He curled his hand around her nape and drew her mouth to his. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, willing himself to master his fears at last. He ended the kiss but did not release her, pulling the words from the most profound depths of himself. “I love you.”
She moaned softly, holding him tighter.
“I love you,” he whispered again and again.
“Rafael.”
Suddenly the leaves above them rattled in a gust of breeze and a spattering of fat raindrops plunked onto the grasses around them.
Dani’s eyes widened as she stared at him.
He looked up at the sky and laughed, thanking God, tears rising in his eyes. She pulled him into a joyful embrace. He inhaled the smell of the rain in sheer swelling gladness. He tasted it on her skin.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and laid her back in the soft grasses of the field, and he made love to her as the warm, heavy rain soaked them both, pouring in glorious rivulets from his shoulders and hair and coursing down her porcelain face. For miles around them, life-giving water penetrated deep into the dusty fields, and the parched land thirstily drank, and as the thunder rumbled distantly, he brought on the flood of her love and emptied himself like the swollen skies into the secret reservoir of creation, planting new life in her womb.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Holding her breath, her eyes wide, Dani stared at the old royal physician as he discreetly palpated her taut, almost imperceptibly changed abdomen. A moment later, he removed his hand, pulling the sheet back up over her.
“Yes, it is as you suspected, Your Highness,” he said in a kindly tone, turning to her. “God has blessed Ascencion and your marriage. You are with child.”
She remembered abruptly to exhale, but her heart was pounding and her face was rather drained of color. “What do I do now?”
He chuckled at her scared look. “First, stop imagining terrible things. Several ladies who have been my patients for many years have confided in me that the pains of labor are forgotten, you know, the moment a woman holds her newborn babe in her arms.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Fine words, from a man.”
“All will be well. It will be months before you must restrain your usual activities. Just use your head, eat well, and get all the rest you need, but don’t be frightened, my child. Do you really think that doting husband of yours would let anything happen to you?”
The old doctor knew how to deal with a difficult patient, she thought, as a broad smile broke out over her face. He gave her a grandfatherly wink and left her in the care of her maids.
Slowly, she crossed her arms over her abdomen, hugging herself thoughtfully, still amazed. She could not believe the reckless, tomboyish girl she had always been was going to become a mother.
Her thoughts drifted back to the day a few weeks ago when it had finally rained, ending the drought and bringing hope back to Ascencion. Though Rafael and she had behaved more like scandalous lovers than the stately royal figureheads they were supposed to be, somehow she knew that in spite of their many couplings, she had conceived on that miraculous day. They had ended their tour and come home to the palace when her morning nausea began. She had only told her husband she was sick of traveling and needed a rest for a while.
Her first thought as she dressed was to pull him out of his meeting and tell him her tidings at once. She knew he was going to be elated, but she decided to wait until the meeting was over and then tell him, for she needed a little time to come to terms with her own mixed emotions at the news. She was happy that their love had borne fruit, but she was still afraid of her ordeal eight months in the future, and shaken to think that with the arrival of her child, her life would be changed irrevocably.
She took a stroll in the royal gardens to collect her thoughts before speaking with him. She was inspecting some roses in a corner of the statuary garden when a footman came walking out briskly to her and offered her a folded letter on a silver tray.
“Your Highness,” the man said with a bow.
Curiously, she took the letter, dismissing the servant with a nod. Was it another plea for the Masked Rider’s help? she wondered. Now she had too important a reason to decline any further adventures. The doctor’s attitude had been very casual about what she must and mustn’t do, but she wasn’t taking any chances with her own health or her unborn child’s. Sometimes it shocked her to think back on how reckless she had been, robbing coaches in the dead of night. She had so much to live for now.
Unfolding the short note, she drew in her breath as she read it.
“Oh, you fool,” she breathed, scanning the two short lines.
Heedless of the fact that he could be hanged for showing his face on Ascencion, Mateo was waiting at the Chiaramonte villa and asked to talk to her immediately.
Finishing up his morning meetings ahead of schedule, free for the next three hours, Rafe strode off to find Dani, whistling one of his old favorite songs, “La ci darem la mano.” He looked in the usual places where he might find her, but seeing her nowhere, it dawned on him to ask her maid where she could be found.
“Why, my lady went out, Your Highness.”
“Out?” he said, frowning.
“Yes, sir. She left twenty minutes ago.”
“Where did she go? Did she take her guards?”
“Yes, sir. They accompanied Her Highness. She mentioned that she had to leave at once to see her grandfather.”
“Oh, no,” Rafe said, furrowing his brow in concern. “I hope the old colonel’s all right.”
“My lady did not stop to say, Your Highness, but if I may add, she did seem distressed.”
“Perhaps I can catch up to her,” he murmured, pivoting on his heel and launching into a brisk march toward the royal stables. Her grandfather was a frail old man who could easily have wandered into some kind of dangerous mishap. If something had befallen him, Rafe wanted to be there to help Dani.
Soon he was astride his white stallion, galloping down the King’s Road with his usual half-dozen bodyguards, since Orlando had not yet been caught.
The ride to the Chiaramonte villa was not long, and he knew the way by heart. The villa was tucked under scaffolding from the restoration Rafe had set in progress. Crews of stonemasons and roofers were noisily at work. Their wagons, loaded with supplies, were parked alongside the overgrown drive. He noted with relief that Dani’s bodyguards were posted outside the house.
“What’s happened?” he asked the chief of her men as he drew his powerful white stallion to a halt.
“Her Highness wished to visit His Grace, sire,” the man replied, squinting against the sun as he met Rafe with a salute.
“Is His Grace well?”
“Yes, Your Highness, to the best of my knowledge.”
Rafe swung down from the saddle and strode to the front door. He let himself inside and looked around the foyer, seeing no one. Remembering the threadbare salon where he had sat with the old man that first night, he strode down the hall toward it.
“Dani!” he began calling, but upon opening the salon door, he discovered his wife in the arms of another man.
Thunderstruck, Rafe stood in the doorway and stared.
All three of them were motionless with shock, like carved figures in a frieze. The mantel clock’s tick sounded like a gong in the silence. Then, all the air left Rafe’s lungs in a whoosh.
Dani pulled away from Mateo and stepped toward Rafe. “My love—”
He threw up his hand to ward her off, as one tight, helpless syllable wrenched from his lips, “No.”
Her face drained—suddenly it was the face of a stranger to him.
“Rafael—”
The first word that turned over in his mind was betrayal.
The first thought that materialized was that she had been planning this all along.
And he went cold inside.
He stepped back out into the hall, pulling the door shut. Stiffly, he pivoted and marched away as she came out
after him. Holding himself tall and erect, while inwardly reeling, he made himself deaf to her pleas and stalked toward the Royal Guardsmen.
He did not look back.
“Don’t walk away. Don’t do this to me, Rafael. I can explain—”
“There is a fugitive in the house,” he said calmly to the men. “Arrest him.”
“Rafael!” she cried, taking his arm. “It’s not what you think. I love you! Look at me!”
He shook her off harshly, rage locked in his throat, and walked away. He wanted to ask her why but could not. His hands were shaking, his movements jerky as he gathered the reins and swung back up onto his white horse.
He could barely see, let alone think, for the wrath that swam before his eyes.
“Rafael!” she screamed after him as he urged his horse into motion, riding away down the overgrown drive.
His heart still pounded in his throat.
As he turned onto the road, he saw three riders galloping toward him. He only forced himself to stop because they were waving their arms at him. When they pulled up before him, he saw they were royal couriers.
“Your Highness! Viscount Berelli sent us to find you, Your Highness!”
“What news?” he ground out. Apparently Elan was the only loyal soul left in the world.
“He implores you to go at once to the palazzo of the bishop! Prince Leo has come back from Spain. The bishop has fetched the boy, exercising his claim as the prince’s legal guardian. His Excellency says—forgive me, Your Highness—he says he does not trust you and cannot leave the boy in your care.”
“How on earth did my brother come back to Ascencion by himself?” he demanded angrily, nudging his horse past theirs, already in motion. “He’s ten years old, for God’s sake! My parents wouldn’t send him on alone.”
The couriers urged their horses alongside his, flanking him. “It seems Prince Leo was squabbling quite a bit with the other children in Spain and decided he’d had enough. He stowed away on the ship returning. Had himself a grand adventure, the captain said.”
“The rascal, I’ll bet he did,” Rafe muttered. “I’ll go at once.”
“Yes, Sire. The bishop refused to him to the viscount or anyone else.”
“That old man is a thorn in my side,” he muttered.
With Orlando still at large, he knew the bishop was not equipped to protect Leo.
With his contingent of bodyguards only now catching up, Rafe galloped back in the direction of Belfort, trying to focus his mind on getting his little brother to safety, but his heart still reeled from the blow of Dani’s betrayal.
He shoved the awful image of her in the other man’s arms out of his mind and urged his horse faster.
They were delayed by crowds in the street because it was market day, and all the world had something to sell for the suckers who were willing to buy, Rafe thought bitterly. The bishop’s palazzo was situated not far from the cathedral. The Royal Guards yelled at the people to clear a path for him as they forged through the mobbed, hot streets under the beating sun.
Rafe had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he thought of Dani. Over and over again, he kept feeling his astonishment anew like a mighty blow to the face.
He had banished Mateo Gabbiano. No matter what excuses she had to offer, there was no getting around that fact, just as there was no getting around the fact that the two had been clutched in a tight embrace when he had walked unexpectedly into the room. What more would have happened if he hadn’t walked in?
For the fiftieth time, he thrust the thoughts from him and reeled his horse to a halt in front of the bishop’s huge ornate home with its carefully tended grounds.
He and his men dismounted. Rafe strode ahead of the pack up the front steps. He pounded squarely on the door, then froze as it creaked open under his heavy knock.
He shot his men a warning look over his shoulder. Splaying his hand on the door, he reached for his sword, unsheathed it, and pushed the door open.
No servants came to greet them. He heard no mischievous boy’s laughter.
He crept cautiously into the shining marble foyer. He looked to the right and left, cast a glance up the polished curving staircase, seeing no one. He walked in.
“Your Excellency?” he called. He nodded to his men and they rushed in, fanning out to search the rooms. “Leo? It’s Rafe! Are you here?”
“Your Highness!” one of the men suddenly called from a distant room. “Here!”
Rafe followed the shout. He wove his way through the lavish rooms.
“Here, sir!” another of his men said, indicating a chamber to the left of the main hall.
Striding into the dining room, Rafe saw his men gathered in the middle of the room.
“Sir! It’s His Excellency!”
Rafe cursed, chills of dread plunging down his spine. Shoving into their midst, he bent down beside the bishop on the floor in a pool of blood. “Don’t just stand around, find Leo!” he yelled. “You!” he ordered one. “Ride to the Palazzo Reale for reinforcements. Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
Rafe turned the old man over and grimaced at the stab wound in the middle of Bishop Justinian’s barrel chest. It had seeped through his robes and Rafe got a smear of blood on his hand as he felt the man’s throat for a pulse. Finding none, he laid the bishop’s balding head gently on the floor. A cursory glance revealed cuts on his hands and forearms consistent with a futile self-defense.
Orlando had done this. Rafe felt it in his bones. The duke had broken in, attacked the bishop, then kidnapped Leo.
Staring down at the murdered bishop, Rafe rose in wrath just as a deep voice with an unfamiliar accent reached him.
“Your Highness, don’t move.”
He looked up in regal affront to see who dared address him so impudently.
There was an unfamiliar contingent of uniformed Royal Guardsmen moving cautiously into the room and slowly surrounding him, all of them with weapons drawn.
“Your Highness, lower your weapon.”
“What are you talking about? What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Get back to your posts.” He looked at them, not recognizing any of their faces.
One who appeared their leader took a couple of steps closer, holding him at gunpoint.
“What in hell, sir, do you think you’re doing?” Rafe asked crisply, not lowering his sword.
“Exactly what I told him to do,” drawled a familiar voice. Orlando sauntered into the doorway. “Appearances can be deceiving, can they not?”
Rafe lunged toward him. “What have you done with my brother?”
“Halt!” the man roared at him as the others ringed him in.
Orlando folded his arms over his chest and smirked at Rafe.
Rafe cursed and tried to get at him, but the thugs wearing the uniforms of the Royal Guard blocked his path. He swung his sword, bellowing for his bodyguards, who came running to join the exploding fray, but they were badly outnumbered. A few were cut down. Fight as he may, they fell on Rafe like dogs on a wounded bull, and when they had disarmed him and thrust him down on one knee, they wrenched his arms behind his back and clapped him in irons.
Orlando loomed over him, reciting calmly, “In the name of the king and by the authority of office of the prime minister—Prince Rafael di Fiore, you are hereby placed under arrest for the murder of the Bishop Justinian Vasari and for crimes of high treason.”
“Where is my brother?”
But Orlando merely smiled, his ice-green eyes glowing with malice. When he jerked a curt nod at his men, they dragged Rafe past him out the door. They shoved him into a waiting coach and brought him before the council of his enemies.
Dani was powerless to stop them as the Royal Guardsmen seized Mateo, following Rafael’s orders.
Before they took him into custody, Mateo handed off to Dani the evidence damning Orlando, which he had risked hanging to bring to her.
She had to catch up with Rafael and explain.
As her carriage rolled swiftly toward the city, she hardly dared think what conclusions he had drawn upon walking in and seeing her embracing Mateo. He had not stayed to hear her out, so how could he know that the reason Mateo had been hugging her was because she had just told him she would soon be a mother to her beloved prince’s child? Mateo had been merely congratulating her with a brotherly embrace.
Judging by Rafael’s coldly furious reaction, she realized that the sight had triggered all his underlying fears of being betrayed in love. She was crushed to know she had inadvertently hurt him and felt bruised herself by the frigid way he had shut her out.
His defensiveness was enough nearly to make her despair. Would he never trust her? Didn’t he know she was hopelessly in love with him? When would he ever believe?
Now that almost half an hour had passed, maybe his anger had begun to clear to a more reasonable state, she hoped anxiously. If nothing else, her happy news would surely cause him to soften toward her.
At length, she arrived at the Palazzo Reale. Just as she was walking in, drawing off her gloves, Elan came running toward the front entrance.
“Principessa!”
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Elan seized her elbow. His face was ghastly pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stay with your guards, Your Highness. Orlando has made his move.”
“Where is my husband?”
“Don Arturo has played right into Orlando’s hands. They have—oh, God, they have arrested Rafe for the murder of Bishop Justinian and Prince Leo is missing—oh, there’s no time to explain! I have to go.”
“What? The bishop is dead? Rafael’s…arrested?” She stared at him in horror. “How is that possible? He’s the crown prince!”
“It’s all Orlando’s scheming and the prime minister’s old grudge!”
“I’m coming with you! Let’s go!”
“No, Your Highness, you must stay here where you’ll be safe!”
“Rafael needs me. Besides, I’ve got these!” she said, holding up the pair of folded documents.
Gaelen Foley Page 33
