Even Danior clutched the side of the cart with white knuckles.
“The paste of the herb worked remarkably well, proving its effectiveness, and it’s well known that Linnaeus speculated that the same properties that make it cure infection in a wound also eliminates pests and disease on the crops.” Her voice faded. There was a moment of unrelenting quiet. What was wrong with everyone? Why did they look so eager, and yet so frightened? She must have said something wrong . . . perhaps she shouldn’t have contradicted a royal decree. Dropping her gaze to her unwieldy boots, she wished she could sink into the dirt.
Then shouting exploded around her.
“Impossible!” “It’s true!” “We have to do something!” “I told you so!” “It’s the prophecy!” “She’s the princess!” “Wouldn’t hurt to try!” “The prince said no.” “He’s not saying no now.” “Prophecy, I tell you!”
And finally, “She’s the princess!”
“She’s the princess!”
“She’s the princess.”
Twenty-five
“Another prophecy fulfilled.” Danior rubbed his hands together and thought about the scene just outside the open door, outside of this very hut. The villagers had gone on to Plaisance, celebrating as they went, leaving him and his princess to enjoy the thin hospitality of a hamlet stricken by poverty—and now, overwhelmed with optimism.
“Stop gloating,” Evangeline said.
“I can’t help it. This couldn’t be more perfect.”
They sat shoulder to shoulder on a bench, table before them, while she studiously avoided his gaze. In between sips of thin cabbage soup from a tin cup, she said, “I never heard about this prophecy.”
In his jubilance, he couldn’t help mocking her. “Your learned friend Leona didn’t tell you about it?”
Magnificently sullen, she glared through the dim and smoky air at the tiny fire that flickered in the firepit, every inch a princess with her regal air and her disdain.
He laid his hand on her elbow. “The people took it as a sign.”
“I know they took it as a sign.” She jerked her arm away. “I heard them.”
But while he wanted her to show that hauteur to others, with him he wanted the Evangeline who would be his wife. He wanted her to acknowledge him, and the significance of what had happened. He wanted her to say she loved him again. He wanted her to look at him.
“I couldn’t believe it when you started in.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Before the wedding day, the princess shall feed the hungry and return us to the prosperity of the old days. And there you were, in front of a whole village of people, telling us how to cure the blight that has plagued us for half a century.”
“That’s a vague prophecy.” She tried to shrug him away. “I still don’t understand why they were so excited. I didn’t recommend anything new.”
“No, just the best old medicine there is.”
“We don’t know if it’ll work yet.”
“It will. You know it will.”
Leaning forward as if she hoped to brush his arm off, she took a bite of the day old bread she’d toasted over the flames. “I know,” she said glumly.
“The villagers will spread the word that the princess has fulfilled the prophecy, and hope will spread on its own.”
Evangeline slammed her empty cup onto the table and turned to him, face ablaze with fury. “I’m not the princess!”
She was really angry, Danior realized. Angry and dismayed and hostile.
She reminded him of a cat: soft and purring when she was contented, but underneath a fine, nervous strength bolstered by tooth and claw. He had to calm her, to keep her happy.
Her stomach must still be empty.
Taking her cup, he filled it again from the pot steaming on the fire’s edge. He cut her another slice of the rank white goat’s cheese, and came back to the bench. Sliding in beside her, he placed the food before her. “Eat some more.”
She took a bite of cheese.
And because he could not let her deny her birthright, he added, “I can’t have my princess go hungry.”
She stared into the cup at the thin broth and the floating pieces of cabbage, and in her face he thought he saw desperation.
“I’ll go out and get us another rabbit,” he promised.
She paid no attention to that—another sign of her perturbation. “Why are all the prophecies about me?” she demanded. “Why aren’t any of them about you?”
“They are. Or rather, one is.”
“One. How eye-popping.” She almost prickled with animosity. “What is this prophecy?”
“The prince shall embrace his greatest fear and make it his own.”
“Another vague prophecy. What does that mean?”
She irritated him with her deliberate obtuseness. “It’s not vague at all. I shall have to face the revolutionaries, probably even Dominic himself, and somehow subdue them.”
“Why should Dominic and the revolutionaries be your greatest fear?”
“When the revolutionaries lobbed the bomb that killed my parents, my mother didn’t die at once. She screamed and screamed. I couldn’t get to her, the Lord Chamberlain dragged me away to safety, and I—” His heart pounded as he remembered. Thrusting his hand out, he let her see how it shook. “I am afraid of dying in agony. I’m afraid that you could be mortally wounded. And I can’t kill my own brother.”
“Oh.” Discomfited and too compassionate to let him suffer alone, she took his hand in hers and held it. “So you think that trial is yet to come?”
“Either that, or the prophecies are, as you said, vague, and no more magic than the crystal case.”
She dropped his hand. “So you just used the villagers’ expectations of the princess to bond me to the fulfillment of an old, ambiguous prophecy?”
He was heartless, he knew, and not romantic in the way this tender female desired. He didn’t believe in magic, or in anything he couldn’t touch or smell or reason with. His occasional premonitions he ascribed to years of clandestine fighting. But his ruthlessness had its purpose. “I will use any means to secure our place on the throne.”
From the way she looked at him, it was obvious she wasn’t liking him right now. “Will you be gone long rabbit hunting?”
The woman never gave up. “Not long enough for you to escape.”
She kicked the table leg like a recalcitrant child.
“I’ll bring in one of the dogs. I trained them, and if I tell them to stay with you, they will.”
“I’m afraid of dogs.”
“Good.” Standing, he flung his rucksack over his shoulder. “While I’m in the mountains, I’ll cut as much royal maywort as I can find to leave here.” He couldn’t keep the chagrin out of his voice. “I should have known that was what the problem was, but I’ve been off fighting and—well, there’s no excuse good enough.”
“Besides, when the old wives say to gather royal maywort in the dark of the moon in the month of May, it sounds like magic, and you don’t believe in magic.” She mocked him in her turn. “You only believe it when it’s couched in scientific terms.”
“No need to be snippy, miss.” He rubbed his knuckles at her temple. “I’ve been a dimwit. Now give me your word that you won’t try to leave.”
She turned her head away.
“Your word, Evangeline, or I’ll tie you while I’m gone and set the dogs to watch.”
“I won’t leave”—she promised—“while you’re gone.”
“That’s good enough.” Danior almost got to the door when her voice stopped him.
She stood with her hands on her hips, looking, much to Danior’s delight, like a scolding wife. His scolding wife. “I still think we should have gone with the villagers.”
“Lauri and I considered it. He was willing, I was not.”
“But why? There’s safety in numbers. We could have mingled with the crowds going to Revealing and got to Plaisance without incident.”
“There are only
two roads into Plaisance. The revolutionaries must be watching both. I am not easily disguised, and you, dearling, have been scrutinized by Dominic. There’s no way we could go with the villagers without putting them in danger.”
She pressed her mouth into a firm line that told him she wanted to object more.
Of course she wanted to object more. In a crowd, she hoped to lose him. With giant strides, he reached her and cupped her haughty chin. Looking into her eyes, he rubbed his thumb across her lips. “The trip will be safest by boat. We won’t lose each other that way.” He almost laughed at her transparent expression of aggravation. “You have to trust me, Evangeline.”
“Oh, I do.”
She sounded as grumpy as Memaw, and he couldn’t resist. He pressed a kiss on her tightly shut mouth . . . and lingered. As cautiously as a bud opening to the sun, she opened to him. She was new, delicate, unsure, yet with an allure so potent it pulled at him as powerfully as the moon pulled the tides. Desire slammed through him, and he dragged her into him in an embrace that gave no quarter.
Then he pulled back. This woman plucked at his ragged control, drawing him to the edge and almost beyond. Almost. But he was a man, mature and disciplined. He would not grant himself leave to behave like a randy boy. To behave like his father.
With one more light kiss—he didn’t want her to think she had affected him too much—he let her go and walked back to the door.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you refuse to travel with them. They are common, after all.”
He swung around and glared at her, a solitary figure in rags, yet defiant to the last. “I don’t feel that way! There is a great difference between traveling with, visiting with, and being with the peasants, and wanting to mix my blood with them. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?”
“Oh, I understand. You’re an aristocrat.” She made it sound like an insult.
He squeezed the door sill, using only the grip of his fingers to keep himself from going to her and doing her an injury. “Of course I am. And so are you.”
“No, I’m not.” She pleated her fingers together. “I’m Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall. I don’t even have a real surname—Scoffield is the town where I was found orphaned.”
“You fulfilled the prophecy!”
“It was an accident!”
“You’ve had a lot of accidents lately, then!” He took a breath and groped for his lost temper. “I will go and hunt. You will stay here and think about how you could benefit Bamphina—”
“Sereminia.”
“—by performing the role of princess to which you were born.” Once again he started out.
Once again she called him back. “Danior, wait!”
He paused, but he didn’t turn around. “Evangeline, you can’t conceive what you are asking for when you try my patience so.”
In a rush, she said, “Memaw told me you sent them materials to rebuild Blanca.”
“Aristocrats do that,” he said dryly, but he faced Evangeline once more. “The revolutionaries burned them out because they were loyal to the Leons. The French burned them out because they helped the resistance. Of course I had to help rebuild.”
“Memaw says the royal coffers are none too full.”
“They will be when we’re married and the prosperity of the country is guaranteed.” He held out his hand as if presenting her to the court. “Royal maywort. Who would have thought it?”
That shut her up, he noted with satisfaction. Leaving the door open, he stepped out and took a breath of the fresh air. The shadows were long, reaching across the valley as the sun moved toward the western horizon. The land appeared empty, yet he had met the five men left behind to patrol the paths that descended from the mountains. He would find one and tell him to guard the cottage with his dog, while Danior escaped to hunt a rabbit he didn’t really need. The villagers had offered him anything he wished, and it would be better if he stayed close by Evangeline.
But it was only late afternoon. They had two hours before darkness; two hours before he could take her to the simple featherbed fastened in the corner.
He couldn’t take her to bed when the few guards Lauri had left might enter the hut at any moment to talk or eat or just gaze at the couple they considered their salvation. Yet he couldn’t stay by her and still resist the urge to mate. So he would run like a coward until night had fallen and he could once more hold her in his arms.
And make love to her tethered by the restraint he must use.
Restraint. He’d lived with restraint all these years. Why did it gall him so much now?
From the path behind the hut, he heard a bark, and a man’s loud voice.
Who was it? And why?
Stepping back into the shadow of the doorway, Danior listened intently.
“As you can see, we’re a poor village. It’s been a bad year, and we haven’t a lot of food to share, but there’s fresh ale.” It was Justino, one of the guards, a quiet man now projecting his voice with the virtuosity of an opera singer. “How many are you?”
“A dozen of us,” a strange man’s voice said. “How many of you live in this pathetic village, and why don’t you join our cause?”
Danior grew cold with disdain and repressed fury.
The revolutionaries had come to Blanca.
Twenty-six
Danior fought the drive to lie in wait, to catch this stinking rebel and throttle him with his own hands. If not for Evangeline, he probably would, but . . . but he couldn’t endanger her. Not when he’d brought her so close to Plaisance, and the throne. Not when he’d made her his woman.
The revolutionaries must have been watching from above, and when the villagers left, they had sent a scout down. The rules of hospitality were strong, so Justino welcomed him, but the two men verbally circled each other, testing for strengths, testing for weaknesses.
“You’ll stay in my hut,” Justino said.
“Why there? There’s a fire in here. In the largest hut.” The rebel’s voice became accusing. “What are you trying to hide?”
“That’s our head man’s hut!” Justino managed to sound indignant.
The stranger laughed. “He’s gone. He won’t care.” With fine carelessness, he asked, “Have you had any royal visitors lately?”
Had the revolutionaries seen Danior and Evangeline on their trek across the valley, or were they fishing for information?
The rebel and the guard were coming closer. “How odd you should ask, “Justino said. “The prince and princess were just here today. You’d better hurry or you’ll miss them.”
Slipping back into the hut, Danior found Evangeline placing the dishes in a pan, picking up his cloak, preparing to flee.
Too late for that.
Through the window, the rebel replied, “We have a band searching the road ahead. We’ll get them.”
The confidence in his voice raised the hair on Danior’s neck. Taking Evangeline’s hand, he led her toward one windowless side of the hut. Inside where the walls met the packed dirt floor, sheaves of hay and leaves were stacked to protect against the whistle of the winter blizzard—and to disguise Blanca’s hidden cache.
A false wall ran the length of the hut, two feet inside, floor to ceiling. To the careless eye, it appeared to be the inner wall, but behind it were stored bags of grain and casks of salted meat. If marauders burned the hut, all would be lost, but in the lawless times created by the revolution and Napoleon, it had safeguarded the villagers’ survival more than once.
One sheaf camouflaged the tiny hatch in the wall, hooked to it with twisted lengths of hay. Searching for it, Danior pulled at several sheaves. Nothing. Wasted minutes.
The guard and the rebel were almost to the hut.
Almost too late, Danior yanked on a sheaf, and the weight told him he’d found the one connected to the hatch.
Sheaf, hatch, and all came up in his hand. He set the crude assemblage down and propelled Evangeline toward the small,
dark hole.
She backed up like a recalcitrant mule.
He remembered that she’d been locked in the closet at her school. He understood. He didn’t care.
Taking the top of her head, he pushed her down and shoved her in. She collapsed, from surprise or fear, he couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter. She just had to get in.
He kept pushing, and she rolled inside. He followed, and pulled the hatch behind him.
Total, absolute darkness. Air, close and warm, dry with the scent of grain. Evangeline’s harsh breathing.
Groping, he found her huddled against the back wall burrowed between two sacks of grain, her knees drawn up to her chest, her head down. She shivered, little shudders of primal fear. He gave her head a quick pat, dropped the knapsack, pulled his knife, and faced the hatch.
No sound permeated the walls around them. Had Justino kept the rebel outside? Had they entered the hut? Danior had no way of knowing. His real concern was fire. If the rebels were smart, they wouldn’t try to torch the village.
But damn, how he hated cowering here in the darkness.
Leaning his head against the wood of the hatch, he strained to listen, but heard nothing.
Except that Evangeline’s breathing became more labored.
Keeping his eyes fixed toward the opening, he scooted toward her and bent close to her ear. “Are you ill?”
Her unsteady voice rose and fell. “I can’t . . . breathe.”
“Sh.” With the knife in one hand, he pulled her close and wrapped his free arm around her. He pressed her head to his chest and tried to infuse her with courage.
But her courage had vanished, dissolved by the darkness she feared. Her teeth chattered. She clasped at his shirt. If he hadn’t experienced this himself, he would have never believed it of his valiant princess.