Dani had dozed off waiting up for him, but her maid woke her near three, saying that His Highness had come home. Shaking off sleep and hurrying to him to see how the hunt for his kinsman had gone, she crossed paths in the hall with Elan.
One glance at his stooped shoulders, pale, drawn face, and red-rimmed eyes filled her with certainty that something terrible had happened. To spare Rafe the telling, Elan forced himself to take her aside and recount the awful news.
Dani covered her mouth with her hand in shock to hear that Nic and Adriano both had died. Immediately she went in search of Rafael, a pall hanging over her heart.
She asked the servants where he had gone, fearful of the shattered state in which she’d find him. At last, one of the footman told her he had seen the prince go outside.
Dani rushed down the marble hall and plunged out the back door into the chilly predawn darkness.
He was sitting on the steps that led down from the edge of the veranda to the sunken formal garden. His broad back was to her and he didn’t move, as though he hadn’t even heard the door bang closed behind her.
She paused as a tremor moved through her, then forced herself forward.
“Rafael?” she asked very softly a few feet behind him.
No response.
Her heart aching for him, she advanced to the top of the steps where he sat with his folded arms resting atop his bent knees, his face buried in the crook of his arm.
Oh, my poor prince,
she thought as she sank down beside him.
Lifting her hand uncertainly, she touched his shoulder. When he did not protest, she ran her hand down the broad curve of his back and began stroking him gently, offering silent, probably futile comfort.
After a few moments, he lifted his face from his arm and held his head in his hands. He gave a long, unsteady sigh and stayed like that.
Dani was afraid to breathe. “My darling, I am so very sorry,” she whispered.
“I have made a mess of my life,” he said in a hollow voice after a long time.
“No, sweetheart.”
“I failed. I can’t do this. I’m in so far over my head. I just…don’t know.”
She moved closer and draped her arms tenderly around his shoulders. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“He killed my friends.”
“I know, honey.”
He shrugged off her embrace. “He shot Nic point-blank in the chest. And Adriano…” He shuddered and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, his eyes closed. He looked shaken to the core. “He killed him, too. For sheer meanness. He didn’t have to do that to him.” His voice dropped to a low, savage whisper, his body utterly tensed and still. “I’m going to get him, Dani. So help me, God, I’m going to find him and send him back to hell.”
Carefully, tentatively, she laid her hand on his shoulder.
He made a strangled sound of anguish and abruptly reached for her, startling her. She caught only a glimpse of his stark, haunted face before he embraced her almost with a violence, crushing her to him. She held him tightly, but there were no words for a moment like this.
She could feel his large, powerful body trembling in the night’s chill.
Abruptly, without a word, he moved down and laid his head in her lap, holding hard around her waist.
In pained silence, she wrapped her arms around him, caressed his hair, and bent over him with fierce, protective love. She existed in that moment solely for Rafael. With tears in her eyes, she poured her strength out for him along with all the sweetness that she had to give. She knew he was devastated.
She could feel his effort to keep his grief in check as he clutched her skirts in his big, hardened fists, shuddering. She held him more tightly, gently stroked his hair, and whispered,
“Shhh.”
She did not know how long they stayed like that, until the sorrow that had risen to choke him eased its grip and his body’s trembling quieted under her long, soft caresses down his back.
Dawn was still hours away, but they sat listening to the lulling sough of the distant sea.
She kissed his shoulder at length, then rested her cheek on it and closed her eyes.
She recalled the hours of waiting for word of him, dreading that he had come to harm. She leaned over him and kissed his cheek. “Come to bed, husband. You are exhausted.”
He gave a huge sigh. “Yes.”
Obediently, he dragged himself up from her lap and climbed to his feet, offering her his hand to help her up, in turn. She stayed close to him, slipping her arm around his waist as they made their way through the silken dark toward the door. He hooked his arm around her shoulders, almost leaning on her in his bone-deep fatigue.
They crossed the darkened, empty ballroom under the soaring dome. Wearily, they climbed the marble stairs with matched strides.
“Do you want anything to eat?” she murmured, glancing up at him in concern.
He shook his head.
“A drink of warm milk? Tea?”
“Nothing,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her hair. He led her to the room where Adriano and Tomas had brought her on the night of his birthday ball. Without ceremony, they went in and crossed the little sitting room to the chamber with the mirrored bed.
Both too tired to undress, they crawled into the huge bed and curled up in each other’s arms. They lay in silence, facing each other. Rafael loosed his hair from its queue, then laid his head on his pillow again and closed his eyes.
“It’s too hot to sleep,” he said in a sullen tone after several long minutes.
“Try, my darling. You’re tired.”
He sighed.
For a long time, Dani stared at him, gently petting his head.
“I keep seeing them,” he murmured with his eyes closed.
“Then look at me.”
He dragged his eyes open, eyes that were glazed with suffering and exhaustion. He gazed at her. She leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead, then decided he might be more comfortable if she undressed him a bit.
Approaching the task shyly at first, she untied his cravat and slid it from his neck, then unbuttoned his waistcoat. She sat up. He said nothing, staring at her while she pulled his hands into her lap and unbuttoned his cuff links one by one. She blushed, unbuttoning his shirt down his chest, but did not falter, murmuring to him to sit up so she could pull his unfastened waistcoat and shirt off his shoulders.
He gave her no argument as she peeled them off him. She grimaced faintly at the blood on his clothes but thanked God it wasn’t his. He was covered in the grimy dust from the road. He smelled of horse and earth and sweat.
He smiled wanly at her as she wrinkled her nose, carrying the sodden clothes away. She returned with the water jar, a basin, and a cloth, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
While he lay back against the headboard, she sponged him down with the cool water and the cloth, slowly wiping the caked dust and sweat from his face and throat and chest. He watched her every move, light from the single candle she had lit playing over his haggard face. Carefully, she washed his sculpted stomach and his lean sides, admiring him with loving wistfulness. His skin gleamed a ruddy, bronze hue in the candlelight. Even at a time like this, his noble beauty had the power to move her.
“Turn over and I’ll wash your back,” she murmured.
Willingly, he obeyed, lying down on his stomach. He folded his arms across his pillow and rested his cheek on the broad muscles of his arm. His gold-tipped lashes drifted closed while she wrung out the cloth.
She continued bathing him, running the cloth in long gentle strokes along the supple, flowing lines of his strong back. After a while, a look of restfulness stole over his angular features.
Staring at him in a sudden wave of fright to ponder the danger he had been in, she leaned down and kissed his cheek lingeringly. His jaw was golden and sandy, in need of a fresh shave.
He sighed sweetly at her kiss, long and deep. “You’re a good wife,” he said in a drowsy murmur.
“Oh, Rafael,” she breathed, nestling her nose against his cheek, her heart beating faster.
He rolled over onto his back, drawing her down to kiss him. A moment later, he pulled her more snugly atop him, hungry for her comfort, caressing her hair and her back as he parted his lips for her kiss. She ran her hands ceaselessly over his chest and shoulders and arms, thanking God he was safe.
“Daniela,” he groaned softly, closing his eyes. “I need you tonight. Heal me.”
“Come to me,” she whispered, sliding off him.
He wrapped his arms around her and eased her slowly onto her back. She stroked his cheek as she gazed up at him in adoration. He undressed her quickly in the dark with shaking hands, feverish on her skin. She helped him shed the rest of both their clothing. Then he moved atop her, kissing her urgently. She wrapped her arms around his wide shoulders and enfolded his lean hips between her legs in sensual, wifely welcome, giving everything until he found peace and stillness in her love.
He awoke holding Daniela, spoon-fashion. Slim and lithe, she curled snugly in the protective curve of his body as he lay on his side. His first thought on waking was that her hair, tickling under his nose, was the most wonderful cinnamon-chestnut shade.
Then loss filtered back to him through the milky dawn light and he knew it wouldn’t leave him anytime soon. He closed his eyes, aching with the gaping void the previous day’s bloodshed had left in his life.
Gone.
As though they had been no more than a puff of breeze, vanished. It was astounding, the fragility of life…so many lives on his shoulders. A tremor of sheer terror moved through him to think of his kingly destiny, and he pulled Daniela closer, vowing that no matter what happened, at least no harm would befall her. He swore it to himself.
Lying with his love, he felt a fraction of serenity and it gave him power—strength enough, at any rate, to face his blistering disillusionment about his father.
There was no longer any doubt in his mind that Orlando was his half-brother. Father had mentioned sowing his wild oats as a young man. Rafe’s stomach clenched with anger to wonder if the so-called Rock of Ascencion had cheated on Mother.
The very thought of it made him want to strike his father. For his sanity’s sake, he decided to withhold judgment until he learned more. He could scarcely imagine how hurt his mother was going to be to learn that Orlando was the king’s bastard son, for she loved her husband with selfless devotion. Maybe Father didn’t know Orlando was his offspring, or perhaps fear of hurting Allegra had stopped Lazar from dealing with the matter in his usual head-on style.
The whole matter made Rafe all the more glad he had decided to swear off extramarital affairs.
Gazing at Daniela as he raised himself up on his elbow and gently petted her hair, he realized she was the only one he could really trust, besides Elan. If Orlando had gotten to Adriano, he might have gotten to anyone.
Even the ultra-loyal Prime Minister Sansevero.
Rafe realized he was going to have to find some way of detaining Don Arturo without causing a riot among the nobility. Lord, it seemed as though everything was swiftly coming to a head.
Just then, Daniela stirred, arching her soft backside against his groin as she stretched herself awake. His body responded at once, heatedly.
“Good morning, ginger cat,” he murmured with a doting smile, nuzzling her ear.
“Hmmm, purr,” she replied.
She lifted her lashes and he stared down into her eyes. The color of them stole his breath.
“Waterfall pools in a tropical Eden,” he whispered, caressing her gently but with intense feeling.
She wrinkled her nose. “What?”
“Your eyes. You’re so beautiful. I’m so in love with you.”
“Silver-tongued charmer,” she scoffed as she turned over onto her stomach, trying to stifle her giggle.
“That wasn’t wise, if you’d hoped to escape me,” he murmured, smiling as he ran his open hand down her back. His fingertips trailed over the pert curve of her backside and down the back of her thigh, lightly, tickling her legs until they parted slightly. “See? A sinner like me can always find an alternate route into heaven.”
“Pagan.” She giggled again and shivered slightly under his touch, then turned her face to him, her hand tucked under her cheek. “Uh-oh,” she whispered, smiling with kittenish flirtation as his hungry sex nudged her bare flesh beneath the white sheet draped over their waists. She laughed drowsily as he kissed her cheek, then her shoulder. His joy bittersweet, he moved lower, leaving a soft trail of kisses down her spine and sprinkling light, nibbling kisses along the curve of her backside.
“You’re a wicked rake,” she chided in breathless, dreamy delight, arching her back deliciously under his lips.
“You could reform me,” he suggested as he moved atop her, covering her smoothly with his body.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she purred.
He released a soft, husky laugh into the chestnut silk of her hair and applied himself to fulfilling his husbandly duties, healed somehow by her blissful surrender, and grateful from the far reaches of his spirit for the love she had brought into his life, just when he needed it most.
The state funeral for the three Royal Guardsmen was held the next day, but the greater trial of Nic’s and Adriano’s funeral came on the day following that: a hot, muggy afternoon with a white glare from the overcast skies. As the funeral procession made its way through the crowded but strangely still streets of Belfort, Dani saw people glancing upward frequently at the clouds, but there was still no rain.
They arrived at the cathedral where they had celebrated the royal wedding. It was filled this day with the shaken aristocracy in mourner’s black.
At the front of the church, Dani stood close to Rafael, her hand linked through his.
Ascencion saw its crown prince transformed that day, she thought as the trying rite dragged on. His angular face was austere and drawn, slightly pale, as though he had been chiseled from marble. His bearing was quiet, stern, and controlled, full of dignity in grief. His chin was high, his black suit cut in smooth, clean lines.