Taken by the Prince

  “I’ll take the opinions everyone has expressed this evening under advisement, and tomorrow make a decision about which of the women to put in command.”

  Raul nodded to Hada, and then to Prospero. “But for now, Thompson is right, and I’m sorry I was obtuse.

  Hada, if it pleases you, you may take over the running of the entire household.”

  With typical reticence, she nodded and set to work at once directing the women in the dinner service.

  Prospero leaned forward and spoke to Victoria.

  “Hada loves to be outdoors.”

  Victoria shifted her startled gaze to Hada. She was frail, short, and thin, and her limp was fearsome.

  “Do you know why she works indoors rather than training the women in shooting?” he asked.

  “No, we’ve never really spoken about our lives.” Because Victoria took care not to share memories or ambitions with the people she met in Moricadia.

  It seemed Prospero wasn’t as oblivious as she’d imagined, for he said, “Because you don’t want to make friends here.”

  “No. I don’t want friends here.” She refused to pretend otherwise, and met his gaze head-on.

  He nodded knowingly. “When I met Hada, she was twelve years old. She was whole and beautiful, she ran wild, and she was the best shot in the country.”

  Victoria drew back. She already knew she didn’t care to hear, because so clearly Prospero was determined to tell her.

  But he leaned closer. “When she was fifteen, she was out hunting, looking for something to feed her family.

  Now, you need to know— no Moricadian is allowed to take meat from anywhere in the country. The de Guignards say it belongs to them. Prince Sandre and his men caught her shooting a rabbit, a little rabbit”— with his hands, he showed her the size— “for even the rabbits are half-starved in this country. So the prince declared a hunt, and he and his men chased her through the woods.

  They were on horseback. She was on foot. They toyed with her until she was exhausted, until she couldn’t run anymore, until she fell. Then they galloped over the top of her. One of the hooves crushed her hip, another her leg. They left her for dead and rode off, satisfied they had done justice.”

  Horrified, Victoria stared at him, then at Hada.

  Hada saw her reaction and started toward the head table, her gait lopsided and painful.

  “She didn’t die, but she’ll never again be able to run, to shoot, to be the woman she should have been.” Prospero’s eyes shone with hate. “She bore me two children, but she can’t have more. With our last child, she almost died.”

  Painful tears pressed at the back of Victoria’s eyes.

  “Prospero. Enough.” Raul made a slashing sign across his throat.

  Prospero paid no heed, but continued to speak to Victoria.“You come here and you want to change everything. When you’ve suffered the way we’ve all suffered, when you see your mother starve and your friends die, then you’ll understand why we are as we are. Then we’ll listen to you!”

  Hada reached the table, leaned across, looked into her husband’s eyes. “Prospero. I will not allow you to make me an object of pity. Never for any reason. So hold your tongue.”

  “Woman!” He stood and stared down at her. “You don’t tell me what to do.”

  She looked back. “Someone has to.”

  And he backed down. “I’ve got to go on patrol.” Taking his goblet, he stomped toward the door.

  Victoria stood. “I’m going to bed.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Victoria didn’t care what people thought. She just wanted to be alone.

  Of course, that wasn’t possible.

  Raul caught up with her before she left the great hall. As they climbed the stairs, he placed his hand in the small of her back to steady her, and he entered the bedroom on her heels. He shut the door behind them and turned the key in the lock.

  As she had done every night, Amya had prepared the room. She’d placed bed linens on the sofa, laid out Victoria’s nightgown, lit the fire. But every night, she added something to the ambience— a vase of flowers, rose petals floating in the basin of warm water. Tonight Amya had lit candles throughout the room, creating a warm glow that made even her tormentor look … compassionate.

  She couldn’t stand that. Snatching up her nightgown and a blanket, she fled into the closet. She changed in the dark, wrapped herself in the blanket, and returned to the bedroom.

  He was still there, standing in the same spot, waiting.

  Waiting …

  She faced him, upset and angry, wanting him to go away, ready to fight him if necessary.

  But the ruthless swine surprised her. “I’m sorry about the letter to your mother.” He offered her his hand.

  “When the revolution is over, you can post it.”

  Oh, no. He wasn’t going to coax her out of her distress. And she was not about to touch him. “When your revolution is over, I’ll go and see her.”

  “Yes, of course you will.” He dropped his hand. He strolled to the window, braced his arm against the wall, and looked out. “You and your mother are close?”

  “Not at all.” She didn’t know why she confessed such a shameful thing— maybe because that first night he had confided in her— but she added, “I don’t think she ever worries about me, but still, because she’s my mother … I write.”

  “You travel the world and your mother doesn’t worry about you?” He turned back with a frown.

  She scrambled onto the sofa, although not because she thought he intended to seduce her. Not right now.

  Right now, he was getting close without coming near.

  “I’m her eldest, the only child of my father. After his death, she struggled to make a living, but we almost ended up in the poorhouse.”

  “That would have been a death sentence to you both.”

  “Exactly. So she married my stepfather.” She sank down onto the pillow, pulled the covers up to her chin, huddled there, and wished she’d never started this conversation … and wished she could stop right now. Oh, Raul’s younger sister Belle had made some guesses, probably pretty good ones, but Victoria had never told anyone the truth about her and her mother. Now she couldn’t seem to stop.“My stepfather married her to have a wife to tend his house and take care of his children by his first wife. They’ve since had children together. I have eight step-and half siblings.”

  “So your mother had to divide her attention between a lot of you.” Raul came and sat on the floor beside the sofa. “Still, she’s your mother.”

  She turned her head and looked at him.

  His green eyes gleamed with something that looked like affection. His hair fell like black silk onto his shoulders. He was so handsome he made her heart ache. “You were fond of your mother?” she asked.

  “She loved me,” he said simply.

  “Oh, my mother loves me. I didn’t mean to insinuate she didn’t.” Maybe her heart ached for more reasons than she could imagine. “But I was a difficult child, ungrateful for my stepfather’s charity and wanting more than was my right, and she was caught between him and me.”

  “You’ve had to be too strong.”

  “Only as strong as I’ve needed to be,” Victoria corrected.

  Finally, he made his move, the move she’d been expecting all evening, the move she had braced herself to reject. Slowly, he eased himself onto the sofa with her, trapping her between the back and his body. She stiffened, but he did nothing except pull her into his arms and hold her … hold her until his warmth penetrated the chill that held her in its grasp. Hold her until she relaxed against him, put her head against his chest, and listened to his heartbeat. Hold her until the world vanished and only the two of them remained.

  It was afternoon when Raul returned to the castle. He tossed his cravat and cravat pin on the table in the entrance hall.

  Thompson hurried to his side, took Raul’s collar and cuffs, and asked, “Tired, sir?”

&nbsp
; “A long day.” Raul rubbed his neck. “But profitable in many ways, and successful in so many others.”

  “Viento won his race?”

  Raul nodded his satisfaction. “With two horses in two weeks in the winner’s circle, the eyes of the breeding world are turning to Moricadia. And with two sales totaling over sixteen thousand English pounds, I have attracted Jean-Pierre’s concerted attention.”

  “Is that really a good thing, sir?” Thompson had grown more anxious in the last weeks.

  They all had. Witness the scene last night at dinner between Victoria and Prospero, with Prospero snapping at Victoria, Victoria’s flight from the table, and then her unhappy confession of estrangement from her mother.

  A week ago, she would have never told him so much about her personal life, and to him, it was a sign that, despite her unwilling presence here, they had grown close.

  He frowned.

  When had that happened?

  He had intended a seduction, not a romance. Not love … He had a revolution to win. He didn’t have time for love.

  “Sir?” Raul’s long hesitation made Thompson even more anxious.

  “As long as I continue to appear at the gambling halls and the spas, it is good to keep Jean-Pierre’s attention.”

  Raul put a steadying hand on Thompson’s shoulder.

  “Then he doesn’t notice the spies I’ve set in place in the hotels and in the palace, or hear the gunshots echoing in the most remote parts of the forest.”

  “I hope you’re right, sir.”

  “Not too much longer, Thompson. We’re almost ready.” He started up the stairs to the great hall.

  “Sir!”

  Thompson’s urgency stopped Raul in his tracks.

  “Miss Cardiff asked that I not tell you about the class you have her teaching, but you’re here, and it’s been a week, and nothing has improved.”

  “She’s having trouble teaching them? Victoria Cardiff is having trouble teaching a class?” Raul could scarcely believe that.

  “If I may, I’ll keep my promise and not tell you… .

  I’ll show you.” Thompson gestured Raul to follow him.

  They walked toward the entrance to the great hall and stood behind the wall. Raul could hear voices—many voices speaking Moricadian, then Victoria saying, “I can’t yet comprehend so much of your language— but I suspect you know that.”

  Prospero’s voice answered her. “You should learn faster, teacher. We all know English. We’ve had to learn it to serve the tourists who come and think we are ignorant.”

  Victoria answered steadily, “It is a very great shame that English tourists consider you ignorant; that’s foolish on their part. But that doesn’t mitigate the need to learn manners that will please all nationalities.”

  Prospero laughed rudely. “We have our manners.

  They’re good enough for us. They’re good enough for everyone.”

  Raul peeked around the corner at the great hall.

  The way his people sat, stood, talked, laughed— they were like wolves closing in for the kill, and Victoria was that kill.

  She knew it, too, but stood straight and tall at the front of the room, not retreating, not surrendering, but persisting in the task he had assigned her.

  Raul turned to Thompson. “She hasn’t been able to teach them at all?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why not?”

  “From the first, it’s been a mob on the attack.”

  “Because she was rude to Prospero?”

  “No one likes change, and change is coming. It’s easy to blame Miss Cardiff.”

  “But what about the women? Why don’t they support her? Why doesn’t Hada support her?”

  Thompson looked uncomfortable. “Because she has no authority here. In fact … I believe the problem originates with the women.”

  “The women?” The women? “Why wouldn’t the women like Victoria? Especially after last night, when she spoke up for their cause?”

  “They despise her. Despise her because they say— sir, forgive me; I am repeating what I overheard— she’s a failure as a woman.”

  Raul felt as if he’d wandered into a strange forest filled with twisted branches and dark hollows. “Why is she a failure as a woman?”

  Thompson squirmed in discomfort, like a schoolboy who’d been caned. “She sleeps in your room, but you don’t want her.”

  “What?”

  “They know you’re not having sexual congress.”

  Raul would have laughed at Thompson’s formal terminology. But he wasn’t amused. “How do they know that?”

  “There’s been discussion among the people living in your household about your foul mood.”

  “My foul mood,” Raul repeated.

  “They know … That is, they believe that if Miss Cardiff were making you … happy, you would be … more pleasant.”

  “For the love of God, what a bunch of gossips!” Raul knew his people watched him, and certainly his nightly confinement with a beautiful, passionate woman was disturbing his sleep and making him wonder if she could outlast him in this contest of wills. But to have them take it out on Victoria … He had never imagined such a consequence would fall upon her head. “Miss Cardiff asked that you not tell me about the problems she’s having?”

  “That’s right. She said she would make them respect her, or not. I believe her pride won’t let you interfere.”

  Raul pushed his hand through his hair and thought hard. “Then for the moment, I won’t. Frankly, Thompson, I would back Miss Cardiff in any fight.” He walked toward the back stairway. At the door, he turned. “At least, in any fight where I am not her opponent.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Today would be different.

  Today, as Victoria stood before Raul’s people, she resolved to find the right words to make them realize the importance of her mission. For today she had been in Raul’s dilapidated castle for ten days, and as she watched the warriors, male and female, eat their lunch, and burp and scratch, she more and more realized how desperately they needed her help.

  More important, she wanted to be able to face Raul in the light of day and tell him she had successfully begun the task he had assigned her. She couldn’t stand the idea of failure. Not when Raul had turned her world upside down and made her so uncertain of herself.

  Uncertain because, when he shut the bedroom door at night, she never knew which man she would face.

  Would he be the darkly seductive lover, insistent on her surrender? Or the gentleman who coaxed a wretched confession out of her, then held her in his arms and made everything better?

  She had to know she could teach these people, or who was she? Not Victoria Cardiff, controlled and expert governess, but a woman tempted by the night and a man until she craved him without ceasing …

  No, today would be different. She would accept no other solution.

  She faced Prospero— for if she won him, she won all— and said, “Today we learn to how to greet one another, and to eat with forks.”

  Prospero lolled in his chair, goblet of ale in hand, and loudly asked, “Why should we learn these things you value so much? They’re worthless, and we have a revolution to win!”

  Victoria waited until the approving tumult had died down. “Because, Prospero, once your revolution starts, it will be won or lost in the matter of a few days, a week at most. Then the king will be in his palace, you will be his courtiers, and the eyes of the world will be on you.

  Right now— this is all the time you have to learn the bare basics of courtesy.”

  “We’re courteous,” he said belligerently.

  She almost laughed at the irony of Prospero saying that to her. But she understood him, and his pride. “You have a rough courtesy, yes.” She raised her voice, making sure it projected to the far corners of the great hall. “But the reason you’re willing to die for this revolution and this king is because you know you’re living in circumstances so cruel and backward you a
nd your children have no choice but to stay here.”

  Hada stood against the far wall, watching and listening.

  Victoria continued. “If you went out to Italy or France or Denmark, you would be like a peasant from a thousand years ago who had suddenly been brought forward and deposited in the modern world. En

  gland, Spain,

  Prussia—

  they have newspapers. They have railroads.

  Would you know how to behave on a train? You have no idea. Learn what I can teach you, if not for yourself, then for the sake of your children and your king.”

  She must have struck a chord, because Hada limped forward, her gait a bitter reminder of the de Guignards and all the cruelty of which they were capable.

  Prospero watched his wife, breathing hard, almost trembling with suppressed emotion. Turning back to Victoria, he said, “It’s you that’s the problem. You’re so proud of your travels and your sophistication— but do you know the trouble with you?”

  “No. Tell me.” As if she could stop him.

  His voice rose as he, too, projected into the depths of the great hall. “You don’t have a stake in the revolution. When you can, you’re going to leave. Before the battle starts, Saber plans to get you out of here, and you’re going to flee without a backward glance. We’ll be here, fighting and dying, and you won’t care. You sleep with our king in his room every night, but you don’t care that he’s determined to lead the charges, that he insists on traveling beneath his family’s banner, that the de Guignards will aim for him first, that he could be shot and killed, or worse— captured, dragged into their infernal dungeon, and tortured.”

  Victoria suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  “Do you know what the de Guignards do to people?

  Have you ever seen a man who’s been stretched on the rack until all his joints are torn apart? Do you know what happens when they put two knots in a rope and pull it around a man’s face until his eyes pop out?”

  Victoria couldn’t speak. Faintly, she shook her head and tried not to imagine Raul … like that.

  “I have. Everyone here has seen torture.”