Seize the Fire

  She stood there uncertainly, not knowing why he'd come. He was dressed so splendidly…and Julia had left them; she hadn't even introduced them, and she wasn't supposed to know they'd met. Olympia was terrified that something had gone wrong; afraid that he was going to rescind his offer to help, and shamefully hopeful that he would.

  "Nonsense," she said, taking refuge in stalwart sensibility. "You're exaggerating."

  He just smiled at her: this stranger—this figure of blue and steel and gold, his decorations shimmering faintly in the shadows. He seemed different in full-dress uniform; more awesome and remote. Olympia made an effort to drag her scattered thoughts together, to put aside the uncertainty, along with the willful tug of other emotions that rose in her throat when she looked at him.

  "You want to know why I've come," he said.

  She glanced toward the door and back. In a low voice, she asked, "Has something untoward happened?"

  "Depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Sit down, Princess." He touched her arm lightly, guiding her to a chair near the fire.

  Olympia sat down and looked up at him with anxious eyes. He pushed his sword back and lowered himself in front of her, resting his arm across one knee and dangling his white-gloved hand casually. His eyes were on a level with hers, gray and steady; his mouth just faintly quizzical.

  "It seems someone else has moved to solve your problem for us," he said without preamble. "The fellows at Whitehall have come up with a plan to block your uncle's designs on you."

  She felt her flushed skin grow cold beneath the long sleeves of her woolen walking dress.

  "I've had a message from Lord Palmerston," he went on. "Perhaps you've heard of him—he's one of those War Office beauties who make themselves experts on every bloody thing alive—including Orienian politics and exiled princesses. He's not at all keen on your uncle. He thinks you ought to marry someone else instantly, to forestall the other possibility."

  '"Marry," she repeated numbly. Her skin grew hot again with embarrassment.

  "The idea never crossed your mind?"

  "No. I mean, yes, of course it has, but I've always thought I…" She trailed off. "I assumed my grandfather would make an alliance. Who on earth does Lord Palmerston suggest I marry?"

  He smiled a little and raised his eyebrows, saying nothing.

  She frowned at him. "Unless he's aware of some eligible prince, I can't think how he expects me to marry 'instantly.' Besides, there is the revolution to consider. I can't marry; I must go to Oriens. I think our own plan has much more to recommend it." She lowered her voice. "Have you sold the diamond yet?"

  He looked down at his gloved fingers. "I'm working on it."

  "Good," she said eagerly. "And you're arranging for everything else? When should I come to King's Lynn?"

  "Do you know," he said, "for a radical, you're rather a snob."

  "A snob!"

  He looked up. "You seem to feel the only men you could marry must be royalty."

  "Well," Olympia said, "I am a princess."

  He held her puzzled gaze for a moment, then rose and turned away. Light slid down the curved sheath of his sword as he moved across the room. He hefted a crystal paperweight from the writing platform of a glass-fronted secretary, turned the colored sphere over in his palm and put it down again. "Perhaps there's nothing more to say, then."

  Olympia clasped her hands. She stared at the footstool in front of her, her thoughts occupied by her impending escape, as they had been for two weeks. She had a thousand questions for him and was afraid to ask even one. She hoped he hadn't delayed their plans because of this unlikely notion of marr—

  Realization struck her. With a tiny gasp, she looked up at him.

  He stood in profile, facing the secretary. At the sound, he slanted a half glance in her direction and then looked back at the books behind the glass doors.

  "Not you!" she exclaimed. "He never meant I should marry you!"

  His mouth flattened in a parody of a smile. He locked his gloved hands behind his back. "Obviously not, since the idea is so repugnant to you."

  "No! It isn't—I mean, it's not possible; it's absurd. You must see…not that I wouldn't; of course, I'd be—" She pressed her palms together and held them to her lips to stop the flow of nonsense.

  "I'm a commoner," he acknowledged quietly.

  "You're a hero!"

  "Well, I quite apologize for it." His voice took on a brisk note. "I really hadn't thought you'd lodge an objection on that basis."

  She turned her face away, staring into the fire. "You can't wish to marry me."

  A profound silence settled over them, over the room and the fire and the trickle of sleet at the window. Olympia lost all those small familiar sounds beneath the hum of blood and heartbeat in her ears. Then he moved; the floor creaked as he came toward her and lowered himself at her knee. He reached up and took her face between his hands, looking into her eyes.

  "I can think of a thousand reasons you would not want to marry me," he said softly. "For myself not to wish it—I cannot think of one."

  "They're forcing you to do this," she whispered. "I'm sure they must be."

  He brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, white leather soft and warm against her skin. "No," he said. "I'm not such a special fellow, you know. I'm a convenience—a suitable body in the right place at the fight time." He let go of her and stood up, turning aside to the window, to the sleet and the slow-moving river. "If you won't settle on me, I don't doubt they've got a list of other approved candidates for your consideration."

  Olympia simply could not think of anything to say. She had spent the past fortnight working herself up to clear one looming series of fences and throw herself into the murky and terrifying landscape of the future beyond. Now it was as if, while she raced toward them with all her courage in hand, the barriers ahead and the mount beneath her had evaporated into thin air, sending her tumbling down some endless drop to nowhere. Her mind could not comprehend the change.

  "Shall I list the cold-blooded advantages?" he asked. "It blocks your uncle's attempt to wed you, of course. It strengthens the ties between your country and mine. I'm not a prince by any standard, but apparently I enjoy some current popularity in Oriens; they all seem to think I'm a hell of a fellow for fighting Turks. I'm told it would be…acceptable…to your grandfather. It eliminates the need for you to go on a wild chase to see the pope, and it means Oriens can be spared your revolution. A constitutional state can be set up through legal means, which is exactly what our friend Lord Palmerston is hoping for."

  She gripped her hands in her lap and nodded. It was easy enough to see all that. If she reduced it to the moves of a chess game, there was no doubt the plan had a better chance of winning than her own. It was sensible; it was safe; it had her grandfather's blessing and the backing of the British government.

  And she wanted it. God help her, she could hardly think for wanting it. She could not look at him, for fear she would burst into foolish tears. To marry Captain Sheridan Drake: to be his wife, to give him her heart and her life, to find the most cherished hidden dream of her existence made suddenly real…

  "Why?" she said to her white fingers. "When you agreed to help me before, it was amazement enough to me. But this…" She drew in a breath. "Why would you sacrifice yourself, throw away your whole life, for another's country?"

  "Need you ask? Wealth, position, power…" He paused. "All the usual reasons for marrying a princess."

  "You're making game of me."

  He was silent a moment. Then he said, "Have it as you will. It must be because I'm a hero and a true friend of liberty."

  She looked up at him then. The silvery aura from the window fell across his face, lighting a translucent, pale fire in his gray eyes. She could identify no telltale trace of humor or mockery in his features. There was simply his austere male beauty, that sullen perfection marred only by the little scar across his left eyebrow, which showed more clearly in the thin winter light.

>   "Now you make game of yourself instead," she said. "And you have not answered my question."

  "I have." His mouth curved upward at the corners. "I've given you two perfectly good answers."

  "I don't understand you." She shifted impatiently in her chair. "I've told you I often find jests to be obscure, haven't I? Please be serious."

  He inclined his head. "Excuse me, Your Highness. I shall attempt to govern my unseemly frivolity."

  "Thank you." She watched him for a moment. When his face remained perfectly grave, she said, "Please…I don't wish to be pompous. I only want to understand. It's very difficult for me to believe, you see, that you're not being forced into this." She bit her lip. "And I would hate that above anything."

  "I have told you I'm not."

  "But—"

  "Do you accuse me of lying?"

  Olympia drew back a little at the sharp demand. Then she sighed. "Yes. I think it's very possible you might lie. In this case. To spare my feelings."

  He looked at her steadily.

  She added, "You know there will be no wealth or power or anything of the sort for me after the dissolution of the monarchy, so that cannot be your reason. Even if I would think such a thing of you." She glanced down at her hands. "And I realize that my person is not very—attractive. I'm quite too plump, and my mouth is too small, and my eyebrows are too heavy, although I suppose that defect might be remedied by artificial means. But it seems…" Her voice wavered a little. "…excessive—even in the cause of freedom—to ask you to spend your life with me, only for the purpose of influencing the course of the next year in a place that can have no meaning to you."

  "I like your eyebrows. They have character."

  She put her hand to her face. "Pardon me, but I…it's very difficult to bear being made into a jest. In this."

  "A jest! Of all the—" He lifted his eyes toward the ceiling and shook his head. "I'm afraid it'll seriously hamper my courting if you can't tell a jest from a compliment."

  "Well," she said on a desperate note, "I can't, you know! I've never understood the things other people find humorous. And saying my eyebrows have character doesn't seem very complimentary. It doesn't even make sense. How can eyebrows have character? So I must assume it was said in jest. If you had told me you thought I had character, or that my eyebrows were…pretty, then I should understand it to be a compliment."

  A silence followed her outburst. She stared down at her tightly clasped hands, then suddenly stood up and moved away, the brisk rustle of her skirts the only sound in the quiet. When she came to the tea table, she stopped, her back to the room, her hands still clinging together. She bowed her head, feeling miserably foolish to be speaking of such silly things when it was the fate of her nation at issue.

  The floorboards creaked. She felt him come close behind her: a warmth, a presence that made her stiffen with awareness.

  "You have remarkable character, Princess. Your eyebrows are lovely. Your chin is adorable and your eyes are gorgeous. Your figure is…utterly splendid. Just about too splendid, if I may be forgiven for saying so. It's been damned hard to remember I'm a gentleman." He put both hands on her shoulders and turned her around. "For God's sake, do you really think I'm here on some crack-brained philosophical principle?"

  Olympia moistened her lips. His hands on her shoulders kept her pressed back against the table; his body planted solidly in front of her prevented any move in that direction.

  It was all rubbish, of course, everything he said: kindly meant and terrifyingly sweet to hear. Olympia feared for how vulnerable she was to such nonsense, how often she'd tried to excise aristocratic vanities such as a concern for personal appearance from her soul. She was glad she wasn't beautiful; she was proud that her governess cared more for Olympia's wardrobe than she did herself. But sometimes, when she looked in the mirror at her round cheeks, her heavy brows and small mouth and ridiculously large eyes, all monstrously out of classical proportion, she longed with a shameful fierceness to have Julia's slender neck and perfect face.

  In the silence that roared in her ears he moved closer. He put his hands on her imperfect throat and lifted her imperfect chin and bent his head to her flawed and trembling lips.

  He kissed her.

  And she fell in love. Helplessly; hopelessly—a consummate disaster. She felt it happen while his mouth came against hers and his gloved fingers pressed into the tender skin behind her earlobes. It was something physical, a tangible wound, a terrible rent in the fabric of her life, as if her whole self had been tom from her body and replaced by something else entirely. Something that belonged not to her but to him.

  To her horror, that new, helpless, slavish self answered the kiss. She parted her lips beneath the pressure of his. Her fingers gave up their vehement hold on each other; they slid apart and flattened against his chest, opening and closing like a cat's paws. A little aching sound came from her throat.

  His hold slackened for an instant. Only an instant, and before Olympia could break away, his hands slid forward and locked together behind her nape. The warm rush of his breath touched her skin: uneven and quick as he kissed her eyes and forehead and the comers of her lips.

  "Princess," he whispered. "My silly princess…"

  She cast down her lashes. It was impossible to look at him—unbearable. A whimper of miserable joy hung in the back of her throat. Kindness; she knew it was all meant for kindness and to spare her feelings. It was not his fault. How could he know? How could he see that it would cut her to the heart to be held this way? The nights she'd dreamed of it…before she'd ever seen him she'd dreamed of it, and then after…oh, after—when the boy-hero fiction had become a real man…

  She pushed away and took a step past him. But he turned with her, caught her as she moved. His arm trapped her back against his chest. He bowed his face to the curve of her throat. She felt his mouth against the soft skin just below her ear.

  He did not kiss her. He held her. She stood still, trembling in that firm and quiet possession.

  For an agonized moment she let herself think of it—that she might marry him for the sake of her country. The politics of it had a real and awful logic; it made too much sense from too many sides—from every side but his.

  A formal ceremony, a blessing from the British government, a letter to Oriens, and her uncle's plan was shattered. She'd never seen Prince Claude Nicolas. Whenever she imagined him, she never pictured a face, only a cold and aggressive presence, a killing pride. She was in exile because of Claude Nicolas.

  Sir Sheridan's arm tightened at her waist. "Princess," he murmured. "Let me protect you."

  She stiffened. Gripping his braided sleeve, she pulled forcibly away. She walked quickly to the other side of the room and stood looking out the window, rubbing her hands up and down her sleeves.

  She said, "Prince Claude Nicolas…my uncle…is a murderer. He killed my parents. Did Lord Palmerston tell you that?" She heard her voice shaking and bowed her head, trying to keep her agitation in check. "Do you know that it's you who would be in the gravest danger the moment that you married me?"

  A long silence followed her words.

  He said, "Do you think I'm afraid?"

  "No!" She whirled around. "It's I who am afraid—I'm the lowest, the meanest, the worst of cowards! I spend my days wishing I were anyone—a milkmaid!—instead of who I am. I cannot marry you, or anyone else, simply for my own protection," she exclaimed. "It would be craven! It would be selfish to shirk my duty to my people and to liberty. It would be despicable. I won't put you in such danger in order to flee from my own responsibilities."

  He gazed at her while she turned white with mortification at her vehemence. Then he smiled faintly and shook his head. "You relieve my mind. I was beginning to fear I'd offered myself to a woman of no sense whatsoever."

  "You're jesting again," she moaned. "How can you? You offer me protection—Sir Sheridan, you don't know how easy it would be for me to accept it! But how long would you be allowe
d to stand in my uncle's way? He is a monster, I tell you. It would be nothing to him to have you killed in your bed, and then what would I do? How would I bear it?"

  "I'd find it something of a tragedy myself, I assure you." He bowed. "But I see that my anxiety for your answer has made me unforgivably importunate. You need an interval of reflection on the proposal. With your permission, Your Highness, I think it's time I took my leave."

  Just as the butler was about to hand Sheridan his plumed hat and cloak in the entryway, a set of long fingernails dug into his upper arm. Julia pulled him into the dining room. She shut the door behind them.

  "Well?"

  He tossed his hat on the sideboard and glared at her. "Why didn't you bloody well happen to mention the chit's uncle is a murderer?"

  "Keep your voice down! Will she have you?"

  "Have me!" he hissed. "I'm not available anymore, madam. Do you think I'm going to sign my own death warrant?"

  "Nonsense. Claude Nicolas would not touch you. When you marry her, you'll have the full protection of His Majesty's government."

  "Oh, that eases my mind! I give myself a full extra week with my throat intact." There was a decanter of port on the sideboard. He splashed a substantial ration into a wineglass and downed the whole thing in one swallow.

  "The princess needs your help."

  He punished another glass of port in short order. "So blackmail some other poor sod."

  "There's no time. You're perfect. And," she added with a significant curl of her lips, "I've no need to find anyone else."

  "D'you think I'm crazy?" he snarled. "Four hundred thousand is a tidy sum, but it won't matter to a dead man. This Claude Nicolas is clearly the kind of cold-blooded brute who knows how to run a country. If he's got a notion to do it, then by God I ain't the chap to get in his way."