Princess Annie (38 page)

“I wish I’d never come here,” Annie lamented, reckless with pain.

“So do I,” Rafael replied, rising slowly to his feet and gazing down at her with tormented eyes. “Believe me, so do I.”

With that, he went out, leaving Annie to a very somber and uncertain future. Presently, she got off the couch, sniffling, and took herself back to her room, where she splashed cold water on her face and willed the starch back into her knees.

That done, she marched down to the infirmary, head held high, and found Kathleen already there. The maid was sitting by Tom Wallcreek’s bed, combing his great mass of bushy hair, and she blushed when she saw Annie.

Love, it seemed, was everywhere. Perhaps, God willing, this pair would have more success.

“Oh, miss—just look at your pale face!” Kathleen cried, bolting off her stool when she’d gotten a second look at her friend. “Don’t tell me you watched the hanging!”

“All right,” Annie said. “I won’t.”

Kathleen clapped a hand over her mouth, plainly horrified, but Annie shifted her gaze to Josiah, who had the good grace to look abashed.

Tom sat up straighter in his cot. “It’s almost a pity, this being the end of the St. James family,” he said. “You would have made a fine mistress for such a house as this one, Annie Trevarren.”

Even here, Annie marveled, people knew about her and Rafael. She said nothing.

Josiah made a scoffing sound. “A pity, is it?” he snapped, gesturing toward the near-dead man in the cot on the other side of Tom’s. “Tell that to poor Harry, over there, with all his marks and mended bones. He’d not mourn the end of such a family.”

Annie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Josiah said, raising his voice a little to override Tom’s furious protest, “he bears the mark of a St. James whip on near every part of him. And do you know why? Because the last prince got a bastard off his only daughter, and drowned the babe in a brook when it was over, like a motherless kitten. Harry’s crime was that he tried to save the little one, and got His Highness’s fine clothes drenched in the attempt.”

Annie felt her knees go weak again and stiffened them. “The last prince must have been a horrible man,” she allowed. “But Rafael is decent and fair. He’d never do such a thing.”

Josiah shrugged, his expression as obdurate as ever, and quoted, “‘The sins of the fathers—’”

Instinctively, Annie laid a hand to her flat abdomen. If the fruits of sin could be passed down from one generation to another, perhaps a just reward could, too. Rafael would leave a heritage of honor and strength, courage and intelligence for his son or daughter.

Realization sparked in Tom’s eyes when he looked from Annie’s face to her hand and back again, followed by the most abject sorrow.

Annie turned away, unable to bear his pity, and fled the infirmary. For the first time since she’d appointed herself to the position of nurse, she shirked her duties.

The courtyard was empty, when she stepped outside, but the scaffold loomed, sturdy and ominous. Annie could cheerfully have set fire to the thing, but she knew someone would only put out the blaze before it had done any real harm.

She passed by it, through the village, which seemed unusually quiet that day, and up the hill to the graveyard. Rafael’s late wife, the Princess Georgiana, was buried there, along with generations of St. Jameses. Annie did not pause to pay her respects, but went over the knoll to the other side, where lesser personages were laid to rest.

There, six soldiers were in the process of burying their rebellious comrade, Peter Maitland. Their faces were set and grim, and Annie wondered if any of them bore a grudge on the dead man’s behalf. Nearby, earth mounded raw upon it, was the resting place of Jeremy Covington.

Annie felt a little shudder go through her. So much death, and it was probably only the beginning.

One of the soldiers looked up. “You wanted something, miss?” he asked, with a sort of annoyed deference.

His tone took Annie aback for a moment, but then she realized that she didn’t belong in this place. She was intruding.

She shook her head and turned away.

By Saturday morning, the hated scaffold had been partially dismantled and dragged around to the back of the castle, out of sight of the wedding guests. Not, Rafael reflected ruefully, standing at one of the study windows, that the structure had ever seemed to trouble them much.

“Rafael?”

He turned at the sound of the small, feminine voice behind him and smiled to see Phaedra standing there. She looked too young, suddenly, to be a bride. He remembered her with pigtails and skinned knees, though his encounters with her had been rare and brief, because he had spent most of his life in England.

Rafael held out his arms to his sister and she scurried into his embrace, clutching him tightly. Almost desperately. He kissed the top of her dark head, and she looked up into his eyes.

“You’ll be married today,” he said, unnecessarily. The whole keep was in an uproar of preparation and almost frenzied festivity.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then replied with a shaky smile, “Yes.”

He smoothed her lovely hair. “I know you’ve had your doubts about this marriage,” he said tenderly, “but Chandler is a good man and he will look after you.”

Phaedra nodded, her eyes feverishly bright and her cheeks flushed. “I’ll be safe and happy,” she said, looking away for a moment and then turning her gaze back to Rafael’s face, as if by an act of will. “I wanted to tell you that I love you, for all that we’ve never truly known each other very well, and I shall hate leaving you behind.”

Rafael smiled. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart, especially not today of all days. There are worse things, you know, than living out one’s destiny.”

Phaedra’s pretty face tightened into an expression of ladylike fury. “Damn your destiny,” she spat. “If I were strong enough, I’d knock you senseless and carry you out of this coffin of a castle myself!”

“But you’re not,” Rafael reminded her.

She seemed to sag a little, to become smaller. “No,” she agreed. “I’m not. Will you promise me, at least, that you’ll do whatever you must to survive?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “But I will vow to take no foolish chances. Is that good enough for you?”

She echoed his response to her earlier question. “No,” she said, “but I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get and I shall have to settle.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Remember, Rafael, I am and shall always be your loyal subject. And so will my handsome bridegroom.”

Rafael frowned. He had never questioned his sister’s loyalty, or that of her future husband. Why, then, should she make so solemn an avowal on such a joyous occasion? Ah, but he did not need to ask, he thought, smiling again. Phaedra was a woman, and women were mysterious creatures, full of schemes and secrets.

The herbal rinse Phaedra put on Annie’s hair that morning in the royal bedchamber smelled like pig swill, but it did the job. Annie’s red-gold tresses dried to a rich brown. Beneath the multilayered wedding veil, she would look enough like the princess to fool everyone in the keep.

She hoped.

“The way this stuff stinks,” Annie protested, turning on the vanity bench to look directly into Phaedra’s dancing eyes, “we’ll be lucky if Mr. Haslett doesn’t object to the marriage on principle.”

Phaedra smiled. “He won’t object,” she said. “Chandler thinks he’s getting my fortune. He’d go through with the ceremony even if I—if
you
smelled like a henhouse.”

At midmorning, the splendid wedding dress was carried into Phaedra’s chamber by Miss Rendennon herself and no less than six helpers. Watching from behind the changing screen as the gown was carefully laid out on the princess’s bed, Annie felt a wicked thrill at the prospect of wearing it.

Her pleasure faded, along with the odor in her hair, as the day wore on. It wasn’t to be a real wedding, after all. Rafael wasn’t the groom, and she would be an imposter, not a real bride.

Annie yearned for the whole disastrous experience to be over, and yet she clung to each moment as it passed. Rafael had told her he loved her the day of the hanging but he’d also warned that he intended to send her away. She felt certain that he would carry out his promise, one way or another, even though Phaedra’s elopement would certainly alter his plans.

At one in the afternoon—Annie had not been able to eat a bite of the lunch Phaedra had so generously shared—the bells in the chapel began to peal joyously. The sound made Annie jittery; she paced the room in her chemise, muttering to herself.

At half past one, Phaedra helped Annie into the dress, pinned up her hair and put the veil in place. As they had hoped, Annie’s face was only a pale shadow beneath all that gossamer netting. Her hair, while not precisely the same shade as the princess’s, was dark enough to fool the casual observer.

When the clock chimed a quarter of two, Rafael came to the door to collect his sister and escort her to the chapel. Phaedra ducked behind the changing screen while Annie admitted the prince.

He smiled and moved to raise the veil, in order to kiss his sister’s cheek, but Annie stepped back and shook her head.

Rafael shrugged good-naturedly and offered his arm.

As Annie descended the stairs and crossed the great hall with Rafael, she both regretted her deception and reveled in it. Even though he’d admitted that he cared for her, and she was certainly in love with him, this might be the closest Annie ever got to exchanging holy vows with Rafael. She would savor the memory all her life—however long or short said life might turn out to be.

The courtyard was crowded with villagers and servants, for the family chapel would not hold the whole assembly. Annie blushed with pleasure and chagrin as her “subjects” cheered boisterously and showered her with flowers.

At the door of the chapel, Rafael paused and patted her hand. Chandler stood at the front, by the altar, along with a priest and a bevy of Phaedra’s female cousins, all clad in pink ruffles.

I would not have chosen pink,
Annie thought righteously, but of course she said nothing, because to speak would be to betray herself.

The organ music began, and Rafael led her slowly down the aisle. From inside her cloud of netting, Annie scanned the jammed pews. Someone was missing, someone who should have been present, besides Phaedra, of course, but the identity of that person eluded her. It was all she could do, as it was, to hold back a hysterical giggle.

The notes of the wedding march reverberated in the dim chapel for several moments after Rafael had delivered Annie to the man who thought he would be Phaedra’s husband, then gradually faded into a churning silence. When Rafael moved back, Annie barely kept herself from grabbing for his hand and clinging to him.

“Who giveth this woman to be married?” intoned the priest.

Annie couldn’t remember if the man of God had said anything of importance before that and, for one horrible moment, thought she’d really and truly married Chandler Haslett.

“Her brothers,” Rafael replied respectfully, from somewhere in the throbbing void behind Annie.

The ceremony began.

“Dearly beloved …”

Annie swayed, and Chandler took a subtle hold on her arm to lend support. Her self-recrimination redoubled at his kindness. At that very moment, the real princess was fleeing St. James Keep with her lover. Had they reached the secret gate yet? Was it safe for Annie to reveal her identity and put an end to this shameful duplicity?

The priest droned on, preaching an interminable sermon on the sanctity of marriage and the value of trust between a husband and wife, and Annie leaned heavily on Chandler’s arm.

“‘Who can find a virtuous woman?’” the clergyman quoted sonorously, before lapsing into paraphrase. “Yea, verily, her price is far above rubies, and the heart of her husband does, indeed, safely trust in her.”

Annie let out a small moan, but no one seemed to hear.

Let this be over,
she prayed. Then, remembering that she would be sent away directly afterward, Annie added,
Let it go on forever
.

She wondered if any bride had ever been struck dead at the altar before.

“Chandler Haslett,” the priest boomed, “do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”

Chandler squeezed her arm. “I do,” he said.

Annie choked back a wail of shame and protest and waited for the ax to fall.

“Do you, Phaedra Elisabeth Madeline St. James, princess of Bavia, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?”

Annie was silent.

“Your Highness?” the priest prompted kindly, in a low voice, when the silence had extended beyond an acceptable length.

Arms trembling, knees melting like spring snow, Annie slowly raised the veil and pushed it back from her face. “No,” she said clearly. “I do not.”

Chandler stared at her, the color draining from his face and then flooding back again. A thunderous hush fell over the pews.

“By God!” Chandler rasped. “What trickery is this?”

The wedding guests erupted into comment, all talking at once, and the priest looked downright flummoxed, as though he might crawl under the altar and hide himself.

Rafael strode forward, full of fury. Annie was not prepared for the extent of his anger. “What is this?” he demanded, in a hissing whisper, his teeth clenched. “Where is Phaedra?”

“Gone,” Annie said. And then she went down in a pool of silk and pearls and veiling, having reached the end of her endurance.

As he had done the day of the hanging, Rafael lifted her into his arms. He carried her down the aisle and out of the chapel, while the guests buzzed behind them and Chandler vowed loudly that he would have satisfaction for this insult.

Annie, still dizzy from her faint, rested her head against Rafael’s shoulder.

“Where is Barrett?” the prince demanded of someone she couldn’t see, as they crossed the courtyard. “I need his help.”

“Isn’t he inside, sir?” came the surprised response.

Rafael stopped, glaring at Annie, and she saw the truth dawn in his eyes even as she grasped it herself.