He could barely see, let alone think, for the wrath that swam before his eyes.
“Rafael!” she screamed after him as he urged his horse into motion, riding away down the overgrown drive.
His heart still pounded in his throat.
As he turned onto the road, he saw three riders galloping toward him. He only forced himself to stop because they were waving their arms at him. When they pulled up before him, he saw they were royal couriers.
“Your Highness! Viscount Berelli sent us to find you, Your Highness!”
“What news?” he ground out. Apparently Elan was the only loyal soul left in the world.
“He implores you to go at once to the palazzo of the bishop! Prince Leo has come back from Spain. The bishop has fetched the boy, exercising his claim as the prince’s legal guardian. His Excellency says—forgive me, Your Highness—he says he does not trust you and cannot leave the boy in your care.”
“How on earth did my brother come back to Ascencion by himself?” he demanded angrily, nudging his horse past theirs, already in motion. “He’s ten years old, for God’s sake! My parents wouldn’t send him on alone.”
The couriers urged their horses alongside his, flanking him. “It seems Prince Leo was squabbling quite a bit with the other children in Spain and decided he’d had enough. He stowed away on the ship returning. Had himself a grand adventure, the captain said.”
“The rascal, I’ll bet he did,” Rafe muttered. “I’ll go at once.”
“Yes, Sire. The bishop refused to him to the viscount or anyone else.”
“That old man is a thorn in my side,” he muttered.
With Orlando still at large, he knew the bishop was not equipped to protect Leo.
With his contingent of bodyguards only now catching up, Rafe galloped back in the direction of Belfort, trying to focus his mind on getting his little brother to safety, but his heart still reeled from the blow of Dani’s betrayal.
He shoved the awful image of her in the other man’s arms out of his mind and urged his horse faster.
They were delayed by crowds in the street because it was market day, and all the world had something to sell for the suckers who were willing to buy, Rafe thought bitterly. The bishop’s palazzo was situated not far from the cathedral. The Royal Guards yelled at the people to clear a path for him as they forged through the mobbed, hot streets under the beating sun.
Rafe had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he thought of Dani. Over and over again, he kept feeling his astonishment anew like a mighty blow to the face.
He had banished Mateo Gabbiano. No matter what excuses she had to offer, there was no getting around that fact, just as there was no getting around the fact that the two had been clutched in a tight embrace when he had walked unexpectedly into the room. What more would have happened if he hadn’t walked in?
For the fiftieth time, he thrust the thoughts from him and reeled his horse to a halt in front of the bishop’s huge ornate home with its carefully tended grounds.
He and his men dismounted. Rafe strode ahead of the pack up the front steps. He pounded squarely on the door, then froze as it creaked open under his heavy knock.
He shot his men a warning look over his shoulder. Splaying his hand on the door, he reached for his sword, unsheathed it, and pushed the door open.
No servants came to greet them. He heard no mischievous boy’s laughter.
He crept cautiously into the shining marble foyer. He looked to the right and left, cast a glance up the polished curving staircase, seeing no one. He walked in.
“Your Excellency?” he called. He nodded to his men and they rushed in, fanning out to search the rooms. “Leo? It’s Rafe! Are you here?”
“Your Highness!” one of the men suddenly called from a distant room. “Here!”
Rafe followed the shout. He wove his way through the lavish rooms.
“Here, sir!” another of his men said, indicating a chamber to the left of the main hall.
Striding into the dining room, Rafe saw his men gathered in the middle of the room.
“Sir! It’s His Excellency!”
Rafe cursed, chills of dread plunging down his spine. Shoving into their midst, he bent down beside the bishop on the floor in a pool of blood. “Don’t just stand around, find Leo!” he yelled. “You!” he ordered one. “Ride to the Palazzo Reale for reinforcements. Now!”
“Yes, sir!”
Rafe turned the old man over and grimaced at the stab wound in the middle of Bishop Justinian’s barrel chest. It had seeped through his robes and Rafe got a smear of blood on his hand as he felt the man’s throat for a pulse. Finding none, he laid the bishop’s balding head gently on the floor. A cursory glance revealed cuts on his hands and forearms consistent with a futile self-defense.
Orlando had done this.
Rafe felt it in his bones. The duke had broken in, attacked the bishop, then kidnapped Leo.
Staring down at the murdered bishop, Rafe rose in wrath just as a deep voice with an unfamiliar accent reached him.
“Your Highness, don’t move.”
He looked up in regal affront to see who dared address him so impudently.
There was an unfamiliar contingent of uniformed Royal Guardsmen moving cautiously into the room and slowly surrounding him, all of them with weapons drawn.
“Your Highness, lower your weapon.”
“What are you talking about? What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Get back to your posts.” He looked at them, not recognizing any of their faces.
One who appeared their leader took a couple of steps closer, holding him at gunpoint.
“What in hell, sir, do you think you’re doing?” Rafe asked crisply, not lowering his sword.
“Exactly what I told him to do,” drawled a familiar voice. Orlando sauntered into the doorway. “Appearances can be deceiving, can they not?”
Rafe lunged toward him.
“What have you done with my brother?”
“Halt!” the man roared at him as the others ringed him in.
Orlando folded his arms over his chest and smirked at Rafe.
Rafe cursed and tried to get at him, but the thugs wearing the uniforms of the Royal Guard blocked his path. He swung his sword, bellowing for his bodyguards, who came running to join the exploding fray, but they were badly outnumbered. A few were cut down. Fight as he may, they fell on Rafe like dogs on a wounded bull, and when they had disarmed him and thrust him down on one knee, they wrenched his arms behind his back and clapped him in irons.
Orlando loomed over him, reciting calmly, “In the name of the king and by the authority of office of the prime minister—Prince Rafael di Fiore, you are hereby placed under arrest for the murder of the Bishop Justinian Vasari and for crimes of high treason.”
“Where is my brother?”
But Orlando merely smiled, his ice-green eyes glowing with malice. When he jerked a curt nod at his men, they dragged Rafe past him out the door. They shoved him into a waiting coach and brought him before the council of his enemies.
Dani was powerless to stop them as the Royal Guardsmen seized Mateo, following Rafael’s orders.
Before they took him into custody, Mateo handed off to Dani the evidence damning Orlando, which he had risked hanging to bring to her.
She had to catch up with Rafael and explain.
As her carriage rolled swiftly toward the city, she hardly dared think what conclusions he had drawn upon walking in and seeing her embracing Mateo. He had not stayed to hear her out, so how could he know that the reason Mateo had been hugging her was because she had just told him she would soon be a mother to her beloved prince’s child? Mateo had been merely congratulating her with a brotherly embrace.
Judging by Rafael’s coldly furious reaction, she realized that the sight had triggered all his underlying fears of being betrayed in love. She was crushed to know she had inadvertently hurt him and felt bruised herself by the frigid way he had shut her out.
His defensiveness was enough nearly to make her despair. Would he never trust her? Didn’t he know she was hopelessly in love with him? When would he ever believe?
Now that almost half an hour had passed, maybe his anger had begun to clear to a more reasonable state, she hoped anxiously. If nothing else, her happy news would surely cause him to soften toward her.
At length, she arrived at the Palazzo Reale. Just as she was walking in, drawing off her gloves, Elan came running toward the front entrance.
“Principessa!”
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Elan seized her elbow. His face was ghastly pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“Stay with your guards, Your Highness. Orlando has made his move.”
“Where is my husband?”
“Don Arturo has played right into Orlando’s hands. They have—oh, God, they have arrested Rafe for the murder of Bishop Justinian and Prince Leo is missing—oh, there’s no time to explain! I have to go.”
“
What?
The bishop is dead? Rafael’s…arrested?” She stared at him in horror. “How is that possible? He’s the crown prince!”
“It’s all Orlando’s scheming and the prime minister’s old grudge!”
“I’m coming with you! Let’s go!”
“No, Your Highness, you must stay here where you’ll be safe!”
“Rafael needs me. Besides, I’ve got these!” she said, holding up the pair of folded documents.
“What are they?”
“I’ll explain in the coach—”
“Tell me now or Rafe will throttle me for bringing you into this!”
“Orlando is not the heir to the di Cambio branch of the royal family, Elan,” she said rapidly, lowering her voice. “He merely assumed that identity in order to explain his resemblance to the king! His real father is King Lazar! He is the product of a brief—very brief—liaison between the king and a Florentine baroness.”
“Oh, my Lord,” he said, eyes wide.
“This baroness—Baroness Raimondi—tried to pass Orlando off as her husband’s child, but the baron never quite believed it. Orlando looked nothing like him. This is the sworn statement of Baroness Raimondi’s faithful old maidservant, called Nunzia, who was also Orlando’s nurse.”
“But—a servant’s testament, Your Highness? What weight will it carry?”
“Along with this, enough to prove that Orlando is a liar.” She held up the second document. “Orlando’s birth certificate, registered under the name Raimondi. If we give Don Arturo reason to at least doubt Orlando and question him, we may be able to find a chink in that demon’s armor.”
“All right, but I still say Rafe’s going to throttle me,” he muttered, wasting no more time trying to dissuade her.
Dani paused only to whisper an order in her stout, matronly maid’s ear.
“Right away, Your Highness!” the woman called after her, but Dani was already marching out with Elan.
As their carriage raced through the streets to the Rotunda, the main parliamentary building, Elan told Dani of Prince Leo’s arrival and almost as sudden disappearance from the bishop’s custody. She mused with creeping dread on the realization that Orlando had all of the ruthless intelligence, strength, and magnetism of the Fiore men, but none of their goodness.
Drawing up to the Rotunda, their coachman had to fight his way through the huge crowd that had gathered outside as word of the shocking scandal of the bishop’s murder and the prince’s arrest spread. Everyone knew of the antagonism that had existed between the two.
Springing down from the coach, brushing off servants and guards, Dani and Elan ran up the front steps. The inside of the Rotunda was almost as thronged as the piazza just outside, but as royal princess, Dani was allowed through the male crowd, and Elan followed her closely.
Angry voices rang out from the floor of the Roman-style senate.
“This is a travesty! How dare you place the crown prince in chains?” demanded the navy admiral, who had always liked Rafe.
“He was caught red-handed at the scene of the murder!”
When she came to the top of the stairs that led down into the argument area called the well, Dani froze in horror at what she saw.
Below her, the floor of the senate had erupted into a violent spectacle.
Don Arturo presided, standing at the rostrum, denouncing Rafael in a state of flushed excitement. Other cabinet ministers lined the side tables, all shouting, arguing, and waving their hands. Some had risen out of theirs seats. Orlando was there, in black as usual, swaggering arrogantly back and forth across the senate floor with a slow, pacing stride, his arms crossed over his chest, glancing frequently at his younger half-brother with a mocking smile.
Rafael, crown prince, future king of Ascencion, had been forced to stand like a common criminal at the spindled, crescent-shaped wooden podium adjacent to the rostrum.
Dani could not believe her eyes. Her love, her prince—in chains, as though this were France twenty years ago, choked with its red rage, and not placid, prosperous Ascencion. His always-impeccable clothes were torn, his mouth was grim, there was murder in his eyes, and his dark gold hair hung loose and wild. He looked barbaric, like a captured Samson.
Dani charged forward, not even knowing what she was going to do.
“The whole cabinet was present the night King Lazar warned that if you did not marry one of the five selected brides, you would be passed over for the throne, and that your brother, Prince Leo, would be named your father’s successor in your place!” Don Arturo thundered at him as Dani ran down the stepped aisle. “Now that you have cast aside your father’s will in the matter of your marriage, isn’t it true, Your Highness, that you sought to make it impossible for the king to disinherit you by doing away with your own brother? Where have you stowed the child’s body?” the man bellowed.
In answer, Rafael stared at him in utter contempt but said nothing, too proud, too soaringly arrogant, Dani realized, to speak a word in his own defense. His silence expressed more than any words his contemptuous reproach for the proceedings.
As she came closer, she thought that he would betray at least a glimmer of relief to see her, even though they had just clashed over Mateo. But instead, he stared at her, going pale, at the same moment that Orlando turned in his pacing and stopped, leering at her with a slow, evil smile that grew.