The Runaway Princess (29 page)

And Danior clasped the little postulant in his arms. “Ethelinda.”

“Marie Theresia,” she corrected him, and turning, she extended her hand to the old nun. “Here's someone for you, Evangeline.”

As the ancient nun hobbled toward her and fixed her in her gaze, Evangeline again had a flash of remembrance.
An old woman with flame-blue eyes looking down at eleven-year-old Evangeline. Taking her chin and lifting it. Turning it from side to side in austere analysis. Saying to one of the hags in charge, “I'll take her.”

“Leona!” Tears of joy welled in Evangeline's eyes as she embraced her mentor. “I thought you were dead. What happened to you? How did you get here?”

“Not Leona,” Marie Theresia said. “Santa Leopolda.”

The revelry in the square continued unabated, but Evangeline no longer heard. She'd stepped into a place where reality and fantasy, truth and magic melded. “I don't understand.”

Leona took her hand. “Of course you do. You have a superior intelligence, for which I was most grateful.”

“You're trying to tell me you're over one thousand years old?”

“That is the legend,” Danior said.

Evangeline turned on him. “You don't believe in legends.”

“I didn't believe in the magic, either.” He grasped the edges of his cape and rocked on his heels. “Now I don't believe in pry bars.”

Leona—Evangeline had to call her Leona—reached out to Marie Theresia. Holding real princess and counterfeit princess each by the hand, she explained, “As soon as Ethelinda reached the convent school at Viella, it was obvious the child was destined for God. What could I do? I had little time, the prophecy had to be filled, and I had to find another princess. You, Evangeline, were the only one of the House of Chartrier who was the right age, but you were gone, disappeared in the turmoil of the revolution. I had to go to England, find you and train you in far too short a time, then lure you to adventure and send word to the prince that his princess was at Château Fortuné, then make it appear only you could be the princess.” The old woman sighed. “I've been busy.”

As Evangeline remembered the trials of the last four days, indignation grew in her. “But why all this subterfuge? Why not just tell me?”

“I taught you to be an analytical thinker, Evangeline, so you know the answer to that, too. I don't make up the prophecies, I just speak them. When Ethelinda was born, I thought she was the one I had foretold. She was not, but I didn't know for sure if you were the princess God required. You had to prove yourself worthy. As for Danior of Baminia”—Leona smiled, and all the wrinkles in her face deepened—“he may have been born to the position, but he, too, was tested, and until
last night I thought it unlikely he would show the strength of character needed to be king.”

Surprising Evangeline, Danior knelt before the old nun, and reluctantly Evangeline faced the truth. This was the saint. The very saint chosen by God to speak the prophecies, place the jewels in the crystal case, and watch over the Two Kingdoms until they could become one.

“May I have your blessing?” Danior asked.

“Evangeline.” Leona sounded just like Evangeline's old instructor. “Kneel with your betrothed.”

Still confused, amazed, thunderstruck, Evangeline did as she was told.

Leona—Santa Leopolda—laid her hands on their foreheads. “God's blessing on you both. May you rule together in health and wisdom to the end of your lives.”

Danior slipped his arm around Evangeline's waist. She caught a glimpse of his intention right before he kissed her in front of Santa Leopolda, Marie Theresia, the archbishop, the crowd and, she had no doubt, God Himself. It was no polite pressing of the lips, but a full-body declaration of passion and love, the kind that made Evangeline want to slip out of her clothes and into a warm bed . . . with him.

When at last he had removed the starch from her bones and any lingering sense from her mind, he let her go, and she sank back on her heels.

The sounds of the square came blasting back, startling her with the crowd's extravagant approval.

Santa Leopolda grinned a wicked, old lady grin at Evangeline. “Your adventure has just begun.”

And before Marie Theresia turned away to help Santa Leopolda off the stage, she whispered, “I give you my name.”

Everything was all right, Evangeline realized. They'd found the real princess, the assassins had been caught, Evangeline had found a home, Danior had found . . .

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear, and she hugged him and reveled in his ardor.

“Highnesses, I hate to keep breaking this up,” Victor said, “but if we don't get this spectacle going again, you won't be married before dark, and you know how irate Cook gets when she has to set back dinner for a thousand.”

Laughing, the prince and his princess stood and waved to their people.

“What's happening there?” Evangeline indicated a scuffle in the midst of the largest group of nuns.

“Dominic's trying to get away,” Victor said laconically.

Danior and Evangeline looked at him.

He shrugged. “
They
say he came in their care, that he's crazy, and they'll take him to the convent and lock him away again. I say I'm not fighting with a bunch of nuns over another bastard brother we don't know what to do with. Now, you want to get your crowns, scepters and seals so we can have a wedding?”

“If he keeps showing such good sense, you're—
we're
going to have to make Victor our prime minister,” Evangeline told Danior.

Victor snorted. “Old soldiers don't prime ministers make.”

“We'll see.” Danior bowed Evangeline toward the table where the crystal case waited, open and displaying two crowns, two scepters and, Evangeline was sure, two seal rings beneath the velvet.

One crown's wide gold oval would fit Danior. One's smaller oval would fit Evangeline. Both were decorated with polished rubies, emeralds, and diamonds set in the medieval style.

But the scepters—Evangeline reached for the biggest and met Danior's hand there. She wrapped her fingers around the gold near the top. His big fingers grasped the gold near the bottom.

They both tugged.

“It's mine,” Danior said. “The largest crown is mine, and this matches.”

“It's mine,” Evangeline argued. “The largest crown is yours, so the largest scepter is mine.”

“Don't make me wrestle you for it.”

“You won't beat me easily. I hide a few tricks up my sleeve.”

He considered that, the memory of their quest in his gaze, and he decided on a wiser course. “Evangeline.” His voice took on a kindly, exasperated tone. “We can't fight in front of our people today. It would be undignified.”

He was right, damn him, but . . .

“Sereminia,”
she said.

He understood immediately. She didn't have to explain the fine art of negotiation. He was the prince; he knew what she was doing. “But Bamphina sounds better, and what we decide today will resound through the ages.”

“Scepter?” She pointed to it. “Sereminia.”

She watched him struggle with himself. The small scepter had a ring of diamonds, or maybe the same crystal as the crystal case. But the bigger scepter had a jewel she thought must be an opal, for it glowed with flames of red and a blue the same color as Danior's eyes. He deserved to carry it, and truth to tell, she didn't care. But she would force him to compromise now, or suffer his arrogance all her life.

“Evangeline . . .” he groaned. Then rapidly, before he could change his mind, he said, “Sereminia.”

She let go of the bigger scepter and watched him take it and cradle it in his arm. He handed her the other scepter and pulled back the velvet. The two seal rings rested there where Santa Leopolda had put them one thousand years before. Lifting the smallest, he slipped it on her finger. The larger fit him perfectly.

“What a disappointment,” he said. “Now we have nothing to fight about.”

“Don't worry,” she assured him. “We'll find something.”

C
HRISTINA
D
ODD
is the author of over twenty romances that have made regular appearances on the national bestseller lists, including the
New York Times
. She has won numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart and RITA awards.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS. Copyright © 1999 by Christina Dodd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © MARCH 2003 ISBN: 9780061794940

Version 09282012

First Avon Books printing: March 1999

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