The Prince's Slave

by P. J. Fox

Charlotte sat on the chair. Belle sat on the couch. And then, “yes, I’m alive.”

  “You—you have no idea how we searched for you.” Charlotte spoke with surprising vehemence. “But you’d just vanished. The local police, the American embassy, no one knew where you were. Finally—”

  “Charlotte, I’m—”

  “We discovered that you’d been abducted by some, some human trafficking ring.”

  “Charlotte, I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not!”

  Charlotte began to sob.

  Just then, at the worst possible moment, Diana showed up with coffee. She shot a sharp glance at Charlotte, then put down her tray and left. Belle, feeling helpless, watched Charlotte cry. She didn’t know if she should pour coffee; that seemed heartless.

  Finally, Charlotte produced a tissue from somewhere and blew her nose.

  “Luna said you were—from a government agency?”

  Charlotte, nodding, had begun to regain some of her composure. It was the right question. “Yes. I was accepted to Georgetown Law and after…after you vanished, I also applied for an internship. With the FBI.”

  “You have no jurisdiction here.” The words were out of Belle’s mouth before she could stop them.

  “You’re right.” Charlotte swallowed. “I don’t. But other people do.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “A threat? Belle, are you insane? I’m trying to rescue you!”

  “Rescue me?”

  “That’s why I’m here!”

  Belle digested this news. She shouldn’t have been surprised. “Charlotte, I don’t, I mean I—oh, God, this is all my fault.” She shook her head. She couldn’t seem to translate her thoughts into words and she was, as Ash would say, making a right balls up of the situation.

  “I know I haven’t—”

  “Belle, this is not your fault. You’ve been brainwashed to think—”

  “Now hold on, a minute.”

  Charlotte was at her most earnest. Her nose was still red. “I’m interning with a special task force on human trafficking. I’ve decided that that’s what I’m going to do, now. After I graduate from law school, I’m going to apply full time for the FBI. Of course,” she couldn’t help but add, “my parents are scandalized. When I first told them I was considering law school they thought, maybe civil litigation at some blue chip firm, or….” She trailed off. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  “No,” Belle said. “I’m interested.”

  “We’re here to talk about you.”

  She really was the same old Charlotte, costume or no costume.

  “I’m not that interesting.” Belle smiled, a little ruefully.

  “Belle, you need to come with me.”

  Belle felt a sharp tug at something deep inside her heart. But she shook her head. “No.”

  “You can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can!”

  “What I mean—what I mean is that I don’t want to.”

  She poured Charlotte some coffee, and passed her the cup.

  Charlotte studied her for a long time, her eyes searching. And then, “Belle, what happened?”

  The question she should have asked ten minutes ago.

  Belle sipped her own coffee. There was nothing quite so ambrosial as a good cup of coffee after time spent outdoors, but this morning the hot liquid tasted like ashes. She was barely conscious of it sliding down her throat. She wanted to be anywhere else, and she didn’t know how to answer. It was a story that needed to be told, but how?

  How could she put into words, the changes that had occurred within her?

  “What I started to say earlier”—she held up a hand—”please, just hear me out.”

  A pine knot popped and fizzled.

  “What I started to say earlier is that this is my fault. Because I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Charlotte, I could have called and—and I didn’t. That was my choice and, I realize now, a selfish one. I thought about you,” she said truthfully, “and everyone else. But mostly, I thought about the paper I was supposed to have been writing that weekend and how angry my professor was going to be when I didn’t turn it in.

  “And how that might effect my grade. Even though, even then, I knew on some level that I was never coming back.” She paused. “I ran away, Charlotte.”

  “That’s not true!” Charlotte shook her head, before contradicting her own denial by shouting, “didn’t you think about us? About how worried everyone would be? About me, your other friends, your mother? Or were you just—”

  “No I didn’t!” The anger that Belle had been suppressing leapt to the surface. Her face flushed. “Because you never thought about me! I was invisible to you—to all of you. Whenever you talked to me it was to tell me what I was doing wrong. How I needed to dress differently, and talk differently, and study different things, and how I needed to hurry up and have sex. You thought I was boring, Charlotte; I was your boring friend.

  “And I’m glad that I’ve apparently inspired your career choice but there’s more to me than that.”

  Charlotte’s eyes widened, realization dawning. “Belle, that’s not what I meant—”

  “My mother didn’t want a daughter, she wanted a meal ticket. And my father was too drunk to want anything at all. So no, you’ll forgive me if their needs, for once, weren’t at the forefront of my consciousness. If, for once, I made a decision that had nothing to do with what everyone else wanted. A decision that was actually about me.”

  Charlotte deflated. “I’ve really fucked this up.”

  Yes, you have. But Belle had said her piece. Which had felt surprisingly good.

  “We know,” Charlotte began again, more quietly, “that you were kidnapped from the club.

  “We know that a human trafficking ring operated from within the same building, at least until that night. By the time we realized what had happened, they’d cleared out. Maybe because they knew we were on to them, maybe because they’d just run their course there. Groups like this…they move around.”

  She said we like she had something to do with it. An intern. But Belle let it pass. This was important to Charlotte and Belle, to be honest, was still half in shock. She couldn’t believe that Charlotte had found her, and didn’t know what that would mean.

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t had much luck in prosecuting them. There is simply no evidence. Or when there is evidence, it has a way of disappearing.”

  She sighed. She sipped her coffee. Belle did the same.

  “Even so, a witness told us what had happened to you. That you’d been lured away from the club somehow, drugged and taken hostage. And then that a deal was brokered with a known sex trafficker, who’d come to the club that night for the purpose of buying and selling slaves. For resale, we thought at the time.

  “Which is why we were so surprised to learn where you were.”

  Belle’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

  “We assumed that you’d been resold.”

  Hearing herself described in these terms, like an object, made Belle’s stomach heave.

  “We’ve been searching for you, every day, since you disappeared.”

  Charlotte paused again. Her eyes held Belle’s. Belle didn’t respond.

  “Mr. Singh…we know who he is but we have no evidence against him. We can’t arrest him, for what he’s done to you or any of these other girls. So all I could do—and I’m on my own, here; I am, after all, only an intern—was wait until he wasn’t here to prevent me and rescue you. Myself.”

  “Charlotte—what do you mean?”

  “Mr. Singh is a slave trader.”

  Ash? She wasn’t—she couldn’t be talking about Ash. Not her Ash, the man who’d rescued her. Who’d given her this life. “No he’s not!” Belle shook her head. “I don’t believe it. Not for one minute. You said yourself that there was no evidence!”

  “Belle—”

  “I haven’t seen you in months and you
come here, lecture me, tell me what’s wrong with the man I love and—”

  “Belle, stop! I—”

  “You weren’t even invited! You just showed up! And I don’t know what they’re teaching you in this internship, or what you learned from those nannies of yours back home but it’s not alright to barge into someone’s house and start accusing them of things without even asking questions! Without even wanting to hear the other person’s explanation!”

  She was shaking now, she was so furious. “As far as I’m concerned, you can—”

  “Belle,” said a low voice, “what’s happening, here?”

  Glancing up, Charlotte’s eyes widened.

  Belle turned, and there was Ash.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  He stood in the door, his expression frozen into a mask.

  Belle felt, obscurely, like she’d done something wrong. At the same time she was relieved to see him. To be rescued from this awful interview. All the times she’d imagined reuniting with Charlotte, or any of her friends, it hadn’t gone anything like this. There’d been hugging and laughter, not accusation-filled rants.

  Charlotte seemed intent to rescue Belle, not from Ash but from Belle’s own poor judgment.

  Belle’s sense of unreality was complete.

  She stood, her hands clasped in front of her. “Darling,” she said, as though this were the most normal social visit in the world, “this is a friend from school. Charlotte Ford.”

  The two of them stared at each other, Charlotte in her suit and Ash in his typical uniform of gray wool trousers and white cotton shirt. He must have come straight from the airport; his shirt sleeves were rolled up and he looked tired. And something else. There was a light in his eyes that Belle recognized: the steely glint of cold fury.

  Even so, he was a gentleman. After a beat he took a step forward and held out his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. Welcome to our home.”

  Charlotte actually recoiled. “I know who you are,” she said.

  “A vast relief to my father, no doubt.”

  “And I’m going to see that you’re arrested.”

  “For what?” Ash inquired. His tone was still deceptively mild.

  “For—”

  “Charlotte was just leaving.”

  Her friend looked scandalized. “No I wasn’t! I—”

  But this comedy of errors was over. Belle propelled her, forcibly, toward the door. After all her months of training, she was strong. Stronger than Charlotte had anticipated. She let out a small squeak.

  “Go,” Belle said. “Go and don’t bother us again.”

  “Belle, you can’t mean that!”

  “But I do.”

  “We’re friends!”

  “A friend would want me to be happy.” Belle stopped in front of the door, where Diana stood watch with the head gardener. Who looked ready to do business. “A friend wouldn’t come here, like this, threatening me. Threatening to destroy my life out of spite. I’m sorry I’m not who you think I should be, Charlotte, and that you disagree with my choices. But they’re my choices.”

  Charlotte opened her mouth. And then closed it. And then she was gone.

  Diana left, and then Ben, and then Belle was alone.

  She stared at the door for a very long time.

  Eventually, she heard Ash’s footfall behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her the truth!” And then, “I can’t discuss this right now.”

  Belle turned on her heel and walked back toward the small parlor. At that precise moment she didn’t know if Ash was following her and didn’t care. She needed to be alone.

  A few minutes later, she found herself where she’d been an hour ago: in front of the fireplace. Staring into the flames. Lost.

  “We have to discuss it.”

  So he had followed her. Of course he had. Another bolt of rage shot to the surface, warming her skin. She wanted him to goddamn well heave her alone. She hadn’t had a minute alone in months. And before that—had she ever? Had she ever truly been alone, or on her own, for even ten minutes together her entire life so far?

  She felt more oppressed in that moment, more confined, then she ever had when she’d been tied up.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth!”

  “Why was she here?”

  “I don’t know!” Belle bit her lip in exasperation, staring so hard at the logs in the fire that by rights they should have exploded. “To insult me, I guess. I don’t know how she found me—she wouldn’t say. She just…showed up. And started to lecture me.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  Belle shook her head, her back still too him. “That I’d run away from home, and I didn’t want to go back.”

  Silence.

  Outside, it began to rain.

  “Am I?” he asked. “The man you love?”

  So he’d heard that.

  “Charlotte said…she said that you were involved in human trafficking.” There. She’d forced herself to speak the words. They felt like knives in her stomach. “She called you a slave trader. She….”

  “And you believe her.” That cold tone was back.

  “She said she was surprised that you hadn’t resold me.” Like she was some kind of used car. Not that Ash probably knew what a used car was.

  Belle hadn’t turned, but she knew what Ash was doing. She could hear him moving around. To the sideboard, where a few seconds later there was the telltale clink of crystal on crystal. Pouring liquid. He’d fixed himself a drink. And then gone, after a long pause, to sit down in his favorite chair. The chair that Charlotte had occupied only an hour ago.

  Belle didn’t understand his fondness for the chair; it didn’t seem much like his usual taste. An old bergere, its needlepoint cushions were worn and faded. Most of its gilding, on the carved parts, had worn off. Growing up in Maine, Belle recognized an antique when she saw it; the old thing was probably worth a good deal. Not that that had ever mattered much to Ash.

  Truthfully, what did?

  “Sit,” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Please.”

  When she still didn’t respond, “Belle, I’ve been honest with you from the beginning. About my…desires, and how I sate them. You’ve known, from the beginning, that there were other women. Talked to them, indeed.” She detected a brief warmth in his voice, there and gone. He’d been bemused when she’d told him about her interview with Sasha.

  Sasha, who’d since gone home to face her parents in Elizabethtown.

  Or so Belle had been told.

  “She called you a slave trader.” Belle couldn’t keep her voice from cracking.

  “I wasn’t at the club to preach against the evils of the sex trade. You know that.”

  Belle whirled around, her eyes blazing with long-suppressed fury. A fury of which Charlotte had only seen the tip. A fury at no one and everyone, that Belle herself barely understood. “So if it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else?”

  “Probably. Yes.”

  “And all this time I thought—I thought I meant something to you—”

  “Belle—”

  “But we’re interchangeable. All women. That’s it.”

  “I might have brought home another woman, but she wouldn’t have been you. She would have been like Sasha, or one of the others. A distraction. She wouldn’t have shared my bed.”

  Belle curled up into a ball on the couch and started to sob.

  A little while later, she felt the cushions move as Ash sat down next to her.

  “I could dare to hope that this means you care about me,” he said.

  She looked up. “You—it matters?”

  His eyes held hers. “Don’t lose faith in me now, because some dumb chit told you a rumor. Yes, I was there for…other reasons. When I made plans to go out that night, I didn’t know you existed. I’
d never had cause to dream that such a person could exist.

  “And Belle…I’m not a good man. I’ve never claimed to be. You were the one who first observed that I’m a criminal and while I’d like to contest the charge I…simply don’t know.” He sounded tired. “But, whatever my intentions that night, I can tell you in all honesty that when I saw you for the first time, my life changed. I wanted to rescue you, to take you home and keep you safe. To protect you from a world you didn’t belong in. That’s too harsh for you. Too real. To protect you from men like me. A good man would have let you go but, I told you, I’m not a good man.”

  Belle sniffed. “I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself.”

  “I’m not a slave trader.”

  “I know.”

  What had begun as light rain had turned into a slow, drenching downpour. Belle hoped that Charlotte drowned in it. Her and her internship and her stupid suit.

  She swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have no reason to apologize.”

  “I didn’t—I’m not ready.”

  Ash kissed her.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  His lips were cool, assured. Forceful without being demanding. Leading rather than pushing. A man’s experienced kiss instead of a boy’s fumbling. He knew what he wanted and knew, too, that he’d take it. He waited only for her acquiescence. For her to accept the inevitable and yield herself up to him, body and soul.

  The rain beat against the windows. The room was in gloom. Ash guided her down onto the couch and she stared up, watching beads of shadow-rain running across the ceiling.

  He kissed along her jawline. Her earlobe. The hollow behind her ear. He smelled of hand-milled soap and expensive cologne. Sandalwood. Bergamot. Other things.

  He began to undress her. First unzipping her jacket and then, lifting her up, slipping it off over her shoulders. Then pushing her shirt up and over her head as he kissed the hollow between her breasts. She didn’t resist him, but she didn’t respond. She was too overwhelmed. Her world had changed and, with Charlotte’s reappearance, changed again. She couldn’t get the image of her friend out of her mind. Standing there. Staring at Belle.

  Telling her that she needed to be rescued.