The Wrong Prince (16 page)

THE BALCONY AWAITED ABOVE, INNOCUOUS
, patient, dove-white. Faint candlelight flickered through the door pane, and Cerise squinted up at the balustrades. Taking a breath, she unfurled a length of her lariat and grasped the neck of the lasso. She spun it overhead, gaining momentum. The balcony was on the third story; she prayed she had enough rope. Not that she’d ever set foot on a farm, but she’d learned a good deal about lariats. At least something useful had come from tupping so many cowmen.

It took several attempts. Somewhere around her fifth throw, the lasso finally took to the rounded head of a balustrade. Cerise tugged on the line hanging down the south wall. It was as secure as she could hope for.

After kicking off the cumbersome boots and trousers she’d stolen, she unraveled the hem of her dress. She then took hold of the lariat and climbed up, her arms burning to support her weight. Although her blood pounded with such anxious ferocity, she barely noticed her sore biceps or chafing hands. She nearly slipped at the second story, but clenched onto the rope with heightened zeal. Up she shimmied, making gradual progress, until she could touch the smooth stone balustrade.

She took hold of the columns and hoisted herself up. She refused to look down at the grounds extending beneath her. Breathing heavily, she straddled the railing and finally slid down into the balcony’s confines. The glass-paned door was ajar, as it had been before. She paused with caution, listening.

She left the lariat in place; she may need it for an escape. But now was the moment of intrusion—quiet, gentle intrusion.

There was just enough space for her to squeeze through the door. With one hand raised in a gesture of peace, and the other poised at her garter, she stepped into Ira’s bedchamber.

The canopy bed was empty, although the linens were mussed, as though recently occupied. Cerise glanced around. At last, she spotted him. He sat at a mahogany writing desk, his back to her, running a quill across parchment.

Cerise moved in. If her footfalls made any sound, they were lost upon the king, who continued to scribble with intensity. He met the bottom of the page, tossed the leaf aside and resumed with a fresh one. Coming behind him, Cerise noted that the parchment she’d assumed he had filled was blank, as were the others piled beside it. She looked to the page he currently wrote upon. It, too, bore no markings, even though Ira’s hand moved midway down the paper.

Cerise frowned. The quill was dry. He wrote with no ink.

He must have sensed her there, for his shoulders stiffened, and he stopped. Cerise remained in place. Ira turned, taking in her appearance, and his granite eyes hardened with recognition. “You,” he muttered. He took a breath, widening his mouth to alert the staff, but Cerise clenched the dagger strapped at her garter and brought it to his throat. His hands lifted in careful surrender.

“Before I kill you,” she said calmly, “I only wish to know something.” She studied his pallid face, the wasted apathy in his eyes. “Why did you try to drink from the goblet? You knew it was poisoned.”

“Perhaps,” he rasped, “I no longer wish to live in a world without the ones I hold most dear.”

“Held,” Cerise corrected him. “Your wife and son are dead.”

He winced as if she had cut him, although the blade had not yet touched his skin. Aggrieved, he looked away.

“You lost your family, yes.” Cerise brought the dagger closer. “But you are still king of this land. You could’ve had anything you wanted. A new wife, more sons.”

His eyes were suddenly aflame. “And despoil their sacred memories?” he exploded. “How dare you suggest my family could ever be replaced? They cannot be!”

“I know what it is to mourn.” Cerise lowered her face to his. “But it does not excuse what you’ve done.”

“Hypocrite,” he spat. “You are nothing but a murderess.”

“I only kill scoundrels who have it coming to them. Not innocent men and women.”

Ira glared at her, unflinching. “You know nothing of my plight, witch.”

Cerise rested the knife against his worn flesh, upon the pulsing vein in his unshaven neck. “When my daughter entered this world stillborn, think you that I did not weep? Think you that I do not grieve her loss to this day?” She dug the knife nearer still. “But that does not entitle me to cause others undue suffering. Nor does your grief excuse you.”

The last word had hardly left her lips when Ira bared his teeth and knocked the dagger from her hand. It flew through the air and scuttled across the flagstone floor. Cerise leapt after it, but the king shot up and seized the back of her stolen blazer.

She tore open the jacket, brass buttons popping free and bouncing across the rug. The king was left holding the garment as she slid her arms from it in wild search of her dagger. But the man caught her by the shoulders, his grip unspeakably strong, and spun her around to face him.

Cerise sucked in a breath at his maddened face, those previously emotive eyes now vacant, his grimace murderous. He lunged at her, and something ejected forth from beneath his unfastened collar—a gleam of silver and shimmery gold. Reflexively, Cerise reached for it. Grabbing onto the chain around his neck, she tugged mightily, attempting to throttle him with it. He choked with strain, cheeks purpling, until the links burst apart.

Cerise barely noticed the broken golden chain slipping to the ground, seeing only the intriguing silver key that fell along with it. Ira was coughing, eyelids pinched shut and massaging his throat as the woman caught the key and tucked it hurriedly into her brassiere. Wheezing, the king reopened his eyes. Cerise stood before him, weaponless, breast heaving.

Fluidly, the man knelt down. When he arose again, something glinted in his grip. Her dagger.

She backed into the wallpaper as he stalked forward triumphantly. Drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. Cerise tugged at a tear in the bust of her dress and bared her cleavage to the blade aimed at her heart. “Do your worst,” she whispered, though she doubted he could understand her in his present state. “It is already broken.”

Ira’s eyes glassed over. And then, quite suddenly, he turned the weapon on himself, and ran it across his own throat. Cerise screamed as he staggered back, rich blood seeping from his neck, gurgling from his mouth. Onto the bed he collapsed, face-up, his stomach rising with shallow breaths until, with a shattered croak, he fell still.

Shaking, Cerise approached the body and pried the dagger from his wet hand. Her heart pummeled her chest with the irrational fear that he would jerk awake at her touch and slay her at any moment. But no such objection occurred, and Cerise took back the weapon, drying the blade on his lank, velvety garments. She was sliding the dagger back into the sheath at her garter just as three curt knocks sounded at the bedchamber door.

Her chin shot up. “Damn,” she whispered, and scrambled out to the balcony.

DEATH WAS THEIR SENTENCE. HANDS manacled to one another, bare feet chained to the filthy, damp dungeon floor, Lucie and Geo sat side-by-side, awaiting the ultimate punishment. The band of soldiers marched back up the staircase, leaving the two prisoners to languish in the drabness with only a sconce on the wall, and a pair of guardsmen keeping vigil at the base of the stairs.

Lucie reckoned she’d cried out all of her tears during the agonizing descent into the fishy, rusty place of her pending demise; more crying would be useless. It was over. They were in chains. Unless the King of Llewes ordered their freedom—which was about as likely as a starved wolf pitying its cornered prey—they would not live to see the light of another day.

Geo leaned his head against the wall. “Why?” he croaked, sounding on the verge of shedding his own tears. “Why did I let you come with me, Lucie?”

Her heart dropped. In their final moments, the man was regretting the time they had shared? Did he believe her responsible for the outcome?
Was
it her fault? Had she not run fast enough, held her head high enough?

“That day at the river,” Geo bemoaned, “I should’ve ordered you to return with the horses. Nay, that first evening, in the stables! I should have forced you to remain behind in safety.” He shook his head. “I never should have dragged you into this. I should’ve alerted everyone at the banquet that night of your intentions. They all would’ve insisted you stay. But I was so single-minded, in such a hurry. And now you’re going to die, because of me.”

Lucie blinked. “Geo, I….” She gently jiggled the hand that was cuffed to his. “I wanted to come. I made my own decision.” When he didn’t respond, only looking ill, she went on. “This isn’t your fault. We’re in it together.” She took a breath. “And if I’m going to die anywhere, then I want it to be here, at your side.”

Her throat tightened as he turned to look at her. Silence stretched between them, an abyss of hidden truths, unspoken confessions, and Lucie gathered her resolve. She would not carry her secret to the grave. Neither would she allow Geo to perish without knowing how she truly felt. “I need to tell you something,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

He surveyed her, eyes haunted with caution.

“I never knew your brother,” Lucie admitted. “Nor was I intimate with anyone else, for that matter. You are, and always were, the only man in my life.” She exhaled, resting her back against the wall. A weight had been released from her, and now floated skyward and away.

The prince’s gaze softened, although his confusion was evident. “Then why did you—?”

She tried to retain her calm, but passion seeped through her voice. “Everything I claimed that night,” she choked, “was my attempt to ease the pain of our unchangeable fates.” She closed her eyes. “I needed to say something to ensure that you’d not come after me. If you knew how I really felt, then you weren’t liable to quit. I only wished to make it easier to tell each other goodbye. I’d no idea that the stranger to whom I’d been betrothed would turn out to be the other prince!”

She reopened her eyes to meet his. “I’m so sorry, Geo,” she breathed. “It was a lie. The most heartless lie ever told.”

Countless emotions played across his features in the torchlight. “Nay,” he finally uttered. “The most heartless lie ever told, Luccia Camerlane, would be to profess your love for me when, indeed, you have none. So tell me now.” His hand found her knee. “Did you ever love me?”

“Aye,” she burst, “I always have, and forever will!”

“Say it,” he pleaded, squeezing her leg as he brought his chin over her crown. “Oh, Lucie, I want to hear you tell me, just this once.”

“I love you,” she declared. “I love you, I love you.”

“And I love you,” he confessed. He nestled his lips at her neck, trailing them up her chin until they latched onto her mouth. Geo kissed her, tender and true, warm and familiar, and Lucie’s heart flew. It was absurd—their mission had been foiled, brutal foreigners were preparing to slay them, and the poor Crown Prince…was he really gone? All the same, Lucie had somehow never felt freer. Geo loved her, and he now knew that she loved him, too. She thought she had no more tears to cry. She was wrong.

They broke apart, and Geo’s expression mirrored her elation. His was the face of the sun still fighting to shine amidst the raging storm. Lucie shrugged her shoulders against her moist cheeks to dry them, and her mouth lifted into a smile for him.

“Lucie.” He spoke her name as though it contained new meaning. “I only need to ask…if you never knew my brother, then why did you risk your life coming after him?”

She laughed. “I came after
you.
I couldn’t let you journey out here on your own. I wanted to keep you safe. And I….” Her spirits sunk. “I failed.” She thought of her mother, felt the amethyst pressing at her breast. “My mother lost her life to give mine,” she mumbled. “S’pose I thought I could be a heroine, too. If I could have saved you and your brother….”

“You’ve not failed,” breathed the prince, running his lips across her hair. “Your love has rescued me in my final hour. You are my heroine, Luccia, my heart.”

Another smile broke through her tears. If she was about to die, at least it would be as Geo’s. He was leaning in to kiss her again when a thunderous scrape reverberated all around them, and an orchestra of new voices flooded the dingy dungeon.