“You lost this at the ball,” he whispered, skimming her cheek with the tip of his nose as he placed a small object on the table before her.
She dragged her eyes open and found herself staring down at one of her silver spurs.
“You left it in my bedchamber,” he added silkily.
She huffed at his innuendo and turned away, blushing crimson, but at least she managed to hold her tongue.
With a slight, arrogant smile, as though he knew precisely his effect on her, he pushed away and walked languidly around the table. On the other side of it, he pulled out a chair, spun it lightly around backward, and straddled it, lowering himself. He folded his arms over the chair’s back, rested his chin on his arm, and stared soberly at her.
“Tell me everything.”
“I can’t talk until you give me water,” she croaked.
Studying her, he frowned and nodded, getting up. He walked to the door, asked quietly for drinking water, and returned a moment later with a pitcher and a tin cup, pouring as he crossed the chamber to her. He held the cup out to her and she took it warily from his hand. He folded his arms slowly over his chest and watched her drink in lusty greed. She basked in the heaven of water filling her mouth, rushing down her parched throat, but her eyes opened when she felt him stop her with a firm hand on her arm.
“Slow down. You’ll be sick,” he murmured, reaching across the table.
She lowered the cup and peered longingly into it in order to avoid looking at him. When she glanced up at him hesitantly, she found him staring at her wet lips. She looked away, dizzy with the memory of his deep, slow, drugging kisses last night. Oh, he was a wicked man, somehow making her want him even when she knew he was about to send her to the gallows.
Resting both her elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands.
A long moment of silence passed and neither of them moved, she sitting at the table with her head in her hands, he standing across from her, watching her with relentless patience, his arms folded across his broad chest.
“Why did you do it?”
She drew a deep breath and lowered her hands, watching her fingers as she interlocked them. “Two hundred souls count on my lands for their livelihood, Your Highness. When the drought struck and ruined our crops, I saw that if I did not come up with the money from somewhere, they would starve. I tried other ways. I sold off all my mother’s jewelry. But I could not sell myself to that swine Count Bulbati, so I invented the Masked Rider. But,” she admitted, swallowing a fraction of her pride, “I never intended for it to go this far.”
“It was a witless thing to do. You do realize, Lady Daniela, that I am bound by law to hang you?”
She steeled herself and lifted her chin. “If you are expecting me to grovel for mercy, Your Highness, don’t waste your breath. I have been aware from the start of the consequences of my actions and I am prepared to die.”
He stared at her. “Good God, are you always like this?”
She shrugged.
“My foolish urchin, your life is in my hands and so, might I remind you, are the lives of those peasant boys to whom you seem so inordinately attached.”
Her wary gaze flicked back to him at his mention of the Gabbiano brothers. “What about them?”
He rested his hands on the back of the chair across from her. “Tell me this. The eldest—Mateo. Is he in love with you?”
“What? No!” she scoffed, blushing instantly.
“I want the truth.”
Her scowl turned to a look of confusion. “I—I don’t know. I hope not.”
He pulled out the chair and sat down, skimming his fingertips restlessly over the nicked and scarred surface before him. “Yesterday, the man was willing to hang rather than reveal the Masked Rider’s identity. I questioned him myself and all he continued to do was insist that
he
was the Masked Rider. He was willing to die in your place.”
“Well, I’d do the same for him, but it’s not that kind of…”—she hesitated with an uncertain frown—“love. The Gabbianos are like brothers to me.”
He leaned forward and asked conspiratorially, “You mean your noble Mateo has never declared himself?”
“Good Lord, no! I’d run him through if he tried, and he knows it!”
He appeared to fight a narrow smile. “Then is it safe to presume you are not in love with him, either?”
“Love,” she declared, “is for fools.”
He studied her with a mystified gaze. “Aren’t you a little young for such a policy, my dear?”
“I am not your dear; I am not your anything!” she burst out, feeling trapped and blushing intensely at the hungry way he was staring at her. “Are you going to tell me my sentence or are you going to stand there tormenting me? Because I don’t see what this line of questioning has got to do with anything!”
“Obviously, it’s a matter of critical importance.” He gave her an aloof smile. “Forgive me, we royals must be as blunt in these matters as horse breeders. Too much is always at stake for the niceties, you see. Questions of legitimacy are a part of royal life.”
“And what has that got to do with me?” she retorted.
“Well, for example, when you bear my sons you will have to do so before a small audience. Another case in point—after our wedding night, proof of your virginity will have to be shown to the elders of the council—”
Dani didn’t wait to hear the rest.
She shot up out of the chair, only to be stabbed by a bolting pain in her stomach from gulping the water. She let out a small yelp and fell back down to her seat again. Clutching her stomach, she doubled over in her chair.
Rafael was by her side in an instant, down on one knee, steadying her with a large, firm hand on her shoulder. “Shhh, breathe deep. It’ll pass.” He stroked her back in long, soothing caresses, slowly quieting her spasms as the pain dispersed. “Thata girl,” he whispered. “You’re a tough one, Daniela Chiaramonte. God knows you’ll make one hell of a queen.”
“What are you talking about?” she rasped, her face searing red.
“Did I forget to mention? You are going to marry me. That is your sentence.”
She stared at him blankly. “You must be drunk.”
“Sober as a churchman.”
“Are you out of your mind?” she nearly shouted.
He smiled—charmingly.
“I will not marry you! No!
No!
”
“Of course you will, my dear. Come, Daniela—here I am, down on bended knee for you. I lay my kingdom at your feet.” His tone was jaunty, his eyes twinkling. “It appears I have rendered you speechless.”
Ohhh,
a joke. Yes, that was it. Now she understood. She wanted to strangle him until that boyish grin wilted off his fine mouth. “Don’t you dare try to charm me, Rafael di Fiore.” Wretched with nausea and fury and disbelief, still holding her stomach, she glared at him, her hair hanging lankly in her face. She could not believe a woman could look such a wreck and receive a marriage proposal from the catch of the century.
“First you shoot me! Then you have me dragged to your room and try to seduce me! What kind of perverse game are you playing with me now?”
“
Tsk, tsk,
Daniela, so suspicious.” He smoothed a lock of her hair behind her shoulder, touching her as though he owned her already.
She felt herself starting to panic in earnest. “You’re not serious.”
“Oh, yes, I am.”
“I can’t marry you! I don’t even like you!”
“That’s not what your kisses told me last night,” he whispered with a knowing smile.
“Do you think I’m such a country bumpkin that I can’t see what you’re doing?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes. “You’re trying to make a fool of me!”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Why would I do that?”
“To get back at me for robbing your witless, shallow friends! I know you’re going to hang me or worse, so just quit this cruel game—”
“Quiet,” he said firmly, cupping her face in his black-gloved hand with a touch so soft it brought tears to her eyes. He held her gaze in steady reassurance and solid confidence. “This is no jest. You’ve got yourself into some serious trouble here. Let’s just say it amuses me to help you. Naturally,” he added, as his touch on her face turned to a light caress, “I expect you to help me in return.”
She stared at him, slack-jawed with disbelief. “How?”
“Oh, several ways,” he whispered, stroking her cheek with his knuckle. “You have the proper lineage. You are, I daresay, in sound health for bearing me sons.”
“Sons?” she echoed, paling. Dear God, he
was
serious. His princess? His queen? She did not know the first thing about being a queen. Her head swam as she gaped at him. True, she had the great Chiaramonte name to boast of, but she had never even been presented at court due to her family’s financial plight.
“I apologize if my offer lacks romance, but I am not of a sentimental nature,” he said with a breezy shrug, lowering his hand. “Besides, you said love is for fools, which I can attest is true. You told me at your villa that you intended never to marry, but I’m afraid you forfeited your freedom when you took to lawless behavior. You see, Lady Daniela, the plain fact is I have a use for you.”
“A use—for me?” she asked weakly.
He nodded. “Fortunately, criminal though you are, you were never dangerously violent. We both know the Masked Rider is loved by the people of Ascencion. You are something of a national heroine, while I, on the other hand—well, the commoners are less than enamored of me. They are only commoners, I know, but I desire my people to care for me as they care for my father. You, my lady, are just the instrument I need to win them over. This will serve as your dowry.” He lifted her black satin mask from the table and dangled it before her eyes.
Wide-eyed, she looked from it to him. “His Highness wishes to use me…for my influence with the people?”
He was watching her reaction closely, a flicker of some mysterious emotion in the green depths of his eyes, but his tone remained light. “Yes. That sums it up rather neatly.”
“I see,” she said, dropping her gaze, her mind reeling. “What exactly would my role involve?”
He shrugged cynically. “You need do little more than stand by my side, wave to the crowd, and look happy.”
But he had mentioned sons. She studied him, debating. Of course, as the crown prince, it was one of his chief duties to produce heirs, she knew, just as it was his future wife’s raison d’etre to give them to him. She had long harbored an abnormal fear of childbirth, but at the moment, the notion of actually bearing his children seemed so impossible, implausible, unimaginable, and unreal that it did not really frighten her.
What frightened her was the thought of having an unprincipled, unreliable, and utterly charming rake for a husband—and worse—far worse—falling in love with him. Becoming his thrall, his slave.
“Be wise, Daniela,” he murmured, watching her emotions war in her face. “This is no place for your pride.”
She rested her forehead in her hand and glanced mistrustfully at him. “What about the Gabbiano boys? The only way I can agree to this is if you let them go free.”
“
What?
Don’t be absurd!” he retorted, his self-assured facade slipping as he scowled angrily. “I’m not about to let them walk away clean when we both know they are guilty under the law! Do you want to make me a laughingstock?”
“Then I’m afraid we have no deal. Every crime they committed was on my orders. You can’t spare me and lock them away for the rest of their lives.”
He stared at her incredulously. “God, you are a brassy wench.” He pushed up from his crouched position before her and walked away, shaking his head.
In the silence that followed, there was nothing to do but watch him coursing relentlessly back and forth across the chamber, his long-legged strides eating up the ground, ending each pass with a clean, soldierly pivot. It was a strange and acutely unpleasant sensation, knowing that the man held their lives in his hands. She hoped she had not just sent them all to the gallows, herself included, but loyalty demanded all for one and one for all.
The prince eyed her now and then with a wariness that might have been shock or hostility or both. At the far end of the room, he stopped in profile to her. Hands on his hips, he turned and eyed her dubiously. “Banishment.”
Dani absorbed this. “They will be free?”
“As long as they never set foot on Ascencion again.”
Slowly, she lowered her head, saying nothing.
“It is more than generous,” he warned. “Banishment, Lady Daniela. It is my final offer.” He paused. Tapping his lips with one finger in thought, he began striding toward her. “As a matter of fact, I have a couple of conditions for you in return.” He leaned down and planted both hands on the table across from her, probing her with an even stare. “First, you must give me your word that you will desist this playing at Robin Hood. You have put yourself in foolish danger quite long enough and I will not have my wife making a spectacle of herself. No more Masked Rider.”
For a moment, she said nothing, her mouth pursed tautly. Already the commands had begun, she thought, man and wife—master and slave. She would have liked to wrest a promise of fidelity from him in exchange, but she might as well whistle down the wind. There was no point asking him to be faithful when he was only proposing a marriage of convenience designed to save her neck and win him his people’s affection. She supposed she should reconcile herself to it now that Rafe the Rake would never change. He had said it himself:
There are always Chloe Sinclairs.
“And your second condition, my lord?” she asked, her voice edged with resentment.
His stare intensified, boring into her, scanning the very depths of her. “Second, if you are my wife, you must never lie to me. I can forgive anything but deceit. Fall to human frailty, disappoint me, walk out on me, break my heart. But never—ever—lie to me.”
She knew the moment he said it why Rafael demanded this. With sudden, jarring uneasiness, she remembered the old half-forgotten story of how a beautiful woman spy at court had seduced and tricked him when he was just an innocent youth. The country had nearly been plunged into war with France. The whole kingdom knew the tale, perhaps the world. Now the fierceness in his eyes captured her, made her hold her breath. He had granted her every demand, asking only for honesty.