Princess Annie (28 page)

Annie felt sick, remembering the brutality she’d witnessed in the marketplace, and the stunned hatred that had shone in Lieutenant Covington’s gaze the night of Phaedra’s ball when she’d told Rafael what he’d done. And even though she knew her enemy was locked away in the dungeons, she was afraid.

“Annie?” Lucian took her arm, steadying her, while the maid hovered nearby, not knowing what to do. “Are you all right?”

She bit her lip, nodded, and managed a smile.

He frowned, not entirely convinced, and gave her elbow a gentle squeeze. “I’ll meet you in the great hall in ten minutes,” he said, and left her.

With the maid’s help, Annie got out of Phaedra’s wedding gown and into the purple one she’d put on that morning after waking up in Rafael’s bed and sneaking back to her own chambers. Trembling, she straightened her hair and then set out purposefully for the heart of the castle.

Lucian was there, flirting harmlessly with a maid. When he saw Annie, he smiled and offered his arm, for all the world like a gentleman.

“Come with me, sweet Annie,” he said, when she curved her fingers around the inside of his elbow, “and see for yourself the wondrous, musty secrets of St. James Keep.”

CHAPTER 14
 

L
ucian behaved himself, as he’d promised, showing Annie through one of the oldest parts of the keep, a rabbit warren of impossibly small rooms with low ceilings and dank, dripping walls that predated even the great hall and the solarium. It reminded Annie a little of places in America, where vast houses had sometimes been built around log cabins.

“People were much smaller back then,” Lucian said, ducking his head to keep from cracking it on a beam. He held his lantern high, though, and it spilled golden light into the dusty, cobweb-draped passageway ahead.

Annie wished she’d exchanged her morning dress for her trusty shirt and breeches before coming on this adventure. Given the possibility that the keep might soon be commandeered by rebel forces, she wanted to learn every possible escape route. She thought of the hidden gate she’d found in the keep’s outer wall that day before they’d traveled to Morovia, and wondered if Lucian knew about it.

She almost asked him, but some vague instinct stopped her.

“Are you scared?” she inquired instead.

“Of these passages and pitiful cells?” he countered cheerfully, without looking back at her, proceeding deeper into the heart of the castle.

“No,” Annie replied abruptly. The awareness that Jeremy Covington and the other rogue soldiers were being held somewhere nearby nagged at her. She would have preferred to share the place with ghosts. “Of what’s happening to Bavia, to your family.”

Lucian sighed philosophically. “It’s plain that the St. Jameses have outlived their time.” With his free hand, he struck one of the walls. “Don’t you think it’s symbolic, the way the castle is crumbling to rubble around us? It parallels what’s happening to the country, to a whole way of life.”

Annie felt an infinite sadness, even though she knew, of course, that many of the old ways were terribly wrong. A number of quaint and courtly graces would almost certainly fall by the wayside as well. Even if Rafael survived the revolution, which he seemed determined not to do, he would be without a country. His entire history would have vanished into a void, and that was a thing of magnitude and consequence, not to be blithely dismissed.

When Annie didn’t speak, Lucian glanced back at her over his shoulder. He seemed to have read her mind.

“Don’t be sad, little one,” he said quietly, stopping and turning in the narrow hall to face her. “It’s all for the best. Even Rafael would tell you that.”

Annie retreated a step, somewhat dazzled by the light of the lantern and more than a little wary of Lucian’s intentions. “You’re right,” she said, after swallowing once, “but there are still things that must be mourned.”

“You’re afraid of me,” Lucian observed sadly. “Please don’t be, Annie. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

A brief silence fell between them, then Annie broke it. “Aren’t there any secret passages in this place?”

Lucian gave a rueful chuckle. “Follow me, my dear, and I’ll show you a thousand ways out of St. James Keep, ways even Rafael doesn’t know about.”

Annie bit her lower lip. She’d asked to see secret passages and now she was about to get her wish. Still, she couldn’t help drawing the obvious conclusion: If there were a thousand ways out of the castle, there were just as many ways
in
. Furthermore, if Rafael truly didn’t know about them, as Lucian claimed, she would personally point out every one.

Despite cobwebs, mildew, the vague sounds of scurrying rats and her own misgivings concerning the future, Annie enjoyed that excursion into the bowels of St. James Keep. There were, besides numerous niches and cells in which to hide, several tunnels leading outside the castle. Some passed under the gardens, according to Lucian, while others would end beneath the floorboards of various outbuildings.

“Provided,” Lucian reminded a thoughtful Annie, “that parts of the tunnels haven’t caved in over the last few centuries. And that the wooden floors— which would naturally have rotted by now—haven’t been replaced with brick or fieldstones.”

Annie peered into the tunnel her companion had revealed by moving aside an old wine cupboard. It was dark, of course, and probably full of rats and spiders. Worse, it was hardly large enough for a full-grown person to crawl through.

Still, such things could be accomplished, if the need arose and one was determined enough. Annie’s own mother, Charlotte Trevarren, had once escaped a sultan’s dungeon in precisely that way.

“It’s probably strewn with moldering bones,” Lucian remarked, startling Annie and causing a shiver to run through her.

She turned to face him, hugging herself, but Annie was more afraid of rebels, and men like Jeremy Covington, than skulls and skeletons. “I think I’ve seen enough,” she said, looking down at her dress, which had been spoiled by dust and the dampness clinging to the walls.

Still holding the lantern in one hand, Lucian brought out his pocket watch with the other and frowned at it, as though displeased. “Half past twelve. I hope we haven’t missed lunch.”

Annie’s stomach grumbled, rivaling the thunder they’d heard earlier. “So do I,” she said.

Lucian escorted her back to the great hall, where their odyssey had begun, and they went their separate ways—Annie mounting the stairs, Lucian venturing out into the rainy courtyard.

Fifteen minutes later, when she had washed, brushed the dust and cobwebs from her hair and replaited it, and then put on a fresh dress, Annie entered the dining hall. There was no sign of Lucian, despite his protestations of hunger shortly before, but Rafael was seated at the head of the table.

He appeared to be ignoring the plate of food in front of him; his elbows rested on the surface and his fingers were interlaced. When he realized Annie was there, he stood, nearly overturning his chair in the process, then sat down again.

Annie found the prince’s lack of grace disturbing, for he was, due to years of fencing and horsemanship, one of the most agile men she had ever encountered. On the other hand, he had a great deal on his mind, what with his political problems, Phaedra’s impending marriage, an event that couldn’t help but complicate matters, and the volatile situation between himself and Annie.

She took a plate, helped herself to a few items from the offerings aligned on the sideboard, and joined Rafael at the table, taking care not to sit too close. Every nerve in her body had come alive as soon as she saw him, surely a lingering effect of last night’s lovemaking, and she feared that if his hand so much as brushed against hers, she would fall apart.

Annie’s voice trembled only a little when she finally spoke. “Lucian tells me you’ve brought Jeremy Covington here to be tried.”

Rafael gave up all pretense of eating and pushed his plate away. He took up his wineglass and settled back in his chair, one eyebrow slightly raised, seeming to regard Annie through the jewel-like liquid. “Since when have you become my brother’s confidante?” he asked, and Annie was able to read nothing of his mood in the tone of his voice.

She opened a small sandwich and studiously sprinkled pepper over the unrecognizable contents. “Lucian and I have buried the hatchet,” she said, watching Rafael through her lashes. “He showed me several escape routes this morning. Do you think the tunnels in the cellars would be passable, after so many years of neglect?”

His fist slammed down onto the tabletop, making the crystal, the silver and Annie jump, in concert with each other. “Blast it, Annie, do you pass your nights working out ways to drive me insane?”

Annie blushed and made a ceremony of smoothing the napkin in her lap. “I guess that depends. I think I did a pretty good job of it
last
night.”

Given his previous display of temper, Rafael made a creditable effort at speaking calmly. “I want you to stay away from Lucian,” he said evenly. “My brother is not a trustworthy man, and his intentions toward you are not honorable.”

“Oh?” Annie pretended the possibility had never crossed her mind.
Men
. “Exactly what are Lucian’s intentions toward me, may I ask?”

Rafael drained his wineglass before replying. “He plans to marry you,” he said.

Annie
was
surprised by that, but she didn’t let it show. It was still raining, Phaedra was nowhere around, and she’d already explored the catacombs beneath the castle. Baiting Rafael was likely to be the only fun she’d have for the rest of the day.

“Excuse me,” she began, with acid sweetness, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin, “but you seem to have things turned around, Your Highness. Offering marriage to a woman is
quite
honorable. Especially if you’ve”—she paused, coughed delicately and lowered her voice a notch or two—“enjoyed her favors.”

Rafael turned crimson. “Go ahead and marry the little rotter,” he hissed. “Then maybe I could get something done around this place!”

Realizing she had pushed Rafael slightly too far, Annie subsided a little. “No hope of that, Your Highness,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve told you before—if I can’t have you, then I shall be a spinster.” She followed these words with a dreamy sigh. “I can imagine myself living in an old mansion on a cliff, at the edge of a windswept moor. I’ll write poetry and walk the night in billowing white dresses, and all the people for miles around will believe I have mysterious powers—”

“Poppycock,” Rafael broke in rudely. “You’ll go home to America and marry someone solid and respectable—a lawyer or a banker, perhaps. Your good father will see to that. In a decade, you’ll have six children who are forever climbing things. You’ll take up slightly more room on a carriage seat, but you’ll still be a beautiful, voluptuous woman. Furthermore, once you get over these silly, romantic notions about traipsing across the moors in your night rail, you’ll make a very good wife.” He refilled his wineglass and raised it in a diabolical toast. “How I envy that future husband of yours, whoever he is, Annie-my-love, for having the incredible good fortune to lie beside you every night for the rest of a long and fruitful life!”

Annie did not know how to respond. Rafael had said outrageous things, but he hadn’t insulted her—had he? She sat, hands knotted in her lap, cheeks flaring.

“In the meantime,” Rafael finished, in a quiet, grave voice, “do as I tell you and keep away from Lucian. He’s nothing but a vulture.”

“Charming,” commented a third voice, from the doorway. Annie did not need to look to know that the newcomer was Lucian. He went on affably. “I’m crushed, Rafael. I thought we were making some headway, you and I—learning to be brothers, and all that sentimental stuff.”

Rafael made a low, contemptuous sound in his throat. In the length of a heartbeat, he was out of his chair and clasping Lucian by the lapel of his coat. Looking for all the world like a man gone mad, Rafael thrust his brother toward Annie.

“Do you want him?” the prince demanded irrationally. “Then here he is!”

With that, Rafael stormed out of the dining hall, and thunder roared behind him, as if to accentuate his fury.

Lucian straightened his coat and gazed after his brother. “I guess I expected too much, too soon,” he murmured.

Annie wasn’t thinking about Rafael’s outburst, however, or the tempestuous truce he had apparently entered into with Lucian. She was pondering the fact that the dungeons of St. James Keep were filled with renegade soldiers and wondering what Rafael planned to do about them.

She finished her meal, listening with half an ear as Lucian chatted about his experiences as a soldier—one would have thought he’d crossed the Alps with Hannibal, instead of spending a little over a week as a member of the royal guard—then excused herself and hurried out.

She asked the first servant she passed—a young maid carrying a pot of fresh coffee toward the dining hall—where to find the Princess Phaedra.

The girl averted her eyes and bobbed her head respectfully. “I saw her earlier, miss. She needed a hot bath prepared for her, since she’d been out riding and gotten caught in the rain. I told her she’d catch her death if she wasn’t careful.”