He came very soon, and she did as well, her body frantic with need. She still loved him, even without the prophecy to force her, only now the thought was tinged with sadness.
At the bottom of the pass, as they neared the village of Ovota, two dozen of Alexander’s military men on horseback surrounded them and told them to follow to the Imperial Prince’s castle.
Damien had known they’d be there. Alexander would plan to the last detail, and every plan would have contingency plans, and contingency plans for those. If spells and assassins did not work, surrounding them with armed riders just might. At least the riders were leading them in the direction Damien wanted to go.
He knew the prophecy was broken. All Sasha’s rituals had done was get him married to an innocent young woman who deserved a much better husband than himself. Even if he overthrew Alexander, life as Imperial Prince would be far from peaceful. Alexander was but one danger; Damien’s life would be fraught with others.
Penelope should have married some minor baron or a peaceful gentleman whose idea of excitement was an especially long walk by the river. He imagined Penelope sitting before the fire in some comfortable country home, sewing her husband’s shirts, smiling at him while he described the remarkable things he’d seen during his walk.
Lovely woman. Meant to be a housewife, not an exotic princess men like Alexander sent assassins to hunt.
He’d felt the frantic madness of the prophecy recede three days ago, while he’d held her during the storm. But now that the haze had receded, he realized how foolish and selfish it had been to bind this woman to him. He’d tried to make her go back home, but she’d lifted her chin and gave him that beautiful, stubborn look, then told him she’d follow him to destruction and beyond.
And by the by, Damien, I am carrying your child. The stun of that still had not left him.
He moved to Penelope protectively. “May we keep the pace slow, gentlemen?” he asked. “My wife tires easily.”
She did not—she was the most resilient woman he’d met—but he did not want a frantic horseback ride to endanger her or their child. The captain of the troop, a tall man with coarse black hair, his Imperial Army uniform crisp and perfect, nodded.
Four horses were led forward for the others. Titus, lip curled, slid his hand toward the knife at his belt, but Damien glared him to obedience. The last thing he needed was Titus to start a bloodbath. The Nvengarian Army was disciplined, but they were Nvengarians.
They rode through a countryside quiet and still. Nearer the river, lush farms opened from villages clustered near the river’s banks, but no farmers tilled the fields.
The River Nvengar was wide and flat, navigable, though shallow. Flat-bottomed barges usually filled the river, coupled with everything from the rowboats of peasant boys to the overly ornate watercraft of dukes. Today, the river remained strangely empty.
“Is it a holiday?” he asked the captain. “Or a funeral?”
The captain gave him a sideways look. “His Grace the Grand Duke ordered the folk to stay in their houses while the outlawed prince was captured.”
“I see,” Damien answered.
The road took them along the river, which was dappled with sunlight, a pleasant and beautiful ride on a summer’s day. When they neared the first village, Damien said, “Petri.”
Petri knew what he wanted. He dismounted, to the distress of the horsemen surrounding him, but they relaxed when he merely opened a pack and drew out a coat. He handed it to Damien, who drew it on as Petri mounted again.
The coat was part of Damien’s Imperial Prince’s uniform, a little wrinkled from being folded away. Petri had polished every medal until it glistened with its own light, and brushed the epaulets until the silken threads gleamed. Damien settled his gold sash of office over his shoulder and moved it into place.
The captain raised his brows, skeptical.
“They should know which of us is the outlaw prince,” Damien explained. “To avoid confusion.”
The captain did not answer, only giving the order to ride on. Damien saw Penelope smile at him. She knew, and understood.
The village square held signs of a Midsummer’s Day festival abandoned. Colorful ribbons littered the streets, and blue and gold banners that read “Long Live Prince Damien” lay tattered and forgotten.
The doors were closed, the streets empty, but Damien sensed the villagers in their houses, no doubt glued to the windows, watching the procession go by. Damien glanced around as though he could see them, and he bowed, acknowledging them. Penelope, the wonderful woman, did the same.
They found similar silence and disarray in the next village, and the next. As the villages grew larger, the scattered and torn decorations grew larger, too, and more elaborate. In the town nearest the capital, a platform had been built with a painting of Prince Damien hanging at the rear. Alone, it swung with the light breeze, turning on its cord.
Damien sat straighter. He sensed the restlessness here, the building of tension that would explode soon. To bring the point home, he leaned over, lifted Penelope’s hand, and kissed it.
They rode on. The city in mid-valley rose at the top of a hill, crowned by a castle and a thick wall, the fortification that had defended Nvengarian princes for eight centuries. Renovations through the years had graced a more elegant facade over the old fortress walls, until the castle glittered with glass windows and balconies and fantastic battlements that grew more ridiculous with each ruler.
The city below it contained the townhouses of the elite and the aristocrats, each vying for the most elaborate home. The results put Mayfair houses to shame. Hidden courtyards, ornate gates, fantastic gardens, cascading fountains, and variegated glass were the norm. The burghers, not to be outdone, did with paint and plaster what they could not afford to do with carving and gilding and glass.
Even the peasant class, the most numerous in the town, whitewashed their houses and filled window boxes with a riot of blooms. All blended into a charming, homey mess that Damien had missed with every breath he took.
Just before they rode through the city gates, which were unmanned, Petri said, “Sir,” in a slightly worried voice.
Damien glanced over his shoulder. Petri was gazing behind them, across the narrow plain they’d just traversed. The Nvengarian soldiers looked, too, and stopped their horses. Penelope looked around, lips parting.
Behind them came a mass of humanity. They must have started at the first village, picking up people from the next one, and so on, following the entourage from town to town. They surged forward, not a mindless mob, but people walking purposefully, women holding the hands of children; farmers, peasants, and burghers; barons riding on horseback beside them.
Damien felt the people waiting for them in the city, the tension wound as high as it had been in the towns.
The captain signaled his men forward, and they rode beneath the arch of the city gate to a winding, cobbled street. “Bar the gates,” the captain ordered.
“Bad idea, Captain,” Damien said. “Gates can be ripped down, the iron bars used for weapons.”
The captain looked uneasy. He’d probably helped defend Nvengaria against Russian forays in the north, but never dealt with the madness of an uprising. He gave Damien a nod. “Leave them open.”
Penelope glanced sideways at Damien. He reached for her hand, and she placed it in his without hesitation, their horses side by side.
Except for their worn appearance and the army men imprisoning them, this could have been a parade of the prince and princess riding among their people. Damien made damn certain it looked like it.
The mass of people who flowed into the city were joined by those already there, pouring out of houses and shops and inns to walk with the quiet and increasing crowd.
The captain led Damien and his party up the tight turns of the castle road, each turn overlooking a steep drop to the city. The crowd stopped at the castle gate, far below, looking uncertain as to whether they should proceed.
With a clatter of hooves, Titus broke away from the column and raced back toward them, laughing and whooping.
“Let him go,” the captain barked, as two lieutenants made to peel away and chase him. “Not yet.”
Titus stopped before the crowd and sent up a cry, the ancient ululation of the Nvengarian people, used in times of war or drunken revelry—it never truly mattered which.
The noise of it was taken up here and there throughout the crowd, along with whoops and screams that rose to engulf the city. Damien, on the last bend, turned in his saddle and saluted. The crowd screamed louder, waving hands and flags of Nvengarian blue and gold, banners that had not been all torn down at Midsummer.
“Greet them,” Damien said quietly to Penelope. “They need you.”
Penelope glanced at Damien in quiet trepidation, then she drew a breath, smiled, and raised her hand in a very pretty wave.
A wall of sound hammered at them. The horses moved restlessly, ears flicking. Down below, people filled every street, a riot of color and noise and banners waving back and forth. They cheered and screamed, and when Penelope waved again, the sound pulsed forward, every throat shouting for the princess.
The captain was wise enough not to do anything to Damien and Penelope. He merely rode on, as though he and his men guided them, until they reached the elaborate arch of the castle entrance.
They rode through the ancient arched tunnel, where several enemies of the realm had met their death, and into the bright but quiet courtyard of the castle. The captain ordered his men to dismount, and the portcullis clanged closed behind them. They could hear the shouting of the crowd below, but faintly, behind thick walls.
The troop led Damien and Penelope, on foot now, into the castle proper. Damien walked close to her, their hands entwined. Sasha walked close to Damien’s other side, bumping into him from time to time, his breathing ragged. Damien sensed his terror but his equal determination to see this through.
Petri walked on Penelope’s other side, placing himself between her and the officer who tried to escort her. Egan hulked behind them. Titus, he knew, was still below, stirring up the crowd.
They went through ground-floor halls plain and utilitarian, then up stairs into halls more lavish. Cathedrallike ceilings soared above them, stained glass filled windows, gilded moldings glittered in the sunshine, and tapestries adorned walls alongside Dutch paintings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The hall that led to the throne room was more elaborate still, huge black and white squares running diagonally, niches in the walls filled with man-sized marble chess pieces. Bored princes of old had ordered sweating lackeys to push the carved pieces about on the squares of the floor to entertain foreign ambassadors. Damien’s father, once wanting to rid himself of a troublesome duke in the Council, made the duke play the game for his life, and was pleased when the duke lost.
Tall, gilded double doors opened into the throne room, which was a patchwork of red and blue glass windows, gleaming marble floor and walls, twisted ropes of gilding on pink marble columns, huge gold-cloth banners of the Princes of Nvengaria, more tapestries, paintings, gilded chairs set along the aisle for the lucky who made it this far, and at the far end on a marble dais, the Imperial throne of Nvengaria.
The chair itself, gold-leafed, padded in blue cushions, was uncomfortable as hell, but it looked impressive. It sat alone under a cloth-of-gold awning, and behind it hung the snarling wolf banner of the Princes of Nvengaria.
Alexander, Damien saw as they entered, had not deigned to use the throne. A simple mahogany desk with a chair that looked more comfortable reposed near the steps of the dais. The outside light sent rose and blue patterns on the white floor beneath it, but none seemed to touch the desk.
Efficiency, it said, rather than ornate foolery.
Alexander rose from behind the desk as they approached, looking very much at ease. He even bowed. “Damien.”
“Alexander.” He held up Penelope’s hand, which was still entwined in his. “May I present my wife, Princess Penelope of Nvengaria.”
Alexander’s edged blue gaze flicked over her from head to foot. “Charming.” He turned back to Damien and studied him with the same chilling scrutiny. “Against all odds, you have arrived.” He smiled thinly. “But too late.”
“You have been a worthy opponent,” Damien said, suppressing his growing rage. He wanted nothing more than to throw the man through the nearest stained-glass window, and have done. The windows, however, were thick against winter storms and too well made. Likely Alexander would simply bounce off them and still be there. “What is your next move in this game?”
“Arrest you and your men.” He slid his glance over the rest of them, then back to Damien again, as though he could not look away from him. “McDonald can return to his native Scotland; he has no part in this. Miss Trask, as well, may go home. I have no quarrel with her and will arrange her safe passage to England.”
“Damien and I married,” Penelope interrupted, her voice tight. “In an English church, so therefore, I am no longer Miss Trask. I do not know what the protocol is regarding my official title, but I know that I am Princess of Nvengaria.”
Alexander turned his gaze to her, his eyes going sharp and delighted. “No,” he said, his voice soft. “You are not.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Penelope blinked. Alexander was smiling a smile she did not like, and the light in his eyes was knowing.
The duke was quite a handsome man, nearly as attractive as Damien. They were of an age, he and Damien, and Alexander had the same black hair and deep blue eyes, his skin slightly browner than an Englishman’s. His Nvengarian blue coat with its many medals stretched tightly over a well-muscled torso, and the blue and gold sash of the Grand Duke crossed his chest from broad shoulder to firm, tapered waist.
He wore trousers tight enough for Meagan’s approval, hugging muscular thighs and disappearing into high black leather boots. His hands, ungloved, sported only one ring, a ruby that matched the glittering red stone that hung from his ear.
“I am,” she said, her voice growing fainter. “I did not believe it at first, but I inherited the ring, and I felt the prophecy, and I believe now.”
She glanced sideways at Damien, who stood with his shoulders relaxed, his stance one of a man who has the upper hand. She knew, however, that although the mob hemmed in the gates below the castle, Alexander ruled inside, and he could easily have Damien shot and his body unceremoniously flushed out with the sewage.
“I thought you might,” Alexander said. He spoke in a deep baritone, his voice almost sensuous. Women must swoon at his feet.
He beckoned her to the desk and slid out the chair. “Come and sit, Miss Trask. I have something to show you.”
Damien remained where he was. When she looked to him for guidance, he gave her a barely perceptible nod.
She unclasped his hand and walked quickly to the desk, her muddy boots clicking on the floor. She knew she looked a mess in the old traveling dress with her hair coming down and bits of earth falling from her skirt, but she held her head up and met Alexander’s eye without flinching.
She sat down as though he’d invited her to a supper in Grosvenor Square, and allowed him to push in the chair. He opened a drawer of the desk and removed a long scroll, looking rather like a rolled-up map, and several small silver disks.
He spread the paper across the desk, using the disks to hold each of the four corners so the page would not roll up onto itself. The paper was not a map. Spidery writing covered it, along with scrolling lines running every which way.
“You read Nvengarian?” he asked her. He spoke English perfectly, with only the faintest accent, unlike Damien who always allowed an accent through.
“A little,” she said.
“It does not matter; these are mostly names.” He pointed with a broad finger to the top of one column, to a single name, Augustus Adolphus Aurelius Laurent. “This, my dear, is the first prince of Nvengaria, join
t ruler with Prince Damien’s ancestor.”
“Yes, I know all about it. I descended from him, through his daughter.”
She sensed Sasha craning eagerly from behind Damien, trying to see the paper. The opportunity to gaze at another document of the family tree was enough to drive away his fear.
“No,” Alexander said, his voice almost kind, “you did not. You see here?” He drew his finger down the column, ruby ring winking. “The line flows quite easily all the way to 1567, where it ends with Princess Elisabeth Amata Anastasia Renee. And here it says, ‘she died childless.’”
Penelope peered at the just-legible writing and agreed, reluctantly, that the Nvengarian words said just that.
“Now here…” He gestured to the other column with the name “Elisabeth Bevridge” at the top. “Here is as far back as I traced your family tree, beginning with your mother, Simone Trask, nee Bradshaw. The lineage is not a low one; you have quite a few daughters of earls and viscounts in your past. Elisabeth Bevridge is your ancestor, the record of her appearing in Oxfordshire in 1560.” He gave her a look of near sympathy. “It was an easy mistake for Sasha to make. The name of the man the last daughter of Prince Augustus married was Bevridge, but it was a different family altogether. The Elisabeth Bevridge from whom you descend was born in the north of England, married one Thomas Bevridge there, and moved with him to Oxfordshire. Princess Elisabeth married a Jeremiah Bevridge, a native of Oxford.”
Penelope stared at the lines and curlicues in silence. No magic, no rings, no spells, no prophecy, just simple history, carefully researched and written in black ink on parchment. The fairy tale dissolved and fell away.
She lifted her hand, willing her fingers not to tremble. Light flashed on silver. “I have the ring, passed down through my family. It matches Damien’s.”
Her voice grew firmer with each word. The ring was tangible, too, a talisman passed from person to person for centuries. The lines of its crest were blurred, like the lines on the Roman tablet marking the ancient crossing of the Danube.