“I must counsel caution, and by that I mean you should be aware of lurkers and be suspicious of anyone, even your most loyal servants, who might be in the position to listen to your conversations.”
Laurentia bristled. “We are careful.”
He spoke to her, but he concentrated on King Jerome. “Talking about the abduction with the doors to the terrace open? I heard you, and God only knows who else heard you before I came along. You have to be vigilant, Your Majesty, always.”
“We were foolish. There’s a chair.” King Jerome pointed. “Pull it up to the table. Have some breakfast and tell us more.”
Couldn’t her father see this man was ruthless as any pirate who sailed the high seas? What good was King Jerome’s claim to being an excellent judge of character, when he fell for the same balderdash that felled so many ladies?
“I’m sure he ate with the rest of the suitors,” she said.
With one hand, Dom lifted the heavy chair and placed it at the table, midway between Laurentia and her father. As he seated himself, he condescended to answer her. “Actually, no, I haven’t eaten since last night. I just returned from setting my inquiries in motion. I bathed and changed and came at once to make my report.”
He did look heavy-eyed, she noted. Any compassionate woman would feel sorry for him. “Here.” She passed the scrambled eggs. “They’re delicious.”
She watched him spoon them onto his plate, and waited while he took the first bite. He chewed, swallowed, and without a change of expression, lifted his cup. “Would you pour for me. Your Highness?”
He liked them?
“Try the sausage, too,” King Jerome said.
“Thank you, I will.”
Dom liked the eggs? He helped himself to the sausage, mercifully untouched by Weltrude, as Laurentia steadied his saucer by its edge, lifted the heavy pot, and poured.
“Is that chocolate?” Dom sighed. “I should have expected it. It’s a lady’s drink.”
“Actually, His Majesty prefers it,” she said in a frosty manner.
“I find the sugar sweetens Her Highness’s disposition,” King Jerome said.
Bristling instantly, Laurentia glared at her father as the two men chuckled together. “You’re the king,” she said. “If you wished for another beverage, you had only to ask.”
He patted her hand. “I was teasing, dear.”
His very tone reduced her to a sulky child, insulted by a jest. If Dom hadn’t been there, would she have laughed and whacked her father on the arm, and answered in kind?
Oh, heavens, she would have.
This was Dom’s fault. He’d caused her to lose her sense of humor.
“Do you know who might be behind this attempt on the princess’s person?” Dom asked.
“No,” King Jerome answered.
“Who are your traditional enemies? Is there a reason they should be stirring?”
Dom still focused on her father as if she didn’t exist, and she would have been irritated if she were not so interested in the answer. Her father kept her abreast of developments within the kingdom, yes, but if he thought she might feel threatened or worry unduly, he downplayed them. His caution originated at the time of her husband’s death, and she acknowledged she had been overset by his death. Yet despite her assurances to King Jerome, he continued to coddle her in matters of national security.
“The world is changing. Traditions are changing. Countries that for a thousand years have been our enemies are no longer. Countries who have been our allies are—” King Jerome hesitated. “Well, perhaps it is to our advantage to examine our friendships. I confess this attempt on the princess took me by surprise. I fear we have grown complacent.”
Laurentia watched her father, straining to read his thoughts by his expression, yet nothing showed but distress and a royal embarrassment. He had sent Chariton out, she knew he had, but he said nothing of that. He only demanded of Dom, “Young man, how long will it take you to get information?”
“This isn’t going to be easy.” Dom took a bite of egg and followed it with a swallow of chocolate. “Unfortunately, this hubbub about Her Highness’s birthday has attracted more than just suitors. There are gypsies and tradesmen and farmers and thieves all milling around in Omnia, strangers all. My man will not be noticed among the crowd, but I fear neither will our abductor.”
“So you don’t foresee success,” Laurentia said.
“I have formidable gifts, Your Highness, but I don’t count fortune-telling among them. The only thing I can foresee with any accuracy is trouble.” His long arm reached for the basket of rolls. “I’m always right.”
“Yes, trouble has a tendency to make itself at home when one least expects it,” King Jerome agreed.
The more Dom insisted there was trouble, the more she wanted to insist none existed. But she couldn’t, not after that pesky kidnapping attempt. “Trouble comes to those who are unprepared,” she snapped.
“You’re saying you’re prepared?” Dom chose a roll and broke it apart, exposing the white center.
She thought of the addition she’d made to her handbag. “I am.”
“I agree.” Like a swordsman toying with an inferior opponent, he sank his teeth into the roll, chewed, and swallowed while she waited. At last he added, “You are prepared for trouble. You have hired me.”
She’d lost her appetite, but to give herself something to do she took an orange from the bowl and intently watched her own fingernails as she dug them into the thin, dimpled skin. Damn that fake footman for showing up when he had! If he’d been earlier or later, she wouldn’t have to be dealing with this exasperating Dom ...
No, some small shred of remaining reason whispered, I’d be dealing with that horrible smelly man who wanted to hurt me, maybe kill me, in who-knew-what kind of conditions. She was being unreasonable and illogical. She knew it, but this Dom person drove her past sanity.
Her finger sank into the fruit and a squirt of juice struck her on the brow.
Dom’s broad hand appeared beneath her nose, and she jerked her head up. With his thumb, he brushed her lower lip. “Stop sulking, Your Highness.”
To her dismay, her lip trembled. Just from his touch, it actually trembled.
Her horrified gaze flew to his. He hadn’t noticed, had he?
Yet he watched her mouth, all brooding and attentive, as if the thought of kissing her absorbed him beyond all other interests.
And how could she even connect kissing and Dom in the same thought? What was wrong with her? A man touched her, and lightning struck her blind, deaf, and insensate to anything but him. He was a mercenary, not some student of her soul.
He drew his hand away so slowly she might have thought him reluctant to part from her, and she stared at the long fingers and broad, callused palm. A good hand. Not soft like the other suitors‘, but strong and capable. A soldier’s hand.
Glancing at her father, Dom cleared his throat, the sound harsh and obtrusive in the waiting silence.
She looked, too, to find King Jerome watching the byplay with unabashed fascination, and she blushed, just as if he’d discovered them in some guilty pleasure.
Dom said, “Princess Laurentia, when I guard you, I’ll be so quiet, you’ll never know I’m around.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed at such an absurdity. Not notice? Him? He had to be jesting!
He was. He smiled back at her, his lips stretching across perfect white teeth, fine lines crinkling around his teasing blue eyes. He plucked the orange from her hand. In a few quick movements, he peeled the fruit clean. He shook out his napkin and laid it on the table, then placed the orange in the middle and separated it into sections. With a bow of his head, he presented the delicacy to her while she stared at it, and him.
Handsome. He was so handsome. And competent, qualified, knowledgeable, an earthy man capable of providing for her in any circumstances, no matter how primitive. And no matter how smitten he appeared, she had to remember her experience had proved
she was no irresistible Venus. She had to be sensible.
When she didn’t take the orange, he laid it at her elbow with a smile that told her how much her reluctance amused him. “What’s the schedule for today?”
“The traditional observance of the princess’s birth.” King Jerome leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed fondly in his mind’s eye on that long-ago event. “Twenty-five years ago, when she was born, I called for a holiday to last no less than three days, and it has continued as our own, unique celebration.”
“How... touching.” Dom wore that bit of a smile again, the one that said she was spoiled and he wasn’t. “What do we do to celebrate the blessed event?”
“There’s a high meadow outside of Omnia where the nobles and the people meet and mingle,” King Jerome said. “We have a marketplace, with goods from our country and abroad. We have wandering minstrels and jugglers, we have games for prizes.”
Dom finished his eggs and sausage. “What sort of games?”
“Archery, shooting, wrestling, races—”
The orange smelled rich and ripe, the kind of fruit that would dribble down her chin if she weren’t careful. “Where the noblemen can make fools of themselves trying to best our huntsmen and our laborers,” Laurentia said.
“Your Highness doesn’t appreciate a good competition?” Dom asked.
Giving in to temptation, she took a section of the orange. “If a nobleman can aim an arrow better than a commoner who stalks game for a living, he has too much time to practice. And a nobleman who enters his thoroughbred horse in a race with men who have nothing better than a mountain pony is taking unjust advantage.”
“They try to win her favor that way,” King Jerome explained.
“Obviously, it hasn’t worked yet,” Dom said.
“But they keep trying.” She bit into the orange and savored the tart sweetness. It didn’t matter that he’d peeled it for her; it wasn’t as if he were feeding her.
“I won’t enter the shooting contest, then.”
Although she didn’t look up, she knew he watched her much too closely. “You can. You’re a soldier of fortune. I imagine if you didn’t shoot well, you’d not be here with us today.”
“I wouldn’t have made it through my first battle. Nevertheless, I can’t watch over you if I’m showing off for the ladies. What about tomorrow?”
Laurentia took spiteful pleasure in informing him. “A hunt. Do you think you can keep up?”
“I think if I can’t, you’d best slow down for me.” He looked straight at her, a man with a message to convey.
And he conveyed it very well. The fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck as she endured the sensation of threat and retribution.
After what seemed to be a very long moment, King Jerome said, “My daughter is a marvelous huntress, the best rider I’ve ever seen, excepting her mother, but she’s also as smart as a whip. She would not put her safety at risk by riding ahead of her bodyguard.”
She didn’t know about that. Right now it seemed like a superb idea. She looked up to see two faces turned toward her, one admonishing, one sardonically amused and reading her like a book when he’d barely met her and had no business knowing what she thought or how much she resented being backed into a corner—although heaven knew why she should care now. She spent most of her life in that corner. “No,” Laurentia said reluctantly. “Of course I will not.”
Her father gave her a quick, approving smile.
“And I will endeavor to keep up with Your Highness,” Dom promised.
The spy stepped back from the panel concealed in the wall of the private dining room.
A kidnapping. Someone had attempted to take the princess, and unlike Dom, the spy knew who it was.
De Emmerich had become enraged again and tried to hurry things along.
Damn him. He should listen and trust, but de Emmerich thought the princess was a bit of frippery to be captured and racked. A quick way to reveal the information, he thought. He didn’t believe she would never break under torture. She would never willingly reveal the source of Bertinerre’s wealth.
No, fear and pain would never work on Princess Laurentia.
Only trust and love would achieve their objectives.
And in hiring Dom, de Emmerich had done one thing right, at least.
Dom would seduce her. Princess Laurentia would trust him.
And de Emmerich and his spy would have the kingdom and all its riches for themselves.
Chapter Nine
Dom walked from the private dining chamber onto the terrace just around the corner from the place where he’d rescued Laurentia the night before. The sun shone with blinding impartiality on the white marble floor and rail and on the stairs that descended into the garden. It was a glorious morning—and he just wanted to spit. He’d eaten worse food in his time—hell’s fire, he’d eaten snakes in his time—but those eggs came close to being putrid. Only the princess’s eager anticipation had kept him from spewing the wretched fare across the table.
That, and King Jerome’s kindness. Dom rubbed his hand across his lips in a futile attempt to clean the bad taste from his mouth. Damn, the old man was a gudgeon. Didn’t he know better than to trust a stranger with no letters of references and a vague story of being a king’s bastard brother? When Dom finished this job, he would tell King Jerome—
“Excuse me.” Francis’s crisp, superior voice stopped Dom in his tracks. “Were you eating breakfast with His Majesty and Her Highness?”
Dom turned to face him, and found the princess’s pride and joy leaning against the door frame, watching him with narrowed eyes. This stinkard was suspicious.
Dom smiled, the amiable, edgy smile of a man facing off with his rival. “Are you the royal monitor?”
“I am the home minister,” Francis corrected him, without an ounce of humor, “and a personal friend of His Majesty and Her Highness.”
Dom had ruffled feathers last night with his interview with King Jerome. He was ruffling feathers again this morning. Good. “I’m a personal friend of the king and the crown princess, too.” Dom moved toward Francis. They were of a height, and Dom looked him straight in the eye. “King Jerome likes a man who’s bold and grabs what he wants, not one with his knickers tied so tight he can sing soprano.”
It was true. Dom had diagnosed the king’s weakness at once.
“I’m not interested in what King Jerome likes,” Francis said. “Only what his daughter likes.”
Damn. It would have been easier for Dom if Francis was a fool. Not nearly as much of a challenge, of course, but in recent years Dom had discovered that he no longer liked to do everything the hard way.
“Nevertheless,” Dom said, “I’ll drop by to converse with His Majesty and Her Highness whenever they want.”
Vague surprise rippled over Francis’s prissy, handsome face. “Of course. If they request your presence, you will do as you are told. That is only proper. However, I cannot imagine such a trend will continue. While His Majesty does indeed prefer the swashbuckling type, Her Highness is quite sensible.”
“She likes them bold too,” Dom said glibly. “She just doesn’t know it yet.” Dom had discovered the night before that she secretly lusted after adventure. That made him irresistible.
It wouldn’t be a hardship to seduce her; her sweet little mouth begged to be kissed.
Yet perhaps Francis could explain why, when Dom had had that little silver fish of a princess dangling on his hook, she suddenly had slipped away. What fear shadowed her eyes?
He would goad Francis—surely not a difficult endeavor—into revealing her secrets. Then he’d hold her in the palm of his hand, and the thought of that held remarkable appeal. “Perhaps you don’t know the princess as well as you think you do.”
Francis blinked as if the thought hurt his brain. “Nonsense. I have known her since her childhood.”
“And she was always sensible?”
“She has grown sensible,” Francis corrected. “
As do all women as they mature.”
“You don’t have a lot of experience with women, do you?” Dom recalled Laurentia’s intrigue with him, his occupation... his touch. He could have touched a lot more out there on the veranda, but he had wanted to survey the terrain first, give her no reason to retreat.
She’d retreated anyway. Worse, this morning she’d gone from retreat to attack. Hell, he might as well have advanced on her last night. All his light, winning talk had done him no good once she’d seen his face; she couldn’t have reacted more strongly if he’d pulled her against him and kissed her silly. After talking to this jackass, Dom could tell she needed to be kissed silly.
And Dom was the man to do it. With an assurance he felt clear to the bone, he said, “I say her wild side is only lying dormant, waiting for the right man to set it free.”
“You jest, of course.” Francis couldn’t have been more stodgily unmoved. “Her Highness matured”— something in the garden captured his gaze—“earlier than others I could name.”
Dom turned to look, and saw a lush and rounded lady, walking among the hedges with one of the suitors, a handsome boy who looked dazed at being singled out for flirtation. “Some never mature at all.”
“Of course they do. They must.” Francis circled around so he could turn his back on the garden. “They’re women.”
He had an irritating way of making grave pronouncements of such absurdity Dom didn’t know whether to smash his face in or laugh in it. “Her Highness isn’t so sensible. She’s fascinated by my occupation.”
“You’re a tradesman.”
God, Francis was a snot. “I’m a mercenary.”
Francis’s nostrils pinched as if he smelled something putrid. “Does His Majesty know this?”
Dom almost laughed—this was too much fun. “Yes, of course.”
“And he let you take Laurentia into dinner last night and ate breakfast with you this morning?”
“He says my money’s as good as anyone’s.”
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