The elderly gentlemen looked surprised to find a woman in counsel chambers, but neither of them questioned Annie’s presence. Instead, they took their places in front of Rafael’s massive desk, one of the oldest and most ornate pieces of furniture in the keep, and pretended she wasn’t there.
Rafael cleared his throat and ran one stiff, sore hand through his hair. It served him right, he thought, for behaving like an idiotic despot, handing down decrees. He had important matters to deal with and Annie was a distraction to say the least.
“What news do you bring from Morovia?” he asked the visitors, his voice a little louder than normal, and a bit gruffer, as well.
Morovia, the country’s capital, overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, as did St. James Keep itself, and was just a short ride down the coastal road. Though the palace was there, and the formal seat of the Bavian government, Rafael rarely visited the walled city; he had too many memories, some agonizing, some poignantly sweet, of that place.
“Things are quiet, for the moment,” said Von Freidling, minister of Bavia’s northern provence. His gaze, drawn like a plump child to a plate of sweetmeats, strayed to Annie, who sat in prim silence on the other side of the room, then swung back to Rafael’s face.
Rafael was not reassured by the news Von Freidling conveyed. Things had been “quiet” just before Georgiana was shot, too. “No incidents of violence, anywhere?” he asked, and his disbelief was plain in his tone.
Von Freidling and Butterfield exchanged glances.
“There was a problem at Miss Covington’s residence, Your Highness,” Butterfield confided, with the utmost reluctance. He, too, stole a look at Annie.
Rafael leaned forward in his chair, fear spiraling, cold, in the pit of his stomach. Felicia Covington had been his mistress during the year following Georgiana’s death and, although their association had settled into a purely innocuous friendship, he still cared for her deeply. If Felicia were hurt or killed, the guilt and regret would be beyond bearing.
“What kind of problem?” he demanded, more breathing the words than speaking them.
Von Freidling shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Some rebels tried to break in. Mr. Barrett’s men were well able to fend them off, however, and Miss Covington is fine.”
Rafael was not mollified. If he had taken more precautions to protect Georgiana, she would still be alive. “I want her brought here immediately. Under armed guard, of course.”
Neither man opposed him but, out of the corner of his eye, Rafael saw Annie lean forward in her chair. All signs of dignified insurgence were gone from her manner, replaced by a wary and somewhat thoughtful expression.
Rafael had a flash of insight that he found very disquieting.
Annie was stricken by what she saw in Rafael’s face and heard in his voice when he and the visitors discussed the mysterious Miss Covington. There could be no avoiding the conclusion that this woman was important to the prince, not after the command he’d issued.
Miss Covington was to be brought to St. James Keep, straightaway. She was undoubtedly beautiful and sophisticated, and the vehemence with which Rafael had spoken indicated that there was a close and probably intimate bond between the two of them.
Annie wanted to weep at the discovery, even though she knew the news should not have surprised her. It was perfectly natural for a man like Rafael to have at least one mistress, and the practice was common in the upper classes. Several of her father’s friends had taken paramours, though Charlotte Trevarren had promised her husband a slow and excruciating death if he ever made the mistake of breaking their marriage vows. Apparently, he’d taken those words to heart, for as far as Annie could tell, the passion her parents felt for each other was as tempestuously joyful as ever.
To hide her crestfallen face, lest Rafael happen to glance in her direction, Annie rose from her chair and turned her back to him, acquainting herself with the room. The walls were bare of the paintings, tapestries and gilt common to most such chambers and though the chamber was vast, there were minimal furnishings. The only things to be found in abundance were books, tattered ones with broken spines, and others that appeared new.
Standing at a leaded window, looking out on a sun-splashed garden, Annie bit her lip and struggled against a sudden and silly urge to cry because Rafael cared for Miss Covington. She’d been a dunce ever to fall in love with him, and naive as well, to think so vital a man would be celibate.
Not that Annie had expected Rafael to notice her as a woman during her visit to Bavia, because she hadn’t. To him, she was merely his sister’s troublesome schoolmate, the eldest of the Trevarrens’ unruly daughters, and there was no redeeming herself, not after last night’s escapade on the tower ledge. Upon reflection, the stunt seemed not just foolhardy, but woefully, mortifyingly childish.
Annie thought of Joan of Arc, whom she admired, and tried to be strong. She had known that her love for Rafael would always be unrequited, and she’d long since resigned herself to life as a spinster. All she’d hoped to garner during this brief visit to St. James Keep was a collection of pretty memories to sustain her through the lonely years ahead.
So why did it hurt so much to learn that Rafael loved a certain Miss Covington?
Annie was greatly relieved when the conference ended and the two men left. Perhaps now Rafael would reverse his decision that she must stay within his sight for the whole of the day—she no longer took secret satisfaction from the edict—and dismiss her. At the moment, she wanted nothing so much as some private time, preferably in one of the gardens, to smooth out her ruffled emotions and collect herself.
She felt Rafael’s gaze on her and turned, against her will, to look into his eyes.
“Annie—” he began, hoarsely. But then he shoved his fingers through his hair and shook his head, apparently in answer to some inner question of his own. “Lucian and I have plans for a fencing match—”
A surge of spirit lifted Annie on its crest. “Perhaps,” she said mildly, after swelling her bosom with an indrawn breath, “I shall have the pleasure of seeing you run through.”
Rafael laughed, and some of the tension was dispelled. “Perhaps,” he allowed, taking her arm again and escorting her out of the august chamber. “In the meantime, let’s just see if you can behave yourself.”
She bristled. “You judge me too harshly, Your Highness,” she said, hurrying to keep pace with his long strides. “I made one mistake, after all. You make it sound as if I have a whole career of mischief-making behind me!”
Rafael arched one dark eyebrow and spared her a brief, wry smile. “Phaedra wrote me often from St. Aspasia’s,” he said, without slowing down. “Usually to ask for money, of course, but she did describe you, albeit with affection, as the despair of every nun in that revered institution.”
Annie hoped the heat in her face didn’t show through her skin. When she saw Phaedra again, she’d have a thing or two to say to her concerning the confidentiality of friendship. After all, in her letters to her own family, Annie had never once been so disloyal and feckless as to pass on a single account of the princess’s misadventures. Of which there had been more than a few.
They descended the main staircase and crossed the great hall in silence. Only when they had reached the courtyard where, sure enough, Lucian was waiting with a smile and a pair of rapiers, did Rafael speak.
“Sit down,” he told Annie bluntly, “and don’t move until I give you my permission.”
“Really, Rafael,” Lucian protested mildly, before Annie could spring to her own defense. “You are being a bit arbitrary, don’t you think? One of these days, the peasants are going to trundle you off to the guillotine for tyranny, like poor Louis of France.”
Rafael pulled off his green velvet morning coat and tossed it aside, revealing a loose-fitting cotton shirt of the sort Annie’s father favored. The smile he tossed his brother was a cold one. “It is my privilege to be arbitrary,” he replied, at length. “I am, after all, the prince of Bavia. And happily, my fate is none of your concern.”
Annie opened her mouth to speak, but Lucian didn’t give her a chance.
He flung one of the rapiers to his brother, who caught it deftly by the handle and made it sing with one quick motion of his wrist.
“All hail the prince of a country sliding into its own grave to rot and molder like a corpse,” Lucian mocked, with a sweeping bow. “Alas, who will be left to mourn our once-lovely land?”
Rafael did not respond, though Annie saw a muscle pulse in his jaw.
After that, the graceful combatants were in a world of their own, it seemed to Annie, a violent and treacherous place, with laws known only to the two of them. She could probably have sneaked away without being noticed, but grim fascination and a bittersweet ache in the back of her heart held her fast upon the marble bench, her hands clenched together in her lap.
The first ringing clash of the rapiers sent ice water trickling down Annie’s spine, and she held her breath as the match grew more and more ferocious with every passing moment. Sparks spilled from the thin blades and the very air seemed charged with tension, and still the battle went on.
First one brother seemed to prevail, then the other. Despite his smaller stature, Lucian fought valiantly, parrying, thrusting, once driving Rafael back until the garden wall blocked any further retreat.
It was obvious that there was something more than a normal rivalry between these two, and it puzzled Annie, as well as frightened her. Her Quade uncles, all lumbermen in faraway Washington State, brawled constantly among themselves—it was a family sport—but the tussles were always good-natured ones, punctuated with colorful insults and much laughter. And Annie’s own sisters, Gabriella, Melissande, Elisabeth and Christina, were all much younger than she was. She adored them, though they sometimes made her cross with their pestering, and had no doubt at all that she would die to protect them, should the need arise.
Rafael and Lucian, by contrast, plainly despised one another.
The engagement continued for what seemed like an eternity to Annie, then, finally, Rafael swung his sword arm and sent Lucian’s rapier clattering across the stones of the little path that wound through the garden.
The prince was breathing hard, his shirtfront soaked with perspiration, as he watched the crimson-faced Lucian retrieve his lost weapon.
The look in Lucian’s eyes was feral as he straightened, the slender hilt in hand, to face his brother. Something passed between the two men, although neither moved or spoke, something intangible and, in its own way, as violent as their fencing match had been.
“Perhaps another time, Lucian,” Rafael said, and though his manner was stiff, Annie caught a note of sorrow in his voice.
Lucian lingered briefly, and it seemed that he was on the verge of saying something. In the end, however, he spun about, rapier in hand, and disappeared into the keep without another word.
Annie looked at Rafael, relieved that the encounter was over, amazed that both men would walk away whole.
“I’d like to go now,” she announced.
Rafael looked surprised to see that she was still sitting there, on the garden bench. Finally, however, he shook his head. “No,” he said, in such a contrary tone that Annie did not offer an argument. “You will stay.”
She stood, her knees trembling under the skirts of her new yellow dress. Only the night before, while clinging to the gargoyle on the tower parapet, she’d feared she wouldn’t live to wear it. “Your hands,” she said. “Look. You’ve hurt them again.”
Annie crossed the short distance between them and took his left hand in hers. He was still holding the rapier in his right.
“You’re bleeding,” she whispered, examining his injured palm.
When she met his gaze, she saw an angry vulnerability in his eyes. She knew he wanted to withdraw from her, knew also that he could not. It was a surprise to both of them, Annie realized, when he curled a finger under her chin, bent his head and kissed her.
At first, Rafael was tentative, barely touching Annie’s mouth with his own. In the next instant, however, he took command, making her part her lips for him, conquering her with his tongue. Sweet fire rushed through her, consuming every awareness but that of his mouth on hers.
Annie was forever changed by that brief and blazing encounter; she knew it even then.
At last, Rafael drew back and muttered a distracted curse. “I’m sorry, Annie,” he said, and then he turned and strode away, leaving her to stare after him in wonder.
Her captivity had ended and, at the same time, it had only begun. The effects of Rafael’s kiss reverberated through her body while his words echoed in her mind.
I’m sorry, Annie
….
When she could move again, Annie hurried deeper into the garden, one hand over her mouth, crying softly. All around, roses thrived, vibrant red ones, perfuming the air, courting the bees like concubines, but she took no pleasure in their brazen beauty or their scent. Rafael had made everything so much worse by kissing her—he’d awakened her to sensations she hadn’t imagined, given her a glimpse of what it would mean to live out a lifetime without him.
Intrepid as she was, she couldn’t bear the prospect.
Sinking onto the grass, which was fragrant and somewhat overgrown in that forgotten place, Annie wept in earnest. She was hiccoughing, and utterly spent, when she felt hands grip her shoulders and looked up to see Lucian’s face.
He raised her to her feet and drew her gently into his arms, and she didn’t resist. She needed, at that moment, to be held.
“Crying over Rafael?” he scolded, in a low and tender voice. “Don’t waste your tears, Annie. He’s not worth it.”
Annie rested her forehead against Lucian’s shoulder as she would have done if he’d been a wall or a tree with a sturdy trunk. He’d changed his shirt since the fencing match, but he still smelled faintly of his exertions, and for all her misgivings, Annie found his presence comforting.
She made several false starts before she finally managed to reply. “What makes you think I was crying over him?”