The Prince Kidnaps a Bride (23 page)

Sorcha held her hand in front of her mouth, sick with the horror.

“When Count duBelle started on Rainger’s chest, the countess stepped in. She offered water to the count. She offered wine. Like a whore, she offered herself, taking Rainger’s blood on her finger, licking it, and smiling. It was disgusting, but Count duBelle attacked her like an animal and while he was taking her there on the stone floor, the guards hustled Rainger back to his cell and us back to ours.” Marlon gasped for breath as if the effort of speaking exhausted him.

“But Rainger... didn’t he need someone to help him?” Oh, God, why did she care?

“Of course he did. But the guards were afraid of Count duBelle. Wouldn’t you have been? When they brought our food, we begged them to let us help him. Finally, they did. After three days, they carried him in to us, told us it was too late, that he was dying.” Marlon’s eyes were bleak as he remembered that awful time. “He was. He was so weak. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t drink. But he could talk. He thanked us for our loyal service to him. He begged our pardon for the youthful vanity which had landed us in there. He asked that we remember him fondly.”

“Was he running a fever?”

“No. We thought... I still think he had willed himself to die. We tried to keep him. We told him about digging the hole, how close we were to getting out.” Marlon smiled. “He was so happy—for us! He said that relieved his last worry, that he’d be leaving us rotting in prison. He begged that we take our freedom and use it wisely. And while I held him... he died.”

“What?” Shock held her immobile.

“He died.” Marlon squeezed her arm. “I swear he did. It was dark. It was close. I heard that slow dripping of the water. And I felt the life go from his body.”

The air was foul. The indifferent stones closed in around her. No voice disturbed the silence. No hand reached out to bind her wounds or cure her pain. The bones of rats were her bed and the long drape of cobwebs her blanket.

She was buried alive.

And she didn’t care. Somewhere close, water seeped into a pool, and the slow drip which had once driven her mad now contributed to her indifference. Her world was sorrow and loneliness. She was dying, and she welcomed the end of desolation, of grief, of anguish.

Her fingertips touched the skeletal hand of Death...
 

Sorcha shuddered.
She had been there.
In a dream, she had been there. “What happened?”

“He was gone. He was cold. I was in shock. Cezar was sobbing. And all of a sudden—Rainger convulsed. It was as if something smacked him in the chest. His heart started again. He took a gasping breath. And he was back with us.” Marlon groped for the cross that hung around his neck. “It was a miracle.”

She didn’t want to believe it. Not about Rainger, with his intelligence and his will and his horrible, ridiculous belief that he could force her to love him by using his intense sexuality.

“He came back filled with purpose. He wanted to escape, to get his revenge on Count duBelle for the rape of his kingdom, to marry and have children and live forever through them. He remembered what we’d said about the hole, and he told us which way to dig to get to safety. And he was right. If we’d kept going the way we were, we would have ended right on the main path out of the castle. We’d have been spotted immediately and recaptured. Instead, he set us to the narrow path that led to the long-abandoned postern gate.”

She didn’t want to believe this. “What about the guards? Didn’t they want to bury Rainger?”

“We told them he was slipping away, but that he had great and hidden strength. After he’d survived the beating, they believed that and they didn’t want anything to do with him. Odd as it sounds, I think they were afraid of him. They thought he had special powers, that the hand of God had been laid upon him.” Marlon bent his head and sighed. “I thought so, too. His purpose was of the purest and highest and his recovery astonished us. When we broke out two days later, he crawled through the hole and walked down the hill. When they discovered our escape, he went in a separate direction than Cezar and I, leading the guards after him.”

Marlon wasn’t telling her everything. “What did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Rainger is still here. Cezar is gone. You’ve been crippled. How is that possible?” She had to know the end of the story. “What did you do?”

“He was our prince. We’d doubted him once, but after he came back to life, we couldn’t doubt him again. So we attracted the guards’ attention and led them after us. Cezar was killed. I was trampled by their horses.” Marlon indicated his legs. “But Rainger got away, and that was all we cared about. It’s well worth it to sit here and know he’s going to take Richarte back from that fiend.”

In the convent, she’d been taught to believe in nobility. Then time, experience, and bitterness had eroded her belief.

Now Marlon proved that nobility existed.

Was what Rainger had done and been worth inspiring this nobility?

Marlon thought he was. And Rainger was going to war soon. Very soon.

“He’ll march into Richarte,” she said. “Our sources say Count duBelle has bankrupted the treasury. The people hate him. The army is in disarray. Victory is virtually assured.”

“Rainger will survive,” Marlon reassured her. “He didn’t survive the dungeon to die on the battlefield.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” She had to believe Rainger would not die.

“But while I’m happy, he is not. He deserves more than success. He deserves happiness—and Your Highness, you can give it to him.”

The familiar resentment welled up in her. “He could have had happiness, but through his suspicion and his deception, he threw happiness away.”

“He spent eight years in a dungeon. His friends were killed. He was hunted. He died. He has reasons for being suspicious... of everyone.”

Marlon’s explanation did not touch her. “We traveled for days together. He knew who and what I was. Yet still he deceived me. I am not an evil usurper. I am not a woman given to flights of fancy. I lived in a convent and tended a garden while patiently waiting to be called to do my duty. And he... and Rainger made a fool of me.” She realized—she wasn’t angry anymore. She was hurt. Hurt that he’d accepted her love, yet offered nothing but tenderness and an overwhelming sexuality in return.

He didn’t love her, and she wouldn’t allow it any longer.

Marlon opened his mouth, closed it, and thought, then said, “Perhaps it isn’t even that he was suspicious or that he should be a better judge of character. Maybe he made a mistake, a grievous mistake, and since he’s only a man, he doesn’t know how to apologize.”

“That’s ridiculous.”
So
ridiculous. “He’s an adult. All adults know how to apologize.”

“I beg to disagree, Your Highness. Only half of the adults know how to apologize. The other half are men, and speaking for my gender, I assure you a man will move heaven and earth rather than say,
I’m sorry
.”

She wanted to argue more, except the truth of what Marlon proposed seemed suddenly self-evident. She’d never heard a man admit he was wrong. Never heard a man say he was sorry. True, she had had little experience with men in the last years, but this made Rainger’s insistence on holding her while she cried a little more in keeping with his character.

In his mind, he wasn’t enjoying his triumph. He was giving her comfort. In a tone of discovery, she said, “He’s a jackass.”

“I fear that may be true,” Marlon said.

“I’m going to go talk to him right now.” Standing, she shook out her skirts.

Out of respect for his queen, Marlon came to his feet.

“He’s going to hear my mind on the matter,” she said, “and when I’m done with him, he’ll apologize just to... to make me stop speaking my mind.”

“A sound plan, Your Highness.” Marlon leaned on his canes.

She started down the path toward the palace, then returned to Marlon. “Thank you.” His eyes were agleam with contentment, but she allowed him that. “Thank you.”

She walked away again, and when she reached the hedge near the postern door, two men stepped out. One was handsome and vigorous, the other older, seasoned, and battle-worn. And tall. The older man was tall, with fists like hams.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” She tried to walk around them. She needed to speak to Rainger now.

The older man bowed. “Your Highness, Princess Sorcha?”

Had Grandmamma sent for her now?
Now?
Her grandmamma had a dreadful sense of timing. “Yes, but my husband, Prince Rainger, has expressed his wish to see me, and—”

A third man approached from one side, a fourth from the other, and when she glanced around, she saw two more moving in to close the trap.

A trap.

These weren’t Grandmamma’s men.

“Who are you?” she asked sharply.

“If you’ll come with us,” the older man said, “you’ll not be hurt.”

His young companion rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and jiggled his foot as if danger made him edgy. The other men divided their attention between her and their surroundings.

Of course, they should be nervous. Their plan was bold. They had come to capture the princess on the palace grounds.

“Who are you?” she demanded again. Her gaze fell on the young man’s jerkin, almost covered by his cape. There she saw it. A small symbol, a brown coiled snake against a scarlet background.

Count duBelle. These were his men.

Without warning, she threw back her head and screamed as loudly as she could.

A rough hand across her mouth cut her off in midshriek. The six men closed in, surrounding her, hustling her along the hedge toward waiting horses.

She struggled, flinging herself about, but with no chance against their combined strength. But she managed to turn to look back toward Marlon.

The branches were moving where he had stood.

Rather than face Count duBelle and his dungeon again, Marlon had fled. She was on her own.

T
he footman cleared his throat in apparent agony as he opened the grand gilt doors of the throne room for Rainger to enter.

Absentmindedly, Rainger glanced up from the map he held. “Peter, you’d better do something about that cough. It sounds awful.”

Then he stopped short.

Grandmamma sat in the throne on the dais. White-haired, thin, elegant, carrying a cane she used as a weapon. The old woman was cold as the winter when the river froze over.

No wonder Peter had made such a dire noise. He’d been trying to warn Rainger of the awful fate that awaited him, and Rainger had been too involved in his war plans to take note.

As usual, Grandmamma’s expression boded ill for anyone who dared come before her. It certainly boded ill for Rainger.

Show no panic
, he told himself.
Like a hostile dog, she senses fear and attacks.

The trouble with Grandmamma was that she attacked regardless of her victim’s terror. Probably she couldn’t sense fear because
everyone
was afraid of her.

“What a pleasant surprise.” He bowed with the respect due the tough old woman. “How may I assist Your Highness?”

“By making my granddaughter happy.” Her eyes sparkled with hostility. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

Peter shut the door, abandoning his prince without conscience.

Yes. Grandmamma always attacked, and without warning or posturing.

But Rainger was master here now, and he answered to no one. “What’s obvious is that you should mind your business and allow us to mind ours,” he said coolly.

“An heir to the throne is my business, and Sorcha can’t breed if she rejects the stallion that covers her.”

“She is not a breeding horse!” As a belated afterthought, he added, “Neither am I.”

“Then act like a man!” Grandmamma smacked the arm of the throne. “You’ve made some grievous mistake or she wouldn’t treat you like a bug to be scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Apologize to her.”

“I apologize to her every night. She doesn’t—” He wanted to say
listen
, but he hadn’t actually verbalized his remorse. He demonstrated it.

“Apparently that’s not enough.” Using her cane, Grandmamma rose to her feet. “Women like gifts. Have you given her gifts?”

“I’ve been a little busy with the running of the country.” The country by day, Sorcha every night, and he didn’t know which challenged him more.

“Give me your arm, boy.”

He climbed the stairs and helped her down. He hadn’t realized it, but Grandmamma hobbled now.

“Prioritize, Rainger! Didn’t I teach you to prioritize? Besides, how long will it take you to ask me for the crown jewels?”

“The crown jewels of Beaumontagne?” The old lady astonished him. She delighted him. “Do you have them?”

“If I didn’t, they would have vanished during the revolution.”

“I thought they
had
vanished.”

“You give me too little credit.” Her thin lips crooked upward in what could have passed as a smile. “When my son went to war, I took them into my possession.”

“Of course you did.” She was a wily old woman who understood human nature all too well. She never would have trusted anyone else with custody of the priceless diamonds, sapphires, and pearls.

“I have them still.” She sank her nails into his arm. “But I’ll give them to
you
, so ask me.”

He hated being manipulated, but capitulating now saved him time better preserved for planning war—and making love to Sorcha. “Please may I have the crown jewels to give to Sorcha?”

“I’ll send for them immediately.”

“And thank you for your quick and clever thinking.” Normally it would have hurt him to toady to Grandmamma, but he’d do anything to turn the subject away from his wooing of Sorcha.

He should have known better.

“You’re welcome. How will you give them to her?” Grandmamma shot the question at him like a bullet.

“I hadn’t thought about it.” How could he? He’d just found out about them—not that Grandmamma would accept that as an excuse.

“I can’t believe I’m advising you on this matter. I’m the least romantic person in the world. But obviously you’re the second least, and you need help. So listen to me. You will present the crown jewels to Sorcha tomorrow night at the ball celebrating your return.” Grandmamma had planned his courtship down to the last minute and motion.

“She’ll like that.” He’d like it—she would have to smile at him and maybe, for once, she’d mean it.

“It’s a grand gesture, one that needs to be made, but she won’t like being the center of attention. Don’t you know anything about her at all?” Grandmamma seemed to consider this a rhetorical question. “Sorcha is the kind of woman who would rather you picked her a bouquet of flowers. So pick her a bouquet of flowers. It won’t work if you have the gardener send flowers. That will make her unhappy.”

“I know that,” Rainger said with irritation, all the while wondering,
Why?
Rainger didn’t know anything about flowers. He didn’t know which colors to put together. He didn’t know which ones had thorns. He didn’t know how to arrange them. Why
wouldn’t
Sorcha like the gardener’s bouquet? The gardener was paid to do a better job with flowers than the king.

“She’s a soft little thing. She’d like it if you took her for a walk after dinner in the garden.” Grandmamma tapped her wrinkled lips. “In the moonlight. The moon is almost full. Tonight would be a good night.”

“The French ambassador is due to dine with us tonight,” Rainger said sarcastically. “Won’t he think it odd that I carry off my wife rather than remain to speak with him?”

“He’s French. He’ll think it’s odd if you don’t.”

Rainger spread the maps across the table and weighed down the corners. Anything to avoid looking Grandmamma in the eye. If he did, he’d probably confess that he’d written a letter informing Clarice and Amy of Sorcha’s return and begging that they come to visit as soon as possible. Because of all the things he’d done in Scotland, the thing Sorcha seemed maddest about was when he’d burned her letters. And second maddest about—having more letters and not letting her know. And third maddest—not letting her visit Clarice.

It wasn’t even his fault they hadn’t gotten to visit Clarice.

Sorcha didn’t care. She blamed him for being suspicious and distrustful, so she might as well blame him for the assassins that had turned them back from her sister.

Truthfully, he hadn’t comprehended the strength of the bond between the sisters or realized how desperately Sorcha worried about them, and perhaps—just perhaps—he’d made a mistake by not reassuring her as soon as he’d ascertained her character. Certainly he saw no reason not to beg Clarice and Amy to visit, and he was desperately relieved that they had written back to say they would be here soon.

Maybe that would melt Sorcha’s heart.

“Look, boy”—Grandmamma had a way of reducing him to infancy—“you don’t understand. I raised that girl you married. I met her when she was but a babe, and from that day, I feared for her. She is sweet, she’s kind, she’s vulnerable—the kind of woman men like you would use without any appreciation for the gem they’ve been handed.”

“Men like me?” What the hell did she mean by
men like you
?

“But Sorcha has changed. She’s not that lovable, vulnerable woman anymore. I can catch glimpses of the old Sorcha, but something fired her resentment and changed her completely, and—don’t lie to me—that something is
you
.” Grandmamma’s cold blue eyes drilled holes into his pride. “So unless you want to live your life holding the chain of a woman straining to get away, you’ll listen to me.”

He stared at the map of Beaumontagne and Richarte and tried to remember why he’d thought them so important. “Why should I listen to you about my wife?”

“Because I’m putting all my hopes in the fact that you’ve changed, too.”

Grandmamma was right. Damn her, she was right. He had to do something about Sorcha—or rather, something else about Sorcha, because his plan to force her to freely give her love to him was failing miserably.

Even as he held her in his arms every night, even as he brought her to unwilling climax, he felt her slip further and further away. And all the time he spent with generals and ambassadors and maps, he was aware of his own low-level misery that threatened at any moment to explode into fury and anguish.

He had felt like that in the dungeon. He didn’t want to feel like that anymore.

“Rainger, pity an old woman and prove you’re not the same spoiled lad you were before you were taken.” Grandmamma sounded more tired than cranky, and that in itself was frightening.

In a low voice, he asked, “What should I do?”

“Jewels, flowers, a walk”—Grandmamma shook her crooked finger in his face—“during which you tell her you’re a fool for doing whatever it was you did to her and that you’ll never do it again.”

That was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. “When I escaped the dungeon, I swore a vow that I would never kneel before another soul, I would never crawl, I would never beg. It was a
vow
.”

“Then I’ll stop planning your formal wedding and crowning in the cathedral, and instead I’ll get this marriage annulled,” Grandmamma said coolly.

“What?” he roared.

“I’m not going to have Sorcha live in misery because you’re stubborn.” Grandmamma’s eyes were glacial chips of blue. “You were married in a foreign country. I can bribe the witnesses, make the proof vanish, and find her another prince who can make her happy.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” His hands curled. He would never strike a woman, certainly not an old woman, but if he was ever tempted, Grandmamma would be his first choice. “Sorcha’s mine. She’ll always be mine. I secured her because I wanted to win back my country, but I’ll keep her because... ”

Grandmamma leaned forward. “Because why?”

Because he loved her.

He loved her, yet he’d made her miserable.

He’d stripped her of her pride in herself as surely as Count duBelle had stripped him of his.

Why had it taken him so long to see that?

“Rainger!” Marlon called from the doorway.

At the interruption, Grandmamma groaned like an old horse and propped herself against the table.

Leaning on his canes, his face pale and streaked with sweat, Marlon hurried toward them trailing anxious guards and statesmen in his wake. “For God’s sake, Rainger, listen, and quickly!”

“What’s wrong?” Rainger sprang to help him.

“They have her,” Marlon said. “Count duBelle’s men.”

Grandmamma grabbed her arm as if she were in pain.

“They’ve taken the princess. Count duBelle left this ransom note.” Marlon fumbled in his pocket and brought out a paper stabbed through with a knife. “He has set a date and a time for you to come and get her.”

Rainger snatched the paper and read the message.

“In a fortnight, not far from his castle where we were imprisoned. Your Highness,” Marlon said, “he wants
you
.”

“Me he can have.” Rainger threw down the paper and strode toward the door. “But Sorcha he will not keep.”