The Stolen Princess (21 page)

Eventually she said, “What one writes and what one does are often quite different.” She looked at the squire. “And if people who read letters not addressed to them go off on wild goose chases as a result, well…” She bared her teeth at the count in the pretext of a smile.

The count stared at her, goaded. His slender fingers flexed as if itching to throttle her. Ethan did not take his eyes off the count. He folded his arms and his jaw jutted pugnaciously.

Gabe stepped forward. “That's quite enough. If this princess was writing letters to arrange visits to her old friends, and you read them, why the devil are you telling everyone I kidnapped her? I've a good mind to have you up for slander! Sir Walter, you are my witness.”

Sir Walter cleared his throat. “Now, Captain Renfrew, I'm sure there is no need for that. The count didn't mean anything by it, I'm certain. Did you, Count?”

There was a tense silence. The count knew he was on thin ice. After a moment he said stiffly, “Perhaps my informant made a mistake.”

“Yes, yes, a mistake.” The squire gratefully seized on the excuse. He turned to Gabe. “It was the horses, y'see. The count was told the princess was in a vehicle drawn by matched grays, and as everybody knows, the only grays of any quality in this area are yours. That was the error. Must have been some other grays passing through. Some other lady.”

Gabe gave the count a hard look. “Indeed.” The Zindarians were horsemen: of course they'd notice his grays.

The squire was grateful for an excuse to leave. “My apologies for the misunderstanding, Captain Renfrew, and Miss Tibthorpe, for the disturbance. After you, Count.” He gestured toward the door.

The count hesitated, then stalked into the hallway, his face pale with anger and frustration.

Jim slipped ahead in the hallway and pulled open the front door. As the count, with very bad grace, stormed past, Jim said in a cheeky voice, “An' good riddance to bad rubbish, yer slimy yeller snake!”

Balked of his prey, the count slashed his whip hard across the boy's face. Jim screamed with pain as he crashed against the wall.

C
allie sat on the bed upstairs with her arm around Nicky. She had been trying to stay calm, reassuring her son that there was nothing wrong, merely that Count Anton was downstairs and she didn't wish to speak to him.

Nicky seemed to accept that, sitting quietly, docile and obedient.

To distract herself from what might be happening downstairs, she asked him about his riding lesson. But Nicky didn't respond. After a moment he said thoughtfully, “Count Anton wants to kill me, doesn't he, Mama? And become prince in my place.”

She stared at him, shocked. She'd tried to keep it from him. How long had he known?

He added, “That's why we are hiding up here in your bedchamber. Mr. Renfrew and the others are going to save us, aren't they?”

“Yes, darling, they are.”

“And we will wait here until it is safe to go down again.” He was pale, she saw, and his eyes were troubled.

And suddenly Callie realized what she was doing. She was sitting up here, hiding like a frightened rabbit.

Teaching her son to hide like a frightened rabbit.

Sending other people to risk themselves for her sake.

Tibby's cottage had been burned to the ground. She had lost everything because of Callie, and yet Tibby was downstairs, facing the man who'd imprisoned her then burned her home.

Not hiding like a frightened rabbit.

In the last few days Nicky had started to glow with confidence; now he was pinched-looking and anxious again.

Callie was ashamed. She'd let her fear rule her. She looked down at her small son and recalled the conversation she'd had in the kitchen about the life she was giving him, a life of running and running and running.

She had escaped from Zindaria. She was now in a country where Count Anton's insidious influence was not so pervasive.

Here there was less chance of maidservants and grooms being in his pay, owing him fealty, being terrorized. Here he was the stranger, the foreigner—not her.

Here, people believed her. Her fears had not been dismissed as female foolishness. She'd been taken seriously. And she had support.

So what was she doing hiding like a rabbit? Filling her son with fear and teaching him to be helpless in the face of it.

Here and now the running was going to stop.

“Mr. Renfrew said something interesting the other day,” she told Nicky. “He said, ‘A battle is not always won on brute strength alone.'”

Nicky tilted his head up at her and considered the words. “You mean we cannot beat Count Anton in a proper fight, but there are other ways to defeat him?”

She smiled. “When did you get to be so clever? Yes, my love, that is exactly what it means.”

She stood and looked thoughtfully around the room. She had no weapon to defend herself and her son. In Zindaria she had owned a small pistol—Rupert had given it to her and taught her to use it after the attempt on Nicky's life where her earring had been torn out. But the pistol had disappeared after Rupert's death.

She might not be able to fight the count, but she could certainly bluff. And for bluffing, she had just the weapon.

She opened the bandbox and from beneath its false bottom took out a circular bundle.

“What do you want that for, Mama?” Nicky whispered.

“When you have nothing else to fall back on, my son,” she told him, “remember who you are and where you have come from. The strength will come.”

She unwrapped the bundle and took out her mother's diamond tiara. It was the only thing she had of her mother's, and she loved it dearly. She stood in front of the mirror and put it on her head. It looked ridiculous with her traveling clothes, nevertheless the feel of it gave Callie strength.

“I have this to fall back on,” Nicky told her and showed her a long black cane with a silver handle. It was nearly as big as he was. “I found it in the wardrobe.”

She smiled and tiptoed to the door, just to listen. She had no intention of showing herself unless she was forced to.

She was just in time to hear, “An' good riddance to bad rubbish, yer slimy yeller snake!” followed by a child's scream of pain.

Nicky leapt up. “That's Jim. He's hurt Jim!” And before Callie could stop him Nicky had dashed out of the room.

He ran toward the stairs, yelling at the top of his lungs in Zindarian, “Leave him alone, you bully! I
command
you to stand back!”

In one hand Nicky brandished—good God, Callie thought. It was a sword! Where on earth had he found a sword?

She raced after him. As Nicky pelted screaming down the stairs she saw the count turn. There was a feral light in his eye as he produced a long-bladed knife and turned it toward the small boy hurtling toward him.

“Nicky, nooo!” she screamed.

Gabriel turned at the sound of Nicky yelling. In a split-second reaction he reached out and caught Nicky in mid-flight just as he reached the foot of the stairs. In seconds he'd taken the sword from Nicky, passed him back to Ethan, and had the sword at Count Anton's throat. The knife in the count's hand wavered, then dropped to the floor.

Nicky was saved. Callie stumbled and almost fell. She clutched the banister and steadied herself. Her son was not yet out of danger. Gabriel had saved him from the knife, but there was still the law to be dealt with. Her knees wobbled. But it wasn't over yet.

The count snarled. “See, she is here after all! The missing princess of Zindaria, as I claimed all along. I demand you call off this rabid dog and hand her and the boy over to me.” This rabid dog being Gabriel, whose only reaction was to press the tip of the sword a little harder against the count's throat.

Callie fixed her gaze on Count Anton, smoothed her dress with shaking hands, straightened her mother's tiara, and glided slowly down the remaining stairs. Nobody said a word. All eyes were on Callie.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and moved toward the count. She ignored the sword at his throat and addressed him in her most regal manner. “Count Anton, how dare you burst into this house, shouting and bullying children.”

His lips moved in a soundless sneer and she poked him in the chest with her finger, hard. “You are a mannerless oaf and I am ashamed to acknowledge you as a son of Zindar. And how dare you inform others that I am missing. Do I look missing to you?”

“He told me Captain Renfrew had stolen you and your son away,” Sir Walter said.

Callie didn't turn her head. “Did. He. Indeed?” she said, emphasizing each word with a poke of her finger. “Nobody stole me or my son. Things have come to a pretty pass in Zindaria when a woman cannot take her son to visit the country of her birth—I was born in England—” she added for the magistrate's benefit, “without an oaf like you telling the world I've been stolen.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And as for the way you treated my friend Miss Tibthorpe, and my son's friend, Jim—not to mention the way you turned a naked blade on your own crown prince—I've half a mind to ask Mr. Renfrew to lend me his blade so I can run you through here and now.”

“Er, Your Highness, that's not allowed in England,” the magistrate said nervously. “Summary executions are illegal—there must be due process, a properly conducted trial, and so on. Captain Renfrew, you know it.”

“I am the princess's to command,” Gabriel responded.

The count paled and jerked his head as Gabriel promptly passed the handle of the blade to Callie without removing it from his throat.

A trickle of blood ran down the count's throat. Callie watched fascinated. She hadn't moved at all, he'd done it to himself.

She stared down the long blade at her enemy. With one thrust she could stop the threat on her son forever. Her muscles tensed. She stared, mesmerized, along the gleaming silver blade. In the count's throat, a pulse throbbed.

It would be so easy. One thrust and her troubles would be over.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it. He was a man, a human being. He had Rupert's eyes. He was Rupert's cousin, her son's closest male relative. She would gladly see him dead, but she could not be the one to do it, not in cold blood.

He read it in her eyes and sneered. “You're a coward, like your weakling son.”

“There's not a cowardly bone in either of them.” Gabriel placed his hand over hers and took the sword back. “But she's no cold-blooded killer.”

He paused, then added silkily, “I, on the other hand, after eight years at war, am.”

“Princess, Captain Renfrew, don't do this,” Sir Walter begged. “It would be murder, cold-blooded murder.”

Mr. Renfrew looked at Callie. “For you, I'd do anything. Just say the word.” His eyes were very blue and very steady.

Callie closed her eyes briefly, then reluctantly shook her head. “I can't,” she whispered.

“By Jove, what's this? A reception committee?” A tall man wearing buckskins, an elegantly cut, though dusty coat and high, black boots strolled through the open door and tossed his curly-brimmed beaver hat on the hall table. He raised a quizzing glass and inspected the collection of people standing in the hall. The glass hovered on Callie's tiara for a moment, then moved on.

Having finished his inspection, he smiled faintly and said, “If you're going to skewer that fellow, Gabe, get a move on. I've ridden all the way from Aldershot and I've got a devil of a thirst.”

“Well said, Rafe.” A second gentleman, better-looking but less elegant than the first, followed. Pulling off his leather gloves, he, too, glanced at the frozen tableau and said with a frown, “But not in front of the ladies and children, Gabe, there's a good fellow. Bad
ton
to murder people in front of ladies and children.” He bowed gracefully to Callie and Tibby.

“Yes, a little consideration, brother mine,” a third man declared. “Take the fellow outside to skewer him and save Mrs. Barrow's nice clean floor.” He met Mrs. Barrow's eye and winked. This must be Harry, Callie thought dimly. He was the image of Gabriel, tall, dark, and broad-shouldered, only his hair was dark brown instead of almost black and his eyes were gray. He looked from his brother to Callie and back again. His eyes flickered to her tiara and one brow rose faintly.

“Go ahead, Mr. Gabe, don't mind me,” called Mrs. Barrow. “I'd be delighted to mop up that villain's blood. And I wouldn't mind watching, neither. In fact I'd downright enjoy it!”

“Me, too,” said Jim. “Bloody stinking—” Mrs. Barrow muffled him with her hand.

Gabriel looked at the count's stiff countenance and turned his head toward Callie. “Last chance.”

She shook her head. “Let him go.”

He lowered the sword and jerked his head. “Right, get out.”

“I have the right to—”