The familiar resentment welled up in her. “He could have had happiness, but through his suspicion and his deception, he threw happiness away.”
“He spent eight years in a dungeon. His friends were killed. He was hunted. He died. He has reasons for being suspicious... of everyone.”
Marlon’s explanation did not touch her. “We traveled for days together. He knew who and what I was. Yet still he deceived me. I am not an evil usurper. I am not a woman given to flights of fancy. I lived in a convent and tended a garden while patiently waiting to be called to do my duty. And he... and Rainger made a fool of me.” She realized—she wasn’t angry anymore. She was hurt. Hurt that he’d accepted her love, yet offered nothing but tenderness and an overwhelming sexuality in return.
He didn’t love her, and she wouldn’t allow it any longer.
Marlon opened his mouth, closed it, and thought, then said, “Perhaps it isn’t even that he was suspicious or that he should be a better judge of character. Maybe he made a mistake, a grievous mistake, and since he’s only a man, he doesn’t know how to apologize.”
“That’s ridiculous.” So ridiculous. “He’s an adult. All adults know how to apologize.”
“I beg to disagree, Your Highness. Only half of the adults know how to apologize. The other half are men, and speaking for my gender, I assure you a man will move heaven and earth rather than say, I’m sorry.”
She wanted to argue more, except the truth of what Marlon proposed seemed suddenly self-evident. She’d never heard a man admit he was wrong. Never heard a man say he was sorry. True, she had had little experience with men in the last years, but this made Rainger’s insistence on holding her while she cried a little more in keeping with his character.
In his mind, he wasn’t enjoying his triumph. He was giving her comfort. In a tone of discovery, she said, “He’s a jackass.”
“I fear that may be true,” Marlon said.
“I’m going to go talk to him right now.” Standing, she shook out her skirts.
Out of respect for his queen, Marlon came to his feet.
“He’s going to hear my mind on the matter,” she said, “and when I’m done with him, he’ll apologize just to... to make me stop speaking my mind.”
“A sound plan, Your Highness.” Marlon leaned on his canes.
She started down the path toward the palace, then returned to Marlon. “Thank you.” His eyes were agleam with contentment, but she allowed him that. “Thank you.”
She walked away again, and when she reached the hedge near the postern door, two men stepped out. One was handsome and vigorous, the other older, seasoned, and battle-worn. And tall. The older man was tall, with fists like hams.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” She tried to walk around them. She needed to speak to Rainger now.
The older man bowed. “Your Highness, Princess Sorcha?”
Had Grandmamma sent for her now? Now? Her grandmamma had a dreadful sense of timing. “Yes, but my husband, Prince Rainger, has expressed his wish to see me, and—”
A third man approached from one side, a fourth from the other, and when she glanced around, she saw two more moving in to close the trap.
A trap.
These weren’t Grandmamma’s men.
“Who are you?” she asked sharply.
“If you’ll come with us,” the older man said, “you’ll not be hurt.”
His young companion rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and jiggled his foot as if danger made him edgy. The other men divided their attention between her and their surroundings.
Of course, they should be nervous. Their plan was bold. They had come to capture the princess on the palace grounds.
“Who are you?” she demanded again. Her gaze fell on the young man’s jerkin, almost covered by his cape. There she saw it. A small symbol, a brown coiled snake against a scarlet background.
Count duBelle. These were his men.
Without warning, she threw back her head and screamed as loudly as she could.
A rough hand across her mouth cut her off in midshriek. The six men closed in, surrounding her, hustling her along the hedge toward waiting horses.
She struggled, flinging herself about, but with no chance against their combined strength. But she managed to turn to look back toward Marlon.
The branches were moving where he had stood.
Rather than face Count duBelle and his dungeon again, Marlon had fled. She was on her own.
Chapter 25
The footman cleared his throat in apparent agony as he opened the grand gilt doors of the throne room for Rainger to enter.
Absentmindedly, Rainger glanced up from the map he held. “Peter, you’d better do something about that cough. It sounds awful.”
Then he stopped short.
Grandmamma sat in the throne on the dais. White-haired, thin, elegant, carrying a cane she used as a weapon. The old woman was cold as the winter when the river froze over.
No wonder Peter had made such a dire noise. He’d been trying to warn Rainger of the awful fate that awaited him, and Rainger had been too involved in his war plans to take note.
As usual, Grandmamma’s expression boded ill for anyone who dared come before her. It certainly boded ill for Rainger.
Show no panic, he told himself. Like a hostile dog, she senses fear and attacks.
The trouble with Grandmamma was that she attacked regardless of her victim’s terror. Probably she couldn’t sense fear because everyone was afraid of her.
“What a pleasant surprise.” He bowed with the respect due the tough old woman. “How may I assist Your Highness?”
“By making my granddaughter happy.” Her eyes sparkled with hostility. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
Peter shut the door, abandoning his prince without conscience.
Yes. Grandmamma always attacked, and without warning or posturing.
But Rainger was master here now, and he answered to no one. “What’s obvious is that you should mind your business and allow us to mind ours,” he said coolly.
“An heir to the throne is my business, and Sorcha can’t breed if she rejects the stallion that covers her.”
“She is not a breeding horse!” As a belated afterthought, he added, “Neither am I.”
“Then act like a man!” Grandmamma smacked the arm of the throne. “You’ve made some grievous mistake or she wouldn’t treat you like a bug to be scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Apologize to her.”
“I apologize to her every night. She doesn’t—” He wanted to say listen, but he hadn’t actually verbalized his remorse. He demonstrated it.
“Apparently that’s not enough.” Using her cane, Grandmamma rose to her feet. “Women like gifts. Have you given her gifts?”
“I’ve been a little busy with the running of the country.” The country by day, Sorcha every night, and he didn’t know which challenged him more.
“Give me your arm, boy.”
He climbed the stairs and helped her down. He hadn’t realized it, but Grandmamma hobbled now.
“Prioritize, Rainger! Didn’t I teach you to prioritize? Besides, how long will it take you to ask me for the crown jewels?”
“The crown jewels of Beaumontagne?” The old lady astonished him. She delighted him. “Do you have them?”
“If I didn’t, they would have vanished during the revolution.”
“I thought they had vanished.”
“You give me too little credit.” Her thin lips crooked upward in what could have passed as a smile. “When my son went to war, I took them into my possession.”
“Of course you did.” She was a wily old woman who understood human nature all too well. She never would have trusted anyone else with custody of the priceless diamonds, sapphires, and pearls.
“I have them still.” She sank her nails into his arm. “But I’ll give them to you, so ask me.”
He hated being manipulated, but capitulating now saved him time better preserved fo
r planning war—and making love to Sorcha. “Please may I have the crown jewels to give to Sorcha?”
“I’ll send for them immediately.”
“And thank you for your quick and clever thinking.” Normally it would have hurt him to toady to Grandmamma, but he’d do anything to turn the subject away from his wooing of Sorcha.
He should have known better.
“You’re welcome. How will you give them to her?” Grandmamma shot the question at him like a bullet.
“I hadn’t thought about it.” How could he? He’d just found out about them—not that Grandmamma would accept that as an excuse.
“I can’t believe I’m advising you on this matter. I’m the least romantic person in the world. But obviously you’re the second least, and you need help. So listen to me. You will present the crown jewels to Sorcha tomorrow night at the ball celebrating your return.” Grandmamma had planned his courtship down to the last minute and motion.
“She’ll like that.” He’d like it—she would have to smile at him and maybe, for once, she’d mean it.
“It’s a grand gesture, one that needs to be made, but she won’t like being the center of attention. Don’t you know anything about her at all?” Grandmamma seemed to consider this a rhetorical question. “Sorcha is the kind of woman who would rather you picked her a bouquet of flowers. So pick her a bouquet of flowers. It won’t work if you have the gardener send flowers. That will make her unhappy.”
“I know that,” Rainger said with irritation, all the while wondering, Why? Rainger didn’t know anything about flowers. He didn’t know which colors to put together. He didn’t know which ones had thorns. He didn’t know how to arrange them. Why wouldn’t Sorcha like the gardener’s bouquet? The gardener was paid to do a better job with flowers than the king.
“She’s a soft little thing. She’d like it if you took her for a walk after dinner in the garden.” Grandmamma tapped her wrinkled lips. “In the moonlight. The moon is almost full. Tonight would be a good night.”
“The French ambassador is due to dine with us tonight,” Rainger said sarcastically. “Won’t he think it odd that I carry off my wife rather than remain to speak with him?”
“He’s French. He’ll think it’s odd if you don’t.”
Rainger spread the maps across the table and weighed down the corners. Anything to avoid looking Grandmamma in the eye. If he did, he’d probably confess that he’d written a letter informing Clarice and Amy of Sorcha’s return and begging that they come to visit as soon as possible. Because of all the things he’d done in Scotland, the thing Sorcha seemed maddest about was when he’d burned her letters. And second maddest about—having more letters and not letting her know. And third maddest—not letting her visit Clarice.
It wasn’t even his fault they hadn’t gotten to visit Clarice.
Sorcha didn’t care. She blamed him for being suspicious and distrustful, so she might as well blame him for the assassins that had turned them back from her sister.
Truthfully, he hadn’t comprehended the strength of the bond between the sisters or realized how desperately Sorcha worried about them, and perhaps—just perhaps—he’d made a mistake by not reassuring her as soon as he’d ascertained her character. Certainly he saw no reason not to beg Clarice and Amy to visit, and he was desperately relieved that they had written back to say they would be here soon.
Maybe that would melt Sorcha’s heart.
“Look, boy”—Grandmamma had a way of reducing him to infancy—“you don’t understand. I raised that girl you married. I met her when she was but a babe, and from that day, I feared for her. She is sweet, she’s kind, she’s vulnerable—the kind of woman men like you would use without any appreciation for the gem they’ve been handed.”
“Men like me?” What the hell did she mean by men like you?
“But Sorcha has changed. She’s not that lovable, vulnerable woman anymore. I can catch glimpses of the old Sorcha, but something fired her resentment and changed her completely, and—don’t lie to me—that something is you.” Grandmamma’s cold blue eyes drilled holes into his pride. “So unless you want to live your life holding the chain of a woman straining to get away, you’ll listen to me.”
He stared at the map of Beaumontagne and Richarte and tried to remember why he’d thought them so important. “Why should I listen to you about my wife?”
“Because I’m putting all my hopes in the fact that you’ve changed, too.”
Grandmamma was right. Damn her, she was right. He had to do something about Sorcha—or rather, something else about Sorcha, because his plan to force her to freely give her love to him was failing miserably.
Even as he held her in his arms every night, even as he brought her to unwilling climax, he felt her slip further and further away. And all the time he spent with generals and ambassadors and maps, he was aware of his own low-level misery that threatened at any moment to explode into fury and anguish.
He had felt like that in the dungeon. He didn’t want to feel like that anymore.
“Rainger, pity an old woman and prove you’re not the same spoiled lad you were before you were taken.” Grandmamma sounded more tired than cranky, and that in itself was frightening.
In a low voice, he asked, “What should I do?”
“Jewels, flowers, a walk”—Grandmamma shook her crooked finger in his face—“during which you tell her you’re a fool for doing whatever it was you did to her and that you’ll never do it again.”
That was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid. “When I escaped the dungeon, I swore a vow that I would never kneel before another soul, I would never crawl, I would never beg. It was a vow.”
“Then I’ll stop planning your formal wedding and crowning in the cathedral, and instead I’ll get this marriage annulled,” Grandmamma said coolly.
“What?” he roared.
“I’m not going to have Sorcha live in misery because you’re stubborn.” Grandmamma’s eyes were glacial chips of blue. “You were married in a foreign country. I can bribe the witnesses, make the proof vanish, and find her another prince who can make her happy.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” His hands curled. He would never strike a woman, certainly not an old woman, but if he was ever tempted, Grandmamma would be his first choice. “Sorcha’s mine. She’ll always be mine. I secured her because I wanted to win back my country, but I’ll keep her because... ”
Grandmamma leaned forward. “Because why?”
Because he loved her.
He loved her, yet he’d made her miserable.
He’d stripped her of her pride in herself as surely as Count duBelle had stripped him of his.
Why had it taken him so long to see that?
“Rainger!” Marlon called from the doorway.
At the interruption, Grandmamma groaned like an old horse and propped herself against the table.
Leaning on his canes, his face pale and streaked with sweat, Marlon hurried toward them trailing anxious guards and statesmen in his wake. “For God’s sake, Rainger, listen, and quickly!”
“What’s wrong?” Rainger sprang to help him.
“They have her,” Marlon said. “Count duBelle’s men.”
Grandmamma grabbed her arm as if she were in pain.
“They’ve taken the princess. Count duBelle left this ransom note.” Marlon fumbled in his pocket and brought out a paper stabbed through with a knife. “He has set a date and a time for you to come and get her.”
Rainger snatched the paper and read the message.
“In a fortnight, not far from his castle where we were imprisoned. Your Highness,” Marlon said, “he wants you.”
“Me he can have.” Rainger threw down the paper and strode toward the door. “But Sorcha he will not keep.”
Chapter 26
A fortnight later, men clothed in black slipped through the darkness of the hushed forest, searching for the spot where tomorrow’s drama would play out.
One
horse rode with them, and from atop that horse, Marlon called softly, “Your Highness, they’ve found it.”
Rainger recognized the tone in Marlon’s voice, and his heart sank. He followed Marlon to a spot overlooking a meadow full of grass that waved in the breeze.
Marlon pointed.
In the light of the half-moon, Rainger saw the trap duBelle had set for him. “Hell,” he said, and it was more of a description than an expletive.
“Perhaps there’s another way,” Marlon said. “Someone who can dress up to look like you—”
“No.” Rainger would win this battle with himself.
“We could catch Her Highness as they bring her here and rescue her before—”
“No.” Rainger comprehended Marlon’s worry only too well. “I won’t fail you this time.”
Marlon gazed down at Rainger and his voice rang with sincerity. “I have faith in you.”
“And I in you. Here’s what we’re going to do.” When he’d given his instructions and Marlon had gone off to direct the men, Rainger looked again at the trap.
Of course. It had to be this.
The one thing he dared not face.
Yet he had to. For his people. And for Sorcha.
“Your Highness.” Hubert held the door, but took care not to cross the threshold into Sorcha’s cell. “The court’s going hunting and they beg your presence.”
“Beg? Do they?” Sorcha didn’t turn to face Hubert. Instead she kept her gaze on the panorama visible from the castle tower. The black mountain peaks pierced the blue sky. The verdant green forests crept up the slopes. The distant fields awaited the first growth. “Richarte is a beautiful country—from a distance.”
“Please, Your Highness, I must deliver you to the great hall.”
“Yet the closer I look, the more apparent Count duBelle’s failure becomes.”
“Please don’t make me come in and get you.”
She didn’t doubt for a moment Hubert sincerely wanted no trouble. He’d been one of the castle guards under Rainger’s father.