Her Every Pleasure (38 page)

“I love you,” he breathed.

She clutched him more tightly. “I’ll always love you,” she choked out in a trembling whisper.

But she did not stay the night. Having got what she came for, she left his bed, gliding away as silently as a ghost in her gown of white.

He reclined on his elbows, watching her, his body sated but still needing her near, his heart and mind a tangle of battling emotions.

She paused in the doorway and looked back at him over her shoulder, and for a long moment, just stood there, as though memorizing him.

Then she slipped out and pulled the door shut behind her.

He fell onto his back with a low exhalation, covered his eyes with his arm, and tried to quiet the thunderous pounding of his half broken heart.

He had a feeling, this time, she would not be back.

CHAPTER
         TWENTY-TWO         

T
he next day, Sophia went out to tour the country that she was to rule. A bevy of her father’s loyal advisers accompanied her, including Archbishop Nectarios, and a wall of heavily armed Royal Marines conducted her from place to place. Gabriel was there, scanning the crowd continuously; she knew that he took note of a few suspicious-looking faces in the crowd, strangers skulking along the background of the throngs that gathered wherever she went. But she ignored her lurking enemies and let him deal with that.

Her sole mission was to extend her love and service to her people, meeting them face to face with a familiarity that her father would never have dreamed of; listening respectfully as they aired their grievances and giving them the reassurance they had so long craved, that help for their plight was on the way. She walked among them, shaking hands with the elderly, receiving flowers from the children, surveying the damage from wars and from the latest round of minor earthquakes. Indeed the ground shook a little while they were traveling in between towns. By the evening, as her whole contingent returned to the palace, she was beyond exhausted. It was a wonderful, scary, exhausting day.

Maybe it was the sun that had made her so tired, she thought. Maybe the strain of it all. Or maybe she was carrying Gabriel’s child.

Back at the palace, she walked in wondering if there would be time for a nap before dinner, but to her amazement, Timo and Niko were there waiting for her.

She hugged them tightly, moved to see her friends and longtime guards again. But despite their thanks to God to find each other safe and their warm congratulations on her accession to power, both men were grim and all business, eager to meet with Gabriel, for they had brought the information he had been waiting for.

The three of them withdrew into the adjoining room and conferred for a moment, but Sophia did not intend to be left out. She went in, bringing Father Nectarios with her.

Gabriel likewise beckoned in Commander Blake, who had been invited to dinner. He shut the door and turned to Timo with a dark look. “What did you learn?”

“The audacious bastards are right under our noses—er, sorry, Father.”

The priest gestured forgivingly.

“They’re hiding up in the old medieval fort at Agnos.”

“Agnos! But it’s practically a ruin,” Sophia said.

“What’s Agnos?” Gabriel clipped out.

“One of our smallest islands out on the fringe of the chain,” Sophia replied. “It’s barely inhabitable, but there’s an ancient fort there originally built for keeping out the Turks.”

“How fitting.”

“No doubt the location has helped them to go unnoticed by my ships,” Commander Blake said with a scowl. “I feel terrible about this.”

“Don’t worry, Commander. You could not have known. These men know exactly what they’re doing. They are not common fighters, but the trained former bodyguards of the Ottoman Sultan himself.”

“Bodyguards who betrayed him,” Gabriel specified.

“Well, listen to this,” Timo said with a grim smile. “Sheik Suleiman himself is there. Their leader.”

“You saw him?”

“I saw an imam preaching to his followers,” Niko affirmed. “Bloody religious zealots—er, no offense, Father.”

Archbishop Nectarios frowned.

“If we could grab Sheik Suleiman,” Gabriel said, “we could use him for a bargaining chip. Offer to hand him over to Sultan Mahmud in exchange for him taking stringent action to rein in Ali Pasha.”

“By stringent action, do you mean cutting off his head?” Timo asked pleasantly.

“That is what I would recommend,” Niko agreed.

“No doubt Mahmud will be tempted to do just that when he hears that Ali Pasha has been teaming up with the bleeders who betrayed him,” Gabriel murmured.

“How many of them are there?” Commander Blake inquired.

“By our count, some two hundred.”

“Two hundred?” Sophia breathed. “How are fifty Marines and you three going to overcome two hundred Janissary warriors?”

“By stealth, my dear, and a great many explosives,” Gabriel said. “How are your powder stores, Commander?”

“Well stocked with whatever you could want, Colonel.”

“Black powder?”

“Now you’re talking,” Niko said with a grin.

“Fifty barrels, easily. Crates of mines, as well.”

“That should do the trick.”

“Gabriel, what exactly do you mean to do?” Sophia asked, barely noticing how she had slipped and used his first name in front of the others.

“Blow the place up with the lot of them inside it, I should think.”

“Capital notion,” Blake joined in.

“That fort will not be easy to approach,” Timo warned. “It’s on a steep rock hilltop with very little cover going up. No matter what we do, they’re going to see us coming.”

“Well, the first-rates aren’t here yet, but our smaller ships can give us cover.”

“Good, but tell them to hang back,” Gabriel replied. “They’ve got the numbers and the high ground. The element of surprise may be our only advantage when we spring the attack.”

“When will that be?” Sophia breathed, her heart pounding.

“Soon. We’ve got to hit them hard before they even know it’s coming.”

“We’re ready,” Timo said eagerly.

“Commander, do you think it can be organized to launch the attack before dawn?” Gabriel asked.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Maybe you should wait until the first-rates come,” Sophia said with the feeling that she was swimming against the tide in this. “There’ll be more guns and many more men on those ships to help you fight.”

“No,” Gabriel said gently, though his eyes were flintyhard. “Now that you’ve come, they’re going to be expecting something. By the time the first-rates get here, our best opportunity will have already passed.”

She dropped her gaze; Father Nectarios noticed her hurt look and glanced at her in concern.

“Well, then, gentlemen, Godspeed,” she murmured. “If you will excuse me.”

They bowed as she took leave of them and withdrew to her chamber—as if she could escape the parting that was about to descend on her like the hounds of hell.

But it was inescapable.

Trembling, she sat on the edge of her bed and waited for Gabriel to come, with a sense of impending doom.

All too soon, he slipped into her chamber, closing the door behind him with barely a sound. She rose and drew in her breath when she saw him all dressed in black for his mission like he had been that night on the mountain, armed to the teeth once more.

She wanted to back away from him when he came toward her, as if her refusal to tell him good-bye could stop him from going. Her heart pounded and her stomach tied itself up in knots as he rested his hands on her shoulders and gazed tenderly into her eyes.

No words came.

Sophia threw her arms around him, ignoring various holsters and sheaths, and hugged him with all her might. Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought back tears and the horrifying awareness of the violence ahead and the very stark fact that she might never see her man again.

But if this was good-bye, then her parting gift to him would be her courage. If she never saw him again, the last image of her that she wanted him to take away was one of strength. She refused to cry.

She had given her heart to a warrior and now the moment had come to prove herself worthy of his sacrifice and his gallantry.

Gabriel would not flinch before his duty, after all; to honor him, she would do the same, even if the soul in her was dying. A wave of pain swept through her as she held him, like a cruel and blasphemous inversion of the pleasure they had shared.

She touched his hair, his shoulders, his arms. She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it lovingly, then looked into his blue, blue eyes with the threat of tears in her own. She willed them back and cupped his hard, beautiful face for a moment.

“I will always love you,” she whispered calmly. “Always. And if there’s a child, I will tell him—everything about you.”

“Princess.” He crushed her to him and claimed her mouth. His kiss seared her very soul with his fiery passion. When he ended it, he lowered himself slowly to his knees and kissed her belly for a long moment, his eyes closed.

Sophia caressed his raven hair.

He rose again and took her gently into his arms, grazing his lips along her forehead with a low, burning vow. “I will come back to you.”

She trembled.
God, please.
But though it took every drop of royal blood in her veins to do so, she held on to her composure.

“I will be here,” she replied with her chin held high.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered with complete understanding of her gift glimmering in his eyes.

“Thank you, my darling, for what you’re about to do,” she said calmly, and then she did the hardest thing she had ever done in her twenty-one years.

She let him go.

As she stepped back, he bowed his head and brought both of her hands to his lips. He kissed them, looked one last time into her eyes, and then let her hands slide free of his light hold.

His cobalt stare burned into her heart forever.

Neither of them could speak, for the only word to be said, the one that neither could bear to say, was good-bye.

He took a deep breath, pivoted, and marched out with the grim, bristling air of a man on a mission.

A man with no fear of death.

That was what scared her. He should fear it. He should be careful. But he never would.

The moment the door had closed, Sophia crumbled.

Sinking to the floor, she put her head in her hands and wept.

Hours later, in absolute silence the longboats cut through the waves approaching the fortress island of Agnos, ten heavily armed men and several barrels of black powder to a boat. Navigating each light, fast craft were some of Kavros’s ablest seamen.

Stealth was key.

Approaching the island from different directions like the five points of a star, they were setting up a coordinated attack. As soon as they landed, each jumped lightly out of the boats into the knee-deep water. Hefting the barrels on their backs, they sped the powder into place, rolling out the long fuse cords.

No doubt sentries were posted. They worked in total darkness to avoid being seen. The jagged outline of the fort loomed against the indigo sky.

With the explosives in place, they took up their positions for the second phase of their attack. Boulders on the beachhead would make fine cover for the rifle attack. Lastly, they would charge the fort itself and kill anyone who hadn’t been shot or blown up already.

As for the sheik himself, they wanted him alive.

Gabriel waited for his men to signal they were ready. He glanced over his shoulder toward the sea, his mood keyed up. Though it was too dark to spy the smaller ships that Commander Blake had ordered to give them cover, he knew they were there.
Good man, Blake.

Gabriel had also decided to leave Timo back at the palace to guard Sophia. Of course, the hairy fellow had been disappointed to miss out on the fun, but if things went wrong, Gabriel had wanted to leave her with at least one man she knew she could trust completely. Whatever happened, he knew Timo would look after her.

Hang it all, but these Greeks had grown on him, he thought. Then the long-awaited signal came.

Everyone was ready.

He nodded to his team and then struck the flint.

The spark he used to light the fuse cord was the first warning the Janissaries even had that they were there.

Gabriel smiled darkly as the flame caught and began to race along the wire toward the stacked barrels of explosives.

“Morning, boys,” he murmured.

Then the men covered their ears and looked away as the first fiery crash tore through the night.

Sophia had tried to stay up waiting for news of the battle, but worn out from grief and from sheer exhaustion after the day’s tour among her people, she had fallen asleep in her clothes a couple of hours before dawn.

Now, however, deep reverberations in the distance found their way into her sleep and shook her awake. Not thunder, not the deep rumble of an earthquake, but the sounds of battle.