So the time had come. The time had come to make her decision, and only a coward would vacillate now. Taking a careful breath to steady her voice, she said, “Much as I hate to admit it, you were right about Dom. He’s a good bodyguard. He saved me yesterday.” The lace on her sleeve drooped over her shaking fingers as she pushed loose tendrils of hair out of her face. “If I took him with me, would that ease your mind?”
King Jerome studied her as if he sensed a hidden motive. “You trust him that much?”
She thought about the first night out on the terrace, how she’d liked Dom, yet sensed depths which she dared not name. Something about his man called to the wildness in her, and she had to respond or spend the rest of her life wondering ... “Yes, Papa. I trust him that much.”
Hastily, the spy stepped away from the door and hurried down the corridor. At last, a break in the mystery of Bertinierre’s fortunes. The princess’s annual retreat on her birthday was not simply the little darling’s escape from the so-called pressures of her life. Laurentia went to her mountain home to exchange goods for money. What kind of goods remained to be seen—but with the place and the time known, that information would be easy to discover.
The spy smiled, a rare, genuine smile that appeared to startle Dominic of Sereminia as he hurried toward the dungeons.
Let him go to investigate the death of that lump of a kidnapper. The spy had another death to arrange.
The messenger would not be returning to Sereminia.
“Good morning, Your Highness.” Weltrude threw back the curtains to allow the early light to trickle into Laurentia’s bedchamber. “It’s five-thirty. You must rise if you’re going to take part in the hunt.” Laurentia smothered a grin in her ruffle-edged pillow. As if her father or the guests would leave without her. But Weltrude had drummed an irrefutable principle into her; a princess never took advantage of her royal privileges. Laurentia agreed, although for different reasons than Weltrude. Laurentia thought the people forced to defer to her should never have to endure anything less than kindness, punctuality and good manners from their princess.
Weltrude thought anything less than perfection tarnished the royal family’s patina of glory.
Two different philosophies. Same results.
As Laurentia stirred, pretending to be just wakened, Weltrude gave her instructions to the lesser maids. “Today, Her Highness will wear the dark blue brocade riding outfit with her veiled blue hat and her black leather gloves.”
Laurentia normally allowed herself to be guided by Weltrude, for her chief lady-in-waiting’s taste could not be faulted. But Laurentia had plans, and they didn’t include Weltrude’s rigid code of conduct or a conservative blue riding outfit. “Today,” Laurentia announced as she sat up in bed, “I will wear the brown velvet riding costume.”
At the challenge to Weltrude’s authority, one of lesser maids gasped. The other two giggled with delight and hustled toward the capacious closet in Laurentia’s bedchamber.
Impassive as always, Weltrude in no way indicated astonishment or displeasure, but moved closer to the bed. In a low voice, she said, “Your Highness, perhaps you don’t recall. The brown velvet riding costume did not turn out as the tailor promised. It is less than modest.”
Laurentia plucked at her lower lip thoughtfully. “I seem to remember it covers all my flesh, and I definitely remember how very much I adore the material. I’ll try it on, at least.”
Weltrude smiled one of her reproving smiles. “You don’t have time to model everything in your closet.”
Usually, Laurentia remembered that Weltrude had guided her through adolescence, and she allowed Weltrude her liberties. Today, she remembered that she was twenty-five, a widow, and more pathetically, a virgin. She had to change that. She had no time to waste. And although she seldom wielded her authority like a sledgehammer, that did not mean she didn’t know how. As she slid out of bed, she said, “Then I shall wear the brown velvet riding costume.”
She meant to ignore Weltrude’s civilized outrage, but something, some movement on Weltrude’s part, perhaps, made her look.
There was nothing civilized about Weltrude’s outrage. For only one moment, the mask created by wig, rouge and gentility fell, and Laurentia saw only too clearly a vast hidden reservoir of fury.
Then Weltrude’s emotion shimmered, softened, became an intense distaste apparently directed at herself. “Of course, Your Highness. Forgive my impertinence. Sometimes I forget that you are not only my former pupil, as it were, but also the princess of Bertinierre.”
Feeling oddly disorientated, Laurentia nodded her forgiveness. She knew how very seriously Weltrude took the privileges of royalty, and how seriously she would take her own lapse of respect. Yet... yet...
Weltrude took the brown velvet riding costume from the two maids. “Here it is, Your Highness. Try it on and see what you think. The hunt will, of course, wait for you.”
“Yes.” Laurentia hesitated just a little. Just enough. “Yes, I’m sure they will, but...”
“Is there a problem, Your Highness?”
“I would be embarrassed to leave them waiting.” Shamelessly, Laurentia used Weltrude’s sense of duty to get rid of her. “Would you perhaps direct that they be given a cup of warmed spiced wine before we ride? It would give me extra time, should I need it, to prepare.”
Weltrude straightened to military readiness. “I will go and supervise the preparation myself.”
“That would be excellent,” Laurentia said. “You would cover for me, as you have done so many times in the past, and the guests would be pleasured by your wine.”
“Yes.” Given direction, Weltrude marched to the door. But before she exited, she doubtfully looked back at the maids.
“You have trained them well,” Laurentia assured her. “My toilette is in good hands.”
Weltrude nodded decisively.
Laurentia waited for a full minute past the time when the latch had clicked before she swung into motion.
Chapter Seventeen
When Laurentia stepped into the stable yard teeming with suitors and guests dressed for the hunt, the talking stopped for one very telling moment. She saw a flash as Mr. Sharparrow lifted his ringed hands to his chest. She saw Weltrude turn her head away as if mortified. She saw King Jerome lifted his eyebrows in astonishment. Then the din began again with rising excitement. She smiled, hoping no one could see how tightly she clenched her teeth as exultation and nervousness fought for supremacy. If only she could see Dom, gauge his response, be sure she had initiated a sound strategy.
Instead she saw Dulcie, and Dulcie’s kohl-lined eyes widened.
As they should. The riding habit wrapped Laurentia from shoulders to ankles, gloves covered her hands, a saucy squared hat rested atop her head, heeled brown leather boots rose almost to her knees. No flesh could be seen, yet just as Weltrude had feared, the rich velvet which covered her so well also traced her bosom, her waist, her hips. The material shivered with each movement, catching the sunlight and reflecting it in slivers of sensuality.
Most important was what she wore beneath—or rather, what she did not wear beneath. Her chemise was of the finest, thinnest cotton, soft against her skin, protecting her from the seams of the riding jacket. Her skirt was tight enough to restrict freedom and the use of undergarments, and yet the material was thick enough no one could ever notice she wore no petticoat and no drawers. And the shirtwaist that provided modest coverage beneath the jacket all the way up to her neck... was draped over a chair in her dressing chamber.
Second thoughts? She had nothing but second thoughts, until Dulcie gave a wildly inappropriate, far too obvious gesture of approval. Francis saw it, saw her, and his round and scandalized gaze would have done a priest proud. When he started toward her, his mouth pinched and condemnation radiating from him, Dulcie put her hand in the middle of his back and shoved him right into a horse trough.
The splash brought a roar of laughter from the suitors who still considered Fra
ncis serious competition. Dulcie grinned smugly and backed away from the wet and glowering man who rose from the trough. He didn’t even glance at Laurentia, but stalked toward Dulcie.
King Jerome spoke close to Laurentia’s ear. “I hadn’t realized it before, but those two ...”
Laurentia turned to him and saw him smiling as he watched Francis and Dulcie. “Those two... what?” When he didn’t answer, she looked back to see Francis place his wet hands on Dulcie’s shoulders and shake her. That wasn’t the stiff, formal Francis Laurentia knew, and the way Dulcie thrust her chin at him and grinned defiantly might mean—
Dom stepped onto the palace’s terrace, and Laurentia forgot Francis, forgot Dulcie, and stared.
She didn’t care that Dulcie thought the other suitors were more attractive. Only Dom was mouthwateringly handsome. He stood above them, one hand on the railing, one hand on his hip. One foot rested on the step, the other on the terrace floor. His black hair was bare, the wings of premature white catching the light. Sun and shadow sculpted his harsh face and too clearly showed the knife wound he’d acquired in her defense. His black riding gear hugged his form as sweetly as a maiden. Shoulders like his resulted only from hard labor, and in her world of aristocrats and fops, those shoulders happened only too seldom. Behind him the white palace glowed like a nimbus around his slash of dark sexuality.
His narrowed gaze swept the crowd. It lingered, observing, weighing, seeing more than normal men, she thought, and when his gaze found her, she stopped breathing for one long moment. Could this beautiful man know what she had planned? When he looked at her, did he see a wanton begging for attention? Could he read her secrets, delve her soul ... or was he truly like Beaumont, concerned only with himself?
He didn’t smile as he stared, but gradually warmth began to curl in her belly and heat to flare in her cheeks.
He wanted her. Life had taught her how easily she could misread another, but about this she was sure. He wanted her.
“Papa,” she whispered, “it’s time to ride.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.” King Jerome pulled on his riding gloves and spoke in a low tone. “You promise you will keep Dominic at your side?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“You’ll be wary? If there’s any sign of danger, you’ll retreat at once?”
“I promise, Papa.”
He smoothed his mustache. “I shouldn’t allow you to do this, you know.”
“You trust me, and rightly.” Dom was descending the stairs, his gaze still fixed on her, and she didn’t want to speak to him yet. Not with everyone in the stable yard looking on. “Now, Your Majesty, go and lead the hunt, and keep the riders challenged so that they don’t watch me!”
“I’ll keep them challenged.” Like Laurentia, King Jerome was a natural horseman, and he knew how to compel his courtiers’ attention. No one would mutter, at the end of the day, that they could have gone farther and faster with a younger man in the lead. Before he strode toward the mounting block, he added, “And by the way, my dear—you look smashing.”
Dom was watching her, Laurentia knew. All around them the hunt thundered through the woods. Dogs barked, closing on the scent of a deer. Suitors, ladies, and courtiers spread across the land for miles, riding hard after the hounds. Meadows gave way to brush, brush gave way to timber. Far ahead, her father King Jerome led the hunt, galloping with grace and determination.
Dom’s gaze singed her as it had all morning. He observed as she swerved right, toward the center of the pack, then he followed with more caution and less speed. She imagined the man was trying to decipher her mood, trying to decide what had caused her transformation from a resentful lady to a woman demonstrating ... interest. She wanted to tell him, Dulcie persuaded me. But that would be an abdication of responsibility, and Weltrude would not approve.
More likely, she, Laurentia, had been ready to change. Suffering from ennui, ready for something besides duty, influenced by her father’s hopes, impatient with Francis’s stodginess, jolted by her first sight of Dom, infuriated by the lesson he’d decided to teach her with the false kidnapping ...
Yes, that was it. Dom had auditioned well, and with his kisses she had experienced a jolt of exhilaration such as she hadn’t felt since the day she’d married Beaumont. Since the moment she’d discovered that the spoiled little princess couldn’t have everything her own way, and that passion, like honor, carried a price.
As the pack of riders neared the cutoff, the trail narrowed. A cliff rose on her right side, ground dropped away on the left. The shouts of the riders quieted at they concentrated on guiding their horses through the narrow flats. Dulcie and Francis jostled for position, each trying to outride the other, locked in eternal competition.
Riding with seeming random carelessness, Laurentia urged Sterling toward the edge of the pack.
Actually, she positioned Mr. Sharparrow between her and Dom, effectively blocking Dom’s view, and when she had the Englishman’s attention, she smiled at him.
He checked in surprise, and she surged ahead, cutting around one of her huntsmen and off to the right as soon as the cliff dropped away. At once she slowed Sterling, turning him to face the galloping pack of hunters and bring him to a halt behind a tree.
Mr. Sharparrow rode past, looking frantically around, but her brown velvet riding costume matched her brown velvet gelding and helped her blend into the granite cliff. The other riders continued on their way, hallooing and laughing. She caught a glimpse of Dom, too, as he rode past, his gaze intent and narrowed.
He’d be back. He was an intelligent man. When he realized she had vanished, he would reconstruct her actions and remember the cliff. He’d curse her and come for her, and once more he’d be angry that she had not kept him informed of her intentions.
She smiled. The fingertips inside her riding gloves tingled, and excitement curled in her loins.
Yes, he’d be angry and she had no doubt she was a fool for inciting him. Yet she wanted to prove her competence in at least one arena, and a princess learned early to evade her entourage. It was the only way she ever had privacy, and in recent years it had proved to be a practical skill.
More than that, some stubbornness inside her refused to let him have his way about everything. With a man like Dom, if she didn’t establish her independence immediately, he would run roughshod over her for the rest of her life.
For the rest of her life. The phrase echoed uneasily in her mind, and as the sounds of the hunt faded in the distance, she avoided the thought with action, turning Sterling toward a cleft in the rocks and urging him forward.
Only three paths led to her cottage. She alternated routes to avoid obvious signs of use, yet without hesitation she guided Sterling between the two boulders behind her. The path took an abrupt upward swing, but Sterling had been chosen for more than speed. He had also, time and again, confirmed his deft footwork and patient nature as he carried her to the rendezvous that had dominated her life these last five years.
She concentrated as the trail narrowed and steepened still more, but when it smoothed out she could think again, and irresistibly her mind returned to Dom. To Dom, to the course she was pursuing, and to her own expectations.
For the rest of her life. What was it she expected from this unlikely mercenary? Mating, marriage, a family? A helpmate, a lover? A life as normal as was possible for a princess and the heir to the throne? Was that what she wanted?
“Yes.” She whispered the word to the wind. “Yes, Dominic is what I want.”
Why him?
The real reason? Dom himself. He was handsome, alarmingly handsome, so handsome she still fought the urge to flee. She’d learned her lesson well. Handsome men were cold.
Yet his air of danger, while alternately frightening and attracting her, also reassured her. This man cared passionately about. . . about what? She didn’t know, she wanted to find out, but the way he moved, the slice of his gaze, the grace of his gestures proved he hated, he loved, he felt. The coldness
that afflicted Beaumont would never afflict Dom, and that was what she wanted. A man who experienced life, its joys and sorrows, its hatreds and its ... loves.
Dom desired her. She’d seen the proof in his body, braved the thrill of his kisses. And she wanted to feel, too, as passionately and as intensely as he did. He could teach her. She had no doubt about that.
Most important, after yesterday’s rescue, she trusted him.
Far away, the huntsmen sounded their horns, signifying the end of the chase.
Yes, Dom would be along soon, furious that she had evaded him, and heaven only knew what he would do to her as vengeance. As she remembered yesterday’s kiss, her skin flushed from the inside out.
Dom ... She fingered the soft, white silk fichu she wore draped around her neck and tucked into the low cut of her button-front jacket.
The path climbed again, winding around pitted boulders the size and shape of haystacks. Pine peppered each breath of air, so fresh and sharp it almost hurt her lungs. Sterling kicked up small puffs of dust, and she heard the trickle of water from the brook near her cottage. Stopping, she allowed Sterling to drink, and when he had finished he raised his head and pricked up his ears.
From behind her she heard the faint and steady clop of a horse’s hooves.
Dom had found her.
It was time to put all Dulcie’s immoral advice into action.
Laurentia’s heart pounded, and her knees shook so hard Dom might have been chasing her on foot through the wilderness, rather than this civilized pursuit through the woods only two hours from the palace. Her imagination tossed forth pictures of her running, of him after her, catching her, pulling her to the ground ...
The trouble was, he filled the role of ruthless hunter only too well.
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