The Carnelian Legacy (23 page)

Feelings of loss and regret washed over Marisa as she thought about all the influential people she’d lost in her life. She glanced down at the ring and tried to remember the mother she had barely known.

“I would be extremely careful with that ring if I were you,” he said. “It must be of great value and there are many who would try to steal it.”

“I’m real careful with it. I don’t ever want to sell it, no matter how much it might be worth.”

He nodded. “Some things are too valuable to put a price on.”

Somehow, she didn’t think he was talking about the ring. She quickly turned away. She was still upset by what she’d overheard the night before. It had been dishonest of him to play with her affections when all along he’d been engaged to Lady Matilda. If she just kept that thought in front of her at all times, it would remind her never to get too close to him again.

But deep down, she knew she only had herself to blame. Darian had never lied to her. He had told her straight out that he could never have any kind of deep connection with her, but she hadn’t taken it seriously. Neither of them had planned on any of this happening. They had just gotten in each other’s way.

“What were you thinking about just now?” he asked softly. “You seemed somewhere very far away.”

“Oh, nothing important. I’m just anxious to get to Crocetta and start a new chapter in my life. Who knows, I might even decide to move on once I get the lay of the land.”

Darian studied her thoughtfully. “You shouldn’t decide that now. Wait until you’ve gotten to know Crocetta a little better. Arrie and I would like to help you get settled and introduce you to all the right people. I hope that you’ll allow us to do that for you.”

She glanced at him. Maybe he was starting to feel guilty after all. Maybe he thought that if he helped her get established in Crocetta, he would have done his duty and could go off and marry Lady Matilda. But after the way he had hurt Marisa, she didn’t think she should let him off the hook so easily.

“Unless, of course, you’re planning to marry Savino. Then none of that would even be necessary...” he trailed off.

“Look, Darian, I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I just want to make it on my own. You don’t owe me a thing, and I don’t expect anything from you. Honest I don’t.”

“I’m just trying to help, Marisa.”

She sighed. “I know you are, but my father always said that one of the things he admired most about me was my sense of independence. I just want to make him proud of me.”

“Marisa, your father is already proud of you. In fact, I hope to have a daughter someday with half the spirit and independence as you,” he said, twirling a long blade of grass between his fingers. As she looked at him, Darian blushed, and he quickly changed the subject. “We should be leaving soon if we want to make it home by sundown.”

Arrie was already mounted on his horse as Darian and Marisa approached him. They saddled up and quickly got moving on the hilly road once again.

As the hours passed, Marisa realized that each step toward Crocetta was one step closer to a new life without Prince Darian. The first chapter in her life was coming to a close. She hoped that the next would be a significant improvement.

No matter what the future held in store, she was resigned to accept one point as fact—there could never be a happy ending with Darian.

CHAPTER 17

CROCETTA

AS
THEY
ROUNDED
THE
bend of a large hill, a great, walled city loomed in the distance. Strategically situated on top of a mountain, the citadel resembled Abbadon, but even from a distance, it was obvious that Crocetta Castle was much larger in scale than Savino’s fortress.

When she smelled the saltwater air, she looked and saw that the hillside sloped down to meet a bustling harbor far below them. The masts of at least a dozen ships moored at the docks jutted up from the water as wagons transported people and goods from the port up to the city. The cries of seabirds pierced the skies as she glanced up to see them circling in search of food.

Waiting for them on the road was a large company of more than fifty soldiers dressed in dark, elegant uniforms with shields, swords and helmets. As they sat patiently on their horses, Marisa wondered how the men knew that they were coming and how long they’d been waiting for them. Arrie must have read her thoughts.

“These men are guardsmen of the Order of the Crimson Paladin Knights,” he whispered. “They have probably been awaiting our arrival since early this morning.”

A dark-haired, handsome man in the lead moved toward them.

“Your Highness, Lord Arrigo, the kingdom is pleased to welcome you both back safe and sound,” he said.

“Lord Domenico,” Darian said with a smile. “It’s good to see you, my friend.” He gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

Marisa’s jaw dropped. If she had been standing further away, she would have thought he was Darian or at least his brother. With roughly the same build as Darian, Lord Domenico had the same dark hair and square jaw. She guessed they were about the same age and noticed he wore the same military uniform.

“So, Darian, aren’t you going to introduce me to this beautiful young maiden whose heart you’ve obviously already captured?” he asked, eyeing Marisa mischievously. “How do you ever expect the rest of us to keep up with all of your conquests?”

She turned to Darian with a puzzled expression.

“Ah—right. Lord Domenico, it is my honor and privilege to introduce to you the Lady Marisa,” Darian said. The man who could easily have been his clone maneuvered his horse alongside Siena and took Marisa’s hand.

“I am most enchanted to make your acquaintance, milady,” Domenico said. He kissed her hand gently as his eyes flirted with her.

“Pleased to meet you, sire,” she answered in English.

Domenico raised an eyebrow. “And just how did you manage to stumble across such an exotic gem, Your Highness?”

“Lady Marisa was—we found her stranded near Andresis. She comes to us from a land far away.”

“Are you two somehow related?” she asked, pointing at them.

Darian and Domenico exchanged amused glances. “No, Lord Domenico is no relation to me whatsoever,” Darian said. “However, we are often asked that same question.”

“The likeness is uncanny!”

“Yes, well, some have said that Lord Domenico is my alter-ego,” Darian joked.

“What Prince Darian means to say is that I’m his better half,” Domenico said with a chuckle.

“Lady Marisa, I would beg you not to believe a word this man says,” Darian said. “For he loves to mix truth with falsehoods in such a way that one never knows when he is joking and when he is serious. But enough with the introductions—I am eager to return to my home.”

As the company turned to escort them into the city, Marisa studied the faces of the young soldiers. The men were roughly the same age as she and they were all unusually tall and broad. She wondered if there were certain height and weight requirements to serve as a Crimson Paladin guardsman.

It was already late afternoon as they entered the outer edge of the city. The houses, shops, and halls surrounded the massive citadel on three sides in the shape of a crescent moon. The fortress sat on the highest point of the mountain and towered above all the other buildings.

Crocetta was teeming with people that mingled in groups at the side of the road and individuals that hurried down the street on their way to somewhere important. The men, women, and children were all dressed in beautiful garments, and just like the soldiers, they also seemed sturdy and tall. Deciding that they must be some kind of super race of people, Marisa was stunned to note that most of the women were at least six feet tall or more.

People stopped their daily business to bow and courtesy to Darian, clapping and cheering as he passed. Most people just stared at Marisa—not in a rude way but more out of curiosity.

Once they reached the citadel, she stared in awe up at the fortification walls towering high above them. Unlike the gate at Abbadon, the iron portcullis of the citadel at Crocetta was raised, allowing people to move in and out of the castle freely. Here, the guards didn’t seem to stop anyone from entering.

They passed under an impressive stone archway and through a long tunnel under the rampart wall that ended in a large stone courtyard. The massive ramparts were at least sixty feet wide. Inside the walls at the highest point of the hill was a large fortress with seven round turrets and four larger turrets in the middle around a central tower.

In the main courtyard, several rows of colorful banners containing various coats-of-arms were draped along its walls. Arrie whispered to her that each of the banners represented a nobleman’s family crest from different provinces all across the land. She couldn’t identify some of the strange beasts on the crests.

Since the time she’d visited Disneyland at the age of five, Marisa had imagined castles to be pretty buildings with quaint pink-and-blue turrets. But now as she stood in the main courtyard of Crocetta Castle, she felt an invisible force surrounding the mighty stone citadel and the stereotype was instantly shattered.

Massive in size and constructed from the hardest rock, it was an absolute fortress and the most imposing structure she’d ever seen. The castle walls dwarfed them all in size, and all of a sudden she felt small and insignificant.

“So, what do you think of your new home?” Darian asked.

“Very impressive,” she said. “But I’ll only be staying for a few days until I can get a place of my own. Any longer than that and I might get spoiled.”

Arrie laughed. “Maybe that’s the whole idea.”

Darian escorted Marisa up a long purple carpet leading toward the main door of the castle. She started to giggle.

“Just what is so amusing, milady?” he asked with a smile.

“Oh, I’m just in another one of my surreal moments. I’m being escorted down a red carpet—uh, purple carpet by a handsome prince into his fantabulous castle. Yep, this kind of thing happens to me all the time.”

Darian chuckled as he gestured them all to go inside. As soon as they entered the Great Hall, Marisa’s jaw dropped.

The dark brown beams supporting the wooden roof were enormous and ran the entire breadth of the hall. The ceiling itself was a dark shade of indigo with intricate curls of gold trim around the edges. Beautiful stained glass windows near the vaulted ceiling cast vivid colors with the last rays of sunshine.

The hall was graced by eight golden chandeliers fitted with thousands of crystals, giving the room a particularly grand feel. The walls inside were a pale, polished stone, and the bricks themselves were several feet wide each. As Marisa was admiring the castle’s interior, three men and a woman approached and nodded to Darian.

“Lady Marisa, I would like to introduce you to the members of my household,” Darian said. “This is my head political advisor, Faustino, but we all call him Tino.”

A tall man in his early fifties with a mustache, graying sideburns, and a beard stepped forward. He smiled warmly at her and he exuded confidence as if he knew everything and everyone in Crocetta like the back of his hand.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Lady Marisa,” the man said with a bow.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Marisa answered in English.

Everyone looked at her with surprise and Darian raised a hand to reassure them.

“Please do not be alarmed. Lady Marisa comes to us from a land far away, and she is our honored guest here in Crocetta. I would appreciate it if you all made her feel welcome.”

Tino nodded to her. “Milady, you are most welcome here in Crocetta, and I pray that you will afford me the honor of assisting you in whatever way I can.”

“It is an honor to meet you, milady,” said a fair salt-and-pepper-haired woman in her early fifties. She stepped forward to curtsey.

“This is Cinzia, the Baroness Macario, and member of the royal household,” Darian said, smiling at the woman. “She is the mother of Lord Arrigo, and I call her aunt, even though she is of no blood relation to me,”

Marisa smiled at Arrie’s mother. The woman was so beautiful for her age, and she admired her grace and elegance. She remembered to curtsey and made a mental note that she needed to practice that evening.

“The baroness lost her husband years ago in the shipwreck that took most of the royal family—the one I told you about,” Darian explained. “And please meet Bruno, my Paladin military advisor.”

A handsome young man with sandy blond hair and brown eyes bounced forward. He bowed to Marisa and took her hand to kiss it. She noticed he was wearing a military uniform and breastplate that was similar to Darian’s.

“This is indeed a great pleasure, milady,” Bruno said with a lopsided grin. Somewhere in his late twenties, the young man’s expression was friendly and flirtatious. He took a step backward but didn’t take his eyes off her.

“And finally, this is Cozimo, my historical advisor, head of the royal household and my personal mentor,” Darian said. “He’s been at the castle for nearly sixty years now, assisting other royals before me.”

An old man in his early eighties wobbled toward them and slowly bowed. Trying to keep his balance, Cozimo took Marisa’s hand and kissed it before raising his wrinkled face to study her.