The Pirate Prince (3 page)

Over the centuries the mixed blood of Greeks, Romans, Moors, and Spaniards had created a breed of southern Italians as volatile and intense as the hot, rugged land they inhabited. Ascencioners were considered even more dangerous than the shiftless Corsicans, but to Allegra they were warmhearted, robust, and passionate, hopelessly romantic as they fed themselves on old stories and dreams, such as the legends of the great Fiori. She loved them, just as she loved this strife-ridden, poverty-stricken island situated like a clod of manure about to be kicked by the boot of Italy.

True, she mused, the winds of change blowing a bold new age into the world had yet to riffle a curtain here, but she intended to use her position as the governor’s daughter and the future governor’s wife in service to her country, no matter how insufferable both men were.

She would be their conscience.

Then perhaps one day, she thought, with proper loving care Ascencion might finally begin to heal, for the loss of the royal family, and King Alphonse in particular, was a wound from which the island had never recovered.

Nor did Mama
.

From this vantage point, Allegra could hear lively music and see some of the performers, a man breathing fire, acrobats. She smiled, seeing a few young couples dancing the fiery, whirling Sicilian dance called the tarantella, and shook her head to think of the dull, decorous minuets in progress in the ballroom.

With a wistful smile, she gazed at the rows of colored lanterns hanging over the square, each a candle lit to her faith that surely the warring classes and families and factions could set their differences aside and let there be peace, if only for a few days.

She lifted her gaze higher to the starry onyx skies, then closed her eyes as the balmy breeze caressed her cheek. The Mediterranean night was pure seduction, worlds away from the cold and drizzle of Paris. It whispered to her senses, luring her with hints of jasmine and pine and the faint scent of the sea.

It made her think of
him
.

The one even Domenic could never compete with, the one who lived nowhere but in her heart, in her fantasies, perfect and impossible as the utopias she envisioned.

Her secret Prince.

His name was Lazar, and he came to her in her dreams. Prince Lazar was a knight and a scholar, a warrior and a rogue; he was everything and nothing but moonbeams and fancy.

Actually, he was dead.

Yet there were those who claimed he was alive, somewhere, somehow….

She opened her eyes again, saddened, yet smiling at her own foolishness. She gazed up at the full moon lounging on her cloud like a vain golden queen.

When there was a shift in the mob below, Allegra saw that the bishop had come out and was walking about, shaking hands with people here and there, trailed by his eternal retinue of pious widows, deacons, and nuns. Seeing them, she decided all of a sudden that she was going to go down there and say hello.

She was not a prisoner in her father’s house, after all, though she often felt like one. Papa and Domenic could not control her every move, she told herself in defiance. Surely she need not take her bodyguards just to go chat for a few moments with dear old Father Vincent.

Without a backward glance, she left the wide doorway, startling the kitchen staff.

No one would question her if she acted as though she knew what she was doing, she thought as she marched off, heart pounding. At first she walked away from the house, then she picked up her pace, crossing the landscaped lawn toward the tall, spiky wrought-iron fence that surrounded the front section of her father’s property. Beyond it was another fence made of men, blue-uniformed soldiers who lined the perimeter of the palazzo.

Allegra strode faster, every step filling her with rising tension, almost a desperation to escape, as if she would suffocate under all the hypocrisy and greed if she remained inside the palazzo one minute longer. She was almost running by the time she reached the edge of her father’s property, her face flushed, heart racing.

Most of the soldiers knew who she was, of course, and would surely find it highly irregular for the governor’s daughter to leave the palazzo unattended, but she reminded herself these men were trained to take orders. If any of them questioned her, she would make some excuse and put him in his place if necessary. Somehow she would brazen her way past them.

As it turned out, the task was easier than she’d hoped.

Perhaps in the darkness they didn’t realize who she was, merely thinking her one of the guests. Trying to act perfectly natural, she went out the small side gate. Here the wrought-iron fence met the ten-foot wall that surrounded the back of the property and the garden.

All nonchalance, while inwardly her heart pounded, she passed the men and made her escape into the cobbled side street, unquestioned. She was so amazed she had succeeded that she wanted to throw her hands up and shout,
Freedom!
Instead, she hurried the short distance down the narrow, shop-lined street until she arrived at the square.

Pausing breathlessly under the cluster of palm trees that graced the corner of the piazza, she stared about her in joy, barely knowing where to go first.

She glanced toward the young couples dancing the scandalous tarantella, then looked toward the bishop.

It occurred to her that if she went straightaway to say hello to Father Vincent, one of those shrewd, hawk-eyed widows of his coterie was sure to ask where her chaperons were.

Perhaps, she thought, she could steal just a peek at the sinners before she rejoined the saints.

Skin tingling with the seduction of the Italian night, she followed the sound of the wicked, irresistible music.

With lethal grace, Lazar stalked through the olive orchard toward the twinkle of lights that was the small, new city the usurpers called Little Genoa.

It would be charred ruins by tomorrow, he thought with a narrow smile.

He checked his rusty timepiece by the light of the full moon as he walked. It was midnight now. His first priority was to break into one of the two heavily guarded gate towers. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to do it, but he trusted he’d figure something out. He slipped the fob back into his small vest pocket, content that he had two full hours for the task. At precisely two o’clock, he would open the massive gates, allowing his men in to storm the city.

When he reached a field of tall, waving grasses, he could smell the bonfires, hear the distant music of the governor’s anniversary feast where all those marked for death were gathered.

He narrowed his eyes as he gazed toward the square. The Genovese nobles were attending the ball in the gleaming marble palazzo, he knew, but it appeared Monteverdi had opened his coffers to provide the common folk with a more rustic festival in the piazza.

Bloody hell, he thought. These people were going to be underfoot. God knew he would not have one hair harmed on any Ascencioner’s head. He concluded that if the festival crowd was still there at two in the morning, he’d find some way to clear the square. He was rather resourceful when it came to creating chaos.

He walked on, intent on sizing up the gate towers.

As he neared the crowded square, once more Lazar brooded upon the prospect of being recognized, then he brushed off the idea as absurd. Nothing remained of the swaggering boy he had been. After fifteen years, his people could not be expected to know him. Besides, Ascencion thought him dead. And for all practical purposes, he reflected with a morbid sort of humor, Ascencion was right.

When he reached the square, he faltered as he gazed about him, almost without the heart to go on, for it was exactly like the festivals his mother used to delight in arranging. He smelled the traditional foods, heard the old songs the guitarist was playing for a small crowd at a nearby fire, earning his coin. He stared at the peasant faces of the fun-loving, earthy souls who had loved his father so well and who might have been his own subjects, if not for Monteverdi’s treachery.

It was strange even to think of it.

He took a few lost steps onto the warm flagstone, his soul in shreds as he stared about him, certain he was caught up in another aching dream of his childhood. The anguish of it he had borne so long made him want to lie down and die.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed two young girls looking at him, pretty creatures with flowers in their long, unbound hair, ruffled aprons, and bare feet. The dark-haired beauty ran a hot gaze down the length of him, while the blonde hid behind her, peeking at him shyly. He turned toward them with a raw sense of relief, for nothing eased his suffering like the feel of a woman’s soft arms around him, the taste, the smell, the welcome of the female body.

But he held himself back, making no move toward them, even though, voyaging here from the West Indies, he had been weeks at sea.

No, he thought a trifle bitterly, he could numb his mind in a debauch of wine and unbridled sex later. There were always willing women to be found.

Tonight all that mattered was destroying Monteverdi.

He looked resolutely away from the girls and walked on, prowling silently through the crowd. Here and there people eyed him, especially his weapons, but they quickly looked away when he met their furtive glances with a stare meant to intimidate.

At last he reached the far end of the square. Hitching a thumb in the front of his black cloth belt, he sauntered with seeming idleness toward the gate towers.

The two towers were as high as mizzenmasts, squat, fat, and bulky, with slick stone sides and a few unglassed windows. Between them, the formidable city gate stretched two wagon widths across, nearly two feet thick, of solid wood reinforced with iron. God knew Monteverdi took every precaution with security, for all the good it would soon do him.

He counted twelve soldiers outside, and Lord only knew how many were inside. He considered climbing up onto the gate itself and going in through one of the windows or setting a fire or causing some other distraction that would bring the squadron inside charging out to restore order. Of course, it might be amusing simply to bang on the door and challenge them all single-handedly, he thought wryly. Fifteen, twenty to one? It had been a while since he had faced those odds. Perhaps he should brush up on his skills.

He stopped nonchalantly to pet a stray cat, all the while keenly eyeing the west gate, when he noticed one of the soldiers peering belligerently at him.

“You there! Halt!”

Lazar looked over with an innocent expression as the plump sergeant started marching toward him. In a glance, Lazar picked out the large key ring jangling from the man’s belt.

One of those keys surely opened the iron doors that gave access to the towers, he thought.

The little red-faced sergeant stomped over and glared up at him. “Hand over those weapons! No arms inside the city walls tonight. Governor’s orders!”

“I beg your pardon,” Lazar said politely. Straightening up to his full height, he held the purring cat in his arms, scratching it under the chin.

“How’d you get past the guards? Everyone was searched at the gates! Weren’t you searched?”

Lazar shrugged.

The little man narrowed his eyes. “Young man, you’d best come with me for questioning.”

As the sergeant moved around to his side, Lazar watched him curiously, but when the little man reached to take away his guns, Lazar felled him with an elbow in the face.

He looked down almost regretfully at the unconscious man lying belly-up on the ground, another mere tool of the corrupt Council. He couldn’t blame these men for soldiering for Monteverdi if it gave them a living. When a man got hungry enough, he would serve any master, as he himself well knew. The cat jumped out of his arms and vanished into the shadows. Bending down, Lazar took the sergeant’s key ring and strolled back to the square, one thumb hooked idly in his belt as before.

Biding his time, he watched everything around him, especially Monteverdi’s dozen or so mounted guards patrolling the edges of the piazza. One was riding a giant black horse that did not like the crowd. Perhaps he could spook the big, fiery animal, Lazar thought. That would give a few dozen people a good scare and allow him to begin clearing the crowd that way.

Nah, he thought.

He riffled through the twenty keys on the sergeant’s key ring, realizing belatedly there had been no point in stealing it. They’d drill him full of lead before he had time to figure out which keys opened which locks. He was going to have to find another way, but he kept the keys just in case, jangling them idly in his hand as he strolled through the crowd, keeping an eye out for something he could safely set afire.

Meanwhile, he pondered Monteverdi’s guilty conscience. The Governor obviously lived in terror, for there was absolutely no reason for so many soldiers and so many guns to mind a crowd half made up of old ladies, such as the two walking so vexingly slowly in front of him, blocking his path.

Just then he noticed a stir in the mob ahead. Excitement surged through the crowd, and the people shifted to make way for someone’s approach. He felt an inward pang, half expecting to see Father come striding along, what with the way the people had suddenly become so animated.

He heard someone say it was the bishop.

He was about to move away when one of the old ladies in his way exclaimed, “Beatrice, look! There’s the governor’s daughter with Father Vincent. Such a lovely, good-hearted girl. Reminds me of myself when I was twenty.”

The remark stopped Lazar in his tracks. He went very still, then forced himself to look at her just so he would be prepared tomorrow.

He saw her, and his heart sank.

He picked Allegra Monteverdi out of the crowd as easily as a diamond cast upon a pile of rocks, though she was still twenty feet away. She was bending down talking to a group of peasant children. She wore a white, high-waisted dress of an airy, delicate material. She had a slender, elegant figure and chestnut-colored hair in an upswept arrangement, and as he watched her for that instant, she burst out laughing at something one of the children said.