Prince Charming (17 page)

Courtiers rallying against him. Friends who were suddenly transformed to barbaric strangers—or had they always been that way and he too lulled by pleasure and music and boredom to notice?

Shaken, disappointed in everyone he knew, including himself, he walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a small glass of whiskey. He tossed it back and felt it burn a fiery path down to his belly. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then his grim gaze fell upon the tray where the portraits of the five princesses were arrayed. His friends had been making witless jokes all evening about them.

He stared at their meaningless faces.

Daniela Chiaramonte must obviously hang. No doubt.

He had felt this bullheaded, disastrous need to save a damsel in distress once before. He would merely ignore it, he resolved, for he knew his own idiotic chivalry was not to be trusted. Daniela was not the sort of woman one dared rescue. She would probably slice his hand off if he reached out to help her. No. He would let her go to the gallows just as he should have let Julia go to debtor’s prison all those years ago. She had brought it on herself. Adriano was right. They were both thieves.

With a sudden, strangled growl of pain, he struck out, sweeping the five princesses off the tabletop. The frames went crashing to the floor. He looked up from their scattered, vacant smiles and met his own tempestuous glare in the elegant mirror.

I need answer to no one,
she had said, so wild and free with the starlight on her hair.
It is merely the choice I have made.

Rafe dropped his chin almost to his chest. Now he, too, must choose.

Dani huddled in total blackness on a moth-eaten pallet on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. With her forehead resting on her bent knees, she hadn’t realized she had finally dozed off until the lock banged in the iron door of her windowless cell.

The clanging noise roused her instantly, still half-immersed in her longing dream about the beautiful water dancing in Rafael’s fountain in front of the pleasure dome. In her dream, she had been unable to get to it, though she was straining on her knees, crawling, weeping for it in helpless frustration, aching for that towering silvery plume of sweet water. It was just out of reach, for the chain around her ankle had stopped her a few feet short of it, but all she longed for was to plunge her mouth and hands into it to slake her agonizing thirst.

The dream fled as she woke, but the thirst remained.

She clambered to her feet as the guards unbolted her cell. Quickly she put her black mask on again because she didn’t want them to see the fear written all over her face. When the door swung slowly back, she threw up an arm to shield her eyes against the morning light. Blinded, she felt huge hands seize her arm, unchain her ankles only, then yank her out of the cell.

“Where are you taking me?” she rasped, her throat dry and thick.

“Shut up.” The warden shoved her ahead of him down the dank stone corridor.

She stumbled toward the light, chains clanking. Soldiers and other wardens materialized out of the gloom. Dizzy and weak, she was aware of a corridor, slashes of shadow and sun striping the flagstone floor, six uniformed guards marching her to some unknown place, sunlight gleaming on their bayonets.

She heard the soldiers’ boots striking the flagstones sharply, but the sound of their brisk, snapping strides could not drown out the chanting and roaring of a distant mob. She listened, knowing the mob had something to do with her, but she couldn’t make out their words.

“Bring in the prisoner.”

The yeoman of the tower lowered his ceremonial battle axe, stood aside and opened the massive door at the end of the jail’s long corridor.

The guards shoved Dani into a dim, stuffy chamber. She tripped, landing on her knees with a strangled curse. From behind the black mask, her glance swept the room.

It appeared to be an interrogation chamber or audience room of some kind, and was lined with more of the prince’s heavily armed Royal Guards, posted every ten feet around the perimeter.

There were high windows and a vast fireplace, the hearth empty. Against the longer wall ahead was a rough wooden throne on a raised stone dais, and on it sat the unmoving figure of a man.

The hairs on her nape bristled: She knew him.

The hazy light from the high windows fell behind him so only the prince’s immense silhouette was clearly visible in the gloom of the hot chamber. Elbows on the chair’s arms, fingers steepled in thought before his face, he did not need to move or even speak to make the imperial power of his presence felt. The aura of authority around him was palpable, eloquent in the expansive planes of his shoulders and his hard-lined jaw, edged with sun. His gaze was like a physical weight and in his stillness, he was as dangerous as a rogue lion in the shadows, idly flicking its tail, silent, keenly watching.

Fear spurted anew in her veins. She could well imagine how angry he must be with her. There was such a thing as male pride, of which he had more than an ordinary share, and she had bruised his—royally.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw the prince was dressed entirely in black. After his finery of the night before, the severe clothing somehow only enhanced the effect of the hardened seducer. His loose-sleeved shirt hinted at the steely, sculpted arms and shoulders beneath, while his waistcoat snugly spanned his hard chest and molded his lean waist. His riding breeches were crafted of expensive-looking black leather which appeared both comfortable and soft; his glossy hessian boots shone.

He watched her with a cool, hooded gaze.

With an idly impatient gesture of one black-gauntleted hand, large and graceful through a dusty beam of sunlight, the prince caused the guards to search her, then he linked his fingers thoughtfully again before his seductive mouth.

The battle-hardened yeoman stepped forward at the unspoken command, pulled her to her feet, and began briskly patting her sides. But when he ran his hands over her chest, his sudden grunt of surprise turned to a yelp of pain as, reflexively, she brought up both clasped, manacled hands and swung at him. “Get your hands off me!”

She didn’t know where her burst of strength came from.

Whirling clear, she smashed the guard in the face, then spun and leaped to catch another full force in the chest with a well-aimed kick. When another guard stepped too near, her knee came up hard between the man’s thighs.

The soldier dropped, but in the blink of an eye a bayonet was pointed at her throat. She froze and stood stock-still, chin high, chest heaving.

Then, from high on the throne rolled a low laugh pierced by slow, insolent applause.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” she cried, hurting her parched throat with her shout.

When he spoke, his deep voice rumbled with gentle yet ominous indulgence: “Remove the mask.”

Tensed with anticipation, Rafe watched the yeoman round her warily. From behind the black hood, her fierce eyes tracked the man, snapping blue sparks.

Cautiously, the yeoman moved toward her. The girl cursed as the mask slid away. At once, a cascade of wavy chestnut tresses tumbled free to her shoulders and blazed in the slanted sun.

The men gasped and she all but hissed at them like a little cat, backing them off.

His men slunk back to give her space, responding instinctively to her unmistakable air of inborn command. Seemingly satisfied with their distance, Lady Daniela then turned her sharp, wary gaze to Rafe.

He sat motionless, his elbow on the chair arm, his curled fingers idly obscuring his lips, his heart pounding recklessly. One glance, and he wanted her just as urgently as he had the night before when he’d spied her in the crowd. Just as hotly as the first night he had met her in her threadbare salon.

She…
woke
him. His senses, his mind, his slumbering heart. Her beauty made him catch his breath like a splash in the face of icy water from some mountain stream, so cold it was painful, and yet exhilarating and crystalline pure.

Joan of Arc came to mind, with her hands bound before her, that irresistible saucy chin jutting high, a smudge of soot on her cheek, and her aura of angry pride shining around her like the morning light. The loose black shirt and vest she wore disguised her virginal curves, but her shocking breeches followed every line of her trim calves and thighs and gracefully turned hips. She was lean and wiry like a fine, fast filly.

When Rafe’s gaze flicked back up to her face, Daniela held his stare with bold, cool poise, neither intimidated nor impressed. And he, who knew all there was to know about women, still had no idea what to make of this one, who seemed little more than a child. She was not a ravishing beauty like the lovers in his past—if they were roses, she was a proud and wild tiger lily. They glared like so many cold chips of diamond beside the burning simplicity of a whole and perfect fire opal. There was so much more than beauty there: blazing spirit, tumultuous life.

Father had been right, Rafe thought with a slight, devious smile as he stared at her. He would need someone he could depend on by his side, and he could imagine no more staunch and fearless ally than the valiant Masked Rider.

A sleepless night of soul-searching and agonizing over both their fates had resolved him.

With one last outrageous scandal to shock the world, he was going to change his life, live up to his dying father’s hopes, amaze Ascencion with his brilliant leadership, and produce an heir to carry on the royal line. Her fiery beauty proved the spark that had ignited him. Moreover, he was going to break his father’s domination of his life and assert his own control over his destiny. Standing there defiantly before him, with her blazing aquamarine eyes,
she
was his declaration of liberty.

Of course, it would have been a fatal revelation to let her know how important she was to his plans. When women sensed an opening, they seized it, he well knew. Proceeding with caution, he had decided just what he was going to say to get what he wanted yet keep her in line, for she was a handful, all right.

Oh, he had made up his mind about Daniela Chiaramonte. And as he gazed at his future wife, he had a feeling from the bottom of his rake’s soul that he was the one who was doomed.

  
CHAPTER  
SEVEN

Dani did her best to keep her chin high and her shoulders flung back in a defiant pose, but inwardly she quaked, more afraid of Rafael alone than his whole squadron of burly guards. With an almost bored flick of his hand, he dismissed his men. In a moment, they were alone, staring at each other in hostile silence.

The tender lover of the previous night had vanished inside this remote, brooding autocrat. His harsh, angular face seemed carved of granite. “I am displeased, Daniela. Most seriously displeased.”

“Go on, hang me! I don’t care!” she cried desperately, rattled and on the defensive. “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Hang you?” he asked blandly. “Let us think on this, my dear. Hanging seems much too light a sentence for the…pains you’ve given me.” He shoved up from the throne and walked casually down the three steps from the dais, approaching her.

He walked past her to the long rectangular table in the center of the room and pulled out one of the rough-hewn chairs, gesturing. “Sit.”

She kept a wary stare fixed on him as she walked over and lowered herself to the plain wooden chair, rather grateful for the invitation in her weakened condition.

“Hands on the table.”

Again she obeyed, burning with angry shame. It was terrible to be humiliated by her own actions in front of a man whose respect and admiration she secretly longed for. The longing itself shook her—but she had never known another person like him, so vibrant and magnetic, so exciting to be near.

He pushed in her chair with ironic chivalry, then bent over her shoulder, planting his hands on the table around her body, hemming her in. His face was but a hand’s breadth from hers. She could feel his warm breath near her ear. She closed her eyes and held perfectly still, helpless before her total physical awareness of him.