The Pirate Prince (26 page)

He had been young and idealistic once, too, he wanted to tell her, an eternity ago. But the same storm that had saved him had also warped him, like a young tree struck by lightning, forced to grow into a distorted shape.

He wished she would say something.

Her head was still down when the first tear fell onto his wrist. They both stared down at it, and she began rubbing it into his skin there, as if it were some precious ointment that would take away the old, old hurt. At length she touched his left wrist in the same manner, then she took him into her arms without a word.

She held him tight, solid and still as a green island in all his tempestuous dark sea.

Neither of them moved for a long time. He closed his eyes, amazed at the sting of salt in them. He swallowed back a lump in his throat and stroked the curve of Allegra’s back. He knew that he shuddered and that she held him more tightly when he did. She was whispering to him.

“What have they done to you, my darling? What have they done to you?”

He couldn’t reply. He shuddered again, buried his face against her neck, inhaling her flowery scent, a healing balm so different in its effects than the opium that had brought about these scars, but equally intoxicating. She caressed the back of his head and his shoulders, his back. He wondered why he was not instantly aroused by these simple touches after having wanted her for so long, but all he could seem to fix upon was the acid stream of pain seeping out of his heart. She was mightier than it was.

He was amazed. He clung to her, his warm, ivory goddess, like the spirit of Ascencion embodied in a woman.

“What drove you to hurt yourself this way?”

“I should be dead,” he whispered brokenly. “If I had any courage, I would be dead. I’m like an animal, just instinct. No pride. I left them to die. I should be dead, too.”

“No, Lazar, no.” She wept silently now as she had in bed those first few nights in grief for her father. Now her grief was for him, and somehow it made his own grief fractionally less.

She kissed the lone tear that trailed down his cheek, tasting it between her slightly parted lips. He was in too much pain to be properly humiliated by his own unmanly display. She gathered him closer still. He wanted to hide inside of her.

After a moment, she drew back and leaned her forehead gently against his. He kept his eyes closed, fearing to meet her even gaze. She caressed his chest with one hand, still holding him tightly around the neck with the other.

“I knew, oh, I knew who you were those first few moments in the tunnels, but I dared not believe.”

“I didn’t really expect you to.”

“Lazar di Fiore, I will never deny you again,” she vowed in a fierce whisper.

He let out an unsteady sigh and opened his eyes. There was pure determination in her dark eyes beneath the gold-tipped lashes, and what looked to him like love, or at least pity. He didn’t want her pity. He looked away.

She captured his face softly between her hands and brought his gaze back to hers. He waited, watching her guardedly. She looked pensive, studying him. She traced his eyebrow softly with her fingertip, touched his lips with her thumb.

He sat there with a bleak expression, awaiting her verdict. Her full lips tilted down at the corners in a slight, motherly frown.

What an excellent mother she would be, he thought idly.

Futile
. But he would have loved to make her big with his child. Life. Creation. These were the miracles with which she inspired him.

Pointless
.

Of all the women he’d had, he’d never permitted any of them truly to know him, but Allegra had seen him in his blackest hour—indeed, had saved him from it. After that, there had been no point in attempting to hide from her. Thus she knew all too well the kind of thing he was. Of course she would not want him. He didn’t blame her. Especially now that she knew he had half a mind on any given day to blow out his brains.

There were only two fit places for such a man, he mused in his misery. The cemetery or the sea.

She laid her palm against his cheek, and as she stared at him, he watched her eyes fill with tears. She forced herself to speak. “I was too frightened to believe you, and I pray you will forgive me for my cowardice.”

“Of course, Allegra,” he whispered. “Anything.”

“You are so good,” she said with a soft catch in her voice as she caressed his face.

“I am not good.” He nestled his cheek wearily against her hand.

She leaned toward him and kissed him softly on the mouth as she cupped the back of his head. “I am here for you now, Lazar. I promise,” she whispered. “I am ready to help you however I can. I will not fail you again.”

“You believe me?”

She nodded fervently. “And I believe
in
you.”

He stared at her, wondering if it was a good time to seduce her, but he felt too bruised inside to proceed. He just wanted to be near her, close enough to touch.

With one final kiss upon his brow, Allegra pulled back marginally from his embrace, and when she did, he saw there was a new, white-hot fire in her eyes. Her flawless face was serene, but her elegantly curved auburn brows were aligned in formidable determination.

He wondered if he should be worried, seeing that look. The blend of intensity and angelic calm in her expression awed him. He was not sure he was ready for this. She lifted each of his wrists to her lips—one, then the other—pressing a heartfelt kiss to each. Then she braced his shoulders in her hands, staring solemnly into his face.

“You are not alone in this anymore. Do you understand? My dear, long-lost friend, you must tell me everything, and somehow, together, I swear to you, we will put all these wrongs to right.”

She understood now. This was not the life he had chosen; it was merely the one he’d fallen into, and it was not irresponsibility or hedonism that had made him cast off Ascencion. It was pain. Raw grief and loss. Every joke he made was his way of bearing those wounds. The poor, noble creature could not forgive himself for having survived when his beloved family had perished.

How could she have doubted for a second?

With every particle of her awareness focused on his soulful eyes, eyes as dark and full of mysteries as the night sea that surrounded them, Allegra held her breath, staring with barely restrained impatience at his satiny lips, as if she could will them to tell her everything she wanted to know, every detail of his existence.

Instead she heard only the great creaking of
The Whale’s
mighty timbers.

Her Prince looked worried. He was edging back from her earnest stare with a helpless but obstinate gaze. She was about to offer some coaxing words to help him along when one of his men came to his rescue, banging on the door.

“Gibraltar’s four leagues off the bow, Cap! You comin’ topside?”

“Aye!” he called with a quick jerk of his square chin over his shoulder. He turned back to her, unable to mask his fleeting look of relief, yet she sensed his inward conflict, as if half of him needed to unburden himself of his secrets, while the other half wanted to flee.

“I have to go,” he said gingerly.

“May I come with you?”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “I’d like that.”

He stood and offered his hand to help her climb out of his berth. She tried to put herself into some order so it would not be so obvious she had just been partially ravished. He scanned a navigational chart among the clutter on his desk, then he blew out the lantern, and they went to the cabin door. He paused there before opening it for her. His large, warm, callused hand sought hers in the dark, his fingers interlocking with hers.

“Wait,” she whispered. “I’ve said a few things over the past few days that, well, I have to apologize—”

His forefinger descended gently upon her lips, hushing her. “Things, perhaps, I needed to hear. Few people dare criticize me, Allegra, even when I’m in the wrong. You were honest, and you spoke your mind. I hope you will always do so.” He traced his fingertip across her lips. “Every ship needs a compass.”

Warmed all the way to her heart by his generous words, she kissed the finger he’d lightly pressed to her lips. He smiled in the dark.

“Duty calls,” he said as he opened the door. “Let me show you how we pirates do business.”

When they went topside, she followed Lazar around, feeling all the while that she was walking in the shadow of a legend.

How had he done it? How in God’s name had he survived? When she looked back over all that had happened, she could scarcely believe he had been her beloved Prince all the while. No wonder he had found it in his noble heart to lift his vendetta, sparing her family. As she recalled those shattering moments on the eastern rampart, her expression sobered, and she lowered her head.

She believed in Lazar now, as Mama had believed in King Alphonse. Somehow she was going to have to come to terms with Papa’s guilt.

She watched him efficiently dispensing orders at the helm of his warship, never showing any sign of his inward pain, and every idealistic, meticulously responsible atom of her being cried out to repair her father’s sins.

It all made sense now—Lazar’s unhappiness, his stagnating here in this outlaw life, Ascencion’s unrest and anarchy. When the two were brought together once more, she knew there must be peace. Brokenhearted Ascencion and poor Captain Jonah would both be made whole again when Lazar was restored to his rightful throne.

She had no doubt that he was equal to the staggering task and deserving of the awesome privilege after all he’d suffered. The mercy he had shown toward her family proved he would be a just and righteous king. That he had survived horrors, yet retained the ability to be gentle, even to laugh at himself, proved his depth of character and his strength. He was everything Ascencion cried out for.

He will be even greater than Alphonse
, she thought, infused with a brilliant, soaring sense of power as a night breeze lifted her hair back over her shoulders. She felt she could do anything for him, slay dragons, meet any challenge, however impossible.

But most of all she thanked God from the bottom of her heart that her tedious prudence had saved her in the nick of time. She lifted her gaze to the dark, starry sky, taking solace in the caress of the warm night breeze upon her cheek.

Thank God she had been careful. What a relief he didn’t know she had allowed herself to become so foolishly infatuated with him. They could be friends now, she told herself. Dear friends. Allies.

Nothing more.

The knowledge left her with a hollow, rather sick feeling, but she knew it was for the best. Lazar belonged to Ascencion and the Austrian princess, not to her. If the Habsburgs were still willing, he would need that alliance to oust Genoa from Ascencion. For her part, if she allowed herself to love him, it would only lead to her own torment, and she had no intention of reliving her mother’s tragedy, of loving a man she could not have. Better to be his friend—let Princess Nicolette break her heart trying to tame him.

For herself, better not to venture any closer to that all-consuming fire of his passion. Better not to know what heaven she’d be missing. She didn’t need the heartbreak.

No wonder he had not forced himself on her, she thought almost woefully. No son of King Alphonse would ever do such a thing.

For a moment she puzzled over his statement that had opened tonight’s entire discussion, that he knew how it felt to be raped. To the best of her knowledge—and it was by no means wide—only women could be raped. If she was mistaken in this, she rather did not wish to know it.

She concluded he must have been speaking metaphorically about his many tragic losses.

What a cruel loss of innocence, she thought.

As a youngster, she herself had barely survived the loss of her mother, but Lazar had lost his whole family, his home, his kingdom, his inheritance, his entire world. She was in awe of his strength; after all he had been through, she truly couldn’t blame him for having attempted to end his life at some point in his past, but she thanked God with all her heart that he had failed.

As they approached Gibraltar, Lazar ordered all lanterns extinguished for they were about to pass within range of the British guns stationed there, on the southernmost tip of Spain. Allegra could make out the tiny lights of the garrison town on the distant peninsula.

The whole crew kept a tense silence. Even the sweeps had been swaddled in rags to muffle the slapping of the wooden oars against the waves.

When she asked in a whisper why such measures were necessary, Lazar explained that if they were delayed here by the British, the Genovese ships, less than a day’s sail behind them, would catch up, and then they would have to do battle. If the Brethren lost, he said, every man captured would hang.

She shuddered and sent up a prayer at once for their protection. If her Prince thought she was going to permit anyone to hang him, he was a silly fool! she thought fiercely.

Every stroke of the sweeps inched them closer to the mouth of the Mediterranean.

Allegra turned her face to the east, in the direction where Ascencion lay somewhere miles and miles over the ship’s stem. With a sense of promise, she offered her homeland a temporary farewell.

Then Lazar drew her into his arms at the helm. Standing together, sharing their warmth, they waited in taut silence as
The Whale
led the other six ships through the narrow strait.

A patchy cloud covering further helped their cause by obscuring the waning gibbous moon, and within two hours the passage was safely made—Lazar’s small fleet gained the Atlantic undetected. The crew relaxed with a collective sigh of relief. Flagons of rum were passed around. Here and there subdued shouts of laughter bubbled over the moonlit decks.

As the seven ships spread out again in loose formation, riding the rougher, colder swells of the Atlantic, Lazar turned her around to face him and caught her up in a long, hearty kiss. She threw her arms around his neck, forgetting for the moment her rededication to the cause of being careful, swept up in the joy of his triumph.