Prince Charming (31 page)

“Orlando!” she cried, and backed away, flinching at his wrath.

He froze.
“Orlando?”

“He said he doesn’t want there to be another rift in the royal house. He told me about the king’s threat to leave Ascencion to Prince Leo if you don’t do what he says. Rafael, if you don’t marry one of those girls, you’ll be disinherited. I don’t want you to lose everything all because you spared me and my friends. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your life!”

“Wait one moment.” In light of his history with women, he wasn’t quite ready to believe in her noble excuses. She was the girl, after all, who had said she would never marry anyone ever. “
When
did Orlando tell you all this?”

She swallowed hard. “Yesterday.”

“Yesterday,” he echoed as his fears began to materialize. “And you knew what you were going to do—refuse to give yourself to me? You knew that yesterday? Concocted this plan with my cousin?”

She stared at him in silence.

“Come, Dani. Out with it.” His heart was pounding and there was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You’re telling me you went before God today and gave your word—in front of the church and all those people—you made me a promise and it was a lie? Were you lying up there today?”

“You don’t understand!” she cried, tears filling her eyes.

“I think that I do.” He stared at her.

Perhaps lust and ravaged pride were clouding his brain, but all he could seem to think was that it was Julia all over again and he had walked right into a trap made of heartless, female wiles.

She looked so innocent, so young.

He was such a fool.

“An annulment, eh? You intended to deceive me even before you set foot in the church,” he said bitterly. “Maybe you’ve been lying from the start. Of course you have. In the jail. You would say anything to save your own pretty neck, wouldn’t you? And Mateo’s,” he spat.

“That’s not true! I was in earnest! I am trying to protect you, Rafael!”

“You’re protecting yourself, you lying little thief!” he roared. “You gave me your word. Everyone warned me not to trust you.”

“I care for you!”

“Do you?” He lifted his chin, staring at her in searing fury. His tone was calm, polite. “Then get in that bed and spread your legs and prove to me you’re not a liar.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” she warned him. “I am not one of your theater trollops.”

“Damn you,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping. “You used me.”

“
I
used
you
?” she echoed in amazement. “You’re the one using me! You made that perfectly clear. You told me right to my face that the only reason you were marrying me was to use me for my sway with the people. Now I find out you’re using me to strike at your father—a man whom I personally happen to admire.”

“I am not using you to strike at my father. I am sick and tired of being controlled. Nor will you control me! Damn you!” he wrenched out in anguish. “You were supposed to have been on my side.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

“I see now you think me a joke, just like everyone else does,” he said softly. “You were the one who was supposed to believe in me.”

“I do believe in you, Rafael. That’s why I stopped you tonight.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “If you consummate our marriage, you will never be the king. It’s me or Ascencion. I won’t let you make the wrong choice.”

“Really?” he said cynically. “Well, all I know is that I gave my pledge of honor this day before my God and country, and I’m not breaking it for you.”

“Stay back!” she shouted when he took a step toward her.

“I’m not going to touch you,
wife
,” he muttered in contempt. “I merely need to use the tip of the blade.”

“What for?”

He didn’t answer. Giving her a cautious glance, he took the end of the blade between his right forefinger and thumb. Holding it steady, he brought up his left hand and nicked his thumb on the point before she could stop him.

“What did you do that for?” she demanded.

He winced as blood rose to the small wound. Squeezing the cut so that it bled even more, he walked to the bed, turned down the covers, and wiped his blood on the sheets.

Slowly lowering the sword, she looked at him in bafflement.

“Was it good for you?” he asked sardonically as he quickly stripped the sheet off the bed and carried it toward the doorway.

She just stared at him, her brow furrowed.

Sending her a smug look of victory, he went into the other room, opened the door, and handed off the bloodstained sheet to the palace steward, who was waiting discreetly in the hallway.

Catching on too late to what he was about, Daniela came running. “Rafael! Stop!”

He quickly closed the door and blocked it with his body, folding his arms over his chest and smirking at her.

She stared at him in shock. “Proud, willful man! What have you done?”

“No annulment now, my love. Did you think I was going to just let you make a fool of me in front of all Ascencion? You’re stuck with me now, my girl. The proof of your deflowerment has already been submitted. So I propose we go back to bed and finish what we started.”

She gaped at him in amazement. “Arrogant, unscrupulous blackguard! You would cut off your nose to spite your face!”

He arched a brow at her.

Marveling at him, she shook her head in angry disbelief. “You are such a child.”

“I do have a certain boyish charm,” he drawled, perversely delighted that he had exasperated her as thoroughly as she had him.

She narrowed her eyes. “Your so-called proof settles nothing. A doctor’s examination can still prove I am chaste when your parents return, and the marriage can still be annulled. I will not yield! If you want me, you’ll have to force me—and I know full well that you won’t.”

No, he wouldn’t.

Irked by her accurate assessment of the situation but smiling tautly, Rafe considered his next move carefully. It seemed he had only one option.

Slowly, he walked toward her, pressing her blade gently aside.

Watching him, her eyes huge in the dark, she let him get near, too proud to back down when her fight was up, he supposed. He took her lovely face between his hands and lowered his mouth to hers, giving her a slow, light, seductive kiss.

“I won’t have to force you, Dani,” he breathed silkily. “We’ll see how long you can hold out.”

She moaned barely audibly under his kiss. Her slim, warm body melted against him, undoubtedly against her own volition. She had been left as hungry for release as he. Her need engulfed him, but the lady had made her wishes clear.

“You know where to find me, darling. But this time, you’re not getting it until you ask me nicely,” he whispered. With a heated, slight smile, Rafe pulled out of her arms, turned, and walked away into his adjoining room.

She was still standing where he’d left her with a lost, dreamy look of aching desire when he shut the door between them.

But he didn’t lock it.

  
CHAPTER  
TWELVE

The next afternoon they were due to make their first public appearance as man and wife. The occasion was the christening of a majestic new ship of the Royal Navy. Under an azure sky, the little whitewashed, red-roofed port town was festooned to welcome them. The open area around the quay was jammed with people who had come to catch a glimpse of the royal newlyweds. Dani wondered if everyone who had come to congratulate them could see that they were not speaking to each other.

Behind the raised dais, the blue harbor served as a backdrop. Graceful ships with furled sails bobbed gently in their berths behind them. Standing at the podium, Rafael made a brief speech to the people while Dani stood by his side, smiling fixedly with placid pride and listening attentively to her husband as he mesmerized the crowd with his deep, mellifluous voice, holding them captive with his golden charisma.

It was excruciating to stand here in public with him when privately everything between them was in shambles. But, by God, she was determined to uphold her end of their bargain in this sense, at least. She would do her part to help him win the love of his people. Only, she was already beginning to see that he really didn’t need her assistance.

They
wanted
to believe in him. They wanted to love him. All they needed was a decent overture from him to show that he cared—and anyone could see that if there was anything the rakehell prince cared about, it was Ascencion.

He spoke beautifully. Despite the simplicity of his conservative clothes, there was a splendor about him which she could not help but admire. The sea breeze carried to the crowd his eloquent words affirming the future. Dani felt the way the whole throng seemed to drink in the sight of them together, sending a wall of cheers back to him when he had finished.

Dani clapped for him, too, as the wave of deafening applause rolled over them, heady, intoxicating even to her shy sensibilities.

When he turned, threw a grin at the crowd over his shoulder like an accomplished showman, then smashed the bottle of champagne against the ship’s mighty hull, they went wild, their roar punctuated with impassioned cries of,
“Viva il principio! Viva la principessa! Viva Ascensione!”

Rafael’s smile as he waved back at them was dazzling beyond the sun’s glint on the waves. Then he turned to her and held out his hand, meeting her gaze in silent, forceful instruction, with a flash of hostile, heated lust in the green depths of his eyes. She understood what she must do, however, and rested her hand tremulously atop his. With a sweeping gesture, he presented her to the thundering crowd.

She kept her chin high while the world stared at her and applauded in jubilation, for what reason, she could not guess. She certainly didn’t feel she deserved it after the debacle of the previous night.

Their visit to the port town was not long. Tonight there was an ambassadorial reception which Dani was already dreading. The next few days were booked full of similar social events and public appearances which she had no choice but to attend. Like Rafael, she was public property now. When they got into the carriage, it was necessary to wave until they had passed through all the areas where people lined the streets to hail them. At last, their cavalcade turned onto the King’s Road not far from the place where she had once robbed him. The carriage sped through the woods’ green shadows, heading back toward Belfort.

Across from her, Rafael sank back against the squabs, drew off his gloves, and pressed his eyes with one hand.

She wanted to tell him how moving and eloquent his address to the crowd had been, but she decided not to risk opening herself to conversation when it would probably just turn into another argument.

The tense, awkward silence went unbroken all the way back to the Palazzo Reale, Rafael staring hungrily at her, as though daring her to meet his gaze and know his desire, but she kept her nervous gaze riveted out the carriage window.

When they arrived at the palace, Dani got out of the carriage and hurried at once to her apartment without saying a word to anyone. She couldn’t stand the tension anymore that was bunched up inside her muscles. She needed activity.

She ran up the marble stairs, locked the door inside her apartment, mistrustful of the look she had seen in Rafael’s eyes. She half-feared he might come up and try to coax her into bed again if she lingered, so she moved quickly, changing her clothes to a smart riding habit.

A fast, vigorous gallop was just what she needed. She missed her horse, who was even now stabled in the royal livery. She would have liked to ride the expensive white Arabian mare that had been one of Rafael’s wedding gifts to her, but since she wasn’t going to be keeping Rafael or his gifts, she did not want to get used to such luxuries. Her skittish, liver-bay gelding was good enough for her.

With her veiled, brimmed hat and riding crop tucked under her arm, she dashed out of her apartment again, waving off her maids impatiently. She was bounding lightly down the marble stairs when Rafael stepped into her sight at the bottom of the staircase.