Annie nodded. “And other things. It’s true, Rafael. Now, what do you intend to do about the situation?”
Rafael’s answer startled her completely. “Marry you,” he said, taking her hand and dragging her toward the stairway. “Find that priest and send him to the chapel,” he called to a soldier up ahead. Then he turned and looked down into Annie’s eyes. “At least there’s a proper dress for you to wear, and wine and wedding cake, too, if the locusts haven’t consumed it all.”
“Rafael—”
He was pulling her down the stairs. “I’ll hear no maidenly protests,” he said, over one shoulder. “My child will have a name, if not a father.”
Annie stopped cold and dug in her heels. “What do you mean, ‘if not a father’?”
Rafael wrenched her into motion again. “We’ll discuss that later, Miss Trevarren. For now, let’s just get ourselves married.”
After that, everything happened in an even greater hurry. Annie was given no more opportunity to protest, for Rafael abandoned her in the center of the courtyard and disappeared into the chapel. Moments later, the bell in the tower was ringing, and the population of the keep rushed to investigate.
Some of them surely thought the prince had gone mad when he put his head out of the belfry window and shouted that there would, after all, be a royal wedding in St. James Keep, and within the hour.
Annie wanted the marriage above all things, but she had a hollow feeling in her heart as she went inside to don Phaedra’s magnificent gown and veil. There
was
a kind of madness in Rafael’s actions, and he was, after all, only taking her to wife because of the child.
He had not even promised to leave the keep with her and seek safety in France, or spoken of a shared future at all.
Half an hour later, resplendent in a bride’s garb, Annie was escorted down the main staircase and across the great hall by Kathleen and two of Rafael’s soldiers. The chapel and courtyard were packed, as they had been during her performance earlier in the day, and Annie had a weird sense of going backward in time.
It was all real enough, however. The organ music thundered, and Rafael stood at the front of the chapel, beside the same priest. Lucian caught her eye as she hesitated on the threshold, and she saw such malice in his face that a shiver trembled down her spine.
“Go to him,” Kathleen said, giving her a little push from behind.
Annie took a stumbling step toward her bridegroom, full of trepidation and ecstasy, fearing the future and at the same time hoping for miracles. Rafael held out a hand to her, and it was that gesture that drew her the rest of the way.
Even when she’d reached Rafael’s side, and could feel him standing next to her, strong and solid, Annie feared she was only dreaming. If she awakened to find herself alone in her room, she thought, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
She listened to every word the priest said, stealing an occasional glimpse of Rafael out of the corner of one eye. The assembly was asked if anyone could give just cause why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony, and Annie held her breath. Though there was some shuffling in the pews at this point—enough to make Rafael turn and sweep the congregation up in one grand glower of warning—no one spoke up.
Annie responded when a response was requested of her, and tried not to think beyond the moment.
Finally, the priest pronounced them man and wife and said, “You may kiss the bride.”
Rafael bent his head, his lips a breath away from hers, and whispered, “My Princess Annie.” Then he kissed her, albeit with such chaste restraint that Annie opened her eyes and stared at him in surprise.
He chuckled and hooked her arm through his, saying in a low voice, “Don’t worry, my love. Ours will be a wedding night to remember.”
Foreboding brushed Annie’s spirit like the wing of a mourning dove. Rafael sounded as though he thought that was all they would have, that single night.
The prospect was unbearable for Annie. Losing Rafael would be infinitely harder, should the worst happen, now that he was her husband. The idea of being parted from him was too painful to entertain, so Annie permitted herself to pretend the world wasn’t going to end at any moment.
After the ceremony, an impromptu reception was held in the great hall. Rafael was cheerful, even buoyant, drinking toast after toast and singing raucous songs with friends and soldiers. That his enemies numbered among both groups did not seem to trouble him.
Annie, for her part, wanted only to be alone with her new husband. To her, every moment was precious.
The drinking went on and so did the singing. Annie smiled and accepted congratulations from people who had probably been gossiping about her in the shadowy corners of the hall. She danced with Rafael, when a gypsy band struck up a tune on fiddles and mouth harps, the skirts of Phaedra’s wedding gown making the rushes whisper on the stone floor.
It was after one in the morning when Rafael finally took Annie’s hand and led her toward the staircase. A great cheer went up when he whisked her off her feet and carried her to the second floor, and Annie blushed. She had always been too forward for her own good—or so said the nuns at St. Aspasia’s—but having everyone in the castle know she was about to be formally bedded was disconcerting.
Rafael did not take his bride to his chambers, however, or to hers. Instead, he strode along the passageways toward the back of the keep, and Annie realized with some surprise that he was not the slightest bit drunk. The singing and the toasts and the boisterous celebration had been some sort of act.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, thinking it a reasonable question.
Rafael smiled. “Away from here,” he replied, setting her on her feet with a teasing frown. “You’ve already been eating for two, I see.”
Annie laughed. “Cad! No gentleman ever refers to a lady’s weight.”
He took her hand and set out again, at full stride, pulling her behind him. “I will refrain,” he said, “from the obvious response to that remark.”
Presently, they came to one of the castle’s many rear-staircases and started down. They walked out into a garden, and Annie was pleased to feel a soft, misty rain touch her skin. After the heat of the crowded hall and the exertion of dancing, the sensation was a welcome one.
At the edge of the garden, a buggy waited, hitched to a single horse. The groom in attendance touched his hat in silent acknowledgment.
Rafael lifted Annie into the seat, then climbed up beside her and took the reins. “Remember,” he said, flipping a coin to the stable hand, “you haven’t seen a sign of us.”
The groom smiled and touched his hat again.
Soon, the buggy was bumping and rolling through the orchards. Up ahead, Annie could make out the shapes of the forest, and catch an occasional sparkling glimpse of the lake. She had guessed by then that Rafael was taking her to the spare little cottage, where he had taught her the first lessons of pleasure.
She rested her head against his shoulder.
The cottage had been prepared; there were lamps burning, the sheets were fresh and the covers turned back, a fire flickered on the hearth.
Rafael had carried Annie over the threshold, as tradition demanded, and her heart brimmed as she looked around at their private hideaway.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” she said, before she could stop herself.
Rafael, standing behind her, kissed her bare, mist-dampened shoulder. “Forever is too much to ask,” he replied.
Annie flinched at the reminder and turned in his arms. “Why did you marry me?”
He bent and brushed her lips lightly, teasingly, with his own. “No questions, Princess. I love you, and if tonight is to be all we have of eternity, let’s make the memory worth cherishing.”
Annie could not speak, but her eyes filled with tears, and her heart brimmed with bittersweet emotions she had never felt before, let alone named. She trembled as Rafael turned her around and began working the tiny buttons at the back of the dress.
Completing the task, he pushed the gossamer fabric down over her shoulders, then her waist and hips. The splendid gown made a glittering cloud at her feet, and she turned slowly to face him before stepping out of it.
Rafael’s gaze consumed her as the firelight danced over her camisole and petticoats. She saw a muscle pulse in his jawline and stood on tiptoe to still it with the softest of kisses.
He groaned when Annie boldly removed his jacket and tie, then unfastened his stiff collar and threw it aside. When she began opening his shirt, he stopped her by taking her hands in his and holding them against his chest.
“Annie—” he began hoarsely.
She shook her head. “Don’t, Rafael. Don’t say anything about tomorrow, or next week, or next year.”
Rafael raised one of her hands to his mouth and kissed her palm, sending silver fire rushing through her veins. He didn’t speak, but traced a shivery path along the underside of her wrist and the tender skin of her inner arm with his lips. By the time he’d reached the satiny flesh in the crook of her elbow, Annie was unable to hide her trembling.
She made a breathless plea of his name.
He denied her the quick, fierce conquering she craved and continued to find and kiss the most vulnerable hollows and pulse points on her body. When he laid her on the bed at last, it was only to nibble at the backs of her knees at his maddening leisure.
Rafael took away Annie’s petticoat, and the drawers beneath, and finally, the camisole, opening it inch by inch. The ritual took so long that Annie felt feverish by the time it was over and could not make herself lie still.
The prince stripped away his own clothes, and in the dancing firelight he looked like a magnificent savage returning triumphantly from the hunt. Annie reached for him, and he fell to her, burying his face in her neck for a moment, as if to breathe in the scent of her, and memorize the substance. Then, with a low, primitive sound, born somewhere deep in his chest, he slid down to take her nipple.
Annie cried out in pleasure and welcome, arching her back in instinctive invitation, but Rafael was still in no apparent hurry to consummate their marriage. He stroked her side and hip and thigh with a slow, continuous motion of one hand and took his time at her breast.
She began to fling her head from side to side on the pillow, beyond verbal pleas now, but Rafael only moved to her other nipple, and took greedy suckle from it.
Annie was wild when he began trailing his lips down over her rib cage and stomach. She bucked like a wild thing set free when he took her completely with his mouth, plunging her fingers into his hair and trying to press him even closer.
He withdrew a moment before the universe would have realigned itself and watched her with an unreadable expression in his pewter eyes.
“Rafael,” she gasped, amazed that she could still speak the same language, “I love you. And I need you so much.”
Rafael moved up over her then, gracefully, giving her none of his weight. His mouth, as he kissed her, was musky with her own feminine scent. The contact, cautious at first, was soon a battle of wills and tongues, a fencing match with no clear winner.
He broke away, with a breathless groan, and gazed deep into her eyes. She felt his manhood, hard and vibrant with life, prodding her gently.
“Annie?” Rafael asked.
“Yes,” Annie answered, flinging back her head and raising her hips to grant her husband an easy entrance to her body. “Oh, yes!”
Rafael lunged into her, his thrust deep and powerful, and Annie welcomed him with a cry, her fingers clasping the taut flesh of his buttocks and urging him on.
The consummation of the royal marriage was a glorious, blazing thing, as ferocious as the mating of two sleek young panthers in some unexplored jungle. Their bodies collided, gathered force, and collided again, and soon they were both drenched in perspiration. Finally, finally, they were one flesh, and their satisfaction was shattering.
They slept when it was over, arms and legs entwined, their exhaustion so complete that it took them beyond slumber, into a deeper darkness. They awakened and made love again, quickly, fiercely, as though they feared to be stolen one from the other, and then tumbled back into the same black void that had swallowed them before.
The rain stopped in the night, and began again at dawn. Rafael built up the fire and returned to bed, drawing Annie into his arms.
All that day, they loved and slept, pretending there was no world beyond the walls of that enchanted cottage. They talked and ate the food that had been brought for them, and told each other the deepest secrets of their hearts.
That dangerous, magical time was, to Annie, all she needed to know of heaven. They had fallen asleep, late the second night, drunk with the wine of their passion, when suddenly a fist thundered against the cottage door.
Annie bolted upright with a gasp, and Rafael reached beneath the bed and brought out a pistol. In the next instant, the wooden panel splintered around the knob and crashed against the inside wall.
Moonlight illuminated the outraged frame of Patrick Trevarren.
“So, by God,” he bellowed, “it’s true, then!”
Rafael laid the pistol down on the mattress and struck a match to the wick in the bedside lantern. “Hold your tongue, Trevarren, before you say something that will alienate you from your own child. Annie is my wife.”
Annie could only nod, peering at her illustrious father over the edge of the sheet. He was a tall, powerfully built man, with ink blue eyes and strong white teeth. His dark hair, fanned with silver at the temples, was fairly long, drawn back at his nape and tied with a thin strip of leather.
“Your wife, is it?” Patrick demanded, closing the door against the other men in his party who, Annie supposed, would have crowded into the cottage with their eyes popping if he’d let them. “Is this true, Annie Trevarren? I want none of your nonsense.”
“It’s true, Papa,” Annie said, with unaccustomed meekness. “Rafael and I were married the day before yesterday. You can ask the priest at the keep if you don’t believe me.”
“Ask the priest,” Patrick scoffed. “Not likely I’d do that. They’ve got enough to think about in the castle, with the rebels about to take the place over.”