The Runaway Princess

  “I’ll do it.” Evangeline stepped into the tub too hastily, and the fragrant water sloshed back and forth, right to the edge. Half-panicked, she tried to calm the splashing; in her life she had, after all, spent her time cleaning up after others. She looked guiltily at the edge of the screen, but over by the bed she could hear Tacita and the others exclaiming about the condition of the chemise.

  Heat eased her tight muscles and worked into her bones as she lathered a cloth with milled bar soap and washed as rapidly as possible.

  She hurried, she told herself, because she fretted that the maids would make up some excuse to peek around the corner.

  Actually, she knew better. She hurried because she feared Danior would tromp in, making it clear to one and all they were already lovers, disconcerting her and sending the maids off to spread the word. He was the kind of man who would do such a thing deliberately to make her think she had no choice but to marry him.

  As if that would influence her.

  She didn’t enjoy being so self-conscious, but she could live with that. What she couldn’t live with was the anticipation of tomorrow. Right now, Marie Theresia and her silly advice seemed far away and long ago, and all Evangeline could think was—what if Danior is wrong? What if the crystal case was magic? She had dreamed of really being the dearly beloved princess, of having a home, of being part of a family that could trace its roots back into the mists of antiquity.

  But in the end, she had given herself not for the country or for a home or to the Chartrier family but to the prince.

  The prince. A man to depend on.

  A man so driven by the sense of his own infallibility that he could look at her and see a princess. She could fool him forever. He’d never know she was truly Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall—unless that damned crystal case wouldn’t open.

  That nightmare preyed on her nerves.

  She lathered her hair.

  The other nightmare was almost more vivid. The one where the real princess, a lovely, elegant young woman with the slight glow of a halo around her head, interrupted the ceremony with the announcement that Evangeline was a fraud, and Evangeline was hauled off by a constable and stuck in jail until she rotted. Or was killed. Danior, she imagined, would come by at regular intervals to mock her until the execution. After all, that was what happened to Lady Jane Gray.

  She ducked for a rinse. As she came up, she watched with horror as the water sloshed to the edge again—and over. The puddle spread across the shining waxed floor toward the priceless Chinese screen. She wrung out her hair, knowing she should call Tacita or one of the other maids to wipe it up. They were her servants.

  But the real princess wouldn’t have been so untidy. A real princess wouldn’t have this empathy for those who labored for their living.

  She heard giggling from beyond the screen, and that settled the matter. She didn’t need five maids squatted around her bathtub wiping up the mess she’d made.

  Evangeline got on her knees and stretched long, reaching for a drying cloth—and Danior said, “Lovely.”

  She sat down so hard the water splashed out again.

  He stood beside the screen, one hand gripping the edge as if to shove it out of the way.

  Her hand shot out, palm toward him, fingers spread. “Don’t!”

  “Don’t what? Don’t be here? Don’t come closer? Don’t take off my clothes and join you?”

  The giggling beyond the screen got more intense. He snapped his fingers at the maids, the giggling stopped, and the door to the bedchamber opened and shut with a weighty thud.

  Alone. She and Danior were as alone as they had been in the hot springs, for Danior had decreed it so and no one disobeyed the prince.

  The washcloth wasn’t big enough to cover her breasts, but Evangeline gave it a valiant try, using the water to plaster the flimsy linen to her chest. “I was going to say, don’t move the screen. But yes, to all of those.”

  The formal jacket and cravat he’d worn earlier had been discarded, his satin waistcoat hung open, his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He looked more like the Danior who had been her traveling companion and less like the crown prince of Baminia.

  No wonder the maids had been giggling.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” She tried to sound firm and decorous, a possibly futile exercise while sitting stark naked in a rapidly shrinking tub.

  He snorted and slipped out of his waistcoat. “Where you are, my dear, so am I. I could scarcely bear to let you out of my sight long enough to speak to that long-winded old noodle for fear when I got up here, you’d have decamped again.”

  Stupidly, she was hurt by his distrust. “I said I was going to marry you!”

  He hung his waistcoat over the screen. “You’ve said a lot of things, most of them lies.”

  “If you feel that way, then why do you want to marry me?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished them back. Despite the way he mouthed those sweet words of love, she knew he didn’t want to marry her. He had to marry her.

  Evangeline clutched the washcloth as he came to kneel at the side of the tub.

  “Why do I want to marry you?” He stirred the water with his finger like a warlock brewing a potion. “Because you have seen me at my worst and loved me in spite of it. Or maybe because of it. I don’t understand, but I’d be a fool to let you go.”

  His hand crept toward her leg, and she caught it between her own. “For a man with no neck, you’re really rather good with words.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  She held his palm flat and turned it up to the light. It was broad and strong, with bright red blisters under each finger as if he’d rowed down that river after her. “I believe that if you found out I was a commoner, all my virtues would be for naught.”

  “You mean, if you were really Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  He grinned, so sure of himself that she wanted to smack him. “Thank God, I’ll never have to make that choice. It would be impossible for me to give up the only woman who wants not the prince but the man.”

  He was right, and she ached with the knowledge that he didn’t feel the same intense love for her.

  His voice got deeper, rumbling with gratification. “In the coach, you said you wanted me the way I was in Blanca, all crazy for you and holding nothing back.”

  She touched each of his blisters gently, as if she could cure them, not with a royal touch but with a loving touch. “What kind of woman would want to run mad in your arms while you carefully maintain your control?”

  “You little innocent. All of them—except you.” He shushed her when she would have argued with him. “I was always afraid that if I lost control, even once, I would be like my father, desperately seeking my manhood in one woman after another.”

  “Danior, you don’t need to worry about that. You have the moral strength of ten men. You are the embodiment of resolution. You have been tempered and tried by fire, and you are everything a prince should be.” She got a good grip on his thumb before she added, “Besides, if you seek satisfaction with another woman, I’ll cut off your royal jewels.”

  His thumb jerked in her grasp, and while she congratulated herself on holding him in check, his other hand came up and snatched the washcloth off her chest. She snatched back, but he held it out of reach. “Stand up and get it,” he challenged.

  She splashed water in his face instead.

  His thumb disappeared out of her fist, and he tucked his hands under her armpits to bring her to her feet. “You need to be taught a lesson.” He gazed at her body, streaming with water, warm and scented, and added, “I’m going to teach you that lesson.”

  Funny, the words were threatening, but she didn’t feel threatened. She felt wanton and utterly relaxed, as if she’d been waiting for his action in anticipation. She smoothed her damp hand across his dripping face. “You’re wet.”

  “I know
.” Drops splashed onto his shirt. “There was even water on the floor, and I knelt in it.”

  She gripped his shoulders. “You’ll have to take your trousers off.”

  “So I will.” His hands slid around to her breasts. He cupped them, leaned to them, kissed them. “I’ve seen you in moonlight, now in candlelight. Tomorrow morning, I’ll see you in the clear light of day in our own palace.”

  He suckled, and she shut her eyes. He didn’t believe in magic, but he was wrong. When his tongue touched her, his lips pulling strongly at her nipple, he summoned that magic sensation of melting softness, inside and out.

  But now she knew—she was a magician, too. She took him out of himself, out of control, mad with desire.

  Together they made magic.

  She pulled his shirt loose, unfastened his trousers, and let them drop. She slid her hands into his drawers, but he caught her.

  “No, you don’t.” He put her hands away from him and stepped back.

  “Why not?”

  “If you do that, it’ll be a repeat of Blanca.”

  “I liked what we did at Blanca.”

  “So did I.” He pulled his shirt over his head and yanked his boots off. “But there are other avenues to explore, other pleasures I can give you, and when you touch me all I can think about is my pleasure.”

  “When can I touch you?”

  “Perhaps in a year or two.”

  He stepped out of his trousers and peeled off his drawers, and whatever objection she wished to make vanished in a spell of forgetfulness. The first time she’d looked at him across the dining chamber at Château Fortuné she had thought him broad and strong as a peasant, a man who overwhelmed his clothing and made them insignificant.

  Now, looking at him naked and in the light, her mouth dried and her skin flushed. Clothing was unworthy of this creature. His brawny shoulders were testaments to the strength that carried her up mountains and through forests. His scars were the badges of a hero. His chest and stomach rippled beneath a fine, dark fur that covered him in the shape of an arrow, directing her gaze downward, as if nature feared she might miss the magnificent sight of his erection if not given guidance. His thighs were a horseman’s thighs, powerful, muscled and spare, and his feet were callused, rugged, feet that had tromped half a country and, if they had to, would tomorrow tromp the rest.

  He let her look, and when she had surveyed him from top to toe, he said, “You like what you see.”

  Somehow he knew how the mere sight of him stirred her; perhaps her body gave some clue. But even if it fed his conceit, she was compelled to give him tribute. “If you had been Adam in the garden of Eden, God would never have required that you clothe yourself.”

  He laughed, his head thrown back. “If I had been Adam in the garden of Eden, the fall would have come at once, for you, Eve, are my temptress.”

  She smiled too, but the cold pressed in, she was still wet, and gooseflesh swept her. He saw, and turning to the towels, he picked one up.

  His back was the match of his chest, muscled and broad, tapering to narrow buttocks so taut that the skin clung and moved like fine silk. He had a small, colorful mark on his left cheek just below his waist; that startled her. When he brought a towel, she turned him toward the light of the fire and ran her finger across it.

  She’d never seen one before, but she knew it for what it was; a tattoo of a roaring lion. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “It’s my emblem.” Wrapping her torso in the towel, he helped her out of the tub. “The emblem of the House of Leon. Now stand here,” he said, leading her to stand in front of the fire while he fetched the other drying cloths.

  Suddenly shy, she held the towel tight against her breasts, wondering why no one sewed bigger towels, ones that would cover a person from more than the tips of her breasts to the tops of her thighs. How she appeared to Danior she couldn’t imagine, with her hair wild and damp and her body silhouetted by the flames. It was almost as if she demanded that he notice her—and notice her he did. Even though he had just been looking at her stark naked in the tub, he stopped and stared at her with such pride that she thought herself as esteemed as the mountains and valleys of the Two Kingdoms themselves.

  “You make me wild.” His voice was hoarse. “You say you want me as I am. If that’s true, then you should be prepared, for I mean to have you every day and every night. I want to kiss you down here.” He brushed the triangle of hair that peeked beneath the towel. “I want to taste you on my lips when you come. I want to be inside you right now. I’ll want to be inside you fifty years from now. And I’ll make you want it, too.”

  She already did want it. Her knees felt weak as he towel-dried her hair. He used another drying cloth to blot her face and neck. He tugged away the towel she held, discarded it and began, with deliberate, leisurely strokes, to wipe the water away from her shoulders and arms.

  How could she let him care for her in such an intimate way? She’d cared for herself her whole life, and in the past week she’d been forced to allow Danior to carry her, to rescue her . . . to heal her. Now he waited on her, devoting himself to her as if she were really royal and he were really only a man.

  She tried to assume command, but he pushed her hands aside. “No. This is my privilege.”

  The way he dried her was more like one long, tender caress. Her nipples puckered when he brushed them. The skin on her stomach tingled as he patted it, and she braced herself with her hand on his shoulder when he knelt before her and dried her intimately. He pressed so carefully, with such an expression of beatific innocence on his face that she might have laughed—if she’d had the breath. He rubbed gently at her thighs, her calves. He lifted her feet and found out she was ticklish. Then he turned her and started up the back of her legs, up to her buttocks.

  And there he paused. He didn’t move, he didn’t rub, he just knelt behind her.

  Time stretched out, silence grew thick, and she grew first abashed, then embarrassed, then when she remembered Dominic and his extraordinary bout of laughter, confusion and embarrassed anger began to bubble.

  “What’s wrong?” She tried to squirm around, but he grasped her and held her in place. “What are you looking at?”

  He didn’t speak, not even when she twisted and writhed.

  Finally, when she was just about to reach around and rip his hair out, he kissed her bottom, first one side, then the other, and at last at the very base of her spine. “I’m looking at the most beautiful woman in the Two Kingdoms, and I thank God she is mine.”

  Standing, he dried her, picked her up, carried her to bed, and made such love to her that she knew he had given himself to her wholly.

  And later, before he left her, Danior leaned and murmured into her sleeping ear, “Even if you aren’t really a princess.”

  Thirty-two

  Evangeline wasn’t eating.

  Not the spicy sausage, not sizzling bacon cut so thin it was almost transparent, not the roasted trout swimming in a sour cream sauce, and not beef roast of royal proportions. She hadn’t touched the potatoes, even though they had been prepared in ten different ways, nor any of the dozens of breads and cakes laid out on the great sideboard in the dining hail. Even when Danior coaxed her with blushing strawberries placed to her lips by his own hands, she had been able to swallow only a few before pushing him away.

  “I’m too frightened,” she said.

  And she was. She hadn’t been this pale when he’d pushed her into that small dark hole in Blanca. He kept trying to reassure her, to tell her everything would be all right, but she wouldn’t listen.

  Everything would be all right. He knew it as well as he knew his lines in the Revealing Ceremony. “Evangeline.” He stroked her fingers, trying to infuse them with warmth. “We’ve faced everything together. Bombs, revolutionaries, injuries—opening the crystal case will be easy as apples.”

  Courtiers and servants stared at the royal couple ensconced in an alcove, but none dared interrupt their tête-?
?-tête.

  “Have you got your implement?” she asked in a whisper muffled by the tapestries hanging around them.

  He patted the pouch that hung from his gold corded belt. “It’s right here.”

  “What if that doesn’t open it?”

  “Then we’ll take it to the Leon family stronghold and drop it from the tower onto the rocks,” he joked.

  She covered her face.

  Taking her wrists, he pulled her hands away and looked into her eyes. “Do you believe it’s a magic case?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she whispered.

  Well, of course she didn’t. Her whole life had been put topsy-turvy, and only he could right it.

  “Do you believe m me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

  “Then believe me when I tell you—today everything will be flawless.”

  And it would.

  The prince shall embrace his greatest fear and make it his own.

  He chuckled when he remembered the prophecy and how blithely he predicted its import. Prophecies were slippery things clear only to wizards and saints, and the fear Danior embraced had nothing to do with revolutionaries and everything to do with pride, folly, and love.

  Looking at his folly and his love, he said, “Your Royal Highness Princess Evangeline, I swear to you we will open the crystal case together.”

  She moaned softly. “But then we’ll have to get married.” She leapt from one anxiety to another, barely considering the successful completion of one event before she moved on to another.

  “And what if you spill the wine on your gown?” he quipped.

  Her eyes rounded; she plucked at the heavy damask material, and whispered, “What if I do?”

  She hadn’t thought of that, and he cursed himself for adding to her distress. “It’s your gown, and you’ll be the queen. No one will dare reprimand the queen.”

  That clearly offered no comfort, so he said, “The wedding is our wedding, and if you spill wine, I promise I will spill wine, too, and we’ll start a tradition that will last another thousand years.”