Francis made a small sound of disbelief. “No one can buy the princess’s hand in marriage.”
“It’s not her hand I’m interested in.” Dom grinned at Francis’s horror. “Come on, man, confess. Among the suitors, you’re leading the pack. You can’t tell me you haven’t given a thought to the wedding night!”
“This is a crude conversation and one I have no intention of continuing.” Francis marched past Dom, then swung on his heel to face him. “No one should think of the princess in that manner. It isn’t decent.”
“You mean she’s never been out in the garden with you? Like... er ... what’s-her-name out there?” Dom gestured toward the woman, who now drew the young suitor’s head down toward hers.
“That woman is Dulcet, Lady de Sempere, a woman of light morals who is interested in nothing but the pleasure she finds in physical contact.” Francis stared at Lady de Sempere with scorn. “She frequents the garden far too often, and Her Highness can in no way be compared to Dulcie.”
“Dulcie?” Dom carefully noted Francis’s topple from the heights of propriety. “Dulcie?”
Francis blushed a blotchy color of red. “I have heard her called such.”
“I’ll wager you have.” The way Francis blushed, Dom would wager he had an interest in Dulcie protocol and ambition couldn’t surmount. He would also wager that Dulcie, smart girl, returned his interest and made a career of taunting him.
Good. Francis was not even a bump in the path anymore. “Her Highness was married. Surely she gained an appetite for those physical pleasures.”
Francis’s color faded as rapidly as it had come. “This conversation is beyond belief!”
“Maybe her husband needed a splint on his lizard. Maybe he didn’t treat her well.”
“I cannot believe you are so vulgar as to speculate about Her Highness’s married life!”
“I’m pretty vulgar.” Dom shrugged off the slur with the insouciance it deserved. “You say you’re a good friend of the princess’s. Surely she’s said something about her marriage to you.”
“I don’t know what kind of gossip you’ve heard—”
“Not a thing, unfortunately.”
“—but Her Highness does not confide her personal life to anyone, and I assure you that, contrary to any rumors that circulated, her marriage was civilized and mannerly, as is proper in a royal union.”
“Civilized and mannerly.” Dom could scarcely believe it. Laurentia had had a civilized, mannerly marriage? No wonder she had no children. They’d probably met once a month on the scheduled night in the royal humping chamber.
And she’d be happy with another one? That might be what Francis believed, but Dom knew better, and it would sure never be that way with him.
“This has been an enlightening conversation,” Dom said. “But now we should join the other suitors.” And tell them the princess Laurentia liked to see a man show off like a strutting peacock, then watch them make asses of themselves.
While Dom, of course, proved himself to be the true hero—even if he had to set up the circumstances himself.
“Look.” Dom stood at Laurentia’s left shoulder and directed her attention toward her English suitor.
“Mr. Moneybags Sharparrow has joined in the log-splitting contest.”
The surrounding pine forest blocked any view of the Mediterranean, but a cooling breeze off the bay flipped back her wide-brimmed hat. Tugging it forward to protect her eyes against the afternoon sun, she looked across the meadow. The sight that met her gaze made her want to groan.
Conceited Mr. Sharparrow gave her what might have been a competent nod in any other man. But dressed as he was, she couldn’t take him seriously. Mr. Sharparrow wore some tailor’s idea of an outdoorsman’s garb—rough wool breeches, woolen socks, and an artistically draped smock—and he looked like the consummate fool.
He hefted an ax high above his head to take a practice swing, and she shut her eyes as he brought the glittering blade down with great vigor and no control. When no scream rent the air, she cautiously opened one eye, then the other.
Mr. Sharparrow stood looking down at the ax impaled in the still-intact log with a most perplexed expression on his face.
“I wonder if he understands the idea is to split the log,” Dom said.
Laurentia clenched her teeth to keep from swinging around and commanding him to stop carrying on such a rude, nasty, perfectly pointed commentary of the day’s events.
And how did he always know what she was thinking, anyway?
The wretched Dom had taken his place beside her as soon as she left the palace. Her mounted guard surrounded them, but his horse paced beside her as she rode down to the docks through a flurry of cheering and calls of “Happy birthday.” He held her pocketbook when she christened a new fishing boat, named the Laurentia, leaving her side only briefly to speak to a tall beggar-woman half-hidden by the crowd and to press some coins into her hand. Laurentia could not complain about being left for such a charitable undertaking, and unfortunately he had kept Laurentia well within his sight. Again her guard rode with her up the winding road into the mountains that rose like a spine behind the palace. But his horse remained at her right hand.
On the wide flats King Jerome had designated Laurentia Meadow, a party atmosphere reigned. Booths selling ale, roast fowl, and crusty rolls lined the meadow. Pushcart peddlers added their shouts to the rumble of the crowd. The scent of pine and crushed grass mixed with the sharper smell of sweaty bodies. A physician stood in front of his booth and tended the inevitable wounds and illnesses that resulted from rough-and-tumble play and too much food.
Ruthlessly, Weltrude had organized the contests, selecting a place and a time for each. Now she moved from place to place, making sure each event proceeded on schedule, taking care of any crisis as it arose and crushing it without mercy. Laurentia suspected that Weltrude didn’t approve of such unrestrained frivolity, yet at the same time loved the chance to display her formidable organizational skills.
A cheer erupted at Laurentia’s arrival, making Dom smile, for apparently her popularity impressed him. And the fact that she noticed his smile and cared whether he was impressed irritated her almost into speaking.
But she valiantly held her tongue. As he helped her dismount, she refrained from digging her elbow into his ribs. He stood beside her while she gave her brief speech of welcome and listened as officials and noblemen wished her a long life and good health. Then, all the rest of the wretched morning and into the afternoon, the despicable man walked when she walked, stood guard when she sat, saw to her comfort with such dispatch she could scarcely form a wish before he granted it, and when they were alone, he spoke engagingly about each event as if he were an expert on every subject.
Which, she grudgingly admitted, he seemed to be.
Laurentia’s stony silence and evasive gaze seemed to bother Dom not at all, and although she took care to act like a woman placed unwillingly in the company of a rogue, it didn’t matter, for he acted like a gentleman who had her father’s permission to keep her company.
“Ah, I picked the winner of the archery contest.” Dom nodded, pleased with himself. He had proved himself quite skilled at choosing the winners. “Needless to say, it was not your Russian suitor, Lord Mischa.”
No, Lord Mischa had proven to be a loss, too.
“You must go down and present the prize, Your Highness.”
Dom’s reminder nudged at her, and she wanted to snap, Of course I have to go down and present the prize, you dolt! I always present the prize on my birthday.
But she would not harangue Dominic of Baminia. No matter how much she wanted to, no matter how against her naturally loquacious nature this might be, she was not speaking to him.
Not that he seemed to care. If anything, her silence gave him encouragement.
“Right this way, Your Highness.” He bowed as she walked past him over the crushed grass toward the area designated for archery. Her shawl lay over his arm. He�
�d taken it when she began to get warm, and held it as if he delighted in being her servant.
Only he wasn’t her servant, and no one could ever make the mistake of thinking so. According to her father the king, who took good care to stay on the other side of the meadow, Dom was her hired bodyguard. Her bodyguard, not her suitor. She badly wanted to shout that fact to the milling, cheering, lighthearted crowd of nobles and commoners. The only thing that stopped her from giving vent to such an undignified explosion was the fact that no one would believe her.
“I’m honored, Your Highness.” The bowman ducked his head and shuffled his feet as she placed the medal around his neck. A blush stained his ears bright red, but he grinned like every one of her male subjects grinned when he’d won first place, as if it had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with his virility. She had noted that men did this regardless of class or wealth.
“Thank you, good huntsman,” she answered him. “Without your skill, Bertinierre would be hungry and defenseless. We are all grateful.”
All atwitter, he said, “We just want to say—all of us huntsmen—congratulations on your birthday.”
“Thank you.” She touched him lightly on his shoulder and began to turn away.
Someone hissed from off to the side, and he added rapidly, “Uh, Your Highness? On behalf of the huntsmen, we just want to add we’re glad you’re getting married at last.” He looked right at Dom.
She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t bear this. “There is no betrothal.”
Dom, blast him, grinned at the huntsmen. He didn’t speak a word, but Laurentia and every man there could hear his thoughts. Yet.
With a gesture of dismissal, Laurentia let the archer go, to be teased and congratulated by his friends.
She couldn’t bear to speak to Dom as she walked away from the shooting range. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care, if she could just go there alone.
That, of course, proved impossible. Dom kept pace easily, his arm so close it almost brushed hers, his presence emitting a magnetic field that brought the fine hairs on her body upright.
The huntsman’s comment proved what she already knew. If the world rotated on her command, her opinion of a gentleman should have been the most important factor in the selection of her husband; in fact, only her father’s opinion mattered. He was the king, he was her father, and he could give her hand where and to whom he pleased. Those who didn’t know Dom and his chicanery thought he had somehow won King Jerome’s favor, and that drove the gallants into fits of jealousy. Certainly that could be the only explanation for the extraordinary efforts her suitors were making to secure her attention.
Dom’s hand on her elbow brought her to a halt, and he gestured toward the stretch of river that wound its way across the meadow on its way to the sea. “Prince Germain of Bavaria is entering the rowing contest. That can’t be good for a man of his age.”
“Or his girth,” Laurentia muttered. For a moment, she entertained herself with the vision of Prince Germain’s corset strings bursting and striking around to slap some sense into him.
“Did you want to go and watch?”
Dom sounded only remotely interested in her response and something inside her snapped. Drat this stupid man. Drat her father, drat the huntsmen, drat the whole dratted gender, and most especially... “What’s wrong with these fools?” she burst out.
“What do you mean?”
He didn’t sound delighted that she had at last spoken to him. He sounded idly interested. She shouldn’t carry on a conversation, but the words she’d held back all morning bubbled within her and demanded to be spoken. “Who do they think they are, to compete against men who labor in the fields and on the seas? These silly coxcombs don’t stand a chance!”
“That silly coxcomb over by the trees seems to be removing his coat so he can join the knife-throwing contest.” Dom scanned the rough-hewn men milling around the target. “Unfortunately for him, the fellow in the crimson knickers will finish in first place.”
He had unerringly picked out last year’s winner, irritating Laurentia once again. “How did you know that?” she demanded.
“Your countrymen are very able, and their skill seems to challenge your suitors.” He paused delicately. “They aren’t doing too badly for gentlemen who, in the course of their normal lives, exercise only in the saddle. Perhaps they’ll fare better tomorrow during the hunt.”
For the first time since breakfast, she looked directly at him. “I would feel better if, until that time, they would avoid handling sharp objects.”
He smiled at her.
He looked as sculpted and flawless as Michelangelo’s David, then his smile added the glow of a thousand candles. He looked as delectable as a bowl of cream vanilla ice, then his smile added the sweetness of strawberries. He looked as exciting as a mighty merchant ship, then his smile added the wind to fill the sails.
Carefully, she stepped a little away, trying to tear her gaze away from his, trying to put space between them so she didn’t make a fool of herself in front of her father and half the kingdom. She had been right to refuse to look at Dom, and now in the dazed recesses of her mind, she jotted a notation. Don’t say or do anything to make him smile.
But it was too late.
“Laurentia.” Dom’s husky voice sounded deeper than normal, too appealing, too seductive. His eyes gazed into hers as if he sought the Holy Grail of her soul, and she could almost feel herself compelled to step forward, into his arms and into his heart.
Then a woman’s dramatic scream rose above the babble of the crowd.
The sensual haze around Laurentia disintegrated, and she glanced toward the commotion not twenty-five feet away.
Someone shouted, “There’s a cart overturned!”
Still half-dazed, she looked back at Dom. His brows were lowered, his nostrils flared. He looked, she thought irrelevantly, like a thoroughbred primed for a race, then held at the gate.
The woman screamed again. The spectators moved toward the accident.
Dom scowled at Laurentia, and in a voice of goaded annoyance said, “Not now.”
Chapter Ten
“Not now,” Dom repeated. He had Laurentia where he wanted her. He recognized her soft, yearning expression, the way her breasts lifted beneath her deep breaths, her open, upwardly cupped hands. If he had one more minute, he could change that thinly veiled hostility into rampant passion.
Impatient and insistent, Brat screamed again. He was forced to take the stage.
Grabbing Laurentia’s hand, he hauled her behind him across the rugged ground.
After a brief, startled gasp, Laurentia hurried with him into the gathering crowd.
Positioning her so she had a good view of the proceedings, he leaned over the merchant, trapped beneath the ring of the wheel.
“Uncomfortable?” he asked.
The merchant examined his face. “About time ... you got here.”
“I came as fast as I could.” Sotto voce, Dom instructed, “Groan loudly and writhe around like you’re in pain.”
“I can’t move.” Sweat beaded the merchant’s forehead. “I think ... I broke a rib when I brought the cart down on me.”
“Damn.” More bad luck. The bad luck that had dogged him since... A crowd was gathering, and on the outskirts Dom located Brat holding Ruby’s hand.
Over two years ago, it had been her rape that had signaled the onset of their bad luck. Yet he knew when he’d pulled off this assignment, all would be well. He’d be in control of his destiny. Brat would never be in peril again. And Ruby would never face the life they’d led.
Straightening, he removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves. Boxes—empty, but who knew that?— had been tied on the bed, and the wheel had been carefully placed over a rabbit hole so that when the merchant pulled at the cart it tipped over easily. A good operation, and one guaranteed to make Dom look as if he had the strength of ten men and the heart of a hero when he lifted the cart away.
But when he turned to receive her praise, she wasn’t standing where he’d left her. She knelt beside the merchant, speaking to him in a soft voice. Worse, Brat knelt there, too, Ruby standing off to the side, while the two women gently removed the bloke’s smock.
“Your Highness, what are you doing?” Dom asked. As if he didn’t know.
She ignored him as royally as she had done all day, and he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and say, No. Don’t look at that smelly old man. Look at me! I’m your sweetest dream come true.
But she seemed truly compassionate to those less favored, Dom grudgingly admitted, and not at all high in her instep.
Not that that mattered. She was spoiled and royal, and if cozening her achieved his objective sooner, then the deception was well worth it.
To the wounded man, Laurentia asked, “What’s your name?”
“Monty, Your Highness.” He sounded breathless from pain or awe.
Frustrated, Dom said, “I’ll go find some rags.”
“Clean ones. From the physician,” Laurentia instructed as she untied her wide straw hat and laid it in the grass beside her.
More than just ignoring him, she seemed to have dismissed him from her mind, her whole attention centered on the bruised chest now exposed to the sunlight. Brat looked up at him apologetically, but her concentration, too, focused on the wounded man.
Walking quickly to vent his frustration, Dom found the physician putting stitches in a long, oozing cut in Mr. Sharparrow’s arm. He listened to Dom’s description of the accident and said, “Her Highness can handle it. Here.” He found a ball of clean cloth bandages, and handed it to Dom. “Take that to her. She’ll know what to do.”
Dom came back to find the crowd bigger than ever, drawn by the spectacle of their princess caring for one of them with her own hands. Impatient, he shouted, “Let me through.” A path opened before him, and as he walked he heard someone say, “Her Highness picked a likely-looking one, heh?”
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