He answered as he always answered any reproach. “I’m a bastard and a mercenary.”
Brat slashed at the air as if cleaving his defense. “Don’t try and sell me that mare’s nest. I know who you are. I didn’t follow a bastard and a mercenary all these years. I followed the man I could see inside. A man of honor, a man who protected his own, a leader.”
“You’re saying that I make excuses for myself.” She really knew how to get to him; he hated those spineless worms who shrugged off responsibility.
“I’m saying that whenever you want to hurt someone, you claim to be a bastard and a mercenary.”
“I never hurt Laurentia.”
“Didn’t you?” Brat stood up. “I have to go now. The guards are coming.”
She walked away, leaving Dom staring out of the cell onto the street.
Hurt Laurentia? He hadn’t hurt Laurentia. She’d been angry, that was all.
But if that was the truth, why had she cried?
The guards strolled past without bothering to speak to him, then strolled past again, while Dom hung on the bars and tried to understand.
“I told her I loved her,” he muttered to the missing Brat.
He hadn’t, of course. But he’d thought it. Men just didn’t say things like that. I love you. He’d never heard a man say that. Since the day his mother died, he’d never said it to anyone.
But he’d thought it. He meant it. “Aren’t women supposed to be intuitive about stuff like this?” he asked the street plaintively.
Beneath his feet, the chair moved.
He clutched the bars and looked down, and there stood Brat, an urchin grin on her face, the key in her hand. “Are you coming, or are you going to hang there all day?”
Chapter Thirty
The cheerful charred, worn exultant, red-eyed, triumphant, and bloodstained two dozen men and women mingling below the dais in the throne room had become Bertinierre’s newest heroes and heroines. They had come to celebrate their victory, to compare wounds, to exchange tales, and most of all to gaze upon their equally grubby and exhausted royal family Laurentia knew how they felt. She wanted to look at all of them, too.
All except... ah, but Dom had earned his place here. According to reports, he had been like a whirlwind, convincing Pollardine’s horsemeat mercenaries it was time to flee, positioning King Danior and Sereminia’s army. The two days of fighting had been brief and brutal, but now, as a fresh morning dawned, King Jerome sat firmly on the throne in his palace.
Only... none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for Dom.
None of it would have happened if it hadn’t been for her, either.
Almost no one knew all the truth. The tale that circulated spoke of King Jerome’s surrender only when his daughter had been taken prisoner. No one thought the worst of him for that, especially since he’d retaken the country in such a timely manner.
But she knew the truth. Dom knew. They were bound together by the knowledge of his perfidy and her gullibility at a time when she didn’t ever want to be bound to him at all.
She had proposed marriage to him.
She groped for King Jerome’s hand.
And Dom was determined to have her.
King Jerome patted her fingers, and read her mind with uncanny ability. “You have to stop reproaching yourself. The mistake was as much mine as yours. I pushed you into his arms. It’s not turned out to be such a mistake after all, has it?”
“What do you mean?” she asked in horror.
“It’s a lucky man who knows his enemies, and King Humphrey is being escorted back to Pollardine with his diamond on a string around his neck. It’s a lucky man who knows his allies, too.” He nodded at King Danior, who stood speaking to Dom. “We can identify our dearest friends.” He indicated Dulcie, smudged with gunpowder. Francis, bandaged and splinted. Chariton with his Gloria—Brat, as Dom called her—and Ruby, who toddled about the throne room, not at all impressed by its glory. Minnie and Roy, old and stooped, loyal as always. The others, noble or not, wealthy or not, who had stood for their country. “Our people fought for us and won.” Through the open windows, Laurentia could hear the continuing sounds of celebration.
She blinked away the tears. Again. The anger that had sustained her through the last week had been burned away in the frenzy of the uprising.
Honesty compelled her to stop, to think, to admit it hadn’t been the excitement of the revolt that had cleared away her anger, but the time she’d spent in prison—with Dom. Her emotions had been stripped down to their most basic, and now she had to face the truth. The truth about Dom. The truth about herself. That, she knew, would be the most painful of all.
She found herself observing him. He had fetched Ruby and held her in his arms, but he was staring at Laurentia, an impatient frown tugging at his brow.
If she didn’t dry her tears, she feared he would abandon protocol and mount the dais to her side.
“Papa,” she whispered. “Let’s start the ceremony.”
King Jerome squeezed her hand again, then let it go and stood. The talking ceased, the people moved forward to form a single line at the dais, and he said, “Dear friends, my daughter the princess Laurentia and I cannot ever fully express our gratitude for your assistance in the recovery of our kingdom. But we can and do wish to grant you the highest and most ancient honor of Bertinierre, the Cross of St. Simon.”
Laurentia gathered the medals and the king’s sword and walked to his side.
“First, to our fellow sovereign, King Danior of Sereminia, with our deepest appreciation.”
King Danior bowed his head as King Jerome placed the medal around his neck by its ribbon. The two rulers embraced, and spoke quietly for a moment. Both turned to look at Laurentia.
Laurentia stared back.
The resemblance between Danior and Dom was uncanny, but she would never mistake them. Danior was calm, deliberate; the fire that burned in Dom and so attracted her was banked in Danior. Yet he examined her with a proprietary interest, and color rose in Laurentia’s cheeks as she wondered what Dom had told his brother.
King Jerome cleared his throat. Hastily she presented him his sword. One by one, as Laurentia called them, the others stepped forward.
Francis knelt before the king. The king tapped first one shoulder, then the other. Laurentia placed the cross around his neck and embraced him stiffly.
Dulcie knelt before the king. The king tapped first one shoulder, then the other. Laurentia placed the cross around her neck, then suffered an enthusiastic embrace and a whispered, “Did you tangle the sheets with him?”
Chariton knelt, was tapped, given the medal and a new title created specially for him while his mother, Minnie, wiped her eyes and sniffled loudly.
His parents came forward in their turn to receive their crosses, and as Laurentia embraced them she thanked them again for the care they took of her cottage.
Dom had given Ruby up to her mother, and Gloria held the child’s hand as she accepted her medal. Laurentia gave them both special hugs. How could she not? Gloria had been her strength through this past week; Laurentia would never forget.
All the others received their taps with the sword, each received their medal and an embrace.
At last only Dom was left, waiting patiently, his hands loose at his side. He prowled forward, all loose-limbed grace, while Laurentia thought, This is not acceptable.
It wasn’t acceptable that he had used her, betrayed her, seduced her, and she still wanted him. Her infatuation proved, as nothing else could, that she was not yet fit for rule. Sovereigns didn’t love unwisely, didn’t dream of a handsome face, didn’t imagine sharing burdens for all the coming years with a crafty devil given to despicable masquerades.
He knelt before her father, and she thought he watched King Jerome with something oddly like wariness. She glanced briefly at her father and thought it peculiar that he smiled at Dom with the same expression he wore when he faced an unusually talented fencing partner
.
Danior stood with his arms crossed, grinning. The other men had arrayed themselves around the throne room for a better view, while the women exchanged conspiratorial glances.
Something was going on. Something Laurentia didn’t understand.
“Dominic of Sereminia,” King Jerome intoned. “I will never forget what you have done to me or my daughter.”
The phrasing was curious also, she noted.
“And I now give you your reward.” King Jerome tapped him on the shoulder, but as he lifted the sword, it wavered too close to Dom’s head. Blood sprang from his ear.
Dom slapped his hand over the wound.
Laurentia gasped and covered her mouth. “Papa!”
“I’m so sorry.” King Jerome didn’t sound sorry. “It must have slipped. Here, let me finish you up.”
Dom tilted his head away from the untapped shoulder and closed his eyes as if expecting a blow.
King Jerome tapped the other shoulder. Again the sword wavered, rasping along Dom’s neck. A long line of blood oozed up from the resulting scrape.
“Dreadfully clumsy of me!” King Jerome wiped off his sword with an apparent lack of concern. “I must be growing weary after all my exertion putting down the invasion. You do understand, don’t you?”
“I do indeed.” Dom got stiffly to his feet, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and pressed it to his ear.
Blood on the other side trickled steadily into his collar.
“Laurentia, he’s bleeding,” King Jerome said. “Have you a bandage?”
“Although I spent part of the night working at the hospital,” she said tartly, “I amazingly enough did not think to stuff bandages in my pockets. I didn’t know you were going to cut him.” Although, from the grins around the throne room, everybody else did.
While she would have liked to reproach her father, Dom was still standing there bleeding.
“Here. I have one.” King Jerome handed her a clean white cotton square. “Fix him.”
She didn’t think that someone else could have done the job. Or that Dom could have held the bandage himself. She just turned—and found him standing directly before her. She still stood on the dais. He stood on the floor. His eyes were level with hers. She didn’t think she liked that. But he turned his head and presented his neck, and she folded the suspiciously available bandage and pressed it to the wound.
She glanced up. Everyone was watching them, not even trying to hide their avid interest. Wartime, Laurentia had discovered, stripped away inhibitions.
“I don’t know why he did that,” she murmured in Dom’s ear.
Dom looked at her. “I do.”
They stood so closely together his breath touched her face. She could see his pupils dilate as he gazed at her. She could kiss him... “Why?”
“A couple of things,” Dom said laconically. “Betraying him and his country for one. Debauching his daughter and making her cry for another.”
To her horror, tears rose in her eyes again.
Dom’s hands rose and hovered around her. Their lowered voices couldn’t disguise the drama of this tableau. “Oh, dear one, don’t do that. Don’t cry. You make me feel like a horse’s ass.”
“You are a horse’s ass.” She swallowed, and swallowed again, reinforcing her royal discipline. She made a point of examining the bandage. “If I had some linen strips, I could wrap them around your neck—really tightly.”
He smiled, oozing charisma as he had the first night she’d met him. “Would that make you feel better?”
He could ooze all he wanted. Charisma wasn’t going to work this time. Not on her. Absolutely not. “No.”
Now his hovering hands grasped her arms, and he gave her a little shake. “Laurentia, we have to talk.”
Her tears dried under a flash of temper. “We’ve talked too much.”
Her voice must have risen, for the people in the throne room chuckled.
She didn’t care.
“This is not over.” His voice had risen, too. “You said you loved me. You asked me to marry you—”
The listeners gasped.
“—and I swear on this medal that we—”
“The prisoners have arrived,” King Jerome announced.
Laurentia and Dom turned to look at the king.
He looked back and indicated the guards who waited at the rear of the throne room. “De Emmerich and Weltrude have arrived for judgment.”
Right before Laurentia’s eyes, Dom forgot all about her.
Dom turned and stared as de Emmerich and Weltrude paced forward, both grubby and worn also, but upright, unchained, surrounded by guards dressed in stiff, traditional, asinine garb and bristling with spears—and knives.
Hell’s fire, King Jerome didn’t realize the risk he ran, allowing a vicious boar-pig like de Emmerich into a room with civilians.
With Laurentia.
Brat snatched up Ruby and stepped back. Chariton and Danior went on the alert.
The others just stood there, smugly imagining themselves safe. De Emmerich had lost everything. And if de Emmerich was dangerous when in power, he must be feral in defeat.
Dom started forward, pulling his knife from his sleeve.
And chaos erupted. De Emmerich shoved Weltrude forward, overbalancing the guards in front of him. Hampered by their ruffs and spears, the guards beside him tried to react. He had two of their knives before they knew what had happened. Women screamed and men shouted as de Emmerich slashed around him, clearing a space. He sprinted forward, raised his knife toward the dais—and Dom threw his own knife.
Too late. De Emmerich released his blade.
Dom’s sank into de Emmerich’s chest.
Dom had been too late. He swung around, terrified of what he would find—and saw Laurentia on the floor, King Jerome on top of her, and de Emmerich’s knife quivering deep in the wood of the throne.
Dom felt, actually felt, his heart start beating again.
The moment of terrified silence was broken by Weltrude’s shriek. “I didn’t do it!”
Ruby joined in with a wail. The guards scuffled over Weltrude, and over de Emmerich’s twitching body. A babble of horror and relief rose from the crowd.
Danior clapped his hand on Dom’s shoulder. “The king and the princess knocked each other down.” He looked around the throne room. “There was a lot of that.”
Couples lay stretched on the floor like fallen logs. Chariton’s parents were rising painfully. Chariton and Brat were trying to comfort Ruby. Francis and Dulcie ... were in each other’s arms, kissing wildly, like adolescents who had just discovered fornication.
Dom started toward the dais, determined to pluck Laurentia from the floor and straighten a few things out.
King Jerome stepped in his way. When Dom would have evaded him, King Jerome wrapped his fist in Dom’s silk shirt.
Dom looked at the king.
The king looked back, and he wasn’t smiling. “If you could come this way, Dominic, I have a few things I would like to say.”
Behind the desk in King Jerome’s study, set into the plaster wall, was an enamel crown, symbol of his royalty. The desk itself was oak, ancient, well polished, with a delicate wood grain. An expert craftsman had carved a prominent scepter and crown into the front. The grain on King Jerome’s oak chair matched perfectly, and a crown had been carved into the high back so that it appeared to hover above his head.
King Jerome himself sat behind his desk, signing papers, skillfully ignoring Dom until Dom wanted to squirm and confess his guilt. Dom had never been in this position before, toeing the line before the father of a girl he’d debauched. Funny, how it reduced him from a competent, strong mercenary to a groveling lad again.
Which was just what King Jerome planned. Dom recognized a master tactician when he saw one.
At last King Jerome signed his final paper, dusted it with sand, and placed it off to the side. Folding his hands before him, he surveyed Dom from head to toe, and if his expression w
as anything to go by, the sight did not impress him.
“Well, boy, what do you have to say for yourself?”
About what? What did prospective suitors say to a girl’s father? Especially when the wedding night had already been celebrated?
Dom swallowed, the wounds on his ear and neck throbbed, and he wanted to find Laurentia. Now. “Your Majesty—”
“You know”—King Jerome picked up his quill and twirled it—“when I realized the fiasco of Laurentia’s last marriage ... I assume she told you about her last marriage?”
“Yes, but I need to seek her now and—”
“Good. Did she tell you her husband was assassinated?”
Dom’s jaw dropped.
“I see she didn’t.” He put the quill back down. “In all fairness, I have to admit I never told her. She felt enough unnecessary guilt about Beaumont without her thinking he died so she could be free of him.”
Dom wanted his explanation. “Assassinated?”
“I required Beaumont to stay with me. It kept him away from her. The assassin shot the wrong man. A stroke of luck for me.”
Dom found himself finishing the thought. And for Laurentia.
“Yes, after that I resolved to do everything in my not-inconsiderable power to make her next marriage one of irresistible fire. You can imagine my dismay as the years slipped by and no flame poked up his head.” King Jerome chuckled. “Poked up his head. Yes, very good.”
Dom chuckled, too. It seemed the diplomatic thing to do, and he needed to hear this.
“So I conceived of this celebration and in you I recognized the passion I imagined for my little girl.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
King Jerome’s tone abruptly turned hostile. “Passion is hot. Revenge is cold. If you betrayed my little girl for revenge”—he stood and slapped his hands down on his desk—“I will ban you from my country and she’ll marry Francis.”
Rage roared through Dom. He slapped his hands on the other side of the desk. “She’ll marry Francis over my dead body.”
King Jerome thrust his head forward. “That can be arranged.”