The Pirate Prince (6 page)

The only question was why he had bothered to save her.

“You’re the one who was following her,” Domenic growled. “You never slept with her.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted, “not yet.”

She snorted. Arrogant heathen.

Folding her arms over her chest, she leaned back against the tree with an irresistible sense of satisfaction. So, she mused, he had been following her. She knew it. But why?

“Allegra, go into the house. This ruffian is obviously with the rebels.”

“You locked the doors, my lord,” she said. “Remember? Besides, I don’t think he is.” She looked him over. “No one in the square knew him.”

“Miss Monteverdi, don’t go anywhere, please,” the stranger cajoled her. “When I saw you, I sought a proper introduction, truly I did—”

“Ha,” she replied.

“But his lordship here interfered before I was able to procure one. Bet you’re glad I persisted, eh?” He tossed her a beguiling grin that quite took her breath away.

“Allegra,” Domenic said tautly, “go and shout for the guards to arrest this scoundrel, or what’s left of him when I am through with him.”

“For what crime, my lord?” she asked.

“Trespassing.”

“That hardly seems fair—considering.”

“Do not contradict me,” Domenic snapped, never taking his eyes off the stranger, his dagger glinting in the moonlight as the two men circled in fighting stance.

“He is not trespassing,” she said. “It is my house. I shall say I invited him. Don’t worry, Domenic. I think if he wanted to kill you, you would be dead already.”

The stranger belted out his jolly laugh again. “How now, do I hear a compliment for my lowly self? Now I shall fight for you all the more fiercely, my lady. Apologize, villain, or I shall be forced to deal harshly with you,” he commanded her betrothed in a thunderous tone full of a humor Domenic failed to appreciate.

Allegra rolled her eyes, charmed in spite of herself, while Domenic’s eyes narrowed to slits of glittering green.

“Get out of here,” she told the man. “They will hang you.”

“They won’t have time,” Domenic declared, and charged at him.

Allegra watched in distress, desperate that no blood be shed but knowing that if she called for the guards to pry them apart, only her misguided rescuer would end up punished for his gallantry, and at this point she rather felt Domenic deserved a thrashing.

Who on earth is he?

Wearily she lifted her hand to her forehead, watching the two cut and slice at each other and slam each other about, dueling, it seemed, for her honor.

Aunt Isabelle would have been so thrilled for her.

But gazing at the spectacle, all she could think was that here was yet more proof that her plans for peace were a waste of time. It could almost make one wax philosophical on the brute nature of man, but she was so tired from hostessing the ball and organizing the festival that all she wanted to do was go up to her rooms to sleep and let the two fools knock each other senseless. Nevertheless, she remained, flinching every time their blows connected.

The soldiers were bound to hear the fight soon. She had to stay so she could explain that the Ascencion man was only trying to help because he’d heard their struggle. She couldn’t have them chopping off his lovely head.

For a moment she studied the stranger by the dim orange illumination of the garden lanterns. He was arrestingly good-looking, with a broad, elegant forehead under his skullcap, and finely etched brows, charcoal black, with a devilish flare at the outer corners. Beneath the poignant sweep of inky lashes, his large, soulful eyes were as black as the night sea. He had a proud, Roman sort of nose and the rugged square jaw of a born conquerer, but his lips were full and sensual, made for kisses and telling pretty lies.

He grinned again with that mad, wild glint in his eyes as Domenic slashed at him, whirling easily out of the way to grab his arm, flipping the viscount onto the grass as if Domenic weighed nothing.

“Are you through yet, or am I going to have to hurt you?” the stranger asked politely.

“Hurt him,” she muttered.

Domenic climbed to his feet, his face an icy mask of rage. “You will die for this, Ascencion dog,” he told him.

“For this? Why, this is nothing,” he growled, launching at him.

Within the next few minutes, Allegra began to worry. The duel grew fiercer, but even when she decided to go for the guards before either man really got hurt, she remembered the garden gate was locked. Domenic had the key.

“Won’t you both please stop it,” she began.

The stranger cast her a brief glance as if to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere, but it was a mistake. Domenic darted in at him, swiping at him with his dagger. Allegra gasped as the dagger sliced across the stranger’s left arm at his biceps, cutting his smooth, golden skin. Blood ran instantly from the wound.

Laughing softly, Domenic backed away. “Have at you,” he said smugly.

“Well, how do you like that?” the stranger murmured in surprise, peering down at his arm. When he looked up from the wound, his gaze was like a lightning bolt. “Rather stings,” he said slowly.

They stared at each other. Allegra was suddenly terrified.

She saw that if she did not take control of the situation at once, he would kill Domenic, and, as a result, he would hang—two young men dead because of her.

“That’s enough, both of you,” she ordered them firmly, though her voice shook. “Sir, I will get you a doctor. Domenic,” she said, holding out her hand as she went toward him, though she was frightened of how perfectly sinister he looked with that bloody dagger in his hand. “You’ve proved your point. Now, give me the keys, and remove yourself from this house.”

Domenic tossed her a cold, cruel smile, pleased with himself. “I’ll deal with you later, darling. First I’ve got to finish with this insolent…filth.”

Even as Allegra cast the stranger a fearful glance, he hurled his knife away, staring at Domenic through narrowed eyes. The big, curved knife struck deep into the soil, shuddering where it landed.

Domenic looked at the leather-wrapped hilt jutting out of the ground, then at him.

“Now, my friend,” the stranger said softly, cracking his knuckles, “you have annoyed me.”

Allegra stared at him, riveted with awful fascination. Domenic raised his dagger, bracing himself for another round, the stranger’s blood staining his hand and the Mechlin lace of his sleeve.

There was a second of silence, stillness, all action suspended by the power of the stranger’s burning black predator stare. Allegra could not look away.

Then he attacked.

Without warning, he leaped at Domenic, tackling him into the flower bed by the garden wall. He tore the dagger out of Domenic’s hand and cast it aside. Allegra cried out, running to the pair as the stranger began to beat Domenic so brutally she thought he would kill him.

“Stop, stop,” she pleaded, not daring to get too near the powerful recoil of that right arm.

After four or five blows, Domenic’s face was half covered in blood.

“That’s enough!” she shouted.

Still fighting him, Domenic made a wild grab for the pistol in the stranger’s holster. The stranger knocked his hand away. Domenic’s stray grasp instead clutched the trailing end of the man’s skullcap, and it came off, revealing a head startlingly shorn to a coarse black stubble like that which roughened his face.

The barbarian snarled at him and grabbed Domenic’s hand. With one deft, awful blow, he slammed Domenic’s hand against the brick trim of the flower bed, breaking his wrist. She actually heard it snap.

She gasped in horror, covering her mouth with both hands as Domenic let out a short, piercing scream, then stifled it back in pride.

“Oh, you’re a tough one, are you?” the stranger muttered, then knocked him out cold with one final, massive punch across the face.

Wide-eyed, Allegra stood there in shock, both hands still clapped over her mouth.

As if ashamed of his shorn hair, the stranger quickly fixed the skullcap back upon his head with one hand, an absurdly vulnerable gesture in contrast to the fierce, chiseled menace of his face. Meanwhile, blood was running in rivulets down his arm.

Slowly Allegra lowered her hands from her mouth. “Is—is he dead?” she whispered.

“No, he is not dead,” he growled as he began searching Domenic’s pockets. It appeared the stranger was going to rob him right before her eyes, but instead he merely took out the keys to the garden gate.

When the stranger swept to his feet beside her, she found he towered over her by at least a foot. The man was as big as a gladiator. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. All of a sudden, with Domenic unconscious, no one else in sight, and the walls of the garden hemming her in with this hard, bloodied man, she could not comprehend why she had trusted him for one second.

He stared down at her, his black eyes sparkling like a wintry, star-filled sky. Slowly he walked toward her, every rippling muscle limned by blue moonlight. It was pure instinct that made her back away, though his voice was soft seduction.

“And where might you be going, my pet?”

She whirled to run. He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back against his granite-hewn body with a low, mean little laugh.

“No, no,
chérie
, I’ve earned you now.” He held her with a grip that was far abler and more powerful than Domenic’s. “You should have listened to your fiancé.”

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice shaking with terror.

He lowered his head over her shoulder. “Prince Charming,” he whispered. “Ain’t it obvious?”

She fought, kicked, punched, but it was useless. Without a word, he marched across the garden, all but dragging her by the wrist. Terrified, she pulled and pulled, fighting to free herself, but his grip was like an iron manacle.

“Let me go! Here—take my jewels,” she tried desperately. “They’re diamonds and emeralds. You can have them. I won’t tell anyone about you. Just go—”

He laughed at her. “Ah, Miss Monteverdi, some men can be bought. I’m not one of them.”

As they crossed the grass, he swooped down with lethal grace to retrieve his knife, then slipped it into his belt with such nonchalance, she marveled that he did not open his own side. He stopped to unlock the gate and threw it open with a bang, making no effort to be silent. She clung with both hands to the lattice of the iron gate, but he pried her free.

“What do you want with me?” she cried.

“Just be calm and do as I say.”

He seized her by the waist and tossed her up onto a big stamping, snorting black horse that might have come galloping straight out of Hell in answer to his whistle, except for the regiment’s insignia emblazoned on its saddle pad. She barely had time to wonder what had happened to its former master.

Before she had quite gained her balance, the stranger was swinging up into the saddle behind her.

My God, he is kidnapping me
. She couldn’t believe it. Domenic had been right all along.

The stranger was one of the rebels.

When she realized this, it took away some of her immediate terror, because she knew he could not harm her, or else Papa would never meet his faction’s demands. Therefore, she was safe, more or less. She forced herself to be rational.

Normally she would never have approved of such extreme measures, but maybe a rash act like this was the only way to make Papa and the Council listen to the people. Maybe her abduction would ultimately bring about the higher good of Ascencion.

With that thought, she decided to cooperate, not that he was giving her much choice.

Yet her heart sank, because she knew for certain the bold rebel would hang. Even if she came back home unscathed, Papa would have him hunted and killed for his part in this. And if her father didn’t, Domenic surely would.

“Hold on to me,” he ordered as they heard the first shouts of the guards.

She obeyed, slipping her hands around his hard, lean waist under the black vest, his warm golden skin like velvet-sheathed marble under her hands, slick with a fine sheen of sweat. He shifted her against him, pulling her onto his lap with one hard arm around her stomach, then he wheeled the horse onto the road leading away from the city. He gathered the reins in his other hand and clucked to the horse, giving its sides a light kick.

The next thing she knew, they were racing off at a gallop.

CHAPTER THREE