To war, he meant, and especially if he didn’t return, she needed to know how to be queen.
The idea should have given her pleasure—she hated the man and, to the dismay of their courtiers, she didn’t bother to disguise her disdain. At the same time, at the thought that he would die on some lonely field fighting for his country... she almost died, too. It wasn’t fair, the way she felt about him, for he wanted her for three things—her country, her body, and the child he would receive from her womb.
After all, he’d made it clear enough that he needed to marry one of the Lost Princesses and she was the only one left. The words echoed in her mind and every night he made her realize anew how very much he meant it. Every night he—
“Your Highness!”
She pretended she didn’t hear the voice that called and continued down the gravel path.
“Your Highness, please, I want to talk to you and I can’t keep up.”
Marlon. Of course. Rainger’s companion from the dungeons, one of the men who entered with him—and the only one who returned alive.
Sorcha turned as if surprised and said, “Marlon! How good to see you. A lovely day for a walk, isn’t it?”
“It’s more of a hobble for me.”
She winced.
“It was a joke. It’s all right to laugh.” Marlon hadn’t died in the dungeon, but he had paid a price to get Rainger released. Marlon walked with two canes; his legs had been crushed and the constant pain drove deep grooves around his mouth and between his brows. Yet he bore his tribulations stoically and proved himself to be one of the brightest minds in their government.
He also made Sorcha uncomfortable. Not because of his disability, but because he made no secret of his deep admiration for Rainger, and because he had, more than once, hinted that he would gladly fill her in about the missing years of Rainger’s life.
She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want anything to disturb the even tenor of her acrimony.
“Can we perhaps sit down?” Marlon asked. “Over there? I believe I heard Rainger say it’s one of your favorite places in the castle.”
“He remembers everything,” she said with irritation.
“He makes a point to remember what’s important to you.” Marlon took her arm.
Together they slowly made their way to the bench just outside the castle wall overlooking the valley. An arbor surrounded the bench and from here she could look down to the base of the hill where the village of Prospera looked like a cluster of toy houses. Beyond that, antlike farmers plowed their fields. And beyond that, the whole kingdom blushed with the pleasure of spring.
“Ah.” Marlon lowered himself onto the bench. “I see why you like it so much—but what I don’t see is why you dislike Rainger so much.”
Don’t interfere. But no matter how much she wanted to snap at him, the dreadful disability he suffered kept her civil. Or at least—relatively civil. “That’s a wife’s prerogative.”
“But if you knew about the dungeon—”
“I don’t want to hear about the dungeon.”
Marlon ignored her protest. “In the dungeon, things were done to him. And he did things... things that made me despise him.”
She laughed bitterly. “That doesn’t surprise me.” But it did surprise her that Marlon admitted it.
“And things were done to him that made me... cry for him.”
“I don’t care.” She fervently did not.
Marlon continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “And things happened that... that made me worship him.”
“I just said I didn’t want to hear about the dungeon,” she said impatiently. “So why are you telling me this?”
“Because I can’t stand to watch you bring him such pain.”
“Bring him pain? I doubt that.” Every night Rainger tortured her with kisses on every part of her body. Every night she struggled to remain true to herself, and every night he broke her resistance, then brought her to climax. He did it deliberately, and no matter how much she struggled, afterward when she cried, he held her to witness his triumph. Damned if she would feel sorry for Rainger.
But she couldn’t tell Marlon that. She couldn’t tell anyone, so she smiled, a scornful twist of the lips. “I don’t intend to listen to you, so let me send someone to help you back to the palace and I’ll continue my solitary rambles.” She stood.
“Would you deliberately walk away from a man who can’t chase you down to make you listen?”
She paused.
“That seems unnecessarily cruel for a woman who has a reputation among her people as a most gentle princess.”
Marlon knew how to maneuver Sorcha, but she set her mind against him even as she returned to sit beside him. “So, speak, but please don’t be overlong about it. My duties fill my hours and I find little enough time to walk in the gardens... alone.”
Stoically, Marlon started his story again. “I don’t know what Prince Rainger has told you about his captivity.”
“He doesn’t talk about it.” And she didn’t ask.
“Because he’s ashamed.”
Now Marlon had piqued her interest.
“He was a vain young man who put his friends and his country at risk for the love of a woman.”
Digging deep into her memory, Sorcha remembered the gossip from long ago. “Countess duBelle.”
Marlon nodded. “The lovely Julienne, the most treacherous female the devil ever created. She betrayed him and all his friends and laughed as she did it.”
Sorcha remembered the woman. She had been so beautiful, so graceful, so sensuous, that while in her presence, Sorcha had felt like a clumsy peasant.
“While in prison,” Marlon said, “Rainger was beaten once a year.”
“The scars.” She swallowed as she remembered how they felt beneath her fingertips. “They are... brutal.” Then, ungraciously, she added, “And they taught him nothing but brutality.”
“He has hit you?” Marlon couldn’t have been more astonished.
“No.” She owed Marlon no explanation. Indeed, she suffered humiliation every night. She would never tell anyone the details.
Marlon searched her face, then sighed. “Something happened to him in that dungeon. I’ve never understood it, but let me tell you the story. He had five companions—Cezar, Hector, Emilio, Hardouin, and me. We were raised at his side and trained to always protect and defend him. As we grew, we accompanied him on his journeys and his... ” He hesitated.
“His liaisons,” Sorcha said.
Marlon bowed his head in agreement. “When Count duBelle’s guards took His Highness, we fought. Hardouin and Emilio were killed. The rest of us were dragged through the streets and thrown into the dungeon. Rainger was kept in a tiny cell by himself. The rest of us were together. But before we were thrown in, Count duBelle hung Rainger up with chains and beat him with a cane. He made us watch. It was a brutal beating, but His Highness never made a sound. We were horrified. We were proud.” Marlon’s hand shook as he clasped the edge of the bench. “We were next. Count duBelle told us this was our punishment for failing to join him in his bid to topple Richarte’s royal family, and when he was done, he joked about the aching in his arm.”
She had known Count duBelle was a villain. More than once, he’d tried to have her killed. But to complain that beating four men had wearied him—that was sarcasm most cruel.
“The first year, we didn’t understand. We waited for rescue. We thought we could appeal to the noble nature of the guards and they would help us escape. Prince Rainger commanded them as their sovereign to release us.” Marlon laughed at his own naïveté. “The guards didn’t have a noble nature. They lived in the dark and they liked it. They liked cruelty. They cared not at all if we were hungry or thirsty. Illness and death meant nothing to them—they saw it every day. Hector was the first one of us who realized we had no hope. When they took us out of the cells after the first year to beat us, he was gone. Dead of a fever.”
She bled for Marl
on’s sorrow—and for Rainger’s. “He was your friend.”
“Yes. The second year we learned to communicate with His Highness by tapping on the grilles. We never talked about it, but I spent every day desperately wanting my mother. And I was so afraid of the beating. I was no longer a man. But no matter how I fought the passage of time, the day came. The guards threw blankets over our heads. They pulled us out of the cell. During the beating, His Highness cried from pain, but he never begged. Neither did Cezar. Neither did I. Then it was back into our cells for another year.”
She couldn’t imagine. She didn’t dare try.
“After that, we started digging. Cezar had found a weak chink in the floor. The prison was far below the castle. The castle was on a cliff. No one ever escaped, but we had never been imprisoned there before and we didn’t know that. It was grueling work, but at first we were relieved that we were doing something to help our prince. The rats nibbled on us—and if we were lucky, we nibbled on the rats. Yet the digging took so long. We used our shoes. We used spoons. We used our fingers.” Marlon held up his hands. His middle fingers had no fingernails. “And all the time the prince was alone. He had no idea what we were doing. He had no hope. And again Count duBelle had the guards throw a blanket over our heads, drag us out, and beat us.”
“Did he complain about his arm?”
“After the first year, he had the guards beat Cezar and me. We weren’t important enough for him to weary himself. But he still beat Rainger. He enjoyed beating Rainger.” Marlon shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His gaze dropped. He took a long breath. “The last year, Rainger... Rainger couldn’t... he wasn’t able to... ”
“He wasn’t able to... ” And she realized what Marlon meant. “He begged.”
“It had been seven years. He’d been alone in the dark. His cell was small. Almost a coffin. He hadn’t talked to anyone.”
Terror branded her. What would she do if she lived in a cell for seven years, alone in the dark with only the promise of pain to look forward to? “I would have broken much sooner,” she whispered.
Marlon nodded. “But what you must know is—Count duBelle listened to him. Encouraged him. Made him admit his fear to us. To his friends. We were embarrassed for him. We felt as if we’d been loyal to a prince who deserved no loyalty. We went back to our cell. We still dug, but although we didn’t admit it to each other, it was for ourselves now.” Marlon closed his eyes to hide his tears, but one escaped and trickled down his cheek.
He was in pain. He was in pain, but he bore that pain to tell the tale of his prince. He had laid his life down for Rainger. He had sacrificed his health, and now he sacrificed his pride, too.
She didn’t want to hear. She didn’t want to feel Marlon’s pain or understand Rainger’s character, because she didn’t want to give up her sense of grievance and her anger.
But how could she not listen when Marlon suffered so in the telling?
“Cezar and I dug with all our strength and we began to smell fresh air. We knew we were close. We didn’t know where we would come out. But it didn’t matter. For the first time in seven years, we had hope.” Marlon opened his eyes and gazed into hers with such intensity, she couldn’t look away. “Except that our prince had stopped tapping. He wasn’t dead. We knew that. We could see through the grilles on the door and we hadn’t seen the body go past. Yet he wouldn’t answer us and we feared... madness. And something did happen in the dark, for the next year, when the guards covered His Highness with the blanket and dragged him out of his cell, he was different. He didn’t fight. His fear was gone.”
With an insight that proved she knew Rainger far better than she wished to, she said, “When he begged for his life, the worst had happened.”
“Exactly. His Highness had reached the bottom.” Marlon’s face grew hard and twisted. “That day, Count duBelle taunted Rainger with the cane, then with a whip. Rainger did nothing. Said nothing. He simply looked at him and the expression on his face—sometime in the last year, he had become a king. Nobility shone from him. Count duBelle went berserk. He beat the clothes off His Highness. He beat his back until the blood ran and we couldn’t see the skin. He beat his buttocks. He beat his legs. Cezar and I were fighting our chains, begging duBelle to stop, then trying to stop him. The guards were muttering—it was even too much for them. We knew all Rainger had to do was beg or cry and Count duBelle would have quit. But Rainger wouldn’t say a word.” Anguish tumbled from Marlon. “And he was conscious. His eyes were open, but... he just didn’t care.”
Sorcha held her hand in front of her mouth, sick with the horror.
“When Count duBelle started on Rainger’s chest, the countess stepped in. She offered water to the count. She offered wine. Like a whore, she offered herself, taking Rainger’s blood on her finger, licking it, and smiling. It was disgusting, but Count duBelle attacked her like an animal and while he was taking her there on the stone floor, the guards hustled Rainger back to his cell and us back to ours.” Marlon gasped for breath as if the effort of speaking exhausted him.
“But Rainger... didn’t he need someone to help him?” Oh, God, why did she care?
“Of course he did. But the guards were afraid of Count duBelle. Wouldn’t you have been? When they brought our food, we begged them to let us help him. Finally, they did. After three days, they carried him in to us, told us it was too late, that he was dying.” Marlon’s eyes were bleak as he remembered that awful time. “He was. He was so weak. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t drink. But he could talk. He thanked us for our loyal service to him. He begged our pardon for the youthful vanity which had landed us in there. He asked that we remember him fondly.”
“Was he running a fever?”
“No. We thought... I still think he had willed himself to die. We tried to keep him. We told him about digging the hole, how close we were to getting out.” Marlon smiled. “He was so happy—for us! He said that relieved his last worry, that he’d be leaving us rotting in prison. He begged that we take our freedom and use it wisely. And while I held him... he died.”
“What?” Shock held her immobile.
“He died.” Marlon squeezed her arm. “I swear he did. It was dark. It was close. I heard that slow dripping of the water. And I felt the life go from his body.”
The air was foul. The indifferent stones closed in around her. No voice disturbed the silence. No hand reached out to bind her wounds or cure her pain. The bones of rats were her bed and the long drape of cobwebs her blanket.
She was buried alive.
And she didn’t care. Somewhere close, water seeped into a pool, and the slow drip which had once driven her mad now contributed to her indifference. Her world was sorrow and loneliness. She was dying, and she welcomed the end of desolation, of grief, of anguish.
Her fingertips touched the skeletal hand of Death...
Sorcha shuddered. She had been there. In a dream, she had been there. “What happened?”
“He was gone. He was cold. I was in shock. Cezar was sobbing. And all of a sudden—Rainger convulsed. It was as if something smacked him in the chest. His heart started again. He took a gasping breath. And he was back with us.” Marlon groped for the cross that hung around his neck. “It was a miracle.”
She didn’t want to believe it. Not about Rainger, with his intelligence and his will and his horrible, ridiculous belief that he could force her to love him by using his intense sexuality.
“He came back filled with purpose. He wanted to escape, to get his revenge on Count duBelle for the rape of his kingdom, to marry and have children and live forever through them. He remembered what we’d said about the hole, and he told us which way to dig to get to safety. And he was right. If we’d kept going the way we were, we would have ended right on the main path out of the castle. We’d have been spotted immediately and recaptured. Instead, he set us to the narrow path that led to the long-abandoned postern gate.”
She didn’t want to believe this. “What about the guards? Di
dn’t they want to bury Rainger?”
“We told them he was slipping away, but that he had great and hidden strength. After he’d survived the beating, they believed that and they didn’t want anything to do with him. Odd as it sounds, I think they were afraid of him. They thought he had special powers, that the hand of God had been laid upon him.” Marlon bent his head and sighed. “I thought so, too. His purpose was of the purest and highest and his recovery astonished us. When we broke out two days later, he crawled through the hole and walked down the hill. When they discovered our escape, he went in a separate direction than Cezar and I, leading the guards after him.”
Marlon wasn’t telling her everything. “What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Rainger is still here. Cezar is gone. You’ve been crippled. How is that possible?” She had to know the end of the story. “What did you do?”
“He was our prince. We’d doubted him once, but after he came back to life, we couldn’t doubt him again. So we attracted the guards’ attention and led them after us. Cezar was killed. I was trampled by their horses.” Marlon indicated his legs. “But Rainger got away, and that was all we cared about. It’s well worth it to sit here and know he’s going to take Richarte back from that fiend.”
In the convent, she’d been taught to believe in nobility. Then time, experience, and bitterness had eroded her belief.
Now Marlon proved that nobility existed.
Was what Rainger had done and been worth inspiring this nobility?
Marlon thought he was. And Rainger was going to war soon. Very soon.
“He’ll march into Richarte,” she said. “Our sources say Count duBelle has bankrupted the treasury. The people hate him. The army is in disarray. Victory is virtually assured.”
“Rainger will survive,” Marlon reassured her. “He didn’t survive the dungeon to die on the battlefield.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” She had to believe Rainger would not die.
“But while I’m happy, he is not. He deserves more than success. He deserves happiness—and Your Highness, you can give it to him.”
The Prince Kidnaps a Bride Page 23
