The Runaway Princess

by Christina Dodd

Covering her face with her hand, she fought the hard, cold truth, and lost. She knew she had to go back. Back to dreary England, with its fogs and its long winters, before Leona’s legacy had been entirely wasted chasing a dream of adventure and romance.

  There remained enough money to open a bookshop in the farthest distant corner from East Little Teignmouth. She probably knew more about books than any woman in all of Britain, and she could make a success of it. Yet . . . yet . . . she lifted her head and stared drearily at the sculpted wall. Was she going to live and die after such a brief and bitter taste of pleasure?

  The knock made her jump, and she stared at the door with dismay.

  “Mademoiselle, it is Henri.”

  The maître d’s mellow tones only slightly eased her consternation.

  “I have your handbag.”

  “Yes.” Urgently, she picked up the wadded bills and stuffed them in the carpetbag. “Just a minute.” She shoved it under the bed. Standing, she smoothed her skirt and resumed her dignity, then walked to the door. Some lingering caution made her say, “Henri?”

  “You also dropped your gloves,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She opened the door. “You are the best—”

  But it wasn’t Henri whose shoulders blocked the light from the corridor. It was the man from the dining room, who offered her bag and her gloves on his outstretched hands. It was the man from the dining room whose cobalt eyes glowed with triumph and who gave a mocking bow. “Your Royal Highness,” he said in Baminian, “how long did you think you could escape me?”

  Two

  Fear took a stranglehold on Evangeline’s throat. Who was this man? How did he know she spoke Baminian? And why, oh God, why had she left the safety of England?

  She tried to slam the door, but a huge, booted foot stuck in the threshold. The stranger grunted as the heavy wood struck his knee, but when she leaned with all her weight, he pushed inexorably inward.

  “Henri!” she cried. It had been Henri’s voice she’d heard; where was he?

  “No, princess. None of that.” Again the stranger spoke in Baminian. “There’ll be no rescue from those quarters.” He had the door completely open now.

  She craned her neck to scan the corridor behind him and saw the maître d’hôtel’s form sandwiched between two other men, feet pedaling the air as they lifted him off the ground.

  The stranger took in her wide-eyed bewilderment, then crushed her hopes and illusions with one pithy phrase. “I bribed him. If you listen closely, you can hear the jingle in his pocket.”

  “What happened to wrestling bears for me?” she cried after Henri.

  Henri tried to turn, but the men beside him would not allow it, and before she could scream again, the stranger stepped inside, crowding her backward, exuding a large, dark, angry, bearlike aura.

  She had no experience with any of those qualities, but she knew she didn’t appreciate them. The panic that had driven her to her bedchamber swept her up, and she darted around him. His hand shot out and grasped her wrist, swinging her around, and she barely stopped before she smacked the door frame. She glanced at him; the large, dark, and angry had grown to mammoth proportions.

  But she hadn’t studied ancient Chinese texts for nothing. If she could just gain control of her fear, think, and remember . . . she took a breath. She assessed the situation. He stood at a right angle to her, his arm outstretched, the joint of his elbow vulnerable and fair game.

  Yet even though he was bigger, stronger, and willing to use his strength against her, she found herself unable to ruthlessly do the same. At least, not without a warning. “Get your hand off of me,” she said in French, and with a fair imitation of calm.

  “No, princess.” He sounded very sure of himself, and as his grip tightened, her delicate glove escaped from his other hand.

  Evangeline followed its descent with wide eyes. It landed on the toe of his black boot, an incongruous decoration on that serviceable leather. Then, slowly, her gaze traveled up his long legs, clad in black trousers. Up his torso, with its black jacket over a snowy white shirt. To his face.

  No kindness softened the carved features. No flaw gave humanity to his godlike looks. He appeared to be an element of nature: inhuman, dangerous, harsh. Perhaps even . . . insane?

  She had to do this.

  Grabbing his wrist, she twisted. His fingers involuntarily opened, and she continued twisting until she stood next to him, his arm tucked, pale side up, beneath hers.

  Dumbfounded, she stared at the sight of her smaller, paler hand in command of his. The Chinese were right. The hamation maneuver worked. It really worked!

  “They didn’t teach you that in your convent school,” he said. “Tell me where—”

  Jolted from her incredulity by his imperious tones, she slammed his elbow against her arm, hoping to force the joint backward.

  His other hand shoved her forehead, knocking her off-balance. His knee was underneath her as she fell, and she landed on the floor, still clinging to his wrist. Seizing her under the armpit, he dragged her back and in, slamming the door behind him.

  Letting go as quickly as she could, she stumbled to her feet.

  His scowl permeated his voice, now deeper. His fists pressed against his waist, and her other glove rested beneath his careless boot “I’d like to know where you’ve been to learn all that. If you hadn’t hesitated . . .”

  If she hadn’t hesitated, she’d be free.

  But she didn’t say so. This man was, after all, mad, and Henri corrupt, and she was a paltry orphan whose disappearance and possible murder would never be noticed . . . but the next time she used one of those Oriental holds, and it worked, she couldn’t pause to be astonished afterward. She had to follow up her advantage.

  When she remained still, the stranger relaxed slightly and looked her over as if he were a banker who’d been forced to foreclose on a hovel and found his new possession quite unprepossessing.

  Fine. So she wasn’t a beauty. The London dressmaker had clucked in disapproval at her coltish arms and legs, and the London hairdresser had cut her long brown hair, complaining of a distressing lack of curl. Her odd-colored eyes were faintly slanted, a heritage that would always be a mystery, and her chin tended to jut aggressively.

  Only her skin had passed her personal test of nobility. Her pale complexion had seldom seen the sun during her years with Leona. But no sooner had she stepped foot out of that shadowy library and into the daylight than she’d developed a faint flush of color. Not one of her bonnets had provided enough protection, and she would not—would not—stay indoors and miss her grand adventure.

  So she might not be an enchantress, but she also wasn’t this stranger’s property, so he had no call to sneer like that. “Who are you?” she asked, this time in English.

  His mouth, firm, full-lipped, and surrounded by a faint black beard, twisted in disgust. “You’re playing a game.” He spoke English, too, only slightly accented.

  “No . . .” Well, yes. The game of staying alive.

  “You’ll come back with me, whether you like it or not.”

  “Back?” Where?

  More importantly, did that mean she would get to leave her room, walk with him to the main door, and scream for help? “How soon can we go?”

  Something about her haste seemed to alert him. His eyes narrowed, and his long black lashes tangled together at the corners.

  Not fair.

  “Princess. You do realize the importance of your participation in this ceremony.”

  Humor him. “Of course.”

  “The foolish letter you sent could never be accepted. You know that.”

  “It couldn’t?”

  “Santa Leopolda forgive you!” He stepped forward until he stood too close, and she smelled the faint scent of tobacco. He’d smoked his cheroot before he’d come after her, a predator too sure of his prey. “Would you deny our people their prosperity? The fate of two kingdoms rests on the fulfillment of the prophecy.”

&n
bsp; He towered over her, and she had little experience with towering men. Actually, she had little experience with men at all. None had bothered to visit an eccentric, female scholar like Leona. And Leona spoke of men as they seemed in her youth. Perhaps it was a somewhat idealized notion. According to Leona, the men she had known were primitive, given to sweeping a woman away for the excitement of her mind and the pleasure of her body.

  Well, Evangeline’s instincts shouted Run! and she was ready to try another one of the Chinese moves when something the stranger had said stopped her. “The prophecy? You mean the prophecy of Baminia and Serephina?”

  If anything, he grew more imposing. “You dare to jest with me?” His hands half lifted, as if he would wring her neck, then he swung away and strode rapidly to the other side of the room, halting by the delicate writing desk.

  She started to inch toward the door, but without glancing at her he said, “If you move, I will have to give in to my baser instincts.”

  He didn’t say what those instincts were; he didn’t have to. Her imagination galloped on like a runaway horse.

  She stopped.

  “I told your regents not to send you abroad,” he said in Baminian. “You should have been kept in Serephina, safe from shallow outsiders.”

  She replied in English. “I think there’s been a mistake. I am not who you think I am. That is, if who I surmise you think I am is really . . .”

  He looked at her, and her voice trailed off.

  “You dare deny you are Princess Ethelinda of Serephina?”

  If the truth weren’t so pathetic, she could almost laugh. “I’m not any of the things Henri or the guests say I am. I’m only Miss Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall.”

  Her declaration made no dent in his imperious stance, and he dismissed her claim without consideration. “What nonsense.”

  She began to feel a little calmer, and, deliberately casual, she leaned down and picked up her lacy stole and long glove. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your princess?”

  “I last saw you on the occasion of your tenth birthday, on the day you departed to be schooled in Spain.”

  “That’s it, then.” She laughed a little, relieved to have the misunderstanding cleared up. “You haven’t seen her for . . . how many years?”

  “Twelve.”

  “There must be some superficial resemblance between us, and I’m flattered you think I’m a princess, but actually I’m a”—her laughter dried up—“nobody.”

  “I see. What an embarrassing mistake.” He didn’t challenge her, or laugh maniacally, or show any other signs of lunacy, but neither did he bow himself out the door. Instead, he lifted the top of her new secretary and rifled through the assortment of pens. “Could you perhaps clear up a few mysteries?”

  “I suppose I could.” What was he looking for?

  “How did a nobody like Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall, happen to arrive in a spa in the Pyrenees with enough lucre to support herself like—dare I say it—a princess?”

  Her jaw dropped in unrefined shock. He didn’t believe her. The man still thought her a princess of Serephina. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Did I say you weren’t?” he asked smoothly. “I was just curious about the source of your wealth, which seems to have impressed our little Henri. Or if not Henri, at least his well-lined pocket.” The stranger picked up the ornate penknife and rolled it between his fingers with a peculiar smile.

  Evangeline’s original distrust returned full force. She’d bought the secretary at a carriage stop on the way to the resort. An old woman had had a stand there, where she sold a variety of unique items, and the wooden box had caught Evangeline’s attention. Picking it up, she had run her fingers along the Moorish-looking carvings, and the shrewd merchant had at once seen Evangeline’s desire. The old woman had opened the box, taken out the pens, the nubs, the pen tips, the penknife, and displayed them in the sunshine. She had allowed Evangeline to fondle the rich paper, all the while regaling her with an absurd story of the secretary’s noble, ancient, and bloody background. Evangeline hadn’t believed any of it, of course, but within a few moments, money and secretary had changed hands.

  Now this madman held the knife, and Evangeline feared his intentions.

  She started to inch toward the door once more, but the stranger’s head whipped around and pinned her under his fierce stare.

  She halted. With a false smile, she strolled in the other direction. Toward the casement window. “Actually, the money was an inheritance.”

  “From one of your relatives?” He was still watching her. “Your grandfather, most likely.”

  She skirted around the big bed, tossing her stole and glove on the counterpane, keeping keen eyes on the stranger. “Well, no.”

  “Your father? Your mother?”

  Remembering the rampant speculation in the dining room, and knowing her own lack of skill at fabrication, she triumphantly produced, “My husband!” Then, to hide her guilty face, she looked out of the glass. Every day since she had arrived, she had admired the view from her bedchamber. It looked out over the garden, and beyond. Now, bathed in moonlight, the lofty mountains rose in a circle of cliff be hind the former castle, protecting it from the worst of winter’s winds. If only the former fortress weren’t set so high. She could only hope that when she opened the window and climbed out, she didn’t break a limb in her fall.

  “Ah. You are a widow.”

  “Um-hm.” A man walked along one of the garden’s winding paths. He stopped and looked up at her, his face shadowed by his hat, and she lifted her hand. With little, desperate motions, she waved at him. Maybe he would help her where the treacherous Henri would not.

  “How tragic,” the stranger mused. “Yet you wear no wedding ring.”

  The man outside ducked off the path, and she realized no help was forthcoming. In a flurry of motion, she swung open the sash and thrust her foot out. She heard the thunder of footsteps behind her, and the stranger’s cry of, “No, you don’t!”

  She had no time to get out gracefully, so she simply leaned forward and allowed her weight to take her.

  Three

  Just as gravity caught her, hands yanked her back. Evangeline screamed, loud and shrill, as the stranger dragged her inside. Her skirts tangled around her legs. Her rump thumped hard on the floor, and the impact knocked the breath out of her.

  The big man slammed the window shut on her last cry. Silence, ominous silence, fell.

  She looked up to find him towering above her. Towering. Again. She scooted back, but he grasped her arm and wrenched her to her feet. She swung her fist at his chest; he caught both her wrists and clasped them in the loose bracelets of his fingers.

  She hated this. The helplessness, the futility, the fear. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He ignored her question and her attempt to escape as if both were unworthy of his notice. Holding her left hand up to the light, he said, “Henri said, and he was right, that he did not believe you had ever been wed, for no sign of a wedding ring existed.”

  Her toes curled in her silk slippers, but what good would it do to kick him? She’d do no more than hurt herself against his boot. “What kind of sign?” Her voice was breathless, tight; she hated hearing the proof of her anxiety.

  “A marked paleness. An indent in the skin.” He shook her hand until her fist loosened. “Any proof that gold encircled your finger and marked you as some man’s wife.”

  “I wasn’t married long.”

  “I would imagine not. No experienced woman would have fled the dining room in such flurry.” He leaned over her, and she tilted her head back, watching him until her neck ached from the angle. “Not just because I looked at her.”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. The more she scrutinized this man, the more she suspected he was right. Women didn’t run away when he looked at them; they ran toward. He had a certain animal appeal, a disciplined touch, and he smel
led like warm leather and fresh air.

  And he hadn’t killed her—yet. “How much did you bribe Henri?”

  “Enough to find out what I wanted.” He looked down at her hand clasped in his; his grip loosened, and he sounded amused when he said, “He likes you, you know.”

  Maybe the stranger wasn’t planning on killing her. In fact, now that she considered him, he didn’t look like a murderer. No, he looked more like one of the men Leona had told her about. Strong, manly, impatient with a maiden’s protestations. Maybe he was planning a simple ravishment, in which case she would be well advised to submit.

  After all, she was returning to England, and she ought to have something to remember. “Henri likes me?”

  “Yes. It took more than simple profit to ensure his cooperation.”

  “What else?”

  “My bodyguards threatened to thrash him.”

  She snatched her hands from the stranger’s grasp. What had she been thinking? That because a man held her, he wished to make love to her? She needed to find out what this crazed barbarian wanted before she found herself lying at the bottom of that cliff outside.

  If only she hadn’t trapped herself between the wall behind, the bed before, and him.

  “The only thing that’s keeping Henri from getting help is Rafaello and Victor and their large and able fists.”

  Her gaze fixed on the stranger’s hands. He didn’t have them coiled into fists. In fact, his fingers seemed remarkably relaxed. His fingernails were clean, well-trimmed, and broad. Dark hair sprinkled the tan skin, and a tracery of veins and chords lifted the flesh. Large hands; desirable hands, if what Leona had told her was true. She blushed at the path her mind had wandered, then paled as she realized that this man could crush her as easily as he could crush a louse. His reference to Henri’s fear increased her own, and she said, “I understand. You’re intimidating me.”

  “A princess of Serephina is not intimidated by anyone,” he said haughtily.

  “Then that proves I’m not the princess.”

  He ignored her. “I only told you because you looked so lost when Henri deserted you.”