The Princess Stakes

by Amalie Howard

  “Revenge is rather a waste of emotion and effort.”

  “Who said that?”

  She’d shot him a plucky grin. “I did.”

  Even back then, she’d defied convention, not one to hide her quick, clever mind, unafraid to use her intelligence. She pushed every limit, exceeded every expectation. She’d lived according to her own rules. A laughing girl with mischief and fire in her eyes. The fierce, rebellious spirit who had stolen his heart. He’d thought he had hers in return. But that girl was gone. Just like the boy he’d been was long gone.

  Perhaps nothing of either of them remained. Bitterness and betrayal had a way of doing that, he supposed, scouring away at anything good until it disappeared. He refused to let himself wonder what might have been…whether they would have been married with children by this point, though the thought of her carrying his child made something in his chest ache. Damn, he was a glutton for pain.

  “Let me guess,” a smug voice drawled. “You’re lying back and thinking of England. Or is it India?”

  He glared at Gideon. That wasn’t what he’d been thinking, though it came damned close. “I’m thinking of wiping the deck with your face.”

  “Name the time, Captain.”

  Though he was spoiling for a fight, Rhystan’s eyes tracked Sarani’s movements as she headed toward the forecastle, only to be blocked by a handful of men at the entrance to the crew’s quarters. He couldn’t hear the conversation over the snarl of the wind, but he could see the immediate tension squaring her shoulders. Her hands drifted to her waist. He’d noticed the twin brace of knives there. If she was anything like the girl he’d met, those blades weren’t decorative.

  “Should you intervene?” Gideon asked with a frown.

  Rhystan sighed, propping one leg up on the rail. “Watch.”

  * * *

  Sarani calmly eyed the men surrounding her, not letting any apprehension or weakness show on her face. For the most part, she’d been left alone by the rest of the crew, with the exception of Red, whom she considered a friend, though she’d felt their stares, some more curious than others.

  They knew she wasn’t male, despite the men’s clothes. But well, she couldn’t muck out the pens in a dress, could she? She had Rhystan to thank for that foul duty. It wasn’t too terrible, however. She’d insisted on taking care of her own stallion from time to time in Joor, though she’d never mucked out a manure-laden stall herself. In Joor, such a job wouldn’t be acceptable for a royal, but that didn’t mean she was incapable, especially not to prove a point to him.

  Then again, she’d never been the usual type of princess.

  Like most royals, her father had always wanted a son, and to her delight, she’d been educated and trained like one. Sarani suspected that her headstrong mother had had a hand in that, too. She’d wanted her daughter to embrace all of who she was, and her father had encouraged it. His pride in each of her accomplishments—from fencing to fighting to riding to her schooling—had never waned, even though other British nobles had turned up their noses, and until that day in the hall when he’d commanded her to marry the regent, he’d never treated her as any less because of her sex.

  It was that strength she channeled now as she faced down her aggressor.

  “What do you want?” she asked the man who’d blocked her way.

  He had gold-edged, brown-stained front teeth, his blond hair was hanging in greasy clumps over his face, and his eyes devoured her body like a galley rat with a biscuit crumb. Red had said he was one of the new crew, hired in Bombay.

  There was a tacit understanding that she was under the duke’s protection, and most of the men wouldn’t cross their captain, but these newer recruits didn’t know the rules. Or didn’t care. Twelve weeks on a boat could weaken the hardiest of men.

  “Ta talk like.”

  Clearly, if talking meant something else entirely. She scowled. “I don’t have time to waste talking. I have work to do, as do you. Let me pass.”

  Drawn by the din, more men crowded the way, but Sarani did not let her fear show. Her hands tightened on the hilts of her curved kukri blades tucked into her waistband. A gift from a Mughal emperor, they rarely left her person. Especially since she’d left Joor.

  Tej appeared, his dark eyes wild, but Sarani shook her head in warning. He would get his young throat slit in a heartbeat. Her eyes slid over her shoulder to where she’d left Rhystan and the giant quartermaster, but she didn’t let her eyes linger. She could call out for their help, but she preferred to take care of this situation on her own. Things would go better in the long run if she did.

  Her weapons master had taught her that being aggressive and confident was half the battle. She straightened, making her small body seem bigger than it was. “I’ll ask you again. Let me through.”

  The man licked cracked lips. “Give us a kiss first or show us yer tits under that shirt. Everyone knows ye’re a woman.”

  He snatched at the collar of her shirt, and she batted his hand away. Tej lurched forward, murder in his eyes, but she forestalled him with a fierce glare. This was her fight. These men needed to fear her, not some man who came to her rescue. Otherwise, they would only come back when she was alone and possibly more vulnerable.

  “Touch me again, and you won’t be using that hand again.”

  The man sneered. “Ye mean ta fight me?”

  She withdrew her kukri from their sheaths, hefting the familiar weight of them in her hands, and stifled a wince. Her palms were abraded and scabbed from her shoveling work, but that wouldn’t affect her skill, not with this boor. She used the pain to settle her, drawing it in, her focus razor-sharp like the blades in each hand. Energy coursed through her, but she waited, eyes fastened on her target.

  “Are you going to stand there all day?” she asked, lifting a mocking brow.

  With a leer, he rushed at her and she spun out of the way, her arm flowing upward in a sinuous strike that sliced along his lower ribs. A line of red appeared on his stained shirt.

  “Ye bloody bitch!” he snarled, pulling a cutlass from his belt.

  He came at her again but she avoided his blows easily, wheeling and ducking, her own arms darting out to leave more scarlet stripes on his person. They were shallow, meant to taunt, not injure. Sarani wanted her skill to be recognized. She wanted the rest of the spectators to know that she was toying with her foe, that she had the upper hand. He realized it, too, rage burning in his eyes.

  The man grabbed his crotch. “Ye’ll like what I’m going ta do ta ye.”

  “If your skill with whatever’s in there matches your skill with that cutlass, then I’ll have to decline.”

  The watching crowd—larger now—guffawed. Her glance slid toward where Rhystan had been, but there was no sign of him now. That rat bastard. He didn’t even care that she was in danger…not that she was in any, of course. Fighting her opponent was child’s play. Still, his absence stung. Just one more hint that he simply did not care.

  Well, she knew what Rhystan thought of her.

  No matter, she didn’t need him to save her.

  But a second glimpse to the empty quarterdeck cost her dearly as a sneaky blow to her temple knocked her sideways. As she scrambled to fight the darkness crowding her vision, the man slammed into her body, taking them to the ground. He smelled worse than he looked, the foul stench of his breath blowing into her face.

  “Got ye now, wench.” His tongue snaked out to lick her cheek, and she gagged at the unwashed smell of him. His hands tore at her shirt, clamping over one bound breast and squeezing roughly. “I knew ye weren’t a boy.”

  Sarani snarled in his face, shoving her arm down between their bodies. “And I knew you weren’t a man.” With a howl, he went still, and Sarani knew what he felt—the point of her blade jammed right into the soft flesh of his testicles. “Touch me again, and you’ll be gelded, I promi
se you. Now, get the hell off me.”

  But before he could move on his own accord, he was torn away like a piece of fluff.

  Rhystan stood there, chest heaving and eyes blazing, holding the man by the nape of his neck. The smell of blood and urine permeated the air as he handed him off to a silent Gideon.

  “Cap’n, I didn’t know she was yers, I swear,” he blubbered.

  “She’s not mine,” Rhystan growled. “She’s not anyone’s property.”

  He nodded at his grim quartermaster, and with one practiced flick of his wrist, Gideon flung the screaming man overboard. Sarani gasped, though she felt no sympathy for the blackguard. He’d shown her none. And if she’d been a weaker person without the means to defend herself, she could very well have been at his mercy. She stared at Gideon and swore she could see a twinkle and a glimmer of respect in those hardened eyes.

  Or maybe it was pure, deadly delight. He scared her, but Asha insisted that he was a gentle giant. Though if her tenderhearted maid had seen him chuck a man over the side of a ship without batting an eyelash, she might reconsider her opinion.

  Holding her shirt closed, Sarani propped herself up on one elbow, staring at Rhystan, who looked as though he was going to murder everyone. “I had it handled, you know.” She grinned and caught sight of Red’s mop of hair behind the captain. “By the—how do you say it again, Red?—ah, yes, the big, hairy ballocks.”

  Red cackled. “Not his. They were probably the size of peas.”

  Sarani rose and made a show of wiping the blood off her kukri on her pants and looked up to meet the wary eyes of the surrounding men. “I don’t know if any of you were friends with that piece of filth, but I swear you’ll sing like a nightingale if you come near me. I’m just as good with a pistol as I am with these. Steel or lead, your preference.”

  “No one will touch you,” Rhystan snarled and then glared at the crew. “No one touches her. No one looks at her. No one sneezes in her direction, or you’re shark bait if she doesn’t gut you first. Understood?”

  “Aye, Cap’n!”

  “Now get the fuck back to work!”

  They scattered like ants, until it was just a few of them standing there. Tej remained, but Sarani dismissed him with a quick jerk of her head. He left with reluctance, his gaze trained warily on Rhystan as if he didn’t like what he saw. And no wonder. The duke was furious. Sarani opened her mouth and shut it at the ferocious thunderstorm brewing on his face.

  “Sodding hair on the devil’s arse, I should have turned back and braved the cyclone instead,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair before turning his glare to her. There was more lightning than anything else in those gray-blue eyes fastened on her, and a wary trickle slid down her spine when he advanced on her, stopping short of crowding her. “What on earth were you thinking to fight him?”

  Sarani narrowed her gaze at him. “Are you saying that was my fault? That I provoked him into cornering me and groping me?”

  “No, of course not!” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But you are a woman on a ship full of men, and not all of them are good men.”

  “Clearly.”

  His lips tightened. “This is why the Belonging isn’t a passenger ship. I can’t have eyes on you all the time.”

  “You don’t have to. I can take care of myself.”

  “And what if there’s more than one?”

  She met his livid gaze with cool hauteur. “There won’t be.”

  “Sarani, don’t be stubborn.”

  Her breath caught at the same moment as he realized his slip and the soft use of her given name. Those unreadable eyes softened for the briefest of seconds, and time fell away.

  They could have been anywhere—the ship, the river in Joor, reading to each other on a hillside, dancing in the palace ballroom like they’d never left it, his eyes on hers and brimming with desire. Brimming with something other than bitterness. Sarani’s ears felt hot, her brain a muddled mess. Ribbons of heat chased through her veins as an eternity of memory passed between them. An eternity of pleasure, pain, love, rage, promises, and betrayals. Ending in heartbreak.

  The story of them. Told in a handful of heartbeats.

  Rhystan exhaled, and time resumed. His eyes were pieces of flint. Empty of emotion, hollow of anything that had to do with her.

  “I’ll see to it you have a guard.”

  She shook her head to clear it. “That’s not necessary.”

  “I’m the captain, Lady Lockhart, and this is my ship. Remember that. I’ve better things to do than worry about you, like dealing with the fact that we’re probably being followed by the British navy. Or worse.” He cursed softly as though he hadn’t meant to divulge that, but then sucked air through his teeth. “My cabin needs scrubbing. See to it.”

  Without another word, Rhystan turned on his heel and walked away. But Sarani was too busy trying to calm her galloping heart as she peered out on the horizon to find the telltale speck in the distance. The minute she saw it, fear prickled over her skin.

  It could be anything. A trading vessel. A navy ship. A passenger ship bound for England, just as they were. But she knew. She knew exactly who was on that ship.

  And they were coming for her.

  Eight

  Sarani stood at the railing again, wishing she could steal the captain’s spyglass. It wasn’t to memorize the sun’s descent into the waiting cradle of the ocean or to appreciate the spectacularly gorgeous sunset that blazed across the sky and cast orange and pink swaths over the glasslike surface of the sea.

  No, it was for the black speck on the horizon.

  Was it her imagination, or was it getting bigger? She’d kept an eye on the ship for five days, and it was there every time she looked. The winds had died down, and the captain had resorted to steam for the rest of their journey to St. Helena. Though if that ship carried her enemy, it wouldn’t matter if the Belonging was docked at the island.

  St. Helena was a thriving port, but it wasn’t England. Sarani wouldn’t be able to hide there, not for long anyway. Rubbing clammy palms on her trousers, she almost jumped out of her skin when a large shadow loomed beside her. Her kukri blades were in her hands before she recognized the man.

  The duke’s laconic quartermaster.

  “Planning to gut me from navel to nose, Princess?” Gideon asked.

  She tucked the weapons back into their sheaths. Gideon was huge. She doubted she could reach his chin even with the tip of her blade. He looked like many of the men from her homeland, with rich dark brown skin that gleamed in the sun, but his huge height and blue eyes made her wonder if he was mixed with some kind of Nordic Viking. His bald head was shiny and dotted with sweat.

  “No, and don’t call me that.”

  “Why?” the large man said. “You are a princess. Pretending you are not serves no purpose.”

  It does when people want you dead.

  “Regardless, it’s just Sara now. Did Asha return to the cabin?”

  “No, she wanted to watch the sunset.”

  Sarani turned her head to where Asha sat cross-legged on the deck, her lips rolled between her teeth, and stared out to sea. She’d just finished playing the shehnai and was now focused on the glimmering ocean.

  The maid looked up, her eyes caught on the sky, her jaw sagging with wonder. “It looks like Joor,” she said.

  Sarani felt something tug on her heart, her eyes flicking to the sunset. It did look a little like Joor. An explosion of red, orange, and gold, like the sky was on fire. The slightest hint of a storm blackened the edges, adding an unusual depth to the striations of color. She drew a ragged breath, letting nature’s beauty sink in for a scant moment, though the anxious pressure in her breast didn’t abate.

  By her count, they had a week left to get to the coaling port at St. Helena. She’d overheard Gideon saying that they’d
caught some favorable winds, which had cut the journey short a few days, and the captain’s judicious use of his steam propellers had helped. However, if that shadow of a ship caught up to them, she knew she would be bringing trouble to Rhystan and his men. She had to know what that ship meant, and what better time than the present to ask the man who could give her answers.

  “Is that vessel following us?” she asked Gideon, sidling over to him.

  Unreadable eyes met hers. “Why?”

  “Rhystan, er, the captain said something the other day, that it might be the navy.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Sarani waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She resisted the urge to kick the unhelpful giant in the shins. “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “It’s not for you to worry about.”

  Oh, you have no idea, you big, uncooperative lump.

  She sensed she wasn’t going to get anything out of him, at least not about that ship. Or anything about this ship. Or Rhystan, or why the British navy could possibly be tracking them. Or any useful information at all. Her eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion, recalling the crates in the hold that were sectioned off and padlocked.

  “What cargo does the Belonging carry?”

  Gideon grunted. “What?”

  “If this isn’t a passenger ship, what does it carry?”

  The man had the audacity to smile, or offer what passed for a smile anyway. It was more of a grimace on that taciturn face. Sarani knew that whatever he was going to say was going to aggravate her even further. She wasn’t wrong. “Ask the captain.”

  “Fine, I will.”

  Knowing Asha was safe with the ogre, even though Sarani wanted to kick him in his truculent shins, she decided to make her way down into the hold. Not to see the crates in question and assuage her curiosity but to feed the livestock and clean out the paddock. Anything would be better than thinking about what that ship on the horizon meant. Even shoveling piles upon piles of smelly dung.