“Of course.” Saber appeared to comprehend Fran
çois’s bewilderment. “Ah, you’re taken aback because I’ve included a lady in my government. I do realize it’s uncommon for one of the delicate gender to work with the evil that is money, but she learned her trade from her employer, Mr. Johnson, a most accomplished comptroller. While he was here on an assignment for Prince Sandre, I lured her away with promises of wealth.”
“Being a very practical woman, I accepted.” Miss Cardiff’s voice was warm and throaty, but François noted that she wore clothes more appropriate to a governess than a royal mistress.
All through this meeting, the French general had become more and more certain that his informant had been a liar, and he himself a fool for believing him. In this case, François was without recourse. He could not declare Moricadia unstable and deserving of annexation, especially when the presence of so many of Saber’s troops made a conquest quite impossible and the money the French government desired impregnable.
And since he could not see any way to ask for the return of the small fortune he’d paid Zakerie, it would appear that money was gone.
Saber placed his arm around François’s shoulders and walked him toward the door. “As much as I’ve enjoyed this discussion with you, I find another appointment awaits me. Why don’t I give you over to my majordomo to discuss where you and your troops should stay— at my expense, of course— and which casinos would most welcome your presence.”
It was a most agreeable proposition. François recognized the wisdom of that course of action and, with a respectful bow, he went on his way.
This would be a pleasant and unexpected vacation.
Raul gave François a comradely slap on the shoulder and handed him over to the Hôtel de Tonagra’s concierge, then listened to the thump of the French general’s boot heels as the old blowhard marched down the corridor away from the throne room.
Thompson, Danel, Prospero, the family, the palace guards, the servants … they all remained, barely breathing, staring at the doors as if afraid to believe they had pulled this off.
When the noise had faded, Raul walked to the great doors, battered but still intact, and shut them. As the latch clicked, he turned to face his people. In a composed voice, he said, “General François would be startled to know that he is paying for his room with the gold he used to bribe Zakerie.” And he grinned.
Victoria smiled.
Danel chuckled.
The whole room erupted in jubilation.
They had won.
They had won everything— the battle against the mercenaries, the control of the government, the end of the de Guignards’ oppression. The prisoners in the dungeon were freed, Raul would control the hotels and gambling houses and keep the money in his country, and his people would be free and well fed once again.
There would be challenges; everyone knew it.
But the fact remained— they had won.
His people had won!
Raul opened his arms.
Danel, Hada, Prospero surged forward. He embraced them, embraced Amya, embraced everyone in his family, both his blood kin and his extended kin. He went to Thompson, still broken but unbowed, and embraced him. He embraced Izba Xaviera.
He embraced them because these were the people who had made his dreams and the dreams of his people come true.
But he was working his way toward Victoria. Everyone knew it. Everyone was glad.
Since the day he had kidnapped her and carried her to his castle, she had won their hearts with her indomitable spirit, her kindness, her knowledge, and her bravery.
No matter how much they doubted her— because she was a foreigner, because she looked soft, because she was gently spoken— she had proved herself over and over, and won all their hearts.
Had she won his?
No. No. Surely not. His father had early on beaten the emotion out of him. He’d been trying to tell her that, and he knew she understood him.
But he could give her so much. She was a practical woman. She would want what he had.
Yet before he reached her, one of the great doors opened. An Englishman, a big, barrel-chested man with a florid face, stepped inside. Victoria stopped laughing, stopped clapping, stopped cheering, and stared at the man as if he were an apparition.
Raul’s blood ran cold. He recognized him. He recognized him all too well, and he knew what his appearance represented to Victoria.
The gentleman’s stern expression made the merriment die one celebrant at a time. As the commotion faded, he said, “I’ve come to free Miss Victoria Cardiff from your villainous clutches. Please don’t make the mistake of telling me I can’t have her. I would hate to take action against this crown.”
Victoria stood beside the table, her spine straight, her blue eyes shining with tears. In hushed tones, she said,
“Mr. Johnson … Mr. Johnson, you came back for me.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Stars blazed in the black mountain sky. The bonfire crackled and roared. The scent of wood smoke mingled with the dirty-sock smell of pipe tobacco, and the guitar and drum mixed with the voices of a dozen men roaring out a song about a lonely woman in a field of flowers.
It was not a refined tune.
This was not a refined gathering.
At the first lull in the flurry of Raul’s new reign, Danel, Prospero, and Thompson had gathered the men closest to their new king and carried him away into the forest to mourn Victoria’s departure to England in a properly drunken bacchanal. The ale and wine flowed freely. They ate fresh-roasted venison and bread with honey and dried berries. They danced around the fire and laughed uproariously when Danel tripped, then helped him up and danced again.
Now the men had settled down to sing, and one by one they fell asleep until only Danel, Prospero, and Raul were left, poking sticks into the fire and talking glumly about Raul’s prospects for the future.
“You have to get married. I mean, you know … in a church with an archbishop and flowers. Not like …”
Danel waved his hand vaguely around at the forest.
“No,” Raul answered.
“You’re the king,” Danel insisted. “The succession falls on you.”
“Danel, you’re his cousin,” Prospero pointed out.
“Your son could inherit.”
“It’s my curse that all women want to bed me but the one who matters will not marry me.” Danel wagged his shaggy head in despair.
“Celesta won’t marry you?” Prospero asked.
“Smart woman,” Raul said.
Prospero snorted.
“Not unless I promise to cleave to her. And that woman can smell a falsehood a mile off. No.” Danel sighed. “It’s up to Saber to make the next king. Some beautiful young princess from Upper Bruskonia would be thrilled to marry a handsome young bridegroom.”
“No,” Raul said.
“Where’s Upper Bruskonia?” Prospero asked.
“It’s a country I made up,” Danel answered.
“No,” Raul repeated. “It’s Victoria or no one.”
The two men stared at Raul morosely.
“You’re not a man who’s meant to live alone.” Danel threw his stick in the fire.
Raul appreciated their concern, but—
“I’m fine.
Aren’t I fine? Aren’t I handling my duties well? Aren’t I distributing food and helping farmers and welcoming rich visitors and greeting visiting heads of state?”
“You are.” Prospero jumped to his feet, shook his legs, and swatted at his butt. “Damn ants.”
Raul laughed. See? He could still laugh. He was fine.
“Gotta get rid of these.” Prospero headed for the forest, dropping his drawers as he went. They got a flash of bare ass that made Danel flinch.
Raul saw a chance to change the subject, stood up, and headed into the woods in a different direction.
“Gotta piss,” he said.
“Might as well.” Much to th
e objection of one of the lighter sleepers, Danel staggered only as far as the edge of the clearing.
When they were finished, the three men reassembled at the fire.
Raul stretched. “Guess I’ll get in my blankets.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Your Majesty.” Prospero and Danel took him by the arms and sat him back down.
Raul sighed. “Remember England? Cold, rainy, miserable England? Remember how I had to go to England when I was eleven all by myself? I’m used to being alone. I can handle this. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, we can all tell.” Danel tossed some new logs on the embers.
Raul watched as the sparks flew up and nestled among the stars … and wondered if the stars were out in England, or if the autumn rains had set in.
“I don’t understand women.” Danel seated himself.
“I thought Miss Cardiff loved you.”
“Hell, Hada thought she loved him.” Prospero nodded wisely. “And she knows this stuff.”
“My women thought so, too.”
“Then for her to leave … like that … as soon as that interfering bastard Johnson showed up …” Prospero picked up the pitcher of ale and took a drink.
“You’re not supposed to drink out of the pitcher.
Give me that!” Raul took it, then figured, What the hell? swallowed the bitter brew, and passed it to Danel.
Danel drank, wiped his chin, and asked, “What did she say? Saber, when she left, what excuse did she give?”
Raul didn’t want to talk about this. The memory of Victoria’s departure a month ago, on that very afternoon when Mr. Johnson had appeared in the throne room … it had left him bruised, bleak, and disbelieving.
As he had told her during the ownership ceremony, the rope was tied tightly so that if it were cut, they would both bleed.
He didn’t know if she was bleeding, but he was. “She said she loved me.” Danel still held the pitcher, so Raul groped for the wineskin and drank for a long time, knowing no amount of alcohol could dissolve his misery.
“What did she say when you said you loved her? Did she not realize the honor you bestowed on her?” Prospero waxed indignant. And belched. He pressed his fist to his belly, grinned, and belched again, loud enough to make the sleeping men rumble with discontent. Turning his head to the west, he shook his fist and shouted,
“Take that, you skinny Englishwoman who didn’t think our king was good enough for you!”
“Not bad manners, just good ale.” Danel poked Prospero in the ribs.
Both men dissolved in laughter. And sobered again.
Like two bulldogs with their jaws clenched on their unwilling prey, they got back to their questions.
“Okay.” Prospero propped his elbow on his knee, put his fist under his chin, and stared fixedly at Raul. “So when you said, ‘I love you,’ what did she say?”
“I didn’t tell her.” Terse. To the point. Raul congratulated himself.
The two men turned as if their butts were attached on metal springs. They bobbed for a minute; then Prospero exploded. “You didn’t tell her?”
“She loves England. She thinks it’s the only civilized place on earth.”
“She gave you up for England?” Prospero sounded incredulous.
“No. Not for England. For other reasons. It’s complicated. She doesn’t want to be married because of her stepfather, who was cruel to her mother.” The truth. Saber was glad for knowing it.
“You didn’t tell her?” For a confirmed bachelor, Danel seemed completely and totally indignant.
Remembering how he had grabbed her wrist, dragged her to an antechamber, and confronted her about her intentions made Raul feel sick. Because she’d told him again that she loved him. And then he … “I tried to tell her what she meant to me. She’s my equal— no, my better!— in intelligence, wit, in the way she handles people … and the children! They love her.”
“You told her you like the way she handles people?”
Danel slapped his forehead.
“I told her there was no other woman for me in bed, too!”
The two men looked at each other.
They looked at Raul.
Raul sighed. “I knew what she wanted to hear, but I couldn’t lie to her.”
“Couldn’t lie to her about what?” Prospero scratched at his day-old beard.
“I knew she didn’t want the responsibility of being queen, either. She wasn’t raised to the position. So much of royalty is formality and waving mindlessly to the crowds and … Victoria wants her freedom.” In letting her go, Raul had done the noble thing. “I owe her that.”
“What a steaming pile of horseshit,” Danel said.
Prospero covered his nose with his hand. “I can smell the stench from here.”
“We’ve been feeling sorry for you. We’ve been hating her. And for what?” Danel got to his feet, weaving as if he stood on the deck of a ship. “You didn’t even tell her you loved her!”
Raul should have known they wouldn’t understand.
“She wanted her life. She deserved the life she had envisioned for herself, not the one I forced on her by kidnapping her!”
“More reeking crap!” Prospero staggered up to stand beside Danel. “If you’d begged, pleaded, told her you loved her, she might have stayed.” He thrust his chest out and thumped it. “You think I haven’t done that with Hada? Every time I’m an ass? You know why I crawl to her? Because I’m nothing without that woman! Nothing!”
Finally, patiently, because if he didn’t, they would never stop nagging him, Raul admitted the truth. “I am my father’s son. I don’t love.”
The two men stared, heads cocked. Then they fell on each other, howling with laughter.
Raul watched, offended and astonished that they found this lack in him so funny.
“Y-you don’t love her?” Danel tripped over the logbehind him. “I’ve never seen a man so much in love as you. What the hell do you call it? When you want nothing more than to make her happy? When you’re worried about what she wants rather than what you want?
When you’re miserable without her? Lord almighty, man, that’s love!”
“Your love. For her,” Prospero clarified. “You’re all stoic and dutiful.”
“No fun at all,” Danel interjected.
“If you’d told her, at least she would have known all she needed to know to make her choice.” Prospero pushed his hair out of his eyes. “No woman should have to be queen of an upstart country like Moricadia without love.”
“Oh, and please.” Danel flung his arms up toward the stars, projecting his voice and bringing almost all their companions out of a dead sleep and up to grumpy wakefulness. “Let’s talk about the fact that our brave king Saber is being a coward by not telling her, like a boy who’s afraid to ask a girl to dance for fear of rejection.”
Raul got a tingling in his fingertips, a buzzing in his ears. It wasn’t the wine or the ale, so … were they right?
Was this the truth? Did he love her?
Danel prosed on. “I gotta say, she won my heart when she shot at me with intent to kill— ”
Prospero cackled. “And when she swung that sword and told you two to stop dancing and kill each other.”
“But I like her better all the time,” Danel continued.
“To think she would reject our boy and all his beautiful money because he didn’t love her.”
Raul staggered to his feet and stared fixedly at the fire. Did he love her? Did he?
He must, for he heard himself admit, “Hers is the only rejection that matters.”
Prospero collapsed onto his back on the ground.“Yes.
Too bad you’ve got no choice. You’ve got to go tell her.
You’ve got to tell her the truth about everything. The ceremony, everything. You know what I mean.”
Raul swallowed. “Yes. I suppose I do.”
Danel said, “Because if she wants to marry someone else instead of you— ”
“No!”
Raul lifted his fists.
Danel insisted,“That woman likes children, and she’ll want a few of— ”
“No!” Raul’s voice grew hoarse and desperate.
“She’s beautiful!” Danel said. “You don’t imagine she’s going to be celibate her whole life?”
Raul reached out, grabbed his cousin by the throat, and pulled him close. “No.” It was not an answer to the question, but an instinctive denial to the very idea of Victoria with another man.
The wily old manipulator Danel snapped, “Then you had better do something about it.”
Raul let him go. “Yes.”
The silence around the campfire was broken by nothing more than the crackling of the flames.
Danel rubbed his throat. “When she finds out the truth … about the ceremony, I mean … Well, that woman has a temper.”
“Yes.” A glorious temper. For the first time, Raul’s spirits rose.
Reflectively, Prospero said, “I’m really glad I’m not you.”
Chapter Forty-nine
“You’re going to make your parents proud.” Victoria smoothed the skirt of Effie’s white gown. “To see you presented to the queen is your father’s dearest wish.”
“I know,” Effie whispered.
The girl was scared to death.
Victoria put her hand on Effie’s cheek in reassurance, then turned to Maude. “As you’re presented to the queen, the gentlemen who view you will now realize you’re a beauty.”
Maude looked narrowly at Victoria. “And will they realize I’ve moved beyond my common origins?”
“I believe so. This is the opportunity you’ve been seeking.”
“Good.” Maude straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin. “Then I’ll make the most of it.”
Since her return from Moricadia two months ago, Victoria had done everything necessary to prepare the Johnson girls for this moment. They knew how to walk, how to bow, the proper incline of the head, what to do if Queen Victoria spoke to them… . No other young lady in England was more honored to be presented than these two.
No other governess in England was more pleased than Victoria to be still employed and untouched by scandal.
On the trip from Moricadia to England, she discovered that after the disruption at the ball Mr. Johnson had brought his family home, then immediately made the return journey to Moricadia to find her. He had been very kind, first asking if she’d been hurt, and when she assured him she’d been treated with the utmost respect, then burst into tears, he had handed her his handkerchief and left her to her misery. The family, Mrs. Johnson and the Johnson daughters, had waited in seclusion until he returned with Victoria, saying nothing about their adventures in Moricadia or the shocking loss of their governess. So Victoria found her reputation intact and the Johnson women sympathetic and generous in their assumptions about her time away. If they privately speculated that their upright, starchy Miss Cardiff could be a fallen woman, they kept those speculations to themselves, and as Victoria remained as she had always been— serene, unruffled, and disciplined— life once more rotated around Maude and Effie.
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