If he did not, he would lose the money that was Ruby’s.... and his very soul.
He’d left his princess after too brief a time. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d planned to keep her in the cottage with him, encouraging her passion so that when she learned the truth about his ruse, she’d be so in love with him he’d be a part of her, grafted onto her soul.
Instead she’d told him of her servant Chariton, who was investigating the kidnapping attempt. If Chariton was as competent as Laurentia said—and if he were not the traitor—Chariton would see Brat, study her, and Dom would be revealed as a scoundrel.
Dom could not allow that to happen. Better that he finish this dreadful task with some scrap of control than to allow destiny to sweep him along. If only he saw a way out of this tangled web of conflicting loyalties. If only ...
Abruptly, Dom turned Oscuro onto a side trail. He tethered him out of sight of the road and dismounted. He pulled his black cloak with its custom made pockets from the saddlebag and donned it.
Then he cleared his throat. Looking up at the towering pines and feeling as foolish as ever he had, he called, “God?”
His voice echoed oddly in this silent place, and he flushed. Probably such informality wasn’t the way to approach an unknown deity, but in all the years since his mother died Dom had never made the attempt, for he’d always known all the answers. Now he didn’t, so he cleared his throat and repeated, “God? I need a sign. One woman and one war aren’t much when stacked against my loyalty to Ruby and my duty as I... as I understand it, but I can’t convince myself I’m doing the right thing. So if you would show me what I should do, I would be grateful.” That seemed rather abrupt, so he added, “Amen.”
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. Wait, but for how long? He supposed God was busy, but Dom could smell the smoky scent of campfires that signified Pollardine’s camp was close at hand, and he couldn’t dodge their sentries for long. If he didn’t get the sign soon, he would be forced to go to the king’s tent and finish the job for which he’d been hired—and for that, he would probably die.
Hell, with the odds stacked against him, he would probably die, anyway. In fact, he might as well stop stalling and get it over with, for God wouldn’t bother with a man like him.
So he made his way through the brush toward the road, and just before he stepped into the open he heard the jingle of a harness—and Weltrude rode away from the camp.
She was smiling, the kind of smile a murderess and a traitor would wear, and he realized—of course. Weltrude had the motive to betray her mistress. She had control of everything in the palace. She could have arranged to poison the prisoner and no one would be the wiser. And somehow she’d come into the same information he had. Dom couldn’t betray the princess. He was too late. Weltrude had already betrayed her.
He’d asked for a sign. He had one. He looked up at the treetops and said, “Thank you.”
But there was still the money, which he’d earned, and another matter. The matter of Laurentia’s safety.
Briskly, he started toward the camp.
The order hadn’t yet come to move, for in the open meadow where de Emmerich had set up camp, the soldiers, conscripts, and camp followers still lounged around. A sentry challenged Dom as he crossed the perimeter, but when he announced he had business with de Emmerich, he was at once waved on.
As he passed the mercenaries around the camp-fire, he heard his name called.
“Dom!” Toti the mercenary grinned with openly false pleasure at seeing his old rival. “What did they hire you for? Do they want a defeat on their hands?”
The mercenaries around the campfire laughed and shoved at each other.
Dom didn’t join in. He just kept his gaze level, and Toti’s grin faded. Toti always broke under Dom’s examination.
When Toti was squirming, Dom indicated the camp. “It looks like someone is planning a war.”
“Are you jealous?” Toti stirred the fire with the charred end of a stick.
“No.” Not when de Emmerich was hiring the cheapest, least dependable mercenaries he could find. “I’ve got one last job, then I’m moving on.”
Ton’s straggling mustache drooped over his mouth. “You got enough money to do that?”
“Not yet.”
Toti looked over Dom’s outfit, stained with sweat from the eight-hour ride, but still elegant and obviously expensive, and his jowled, coarse face fell even further. But he bragged, “When we get into Bertinierre, the spoils are going to be rich.”
Again Dom allowed his gaze to roam, resting with particular interest on the amateurs—Pollardine’s army. “And you get to work with such good companions.”
The men around the campfire made a variety of noises, none complimentary.
Toti spat on the ground. “A bunch of cowed peasants.”
“They always are. Poor devils. It’ll be a cold grave in a foreign land for them.” Dom stared at Toti. “And for you. I have a premonition about this job. Don’t you?”
Toti made the sign to protect himself from the evil eye. “Don’t say that, Dom. Bad luck.”
“Truth,” Dom countered. “How long have you been here?”
“A week.”
“A week? Of sitting around doing nothing but poking the fire with a stick? Why aren’t you training?”
“We don’t need to train,” Toti muttered.
“A cold grave,” Dom repeated. “How much longer until you march?”
Toti broke the stick and tossed it in the flames. “You know how it is. When we’re told.”
“That stinks.”
Toti shrugged again, and his eyes rolled toward the tall blue tent, crowned with flags, that was set in the middle of the camp.
Dom knew why none of the men dared voice a complaint. They smelled of fear. The whole camp smelled of fear, of farmers forced to leave their families, of mercenaries uneasy about the upcoming fight, of camp followers desperate to get out while they could. None of them dared complain, for de Emmerich would discipline them.
Those hanged bodies had been deserters. They hadn’t died happy deaths.
“Is that de Emmerich’s tent?” Dom asked.
Glum nods all around.
“The king’s tent,” Toti clarified.
“That’s where I’m going.” Dom walked off, leaving a horrified silence behind him.
He felt the men’s gazes on him, and he took special care not to limp although more than anything, riding hurt his hip. But he wouldn’t show weakness. Not to those walking corpses.
By the time Dom reached the tent, de Emmerich had obviously received word he was in camp, for the guard lifted the flap and stood silently aside.
Dom didn’t even have to duck as he stepped within. The sun through the silk walls bathed the room, tinting everything—the king’s massive camp bed, the trunks, the curlicues on the armor—a peculiar blue. One man sat behind the polished wood table, one man stood at his shoulder. King Humphrey and de Emmerich, both blue-complexioned, both dangerous in their own way. But Dom hadn’t received a knife blade as greeting, so de Emmerich wanted confirmation.
Ostentatiously, Dom loosened his own knife in its scabbard. “De Emmerich, you tried to swindle me.”
De Emmerich smirked. “Whatever do you mean, young Dom?”
“You tried to kidnap my princess.”
De Emmerich’s gaze sharpened on Dom. “Your princess.”
“My princess. Trying to kidnap my princess was a serious mistake.” He strolled across the tent and in a lightning-swift move sank his blade in the top of the table.
Pollardine’s king didn’t even start, the stupid fool. He just sat watching, his big eyes round and vacuous.
“What did you think you were doing?” Dom demanded.
“I didn’t know if you would succeed in seducing her.” De Emmerich grinned. “Apparently you did.”
With morbid fascination, Dom stared at de Emmerich’s now-perfect teeth. Surgeons sometimes replaced a rotting
tooth with one taken from a corpse; Dom would have sworn de Emmerich sported a new mouthful.
“So you were going to take her and torture her?” Dom allowed his voice to rise. A royal guard stuck his head through the cloth opening, and Dom snapped, “Get him out and tell him to stay away.”
De Emmerich’s smile faded. He didn’t like being ordered around by a mere mercenary, but he couldn’t stick his knife in Dom’s gut—which was the plan, Dom knew very well—until Dom had revealed Bertinierre’s secret source of wealth, confirming what Weltrude had told him not a half-hour before.
“Marcel...” the king whined.
De Emmerich patted his head absently. “It’s all right, Humphrey. He won’t hurt me.” He snapped his fingers at the guard. “Out. And stay away from the door.”
Dom didn’t believe the guard would do it. Not for a minute. The goal of every man in camp was to survive, and he would listen at the thin walls. Dom didn’t care. The more people who heard of de Emmerich’s defeat at the hands of his hired mercenary, the more people would doubt and desert. “Here’s the problem, de Emmerich. You’re going to take the information I give you—did I say give you? I meant sell you—and you’re going to march into Bertinierre. You’re going to get astride the country, and you’re going to squeeze it dry.”
“You’re telling me no?”
“I’m telling you, I know you’re planning to hurt my princess. Right now, I don’t really care if I fulfill the deal I made with you. I would just as soon slit your throat.”
At last de Emmerich showed what he was made of. The knife flashed out of his sleeve and whizzed so close past Dom’s ear he heard the whistle of its passing. “You’d have to get to it first.”
One blade down. “I don’t relish the kind of betrayal you tried to set up. You send me to do a job, you step back and let me do it.”
De Emmerich didn’t like Dom’s equanimity, and he answered spitefully, “You haven’t been successful in much lately.”
“Just because you have to beat a woman into submission before she’ll bed you, doesn’t mean that I have to,” Dom retorted.
King Humphrey giggled. “He’s right, you do. I don’t. They like me.”
Dom allowed his gaze to rest on the royal placeholder. “So tell me where the money is, Your Majesty.”
“It’s—” He started to point at the open trunk where silks and jewels frothed over the edge.
De Emmerich slapped his hand.
King Humphrey slapped back, hard enough to knock de Emmerich backward.
In the moment of tense silence that followed, Dom got a good idea of the balance of power between the two men. Lazily, as if such displays were commonplace viewing, he said, “I’ll take the money, I’ll tell you what the secret is, and we’ll all be happy.”
De Emmerich didn’t think he could lose. A smile of grotesque proportions spread across his face. “I never truly doubted you, dear Dominic. Go take your fee.”
Dom didn’t hesitate. The skin between his shoulder blades itched, but de Emmerich wasn’t done toying with him yet. Turning his back, Dom strolled to the trunk. He dug through the contents of the trunk, found a leather money bag stashed in the corner, and lifted it. “Doesn’t feel like twenty-five thousand crowns Pollardine.”
“Did I say twenty-five thousand?” De Emmerich tapped his lip in fake thoughtfulness. “I thought I said ten thousand.”
“No.” Dom peered at the contents. Coins. A great many coins. Perhaps ten thousand crowns. Certainly it weighed enough. He opened the wide left pocket hidden in the lining of his cloak and carefully spread the contents within, taking care that the seams should not tear. Then he reached into the trunk again and brought up another bag. “And another ten thousand bonus.”
King Humphrey whimpered, but de Emmerich quieted him with a hand to his shoulder and a word in his ear.
Dom opened the right pocket and did the same. “And another ... damn, this seems to be the last one.” He held up the last bag. “How are you ever going to pay your mercenaries?”
“Out of Bertinierre’s treasury,” de Emmerich said. “So what’s the secret?”
Dom came to the table and jerked his knife free of the wood, and without hesitation betrayed his princess and her kingdom.
Then, his honor as a mercenary satisfied and his duty to Ruby done, he said, “I wouldn’t pull that knife, de Emmerich.”
De Emmerich already held a long, shiny blade ready to throw. “Why not? I already knew the secret. You’re telling me nothing new.”
Dom continued, “Because if you kill me, your king will never get the Pollardine diamond back.”
The blade shivered in de Emmerich’s fingers.
“The Pollardine diamond?” King Humphrey squealed, and grabbed for his chest.
“What do you know about the Pollardine diamond?” de Emmerich asked.
“I know where it is.” Dom kept his voice level, his gaze level, and his hand on the butt of the pistol hidden in the lining of his cloak.
King Humphrey squealed again and ripped open his shirt.
Dom watched with interest, knowing what the king sought, and knowing he would not find it.
King Humphrey pulled the leather thong with its leather bag from beneath his corset. “It’s here.” His fingers groped the sack. “I can feel it.” But he opened it, dumped the contents onto the table, and a small jagged crystal fell out.
The camp outside rang with men’s voices.
The tent pulsated with the battle of wills between the two men.
De Emmerich slammed his knife into its scabbard.
Dom released his pistol into its holster.
De Emmerich snatched up the crystal. “Quartz.” He tossed it down and in a white-hot rage headed around the table. “Damn you, you scabby bastard, what did you do with the diamond?” He advanced on Dom, those white teeth bared in a snarl.
Dom stood his ground.
De Emmerich came to a sudden halt two feet away. He was no match for Dom, and they both knew it.
Dom watched as de Emmerich faced that fact and fumbled for his knife. Dom swung the bag of gold and smacked the groping hand hard enough to break bones, then grabbed his wrist and twisted. When de Emmerich dropped to his knees, Dom put his lips right next to de Emmerich’s ear. “I took the liberty of getting a guarantee for my safety. Now I’m telling you, that diamond is a guarantee for my princess’s safety, too. The holy diamond of Pollardine will be returned safety after the overthrow, when the princess is released into my care.” He twisted the arm until de Emmerich whimpered. “With no injuries. No rape, no torture, not even a bruise. Do you understand?”
De Emmerich nodded.
Dom upped the pain level. “Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
Letting him go, Dom straightened. He bowed with a flourish and said, “Sleep soundly, Your Majesty. By the way, you’re very handsome in your nightshirt.”
He left without, this time, turning his back.
He moved quickly through the camp back to the place where he’d tied his steed, not even stopping when the mercenaries hailed him. “I wouldn’t stay if I were you,” Dom told Toti as he strode past. “It’s a doomed expedition.”
Laurentia waited twenty-four hours for Dom to return. One miserable day. One cold, wakeful night.
At last she gave up her hopes and dreams, and faced the desolation that was her life. He wasn’t coming back. He had never planned to stay. Not even the promise of an easy existence as consort to the crown princess of Bertinierre could compel the wretch to marry her.
Worse, her misplaced moment of passion and trust had put her kingdom in jeopardy.
Once she came to that realization, she rode back toward Omnia with all speed. She entered the palace to find the halls almost empty. The suitors were gone. The ladies had vanished. Only a few servants remained, subdued and whispering. Laurentia’s footsteps echoed on the polished floor as she ran down the long hall, her gaze fixed her father’s study. She had almost rea
ched it. She was almost there— when a bony hand grabbed her arm and jerked her to a standstill.
She whipped around to find herself facing Weltrude.
“Walk.” Weltrude towered over her as always, and her voice lashed with an unyielding tone. “A true princess doesn’t hurry like a hussy. Walk.”
Laurentia jerked her arm away and rubbed the five bruises Weltrude’s fingers had caused.
Weltrude knew. Somehow, she knew that all her predictions had come to pass, that Laurentia had destroyed everything she loved in a fit of passion.
Laurentia backed away from her grimly triumphant lady-in-waiting, spun on her heel, and walked the rest of the way to the study.
Weltrude didn’t matter. Walking didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to her father and doing what she could to cure the wound she had inflicted.
No one answered when she knocked, but quietly she pushed the door open.
Her ashen-faced father sat in his easy chair, holding a note.
Now she ran and knelt at his side. “Papa?”
“Pollardine’s armies are in place in the royal maywort fields. If I don’t concede defeat, they will destroy Bertinierre. If I don’t agree to act as their puppet-king and keep my people calm, they will murder you.”
Laurentia took his shaking hands in her own. “Papa, I betrayed you. I betrayed the whole country. This is all my fault.”
His sad eyes, so like her own, filled with tears, and he gathered her in his arms. “You flatter yourself. You are not the only one who has made mistakes here. You are not the only one who has misjudged character. I’m the king, and I say this is my fault.” Leaning his forehead against hers, he said quietly, “But the rescue of the country will be our responsibility, too, daughter, and we will do it.”
Someday My Prince Page 22