Prince Charming (3 page)

“That blackguard shot me,” she panted in lingering amazement. Then her gaze zipped back to the road, and she saw that the Gabbiano brothers—her men, such as they were—had brought the coach to a standstill and extinguished the carriage lantern, working by moonlight.

The driver was sprawled on his arse on the ground, Alvi holding him at sword point. She scowled indignantly at the coachman’s pitiful display, babbling for mercy. Did the man think them common cutthroats? Everyone knew the Masked Rider and company never killed anybody. Occasionally they left some popinjay in an embarrassing predicament, naked and tied to a tree, perhaps, but they never drew blood.

Better get down there before we have a change of policy,
she thought as she saw Mateo and Rocco, still astride their mounts, holding the big lean passenger at bay with their swords before the open coach door. Even from a distance, their prisoner looked more than able to fend for himself.

Fortunately, her men had disarmed him, she saw. His hands were up and his two pistols lay in the dusty road. Her gang would not attack an unarmed man; still, Mateo was a hothead likely to start a brawl at any insult, while the giant Rocco didn’t know his own strength. Both were as protective of her as if she were their own sister. She didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

Dani passed her forearm over her brow, then adjusted the hoodlike black mask over her face and hair to make sure her identity was still neatly concealed after her horse’s mad dash. Satisfied, she urged her horse aboutface and back down onto the road, highly curious to see which of the idle citified peacocks she had snared this time and what it would profit her.

Hopefully enough to pay the crippling new taxes on her estate and to feed her people in spite of the drought.

She drew her light, quick rapier as she guided her horse toward the tense trio of men. Mateo and Rocco parted to admit her between them.

“You all right?” Mateo, her oldest childhood friend, muttered to her.

She shook off her momentary awe at the sight of her tall, powerfully built captive and seized upon her bravado, forcing herself forward in a show of fearlessness, though her heart beat rapidly. “I’m just…dandy,” she drawled, urging her horse closer. She stopped when the tip of her rapier floated gracefully under her captive’s square jaw, which was clenched. “Well, what have we here?” she mused aloud, using the tip of her sword to force him to lift his chin.

It was too dark to see much, but the silvery moonlight picked out gilded threads in his hair, which appeared to be of a tawny gold shade, quite long, but pulled back in a queue off his broad, straight forehead. He had an imperious nose and a hard, angry mouth. Head high, his narrowed eyes glittered, fixed on her. It was too dark to make out their color.

“You shot me,” she said in reproach, leaning toward him from the saddle. She knew she mustn’t let him see her fear.

“Lucky for you, you merely grazed my arm.”

“If I had wanted you dead, then dead you would be,” he said in a soft, murderous purr that fell like silk on her skin.

“Ha! Some excuse! You are a poor marksman,” she taunted him. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

“And you, boy, are a poor liar.”

Dani sat up straight again in the saddle, considering him. A worthy opponent, she had to admit. As her gaze traveled over the length of his warriorlike physique, her simple feminine admiration mingled with a growing sense of inner warning. Her captive was over six feet tall and appeared to be built of pure muscle, so why wasn’t he putting up more of a fight? True, his weapons lay beyond his reach, but there was a gleam of treachery in his eyes that made her wonder what he had up his sleeve.

She wondered which one he was, exactly, of the useless Prince Rafe the Rake’s self-indulgent flunkies. She certainly would have remembered seeing him before. Her better sense whispered to clear out immediately, but she needed the money and was frankly too intrigued to abort the robbery, which was moving along efficiently.

Mateo had relieved his brother at the task of holding the coachman at sword point. The prisoner’s gaze, hard and brilliant as a diamond, followed Alvi as the wiry youth hopped into the coach with an empty sack. While her prisoner watched Alvi pass, Dani eyed him in mingled attraction and scorn.

Oh, she despised his type, haughty and carelessly elegant in his formal evening wear, down to his creamy white breeches and shiny black shoes. His smartly cut, dark green tailcoat alone probably cost as much as her past six months’ taxes. She glanced at his no doubt excellently manicured hands, which he lowered slowly to his sides, as though he had decided she was not much of a threat.

“Your ring,” she ordered. “Hand it over.”

His large and capable fist clenched beside his hip. “No,” he growled.

“Why not? Is it your wedding ring?” she asked sarcastically.

The way his eyes narrowed on her in the dark, she thought he would have happily torn her beating heart out of her body if he got the chance.

“You will regret your audacity, boy,” he said, his voice soft and deep and dangerous. It rang with an air of command. “You have no idea with whom you are dealing.”

Oh, he was not taking his humbling well. Smiling at his ire behind her mask, Dani laid her rapier gently on his cheek. “Shut up, peacock.”

“Your youth will not save you from the hangman.”

“They’ll have to catch me first.”

“Fine boasts. Your father ought to thrash your hide.”

“My father is dead.”

“Then I will thrash you for him one day. That’s a promise.”

In reply, she traced her rapier ever-so-tenderly under his chin, forcing him to tilt his proud head higher or feel the prick of her sword point. His lordship clenched his handsome jaw. “You don’t seem to understand your position,” she said sweetly.

Holding her gaze, he smiled chillingly. “I will have you drawn and quartered,” he answered in a pleasant tone.

Under her mask, Dani blanched in spite of herself. He was trying to shake her up! “I want your shiny ring, milord. Hand it over!”

“You will have to kill me for it, boy,” the prisoner said with the white, defiant gleam of a smile.

Was he mad? Standing there in blue moonlight and black shadow, he was huge, powerful, and not lifting a finger to stop them. Maybe he didn’t know how to fight, she suggested anxiously to herself. These rich fellows never dirtied their hands. But one summary glance over the lean, classically proportioned length of him made her scoff at her own suggestion.

Something was definitely wrong.

“Not losing your courage, are you, boy?” he taunted softly.

“Be quiet!” she ordered, faltering and feeling herself inexplicably losing control of the situation somehow to her vexing prisoner. Absurd! Posturing males would never intimidate her.

Rocco, her tame giant, looked over at her in worry.

“Get the ponies loaded,” she ordered him in a suddenly testy mood, scowling under her mask. Obviously, her prisoner had somehow called her bluff and sensed she wasn’t going to kill him, though God knew he vastly deserved it. Her arm hurt like the blazes. She ducked her head to peer into the coach, wishing Alvi would hurry up. “How’s it going in there?”

“He’s rich!” Alvi hollered, tossing out one full sack. “Filthy rich! Give me another sack!”

As Mateo hurried to fetch another sack from his horse’s saddlebag, Dani saw the prisoner cast an almost imperceptible glance down the road.

“Expecting someone?” she demanded.

Slowly, he shook his head, and she found herself gazing at his enticing mouth, where a half-smile of pure deviltry tugged.

Suddenly a high-pitched voice pealed through the night from some distance down the road.
“Run!”
The littlest of the Gabbiano brothers, Gianni, age ten, was running toward them, arms churning. “Soldiers! They’re coming! Run!”

With a gasp, Dani stared at her prisoner. He smirked coolly at her, pleased with himself.

“You bastard,” she hissed. “You were stalling us here!”

“Move out, move out!” Mateo was yelling at the others.

Gianni kept shouting. “Go! They’ll be here any second!”

Dani’s gaze snapped down the road again. She knew her horse was the fastest. Every womanly instinct in her blood screamed for her to go scoop the little boy up into the saddle with her before the soldiers were upon them. The child had no place here—it was her fault. A dozen times they had forbidden Gianni from following them, but he never listened, until finally she had given in and assigned him the relatively safe job of signaler.

“The hell with you, peacock,” she muttered, abandoning her prisoner. She tugged on her gelding’s reins, reeling the horse away, while Rocco lumbered up onto his slow draft horse. Alvi and Mateo each took one of the coin-laden bags and swung up onto their ponies’ backs.

The little boy was running desperately toward them. But as she turned, out of the corner of her eye she saw the big man dive for his second pistol in the dust and roll on his shoulder, taking aim at Mateo.

“Mateo!”
She reeled her horse around, lurching him straight at the prisoner. The gun went off, shooting skyward.

The prisoner leaped up onto his feet with astonishing agility for a man his size. Then he seized her, trying to pull her bodily off her horse. She punched and kicked at him. Mateo drove his pony toward them to help her.

She shot him a fiery glare. “I can take care of myself! Get your brother!”

Mateo hesitated.

The thunder of the soldiers’ approach was growing louder.

“Go!” she roared as she kicked the prisoner in his broad chest. The big man fell back a step, holding his ribs protectively with a curse.

Seeing this, Mateo whirled his pony to go fetch the little boy.

His lordship charged her again the moment Mateo galloped away.

As she and the prisoner grappled in the road, her horse reared with a frightened whinny. She clung to the reins, fighting to keep her balance, but she felt herself being slowly overpowered by the man’s sheer physical strength.

Suddenly he pulled her down out of the saddle. Freed of its rider, her thankless gelding bolted at once.

She let out a wordless cry of fury and found herself standing in the road, clutched in her erstwhile prisoner’s grasp. He towered over her. His eyes were like lanterns and he was grasping her hard by her arms, and he was ever so much taller now than when she’d been on horseback. Strands of his hair had fallen free from the queue; he looked ferocious and huge, barbaric in his elegant clothes.

“You little shit,” he snarled in her face.

“Let me go!” She fought him. He gripped her harder, and she shouted in pain when he jerked her hurt arm. “Ow! Damn it!”

He gave her a shake. “You’re caught! You understand?”

She hauled back and punched him across the face with all her strength, tore out of his arms, and fled up the embankment. He was but two steps behind her.

Her heart beating wildly, she scrambled up through the dust and slippery dried leaves. With a frantic glance down the road, she saw Mateo lift Gianni into the saddle with him and crest the far embankment, riding hard toward home.

Her relief was short-lived, however, for then the prisoner tackled her at the top of the embankment, hooking rock-hard arms around her hips.

He smashed her under him as they fell to the ground, snaking his forearm around her throat.

I hate men,
she thought, closing her eyes in distress.

“Hold still,” he growled, panting hard, his body like heated iron around her.

Dani rested for half a second, then did the opposite, kicking and squirming, thrashing and punching and scrabbling with her leather-gauntleted fingers in the dust.

“Let me go!”

“Stop squirming! You’re caught, damn it! Give in!”

Dodging the boy’s blows, Rafe held the slim body pinned beneath his own, glad that wrestling was one of the chief sports at which he had excelled as a youth. He never would have thought it would come in handy. The boy bucked and thrashed, fighting him furiously.

“Yield,” he ordered through gritted teeth,

“Go to hell!” The pitch of the young voice climbed higher, shrill with fright.

Panting with exertion, he drove his full muscular weight more firmly down to still the little hellion’s writhing. “Hold still!” He jerked a look over his shoulder toward the road and his approaching men. “Over here!”

At his movement, the bloodthirsty little bandit somehow flopped over onto his back, still trapped by Rafe’s arms.

“I told you you would hang,” he growled.

“No, you said I would be drawn and quartered—”

Rafe caught a flying fist in his hand. “Be still, for God’s sake!”

Suddenly the boy froze and drew in his breath, staring at his signet ring.

“You…!”
the boy croaked in a hoarse gasp.

Scowling toward his men, Rafe glanced down and narrowed his eyes in satisfaction. “Aha, brat. Finally catching on, are you?”

The light-colored eyes behind the mask never blinked, staring at him, looking horror-stricken.

Rafe’s laugh was throaty and smug, then he stopped abruptly.
What the devil?
He furrowed his brow as he caught a whiff of a scent his instincts knew, but recognition danced just beyond his mind’s reach.

“What is your name, you miserable urchin?” he demanded in regal hauteur, laying hold of the boy’s black, hoodlike mask.

Suddenly the little bandit moved like a flash of lightning. Rafe supposed he should have seen it coming. The dusty, bleeding little hellion kneed him hard in the groin, a direct hit to the royal jewels. He gasped for breath in a momentary state of pure helplessness. The boy pushed against his shoulder, rolling him off onto his side, then scrambled clear of his feebly grasping hand.

Through blinding agony, Rafe summoned the full, furious power of a kingly roar:
“After them!”
he bellowed, as the boy tore off into the woods.

  
CHAPTER  
TWO