“Use these at midnight,” she ordered him in a fierce whisper. “Stack them on the windowsill, and when you hear the cathedral bells chime twelve, light the fuses. Turn this table onto its side and hide behind it to protect yourselves from the blast. The rope is to help you lower yourselves down. I will create a distraction below and your mother will be waiting with the cart. You will drive to the coast, where Paolo will be waiting with his fishing boat to take you to the mainland. I have given your mother gold to help you make your way to Naples to your kin.”
“What about my brother?” he asked as he hastily hid the items under his straw pallet on the floor. “We can’t escape without him.”
“I’ll get Gianni out of there,” she said in fierce quiet, staring at the distant dome and spires.
“No, you won’t!” Mateo said in an angry whisper, stalking over to her. “You shouldn’t even be here, Dani! You’re the one they’re after!”
“I can do it.” She did not turn to him. She didn’t want him to see her fear. “I got you all into this, and I’ll get you out.”
He began forbidding her to involve herself any further and lecturing her in his usual elder-brotherly way, but Dani wasn’t listening. Her thoughts were on her enemy.
She had been in her element last night on the King’s Road when she had clashed unexpectedly with Prince Rafael.
Tonight she must travel into his world of glitter and sin.
She was going to the ball.
Afternoon shadows patterned the marble floor in the small side gallery where Orlando stood in preternatural silence, his back pressed to the wall, his expression cold as he listened intently to the conversation in the next room.
“As I’ve t-told you, Your Highness,” the royal physician said, stammering with distress, “I tested His Majesty on these five different dates for the ingestion of various poisons, and though the symptoms are similar, no taint in the king’s food or drink was found.”
“And how do I know that you can be trusted? How do I know that if my father has some unknown enemy, you are not party to the plot?” the prince demanded harshly.
“Are you suggesting a conspiracy, Your Highness?” the old doctor asked in bewilderment. “Am I accused?”
Orlando listened, interested indeed in his reply, but for a long moment, Rafe was silent.
“That remains to be seen. I am taking these files to be examined by some other physicians to study your findings.”
“As you wish, Your Highness. By all means, I have done all that is in my power for His Majesty. If I knew of any further procedure to help him—!”
“Has anyone else worked on this case?”
“Only Dr. Bianco.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Why, sir, he passed away three months ago.”
Orlando tensed in the silence that followed.
“How?” Rafe demanded.
“In his sleep, Your Highness. He had suffered with a weak heart for several years.”
“Where are his notes on my father’s condition? I’ll take them, too.”
“Naturally, sir. I will find them for you. You have my full cooperation….”
Orlando slid away from the wall while the old man was still groveling. He turned and stalked silently down the hallway, deserting his post before the prince left the physician’s study.
Bloody goddamn.
After years of careful planning, living in bitterness up to his throat, Orlando had not anticipated this twist of events. It was not supposed to happen this way. Everything had gone to hell in a matter of hours.
He had to find Cristoforo before Rafe did. That was all he knew. There was little time to bury evidence.
Fortunately, he had purged Dr. Bianco’s case files on the king after he had sent the meddling old man to his Maker. Still, Rafe was on the right track. Soon he might well launch an all-out investigation, and Orlando had to remain at least one step ahead of him.
Orlando nodded pleasantly to a pair of ladies in the main corridor of the palazzo on his way out the front entrance, then asked an attentive servant to have his horse saddled and brought to him. He waited, lighting a cheroot and brooding.
His position could be worse, he supposed, exhaling smoke and squinting against the vibrant sun. The king was not dead, but at least His Majesty and that irksome cherub Leo were out of the way. That only left Rafael, who worried Orlando not at all. The game was far from over. Besides, he was adaptable; how else could he have survived the nightmares he’d known?
When his black stallion was led from the royal stables, he crushed out his cheroot in the sculpted stone urn full of sand left at the foot of the stairs for that purpose, and mounted up. He tossed the groom a coin and rode off, soon passing through the fashionable section of the city with its tall pastel houses to a seedier quarter.
Glancing behind him to make sure he had not been followed, he dismounted before a filthy tavern with a brothel above it. He gave the boy posted out front a murderous look of warning before leaving his stallion in his care, then stalked slowly inside, ready to reach for the knife at his belt in an instant.
The tavern was dim and stank of stale bodies and smoke, vinegary wine and urine. He stalked up to the bar, nodding at the innkeeper.
“Is Carmen working?”
Drying a glass with a soiled towel, the man eyed his fine clothes, met Orlando’s icy gaze, then jerked a nod toward the narrow wooden stairs. “Room six, milord.”
“Thank you.” Orlando set a coin on the bar and walked to the staircase, glancing at some of the thuglike characters sitting in sullen silence in the dark, nursing their ales and cheap gall wines in the middle of the afternoon. When he found room six, he listened at the door, rolling his eyes impatiently upon hearing the young pair rutting vigorously inside.
He pounded once sharply on the door with the heel of his black-gloved fist. “Cristoforo,” he said in a low, harsh command. The noise inside stopped. Then he heard worried whispering. He grasped the doorknob and rattled it. “Get dressed. Now.”
More frantic whispering from inside.
“I have to go. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“But Cristoforo!”
“I have to do as he says, Carmen!”
“Why?”
“Do you think I can pay you on my wages alone?”
“Let him go, Carmen, or I’ll slit your pretty throat,” Orlando said silkily into the crack of the door. He had no doubt the black-haired young beauty was worth every cent.
“C-coming, Your Grace!” the young chef called in a worried tone over the girl’s indignant cry at his threat. “It’s all right, I’m coming right away!”
Orlando heaved an impatient sigh and paced in the dingy hallway, the carpet ratty and red under his black boots. He smirked at the sound of beds squeaking inside the rooms all up and down the corridor. A few moments later, the young, wiry underchef Cristoforo came out of room six.
Orlando caught a glimpse of the lovely, olive-skinned Carmen, her nude figure shadowy behind Cristoforo. All of perhaps seventeen, she had a lithe body and red-rouged lips, and he could tell by one glance that the boy had probably never given her satisfaction. Orlando sent her a smoldering look of promise. She scowled at him in reply and slammed the door in his face.
Smirking, Orlando turned to Cristoforo, a tall beanpole of a youth with a shock of bright red hair, mussed. His cheeks were patches of scarlet, considering where Orlando had found him.
“So sorry to interrupt. Your day off, I take it?” Orlando asked gently
“Yes, sir,” the lad mumbled.
“Then I don’t suppose you know what happened this morning.”
“Sir? No, sir.”
Orlando stared at him for a moment, tempted to sink his knife into the youth’s stomach where they stood. Instead, he clasped him by the back of the neck and walked him toward the stairs, his pace companionable, his grip relentless.
“His Majesty has sailed away on a leisure voyage to Spain
, my lad. I would like to point out that you are not among his galley crew. This upsets me, Cris.”
His brown eyes flew open wide. “I didn’t know, sir! I didn’t know! Oh, God, sir! Was there no warning? How are we going to—”
“Shut up,” he snarled.
Behind his freckles, Cristoforo’s face paled. Indeed, Orlando thought, the boy knew the danger of crossing him or failing him in any way.
“No, His Majesty gave no warning of his plans.” Mollified, Orlando flicked a piece of lint off his black sleeve. “Fortunately, I have arrived at an alternative solution.”
“Thank God!” the boy exhaled in relief. “It’s not my fault, sir, how can I help? What would you have me do? Sir, I’ll do anything, just don’t—”
“Walk down the steps before I throw you down them,” he softly interrupted.
The lad gulped and obeyed. At the bottom, he turned and stared at Orlando. “Sir, y-you’re not going to hurt Carmen, are you?”
Orlando smiled. “That’s up to you, Cris. Are you ready to help me? Do you think you can avoid another blunder?”
“Y-yes, Your Grace,” he croaked in a whisper.
“Good. Then let’s start rehearsing exactly what you’re going to say when the time comes for you to tell the prime minister how Prince Rafael has been paying you to poison King Lazar.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
Flaming torchères lined the long drive as the curricle drawn by two prancing white horses joined the queue of carriages waiting to deposit guests before the fancifully carved pink-marble entrance of Rafael’s pleasure dome. Oohs and aahs slipped from Dani’s lips as she stared at the peacocks marching with tails unfurled and the albino deer grazing on the park lawn. Then she gazed up, wide-eyed, at the fanciful striped Moorish spires and the bronze cupola, gold against the starry indigo sky.
Straight out of the Arabian nights, it looked like a magic castle all made out of candy, she thought in wonder. Already she could hear the orchestra’s lively music pouring out from every arabesque window, could feel the thrumming excitement in the air.
There were jugglers on the lawn, jesters in motley with bells on their tripointed caps. The night hung like blue velvet around her under a jeweled vault of diamond stars, and the sea breeze blew balmy against her face after the day’s heat.
She looked everywhere eagerly, unable to help the tingling frisson of pure girlish anticipation that bubbled through her. It was difficult to keep her mind on the seriousness of her mission here tonight.
Earlier in the day, after leaving the jail, she had ridden back home to try to come up with an appropriate means of transportation to the ball. To solve this problem, she had “borrowed” Count Bulbati’s fancy curricle and matched horses. Her neighbor never went out at night; she hoped he wouldn’t notice they were missing. Then she had gone home to retrieve the one gown she owned that might pass for a ball gown.
Her tiny bodice was of light blue silk. From the high waist fell an overskirt that parted in the front to reveal a white petticoat beneath, which was embroidered with pink flowers below the knee. She was fairly sure her gown was a few years past fashion, but it was nearly fine enough, and besides, the long fitted sleeves covered her lightly bandaged right arm, while the petticoat was long enough to completely conceal the fact that beneath the gown, she was dressed for hard action down to her spurs.
Once she had rescued Gianni from Prince Rafael’s palace, she would have to make a quick change in order to go create the distraction in the city square which would divert more soldiers away from the jail, so that Mateo and the others could make their escape. She would need to scramble out of the gown, put on her black shirt and vest and the infamous mask, grab her sword, and ride.
Ahead, she could see that some of the guests were costumed. She was glad she had brought along a blue satin half-mask that matched her gown. It would help her blend into the crowd, because the one thing that could throw her carefully made plans into ruin was if Prince Rafael saw her and remembered her.
Glancing around, she brushed off that worry as best she could. There were so many people present—and so many smart, stunning ladies—she was certain she could slip through the crowd unnoticed. At last, it was her turn to go in. She gave her name at the entrance. The stately old butler lifted a brow, but politely gestured her in.
She passed rows of servants who skipped forward to take the gentlemen’s hats or pointed the ladies in the direction of the lounge, but she passed them all silently, a rush of exhilaration in her veins.
Unaware she was holding her breath, she walked slowly, step by step, into Prince Rafael’s pleasure palace.
Dizzy with the music and the wonderful aromas of foods and perfumes, she felt like she was floating. She stared about her, wide-eyed and marveling.
Everything was so beautiful. It was like entering a dreamland.
The chandeliers looked like mountains of delicately carved ice. The floor below her was black and white marble, like a great chessboard. The walls were hung with red silk embroidered with golden pineapples. There was particolored confetti raining in clouds from above, and when she glanced up, she saw two girls on trapezelike swings, their slim bodies draped in gauzy trailing silk. They swung slowly over the crowd in huge arcs, back and forth, laughing and sprinkling confetti.
Around her, radiant ladies greeted each other with easy, elegant gaiety, but Dani stood alone. Tilting her head back, she looked up and up and up, past the colored rain of confetti, past the girls on swings. The ballroom lay directly under the famous soaring dome, which she had only ever glimpsed from outside at a distance. From floor to apex, the dome must have been a hundred feet high, she thought in amazement. She squinted in fascination at the distant frescoes painted on the dome and nearly gasped as she picked out the Arcadian orgy depicted, naked nymphs entwined with sporting satyrs and randy gods.
Abashed by the tauntingly obscene images—just the sort of art she would have expected from him—she moved her gaze down the sides of the dome.
Girding the bronze base of it, well obscured by shadows, she could just make out a winding gallery, a kind of narrow walkway from which the crowd could be observed. She saw a lone figure standing there—aloof and above—motionless.
She felt, rather than saw, who it was.
A quiver passed through her limbs as she sensed the menace in this place beneath all its glittering beauty. Her senses vibrated like finely tuned strings at the sight of the prince’s dark figure there above the crowd, but it brought her back to her purpose.
Where could Gianni be?
The flow of the crowd was pressing her up along the receiving line. She heard murmurings around her.
“Chloe Sinclair—isn’t she divine?”
“Look at that gown! It must cost a fortune.”
“The toast of the London stage!”
“I heard they met in Venice when he was on Grand Tour.”
The woman holding court at the end of the receiving line was a radiant, sugar-spun confection of a creature, a pink pearl here in the heart of Rafael’s magical palace. Dani was awed by Chloe Sinclair’s beauty amid her dawning realization that the woman was the prince’s mistress—his doxy, his demimondaine—and that she, of the great Chiaramontes, was about to be presented as though to a queen to this creature who had crawled out of heaven knew what London gutter.
Dani looked around in distaste, trying to get out of the way, but curiosity kept her in the line. She had never seen a genuine scarlet woman before.
Chloe Sinclair appeared somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. Her delicate face was flawless, her hair the gold of bright new coins. She had sky-blue eyes and a perfect little beauty mark just above the corner of her mouth. Her skin’s milky whiteness was enhanced by her gown of white silk, but the round, spectacularly lowcut neckline made the traits of her person which had no doubt attracted Rafe the Rake’s interest embarrassingly obvious. Dani fought the urge to whisk the shawl from her shoulders and co
ver Chloe Sinclair’s large bosoms with it.
Glancing around, she could see that though many of the guests were bedazzled by Ms. Sinclair’s glamorous beauty and fame, a few others here and there looked as appalled as Dani felt.
Really, what was His Highness thinking, appointing a woman of the theater as his hostess? Lord knew how many other representatives from the finest families he had offended with this schoolboyish slap in the face to propriety.
When her turn came, Chloe Sinclair greeted her, her Italian stilted by a clipped British accent. Dani’s opinion of Rafael sunk lower when she came close enough to see the burning light of narcissism gleaming in the actress’s blue eyes. She seemed drunk on vanity, basking shamelessly in her position as Prince Rafael’s hostess. It was all Dani could do to make herself spare the actress a dismissive nod. Ms. Sinclair seemed instantly offended by Dani’s lack of enthusiasm toward her. Her wanton-looking mouth stiffened, but Dani looked away and walked on in disdain.
She decided not to waste one more moment indulging her lurid curiosity about the prince’s private affairs. Somewhere inside this menagerie of vice, a little boy was waiting for her to rescue him.
She began weaving her way uncertainly through the crowd toward the edge of the gilded ballroom. She passed an absurd fountain spewing arcs of wine from the mouths of silver fishes. She rounded clusters of chatting guests, the women in lavish gowns in every color of the rainbow, though most of the men wore black. A few of the wilder guests were bizarrely arrayed in costumes as though it were Carnevale.
Staring every which way, she dodged footmen carrying trays of wineglasses and lovely antipasti—little pieces of smoked swordfish garnished with the orange pulp of sea urchins, sweet cheeses, snails and caviar, and baby octopus, pink as coral, marinated in pungent lemon. There were fruits—candied figs and apricots, peaches in wine, wheel-shaped slices of oranges covered in sugar-fuzz, garnished with the sweet mint that grew wild on Ascencion.
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