The Runaway Princess Page 6

  She supposed he’d done the same.

  She hugged her legs to his waist tightly, for if they slipped—

  His head turned. “What is that noise?”

  She stiffened, listening behind them for the crunch of boots or the clatter of hooves.

  “You’re grumbling.” His lips barely moved, yet she heard his words, or felt them perhaps.

  “I am not.” Then she realized what he meant, and admitted, “It’s my stomach.”

  “You should have eaten your dinner.”

  With her mouth close to his ear, she could retort, and the sound did not travel. “For once, you are right.”

  They passed Victor and Rafaello, and the bodyguards waved them on.

  Danior dug in the pocket of his waistcoat. “Here.” He pressed something into her hand.

  Cautiously, she freed her hand from the folds of his cloak and looked. She held a white package—something wrapped in a handkerchief. She opened it, and realized she held a firm, crusty roll.

  “Henri insisted I take it for you. He said you’d be hungry.”

  “The traitor.”

  “You don’t have to eat it.”

  “Ha.” Bracing her elbows on Danior’s shoulders, she lifted the bread to her nose. She inhaled the yeasty smell, then said, “I spent most of my early years hungry. I don’t scorn food from any source.”

  He laughed, low and rich. “You weren’t hungry. You were chubby. But at least I know why you grew so tall.”

  She wanted to argue with him. She wanted to eat. And eating, she knew, would provide her with a great deal more satisfaction than banging her head against the immovable wall that was Danior. She nibbled the end of the roll, and sighed as the first bite slid down her throat and comforted her stomach.

  “It’s good that you’re not chubby now,” Danior said. “This trek would be difficult.”

  She paused in her gustatory quest. “It must be difficult, anyway.”

  “Nonsense. I’m strong.”

  Leona had told Evangeline about this, too. Men, she had said, were notoriously proud and stubborn, never admitting to weakness, and a wise woman always catered to that pride.

  “Nobody’s that strong,” said Evangeline, unwise woman.

  “I am.”

  He sounded confident, and in fact he moved along the path without pause. The long muscles in his back stretched and contracted as he walked, and she could feel his stomach muscles flexing against her calves like a living illustration of William Harvey’s Studies of Anatomy.

  Too intimate. Much too intimate. Hastily, she asked, “Would you like a bite?”

  “I ate my dinner.”

  Briefly she considered crooking her arm under his chin and choking him. Unfortunately, that would only work if he had a neck, and he didn’t. So she ate the sour bread in a brooding silence, which affected him not at all, then she brushed the crumbs off his shoulder.

  The trail dipped down into a woods. Nearby a stream trickled over stones, and at the sound, her al ready dry mouth parched.

  But she suspected he would take a request for a halt badly. Craftily she asked, “Aren’t you getting tired of carrying me?”

  “No.”

  She’d forgotten. A man never admits weakness. “Perhaps we need to stop and allow your bodyguards to catch up.”

  “They’ve gone different ways to throw Dominic off our track”

  She didn’t want to say it, but she had to. “I’m thirsty.”

  He halted in mid-stride. “How can you be thirsty?”

  “The bread was dry.”

  “The bread was dry,” he repeated. “I should have stopped and buttered it. And toasted it before the roaring fire created by the bomb.”

  The man had an incredible and uncalled for capacity for sarcasm. “No, Your Highness, but a glass of wine wouldn’t have come amiss,” she said tartly. “Let me down by the brook and I’ll get a drink.”

  He sighed like the blacksmith’s bellows, but he changed directions and followed the sound to the creek bank, releasing the fastening of the cloak as he walked. The ease of her victory surprised her, and she wondered at it, but when he swept off the cloak, she hopped off his back, glad to get away from the brooding disapproval, if only for a moment.

  The chill of a mountain night struck her through her gown, and she shivered. The stream ran almost at her feet, catching bits of moonlight as it filtered through the trees. The damp air smelled of moss and pine, and Evangeline took a grateful breath before kneeling at the edge of the water.

  He towered over her. “How will you drink?”

  “I’ll form a bowl with my hands.”

  “That sounds easier than it is.”

  “I’ve done it before,” she said haughtily. Tapping the shallow depths, she found a spot lined with rocks where she hoped the water ran dear. Cupping her hands, she brought them to her mouth in one efficient swoop. She slurped undaintily, but she didn’t care.

  “Where did you learn that?” he asked.

  She turned her head and looked up at him, a dark shadow in a land of shadows. “In Cornwall on a bracing walk through the countryside.”

  He snorted and moved down the bank, and she continued drinking until her thirst was quenched. As she dabbed at the water she’d splashed on herself, she heard similar slurping sounds from downstream.

  Danior had been thirsty, too.

  Damn the man, he’d been thirsty, and he hadn’t wanted to admit it. If it hadn’t been for her insistence, he would have gone forever without stopping until he’d dropped from dehydration.

  Had Leona said anything about this masculine aspect? Something about how men created a great and boundless exasperation?

  “I’m going upstream a little further,” she announced softly.

  The slurping noises stopped. “Why?”

  She had known he was going to ask that. “I have other needs.” She enunciated her words carefully, the way she would when teaching a small, intractable boy.

  “Ah. That’s fine, but don’t go too far.” He slurped again. The man was drinking like a long-unwatered horse. “And don’t think you can escape me.”

  “I am hardly likely to try in an unfamiliar wood in the middle of the night.” No, not here, but when they reached the convent. The bread and water put heart back into her, and she made plans. In a place full of women where Danior was alien, surely she would be able to get help. Don an inconspicuous habit. Or even just climb out a window. It could be done. She would do it.

  When she returned, she climbed on his back with less reluctance. She was tired, ready for this pitiable escapade to end, and that wouldn’t happen until they reached the convent.

  The convent. It had begun to assume the aspect of heaven.

  “Ethelinda.” He corrected himself before she could. “Evangeline. Look.”

  Muzzily, she noted that her cheek rested on the top of his shoulder, that he’d hooked his arms under her bare knees to keep her in place, that her right heel rested in a place no self-respecting heel would ever visit.

  She’d been asleep, and probably been snoring in his ear. Or worse, drooling on his jacket. She was never at her best during slumber.

  “Look,” he whispered.

  She pried open her eyes. Streaks of dawn light banded the light blue sky like ribbons on an Easter package. Lifting her head, she realized they’d left the cliff sometime in the night and stood just inside the shadow of the forest. Just ahead and across an alpine meadow, Mother Earth gave birth to a split and rocky crag. Behind it the sun was rising, and the rugged stone that lifted itself to the heavens was topped by the spires and walls of a medieval structure. “What is it?” she asked.

  “The convent of Santa Leopolda—and our destination.”

  She blinked against the light and stared again at the forbidding gray walls perched on the sheer rock spike. This was a Gothic fortress, built to withstand attack and accessible only on a narrow, precipitous path carved into the very rocks that gave it existence. The tra
il wound its way to a narrow door—the only entrance to Santa Leopolda.

  The only exit from Santa Leopolda.

  Dear God. She could never escape. Never in this lifetime.

  Eight

  Evangeline stiffened on his back as she gazed up at the convent silhouetted against the sky, and Danior experienced a surge of satisfaction. In the short time since he’d plucked her from Château Fortuné, he’d formed a favorable opinion of her intelligence, and he knew Evangeline must see the impossibility of escape from this place.

  Evangeline. A foolish name for a foolish girl, and Danior could scarcely believe that the princess—his little princess Ethelinda—had forced him to accede to her wishes and call her by that ridiculous moniker.

  But his princess had changed. She had grown tall, with an aura of dignity that bespoke her noble heritage. She had acquired a lively tongue, a defiant attitude, and some rather unusual skills. And she had grown wily.

  So he would call her Evangeline. It was, after all, a common name in Serephina, and it could not be an accident that she had picked one of the many family names given at her christening. If she preferred Evangeline, that was fine, and he was willing to call her that as long as she behaved herself.

  Which, from what he had seen of her, was unlikely.

  When Rafaello had brought him the rumor of a wealthy mystery woman at Château Fortuné, he had gone to the resort expecting to retrieve little Ethelinda without incident. He’d planned to scold her, to humor her, and to have her humbly agree she was being unreasonable in denying her destiny. Instead he’d seen across the crowded dining room an Amazon: full-breasted, round-hipped, wary-eyed.

  He’d lifted his glass to her, aware of several things. That he’d been too long without a woman. That beneath his fashionable, restrained clothing lurked a barbarian and a descendent of barbarians. And that this woman, with her sherry brown eyes and fluttering eyelashes, was his. Totally, completely his.

  His body had surged in anticipation. Stupid, really, when he’d known he had to wed the girl and be stuck with her for the rest of his life, but there it was, an inexplicable excitement.

  Miss Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, indeed.

  Some might say he should have patience with her prevarications, reading them as the panicked fluttering of a woman innocent of the ways of men.

  He said she should be used to the thought of wedding him—they’d been betrothed since the day she was born. And any forbearance he might have felt was washed away by his rampaging determination to be king.

  He would be king. King of Serephina and Baminia, united after a thousand years of acrimony. And this little princess and her loss of nerve would not stop him.

  That was why he had brought her to the convent of Santa Leopolda. The towering precipice would protect them from attack, yes. It would also assure him that Ethelinda—no, Evangeline—remained in his custody, and her dowry, the country of Serephina, would be his.

  “Let me down,” she said. “You need to rest.”

  “I will. When we’re up there.” With a jerk of his head, he indicated the convent above.

  “You are a stubborn man,” she exclaimed, as vexed as he had heard her.

  “That is a wise thing to remember,” he answered, gratified. At the same time he examined the open space around the base of the convent cliffs. Trees had been stripped away to provide a defense against marauders, and when they left the forest, they would be exposed. If he could get them through this one peril, they would be safe—until they once more left on their journey to Plaisance.

  But he had learned to confront one danger at a time.

  He scrutinized the tree line. He listened to the carefree calls of the birds. He looked for unusual shadows among the boulders at the base of the cliff. It was safe. As safe as possible. “Hang on,” he muttered.

  Realizing his intention, she struggled. “No. Let me run!”

  “Where?” he asked grimly. Gripping her, he sped away from the protection of the trees and toward the narrow path that led to the entrance to the convent.

  Evangeline clung, her legs and arms wrapped around him tightly, riding him like a horse, lessening the impact of his step. His breath came hard, his arms and back ached, but he did what he had to do. It was a lesson he’d learned well.

  A future king always did what he had to do.

  Gaining the lowest reaches of the path, he continued more cautiously. The rebels might be hiding behind one of the stony bends.

  “You can’t carry me up that path. It’s too steep!” Evangeline protested.

  “Sh.” As he reached the first bend, he turned and surveyed the meadow. No one raced after them. Above them, he could hear nothing, and on the ground he saw only one set of footprints. Victor’s.

  They were safe—for the moment. Moving on at a slower rate, he tried to regain his breath and answer Evangeline’s most recent protest. “Of course . . . I will carry you. Your shoes . . . have not grown . . . new soles.”

  “I’ll walk carefully, but listen to you! Your lungs are working like bellows and your arms are trembling from my weight.”

  Carefully he regulated his breath and adjusted her weight to a more comfortable position. “I’m fine.”

  He wasn’t, not really. The sleepless night and strain of carrying her had taken its toll. But it irked him that she should think him such a milksop that he couldn’t complete the journey.

  More than that, he took an odd pleasure in carrying her on his back.

  His own doggedness didn’t even make sense. Trudging along as she weighed him down was a constant, meticulous torture—but not because of muscle strain and fatigue. Oh, no. It was that she was open to him in some eccentric, reversed imitation of lovemaking, her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips. Her breasts pressed into his back, the nipples hardening with each chill, then softening as she warmed, like a woman brought to desire, then satisfied. Her spread legs left the feminine softness between them unguarded.

  He might have thought it was only him who noticed. He might have thought himself a pervert of the first water. But she couldn’t hide her discomfort, or that her own vulnerability embarrassed her.

  He had known, because at first she’d tried to hold herself away. That aroused him, and he’d wanted to tell her he knew of a woman’s curves, and how all women were made.

  A lie, of course. He knew how other women were built. Somehow, his body had convinced him that Evangeline was different. Unique.

  When she gave up the struggle and relaxed against him, he had been satisfied—and tormented. She trusted him to carry her to sanctuary.

  Well and good.

  She rested oblivious on his back

  He was not some tame bear trained to cart her to safety. He was a wolf, and he wanted nothing so much as to eat her whole.

  Only the lack of time and the possibility of ambush saved her from becoming a meal for a hungry man.

  That, and his eternal vigil over himself and his baser urges. To take advantage of this woman in such crude circumstances and without control seemed like something his father would do.

  His father. Danior clenched his fists. If it weren’t for his father and the revolution he had incited, all would be well in his kingdom. Danior could have tracked Evangeline and fetched her back to Plaisance without furtiveness, with the honor she deserved. If she had the chance to see her lands, to realize what this union meant to the people, she wouldn’t struggle against her fate. She would embrace it.

  They had reached the halfway point in the path when she tried again. “Just let me walk from here.”

  “You’ll try to escape.” She wouldn’t, he knew. She no doubt recognized the futility of such a gesture.

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “You haven’t proved that to me yet, Your Highness.”

  “You are so cranky.”

  So he was. This chivalrous constraint made him cranky. Hell, it had made him furious. Didn’t she know who he was? Not a prince, n
or a gentleman, but a warrior who had stalked the enemy, who had fought and killed to keep his country free. A warrior who held his woman, limp and quiescent, on his back. His hands supported her by the round globes of her buttocks, and right now, all he could think about was sliding his grip in a little. If he did, he would reach the slit in her pantaloons. He could touch her moistness . . .

  “You’re sweating,” she complained.

  She refused to comprehend the danger she courted. In fact, if he had to pick out one complaint from the ever-lengthening list of What was Wrong with the Princess, it would be that she heedlessly raced to embrace danger. Hitting him, defying him, running from him, enticing him, lying to him . . . she even claimed to be an orphan with no breeding or background. Only another royal could comprehend how he would hate to lower the majesty of the Leon family line by breeding with a commoner.

  Everything she did she aimed at him. At him, and at evading the destiny that bound them together.

  She would never escape him, on that he was determined.

  They reached the end of the path. The door to the convent loomed before them, and he knew he could put her down at last. But he didn’t want to seem too eager. And in fact, while he wanted to rest, he hated to allow her to place even the slightest distance between them.

  Maneuvering her so she could reach the rope dangling against the solid rock wall, he gasped, “Ring the bell.”

  Nine

  “Not until you put me down.” Evangeline couldn’t believe how stubborn this man was, but it was time he learned she was stubborn, too. “I am not going into a convent clinging like a barnacle to your back.”