious.” The stream of chocolate wavered as Laurentia poured it into her father’s cup, then her own, but she smiled with as much grace as she could muster. “Everyone may go.”
The footman opened the door, and the clink of silverware and the murmur of many conversations filtered in from the large dining chamber across the corridor. Laurentia always rejoiced in the tradition which allowed her and her father to dine alone in the morning, and never more than now, when every other moment had been slated for parties, hunts, and the annual festival celebrating her birthday.
She wanted to be alone with King Jerome. She wanted to talk to him. Needed to talk to him—before it was too late.
But Weltrude knew her charge too well, and she hung back as the others filed out. Looking at Laurentia, she lifted the thin, painfully curved line of her penciled brows and inspected Laurentia like a general inspecting her troops.
If only Laurentia weren’t the lone soldier.
Laurentia’s gown of pink cotton cloth was trimmed in braid, with a high collar, a frill right under her chin and braid around the hem to hold it out stiffly. The leg-of-mutton sleeves were large, but not large as Weltrude would have liked—Laurentia drew the line at being unable to place her arms at her sides because of the vast expanse of gathered material. Beneath the gown she wore a corset that emphasized her waist while still allowing her to breathe, another concession to comfort that made Weltrude frown. Laurentia’s three petticoats of white linen allowed no glimpse of the outline of her legs under any circumstances. The whole outfit was perfectly respectable. Laurentia had no reason to feel shame. Weltrude could not tell that Laurentia had removed her black leather slippers beneath the table and tucked her legs under her for comfort.
But as Weltrude continued to frown, Laurentia lowered her feet to the floor and groped for her shoes with her toes. In as casual a tone as she could muster, she said, “Go, Weltrude. I’m sure you must have work to do to organize the birthday festival.”
Weltrude stiffened her already rigid back. “I have the situation well in hand.”
If it hadn’t been undignified and common—as defined by Weltrude—Laurentia would have slapped her forehead. She’d handled that badly. Weltrude had been with her for years, instructing her on the proper way a princess should behave, teaching her how to run multiple households, sternly supervising her transition from impetuous adolescent to mature adult. Weltrude had proved herself to be both an immovable object and an irresistible force.
She did not take well to insinuations that she was incapable of handling a house party for a mere one hundred suitors, their important relatives, and their servants.
“Your competence could never be in doubt.” Laurentia located her shoes and slipped them on, determined to tie the laces around her ankles as soon as possible. “However, I worry about so many men of different backgrounds. Some are quite volatile, I fear. There are those romantic Latins among them.”
An emotion close to alarm flared in Weltrude’s eyes, and she moved briskly out the door. “Latins,” Laurentia heard her mutter.
Laurentia looked around to find her father putting aside his papers and regarding her over the top of his reading glasses. “What was that all about?”
“I wanted to talk to you.” Laurentia smiled at him and spoke so diplomatically and convincingly she impressed even herself. “Papa, I don’t think this notion of a bodyguard has merit. Chariton is busy, but there are others he might recommend. And who is this Dom, really? How did he happen to be on the terrace when that person tried to take me?”
With a swift swing of his knife, King Jerome decapitated his soft-boiled egg and laid the cap to one side. “Didn’t he explain it to you? He came late to the ball—apparently he thought his illegitimacy removed him from contention as your suitor—and he went out on the terrace for a smoke.”
He’d told her father the same story he’d told her. His consistency should have made her feel more at ease. Instead it gave her the unsettled sensation of being outflank
ed. As, of course, she had been.
Last night, Dom had strode to meet her father. Weltrude had done the honors, and after a short conversation the two men had disappeared into King Jerome’s private study.
His private study! None of the other suitors had been taken into the private study, and Laurentia had caught many a sideways glance aimed her way. Indeed, Dulcet, Countess de Sempere, had sidled up and said, “He must have been quite persuasive to keep you from the ball and return you in such a condition. Tell me, Your Highness, what is his name?”
Although only a year older, Dulcie was already twice a widow, thrice a mother, and even as a child she’d been a superior imp. Laurentia knew she should refuse to lower herself to Dulcie’s level.
Yet she still winced as she recalled her own reply—“Go wrap your trap around a persimmon, Dulcie.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Dulcie threw back her head and burst into laughter. “There’s hope for you yet, Laurie.”
Laurentia blushed as she recalled how quickly the word had spread that the princess had already tried out one of the suitors and found him to her liking.
“Is there something wrong, dear?” King Jerome sat with his spoon poised about his half-empty egg and watched her with concern and a gleam of curiosity. “You’re looking a little flushed.”
Anxious to act as normally as possible, Laurentia picked up her fork and gingerly slid it into the mound of steaming scrambled eggs. “I just think I would be safer surrounded by a band of our own guards.”
Beneath the mustache, his mouth tugged up in a smile. “The suitors would be discouraged by such an entourage.”
Daintily, she lifted the proper-sized bite to her lips—and grimaced. Sawdust eggs. Weltrude had been supervising in the kitchen again. Weltrude did everything well—except cook, and she insisted on trying to learn. “Then I should have one man who we know we can trust.”
“I believe we can trust Dom.”
Trust him. Her father trusted Dom, when the man was clearly wicked from the crown of his straight dark hair to the no-doubt perfect toes on his no-doubt exquisite feet.
Lowering her voice, she said, “You do remember the duty I must perform tomorrow.”
“As if I could ever forget that.” He blotted his mustache with his napkin and frowned, and in the quiet voice of diplomacy said, “I don’t know, Laurie, I still think it would be better if someone else did it this time.”
She ruffled up like an offended hen. “Who? It isn’t safe for anyone else to know!”
“Nor is it safe for you to do with so many people here.”
She couldn’t subdue the smile that tweaked the corners of her lips. “Don’t you trust me to lose our guests?”
Her father sighed, no doubt remembering the constant and clever escapes she had performed as a child. “I know you’ll lose them. It’s just that I fear someone will somehow stumble into the middle of the affair and—”
“Believe me, Papa, if someone should so stumble, I will make it seem the most innocent of circumstances. I think well when cornered.”
Clearly he wasn’t convinced. “Someone tried to take you last night, Laurie, and not even Chariton knows who it could be. I don’t need to tell you he’s worried.”
“I know. I saw him early this morning. But he doesn’t have another suggestion, and he did no more than counsel me to be careful.” She stretched out her hand, palm up, and he grasped her fingers in a father’s grip. “He trusts me, and you must, too.”
“I do. You know I do. You’ve a good head on your shoulders, and I’m proud of you, Laurie.”
He’d said it before, but she loved hearing it from him, for the price for her “good head” had been costly and painful. “I’m the logical one to be doing this. You distract our guests with entertainment led by Your Majesty, I disappear for a few hours, and when I return the kingdom is wealthy for another year. There’s too much money involved to trust another soul, and I like earning my keep as princess.”
“You earn your keep with your care for your duty. You don’t have to put yourself in danger, too.” But she had reassured him. “If only you weren’t so much like your mother. How I was blessed with two such women in my life, I will never understand,”
“Think how dull you would be without us.” She gave his hand a last squeeze and reached for her fork.
“Dull would be pleasant occasionally,” he grumbled. Poking at his melon with a spoon, he said, “You will have to lose Dominic, too.”
“Another reason not to have him.”
“Don’t you think you can fool him?”
“Of course I can, but—” She halted the impetuous flow of words, but too late. She had betrayed herself. “Did he confess to you he had been a mercenary?”
“Yes, of course. He told me when I asked his qualifications as bodyguard.”
“Doesn’t it bother you to have a man you know has sold his sword protect your daughter?”
With unanswerable logic, he said, “I would be much more uneasy if he were incompetent, my dear.”
Incompetent? She flushed as she remembered the caress of his hands across her shoulders. The man reeked with competence. Competence in battle. Competence in bed.
King Jerome smiled, understanding her all too well. “Dom said that when he first suggested it, you didn’t seem adverse to having him as a bodyguard.”
She should lie, but lying to her father had never been easy, or even possible. He had a regrettable tendency to know she was prevaricating. So she admitted, “Not at first.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Just a vague uneasiness.” She shoved the plate of eggs aside and reached for a warm, crusty roll. Breaking it apart, she watched the steam rise, then nibbled on an edge.
The bread was excellent. The bakery in Omnia must have baked it. “He’s hard to talk to and to have him hanging about at all times would put a damper on my effort to secure a man.” There, that should do it.
“Dom also claimed you chatted with him quite freely on the terrace.”
The butter, direct from the dairies on the higher slopes of the Pyrenees, had been molded into the shape of a rose. Morosely, Laurentia scraped the yellow petals off. “That would have been the shock of having been almost abducted.”
“I think it would be that it was dark out there.”
She concentrated on buttering her roll.
“Not all handsome men are like Beaumont.”
She snapped her knife down on the table. “Yes ... they... are.” She glared at King Jerome and pointed her thumb at her own chest. “Take it from me, Papa, there aren’t that many handsome men out there and the ones there are have everything handed to them. Women throw themselves at them, everyone assumes they’re nice because surely God wouldn’t make a bad person handsome, and they never have to work as hard because everyone wants to spare them the burdens of life.”
As mild as she had been emphatic, King Jerome said, “I was handsome once.”
“As you still are! But you’re ... different.”
He held up one hand. “And Dom doesn’t seem to me to be spoiled.”
“Rotten. I don’t even have to get to know him. He’s rotten to the core.”
From the open terrace door, Dom said, “Thank you, Your Highness. I shall endeavor to scrub any stench away while protecting your person from harm.”
Chapter Eight
Dom stood in the doorway, a dark, rugged silhouette surrounded by a nimbus of light. Where had he come from? How had he moved so silently?
And why was Laurentia embarrassed? She was the princess. She should be able to speak her mind in the privacy of the dining chamber with her own father. Dom should be disconcerted at having his sneaky nature caught out.
Yet color flooded her cheeks, and she wished she had spoken less harshly. He might be sensitive, this bastard without a last name.
King Jerome took no notice of her annoyance and chagrin. Instead he waved Dom inside. “Ah, good morning, my man. Her Highnes
s and I were just discussing how lucky it was you came along when you did.”
“Yes,” Dom said. “I heard.”
He limped slightly as he stepped inside, a silhouette no longer, but a living, breathing man.
Laurentia refused to turn her eyes away. If she did, he might get the impression her churlish judgment shamed her. Worse, she might give herself the impression she feared to gaze on a handsome man because she was still susceptible to his kind of charm.
She wasn’t. In fact, she wanted to laugh at him. Did he really believe a short, tight-fitting jacket without creases or gathers would encourage her gaze to slide downward, over his broad chest and tight stomach and narrow hips to that place in his trousers where he had stuffed a sock?
She blinked.
He must have incredibly large feet.
When she looked up at his face, she found him watching her sardonically. He challenged her with those eyes, blue as the Virgin’s cape, with those dimples, deep and beguiling, with the grin on his delectable lips, with his fists placed firmly on his outthrust hips. He’d seen her scrutinize his body. He would repay the favor ... later.
For now, in front of her father, he was a gentleman. He shut the doors behind him, then bowed to the king. “Your Majesty. Your Highness.” He bowed to her, a masculine ballet of power and grace.
And she realized she had been right. This selfish man cared for nothing but himself. He had planned his entrance to impact her senses. That was what handsome men did. They used their virility like a weapon, bludgeoning mawkish women into service to them using nothing more than a smile, a touch, an attention that seemed totally focused but was in fact nothing but a facade to cover the inherent narcissism of their beings.
Not that she was bitter. Just prepared.
Dom earnestly addressed the king. “May I speak frankly, Your Majesty, about something that has appalled me just this morning?”
“Of course,” King Jerome said. “That’s what I’m paying you for.”
How much? Laurentia wanted to ask. How much are you paying him? And irrationally, she thought Dom ought to protect her for free.
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