The Pirate Prince (51 page)

She nearly sobbed aloud to hear it, wanting with all her heart to believe it was not her panicked brain playing tricks on her.

Only one person called her by that name, the Spanish version of her proper Italian title,
Principessa
, and he was far away on the king’s business, no doubt lopping off heads in his leisure time.

“I grow weary of this chase,
ma belle
,” Henri warned. She saw movement through the rows, made out tousled blond curls. She saw the Frenchman stop and cock his head, listening.

Wide-eyed, both hands pressed to her mouth to silence her ragged panting, Serafina began backing away. At a tug on her hair, she almost screamed, whirling to find that one of her long black curls had merely snagged on the grasping bushes.

“Princesa.”

She knew she heard it that time! But how could it be? She froze, her gaze darting wildly.

“Make your way to the center courtyard,” the dark, airy murmur instructed her.

Again, she could not guess which direction the whisper-soft voice had come from, almost as if its source was inside her head.

She wanted to scream out to him, but that would only alert her pursuers to where she was.

Calm
, she ordered herself as fiercely as possible. If he was here, somehow she must have faith. The possibility gave her a final reserve of strength. Darius Santiago might be an arrogant heathen, coolly insolent to everyone, especially her, but by God, he did not know the meaning of fear, and she quite believed he could do anything.

He was the king’s most trusted agent, a master spy and assassin; if ever there was dark work to be done protecting the kingdom and the royal family, he was there to shoulder it without complaint. Serafina lowered both hands from her mouth to her sides. Her chest still heaved with each breath, but she lifted her chin.

“Go to the courtyard, Your Highness. Hurry.”

“Where are you?” she breathed, trembling. “Help me.”

“I am near, but I cannot get to you.”

“Please help me.”

“Shhh,” he murmured. “Go to the inner courtyard.”

“I’m lost, I forget,” she whispered, half-choked, blinded now by the tears she had been staving off since the men first seized her. She stared through the dense green lace of the hedge trying to see him.

“Stay calm, be brave,” he said softly. “Two right turns. You’re very close. I’ll meet you there.”

“A-All right,” she choked out.

“Go now.” His whisper faded away.

For a moment, she could not seem to move. Then she pierced the cold fog of fear, forcing herself. She set out for the tiny, brick-laid courtyard, legs shaking beneath her, her scraped knee still burning from before, when she slipped and fell on the grass. The delicate mist-colored silk gown she had been so delighted to wear now had a hole in the knee. Each movement was torturous with her effort to be silent, slowed by her violent, spasmodic tremors of fear, but she painstakingly followed the lullaby of the fountain splashing in its carved stone basin.

With every inch gained, her mind chanted his name, as if she could conjure him,
Darius, Darius, Darius
. She came to the first corner. Steeled herself. Peeked around.

Safe
.

She moved on, gathering confidence. Her fists were clenched, while her heart slammed against her ribs. Images flashed through her mind of him watching over her with a look, her stern beloved knight who would always protect her. But when she had finally grown up, nothing had gone according to plan.

Darius, don’t let them get me
.

Ahead she saw she’d have to slip by a break in the lane. She prayed her pursuers weren’t down there to see her pass. At the break in the hedge, she hesitated, her courage faltering.

A bead of sweat ran down her cheek.

Let them put that in the newspapers
, she thought madly.
Shocking news! The Princess Royal sweats!

She shut her eyes briefly, said a prayer, and darted by, stealing a fleeting glance as she went. In the middle of the lane, some twenty feet away, Philippe lay sprawled on his face, unmoving. A length of wire glinted in the moonlight. He had been garroted, she realized, sickened.

Darius had passed this way.

She pressed on with stiff, jerky steps, while cold horror spiraled down to her belly. The cicadas’ song stretched to one flat, vibrating note she thought would snap her nerves.

When she reached the end of the lane, she grimaced, fighting a silent, mighty battle for the courage to look around the corner. She forced herself.

Clear!
The entrance to the courtyard was in sight at the far end of the corridor. She was almost there. All she had to do was pass the gap in the bushes halfway down the lane, where it intersected another path.

She turned the corner and ran for it.

Her breath raked over her teeth, her bare feet bore her swiftly over the silky grass. The gap was coming, while straight ahead lay the entrance to the courtyard. The sky flung a handful of rain on the breeze into her face. Clouds covered the gold half-moon.

“Get back here, you little bitch!” a deep voice roared.

She shrieked and looked over her shoulder as Philippe tore around the corner behind her.

As she passed the gap, running full force, Henri exploded out of the intersecting path. He caught her in both arms and she screamed. Philippe was bearing down fast, and then Darius was there, lethal silence and grace gliding out of the shadows, attacking with the leap of a black jaguar.

Henri lost his hold on her trying to ward off Darius. She tore free, tackled her way clear of him, heard ripping silk as she pulled, wrenching forward. She sprinted toward the courtyard, sobbing now. She stubbed her toe on the bricks, stumbling into the small enclosure. She passed the leering Pan fountain with its mossy mouth open, trickling water, and flung herself into the shadowed corner. She prayed Philippe would choose to stay and help his friend fight Darius rather than coming straightaway after her, but the prayer was no sooner through her mind when the Frenchman loomed in the entrance between the neatly-trimmed hedges.

Panting hard, he saw her at once, and his sneer turned his handsome face ugly. He strode right to her and hauled her up from her crouched position. She cried out. He hurled her about-face and put a knife to her throat just as Darius came running to the entrance.

She sobbed his name.

Philippe wrenched her. “Shut up!”

Darius stopped short, taking in the scene before him. His fiery, jet-black eyes pierced the darkness with hellfire intensity. The dark, brooding beauty of his face was harsh with icy fury. The gold, watery moonlight glanced off his body, which was sleek and lean, tall and impeccably attired in black.

Serafina fixed her stare and all her faith on him as she clung with both icy hands to the steely arm around her throat.

“Stand aside, Santiago,” Philippe warned him. “You come any closer, she dies.”

Danger emanated from him as he sauntered a few paces into the courtyard, and spiked Philippe with a sharp glance, a cold, narrow half-smile on his lips.

She watched him pace casually toward them, her heart in her throat. She stared imploringly at him, but he did not look at her. Her gaze dropped to his sweetly-sculpted mouth, marred on one side by a small, curved scar, like a bitter twist of contempt for the whole world.
Fire and ice
, the palace ladies said of him.

“I thought you were a professional, Saint-Laurent,” he said affably, his voice tinged with a Spanish accent. “Is this how you conduct business? Putting knives to young girls’ throats? I often wonder how you people can stomach it, serving a man who is without honor.”

“I didn’t come here to chat with you, Santiago,” Philippe ground out. “I’m going now, and she’s coming with me.”

“I don’t think so,” he said very softly.

The tension sharpened to a razor’s edge as the two men stared at each other for a long, nerve-wracking moment.

Serafina could no longer bear the silence. “Please,” she choked out, “let me go.”

At her plea, Darius’s black eyes flicked to her, and as he gazed at her, a trace of some mysterious emotion softened the dramatic angularity of his face, then vanished, but she could almost swear that, for a fleeting instant, he had faltered.

The keen-witted Philippe had seen it, too.

“What’s this?” he asked in smooth amusement. “Have I stumbled upon a weakness? Is it possible the great Santiago has an Achilles’ heel?”

Darius’s black eyes narrowed on him, glittering in the dark. “Lower your weapon,” he said coldly. “We both know he doesn’t want her harmed.”

“Ah, but Santiago, you are blocking my path.”

“Release the Princess,” he clipped out tautly, his teeth gritted. “Surrender is your sole option. Your men are dead, and you know full well I want you alive.”

“Hmm. He grows angry. Now
that
is unprofessional.” Philippe’s next taunting aside was for her. “I think he fancies you, my dear. Look out. They say he is a heartbreaker.”

Philippe was not as sharp as she’d imagined, she thought miserably. Little did he know that Darius had naught for her but arrogance and idle mockery, letting her know with Lucifer’s own courtesy that he judged her shallow, frivolous, self-centered, and weak. She had no idea what she had ever done to offend him. He used to like her, she thought, when she was a child.

“Don’t make things worse for yourself, Saint-Laurent,” Darius said coolly, smiling again in his unnerving way. “I’ll remember how you annoyed me when you and I have a talk later about your associates and your orders.”

“Ah, but my orders don’t exist, Santiago. I don’t exist. I cannot go back empty-handed, so you see, you’ll get nothing from me,” Philippe snarled. “Only one of us is leaving this insufferable maze alive, and it won’t be you.”

Darius started towards them again with slow, wary strides.

“Stay back!”

He paused.

“Move away from the Princess,” he said very quietly.

Against her body, Serafina could feel Philippe’s heart pounding in his chest. He tightened his hold on her neck. She felt his increasing desperation. She glanced at the knife poised so near her throat, then shut her eyes, praying.

“What do you think of her, Santiago?” Philippe asked in a sudden tone of brittle jocularity. “They say she is the most beautiful woman alive—or in the top three at least. Certainly my patron agrees. The new Helen of Troy, he says. Men fight wars to possess such beauty. Shall we have a look?”

Her eyes flew open as Philippe laid hold of her dress, which Henri had already torn. She gasped as he ripped it open down her back with one lightning-like movement.

“There, there,
ma belle
,” he crooned, “don’t fret.”

She sobbed once, cringing where she stood. She lowered her head, powerless to stop him as he pushed the ripped ends of her dress down to her waist, baring her upper body. Cheeks aflame, she bit her lower lip, fighting tears of rage. She tried to pull her waist-length hair forward to cover her breasts, but Philippe protested.

“
Non, non, cherie
. Let us see what beauty God hath wrought.” With his left hand, he brushed her hair softly back again behind her shoulders.

“You bastard,” Darius whispered.

She could not bear to meet his eyes.

Hands at her sides, she stood there shaking with humiliation and rage.

Just then the night sky flung down another swift cloud-break of cold rain. She flinched, then shuddered when the first drops hit her bare skin.

She could feel a volcanic force of pure rage building from where Darius stood, but somehow the only thing she could focus on was her pride, her last defense. She held fast to it as if it were a tangible weapon.

She lifted her head high against the crushing shame. Tears in her eyes, she stared straight ahead at nothing.

Philippe laughed at her. “Haughty thing. Yes, you know you are stunning, don’t you?” he murmured, running one finger from the curve of her shoulder down her arm. She fought not to sob. “Skin like silk. Come and touch her, Santiago. She is exquisite. I don’t blame you—any man would have a weakness for such a creature. We can share her if you like.”

Her stricken gaze flew to Darius. But then a cold shaft of horror spiked down her spine, for he was staring hungrily at her bare breasts.

Her stomach plummeted. Only now did Serafina discover the real meaning of fear.

“Darius?” she said in a pleading whisper.

Philippe’s fingers flicked in eager agitation over the handle of the knife, but his smooth, sure voice held a note of triumph. “Really, after all you’ve done for your king, isn’t a taste of her the least you deserve?”

Darius looked up from his intimate perusal of her body, and she caught the flash of white teeth at his cold, wicked smile. Slowly, he sauntered toward them.

“A vision,” he agreed. “What do you suggest?”

Serafina’s very mind choked. Images exploded in her memory of the last time she had seen Darius, about a year ago, when she had opened the door to the music room in the middle of the afternoon to find him ravishing one of his many lovers against the wall. His loose white shirt had been hanging from his shoulders, brown chest bared, his black breeches clinging upon his lean hips as the woman fumbled to undress him. When she opened the door, he had looked over, locked his gaze on hers for a second. She still remembered the smoldering, mocking look in his eyes as she stood there in the doorway, mouth agape, eyes wide. She remembered the narrow, insolent smile he had sent her before she slammed the door and fled. It was quite the same as the one on his scarred lips now.

Trembling violently, she could not bear to look at him as he stalked slowly toward them.

She lowered her head, heart pounding madly. Darius came to stand perhaps three inches away from her, so close his chest nearly brushed her breasts. She could feel him breathing against her.

She was trapped between the two tall, ruthless men, her breath jagged, her exposed skin racing with shivers, hot and cold.

He was going to touch her any moment, she knew. Cheeks blazing, she wanted to die. Usually she was quick-witted but at the moment she was mute, staring brokenly at a silver button on his coat right at her eye-level. She could not think of one thing to say to save herself, could not find her voice to invoke her father’s name or the name of her betrothed, the mighty Russian warlord, Prince Anatole Tyurinov.