He appeared in the doorway, his eyes glowing with his victory over those two poor guards, and for a moment, his smile was so buoyant and charming, so much like Rafael’s, that she hesitated to pull the trigger, knowing that he could be burned horribly.
Her heart pounding, she watched him reach for the key and unlock the iron door.
As he pulled it open, she took a deep breath. And as he stepped into the cell, she fired at the circle of black powder.
Too late!
He was already stepping past the gunpowder when the flare rose behind him. He let out a bellow of pain and surprise as it threw him forward at the same instant Dani darted for the door, but with a guttural sound of fury, Orlando, on the ground, snaked his arms around her legs and toppled her. She screamed as she went down, fighting him in panic, with the aftermath of acrid smoke choking her throat.
He rose over her in the foggy haze that hung on the air. His granite-carved face was cut and bleeding from his fall. His raven hair and clothes were singed, but on the whole he was unscathed.
Merely enraged.
He called her the foulest possible name.
Thick sulfuric smoke, the aftermath of the flare, rolled through the cell, but above her, through the black cloud, glowed bright, eerie, ice-green eyes. Dani stared up into them, realizing she would never hear her baby’s first cry nor taste Rafael’s kiss again.
Orlando drew back his hand and struck her with all his might.
Dani went sprawling, flattened to the ground.
He picked her up to hit her again.
It was as though explosions were going off inside her head. There were three, four, perhaps five more shattering blows to her head and body. She was too stunned to react, fight, even to cry, limp as a rag doll in his vicious grip.
He is going to kill my baby, she thought, trying to rally herself to fight as his fist plunged again into her middle. But she saw double from the blows to the head and could not clear her vision, and she just wanted it all to stop, the roaring, ringing noise in her eardrums and the explosions in her head. She could taste her lip bleeding and she knew a tooth on the side was loose. She was semiconscious when he straddled her on the stone ground and seized the collar of her shirt, ripping it open partway down her chest. Orlando was muttering furiously at her, cruel, hateful things.
Then suddenly, distantly, in the dusty single column of sunlight which the Royal Guardsman had widened, she saw the apparition of an angel.
Golden and huge, he stepped closer, looming in silent, gliding power behind Orlando. Her spirit breathed a sigh of relief. She was so glad to see him. She knew he had come to bear her soul away in his arms to heaven.
But as the white light bathed his hair of gold, she caught a glimpse of his hard, angular face, and it was not the countenance of a tender angel of mercy. Beautiful beyond dreams he was, but with earth-green eyes full of celestial wrath, she knew he was an angel of death, sunlight glittering on the jeweled hilt of his raised sword.
Rafael, she realized just as the thin thread of her awareness clipped gently and sent her floating out into black silence.
With a roar, Rafael drove Orlando back against the stone wall. They sliced at each other with wide, pitiless arcs of their swords.
“I am your brother, Rafe. You can’t kill me,” Orlando panted, parrying his relentless blows.
Remorseless, Rafe’s only reaction was to press him farther back across the cell.
Dani’s scream had drawn Rafe as he had searched the ruined citadel. He’d come across Elan stranded in the pit, and the viscount had sent him in the right direction.
Their fight raged around the stone. Every time Orlando tried to rush toward Dani’s prostrate body to use her as his human shield, Rafe drove him back. With every passing moment, as Orlando’s desperation grew, his face twisted into a more demonic rictus of rage and hatred and pain. He was bleeding and winded, imbued with the strength that came of fighting for one’s life, but Rafael warred on him, his teeth bared, his hair flying over his shoulders. He spun, lunged, and suddenly thrust his sword into Orlando’s black heart, the tip of it biting all the way into the stone behind his bastard brother.
He did not flinch as Orlando died, impaled on his weapon.
For Rafe, the real terror lay nearby in the chillingly still form of his beautiful, gallant, unmoving young wife. Sliding his weapon out of Orlando’s breast with a final snarl, he dropped his sword across his half-brother’s lifeless body.
Crossing the dim, rock-strewn chamber to Dani, he knelt down beside her, a cold knot in his stomach, his heart pounding like it would break.
Gently, he touched her face. He could barely make his voice work. “My love.”
She did not stir.
Steeling himself, he swallowed hard and touched her throat, then closed his eyes. Tears rose behind his eyelids to feel her weak but steady pulse.
He bent lower and scooped her carefully into his arms. He pressed a desperate, lingering kiss to her brow. Come on, little fighter, you’ve got to fight for me now. Don’t leave me, Dani. Don’t leave me. He rose with her slight, delicate, bruised body draped limply in his arms, her head resting on his chest. He carried her from that place like the most precious treasure in the world, which was exactly what she was to him. He kissed her cool, smooth forehead and whispered her name, urging her to come back to him, telling her he could not possibly live without her.
Still, she didn’t stir.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“Mama, she is awake.”
Dani heard the soft, slightly scratchy, feminine voice coming from somewhere very nearby, then a businesslike rustling of skirts.
“Don’t pester her, Serafina. Let her come around slowly,” chided a second woman’s voice.
The first voice had a sparkling quality, like a cheerful bubbling brook, but the second was of a mellower timbre, like autumn sunlight shining through a jar of honey.
“Oh, Mama, isn’t she adorable? No wonder Rafe is so mad for her. She’s like a little porcelain doll lying there. She’s so tiny!” A wistful sigh. “I always wanted a sister.”
“I think she is very young,” said the older woman, her voice tinged with the note of a motherly-sounding frown. Dani felt a soft hand alight on her forearm where it lay limply atop the coverlet.
“I wish she would wake up.”
The hand stroked her arm comfortingly. “Well, she has been through a terrible ordeal, poor, brave little thing.”
There was such rich tenderness in the words that Dani found the strength to open her eyes. The world was fuzzy and distorted, but she could make out two ovals above her which began to clear into faces.
The first distinct feature she made out was a pair of otherworldly violet eyes peering eagerly down at her. She had never seen eyes that color before. She closed her own tightly, ordering them to do their job properly, then flicked her eyes open and found herself staring up at the laughing goddess from the portrait.
With her breathlessly waiting expression, rose-tinged cheeks, and cascade of raven spiral curls, Princess Serafina was even more splendid in real life. Her wide, breaking smile as Dani awoke was like a gust of fresh springtime breezes.
Staring blankly, Dani turned her head slightly and saw that the older woman was gazing down at her patiently with wise, amber-brown eyes under gold-tipped lashes, and a sprinkling of buttery freckles on her mildly lined face. She appeared not quite fifty, with light golden-brown hair arranged in a loose chignon.
Queen Allegra!
In a flash of recognition, Dani was horrified at herself for lying there like a slugabed with the queen and royal princess of Ascencion staring down at her.
“Majesty,” she croaked out, scrambling all of a sudden to sit up. She could not remember why she was in bed or how long she had been there. She only knew the queen was in her presence and there were protocols to be observed. Rafael’s experts had drilled her in this.
“Lie still,” Her Majesty commanded, laying
her hand on Dani’s shoulder.
Dani stared pleadingly at her for forgiveness at this awful breach of etiquette. She had never been very good at that sort of thing, but she obeyed, for her head was pounding terribly.
“Serafina, get her some water.”
As Dani sank back against her pillow, closing her eyes again into the blessed darkness, she remembered everything in a flood. The ruined citadel—Orlando—Rafael saving her—and the small amount of blood that she had felt run down between her thighs after Orlando had beaten her.
“My baby!” she choked out, forcing herself up in a start.
“You did not lose it,” Queen Allegra said in a firm, gentle tone.
Dani stared at her, panting with fright.
“It’s all right. The doctor said you had a little hemorrhaging, but with a week or two of bed rest, he says you will both be fine.”
Her whole body was shaking with the memory of what she had experienced.
Princess Serafina crossed the room to them, carrying a glass of water to Dani. She sat on the edge of the bed and offered it to her.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she said faintly as she accepted it, amazed by their kindness toward her.
As a known criminal who had married the golden boy of their family, she had expected a cool and distant reception from the royal family. In fact, she had rather been dreading their return, sure that they were going to despise her. Her head throbbed as she thought of the five princesses they had selected for Rafael and the old looming threat of Their Majesties making him choose between her or the crown. She felt as though she ought to apologize and try to explain that he had been simply too hard to resist.
Mother and daughter watched her intently.
Dani drank some of the water, then looked from one to the other, trying to gather her scrambled thoughts. “Forgive me, I am not myself yet. I can’t believe I am meeting you both in this condition.” She dragged a hand through her mussed hair.
Serafina let out a musical trill of sparkling laughter. “It’s a better condition than you’ve been in the last two days. You gave us all a fright. I’m so glad you’re awake—I finally get to have a sister. Well, we had better get Rafe. He’s been here nearly every moment of every hour. Mama finally had to send him off to take a walk with Papa before he drove himself mad.”
“Is he all right?” she asked anxiously.
“He’ll be better now that you’re up.”
“Come, Serafina,” said the queen, going toward the door. “We mustn’t tax her. There will be plenty of time for us to spend together when she is feeling better.” One hand on the doorknob, Queen Allegra paused and glanced over her shoulder at Dani. “You, young lady, are to get more sleep.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Dani answered as she rested back obediently against the pillows.
The queen paused, regarding her with a fond, slight smile. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Daniela. I admit I was angry when I first heard that my Rafael had ignored our wishes, but the moment I heard how you saved Leo—and when I spoke with Rafael and saw how much he loves you and how you’ve changed him into the man I always knew he could be—I knew you were all I could have wanted for my son…and my people.”
Moved almost beyond speech, she blushed with embarrassment and lowered her head. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘Your Majesty,’ Daniela.”
She looked up with a quick, nervous glance. “W-what should I call you, then, please, ma’am?”
From across the room, Allegra gazed gently at her. “You could call me ‘Mother’ if you like.”
Staring at her, tears rushed into Dani’s eyes.
“Why, what is it, Daniela?” Serafina asked softly, reaching up to tuck a lock of Dani’s hair behind her ear.
For a moment, Dani was almost too overwhelmed to speak, her tears brimming. “I never had a mother.”
“Oh, dear little creature,” Serafina exclaimed in a whisper, embracing her.
Then the queen came back, went around the other side of the bed, and hugged them both. “You do now, darling,” she whispered as she pressed Dani’s head onto her soft, ineffably comforting shoulder. Dani closed her eyes and sobbed with mixed joy and relief in their embrace. “You do now.”
In the gardens of the Palazzo Reale, Prince Leo was running around with his Spanish nieces and nephews, who were barely younger than he. Though their laughter filled the royal park and all the nurses and governesses looked harried, the king’s grandchildren did not dare misbehave too badly under the stern and masterful eye of their father.
Count Darius Santiago was standing nearby, eternally vigilant over his brood, his arms folded over his chest. Occasionally, he glanced with equal concern at the king and the crown prince, who were sitting on a stone bench under a large tree.
Poor Rafe was a wreck. Darius had never seen his carefree, roguish brother-in-law in such a grim, changed state. Lazar wasn’t faring much better, he thought.
Though King Lazar’s health had improved drastically, restoring him to his hearty and hale constitution, he had been shaken by the news, upon returning to Ascencion, that Orlando had been his son. He had not known.
Squinting against the bright afternoon sun, Darius looked at his six children again, who were tumbling all over the lawn, to the delight of the gaunt and elderly Duke of Chiaramonte, who was walking about with his cane in their midst, cheering on their antics.
The habitually hard, fierce expression on Darius’s finely chiseled, aquiline face softened utterly when his youngest, the two-year-old Lady Anita, sought to hide behind him from her bossy older sister, Lady Elisabeta, age four. He couldn’t help but smile.
Anita came running to him with a protracted wail and threw her arms around his leg as though it were a column of stone. Then the two little girls in frilled petticoats, both with mops of silky black curls, darted and circled around their papa’s legs until Darius was forced to scoop them up in his arms and administer a sternly disapproving frown to each.
It was difficult to hold the disciplinarian’s glower when they could see right through him, he thought with an inward sigh of defeat. Their answer to his stern look was one they had learned from their mother—laughter and kisses.
He was hopelessly outnumbered. His daughters covered his cheeks in sticky caramel kisses, giggling as they mussed his starchy white shirt with chocolate fingerprints.
He attempted to scowl. “Where did you get the candy?”
“Uncle Wafie gave it to us!” Anita said cheerfully. The two-year-old had been following Rafe around like his shadow ever since they had arrived yesterday. Darius knew it was the last thing Rafe needed, but he had not seemed to mind too much.
“Well, no more till after you’ve had your lunch. Don’t bother your Uncle Rafe, yes?” he murmured. “He’s very worried about Princess Daniela. Try and be quiet around him.”
“Yes, Papa,” the four-year-old said eagerly, with a show of obedience that Darius knew was designed to twist him around her little finger, another trick she had learned from their beautiful mama.
“You rascals,” he muttered, giving them each a kiss on the forehead. They squirmed and kicked and giggled until he set them down again, then they tore off after their brothers.
Rafe had been watching Darius with his little girls, wondering in pain if he would ever know the fulfillment his brother-in-law had so plainly found in his role as a family man.
The doctor had told Rafe that Daniela would recover and that their babe had survived the attack, but it was hard to believe the reassurances when she continued to lie so still and unresponsive in her bed, drifting in and out of consciousness.
She had not eaten in two days and she was already too thin to begin with, he thought, worry gnawing him ceaselessly. He hadn’t eaten or slept, either. He was exhausted, frayed, choked with constant dread, and quite at the end of what he could bear.
He did have a few things to be grateful for, of course. The murder
charges against him had been dropped in spite of his forced confession. Leo had testified that it was Orlando, not Rafe, who had stabbed Bishop Justinian; the king had dealt the senate a blistering address for their behavior toward Rafe.
The whole senate had been sending Rafe groveling apologies and excuses and it was clear that no one took him as a joke anymore, but until Dani was out of the woods, he did not want to hear from any of them. If they had not detained him, he could have saved her more quickly and spared her the awful beating she had endured at the hands of Orlando. He was not about to forgive them anytime soon for how his wife had suffered.
As for the prime minister, Don Arturo was so ashamed of how he had allowed his spite to mar his judgment that he had handed in his resignation.
The king was obviously recovered to his former robust health now that he was no longer unwittingly ingesting daily doses of the mysterious, slow-acting poison, cantarelle. Rafe was grateful from the bottom of his soul for his father’s recovery, for he had been humbled by his interlude as Ascencion’s supreme master. He was no longer in the slightest hurry to be king. He saw that he still had a great deal to learn from his father about managing Ascencion’s affairs. At last, he had the humility to seek whatever wisdom his father had to impart.
Hearing the tale of what Dani had suffered to save Leo, and how hard Rafe and Dani had worked to reach out to the people together, neither the king nor the queen could find it within themselves to disapprove of their unauthorized marriage.
Rafe was also grateful for the fact that his little brother Leo had escaped harm and that Elan had come away with nothing more serious than a broken ankle. His final reason to be glad was that Darius and Serafina had decided to move back permanently to Ascencion, and Lord knew the king and queen were overjoyed to have their grandchildren on hand to spoil.
The future looked bright for everyone. But if Dani did not recover, Rafe knew his own future would be naught but a curse to him.
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