On the other side of the newlyweds sat Queen Allegra, light-haired and gracefully maternal, on a red velvet stool, holding the then-infant Prince Leo. Known for her humanitarian efforts, the queen appeared the embodiment of nurturing, motherly wisdom.
Dani gazed at her wistfully, wondering how her own life might have been different if that stranger, her mother, had survived.
Papa would not have fallen apart, gambled away their family fortunes, and drunk himself into an early grave, she thought. She would have been raised as a proper young lady, not a wild tomboy. Perhaps if she’d had a mother, her own womanhood might not have felt so foreign and threatening to her. As it was, how could she mother Rafael’s children when she’d never even had a mother of her own?
Her gaze moved pensively over the portrait. Nestled in the queen’s arms, the baby Prince Leo gazed out sweetly from the painting with cherubic, rosy cheeks and a tuft of black curls sticking straight up, comically, from his head.
Rafael stood behind his mother in the portrait, his white-gloved hand resting protectively on her shoulder. Though the artist had captured the roguish sparkle in his eyes and the trace of his cocksure grin, his proud, hard face was even then carved with the same air of innate command as the king’s, but he had his mother’s coloring and something of her thoughtful expression.
Dani stared up at the portrait for a long time, despairing that an oddball misfit like her would ever fit into the warm and loving picture that the royal family made.
Just then, she heard voices at the entrance to her left. She turned and saw her guards admit Duke Orlando.
She suppressed a tired sigh, forcing a polite expression as he strode toward her with a darkly charming smile.
“Ah, Daniela, there you are!” he said in an amiable tone. Not content with the familiarity of addressing her by her Christian name, when he reached her, he caught her hands in his, greeting her as though they were the best of friends. He angled his square chin downward and smiled at her.
She supposed she ought to be grateful. He was the first person who had been friendly to her in days.
“I have been looking for you everywhere,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yes. I’ve been worried about you.”
She tilted her head in question. With a firm, slight smile, he tucked her right hand through the crook of his left arm, coaxing her to walk with him.
“I wanted to make sure you’re doing all right,” he murmured, lowering his voice.
“I’m well enough,” she admitted. “Thank you for asking.”
He cast her a shrewd look askance. “Have you kept all the things we talked about in mind?”
“I can think of little else.”
“Hmmm,” he said, sounding skeptical.
She looked at him in question. His dubious glance slid to hers.
“What is it?” she asked.
Judiciously, he pursed his handsome mouth. “Forgive me for speaking indelicately, my lady—but I just inspected the, er, bedlinens that were collected on your wedding night. I know you are a wily woman, however, and that the proof isn’t necessarily authentic. I had to make sure we still understand each other.”
“Aha, you’re checking up on me.” She pulled her hand from his arm and walked away, then her glance fell to the nearby portrait of King Lazar as a young man. It suddenly struck her that the likeness between the king and the Florentine duke was astonishing.
Why, Orlando looked more like the king than Rafael did! she thought. Odd that the family resemblance should be so strong in a distant cousin.
He caught up with her then and stopped her, pinning her with a hard warning look. “What happened, Daniela?”
She stared at him blankly for a second, suddenly remembering something he had said to her at their previous meeting:
There is nothing more dismal than an unwanted royal bastard.
Her eyes widened.
No!
she thought in amazement. She quickly dropped her gaze to hide her shock. Her heart was racing.
Could it be true? Could Orlando be King Lazar’s bastard son?
Maybe this was a family secret that nobody was supposed to know, she thought, her heart pounding.
He is older than Rafael…the king’s true eldest son.
Her suspicions suddenly called everything Orlando had said to her into question.
She had mistrusted the duke instinctively, enough to send Mateo investigating him, though all Orlando’s arguments to date had made good, logical sense. It would be hard on any man to see the royal heritage that might have been his go to his universally adored younger brother. She suddenly doubted the authenticity of Orlando’s brotherly concern over Rafael’s future.
He
was the one, after all, who had wanted her marriage to Rafael annulled. Perhaps he had something to gain by keeping them apart.
“Daniela, I am asking you what happened,” he repeated through gritted teeth.
She stole another glance at the king’s portrait, then at him, astonished anew by the likeness. “What do you think happened, Your Grace?”
His ice-green eyes narrowed under his long black lashes. He took her chin between his forefinger and thumb and lifted her face with a punishing grip. “Don’t think to toy with me, girl.”
“Sir!” one of her guards said harshly. A pair of the uniformed men came striding toward them.
Orlando dropped his hand.
“Your Highness?” the guardsman asked.
“It’s all right, gentlemen, I can take care of myself,” she said, casting a shrewd glance from the guard to Orlando, who stood there simmering.
“I want an answer.”
“It’s none of your business,” she replied as the guards bowed and withdrew. “And don’t you ever touch me again.”
“It is entirely my business!” he hissed. “Did you give in to him?”
She said nothing, blushing with embarrassment at the immodest topic, her heart pounding with anger at his insolence.
He held her in a penetrating stare, then a slight, cruel smile broke across his face. “No,” he whispered. “You are still pure. I can smell it. God, you please me.”
She gasped, blushing crimson, and pivoted on her heel, stalking away from him.
He followed her with a soft, cruel laugh. “Where are you going, Daniela? Don’t you want to stay and chat with your kinsman?”
“Get away from me!” With every step, she grew more convinced that he was her husband’s brother and that he coveted her merely because she belonged to Rafael.
She gained the main, white marble hallway, Orlando a step behind, her guards hastening to catch up, marching in formation at a respectful distance.
Just then, Adriano di Tadzio turned the corner ahead of her and came stalking down the hallway with his usual look of haughty contempt. In spite of the fact that the man clearly despised her, she fled to him.
“My lord, pardon me!” she called rather desperately. “Have you seen my husband?”
He stopped, tall and gorgeous, and looked down his excellent nose at her. “Oh, yes,” he said in hauteur. “I most certainly have.”
“Where is he, please?”
“Hello, Adriano,” Orlando murmured in a taunting drawl, swaggering up slowly behind Dani.
Adriano gave him a look of heated loathing. “Your Grace.”
“Have you seen Rafael?” Dani repeated. Though Rafael had been avoiding her for days, at least Orlando would stay away from her if the prince was near.
Adriano tore his hostile gaze away from Orlando and looked at Dani. “Yes, actually, I have.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t think you really want to know, Your Highness.” He said her new title with disdain.
“Don’t be a boor, di Tadzio. Just tell me where he is!” she pleaded.
“Well, if you insist.” His gaze flicked to Orlando, then to her. “Rafael is in bed with his mistress.” He smiled coolly. “Sorry.”
Dani’s eyes widened. Her jaw dropped and her heart fell.
Adriano studied her with a slight smile, and Orlando began laughing softly again.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a small voice as hurt rushed up to constrict her throat.
“Very sure. If you will excuse me.”
She turned away, stricken, reeling, barely aware of the low-toned exchange between the two men.
“Where are you headed?” Orlando murmured.
He shrugged. “Nowhere. To my rooms.”
“I’ll join you.”
Both dark, handsome men bowed to her with elegant, lordly courtesy as she turned away and walked swiftly down the hall, heartsick and dazed with pain. As she blindly made her way back to her apartment, her emotions fluctuated from despair to dread and back again with protean fluidity, but by the time she reached her apartment, quietly shut the door, and crossed to the balcony to stand in the sultry night air, she was shaking with anger—at herself.
She was the one who had chosen to believe Orlando over Rafael.
She was the one who had driven her husband into the arms of Chloe Sinclair.
And she was the one who was going to lose him if she didn’t come to terms with her fears and admit one simple fact, she thought as she braced her hands on the rail and hung her head: that she was hopelessly in love with the man.
Roughly, she brushed a tear away and sniffled. She had never needed anyone before, but the thought of losing Rafael, of letting that wonderful man slip through her fingers, made her want to die. She stared down at the place on the roof where he had saved her.
You have to claim me if you want me,
he had teased, but she knew now he hadn’t been jesting.
No,
she thought, lifting her chin with an infusion of stubborn, angry pride.
I will not lose him to that theater woman. He is my man and I’ll fight for him!
If he lost his kingdom for marrying her, well, that was his own fault. She had tried. And besides, he had never seemed overly worried about that possibility.
Orlando could have been making it all up. Between Rafael and Prince Leo and Princess Serafina’s brood of six royal grandchildren, there was no way Orlando could hope to gain the throne, she reasoned, but some people just could not bear the happiness of others. Maybe Orlando was one of them. To think she had almost let him ruin her marriage to the man of her dreams! Well, Orlando and Chloe Sinclair both could do their worst—she would not lose her prince to their scheming.
Squaring her shoulders, she pivoted and walked back into her bedroom, staring at the bed where she had slept alone since her wedding night. She knew where his old, boyhood apartment was located in the west wing, but she realized with a sinking feeling that there was no sense going there tonight.
Tomorrow, she vowed, she would seduce her husband. But would he still want an oddball tomboy-misfit when he had the ravishing Chloe Sinclair at his beck and call?
She went over to the mirror of her vanity and peered into it just long enough to acknowledge that she was…pretty…in her own wary yet warm, simple way. She touched her face, gazing in the reflection at her eyes, which he had called beautiful. Then she left the mirror and climbed into bed.
She lay on her stomach, staring toward the balcony, where the light curtains billowed on the limp breeze. She closed her eyes, determined to fall asleep so that tomorrow might come all the faster.
Forgive me, Rafael,
she thought.
I made a mistake. I should have believed in you more.
And maybe I should have believed a little more in me.
“You really must learn not to blush like a schoolgirl every time you see me,” Orlando remarked as he and Adriano strolled down the hall.
The younger man sent him a glare from beneath his black forelock, then quickly looked away. “I think I hate you,” he mumbled.
Orlando smiled. “I’m sure you do. You’ve got to pull yourself together, my boy. You’re the only one suffering these paroxysms of guilt. Chloe found it entertaining, and I certainly don’t waste my energies on regret. I thought Chloe said you had been with a boy and a girl before,” he added dryly.
“Not like that.”
Orlando cast him a knowing smile. “Wasn’t it nice to finally get it the way you need it?”
“Would you shut up about it before someone hears you?”
Orlando paused, lifting a brow at his snapping tone. Adriano glowered at him again, then walked on.
He shook his head to himself in amusement. The boy was a wreck.
It had happened on Rafe’s wedding night. Orlando had gone to comfort Chloe for purposes of his own. When he had arrived at her townhouse, he had found Adriano already with her, both of them distraught. So he had comforted them both. Anyone close to the prince, after all, was a possible weapon that could be used against him.
Orlando slid into motion again and quickly caught up to him. When he arrived at his side, Adriano glanced anxiously down the dim, empty hall, then looked at him again.
“You’re mad to jest about it. What if someone finds out?”
“You mean Rafe.”
“Anyone!”
Orlando smirked dryly. “Sorry to inform you, Adriano, Rafe knows. Trust me.”
Adrianoe turned and stared at him, looking appalled. “What do you mean?”
“It’s called turning a blind eye. He could have thrown you to the wolves a long time ago if that was his choice. Instead, he has clearly put you under his protection.” He studied Adriano for a moment, almost pitying his torment. “I think it’s safe to say that as long as you don’t irk him too badly, you’re in the clear.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong, I’m sure he doesn’t know. I couldn’t bear for him to know,” he whispered.
Orlando supposed that was true. Adriano di Tadzio was as fragile inwardly as he was gorgeous outwardly.
He had heard stories around the palace about three different episodes in the past where Adriano had been yanked back from the brink of self-slaughter by none other than the bright, shining, golden Rafe, who was, himself, the cause of his suffering.
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Orlando said almost gently. “Everyone around here has something to hide. Are you going to invite me in, by the way?”
They had arrived at Adriano’s rooms.
Adriano put his hands in his pockets and blushed, studying the floor. Orlando waited coolly, watching with interest as the beautiful young man tore himself apart with his inner war.