The Pirate Prince (4 page)

He looked away, heart suddenly pounding. He closed his eyes for a second, hearing that laughter like clear silver bells.

So she is not an eyesore. So what?
he snarled inwardly. She was still a Monteverdi.

She was also, he realized suddenly, the perfect means for getting him into the gate tower. Indeed, as his hostage, she could prove invaluable. No one would dare get in his way if he had her in his power.

She was moving freely through the crowd, he saw, narrowing his eyes as he watched her. All he had to do was slip in close to her and persuade her to come with him, using soft words or weapons, whichever sufficed.

But instead of going after her at once, he held back, torn. He did not want to touch her.

He did not want to talk to her. He did not want to smell her perfume or see what color her eyes were. He didn’t want to go near her at all.

The plain fact was that he had never killed a woman before. In fact, he had a grandiose sort of rule for his own conduct, in that he refused to kill in front of women. He could not imagine any sin worse than destroying one of those creatures whose wondrous bodies could make new life, but his duty required it. He had come here to destroy Ottavio Monteverdi, and the traitor’s punishment would not be nearly complete until he knew how it felt to stand by and watch one’s family massacred before one’s eyes, helpless to stop it. The daughter must die.

When he saw a group of soldiers moving into the crowd from the direction of the alley where he’d left their unconscious sergeant, he realized he might soon have no choice. Self-defense might swiftly require it, for Monteverdi’s supply of soldiers appeared inexhaustible. If Lazar allowed himself to be captured, he risked the lives of the thousand loyal men waiting for him just outside the city gates.

No, he thought, it was going to be torment, but he could spare himself no such nicety of feeling. Allegra Monteverdi would be his human shield.

His mind made up, he began stalking her through the crowd. Keeping a wary distance, he looked first for the bodyguards she would surely have on hand to protect her. He scanned the crowd around her, but for all her father’s paranoia, it seemed Miss Monteverdi had not bothered to bring her guards out with her.

Interesting
.

Following her, he decided to approach her from behind and at an angle. Continually he glanced at her over the heads of the peasants and townsfolk that stood between them. He saw her leave the children, stopping to talk with people here and there. Everyone seemed to like her, a fact that struck him as remarkable, for the Ascencioners hated her father, the petty dictator.

Drawing ever closer, he watched her wander to the triple-tiered fountain in the middle of the square, her hair brilliant under the colored lanterns. When she half turned to reach her hand out under the arc of water, Lazar saw her in profile. She curled her wet fingers around the nape of her graceful neck, letting the water cool her. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the water on her skin in the heat of the night.

Something in her fleeting rapt expression instantly fired every male instinct in his blood.

Stay away from her
, the hardened anger in him warned, but he ignored it, tilting his head slightly as he watched her in increasing fascination.

It was at about that moment she began to sense she was being followed.

God, she was easy to read, he thought, amused. Her sudden apprehension was obvious in the way she stiffened, paused, looked around her just like a wary little cat.

Lazar leaned into the shadows of the wine seller’s stall as Allegra cast a worried glance over her shoulder, then turned toward the sound of some music near the edge of the square. She hurried off in the direction of the bonfire, where the guitarist was playing the old ballads. Lazar followed, sauntering along, perversely enjoying the thrill of the chase.

The peasants here lounged around the fire, swigging from bottles of the local wine, exchanging jokes and lewd stories, while the fat bard paused to count the few, grimy coins strewn in his battered guitar case.

As Miss Monteverdi stepped up to the fire, Lazar approached slowly, very slowly. He found himself seized with an awful curiosity to see her face in the light, the face of this innocent whose life he would take, whose death would consign to him, finally and irrevocably, as a force for evil in the world.

The ragtag bard hushed the waiting crowd and began plucking his guitar strings.

She was staring into the flames almost pensively while Lazar rounded behind the small crowd, watching her all the while. He slipped into position behind some people directly across the fire from her.

Gazing at her, he watched the firelight twine itself in gold through her hair and tinge her ivory skin with wine-pink light, like the allover blush of a woman’s skin during lovemaking. As the slight breeze moved her skirts around her like fine silken sails, the firelight suggested to his practiced eye the long, beautiful legs and slender hips the silk concealed.

What a waste, he thought ardently. And a virgin, too.

Allegra Monteverdi had a childlike smattering of buttery freckles and large, expressive eyes, honey brown, with lashes tipped in gold. Though she had been raised in decadent Paris, as his spies had told him, the pristine air of the convent school still surrounded her, and that glow of untouched purity enticed something dark in him.

There was a fineness in her bearing that commanded his instant respect, a gathered, focused grace that made her shine, and already he had no idea how he was going to pull the trigger when the time came.

He only knew that he would. He had failed his family fifteen years ago, but he would not fail them this time.

As her gaze traveled over the group around the fire, the people standing in front of him walked away. The movement drew her attention, and before Lazar had time to slip away, she saw him.

Her stare slammed into him.

Her eyes flickered, widened slightly. Her lips parted on a quick intake of breath. Her glance took in his weapons, his all-but-naked torso, then flicked up to stare at his face.

Lazar did not move.

He was not sure he could have if he tried, for he saw her lovely face illumined by the golden glow of the fire and by another, brighter fire within—her spirit.

Her expression changed, so lucid, so transparent. At first she liked what she saw, it seemed, but seconds later fear set in, and she began to withdraw, staring at him as if she sensed his intentions.

Lazar never moved.

Before his eyes, the girl backed away, whirled around, and fled.

CHAPTER TWO

For a long moment, Lazar could only stand there at the fire.

He lowered his chin, rubbing his mouth. Then he adjusted the black silk skullcap he wore to complete the look of the murdering outlaw—he had cultivated it well to keep his victims properly terrified. It had certainly worked on Allegra Monteverdi.

Do not go after her
.

Those eyes.
My God, those eyes
, he thought.

He stepped toward the fire and crouched down, uncertain how to proceed. He uncorked his flask, ignoring the curious glances of the people around him, and took a long, long drink. He could not get the image of her face from his mind.

That light. He would snuff out that light from the world. He resolved to make it painless for her and, lowering his head, blamed a sudden sense of nausea on the rum.

When he glanced up again, the old, frail farmer on the other side of the fire was staring at him as if trying to recall some dim fact from his senile brain. That steady, searching gaze made Lazar uncomfortable.

“Hey,
paisan
,” one of the peasant men said to him with a sideward wink. “Governor’s girl caught your eye, did she?”

He stared at him.

“Go get her, man!”

“Ho, ho, that’s asking for the gallows!” another declared, laughing.

“She’s a pretty piece,” a thin, hungry-looking man said, then looked evilly at the others. “Maybe we ought to send Monteverdi a message tonight.”

“I’d be interested in that,” another mumbled.

“Are you mad? He’ll stretch all your necks!” a robust fisherman scoffed.

“So what? He means to hang all of us sooner or later,” the first retorted.

Others took interest.

“Count me in for a turn!”

He was well familiar with what he heard in their voices, and he did not like it. Allegra Monteverdi was the pivotal instrument of his revenge, and he would not have these hard-eyed fellows interfering. He stood, straightened up to his full height, and rested one hand idly on the hilt of his sword, the other on the butt of his pistol.

They looked up at him as if they expected him to charge off, leading the way.

“I don’t think so, boys,” he said in an amiable, quiet tone.

“No?” the shrewd one demanded.

He shook his head.

“We do not rape women on this island,” he said, daring a challenge.

“Since when?” one exclaimed.

“She’s a Genovese!”

“And who do you think you are?” the smart one scoffed. “King Alphonse, come back from the dead?”

Before the fellow knew what hit him, he was flat on his back with Lazar’s sword point under his chin.

Around the fire complete silence fell.

“You will leave Allegra Monteverdi alone,” he commanded them softly.

The old farmer suddenly spoke up. “He does look like King Alphonse!”

Lazar froze. He glanced over at him swiftly, fiercely, and for a moment the old man looked into his eyes.

“
Santa Maria
,” a middle-aged peasant woman nearby breathed, blessing herself with the sign of the cross as she stared up at him.

“The legend!” whispered the guitar player, gaping at him as though he were the bloody Ark of the Covenant. “It’s true! He is—”

“No,” Lazar said sharply.

“But—”

“You’re blind,” he said coldly to them. “Leave me alone.” He sheathed his sword and abandoned them, stalking off after his prey, heart pounding.

He searched the thinning crowd, ignoring the hammering of his heart, refusing to consider how stripped he had felt by that old man’s mad-prophet stare and his idiotic remark. He looked nothing like Father. He
was
nothing like Father. He hadn’t a noble, self-sacrificing bone in his body, and he was damned glad of it.

Stupid girl, he thought as he searched the crowd, angry now. Why the hell had she come waltzing out into this volatile crowd anyway? Where were her guards?

He saw her by the fountain in the middle of the square and followed, intent on catching up to her quickly, for after that conversation by the fire he didn’t know what some of these radicals might dare.

Watching her, he focused his unsettled mind on the loose, sure swing of her hips as she walked, until he caught himself wondering how those long legs would feel wrapped around his flanks, that ivory skin moist in a silken sweat beneath him, that gold-streaked chestnut hair spread out upon his pillow, spilling through his fingers—

He thrust the images from his mind in self-disgust, unwilling to appreciate anything Monteverdi in origin.

He quickened his stride, intent on his pursuit of her, but he was twenty paces behind her when she ran straight into the arms of a tall blond man.

Lazar paused abruptly, arching one eyebrow. He sauntered toward the couple on a roundabout course, keeping to the shadows.

At first the smartly dressed man seemed angry at her, gripping her by the arm above her elbow and using his considerable height to loom over her, but quickly Allegra pointed toward the fire, no doubt telling him all about the half-wild killer who was stalking her.

Ah, her hero had come out to save her, he thought in dark amusement as he watched the blond man scan the crowd for him.
Must be the fiancé
. He knew about their betrothal, of course. He had done his research well for this night.

He disliked Lord Domenic Clemente on sight, but when the blond man waved a few of the guards over and began dispensing orders, no doubt to find and arrest
him
, Lazar heaved an irritated sigh.