The Runaway Princess (9 page)

Evangeline's mouth worked, but she had no words to say.

“Santa Leopolda's prophecy is coming true. With your help, our countries will be reunited at last.”

“But I'm not the princess!”

Marie Theresia paid no attention. “It's destiny.”

“But it's not
my
destiny.”

“Everyone has a destiny. My destiny is to dedicate myself to God and renounce all worldly pleasures.” For just a moment, a divine light shone from the young postulant's face. “Your destiny is to unite the Two Kingdoms, and you haven't much time to get back to Plaisance before Revealing. You have only three days.”

“Three days?” Evangeline was horrified. “It can't be in three days!”

“I am not wrong about this. The Two Kingdoms have waited one thousand years for this particular celebration.”

“Three days to Plaisance. Three days to marriage?”
To intimacy?
“Why didn't he tell me that?”

“I suppose he thought you knew. Besides, what difference would it make? With the revolutionaries after you, you have no choice but to go with the crown prince.”

The defiant orphan answered. “I make my own choices.” Especially now that she knew. Three days! Three days to escape Danior. She was in worse trouble than she had realized.

As Marie Theresia watched the proceedings, she walked to the window and tried to peer out. It was too high. She grabbed the edge of the long table. It weighed too much. Rapidly she removed the tools, the heavy coil of rope, the bag of rags. She peeked under the napkin that draped the tray and saw a small loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and wine. With the care engendered by an always hollow belly, she placed the tray on the floor against the wall.

She still couldn't budge the wretched slab of stout oak, and Evangeline glared at Marie Theresia. “Help me.”

“As you wish.” She went to the other end, and together they dragged the table to the window.

Evangeline climbed on it. Now she could see—and wished she couldn't. She looked out the back of the convent, and it was miles to the ground. Straight to the ground with hardly a bump or an outcrop in the entire, breath-stopping, stomach-tightening, sheer and terrifying drop.

Evangeline sagged against the wide stone sill. She
had a better chance of fashioning wings and flying like Icarus than climbing to freedom.

From behind her, Danior asked cheerfully, “Going to jump?”

She
did
jump, smacking the top of her head. She turned, and her gaze went right to him, just inside the doorway. There he stood, bulging with obnoxious strength, holding a cot with as little strain as he had carried her. The muscles in his neck corded as he balanced the wooden frame, but he was neither out of breath nor out of energy.

Damn him. The more exhausted she got, the more animated he seemed to be. It wasn't fair, and when she had slept about twenty-four hours straight, she would do something to turn the tables.

Behind him, Soeur Constariza held a mattress and bedclothes folded in her arms, and she stared as if Evangeline were making a fool of herself, perched up on the table.

And perhaps she was, but
she
refused to recognize it. “No jumping today,” she answered, and climbed off the table with as much gentility as she could manage.

Danior maneuvered the pallet against the wall. “There,” he said, dusting his hands. “Miss Scoffield will be comfortable.” He smiled at Marie Theresia, exerting a charm he hadn't bothered to exhibit for Evangeline.

The postulant didn't move. Instead, she watched him as if he were some alien creature from a world beyond her own. As Danior stared back, his smile disappeared and his brow knit.

At a sharp command from Soeur Constanza, Marie Theresia woke from her contemplation and hurried to help make the bed.

“Why was she staring at me?” he muttered.

“Because you're an ugly brute.”

“No, that's not it,” he answered without an ounce of concern. “The poor thing probably hasn't seen a real man for so long she's fascinated by me.”

Evangeline sputtered with a laugh. “Do you even know the meaning of modesty?”

“What?” He spread his big hands in bewilderment. “Did I say something wrong?”

Unable to stop herself, Evangeline laughed again. “I guess that answered my question.”

He gave an exasperated snort and pointed to the short stool again. “Soeur Constanza says they'll find you some boots for our walk tonight. I'll trace your feet for the size. Sit down.”

“Don't you ever ask?” Evangeline inquired resentfully.

“That would get me nothing but a refusal.” He stepped toward her, and she sat down promptly. “No, it takes a firm hand to deal with you.”

That statement brought both nuns' heads around, and they studied him as he knelt before Evangeline with a long, charred stick and a board to trace on.

His shoulders twitched, and he lowered his voice. “They're watching me again, aren't they?”

“They probably don't see a
real
man for weeks on end,” she mocked quietly, “and when they do I doubt if it's as spoiled a man as you.”

He slipped off her tattered slipper and placed her foot on the board with rather more vigor than the simple task required. “I am not spoiled. I am sober, hardworking, rational, and intelligent.”

“Large, overweening, arrogant, and too sure of yourself.”

He thought about that as he outlined her toes. “Yes,” he decided. “All of those things. But not spoiled.”

He ran the stick along her arch to her heel. Her breath caught. Her toes curled. Quickly, she relaxed the tiny, betraying movement.

With considerably less force, he removed her second shoe and placed it on the board. “I do not drink to excess, nor fight unless cornered, nor debauch innocents.” A lock of black hair thawed the severity of his brow as he looked up at her, his position servile, his manner assured. “I am, in short, the husband of your dreams.”

How he irritated her! Did he never think of anything but his goal? Did he have to turn every
conversation into a crusade? “You're anything but short,” she snapped.

Precisely, he outlined her other foot.

Without volition, her toes curled again. Immediately she moved to distract him. “They know you're the prince. That's why they watch you.”

His hand tightened on her ankle. “They do not!”

“They think I'm the princess.”

“You are.” His grip eased. Sliding a glance over his shoulder, he found the nuns tucking up the last of the covers.

Evangeline could almost see his mind working, turning the knowledge to his advantage.

Standing, he handed the board to Soeur Constanza. “You're Serephinian.”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced at the younger woman. “Both of you are. I can tell by your eyes. I know you understand how important it is that we get to Plaisance before Revealing. I treasure your assistance with the shelter, with the food, and with my dear princess's boots. Her every need is important to me, even though she, like all shy brides, balks at the wedding night.”

Evangeline lurched to her feet. “I do not!”

The holy women twittered.

His smile sat ill on his rugged features. “Of course not, my love. That's why I have asked for a lock for your door—to contain your love for me.”

“I never agreed to a wedding
day
, much less a wedding
night
.”

“It's not necessary for a princess to agree. She knows her duty.” The smile was gone, the sword of
resolution unsheathed. “Now if these sisters will leave us, I would wash your dainty feet.”

Her dainty feet were as gigantic as the rest of her, and she hated him for the mockery as well as for this relentless, ongoing single-mindedness.

The nuns scurried from the room. With the sign of blessing and a quick dip into a curtsy, Soeur Constanza pulled the door shut, leaving an echoing silence behind her.

Evangeline broke the silence, of course, broke it as quickly as she could. “I never expected them to leave us alone.”

“Nor I.” Danior managed to instill a fair amount of consternation in his tone as he dug through the piles of crockery. “Soeur Constanza has no romance if she thinks I would take you for the first time in a storage chamber.”

The world tilted on its axis again, and Evangeline grabbed the edge of the table. Why did he have to say things like that, so casually, as if their alliance was assured? As if it had been foretold and was inevitable? “I'm not the princess,” she whispered.

He stepped close to her, holding a cracked basin in one hand. “If I thought that were true”—he skimmed his thumb across her lower lip—“still would not let you go.”

Alarmed at the spark in his eyes, she moved backward and knocked the stool across the floor. The clatter embarrassed her.

He didn't notice. “Evangeline.” He followed her, his voice was warm, savory, like plum pudding at Christmas. “You want to kiss me.”

“I do not!”
She did, too.
During the night's long journey, she'd panicked about the danger, she'd moaned about her feet, she'd wished for more food, she'd wanted to wring Danior's neck, yet always, always the memory of his kiss had flavored her every thought. “Kissing you is the last thing I ought to do.” She blinked. “
Want
to do.”

One side of his mouth kicked up; half a grin, half amused at her denial. The other half . . . ah, that line of determination. He wanted her. That's what that expression meant.

And he thought he had every right to. He saw no reason for restraint.

His cobalt eyes blazed with the kind of fire she could warm herself by, if she dared. “I'm not the prin—”

He lifted the basin. She stumbled back one more step. The edge of the table struck her against the thighs. He reached past her and placed the basin on the table, and in one smooth transition wrapped his arms around her waist and swung her around.

Now their positions were reversed. He rested against the table, trapped by the length of her body resting against his. Only she didn't make the mistake of imagining he felt trapped. Quite the opposite. With his legs spread and his bottom resting on the tabletop, he had evened the difference in their heights. He'd tipped her off-balance, sprawled against him, breast to chest.

He'd managed to match their loins together in a most explicit manner.

He had no discretion at all. Of course, a man in his obvious state of arousal could not be discreet. But he could, perhaps, be a little more subtle.

She tried to get footing, scrabbled to move her hips away. He leaned back, slid one hand down to her flank and pressed her even more firmly against him. The other hand moved up under the fall of hair on her neck. He tugged gently, turning her fevered face up to his.

“Don't be embarrassed.”

God knew he wasn't.

He went on, “I've been in this condition since I saw you enter that dining room at Château Fortuné. All heads turned to look at you, and you ignored them so disdainfully, just like the princess you deny you are.”

Chills skimmed along the surface of her skin, racing from nerve to nerve and igniting response where she should be indifferent. “I was acting.” Her hands curled against his shoulders; she tried to get her elbows beneath her to lever herself away.

He moved his hand around to the front of her neck, lifting her chin, examining her pulse, checking her flight. Reminding her he knew how to block any move she might make. “You
act
like a princess.”

She'd seen him in candlelight, in moonlight, in darkness. Now she saw him in daylight, and the play of sun and shadow brought definition to his face, sculpting the craggy nose, the jutting brow, the dark growth of beard on his square jaw. Not handsome. Oh, no. Not princely or graceful, but an earthy man who desired her and saw no reason to dissemble.

“Evangeline.” He whispered her name, holding her still as he brought his head forward. “Evangeline.”

Her eyes widened, transfixed by the half-smile that lingered on his wide mouth.

And when he laid his lips against hers, she found that her faint, slack-jawed surprise allowed him to share her breath. Her eyes slid shut, weighed by tiredness, by resignation . . . by wonder.

Slowly, as if he were testing her, his tongue entered her mouth. The intimacy still shocked her, yet she liked the sample of him, rich with the mingled flavors of comforting barley and sweet apples.

She relaxed against him.

“Content to let me lead?” he asked against her mouth.

“Just this once.” The brush of their lips resonated along unexplored nerve endings.

He clamped her closer, holding her in place. “I'll guide you true, Evangeline.” Smoothing the hair away from her ear, he pressed her head onto his shoulder. “Comfortable?” He didn't wait for the answer. His lips persuaded hers again, opening her wider, relieving any lingering qualms with pleasure conscientiously applied.

And she liked it. She truly did. But it seemed very circumscribed, ardor that followed a formula. First, a press of the lips. Then a dab of tongue. Then a little more tongue. Then his broad hand sweeping down her neck to her breast . . .

She took a hard breath as he cupped her. Her eyes opened, and she looked into—his eyes.

They weren't closed. He watched each one of her fleeting joys with the satisfaction of a man who knew he'd performed well.

Oh, he did want her, she knew. His body didn't lie. But he wasn't driven by passion. He had himself under stern control, a prince seducing his princess into submission.

The
ass
.

The slab of body beneath her flinched, and he jerked his head back from hers. “Evangeline, your claws. You're digging into me.”

“So I am.” One by one, she removed her fingernails from the flesh above his collarbones. Then, driven by instincts newborn and squalling to be utilized, she tugged his shirt open and reached beneath it, to the abused skin, and massaged each wound with the flat of her hand. “I was overcome.” She spread his shirt wider still, baring a ruffle of dark hair across the breastbone. She paused, fascinated and surprised, then pushed on to her goal. She'd marked his skin with five little crescents, and with an incoherent murmur of contrition, she laid her mouth on them in a leisurely kiss compounded in equal parts of moisture, breath, and reprisal.

Every muscle in his body went rigid, and from the corners of her eyes she checked his expression. His blue eyes flamed, his nostrils flared, his lips parted across teeth clenched against a surge of emotion. Then his hips lifted beneath her, and she knew that emotion to be passion.

This time, he wasn't in control.