Princess (11 page)

Inwardly, Serafina frowned to herself. Surely she had imagined that fleeting, hard look in her fair-haired friend’s expression, she thought, for even now Cara was giving her another worried frown of concern. “If you can’t have any chaperons, at least I ought to come with you. I can be ready in a few minutes—”

Serafina squeezed her hand. “Thank you, I wish you could, but Darius is being strict about this. He says it’s too dangerous.”

“Serafina!” the queen called again, starting toward them.

“Uh-oh, let’s get out of here,” Els murmured guiltily, knowing full well that the queen disapproved of her ever since she had seduced the crown prince a few months ago.

Charming Rafe had bragged of it high and low, but after the queen caught wind of it, he’d been like a dog with his tail between his legs. Serafina had had to argue for all she was worth for Els to be allowed to stay at Belfort and remain in her company.

Cara, on the other hand, beamed at the queen and went sailing over to her. Serafina often thought that Cara would have been the perfect daughter for Mama instead of herself, for they were a hopeless pair of goody-goodies.

Els gave Serafina a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be safe,” she whispered, then vanished.

When Serafina joined the other two, Cara took leave of her with a hug. “Godspeed, dearest,” she said, then hurried off.

Serafina was left standing with her mother.

If someone as self-centered, pleasure-loving, and lazy as herself held anything sacred, Serafina reflected, it was her mother. Outwardly, to her friends, she might mock the queen’s charitable crusades, but inwardly, Serafina respected her mother to the point of awe.

Queen Allegra di Fiore had a presence that commanded with compassion. At thirty-eight, she was unshakable, and, as Serafina had learned at an early age, quite impossible to lie to. She never had to raise her voice; there was more discipline in one disappointed look from her than in the shrill scolding of twenty haggard governesses, and it worked on the lords of Parliament as effectively as it did on her children.

She was beautiful, with ivory, freckled skin and gold-streaked auburn hair, little grays here and there that she merely laughed at. She moved softly in spite of her large, pregnant belly, and she embodied everything Serafina knew she herself would never be—wisdom and power and grace. She was like a mighty angel, and Papa often said she was the best thing that had happened to Ascencion in seven hundred years.

No, she reflected, she was more like her father. Wily, stormy, stubborn, and proud. Even the strange color of her eyes came from her father’s side of the family. The violet hue appeared in the royal line only once every few generations, she’d been told.

Her mother gave her a gentle, encouraging smile and slipped her arm around her. “Come. You’re not frightened, are you?”

“No, Mama.”

Arm in arm, they walked toward the two tall, dark men.

Mama stopped to embrace her as Darius finished up with the king.

Serafina only half-listened to the queen’s soft assurances that Darius would take good care of her and that she must do exactly as he said, for her safety depended on it. Head on her mother’s soft shoulder, she stared at nothing, wondering if it was a mistake to have foisted herself off on him.

He had given her the cruelest look. What if she couldn’t make him forgive her for pulling rank on him? Of all the men in the kingdom who fell at her feet, why was it that the only one who held her interest was the one who wanted nothing to do with her?

Well, she thought, he was stuck with her now.

In the past hour, her protector had proved frightfully efficient. Already he had sent outriders ahead to secure the safe house property that would be their shared country home for the next week or so until the spies were caught. He had stopped by her apartments and put the fear of God into her poor maid, Pia, with one terrifying, tranquil smile, asking her with Lucifer’s own courtesy to please pack her things quickly.

Giving her mother a final kiss on each freckled cheek, Serafina stole another peek at Darius from the corner of her eye. The candlelight burnished the ends of his glossy black hair with gold and warmed his skin to a rich amber. His dark, mysterious eyes held a sharp look of sober watchfulness.

He glanced at her as she left her mother and approached to say goodbye to Papa. Her towering sire held her in a warm embrace, then looked down at her with his warm, crooked grin.

“Behave yourself,” he said, giving her cheek a pinch. “I mean it.”

She bobbed prettily on her toes, smiling at him. She adored the man. “Yes, Papa.”

Darius glanced at her. “Ready?”

She nodded. Her heart began to pound. She clutched her reticule demurely in both suddenly sweating hands.

Darius kissed her mother on the cheek and murmured to her not to worry about a thing, then shook hands firmly with the king.

“Keep us informed. I’ll await your courier,” Lazar murmured.

Darius nodded as he opened the thick wooden door and held it for her. Immediately the hall filled with the hiss of the pouring rain. Darius did not look at her as she brushed past him.

The thunder and lightning had stopped, but rain coursed in little waterfalls from the eaves of the porte cochere. It was a warm night.

As Serafina stood waiting under the iron chandelier, she glanced up at the moths swarming around the sturdy candles, risking their wings over the fire. Then, through the screen of rain, she stared out at the dark landscape, seeing in every pooled shadow Henri with his broken neck, or Darius wrenching his knife out of Philippe’s breast.

She could not believe she was the object of so much conflict and international commotion.

She shrugged deeper into her smartly tailored, pearl-gray traveling gown and studied her elaborate military escort. The coach was flanked by armed men on horses, Darius’s handpicked squad of about thirty men.

Her parents stood in the doorway while Darius jogged ahead, going lightly down the steps to the coach, where he opened the door for her, his head ducked slightly against the downpour. As she hurried toward him, he glanced into the roomy interior of the coach as if checking it for monsters, then he offered his hand and assisted her inside.

She settled into the velvet squabs, struck by the fanciful notion that she could almost pretend they were newlyweds and he was taking her away from her family as her husband.

The thought pained her.

She leaned toward the coach window and blew her parents a kiss, pausing to watch them standing together, arm in arm, with the light of their love almost visible around them.

I will never know how that feels,
she thought in strange detachment.

Meanwhile, Darius walked up and down the line of men, checking on everyone one last time. His black Andalusian stallion had been tethered to the back of the carriage. He tugged on the horse’s lead rope to make sure it was securely tied, gave the restless animal a brisk pat on the neck, then strode back up to the side of the coach. He accepted two rifles from a subordinate and sprang up into the roomy coach with her.

He turned his back on her to secure the rifles in the rack above his seat, but he sat down at last on the velvet seat opposite her, tugging his impeccable black jacket neatly into place. He leaned over, slammed the coach door, and flipped its three locks into position.

He stared at her for a second with an intent look, his eyes slightly narrowed, as if he were scanning a mental checklist. He sliced her parents a crisp wave out the window, then banged on the coach to signal the driver to move.

They were off.

Serafina stared at him, wide-eyed in the dark, her heart in her throat as it finally sank in that she truly had gotten her way. For the next few days, perhaps even a week, she had Darius Santiago, her idol, her demon, all to herself. She wasn’t sure if she was ecstatic or terrified.

Neither of them spoke as the jostling vehicle gathered speed.

The cavalcade clattered through the gates and pulled out onto the puddled road. Open fields soon gave way to sparse woods, and still they said nothing. Their silence seemed to magnify the rolling, creaking noises of the coach, with the rain drumming on the roof. The ground rose; their destination lay in the cool, forested highlands of Ascencion.

Though Serafina tried to fix her attention on the landscape rolling by, the weather made it too black to see much. From time to time she peered anxiously into the man-shaped pool of shadow across from her. She could feel Darius watching her. Unspoken questions hung on the air, filling the claustrophobic space of the coach.

Fear whispered through her as he held his silence until she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“How does your shoulder feel?” she attempted meekly.

In answer, he merely pinned a chilling, luminous stare on her, half his dramatic face contoured in shadow, half in the rain’s lurid glow.

She shrank back slightly against the squabs. “Don’t be mean. It was Papa’s decision. I only told the truth.”

He said nothing.

“Darius,” she pleaded softly, “you’re scaring me.”

“You should be scared. Christ, don’t you know that by now? Don’t you see what I am?”

“No, what are you?”

He shook his head in disgust. The road wended. She looked away, staring out the window for all she was worth. They passed a farm in a vale. The road continued to climb.

She heard him move, heard the click of the little door to the compartment under his seat, then she could feel him come nearer. He put a pillow on one end of her seat. He held a blanket in his hand.

“Lie down.”

“I’m not tired—”

“Yes, you are. It’s three in the morning. That’s past even your bedtime.”

“You don’t know my bedtime.”

“One-thirty.”

She stared at his black silhouette for a long moment, taken aback. “How do you know that?”

“Gypsy magic. Understand something, my dear,” he said blandly. “You wanted this arrangement. You got your way, and now you’re going to have to live with it. You will sleep when I say sleep, wake when I say wake, eat when I say eat, breathe when I say breathe. For the next week or so, Your Highness, you are mine, and I will not tolerate any nonsense out of you. Cry if you don’t like it. See what it gets you.” He threw the light blanket at her. “Now lie down and don’t make another sound.”

She was outraged. On the other hand, she knew when argument was futile.

Bristling, she decided there was no point in being uncomfortable. She spread out the blanket over her and lay down on her side, resting her head on the pillow. She unfastened the top button of her high-necked traveling gown, and as an afterthought reached down and slipped off her doeskin boots. They dropped, first one, then the other, onto the carriage floor.

Darius was very still, then he moved toward her and tucked the blanket under her stockinged feet.

She stared at him as he settled back into his seat, braced his elbow on the edge of the window, and rested his cheek in his hand. There was a silence of several minutes.

“Darius?”

He sighed without looking at her. “Yes, Serafina?”

She hesitated. “I’m worried about you, Darius.”

“Serafina.” He cast her a weary look. “Don’t make a project of me.”

“I can see you are unhappy. Am I to turn a blind eye to your sorrow, after all you’ve done for my family and for me? Am I not to care for you at all?”

“That’s exactly right,” he said sharply. “You are not to care for me and I am not to care for you, and that’s the end of it.”

She stared at him. “We can’t even be friends?”

“Friends,” he scoffed. “What does that mean? No, we cannot be
friends
.”

“Oh,” she said softly, wounded. Then, after a moment,

“Why?”

“Why,” he merely echoed. There was a very long silence, filled with the pounding of the rain on the coach’s roof. Then he spoke again, and his voice was very quiet. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous for the great Santiago?” She lifted her head from the pillow but he refused to meet her stare, gazing out the carriage window at the night.

“Go to sleep, Your Highness,” he said very quietly.

She knit her brow and laid her head back down on the pillow, watching him in silence.

Darius went on staring out into the darkness, his finely chiseled face expressionless, the blue reflection of raindrops on the glass sliding down his face like silent tears.

At last, she fell asleep, and only then he looked at her.

For a long time, he just stared while she slept, her luxuriant sable curls flowing around her, one pale, graceful hand hanging from the seat, bobbing slightly with the rocking of the coach. He forced his gaze away, raking a hand through his hair with a slow, carefully controlled sigh.

He yearned for a smoke.

For hours, he stared at the black nothing of the landscape, gazing at Serafina now and then, wondering what the hell he was going to do.

He’d had himself mentally prepared for death in a state of empty calm, no easy trick for someone whose survival instincts were so savagely powerful. All he had wanted was to stay numb until his job was done, but that trick was impossible when he was anywhere near her. She made him feel . . . so much. All he had wanted was peace, but she roused a storm in him, like the winds stirring the sea into a fury. Pain flooded and crashed inside his emptiness: He had ignored it too long, and now he feared there was more of it inside of him than any man could bear.

I have to get out of here.

Ah, but where could he go that these furies would not chase him? He had journeyed often to distant lands—deserts, mountains, seas. It was himself he could not escape.

He could only pray that that sweaty ox Orsini would catch the spies in time for him to make his rendezvous in Milan on schedule. How he was supposed to conduct himself with the Princess Royal in the meantime, Darius had no idea. He was not sure how he felt about her at the moment, only that it was not the simple matter of calm, responsible duty he ought to feel.

He trusted her.

He didn’t trust her.