Taken by the Prince

  “I don’t think even her employer knows for whom he’s working.”

  “So. Whoever it is, is keeping it a secret.” Raul doffed his hat and ran the rim through his fingers. “Have we perhaps begun to frighten the wealthy leeches of Moricadia more than the de Guignards themselves have frightened them?”

  “We have, indeed. But this woman could ruin everything.”

  Raul stood, thinking, struggling against his baser instincts.

  Thompson did not help. “I think we should take her, hold her until we’ve finished our business.” The business of revolution, he meant.

  But Raul needed to concentrate, and Victoria Cardiff’s living in his home would not expedite sensible thought. “I won’t proceed unless it becomes absolutely necessary.”

  “Why not? At such a delicate juncture— ”

  Raul gestured sharply, and although he didn’t realize it, for a moment he looked so much like his autocratic father that Thompson winced. “No. I’ve burned my fingers on that dish before. I won’t do it again.” He proceeded toward the stall.

  In a low, urgent voice, Thompson asked, “Do you wish to know if she repeats her tale?”

  “Yes, because then I’ll have to do … something.”

  Raul hung his hat on the peg on the wall.

  Dafydd had removed the colt’s saddle and was grooming him, crooning a love song to his mount.

  Raul took the brush out of the jockey’s hand, took over the brushing and the singing. Halcón Guerra stood still, trembling from the strain of the race, and Raul stroked his neck, his haunches, humming wordlessly, reassuringly.

  Dafydd struck a hostile pose. “He wants to win.”

  “He will,” Raul said.

  “If he doesn’t win soon, he’s going to lose heart.”

  “I understand.” No one appreciated the colt the way Raul did; they had everything in common. Raul had been in Moricadia for three years, making the kind of fortune that would support an army, digging deep into the de Gui gnard secrets, learning the back roads, organizing his people. Every moment had been filled with background work, and now— he wanted to win. They wanted to win. Soon …

  From the door of the stall, one man’s hateful voice spoke. “Look at that. Raul Lawrence, son of the Viscount Grimsborough, grooming a horse.”

  Raul didn’t pause, didn’t flinch, didn’t in any way show the depth of his repulsion. “Bastard son of the Viscount Grimsborough, Jean-Pierre, bastard son. I worked in my father’s stables whenever he wasn’t looking. How do you think I developed my own stables?”

  “I’ve wondered exactly that.” Jean-Pierre de Guignard stepped into the stall, his riding whip over his shoulder. “You’re an enigma, Raul Lawrence, and I don’t like enigmas. Not in my country.”

  “Your country?” Raul lifted a polite eyebrow. “Does Prince Sandre know you’ve claimed it?”

  The left corner of Jean-Pierre’s mouth twitched down. “Prince Sandre is glad to share with his family members, especially with the man who enforces his laws.”

  “Prince Sandre is well, then?” Raul asked politely.

  “Very well. Why should you doubt it?”

  “He hasn’t been seen in public recently. There are rumors… .”

  “Unfounded,” Jean-Pierre said.

  What Jean-Pierre didn’t say was that Prince Sandre’s recent humiliation had left him a recluse, afraid to go out, for inevitably laughter followed him. Quiet laughter, usually, suppressed titters or meaningful coughs, but during his last public appearance, the crowd of Moricadians had burst into jeers and shouts of, “Pig! Roasted pig!” and “Candlestick!” Jean-Pierre had sent the mounted royal guard through the crowd, but they had scattered like leaves before the wind, and Prince Sandre had slinked back into his palace to brood.

  That vacuum left Jean-Pierre as the power in the kingdom. Jean-Pierre, with his dark hair, handsome face, muscular build— and eyes so light as to be almost white. In Moricadia, people said his eyes were that color because of his mother and the sexual activity for which she was most famous … and with so many men. Prince Sandre had been heard to claim Jean-Pierre was like a dog on the verge of rabies, and Sandre bragged about holding the chain.

  Raul believed Jean-Pierre had broken free. No chain bound him, and everywhere he went, he inflicted pain and madness. Every day another Moricadian father was thrown into prison for poaching; another mother was accused of stealing to feed her starving children, and brutally and publicly beaten. The intent was not only to quash the recent upturn in crime, but to force the Moricadian rebels to show their hand before they were ready.

  That was not going to happen.

  But just as Jean-Pierre intended, the rebels suffered for every injustice.

  Saber suffered.

  There was no justice in Moricadia as long as Jean-Pierre remained in charge.

  Now here he was. What had drawn Jean-Pierre’s attention to Raul? Had he already heard about Victoria Cardiff’s assertion?

  “I recently— today, in fact— took a ride out to your castle,” Jean-Pierre said.

  “Did you? But surely you knew I would be here today!” At the track, where Raul was every race day.

  “Yes. But I was curious why I— or indeed anyone—had never been invited to a party or a tea.”

  “You say you went out there. Do you understand why I’m not throwing parties to show off my home?”

  “Yes. The castle is quite, shall we say, atmospheric. In a Gothic way. A rickety drawbridge. Black dungeons.

  Cobwebs hanging from the chandeliers …” Jean-Pierre strolled forward to pet Halcón Guerra.

  The colt shied and retreated.

  Raul calmed the colt, and assured Jean-Pierre, “You should have seen it when I moved in. It’s much improved.”

  Jean-Pierre chuckled. “That’s good, because my next curiosity was to wonder on what you spent your money.”

  “On what do most men spend their money?”

  “You don’t support a mistress.”

  “Instead I help a great many good”— Raul paused significantly— “friends.”

  “Yes. Women always speak well of you.” A fact that did not seem to please Jean-Pierre. “Still, my visit never gave me an answer to my main question. Why would an Englishman move to a country such as ours, settle down, and buy a tumbledown former royal palace?”

  It was time to stop answering his questions, time to draw a line in the sand. “I did that three years ago.”

  “I have just recently become the man who enforces the de Guignard rule.”

  “True. You got the job only a few months ago, isn’t that correct? When your predecessor was found hanging from a tree.”

  Dafydd edged out of the stable.

  Thompson picked up a leather bridle and hung it on a nail.

  They underestimated Jean-Pierre’s control. Jean-Pierre stood there, slapping his boot with his riding whip and smiling. “Yes. That was a fortunate turn of events for me.”

  Plain speaking indeed, since the man he replaced was his cousin.

  “If my predecessor did not wonder about a man such as you,” Jean-Pierre said, “then he was a fool who deserved to be hanged.”

  “Hanged by the Reaper, a wraithlike figure who has galloped along the midnight roads, fulfilling the age-old prophecy that when the ghost of the old king rode, the return of the new king would soon follow.”

  “A man in a costume, nothing more!” Jean-Pierre snapped.

  “Yes, of course. You don’t think I’m dullard enough to believe in ghosts or prophecies, do you? I’m an Englishman, and above all the superstitious nonsense.”

  Which, since Raul had helped facilitate the Reaper’s rides, was truer than even Jean-Pierre realized. “I’m also a horse breeder.” He gestured at Halcón Guerra. “I gamble. I occasionally seduce a wealthy woman. I chose to live here, in Moricadia, because I can indulge in those activities to great profit.”

  “You are exactly the kind of man Moricadian casinos need to thr
ive,” Jean-Pierre said.

  “Yes. So why the curiosity?” Raul had to know. “Why now?”

  Jean-Pierre’s eyes narrowed on Raul’s face. “You remind me of someone … someone I have met before.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Raul’s mind raced. No rumors of his Moricadian descent had accompanied him here; Grimsborough had bidden his household to keep Raul’s background secret— he didn’t want anyone to know the shame of his son’s foreign blood.

  Of course, he was implicitly obeyed.

  It was true Raul carried the look of the last Moricadian king, but he downplayed his features with a dark fall of hair that swept his shoulders, and so far, no person had made the connection between him and the royal family. He was determined that Jean-Pierre would not be the first. Looking right into Jean-Pierre’s gaze, Raul used his green eyes as a distraction. “Have you visited England? Perhaps we met there.”

  “I’ve never visited England, so no. No, you remind me of someone I met long ago… .” Jean-Pierre stared back at Raul, examining him with all the weight of his curiosity.

  Raul lifted his hands, then let them fall. “I am puzzled as to when.”

  “It niggles at me, like a sore tooth. I’ll remember soon enough. Until then, I look forward to my next visit to your home.”

  “Next time, I’ll send an invitation.”

  “That’s not necessary. I find it’s so much more fun to simply … drop by.” Jean-Pierre tipped his hat, turned on his heel, and strode from the stables, his boots making a hard tapping on the wooden floor.

  Thompson stepped out of the stall and watched him leave.

  Raul reflected on that sound. “We didn’t hear him coming, did we?”

  “No, sir, we didn’t,” Thompson said. “He must have been walking very lightly.”

  “He’s good at tiptoeing around. Did he overhear anything he should not?”

  “I reflected on that, and no, he did not.” Thompson continued to look out the door, and lowered his voice.

  “But I wonder— does he remember you?”

  Raul grinned, then chuckled, then leaned against the wall and laughed and nodded.

  Thompson was patently unamused. “May one ask from where, sir?”

  “I believe he might have been at the event that got me exiled from Moricadia.” Raul sobered at that memory, but the grin never quite left his lips.

  “What event is that?” Thompson’s precise diction grew even more crisp.

  “In those days, I ran a bit wild.”

  “I remember, sir.”

  “No, you don’t understand. As a boy, I was a hellion.

  Then my actions forced me to come to England. It was a hard lesson I learned, that what I did had consequences.

  That and the homesickness kept me subdued.” Raul was now quite sober. “But before …” Raul shook his head at the remembrance. “The de Gui gnard family was famous for their autumn picnic. They climbed into gaily decorated wagons— decorated by their loyal, loving subjects— and rode to a clearing in the forest where a beautiful white tent was pitched— again by their loyal, loving subjects— where they feasted on wild boar— ”

  “Killed by their loyal, loving subjects?” Thompson suggested.

  Raul inclined his head, and returned to grooming Halcón Guerra, taking comfort in the colt’s warmth and appreciation. “If their loyal, loving subjects didn’t play the part, there was hell to pay. All through our long history, my family have been warriors, so we handled the boar hunt. We had our horses, but they were precious to us, and we didn’t risk them in pursuit of a gift for the cursed de Guignards . We had a few firearms, but they were contraband, and the de Guignards were watching, so we didn’t risk being caught with them.”

  “Your family hunted wild boar on foot?” Thompson was clearly appalled. “With spears? My God, that’s medieval!”

  “You’re in a primitive country, Thompson.” From Thompson’s expression, it was obvious he knew that all too well. “We were a large family, and all of us, boys and girls, learned very early to be tough. Food was scarce, the winters were hard, the de Guignards oppressive. Yet for all that, my grandfather and my uncles wouldn’t let us boys hunt with them. The boars were too dangerous. So the men installed us in trees and told us to stay put, and they put the bay hounds after the boar.”

  “Are boars really as vicious as one hears?”

  “When a boar is cornered, it comes out fighting. It’s low to the ground, it’s fast, it’s heavy, and if it gets past the spears, it will gut a man.”

  “I say!” Thompson’s expletive was the disbelief of a civilized Englishman.

  “When I was seven, I saw the boar charge my grandfather and rip his leg to shreds with its tusks. For the rest of his life, he limped. The son of kings, hurt in the service of the children of French usurpers.” Even all these years later, Raul’s gut burned at the memory. “They didn’t care. Their loyal, loving subjects roasted the boar, brought the produce from their gardens and fields, and fed their oppressors.”

  “I’m surprised the de Guignards didn’t suffer a poisoning.”

  “They used Moricadian children as tasters.”

  “You?”

  “No. I was the kingly heir, and deemed too precious to risk. As you can imagine, that irked me, as did my cousins’ taunts.” Remembering an important point, Raul added, “Their loyal, loving subjects dug and built the latrines, too, so the de Guignards could deposit their royal shit.”

  In a voice heavy with suspicion, Thompson asked, “What did you do, sir?”

  “I was ten, it was Prince Sandre’s first year as ruler, and I wanted revenge for my grandfather— so I hatched a plot.” Even now, even knowing the disaster that followed, Raul smiled. “Do you remember what I looked like when I arrived in England? Short, skinny?”

  “Starving,” Thompson said.

  “That, too. The night before the famed de Gui gnard picnic, I climbed a tree, got onto the roof of the tent, and cut a slit in the silk big enough to push through a cow’s bladder filled with de Guignard excrement gathered from the latrines— ”

  “Oh! Sir! No!” Thompson rubbed his forehead.

  “I was ten. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.”

  Any further explanation was fruitless.

  Either Thompson remembered being ten, or he didn’t.

  “My plan worked like a charm. The de Guignards sat down to eat; I got on the tent, slipped the bladder through the hole.” The memory was so good, even now Raul was in ecstasy. “It hit actually on the boar and exploded, blowing shit over everybody, especially Prince Sandre, who, I swear, had his mouth hanging open when it landed.”

  Thompson gave a quickly muffled bark of laughter.

  “It was perfect … except that I had no experience with material, with silk, and I didn’t realize that when I leaned against the slash I had made, it would rip and I’d go through it like a hot knife through butter.”

  Thompson’s expression looked exactly the way Raul remembered Prince Sandre’s— as if he had a mouthful of excrement.

  “Yes. The silk split wide; I went down and landed flat on my back, on the table, on the boar, looking up at a bunch of furious, shit-covered de Guignards . They grabbed at me. I rolled in the pig grease and slipped out of their hands. I ran up and down the table, trying to make a leap for the entrance.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “My grandfather was a shrewd old bird. He suspected I was up to something, and he tormented my cousins until one of them confessed. So while I was leaping, my relatives collapsed the tent. I got out of there, and before winter set in, my mother and grandfather sent me to England for safety.” Old, familiar guilt squeezed at Raul’s heart. “They found and killed my grandfather.

  Then my mother died.”

  “Not your fault, sir.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe not. The de Guignards didn’t need an excuse to hang an old man, and perhaps my mother did not die of grief and hunger. But I know what I owe to m
y family and this country.” Raul would pay his debt or die. And he had no intention of dying.

  “Was Jean-Pierre de Gui gnard at the banquet?”

  Raul reflected, trying to bring the memory into focus.

  “He would have been my age, down at the end of the table, but … yes. Very possibly.”

  “So he does remember you.” Thompson’s voice was heavy with foreboding.

  “I don’t much look like the little savage I was then.”

  “No … but you still look like yourself.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that, Thompson.”

  The two men gazed at each other until Dafydd slid back into the stall and noisily cleared his throat. In his distinctive Welsh accent, he said, “Look, sir, Mr. Lawrence. I’m just a jockey. I don’t know anything about politics, but guys like me know about men like that who just left. He’s the kind of guy who likes a little guy like me, because he can rip my leg off and chew on it like a drumstick.”

  Raul didn’t insult Dafydd’s intelligence by disagreeing.

  “I’m clearing out,” Dafydd said. “Now.”

  Raul made up his mind. “Stay for the next race?”

  “For what purpose?” Dafydd asked suspiciously.

  “To take him to the finish line first.” Raul stroked Halcón Guerra’s neck.

  “Do you think you should?” Thompson asked.

  “Dafydd is Halcón Guerra’s jockey. Halcón Guerra won’t work for anyone else like he does for him.” Raul nodded at Dafydd. “We’ll need the cash soon, and there’s no use waiting any longer. There’ll be the purse, which will be hefty, plus I’ll sell the colt for eight thousand guineas before the day is over. For right now, it’s a good sum, guaranteed money in hand.”

  “I don’t know, sir.” Dafydd stroked his thigh as if Jean-Pierre already had set his teeth in the muscle. “I want out of this heathen place.”

  “I’ll give you ten percent of the purse,” Raul said.

  In Dafydd’s mind, that settled the matter. “Done.”

  Raul clapped him on the back, then moved with Thompson out of the stall. He collected his hat and the two men moved toward the door.

  “What should we do about the woman?” Thompson asked softly. “About Miss Cardiff?”