Penelope & Prince Charming (30 page)

“They need me,” Alexander snarled.

“Penelope, go to the window. Greet your people. See.”

Grasping her skirts in her shaking hands, Penelope clicked to the window, passing between two of the scantily clad, very muscled logosh. They did not bow to her or smile, they simply turned as she passed, fixing their strange eyes on her.

She pulled back the half-open casement and looked out.

The wall of the castle here dropped straight down to the city, unimpeded by any curtain walls. The drop was sheer, fifty feet or so—the logosh had climbed straight up it. In the town, at the bottom of the wall, were the people, a mass of color and noise.

When they saw Penelope, they nearly went insane. The chanting of Damien’s name faded, to be replaced by a tumult of cheering, a wave of joy that swamped her. She lifted her hand to them, and the cheering, if anything, increased.

She looked back into the room and held out her hand. “Damien.”

He came to her, his Nvengarian medals clinking, his dark hair dusty, his chin unshaven. He looked much as he had when she’d first met him, a charming, handsome man who swept her from her feet and began to make love to her in Holden’s meadow.

He stepped to the window. Screams and cheers floated to them, banners waved. Damien cupped Penelope’s face in his hand, leaned down, and kissed her.

She heard Titus’s cry and the crowd’s response, but she felt only Damien’s hungry kiss. She laced one hand around his neck, rising to his mouth.

Inside the room, Egan swore. Penelope broke the kiss and looked around in time to see one of the soldiers draw his pistol and level it at Damien.

The pistol flashed, powder exploding. Damien flung Penelope to the floor and landed on her as the bullet crashed into the glass. The logosh attacked.

She heard men screaming and the high-keening shrieks of the logosh. Another logosh skimmed up the wall and in through the open window, a very small one.

“Wulf,” she shouted as he leapt over her and straight onto Alexander.

Damien sprang to his feet, running for him. Penelope scrambled up, wrestling with her skirts, dashing after him. She noted that Petri had pulled Sasha out of the way, while Egan ran to help Damien. The two men yanked the maddened logosh from Alexander and tossed him aside.

Alexander lay on the floor, his beautiful blue coat in
shreds, the Grand Duke’s sash of office slashed to ribbons. Alexander’s face was pasty white, blood streaming from wounds in his stomach. He struggled to breathe.

Wulf landed against Penelope and became a boy before he hit the floor. His fingers and mouth bloody, he threw his child’s arms about her waist.

She gently pressed him aside, and sank to her knees beside Alexander. Petri pulled open what remained of the coat. “That is a death wound,” he announced.

Damien looked grim. Penelope smoothed Alexander’s hair from his cold forehead.

His eyes, filled with pain, swiveled to her but did not focus, as though he struggled to see but could not. “I’ll not let him win,” he said.

“Do not move too much,” she begged.

“No.” He groped for her hand. “Miss Trask, you must promise me you will not let the monster out.”

Penelope took Alexander’s ice-cold hand between hers. “I will watch him,” she said softly. “I promise.”

Behind her, the logosh had stopped. The soldiers, terrified, had surrendered. The logosh, men once more, stood over them, looking as calm as they had before the fight began.

“Tell my son.” Alexander broke off and gasped, blood trickling from his mouth.

“You have a son?” Penelope asked, her voice gentle.

“Tell him I love him,” Alexander whispered. “Tell him not to be ashamed of me.”

“I will take care of him,” Damien said, on one knee next to him. “I swear that.”

“Not you,” Alexander said, seeking Penelope with sightless eyes. “Her.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’ll not let you die.”

Sasha made his way to Penelope. “She is the true princess,” he told Alexander, standing over him. “She can heal you.”

Alexander gave him an ironic smile, although it was clear he could see nothing. “I am not reassured.”

“Bring me water and a sponge and bandages,” Penelope commanded. “And herbs—lavender and chamomile.”

Petri looked troubled. “‘Tis mortal, Your Highness. His stomach’s cut.”

“Bring them,” she said sternly.

Petri creaked to his feet, resigned, and departed.

Damien helped her move aside the coat and shirt and the slashed waistband of Alexander’s trousers. Penelope put her hands to the bloody mess of Alexander’s stomach. His blood pulsed around her fingers, and she felt his heartbeat, strange and erratic.

She had no idea what to do. She only knew she could do it.

She closed her eyes, letting her thoughts slide away, comforting darkness taking their place. She saw, not his bones and muscle, but lines and crosses that had to be arranged in a certain way. It gave her pleasure to straighten them in her mind, to cross one over the other, to align this one with that one. Everything untangled to become smooth and straight and neat. The finished pattern made her smile, sending a warmth like joy over her body.

Alexander gasped, and she opened her eyes.

He was staring at her, his focus sharp, his lips parted in shock. But color had returned to his face; his breathing and heartbeat were as normal. Every wound on his torso had dried and closed, dark red streaks the only evidence he’d ever been hurt.

Petri stood beside her, a dripping bowl of water in his hands, and Egan looked over Damien’s shoulder, his mouth open. Damien looked at her with eyes full of astonishment, but behind that pride and love.

“You see,” Sasha said, shrugging as though nothing extraordinary had happened. “She is the true princess, as I said.”

The royal wedding was scheduled to take place in a week. When the duchess who would be in charge of protocol heard the news, she had hysterics. “A week? I cannot organize a royal wedding in a week! There is a banquet, and invitations, and…”

Damien soothed her by telling her that while the wedding would be a simple affair, the coronation, which she had months to plan, could be the most opulent in the history of Nvengaria.

She went away, shaking her head, and Sasha, looking aggrieved, went with her, no doubt to explain that Damien was an eccentric.

There remained the question of what to do with Alexander. Damien had placed him under house arrest—no more dungeons, he’d said sternly—but he had to end it sometime. He had the jailors, retainers from the new palace guard, handpicked by Petri, bring Alexander to see him in Damien’s small study a week after Alexander had surrendered.

Alexander sat in a comfortable wing chair facing Damien. Damien had chosen this room to be part of his suite because it had the least amount of gilding, marble, wall hangings, and garish furniture. It looked like the large study of a simpler country house, and Damien wanted simplicity.

Alexander waited, fingers steepled, for Damien to pronounce his sentence. He might be waiting to learn the outcome of a horse race he had only passing interest in.

Damien began without preliminaries. “Your reforms are sensible, you know. I went through all your notebooks, all your schemes. They make much sense given Nvengaria’s need to compete with the rest of Europe in industry, and yet to keep us from being swallowed by the larger fish.”

“I am pleased you approve,” Alexander said.

“I more than approve, I will adopt most of them; they match my own ideas. Your outline for the restructuring of government, on the other hand, will have to go.”

“The restructuring is not implausible. Our system was out of date a century after it was initiated.”

“Maybe,” Damien conceded. “It is unwieldy and divides power too unevenly, but it will have to do. The only way I could instigate a complete restructuring is to force it on the people, by sword if necessary, and that I refuse. Gradual change is better. I recalled the Council of Mages.”

“So I heard.” Alexander’s eyes darkened with anger. “Most of them were loyal to your father and will fight you on anything you want to change.”

“I know that.”

“Many in the Council of Dukes bear hatred for you as well. They did not like me, but they simply did not like
me.
They loathe the Imperial Prince with a hatred that has run deep for centuries. It is a different thing.”

Damien nodded, twisting the heavy silver ring on his finger. “I will handle each problem as it occurs. I never thought that being Imperial Prince of Nvengaria would be a particularly safe occupation.”

“Why did you come back?” Alexander asked softly. He let his hands hang from the chair’s arms. “The first time, I mean, when Misk brought you the ring. You could have fled to the other side of the world and said to hell with Nvengaria. You have your own money and your popularity in Europe is enviable.”

Damien had wondered the same thing many, many times. He remembered the evening when Misk had come to his chamber in Paris, and the lackeys had knelt to him. He’d stood poised between two lives, the difficult one of Imperial Prince, and the lonely one of playboy Damien, rich and carefree and admired.

“It called to me,” he said. “That is the only way I can explain it. Nvengaria called to me, and I believe the prophecy did, too. I cannot now imagine a life that does not have Penelope in it.”

Alexander watched him closely. “When you look at her, the monster goes away. You look besotted, but like a man who will never let anything hurt her, least of all yourself.”

The trouble with Alexander, Damien had always thought, was that the man was too perceptive for his own good.

“I intend to keep watching her,” he said. He felt his lips move into a smile. “Try falling in love, Alexander. ’Twill make your life—interesting.”

“No, thank you. I find it interesting enough.”

“Words of a man who has never swum those waters. You will happily drown.”

Alexander gave him a cool stare. “I much doubt it.” He touched his stomach, where the wounds had healed. Petri had made certain that his blue and gold sash of office was mended, as well. “However, I have learned never to argue with magic.”

“When magic touches you, I will be first to congratulate you. But we must return to the problem of what to do with you.”

His dark brows flicked upward. “I confess, I had thought to finding myself facing a firing squad at any moment.”

Damien’s amusement fled. “I am not my father. I will not execute every person who annoys me. One loses one’s friends as well as enemies when that happens.”

“But if you spare every person,” Alexander pointed out, “then your enemies will begin to take advantage of you. They will move against you, knowing you will not stop them.”

“I never said I would not stop them. I simply said I do not believe in random execution. I intend to have trials
and juries and councils and so forth. No stealing people away in the middle of the night. No dungeons, no arbitrary firing squads.”

Alexander laughed mirthlessly. “You’ll not last a week.”

“We shall see.” Damien narrowed his eyes. “As for you—you do have many supporters. There are plenty of reformers in this country who admire you. If I put you to death, you might become a martyr to our volatile people, who will move against me. The best thing to do is have you work for me.”

Alexander stilled, the ruby in his ear glinting against his dark hair. “You could never trust me by your side.”

“No, I do not.” He turned the ring. “What I want is for you to work for me elsewhere, in the courts of Europe, especially that of England. You do not want the Hapsburgs or the Ottomans to swallow Nvengaria, and neither do I. You have done much to help keep them out, but you need to go out into the world and discover exactly what they are up to. Anastasia does much, but she is rather fanatical in her hatred for Austria, which makes her miss things. I need someone more neutral, who is for Nvengaria, but not necessarily against everyone else.”

“And you would trust me to do this?”

“Yes.” He smiled faintly. “Because you would never raise an army of Germans or Prussians or Austrians to march here and overthrow me. You bring in German soldiers, they might decide to stay and invite their leaders to follow. Mercenaries need a great deal of money to be placated. I would trust you because you love Nvengaria as much as I do. More, probably.”

Alexander considered. “So you wish to exile me. A punishment that will hurt me more than death.”

“I cannot trust you here. I need you out there. It is not exile, unless you want it to be. You may come home anytime.” He paused. “I really do need you, Alexander. I do
not trust you against me, but I do trust you to want what is best for Nvengaria.”

He sat back, his bearing as imperious as ever. “What of my son?”

“What of him?”

“Is he free to accompany me? Or will he be held here as a hostage for my good behavior?”

Damien gave him a long look. “You expect so much cruelty from me. Penelope would never allow me to use the boy as a hostage, you must know that. Take him or leave him, as you wish. If he stays, Penelope will look after him and see to his schooling and all those other things women like to do.”

“His own mother had little to do with him,” Alexander observed. “Although that does not mean she did not care for him.”

Damien softened his voice. “I am sorry for Sephronia’s death.”

Alexander shrugged, as though it meant nothing, but Damien saw true grief in his eyes. “It was quick, in the end.”

“Do this for me, Alexander,” Damien said. “I need you in England. I need the Regent’s help against Russia and Austria and the Ottomans if necessary, but I do not trust him, either. I need someone strong to keep him and his advisors tame. I need someone who they will know can be ruthless if necessary. I need you to be my sword.”

His brows lifted. “You want me to intimidate them, in other words.”

“Yes. I can cajole them, but the Regent still thinks of me as the dilettante prince. His only thoughts about me are to compare horses or suits or mistresses. He will not know quite what to do with you. You will terrify him.” He smiled at the prospect.