Prince Charming (4 page)

Dani didn’t stop running even when she heard his deep roar echo through the woods behind her. She ran for her life down the little deer path, tearing through the sharp net of briars and branches that tried to catch her, leaping fallen logs, her heart racing in terror. The thunder of hoofbeats filled her ears from the soldiers on the road. She could see them through the trees.

The shortcut,
she thought, and raced deeper into the woods while the soldiers chased in the direction Mateo and the others had gone.

She found her horse grazing in a cornfield halfway home. Heart pounding with terror and dread, hands shaking, she swung up onto the gelding and rode at a hard gallop all the way to the rusted gates and up the dusty, overgrown drive lined with tall, columnar poplars.

Behind the stable, she had the half-bucket of water waiting to splash the soot off her horse’s coat. Still no sign of Mateo and the others.
Please, God. I know they’re not much, but they’re all I’ve got.
The Gabbianos had been like brothers to her since she was a knobby-kneed, nine-year-old tomboy and none of the other little girls wanted to play with her.

She put her horse away, hot but clean, and ran into the house. Maria came hurrying to her.

“Get the hiding place ready—the boys will be right behind me!” Dani ordered. The hiding place was a false wall built into the corner of the wine cellar beneath the ancient villa. “Oh, and fix something to eat,” she added. “We’ll soon have company.”

Experience had taught her that the soldiers would believe whatever she told them if she played the demure young gentlewoman and put food in their bellies and wine in their cups. The fact had saved her hide several times in the past, though her cupboards held precious little to spare.

As she turned, pounding up the stairs toward her room to make the necessary transformation from outlaw back to genteel-poor lady of the manor, Maria gasped behind her.

“My lady! You are hurt!”

“Never mind that! We have no time!” Dani hurried down the narrow corridor to her room. At once she closed the curtains against the night air, then pulled off the stifling black mask.

A cascade of wavy chestnut hair tumbled down to her shoulders. With trembling hands, she stripped off her shirt and used more of the carefully rationed water to wash her wound. Thankfully, she saw it was no longer bleeding. The sight of her gunshot wound frightened her, but not as much as the terrible realization of who she’d robbed—who she’d
seen
!—as well as the knowledge of what would happen to her men if she allowed Prince Rafael’s soldiers to find them.

With that thought, she stripped off her trousers and wiped the dust quickly from her skin, relishing the cool wet cloth after her ordeal. She pulled back on a chemise, a simple dreary-beige work dress of linsey-woolsey, and worn kid slippers, then tied her hair up in a hasty knot, her hands shaking. She hurried back downstairs and put on an apron, smoothing it as she met Maria in the hall.

“Are they here yet?”

Maria shook her head grimly.

They can’t have gotten caught.
“They’ll be here any minute now. I’m sure they will. I’m going to check on Grandfather.”

Willing calm, Dani folded her hands demurely over her stomach, though her heart was still pounding in fright for her friends. She drew a deep breath and walked to her grandfather’s bedroom. He was sleeping and Maria had left the taper burning because if Grandfather awoke in the dark, he was wont to start screaming with night terrors. He, the great Duke of Chiaramonte, who had once stood unflinchingly at the head of an army, now needed the care of a small child.

As she stood in the doorway, her gaze skimmed his aristocratic profile, the jut of a pointy nose, a most distinguished mustache, a lofty, wrinkled forehead. She closed the door quietly, went over, and knelt down by his bed, taking his gnarled hand between both of hers. She laid her head on his hand, trying to stay brave, but her arm hurt so badly and she had the most awful feeling about this night.

Prince Rafael…

Splendid, fallen angel.
The king and queen had produced in their son a golden god with impeccable good grace, a smile as sweet as the summer sky—and a heart full of vice and perfidy. Prince Rafe the Rake was a known seducer: flamboyant, silver-tongued, devil-may-care.

Having singled out the useless lords of his entourage as her prey, Dani knew all about the royal scoundrel and his friends.

He drank, the gazettes said, referring to him merely as
R
. He gambled. He squandered fortunes on beautiful but useless things, like the paintings and the priceless objets d’art he collected and the jewel box of a pleasure palace that he had built himself on the edge of the city. He dueled. He swore. He flirted with virgins and old maids alike, so ludicrously charming to all women equally that it was clear he wanted none to take him very seriously. He laughed too loud and played practical jokes; he sailed that blasted yacht of his around the islands morning and noon, whooping and bare-chested under the sun like a savage. He frequented houses of ill repute and merrily tormented the night watchman as he went staggering home with his friends in the wee hours of morning.

Yet for all his faults, there was not a female in the kingdom who had not dreamed of what it might be like to be his princess for a day. Even Dani had lain awake wide-eyed in her bed for several nights, pondering her questions about him following the single occasion on which she had glimpsed the man himself, when she had ventured into the city with Maria to buy the winter’s grain. What was he like? she had wondered. What was he
really
like? What made him so mad? Behind his wall of guards, he had been coming out of a posh boutique with a stunning blond on his arm, who dripped with diamonds. The prince’s head was lowered as he listened attentively to what she was saying and he had laughed softly at her words.

Scraping their half-pennies together, Dani and Maria had been standing right there on the sidewalk, nearly close enough to touch their exquisite clothes as the celestial pair passed and disappeared into the coach that waited in the middle of the street, blocking traffic.

She winced at the memory of her own girlish awe and her certainty that she had just fallen in love at first sight with him. It was easier now to remember that the man cared for nothing but himself and his pleasures. The present throbbing of her arm where he had shot her was enough to dispel any leftover fantasies. In this world of unreliable men, a wise woman dared depend only on herself.

A shout from outside suddenly broke into her thoughts.

Finally! Thank God they’re all right.
Dani swept away from her grandfather’s bedside and dashed to the window, but then her blood ran cold.

She stared down at the dusty lawn, gripping the window frame. Mateo, Alvi, Rocco, and little Gianni had made it onto her property, but even now, before her eyes, a thundering pack of soldiers closed in on them, surrounded them, and pulled them down out of their saddles, brawling on her lawn.

One soldier brought the butt of his pistol down on the back of Alvi’s head. Another knocked little Gianni to the ground, and she knew the fire-eater Mateo would fight them with all he had and likely get himself killed.

She whirled away from the window and ran for the door. Brushing past Maria, she tore down the steps. Enraged and reckless, she threw open the door and burst out into the night, but when she saw them, in her heart of hearts she knew already it was too late.

Mateo and the others were already being placed under arrest by the prince’s soldiers. Even the child was being seized.

She saw red. Descended from a line as proud and old and nearly as royal as the prince’s own, she stood clenching and unclenching her fists for a second, feeling the blood of dukes and generals surging in her veins.

Then she charged forth with a battle cry.
“Let them go!”

Bested!
—
by a mere slip of a lad,
he thought. He was surely going to wring someone’s neck. “Little cutthroat savage little hellion,” Rafe was muttering in fury as he staggered to his feet a moment or two later. “A cheap and ungentlemanly shot! I’ll get you, vile little wretch!”

Nobody made a fool of Rafael di Fiore and got away with it. He swatted bits of twigs and dried leaves off his clothes, noticed in disgust the dirt patches on the knees of his white breeches, then scuffled lightly down the embankment, the bone-dry earth crumbling softly under his no-longer-shiny shoes.

“Your Highness, are you all right?” cried the two guards who had stayed behind to assist him.

“I’m just perfect,” he spat, ignoring the fact that he had indeed lost his lordly temper. He stomped past them to the large white stallion from which one of the soldiers had dismounted. “I want them caught! Do you understand?” he said in crisp fury. “I want them jailed by morning and I don’t care if I have to do it myself! You!” he ordered the first man. “I’m taking your animal. Help the driver and follow us with the coach. That way.” He pointed up the road.

“Y-yes, Your Highness,” the man stammered while the other swung up onto his mount and galloped off with Rafe to join the chase.

“Let them go, I say!”
Dani shouted, choking in the dust the soldiers’ horses had kicked up. “Get off my land!” She was nearly trampled by the stamping, rearing horses on her lawn as she pushed into the soldiers’ midst.

One of the soldiers captured her around the waist before she could reach her friends. “Not so fast, little lady!”

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, shoving him off.

“Stay back, ma’am! These are dangerous men!”

“Don’t be absurd! This is the village blacksmith and these are his brothers. Obviously, you’ve made a mistake!”

“No mistake, ma’am. They’re highwaymen, and we caught ’em red-handed.”

“That’s impossible!” she scoffed.

A gray-eyed man approached her, frowning. By the insignia on his coat, she saw he was their captain from the Royal Guard—the toughest soldiers in the kingdom.

God help us,
she thought.

“Do you know any reason they’d be riding here to your house, ma’am?” he asked suspiciously.

“We have a shortcut through her field!” Mateo snarled at him.

The captain glanced at him skeptically, then looked at her again. “And who might you be, miss?”

She lifted her chin. “I am Lady Daniela Chiaramonte, granddaughter to the Duke of Chiaramonte, and you are trespassing on our land!”

Some of the soldiers exchanged awed glances at the name, she noticed proudly.

“Go inside and stay out of this, milady,” Mateo warned her through gritted teeth.

“He’s right, ma’am. You’d best go back inside,” the gray-eyed captain said warily. “These are dangerous criminals, and I’m under orders from Prince Rafael himself to place these men under arrest.”

“But surely not the boy as well!” she cried in distress, pointing at Gianni. She looked at the child and saw his chin trembling as he watched them arguing. He moved closer to Mateo’s side.

The man glanced at the child, weighing the decision as Maria came down from the front door carrying a lantern. The small, stout housekeeper held up the lantern and faced the big men with a pugnacious look, slipping her arm around Dani’s waist in a seemingly comforting gesture, but one which Dani knew was intended to hold her back.

The captain bowed to her. “Ma’am.”

“What is going on here?” Maria demanded as Mateo, Rocco, and Alvi were manacled. “We don’t want any trouble with you!”

Just then, a shout sounded from down the drive by the rusty gates. Dani looked over and saw that two more riders were joining them. Her stomach plummeted all the way down to her feet when she saw the broad-shouldered rider charging up the drive astride the huge white horse.

She held her ground for the simple reason that she could not move a muscle.

“Santa Maria,”
the old woman breathed. “Is that who I think it is?”

Prince Rafael eased his mount from a gallop to a vigorous canter, bouncing the horse to a masterful halt in a cloud of dust between the group of men and the two women. He ignored her and Maria. His forceful gaze swept the group of men, probably counting them, then he scanned the tree line, the reins taut in his low, still hands. Without any visible signal, he urged the blowing animal into an edgy walk. He angled his chin downward, staring at the Gabbiano brothers as he walked his horse down the line of them.

“Where is he?” he asked in an icy tone.

Dani closed her eyes, knowing from the marrow of her bones that he was the sort of man who would not stop until he got what he wanted.

“I’m waiting,” he said in an ominously gentle tone.

Still the boys refused to answer. Dani’s eyes flicked open.
She
was the one he wanted. She knew they would never reveal her identity, no matter what the cost to themselves. Conscience and loyalty to her friends clamored for her to step forward and try to save them by taking the blame she deserved. But she somehow fought the need for this moment’s justice, knowing that if she landed herself in jail alongside them, they would lose their only hope of rescue.

And rescue them she would, she thought in determination. She had gotten them into this and she would bloody well get them out of it, too.

“Where is he?”
the prince suddenly bellowed without warning, startling even his horse, but the white stallion’s low rearing did not so much as jar his smooth mastery of the animal.

“Gone,” Mateo ground out.

Dani glanced down to the gates of her home as the prince’s carriage turned presently onto her drive. It came clattering up as His Highness continued badgering Mateo.

“Gone where?” asked Prince Rafael from high astride his horse.

“How should I know?” Mateo snarled.

He raised his riding crop in warning at Mateo’s insolent tone, but he didn’t hit him, lowering his hand, his expression grim. Instead, he looked at his men, a glaring light in his eyes, his chiseled face cold with authority. “You two: Put these creatures in the carriage and take them to Belfort Gaol.”