He stared at her coral-pink lips. “Hmmm?”
“I robbed practically all of them, Rafael.”
Ignoring her words, he leaned down, helplessly drawn, and tasted her lips with a soft kiss.
She closed her eyes, going still under his light, caressing kiss, then abruptly she pulled back, scowling up at him again. “Did you even hear me?”
He smiled wistfully at her, holding in check sweet visions of how he would rather have spent his afternoon. “All I could hear was angelic strains of song, my dear. Did you not hear them, too?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but a smile tugged at her bewitching mouth.
“Listen,” he whispered, leaning toward her again. He slipped his arm around her slim waist and pulled her gently to him, kissing her tenderly once more. “Did you hear it that time?”
Dreamily, his bride opened her eyes and gazed up at him. Lifting her hand, she cupped his cheek. “You are a lunatic,” she said softly.
With a sudden good-natured growl, he grabbed her and picked her up in his arms, tossing her bodily over his right shoulder. He laid a jovial slap on her backside while she shrieked and swung her slippered feet. “Come, my dear! It’s time to meet the court.”
He strode energetically down the hall, carrying her like a marauder making off with his prize.
“Put me down! Put me down!”
“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if I had been the outlaw and you had been the princess?” he asked, noting with a grin that she really wasn’t fighting very hard. He turned his head to bite her hip through mint-green silk before setting her gently on her feet outside the door to the salon where he’d left his friends.
She was laughing, her face red from being held upside down, and he felt himself flooded with a wave of intense desire. He could hardly believe his good fortune that soon without guilt or taint or compunction he could take her to his bed, enjoy her, keep her entirely to himself—his wife. Her laughter was quickly stifled by the heat in his stare. She took a step backwards from him, her eyes turning wide and uncertain and shy. He smiled faintly, wondering if anyone had ever told her before how adorable she was, for she seemed entirely innocent of her own allure.
He bridled the passion in his gaze before it sent her fleeing in fright. “If anyone in there is rude to you, they’re gone from this court. Understood?”
“You would make your friends leave for me?” she asked, looking awed.
He traced the delicate curve of her cheek with his knuckle. “I have many friends, but only one wife. No unhappiness shall touch you under my roof, Daniela. I will look upon any insult to you as an insult to myself.”
“You are more than kind,” she said rather faintly, then cleared her throat and assumed a more businesslike air, “but I can take care of myself, you know. I’m not sure I am comfortable being placed in the middle between you and them.”
At the moment, he felt prepared to slay dragons for her, but perhaps he was coming on too strong. “My lady, suffice it to say that you are my choice, and I am their lord. Think of it as a test of their loyalty to me.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding gravely. “All right.”
“Ready?”
She smoothed her dress. “I suppose. I will try not to embarrass you.”
He gave her a reassuring smile. “Just be yourself. I’ll be right beside you.” A surge of protectiveness moved through him as he opened the door for her.
She seemed to brace herself, then forged in with a queenly stride. Rafe watched her hungrily, full of quiet pride in her as she entered the room ahead of him. Her flowing, graceful walk held him fascinated, her light skirts swirling around her slim, neat legs, until she took a seat in a wing chair in the center of the room. Her spine was straight as she sat primly, her head high, her work-reddened hands folded demurely in her lap.
Rafe sauntered in behind her and stood guard behind her chair, leaning on the back of it in a casual pose, his narrowed eyes full of cool warning as he bade his friends approach her, introduce themselves, and congratulate her on their happy news.
Elan liked her at once, Rafe saw in relief. His cousin Orlando treated her with polite reserve, but the haughty Adriano and the ever-sarcastic Nic were deferentially courteous only because Rafe was standing menacingly behind her chair. Daniela did not offer any of them her hand; this pleased him. She handled herself with lofty, commanding poise, saying little. After presenting a few of the others to her, Rafe was satisfied.
He placed her hand on his arm and led her from the salon, glad to have her to himself once more. As they walked down the hall, he noticed she looked a trifle shaken.
God knew he had hundreds of urgent tasks to handle, but all that seemed to matter at the moment was being with her—preferably far away from the prying eyes of the court. He slipped his arm around her slight shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “You did well.”
She glanced up at him uncertainly. He grinned with sudden inspiration.
“Come! There’s something I want to show you.” Seizing her hand, he tugged her down the hall, cajoling her with his softest, most irresistible smile when she protested.
Within an hour, they were aboard his sleek thirty-foot sloop, cutting through the placid waves out into the harbor. Rafe felt free. Standing at the wheel with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his long hair loosed and blowing in the evening breeze, he was aware of Daniela watching him furtively as she poked through the contents of the picnic hamper. One of the servants had handed it off to him before he had abandoned his staff, guards, and the stragglers of his entourage on the shore.
He glanced up past the sails at the violet-blue sky, where a few early stars had poked through. Before them, the western horizon was golden and pink, like a cherub waking. The yacht rode low in the water. When they had sailed perhaps a mile out from the island, he tied the wheel in place and climbed up into the rigging to lower a few of the sails, slowing them to a gentle, rocking crawl.
Daniela watched him and ate a peach.
He smiled to himself as he tied off the topsail and jumped down to the glossy, polished deck. Judging by her impressed look, she hadn’t suspected he knew how to sail without deckhands to order around, he thought in amusement. But, a prisoner of his rank and his own reputation, this boat had been his sanctuary: here was the only freedom he had ever really known. He savored the solitude the sea offered. Moreover, he was constantly surrounded by flatterers, but the vastness of the eternal ocean reminded him of his own insignificance and thus kept him humble.
As he sat down on the deck beside her near the bow, he wondered what she would say if he told her he had never brought a woman aboard before.
She offered him a cube of cheese impaled on a cutting knife. He declined with a wave of his hand, then looked around for the bottle of the light young wine he’d brought up from the compact but well-stocked cabin. He found it, then dug about aimlessly in the hamper for the corkscrew, frowning. She handed it to him with a small smile. He took it from her and stole a kiss.
“Sometimes when I was a boy,” he said as he stuck the corkscrew in and began turning it, “I used to dream of packing my belongings on this little boat and sailing away forever. Running away from home. I wanted to be an explorer in the Congo and the Far East, but I was stuck here—fortunately.” He looked askance at her, his eyes sparkling. “I would have surely died of malaria or been eaten by cannibals upon setting foot in the jungle, eh, coddled rich boy like me?”
She was laughing at him.
“What?”
“Only you could find cause to run away from such a life. No doubt it was torment being adored by everyone—the future king, born with the silver spoon in your mouth, the apple of your mother’s eye—”
“Now, now, it was no bed of roses!” he protested, laughing with her at his own expense. “I had my trials and tribulations, like anyone.”
“Like what?” she retorted as he pulled the cork free.
“It so happens a great de
al has always been required of me. I have been drilled on a hundred subjects related to statecraft since I was old enough to walk,” he announced over her scoffing.
“Such as?” She reached into the hamper, then turned to him, holding up two glasses.
He poured the wine. “Rhetoric, history, logic, composition, philosophy, languages—dead and living—algebra, finance, military engineering, architecture, comportment, ballroom dancing—”
“Ballroom dancing!”
“One doesn’t want to trip over one’s feet when one lives in the public eye.” He finished pouring the wine and replaced the cork, setting the bottle aside.
She handed him one of the glasses, then folded her arms over her bent knees, smiling at him. “What else did you have to learn?”
“Learn? No, not learn, my dear—master,” he corrected her as he clinked his glass lightly with her own in a cursory toast. “My father would have it no other way. ‘You must be the strongest, the smartest, the best, Rafael,’” he said, affecting his father’s stormy countenance. “‘No weakness.’ That was the motto I was assigned.”
“Fairly rigorous,” she remarked as she took a sip of wine.
Watching her, he did the same, wondering how it would taste on her lips.
“Why was your father so strict?”
Rafe lowered his glass. “Well, he believes, as I do, that the only effective means of rule is by example. If men sense weakness or inferiority in a leader, they will fall on him like wolves on a wounded calf.” He noted her grimace and gave her a smile, determined to keep the tone light. “To wit, I was given every tool possible with which to make myself into a model human being. How did I do?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied with a wily grin that charmed him utterly.
Smiling, he wondered if she was aware that she had sidled up infinitesimally closer to him. He was sitting with one hand braced behind him. Now her shoulder nestled into the space beneath his arm, as though she were slowly relaxing into him by degrees. He made no move toward her for fear of scaring her away. She crossed her dainty ankles and flexed her stockinged feet. She had slipped off her shoes.
“Tell me more about what it was like growing up as the future king. Was it very hard?”
“Well, there were the academic subjects—reading, writing, and so forth; the social graces; the athletics—which I enjoyed tremendously, by the way; and the fine arts—those I did not master,” he added. “I have no artistic or musical talent whatsoever, but I do have taste, so Father couldn’t fault me on that.”
“I mean how did it feel?”
He stared dubiously at her for a moment. “It was fine.”
A chestnut curl fell coyly by her cheek when she tilted her head, smiling skeptically at him.
“I don’t know. Everyone was jealous,” he admitted, gently tugging the curl like a spring; then he released it and watched it bounce back up into shape. “The first law of survival which you must understand in your new life as princess, Daniela, is that every living soul in the court has an agenda. Because of what you can do for them if you choose, they’ll laugh at your every joke and praise your every thought, but you never know who your real friends are.” He chucked her softly under the chin and gave her a wink. “Except for me, of course.”
She smiled warmly at him. Her eyes were as clear as the water, and she was as unafraid as a child. A flicker of guilt for bringing her into the dangerous world of the palace slid through him. She was unprepared for it, such an innocent. He would really have to look out for her.
He lifted his glass to her with a smile and they drank, then they were silent, merely sitting side by side and basking in good company with the evening breeze on their skin as the sun sank lower in the west.
His mind continued to revolve on the topic she had brought up. He spoke abruptly, still staring at the waves. “You know the history, I’m sure, about how my father’s parents were assassinated when they were just a few years older than you and I are now. My father was just a boy at the time, and he was the only one who escaped alive.”
She nodded sadly. “A horrible, tragic blot on Ascencion’s history.”
“Yes, it is. Well, my father suffered a ghastly childhood in exile after their deaths. His experiences hardened him, and he thinks that is the source of his effectiveness as a king. And so he worries constantly that my life has been too easy. ‘They’re going to eat you alive, Rafael,’ he is very fond of saying.”
“Ah, how nice that he has such faith in you,” she said wryly.
He turned and looked at her, taken aback that she understood him precisely. “That’s exactly right,” he exclaimed. “He thinks I’m an idiot. They all do.”
“Well,” she said, “you’re not.”
“No, I’m not,” he replied.
She gazed at him, smiling a little, both of them caught up in the rare instant of crystalline understanding and warm connection, then Daniela lowered her lashes and seemed to hesitate to speak. “You will be a great king, Rafael. Anyone can see that.”
“Ah,” he muttered, looking away.
For a moment she was still, then she rested her hand on his shoulder and caressed him slowly, tentatively. He closed his eyes, lowered his head.
It felt wonderful, her touch. He didn’t want it to end.
Believe in me, Daniela. The thought whispered through his mind. Please, I just need someone to want me for me.
“His Majesty may be a hard man and I’m sure it isn’t easy for you, being the object of all his hopes for the future of Ascencion, but he is your father and I’m sure he means well.”
“I’ve lived in his shadow all my life,” he barely whispered. “Nothing I ever do is good enough for him. Just once, I wish he would look at me and say, ‘Well done, Rafe.’ Why should I care what he thinks of me? And still, I do. But every time I try to assert myself in action, all I can think about is what happened when I was a stupid lad, and I’m sure you know that story, too. Everyone does.”
Daniela rested her head on his shoulder, sliding her arms around his neck. “Everyone makes a mistake now and then,” she said softly. “One mistake isn’t the end of the world, Rafael. Maybe your father has forgiven you; maybe it’s only you who can’t forgive yourself.”
“Why should I? I was a fool. Maybe I don’t deserve to rule Ascencion.”
She caressed his tensed back. “Did you love her?”
“I don’t know. I thought so at the time, but maybe not, because it didn’t feel like this.” Alarmed by the soft sincerity in his own voice, he quickly forced a careless, charming smile and looked over at her, but she lifted her hand to touch his lips with her fingertips.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered, her gaze grave and innocent. “It’s not necessary with me. I am to be your wife.”
He stared at her, realizing that in the same manner that he had unmasked her, she had just laid his soul bare. Slowly she lowered her hand.
For a moment he couldn’t find his voice, and then it came out a bit hoarsely. “How is it a provincial little girl like you can understand an international scoundrel like me?”
“We’re not that different. Rafael, there’s something I want you to know.” She stroked his hair as she spoke softly. “You’ve told me what it was like growing up at court amid those false, smiling courtiers, and I understand it’s not your habit to trust the people around you. You don’t have to trust me, either, if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t blame you. But you spared my life, I am in your debt, and the fact stands that I would never betray you. I promise you that.”
He stared at her, thinking of the loyalty that had stopped her from ridding herself of her senile old grandfather when she could easily have placed him in one of the kingdom’s charitable asylums. The same loyalty that had lured her to his pleasure palace to rescue the boy, Gianni, though she risked discovery and arrest. The same loyalty to the two hundred peasants who lived off her land, which had driven her to crime in the first place in order to feed them.
It was a frightening moment, realizing that he believed her words, and that he did not want to hold her at arm’s length—realizing, indeed, that for the first time since Julia, a woman had gotten under his skin.
She laid her hand gently on his cheek and caressed him, and he came back from brooding on his fear to gaze into her aquamarine eyes.
She was so simple, so genuine. He was safe. He knew it, felt it.
Abruptly, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him, shutting his eyes and burying his face in her hair. His heart was pounding. He felt the fervent, sudden need to shower this woman with everything she had ever wanted, fulfill her heart’s desire, give her anything, everything. Then it struck him that he had become accustomed to buying his women’s affection with material possessions, shiny baubles costing fortunes—worthless, in the greater scheme of things, and all he had been willing to give.
Daniela deserved something real from him. He pulled back just far enough to stare again into her jade-blue eyes.
The golden light of sunset had turned her rich chestnut hair to brilliant sienna and polished her porcelain skin to a delicate hue of creamy peach, but as he gazed at her, her cheeks filled with a wine-pink blush. She looked away.
“You confuse me so,” she said barely audibly.
“How?” he murmured, turning her face toward him again with a gentle touch and holding her in a deep gaze.
“You say you are only using me to win over the people, and then you look at me…like that.”
“Like what? Like I want to kiss you?” he whispered, smiling faintly. “Because I do.”
She appeared not to know what to say. Resolutely, she turned around and sat facing forward between his spread thighs, her back to him.
He realized her shyness had just caught up with her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and set his chin on her shoulder.
“I am no expert on comportment, Your Highness, but I don’t think this is proper,” she said, holding herself stiff and prim as he cuddled her.
“Proper?” He chuckled. “They’re calling you the bandit princess, and I’m still Rafe the Rake. I would say, my little cabbage, that we passed ‘proper’ long ago.”
Gaelen Foley Page 15
