She found one, a tall cluster of stones and bushes. Hitching up her skirts, she climbed the rocks. She snatched up a few broken branches and carried them into the deepest concealment. Crouching down, she made herself as small as possible and arranged the branches over her. She held one stick, pointed side out, toward the breach where she had entered. And she waited.
She twitched at every birdcall, at every creak of the trees, but she saw no one and she wondered— what had happened to her kidnapper? Had the horse trampled him? Had he gone in the wrong direction? She didn’t understand this silence. She didn’t trust her easy escape.
She didn’t trust Dom.
Nor did she understand him. Why would he arrange the kidnapping? As he once said, if he had decided to take her, she would have been already gone. But he hadn’t rescued her, either. He had had her in sight. What could have kept him from saving her?
Unless someone had attacked him, too. Maybe the shout she heard had been Dom, falling under an attacker. She closed her eyes and fought back a stab of pain. Could he be dead on the path, a casualty to some villain’s greed?
But in that case, where was the accomplice? Everyone should have been after her.
Her head ached from her newly acquired lump. Her cheek was skinned and stiff with blood. She desperately wanted to stand, to stretch her stiffening knees, to creep downhill to the safety of the festivities. Instead she stayed where she was, smearing dirt on her cotton skirt to conceal the vibrant pink color and listening ... listening.
Had they missed her down in the meadow where the revelry continued, or had her disappearance gone unnoticed? If her father had allowed Weltrude to schedule more duties for her, Weltrude would have launched a search by now. But Laurentia knew from previous years that the increasing crowds gave her anonymity—an anonymity she usually enjoyed. She had probably been gone only two hours, and even her father would presume she had done nothing more foolhardy than sit in the shade of a tree to gnaw on a roasted goose drumstick.
And if he did notice her disappearance and Dom’s, would he construe the worst from their joint truancy? She winced at the thought, and winced again at the realization that she didn’t care about the gossip, if only she could get back to the palace in one piece.
Finally she heard the noise a horse would make.
When Dom parted the bushes, she rammed the pointed stick into his belly.
He grunted and bent at the waist, but when she raised the stick again, he caught it in his hand. “No.” He wheezed. “I captured him.”
What kind of fool did he think she was? She snatched up another branch and raised it over his head.
This time he just ducked aside. “Go look! He’s tied on the horse.”
She hesitated. She didn’t trust Dom, but she knew well enough she had not done him a permanent injury. If he had wished, he could have knocked her unconscious.
Still, she couldn’t allow herself to hope.
Skirting around him, she jumped off the rocks. The enormous stallion stood there, wild-eyed at carrying an unconscious man tied to his back. Going to the man, she smelled his acrid odor even before she touched him. With a moue of disgust, she looked carefully into his face.
Those nasty eyes were closed, one by a swelling that purpled his nose and most of the right side of his face.
“Your Highness, may I come out now?” Dom called.
“You may.” She wasn’t feeling relief at being rescued. Or anger at the man who had menaced her. All she felt was a bone-deep gratification that Dom had not betrayed her.
From the rocks above her, he said, “I’m sorry it took so damned long for me to find you, but you’re good at this. I backtracked three times before I found you.”
She looked up to see him cautiously peering down, and she just stared at him. At that marvelous face enriched by the old, long scar—and by a newer, shorter wound, fresh from a blade.
“You ran a long way.”
“I did what you told me!”
“Yes. You did.” He rubbed his stomach. “I didn’t tell you to ram me with a stick, though.”
She narrowed her eyes on him in absolute indignation.
“But I approve,” he added hastily, “considering you didn’t know who it was. I especially approve of your intention to knock me in the back of the head. Never hurt a man just enough to make him angry, Your Highness. You want to disable him completely, and then run.”
“I know that,” she said. “And I knew who it was. I just didn’t know who commanded your loyalty.”
He grinned at her as he slid off the stones. A bruise of magnificent proportions colored his cheek. Just below that the knife wound, thin and shallow, curled back the skin. Still grinning, he sucked at his scabbed knuckles.
Why was he so happy? She’d just told him she suspected him.
“Do you forgive me for not liberating you immediately?” He didn’t wait for her reply. “I wanted to see where the nasty oaf was taking you and if he had a partner, but once he got to the horse I knew I had to get you at once.” His eyes gleamed. “Brilliant thinking, throwing that stone at the stallion.”
“It was my only choice.”
“Most people, when they’re terrified, can’t think. That stone gave me the chance to take the fool’s legs out from under him.” He touched his face. “Too bad he had a knife, too.”
She brushed his hand away and examined the gash. “When we get back to the festivities, the physician will tend to that.” Looking earnestly into his eyes, she asked, “Aren’t you insulted I suspected you?”
“Of course not. In your position, you should trust no one.” He said emphatically, “Trust no one, Your Highness.”
“No one,” she echoed. But it was too late for that.
On the horse, the kidnapper stirred and groaned. “We’ll take him to the palace, put him in the dungeon,” Dom said. “Let ol‘ Smelly here find out what real odors are. Give him a chance to worry all night. In the morning, we’ll question him, find out who hired him and what they wanted you for.”
Dom was chattering, she realized.
He dabbed his fingers lightly along the lacerations on her cheek. “I’m sorry you had to suffer these, and during your celebration, too. They aren’t pretty, but they’re not serious. But you realize this attempt has been a godsend. The kidnapping, I mean. Not your face. But with him in custody”—he jerked his head toward the struggling kidnapper—“we’ll soon discover who is behind this.”
Enlightenment burst on her. Dom was exhibiting masculine triumph. That kind of triumph the bowman had shown when he’d won the archery contest. Dom had fought, he had beaten his opponent, and now he swaggered as if he’d never fought and won a battle.
This odd, ritualistic celebration had never impressed her before. Did he think it would now?
She blessed him with a trembling smile.
It did. Merciful heavens, it did.
“Dom.” She walked toward him, and his arms opened. “Dom.” She leaned against him, loving his strength, reveling in his virility ... trusting him.
Brat walked quickly home, Ruby heavy in her arms, and listened for footsteps behind her.
Night had fallen too quickly for her taste, enveloping the countryside in shadow and leaving her an easy target for the man who said he’d been watching her.
Oh, he’d smiled, charmed the old ladies, and introduced himself as Chariton, one of His Majesty’s loyal servants, but she trusted her perceptions. In that one phrase, she’d heard a threat.
“I’ve been watching you.”
For how long? she’d wanted to demand. For what reason?
Not to court her, as the old ladies believed. He watched her because he suspected her of something.
And she knew she was guilty. She’d come to this kingdom on a mission of destruction, and even though she had objected to Dom’s plans, she had complied with them. She was helping bring chaos and anarchy to Bertinierre.
Slowing, she listened again.
Nothing. She
heard nothing, but the hair on the back of her head lifted. Chariton lurked out there, skulking along the road, hiding in an olive orchard, sitting among the rocks draped in ground fog. Watching her.
He had followed her for the rest of the day, being charming. Charming to her. Charming to Ruby. All the time Brat’s wariness had grown.
She could fight better than most women. It was just that, since the rape, the sight of a sinister man froze her into immobility for a few crucial seconds, and in that amount of time a battle could be lost.
Moreover, she held Ruby. She adjusted the baby in her arms. She’d fight for Ruby, but what a hindrance she would be.
Not that she thought this Chariton would harm a child. He didn’t look the type. He had none of the cold-blooded killer about him. The truth was almost worse. His eyes, when he gazed at her, were warm and ... interested. Like ... if he wasn’t stalking her to discover her secrets, he would be courting her.
That frightened her all the more.
He did look the type who would fight for his homeland, and skillfully, too. She’d barely managed to shake him before starting home.
Damn, what was she going to do?
Her hut came into sight, low, small, and oh so safe. If she could just get inside, nothing could harm her. She’d made sure of that.
She crossed the bridge over the ravine, placing each foot prudently. None of her traps had been disturbed, and the road behind her remained quiet and still.
Standing at the door, she swept a glance around.
Nothing. He wasn’t there. Had the whole incident been nothing but a figment of her imagination? She didn’t think so, but perhaps, if she were wily, she could avoid this Chariton from now on.
Leaning her shoulder against the door, she pushed it open and stepped inside.
And as it swung shut behind her, she heard him say, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
A guard woke Dom in the predawn hours with a message.
While sentries stood at the dungeon door, the kidnapper had been poisoned.
He was dead.
Chapter Sixteen
“Laurie.”
The hand on her shoulder was gentle, the voice was her father’s, yet Laurentia came out of a sound sleep with her fist swinging. King Jerome ducked out of the way before she made contact with his jaw, and she cried out an apology as soon as she saw his face lit by the flicker of the night candle at her bed, but her gesture displayed her disquiet as nothing else could have.
“Dear girl.” He took her clenched hand in his. “I worried about this. You’re afraid even in your sleep.”
“I’m prepared even in my sleep.” She took a few breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. “And you would have frightened anyone, Papa! What are you doing sneaking into my bedchamber at—” she squinted at the bed clock “—four-thirty in the morning?”
“I wanted to talk to you in private.”
He already wore his gray riding costume. His hair was combed, his cravat knotted loosely, yet with style. He’d wakened his valet even earlier than normal to prepare himself for the day’s hunt, and she knew why. She knew what he wanted to talk about. Dom had reported her abduction to the king, and if she were to do her duty, she had to think quickly, to somehow thwart her father’s protective instinct. “Papa, did you come to tell me you’re pleased with me?” she asked quickly.
He frowned, covering his bafflement with gruff courtesy. “Always, my dear. But for what reason am I to be pleased with you now?”
His confusion gave her hope of outwitting him. “I escaped that kidnapper all by myself. I told you I think well when cornered.”
“Yes.” He knew what she was doing now, but still he couldn’t hide his pride. “I’m very pleased with your quick thinking. But Laurie, you are a sensible girl, and you know today can’t go as planned.”
So first he would try to put her in her place, use his influence as his elder. But she knew how to answer that. “I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. A woman of quite advanced years, you know.” She pulled a droll face. “I’m so old, Papa. Twenty-five is a great age.”
“Don’t be foolish, my dear. Sixty is a great age, and six decades bring a vast amount of wisdom, which I must apply in this case. I would have to be a fool to let you go to the cottage today after two kidnapping attempts.”
“I’ve had other birthdays, Papa, with gifts that will help me survive. Don’t you remember the year Beaumont died? You gave me a pistol, and I keep it well-oiled, loaded, and I practice with it.”
“Neither a pistol nor quick thinking is a match for an armed force whose orders are to carry you away.”
“Do you know of such a force in Bertinierre?” she asked, wondering if he had more than warnings to impart.
“No, but I—”
She relaxed. “I’ve heard you say it yourself. An armed force could not hide in Bertinierre for long. We’re too small and too well-populated. This adversary who tried to take me deals in stealth and deception, and Dom and I disarmed them.”
He pulled at one corner of his mustache as he always did when uneasy. “I hope so, but I suspect I know our villain, and he is not easily deterred. Our relations with King Humphrey of Pollardine have not been cordial for many years.”
“Humphrey?” She searched her mind for what she had been told of neighboring Pollardine’s king, and found none of it flattering. “I thought he was an idiot.”
“He is. If not for his wife’s skills at ruling Pollardine would surely have succumbed to a revolution, for Humphrey is a man without intelligence or skill. A man easily guided by others.” Gingerly, he seated himself on her bed. He had an expression on his face she saw seldom and wished never to see at all; the look of a man who had to admit to a mistake. “Unfortunately, it is the man who guides him who is my enemy.”
She replied stupidly; she knew it, yet she couldn’t fathom this kind of animosity. Not toward her beloved father. “You don’t have enemies.”
He tapped her cheek. “A king has enemies. But this hatred is personal. Marcel de Emmerich was once a friend.”
“Marcel de Emmerich.” She’d overheard his name one time in a conversation between King Jerome and Chariton. “Isn’t he a noble of some kind?”
“Humphrey conferred a title on him, yes. Some would say he even deserves it, for he is the son of one of my own barons, the son of an ancient line, albeit an impoverished one. His father put his son in service to me while I was in the cradle. Marcel and I grew up together, friends I thought. Until we were seventeen. Then I found him selling his services, trying to influence me for a price—” King Jerome’s voice rose. “—That wasn’t friendship. He was a leech, and since I was young and tactless—”
“And hurt.”
“Yes, that too. So I told him so.”
“I sense this might be one of those circumstances in which honesty was not wise.”
King Jerome’s voice quieted again. “He has hated me since that day. He left, I didn’t know where and didn’t care. Then seven years ago I saw him at that diplomatic meeting between me and Humphrey, and he was standing at Humphrey’s shoulder and smiling. I knew then ... I tried to warn Humphrey, but that was another mistake, a bigger mistake, for Humphrey is a fool. Maybe all kings are fools when it comes to reading character.”
She smiled at her father, trying to comfort and admonish him at the same time. “I don’t think kings are bad readers of character so much as I think that for kings, one bad reading carries disastrous consequences.”
“A royal curse.” He touched her cheek.
She nodded, well aware of the repercussions her own mistakes had caused. Yet still she was determined, and she said gently, “Papa, I’ll be all right.”
“Dear, I would rather lose my entire kingdom than allow you to be harmed.”
“Isn’t such sentimentality against the rules of kingship?”
“I didn’t say I would give Bertinierre away, Laurie. I will fight for it, too, you know that. You know all about the precaution
s I have taken.”
“Yes.” Yes, she knew all about his plans. Should war or insurrection ever occur in this land of theirs, King Jerome had his plans in place—plans in which she had a function. She had a function today, too, one she would not easily give up. “In the last five years, Papa, I have come to understand duty and honor in a way I never understood it before. Before my marriage, I thought my only important task would be to produce an heir for Bertinierre. As it was slowly borne in on me how impossible that was, I realized I had to serve some function in my kingdom, and when you trusted me to go into the mountains and meet the messenger from Sereminia, I felt ... blessed.”
His voice rose in royal protest. “But—”
Her voice rose above his. “No buts. This task means more to Bertinierre than any other duty I perform. It gives me substance. It makes me whole. If I never launch another ship or give another speech, even if I never produce an heir or become queen, I know I have brought wealth into Bertinierre that helped us to remain independent.”
King Jerome rubbed his forehead fretfully. “I’ll pull Chariton back from his sleuthing.”
“Yesterday he said he had a lead about the kidnapping, and he disappeared. Do you even know where he is?”
“Then someone else can go meet the messenger and perform the exchange.”
“No one suspects me.”
“Someone else for this year only.”
“You’ve impressed upon me the importance of letting no one know, and Papa, the messenger brings so much gold. There is no one else you can possibly trust.”
“Then the messenger from Sereminia can wait.” He held up his hand when she would have protested again. “Everyone in Sereminia knows you always go on a retreat on the day after your birthday. The suitors probably don’t expect it, but the kidnappers will be watching. They’ll be waiting.”