The Pirate Prince (48 page)

Could life be that simple?

He pressed his eyes shut, longing to believe it.
But she will be taken from me. I cannot bear it. Why were they all taken from me? Why do I lose everyone?

Then, quite distinctly, he could hear Vicar’s voice in his head, his teacher, trying patiently to ingrain some lesson of logic in him to temper his hotheadedness.

Invert the question, lad. Mulehead, you’re looking at it backward
.

Moments passed, and Lazar didn’t move, barely breathing.

Perhaps, he thought carefully, he had been so wrapped up in raging against misfortune and asking why it all had happened that he had never considered he might choose instead to be grateful for what he
had
.

He shocked himself by realizing he had much to be grateful for—thirteen good years with a mother who had adored him, a father like a hero from Greek myth. Then came his serious little brother, a little sister with a crazy giggle. By some miracle, he’d been spared the storm and the sea. He’d found friends when he had needed them most. He was alive, he was strong, and because of his enemy’s daughter, he’d tasted the most sublime sweetness life had to offer, unconditional love.

She had wrapped him in her love, total and unrestrained,
and that was the gift he’d been given
.

Yes, he thought, staring intensely at the glistening sea.

Allegra
was
alive. Allegra was more miracle than he deserved, and, by God, if there was a curse, their love was strong enough to break it.

He stared down at the swirling waters with a profound sense of humility, and for a moment he bowed his head, his whole spirit moved unto silence.

Thank You, he said, pressing his eyes closed.

Abruptly he rose. There wasn’t a moment to lose. He had wasted too much time already.

What if she wouldn’t forgive him? The thought was too terrifying to entertain. As he strode back swiftly to the waiting cortege, he assured himself that if she refused him, why, he would simply kidnap her and force her to love him all over again.

She didn’t have a chance. He would love her until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

He commandeered a thoroughbred from one of the courtier’s, gave the princess his briefest regrets, and swung up into the saddle without further explanation. Impatiently, he tore off his cravat and the satin frock coat—
too much damned civility
—and galloped hell-for-leather to the convent with but one goal in mind.

To beg his queen to take him back before they wasted one more precious moment of the time they had to share on this earth under starry heaven.

Allegra sat in the chapel for a long time after vespers were done, huddled into the black broadcloth novice habit Mother Superior had given her. She twirled a length of her hair pensively around her finger and thought about how she must cut it off when she joined the order.

Lazar would not like that.

With that thought immediately came the little invisible needle plunging into her heart again. She sighed, and her eyes watered.

Stop
, she thought, squeezing away the tears.

The votive candles flickered over the serene face of the pallid marble Virgin in the alcove, and the ghost echoes of the sisters’ crystalline plainchants wafted on the air with the tender scent of wildflowers placed about the small stone altar.

At length she got up from the pew, genuflected wearily, and left the chapel, turning down the dark stone corridor with her mind full of him, inky lashes, sensual laughter, a wicked grin, ecstasy.

Allegra Monteverdi, these are not a nun’s thoughts
.

She hugged herself as she walked down the hall, awash with a bereft, whole-body misery. When she turned the corner, she found six big Viennese soldiers marching toward her.

One addressed her in careful French, the language of the courts. “Miss Monteverdi, please come with us.”

“What for?”

“We have orders to escort you and your fiancé to the coast.”

“My fiancé?” she exclaimed, taken aback.

“Darling, at last,” Domenic said as he came around the corner just a moment behind.

She stared at him, automatically backing away from the soldiers. She knew that smug look on his face, and, to her horror, she saw he was armed with a pistol.

“What’s going on? Where did you get that weapon, and where are your guards? I thought Lazar had you moved to the jail!”

He took her arm firmly above the elbow. “The king is not the only power here, my dear. His queen doesn’t want you underfoot,” he murmured to her in Italian so the Austrians wouldn’t understand. “In exchange for my freedom, I have agreed to get you out of the way so she can have her husband to herself. But you and I, darling, we shall have each other as we intended to from the start.”

“I can’t go with you! I need to stay here, and you must stand trial for your crimes,” she said angrily. “Does the princess know about the charges against you?”

“No more arguing, darling. You are in no danger. I’ll look after you from here on in—”

“As you looked after me the night Lazar had to interfere?” she demanded, wrenching her arm free of his grasp.

He clenched his angular jaw for a moment, green eyes snapping sparks.

“Neither of us is wanted on Ascencion, Allegra,” he said quickly, his voice taut. “Don’t forget you are the traitor’s daughter. The dons of the Council have betrayed me just as they betrayed your father. Now, stop arguing—”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There’s no time to explain.”

“Tell me! How did the Council betray Papa? You’re hiding something.”

He stared for a second at the ceiling with a look of failing patience, then he looked back down at her. “Will you quit fighting this if I tell you?”

“Fine,” she lied.

He spoke swiftly in a low voice. “Your mother’s death was not suicide. She was eliminated because she was going to expose the conspiracy against the Fiori. She knew her own life was in danger, so she sent you away to your aunt in Paris. Your father never knew the truth.”

She stepped back as she turned white, both hands over her mouth.

“Now, come on, before our escorts here start to question their orders and change their minds.”

“I’m not going with you,” she choked out. “I belong here.”

“You lied? You?” he asked in astonishment. His eyes narrowed, and he gripped her arm harder, turning her about-face toward the exit at the end of the hall. “Your new talents are intriguing, but you fail to understand. You are the key to unlock my cage, Allegra, and time is ticking away.” He began dragging her down the hall.

“I cannot leave him!” she wrenched out, fighting him.

He stopped and stared down at her. “You can’t be serious. That man is an animal.”

“I won’t go with you. I love him, Domenic, and you must face justice!”

“This is absurd,” he said in exasperation to the wall, then he switched to his condescending patience that she knew so well, placating her like a sulky tot. “Don’t worry, darling. You will forget him in time. I care for you, Allegra. I always have.”

He reached for her arm again.

“I am carrying his child!” she shouted in French so the soldiers would understand and see they mustn’t take her away.

There
. She had said it aloud at last, she thought in shaken relief. No longer was her pregnancy a secret she would try to keep from herself.

The Austrians glanced awkwardly at one another, but Domenic’s face turned white.

“That is all the more reason the princess will want her gone,” Domenic said to the men. He reached for her. “You’re coming with me.”

“No!” She tried to run, but the big guards caught her.

“I’m afraid he’s right, miss,” one said. “Questions of inheritance and so forth.”

When she drew breath to scream for Sully and the other men of the Brethren, the Austrian clapped a hand over her mouth.

“You disappoint me, Allegra,” Domenic murmured, looming over her. “I never thought you’d enjoy being any man’s whore. Now I shall look forward to yet another use for you.”

She kicked at him to no avail.

As he moved back a step to evade her efforts with a grim smile, far behind him down the hall, she caught a glimpse of Darius. The boy was stock-still, staring at what was happening. Then he vanished silently, unseen by the men, just as Domenic took her from the soldier and half dragged, half carried her down the torch-lit hall.

Riding up to the convent, Lazar sprang off the blowing horse in the cobbled courtyard and tossed the reins to one of the idle Brethren guarding the well-lit front entrance.

“Evenin,’ Cap,” the man said, then added hastily, “I mean Yer Majesty.”

Lazar grinned as he hauled open the huge wooden door and went in. In the vast dining hall he found his men lounging.

“What are you doing here?” Sully asked, but even before he answered, the Irishman’s face cracked into a grin.

“Where is she?” Lazar cried in a jolly, booming voice.

“Ach, he’s come to his senses!” Sully laughed, clapping his hands together.

“I thought she was a shrew?” cried Donaldson.

“Not if she was the last woman on earth!” guffawed Mutt.

“We all knew you couldn’t live without her, lad.” Doctor Raleigh chuckled.

“Down that way.” Sully pointed to the stone corridor off the dining hall. “Poor little mite’s in the chapel. Wanted to be alone, pining over ye. Near about been breakin’ our hearts, she has.”

Lazar clapped Sully on the back. “My friends, wish me well. I go to grovel for my life,” he declared.

He was striding toward the hallway when the stony vault filled with a high-pitched cry.

“Mr. Sully! Donaldson!”

Darius came tearing down the torch-lit corridor, wide-eyed. He skidded to a halt in surprise when he saw Lazar.

“
Capitán!
They’ve got Allegra! They’re taking her away!”

“Who?” he demanded as the men leaped to their feet.

“The foreign guards and Clemente!”

Lazar was already running down the hall, sword in hand, his men a short distance behind him. Heart racing with dread, he turned the corner just as the last Austrian guard was going out the formidable door at the end of the hall, a side exit.

“Halt!” he roared.

The guard turned. “Majesty!”

The man froze as ordered in the open doorway. As Lazar went racing toward him, thunder on his brow, he saw that the other Austrian guards had heard and stopped as well, not daring to disobey him, but he pushed past them with the awful feeling that he knew what he was going to find.

“Stay back!” Clemente screamed at him, pressing a pistol to Allegra’s head.

Lazar froze.

Allegra sobbed out his name.

Lazar lowered his sword, gazing deep into his beloved’s eyes as he approached slowly.

“It’s all right,
chérie
,” he said softly. “I’m here now.”

She stared at him for all she was worth, pale beneath her freckles.

“Make him let me go, Lazar, please,” she said in a quavering voice.

“What do you want, Clemente? Let her go, and I’ll meet every one of your demands.”

“You expect me to believe you? You—you pirate?” The viscount laughed at him in bitter hysteria.

“Let Allegra go. What do you want? Amnesty? Granted. Money? Name the sum.”

“I want my future back!” he bellowed. “This island is mine!”

“No, this island is mine,” Lazar replied. All his concentration on Domenic’s face, he switched tactics in response to the fear in the viscount’s green eyes. Domenic had only one shot with that pistol.

If he could deflect that bullet to himself, Lazar thought swiftly, Allegra would be safe, then the Brethren would fall upon Clemente instantly.

“What a coward you are, Clemente,” he said pleasantly. “Can’t you fight your own battles? You need to hide behind a woman’s skirts to save yourself?”

“Shut up!” he screamed.

“Quake-buttocks,” Lazar answered softly, a mad, wild glint coming into his eyes.

“I am not afraid of you!”

“You should be,” Lazar advised him, “because this time I’m not merely going to break your little wrist. I’m going to break every bone in your body, then I’m going to get out my knife and do some carving, as you did on my men.”

“Oh, God,” Allegra sobbed.

“You like sharks, Clemente? There are many in the waters off our coast. Hammerheads.”

“Shut up! I’ll kill you.”

“You think you can hurt me? Come on, try. Give me that bullet. Let me show you this talent I have for coming back from the dead.”

“Lazar, no,” Allegra moaned.

“It’s all right,
chérie
. Look, little Domenic, I’m only—what—seven, eight feet away? I’ll bet you can’t even hit me from here.”

He bore down on them slowly as Domenic backed away toward the waiting carriage, Allegra in his arms, the gun still pressed to her head.

Completely focused on Clemente’s weakening will, Lazar sheathed Excelsior and held his hands out. “See? Now my hands are empty. Go on—give me that bullet, Clemente. We both know it’s me you really want to kill. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were rid of me? You could get it all back, couldn’t you? Ah, but you’re too much of a quake-buttocks to try. You just want to hide behind a woman and run. But you’ll never get away.”

“You son of a bitch,” Clemente said to him, panting now. “I’ll shoot her! You’ll lose her
and
the baby!”

Lazar stopped in his tracks. He looked at Allegra, stunned.

Tears were streaming down her face.

“Please, Lazar,” she whispered.

In the moment that he was distracted, staring in astonishment at her, Domenic took aim at Lazar, but as he pulled the trigger, Allegra shoved his arm upward with an angry cry, breaking free of him. The bullet whizzed over Lazar’s head. Roaring, Domenic bolted to the carriage and scrabbled up onto the driver’s seat.

Lazar was behind him in seconds. The guards stopped the horses before they’d taken a second step. Lazar pulled Domenic down bodily off the driver’s seat and slammed him against the side of it, punching him twice square in the face with all his strength. Then he threw Clemente to the ground and unsheathed Excelsior.