Laurentia couldn’t hold back a smile, albeit loving and exasperated. “I love His Majesty, and I would never speak ill of him, but in one matter he is deluded. He thinks, because he is king, he can on meeting a man judge that man’s character.”
In a hard voice, Dom said, “In that, he is most definitely deluded.”
Laurentia bristled. “It seems to be a common problem among the male gender.”
“And among royals.”
She had no answer. She didn’t even understand why Dom would be so offensive.
“Beaumont was handsome,” Dom stated.
He sounded so positive that a picture of Beaumont rose in her mind—blond, noble of brow, suave and elegant. “How did you know? Have you been asking about my marriage?”
“I ask only you, Your Highness.” Dom sounded not at all offended, although her query had been abrupt and rude. “But the first time you laid eyes on me, you didn’t like my face.”
“And women always like your face,” she deduced. “Have I been so transparent?”
Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles. “You are a boundless and infinite mystery to me.”
She jerked her hand back. “Are you jesting?”
“No.” Reaching out to her, he took her hand again and held it forcibly. “I do not know what would make a princess of your intelligence and background choose me.”
She took a breath to tell him.
But he asked, “Did he hit you?”
She knew he felt the quiver in her fingers, so she threw back her shoulders and in her princess voice said, “You wanted to know why I was a virgin. I told you. I can see no advantage to continuing this conversation.”
“I told you about my mother.”
She stiffened more, staring out into the darkened forest and hoping, praying he wouldn’t continue.
“I told you who I was, who I am. Do you think I don’t want to know the same about you?”
She brought her knees up to her chest.
Dom released her hand and slid under the covers. “Did you propose to him, too?” He rested on the pillow, his hands cupping his head, his elbows akimbo.
She ought to lie down, too, huddle beneath the blankets for warmth, but she liked looking down at him. Being taller, in this instance, seemed almost an advantage. “No. He asked Papa’s permission, and when my father had bestowed his blessing, Beaumont proposed to me, on his knees, in a bower in the garden.”
“I feel hurt. I didn’t get such a romantic setting.”
His spurious humor allowed her to relax—a little.
And reflect—a little. Dom might joke, he might allow her head to be above his, but he would relentlessly pursue his information. “I gave you the setting I thought you would most desire.”
Taking her hand once more, he laid it on his chest. “Your Highness is most astute.”
His chest hair crinkled beneath her hand, his heart beat, his warmth made her want to rest her head on him and beg him to make the memories disappear.
But that they could not do for each other. “Beaumont never hit me, he just...” She took a moment to breathe, to try and relieve the tightness in her chest. “I was sixteen when we married. He was twenty-four. I thought I was in love. We went to one of my country homes, and the first night he just didn’t. . . present himself. I waited and waited, and finally I... sought him out.” Even the remembrance brought a rush of blood to her cheeks. “He was asleep. The next morning I... He was affable. But I was sixteen, I was in love, and I pursued the issue. I think at first he really didn’t want to hurt me, but I was the princess and demanded my rights as a wife. And he said ... he said ...”
“That it was your fault.” Dom sounded so calm, and he pressed his hand over the top of hers and demonstrated how he wished her to caress him.
“Yes!” She stroked, running her fingers down the arrow of hair. “How did you—”
“If he had told you the truth, you and your father would have sought an annulment. You are the royal heir. You must produce a child, and the Church would not deny you that.”
Dom was so logical. His very serenity soothed her agitation and made Beaumont appear, if not mad, then cold-blooded. Yes, she knew rationally what Beaumont had done, but to hear Dom deduce that he had played upon her youthful insecurities like a master steadied her.
“So instead he told you ... what?” Dom asked.
“At first, that I was too young. Then...” She hated this. This reliving of the days when her world had been thrown into turmoil and she had been annihilated by a few well-chosen phrases. “I do admit, I was spoiled, and given to tantrums even at that advanced age.”
“Did he not know that?”
“Before we were married, he said he thought my temper fascinating.”
Dom grunted.
“But when I told him he should do his duty, he said he didn’t want to. He said no one wanted me. He said the only reason any young man had paid court to me was that I was the princess, and rich, and he had done so for the same reason. He said that was the only reason he’d married me, and he wasn’t going to force himself to bed a woman as unattractive and spoiled as I was.”
“Lord Maggot said quite a lot.”
And she remembered every word, every nuance. No matter how hard she had tried to forget, she still remembered. “He got quite agitated as he spoke. He frightened me, and I wanted to go home to my father, but Beaumont laughed. He said Papa wouldn’t believe me because I was a new bride, and a woman, and men knew all women were hysterical. He said I was a stupid girl.” She found herself clenching a handful of chest hair.
Dom caught her hand and carefully loosened her fingers.
“Beaumont said he and Papa were friends. As they were. That was one of the reasons Papa approved the marriage, because they got drunk together and hunted and were comrades.”
“No matter what you do, your father will not turn away from you.”
“I know.” She did know now, although she also had learned enough about love not to test its limits. “But Beaumont used just enough truth mixed in with his lies. I knew I was spoiled. Weltrude had told me. I knew I had a temper. I’d broken the crockery.” She gritted her teeth before confessing, “And I must warn you, sometimes I still do.”
“You can throw the vases at me anytime.” Dom sounded warmly amused. “I’m a good catch. In more ways than one.”
“Modest, too.” She appreciated his humor but found her face too stiff to smile. “I didn’t think I was stupid, but Beaumont said that reading Latin in the original and calculating yields per acre didn’t make me wise, only overeducated.”
“I’ll wager he didn’t read Latin.”
“Not well, but I didn’t think of that then.”
“So you didn’t tell your father.”
“I didn’t tell anybody. My own husband, the man who’d slept with countless women all over Europe, wouldn’t touch me.” She shivered, the chill of the night reaching through his shirt and raising goose bumps. “I kept hoping he would relent. I thought if it were dark enough perhaps, or if I wore the right clothes or knew the right thing to say... but nothing worked.”
“Your Highness, I don’t want you to think I revel in your unhappiness”—reaching up, Dom cupped her head and brought it down to rest on his chest— “but for me, for now, I’m glad.”
She pressed her nose into Dom’s chest and smelled his scent. He was real, and here, and she loved him for knowing she wished to be in his arms. “Beaumont could be a very pleasant companion when I wasn’t... bothering him.”
Dom slipped an arm around her shoulders and brought her closer to share his warmth all along his length. “If you want to grope my crotch, I swear I will never call it bothering.”
She chuckled as his heat and humor began to relax her. “We put on a good facade, but eventually the servants gossiped that we never shared a bedroom. And I was not with child. My father began to question me.”
Dom ran his fingers through her hair. “You denied every
thing.”
“I couldn’t talk to him about that.”
“No. Of course not.” Dom actually sounded like he fathomed her bashfulness.
“Beaumont’s outbursts became more noticeable, so unbeknownst to me, Papa placed a spy in my home.” Dom stroked his hand across her back in slow circles, and she stretched like a cat. “It was Chariton.”
Dom’s hand stopped. “Who is Chariton?”
“Chariton is our friend, our servant. You remember—he was the man who helped Gloria wrap Monty’s ribs.”
“You didn’t introduce me.”
“Chariton prefers to remain unrecognized. He says his tasks are easier that way.”
“His tasks?” Dom asked sharply.
Laurentia didn’t mind explaining. She should have foreseen that Dom would want to know. “He’s an investigator when we need one and usually my bodyguard.”
“Why isn’t he your bodyguard now?”
Beneath her ear she heard his heartbeat increase. “Because you came along and Papa liked you, and he realized I liked you although I didn’t want to admit it. I think—no, I know—Papa was playing Cupid.”
“Where’s Chariton now?” Dom persisted.
“Papa sent him off to discover what he could about the kidnapping attempt. Chariton will ask around Omnia, see if anyone was talking about it. Chariton has contacts all over the docks and at the inns.”
“I wonder if he ran into Brat,” Dom said.
“That’s right. You did say your Brat was searching for clues.” She laid her hand on Dom’s chest next to her cheek. “Do you suppose they know each other now?”
“I suppose they do.” The beat of his heart slowly resumed its normal speed, a calm, strong thrumming beneath her ear. “So Chariton found out you were a virgin.”
“He suspected. So Papa suspected. I think Weltrude suspected. And the entire kingdom speculated.”
“It’s rough when you know every time you walk out the door, people are whispering behind your back,” he said with the air of someone who knew. “Finish telling me about the little pissant you married.”
She rather liked the way Dom talked about Beaumont, as if he were a boogeyman to be sent back to hell with the proper incantation. In truth, she could now see him becoming nothing more than a footnote in the text of her life. “Papa also sent to England for more information, and found out the whole family was mad. Beaumont’s only surviving aunt lived in Bedlam, and no noble family in England would give their daughter into Beaumont’s keeping, for Beaumont’s father killed his mother in an insane rage.”
Dom sucked air into his lungs.
“Beaumont fled England and came to the continent, looking for a wife who was ignorant of his family history. Of course, when Papa knew the truth, he demanded Beaumont attend him at all times, and Beaumont died while in his service.”
“How?”
She hesitated. “I was never quite told.”
“You were never quite told?” Dom sounded incredulous.
“Papa insinuated he died of a hunting accident, but once Chariton said he’d died on the terrace. I should have demanded the truth—”
“But by now you’d been told so many truths that were hateful lies you were afraid to ask.”
Dom had a rare way of understanding human torment, perhaps because he’d personally visited those hells himself. “Yes, and I felt...”
“Guilty. Because you’d married a crazy incompetent and you couldn’t cure him with your love. You didn’t even love him.”
She started to lift her head, but he pushed it back down and tightly wrapped his arms around her.
“All right, Your Highness, I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and here’s the truth. Your jackass of a husband used you, and when you confronted him about it, he destroyed you. He was a ruthless bumhole, and I don’t ever want to hear you give excuses for him.”
“He was just trying to find himself a haven where he could—”
“Go crazy in peace?” Dom snorted. “Men don’t do that. They don’t take a girl and hurt her in the basest way possible for their own purposes. He was insane. He was weak. He didn’t deserve you.”
She could tell that was that, as far as Dom was concerned. He had made his pronouncement; she should listen. But inquisitiveness led her ask, “What would you have done, if you were him and saw the darkness coming to envelop you?”
“I would have rowed out to sea and when the winds and rain came for me, I would have fought until I knew I had lost to nothing less than God Himself.”
It was true, she realized. Dom would never have permitted madness to take him. He would have taken matters in his own hands, and died as he wished.
“I never want to hear you apologize for being spoiled, high-handed, or hot-tempered.” Making his point, he poked at her back with his finger. “You’re the crown princess of Bertinierre. The responsibility you carry would break a lesser woman, and—although if you ever repeat this, I’ll deny it—most men are weaklings and would crumble beneath the burden.”
“I know. That’s why I can christen ships and visit orphanages and come here to deliver our goods. I’m good at being the princess.”
“Believe me, darling, you’re good at being a woman, too.”
The way he said it, so warm and amused, made her press her knees tightly together in a combination of anticipation and excitement.
She’d made him happy.
He’d made her ecstatic.
Maybe, if she were clever, she could convince him that morning was too long to wait.
“Your father also has a temper, I saw it this morning when I told him of the kidnapper’s death. No one reproached him for breaking a vase. Nor would they you if you were a man.”
“And men get to scratch whenever they want,” she mumbled.
“Sure, women have a pitiful lot.” He rolled, putting her beneath him, and leaned over her in the manner she already recognized. “What do you think?”
The aches in her body had diminished while she slept. The night air nipped at her nose, the brilliant stars shone from a midnight blue sky, the blankets created a cocoon of warmth, and within that cocoon was a man, her man. He wanted her. “I think I see the break of dawn.”
Sliding her hand down his body, she found his erection.
He jerked and gasped as she wrapped her fingers around him. “Seems kind of early.”
Again the size gave her pause, but curiosity drew her to explore the silky skin, the cap, the ridges and veins. “Can’t you hear the birds chirping ‘Good morning’?”
“My hearing’s not too good right now.”
She thrilled at the power she held in her hand. “You’ll have to trust me, then.”
“I do, Laurentia.” He kissed her with the sweet ardor that had stolen her heart. “Do you trust me?”
“Being with you is the first thing I’ve done in years”—she caught her breath at the swirl of his breath on her nipple—“that is willful and not... no...”
He lifted his mouth. “Not what?”
“Not well thought out.” When he wasn’t touching her, she could actually speak. “You’re my one moment of passion.”
“One? Only one?”
She circled his ear with her fingertip. “So far.”
“But do you trust me?” He covered her mouth with his hand. “Say ‘I do.’ ” He released her.
“I do.”
“Then”—he moved between her legs—“we’re as good as married.”
But when morning really broke and she woke up to a new day, his pillow was cold and he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-five
Dom read the signs. An army had obviously passed this way within the last week. The forest road had been widened by the tramp of many feet, a tobacco pipe had been smashed against a rock, squirrels had been shot out of the pines for sport. Pollardine’s invasion force had moved into the mountains above Omnia, and now awaited their chance to swoop down and conquer Bertinierre. All they needed was in
formation. The information he brought them.
Marcel de Emmerich had a talent for snooping, indeed for every kind of underhanded dealing, and he had paid Dom to learn the facts.
No, Dom had to be honest—he had accepted payment to learn the facts. He had agreed to do so less than a month ago, and the man he had been then had seen his action as dishonorable, but necessary. And after all, his treachery will affect only a princess, one of the hated nobles, a woman of the same class as his wretch of a father.
Then he had met Laurentia. Fire and intelligence, beauty and loyalty. She was more than he’d ever dared to dream of having.... and she’d given herself to him. He hadn’t had to seduce the secret out of her; she’d given it to him. She’d given him everything, offered him a life at her side.
He wanted that life, and not because of the power and the prestige and the wealth. He wanted it because somehow Laurentia had bound him to her. If he were a dishonest man, he would have said she’d shackled him with the bindings of the flesh. But he’d swived many women, and he’d never experienced this tug of ... what? .. . responsibility, he supposed. So this attachment he felt had been caused by her. By Princess Laurentia and her candor and vulnerability and charm. She was so obviously his.
His to throw away because of the deal he’d made with the devil.
Oscuro shied as they rounded the bend, and Dom flinched. Three male bodies in tattered clothing dangled from a sturdy limb, hung by the neck and left for the buzzards. Were they hunters who had stumbled into the midst of the army and found themselves the first victims of this invasion? Or had they been part of the invasion, men who had found a hanging to be their reward for insolence? No matter which, de Emmerich showed his true colors with this cold-blooded display, and Oscuro did not need Dom’s urging to hurry past.
Some might say—Dom might say—that he himself was no better than de Emmerich, for he cherished his principles above the safety and security of his woman.
Yet what kind of man gave his word, took his payment, did the job, then deliberately failed to deliver? He was Dominic of Sereminia. He was a mercenary whose services had been sought because he could be depended upon to never change alliances, never betray his employer, never falter before overwhelming odds. He had been a warrior his whole life, doing what others would not, but always he had taken pride in his unfaltering sense of honor. That honor had been the bedrock of his character, and that honor had brought him here, to the outskirts of the Pollardine war camp where he would deliver the secret, Bertinierre—and the princess—into the clutch of the most dreadful monster of all.
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