My Ruthless Prince Read online

  “It’s not your choice to make.” She refused to wince at his lie. He wanted, needed her love, and he knew it. There was no denying it after all that.

  Surely knowing he was discovered, he turned away in seething frustration. Looking increasingly angry, he dragged his hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you would play these games with me.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “For God’s sake, cover yourself,” he grumbled, but she just looked at him, lifting her chin in proud defiance.

  “That’s my offer,” she said evenly. “Anytime, any way you want me. Anywhere but here.”

  He snorted. “And I thought the torturers were good,” he taunted, glaring at her. He helped himself to one last, insolent look at her bare breasts, then met her gaze in reproach, shaking his head at her.

  He pivoted and went stalking into the chamber, grabbing his coat off the peg on his way out.

  Emily jumped slightly when the door slammed.

  Only after he was gone did she let out a shaky exhalation. Warding off a twinge of humiliation, she slowly pulled up her sleeves again.

  Well, her bold gamble hadn’t gone perhaps as well as planned, she admitted, adjusting her bodice, covering herself again. But at least now she’d got the blackguard thinking.

  Patience. Give the medicine time to work.

  Assuring herself he’d be back, she picked up the now-cold cup of blackberry tea and took a sip, hoping it might help to soothe her. Her stomach had knotted up a bit at his reaction, but the tea was no help.

  She made a face and poured it out over the railing.

  All the while, her mind revolved on Drake. Had she pushed him too far? She was aware that his whole life had become a maze of mind games, living among the Prometheans. He would not have expected it from her. But what choice had she had?

  The lunatic wouldn’t listen to reason.

  Don’t worry, she promised herself. Falkirk’s influence on him is nothing compared to yours, especially now.

  If only she could be sure.

  Well, she was nowhere near giving up hope.

  He would come to his senses soon. Then they could leave this place, and as soon as they reached some safe haven, then she could finish giving him his reward.

  Indeed, she could hardly wait.

  Smiling to herself in spite of his bluster, she languidly pushed away from the railing and went back into his room, still savoring the pleasure of what they had just shared. She was no expert on men, but, oh, yes . . . she believed he would be back.

  I am not going back in there, Drake vowed.

  He’d find somewhere else to sleep. For if he had to see her looking that beautiful one more second, playing her games with him, trying to bribe him with her body, he was going to do something rash. Maybe he should just ravish her and be done with it.

  But, of course, he would never force any woman, especially Emily. That would make him no better than bloody Lamont. But a man could dream . . .

  Fuming with frustration, he stalked down the corridor, still throbbing, and not from simple fury. His body was beyond indignant at the denial when heaven had been offered up to him, waved under his very nose like a silver tray arrayed with the most delectable temptations.

  Who would have guessed that his little, violet-eyed Emily would turn out to be crueler than a Promethean lord?

  Virginal she might be, but she was not without her wiles. That conniving minx, with her soft hair and her yielding body and her impossibly stubborn will.

  Good God, he hadn’t touched a woman in so long, and the truth was, he had waited for Emily Harper all his life.

  Well, she had got the best of him tonight.

  He was surprisingly shaken by her brash move. The one person in this place he had thought could be trusted not to play games with his mind.

  Of course, he understood why she had done it. But he still couldn’t go. Not when he had just figured out how to destroy them.

  Brushing her angrily out his mind, or at least trying to, he took refuge in the all-male sanctuary of the Guards’ Hall, where the men who were off duty congregated at their leisure. If ever there was a time for a good German beer, it was now.

  Jacques and five of his men were seated at one end of the hall, while the elite personal bodyguards of a few Promethean leaders sat at the other. The latter were Drake’s counterparts, serving their high-ranking foreign masters in the same capacity in which he served James.

  True believers, they were sure to be present on the night of the ceremony. They would have to be factored into the equation. He kept his distance from them, pouring himself a beer from the tapped barrel by the sideboard, then walking over to Jacques’s end of the hall. The French mercenaries, some smoking, some playing cards, were seated casually around the fire.

  Drake noted their surprise when he joined them; he rarely fraternized with them and only did so then because there was nowhere else to go.

  For that matter, where the deuce was he to sleep tonight? He was not sure he trusted himself to go back into that room, and if he did, he was not at all sure he trusted her not to drive him mad.

  Every man had his breaking point, and he was already walking far too close to the edge.

  Joining the men, he gestured to one of the younger fellows to get out of the leather armchair where Drake wanted to sit.

  He was particular about where he positioned himself in a room. He could not possibly sit with his back to the door, for example. He had to be able to see what might be coming at him. Especially with that collection of highly skilled Promethean bodyguards loitering at the other end of the vast room.

  The lad launched himself out of Drake’s way, and Drake settled a moment later into the chair. Then he attempted to calm his churning thoughts by simply focusing on the taste of the beer: earthy and rich, with a light foam.

  Ahh.

  Jacques was watching him with a curious quirk of his eyebrow.

  “What?” Drake grunted.

  “Is good?” the French sergeant asked wryly, nodding at his pewter tankard.

  Drake conceded this with a wary nod. “Aye.” Then he retreated into himself once more, but not for long.

  “What the hell are you laughing at?” he asked the two fellows playing cards.

  They were looking at him, saying something.

  “Eh, nothing, sir.”

  He stared at them. “I thought so,” he warned.

  But Jacques smiled slyly. “Capitaine, we are just wondering why you are not with your servant girl? Did she tire you out already?”

  The others laughed, tempting fate, but Drake decided not to take offense. Scowling, he gave them the only answer that came to him. One word: “Women.”

  “Aha!”

  The Frenchmen laughed again more heartily, warming to their favorite topic and his rare receptivity.

  “I knew it!”

  “Did she throw you out already?”

  He gave them a sardonic look, but did not really mind their jesting for some reason.

  “Perhaps you need advice on how to handle her,” one began.

  And then all the helpful French fellows, ever the experts on the daughters of Eve—or so they thought proceeded—to advise him, their unromantic British blockhead.

  Drake drummed his fingers slowly on the chair’s arm as he listened to them, rather amused in spite of himself. He guzzled half his beer.

  “Did you give her any compliments?”

  “Did you make a conversation? Did you ask how is her day?”

  “She’s my servant,” he retorted, playing along. “Why the deuce should I care how her bloody day was?”

  “Oh, no, no, no! This is abominable!”

  He grinned at their aghast responses to his apparent indifference to the chit, and shrugged off their advice with a nonchalant curse in their own tongue, smiling into his beer.

  “No, I don’t believe it,” Jacques declared at last, noting the deviltry in Drake’s eyes. “The capitaine is full
of shit.”

  Just then, James appeared in the doorway, spotted Drake, and began walking toward him.

  Drake rose slowly, but Jacques had not yet spotted the old man coming up behind him. “I think this petite jeunne fille means more to you than you let on, monsieur. Far more!”

  “Nonsense,” he replied, then he looked at James in question, praying the old man had not heard the man’s remark. It was all too true. “Sir?”

  “Ah, there you are. I have here your instructions on what we will need to prepare for our many colleagues’ arrival.”

  “Yes, sir.” He nodded, taking James’s list, glancing at it. “I will see to it at once.”

  “That’s all right. You may begin tomorrow,” he replied in a droll tone, glancing in curious amusement from Drake to the Frenchmen. “Getting a bit of advice on the ladies?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Drake muttered wryly.

  The men smiled, as did James. Perhaps the old man was bemused to find him acting for once more like a human being than some lethal automaton. Well, he had Emily to thank for it, but Drake still prayed that James had not overheard Jacques’s all-too-perceptive observation.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. At ease,” James dismissed them.

  The mercenaries resumed their places, sitting down again. James sent Drake a twinkling look of humor, then bid him good night.

  He sketched a bow. “Good evening, sir.”

  When the old man had exited the hall, the casual atmosphere slowly returned, but Drake remained tense. Scanning the list of practicalities to be dealt with in preparation for the arrival of a hundred more Prometheans and their respective entourages, he was unaware of Jacques watching him.

  “Drake?” he murmured.

  He looked up from the paper.

  Jacques glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer. “What was that place today?” he whispered uneasily. “The men are asking questions. Who are these people?”

  Drake shook his head. “It’s none of your concern.”

  “Come, that was a statue of the devil—”

  “You accepted the contract. You took the money. No questions. That was our deal. You don’t want the answers anyway, trust me. You just do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

  Jacques frowned at him, uncertainty in his dark eyes. He sat back, clearly having heard the warning in Drake’s words as well as the threat.

  Perhaps Jacques had begun to sense that he and his crew would be lucky to come out of this alive, Drake mused, though he did not allow his grim thoughts to show on his face. The Prometheans rarely left loose threads hanging about for the Order to find.

  Drake was fairly sure that after Jacques and his men had served their purpose, he was going to be ordered to poison them or some other such unpleasantness.

  He took another swallow of beer, but at the reminder of all the dark business ahead, he could not even taste it anymore. Draining the tankard, he set it aside and strode out of the hall without a word, without a backward glance.

  Chapter 10

  France

  The loyal Promethean agent who operated the safe house and listening post in Calais had given Niall a welcome worthy of Malcolm Banks’s son and future head of the Council.

  At the simple residence on a cobbled street of the quaint seaside town, the true believer had provided him with a meal and the best bed in his house, along with the use of the man’s wife for the night, of which Niall had taken full advantage.

  As dawn’s light crept over the horizon, he was almost ready to leave. He’d been given some fresh clothes, plenty of food and water, weapons, a pair of horses, maps, and a compass, anything he might need for his trek into the Alps.

  After a meal the previous night, he had finished encrypting the message for his father and handed it off to the safe-house chief, who in turn had sent off one of his most reliable couriers to hand it personally to Malcolm.

  Father,

  I was captured by the Order but have escaped. Falkirk is plotting against us. He has called a gathering at Count Glasse’s seat, Waldfort Castle. Get there as fast as you can with as large a force as you can muster on this short notice. I will meet you there, and we’ll make an example of these traitors.

  N

  The message was well on its way south, to Malcolm’s chateau in the Loire Valley. But Niall did not intend to go there himself. There was no time. Besides, that was exactly where the Order agents would expect him to go. He had not seen them yet, but he was sure they were already on his trail.

  Pulling on his coat, he thanked the agent for his assistance, ignored his groveling, and nodded slyly to the man’s wife. She lowered her head, rather shamefaced after some of what he’d made her do last night.

  He turned away with a smirk. Then he marched out to the horses he’d been given and made sure the fine pair were securely tethered. The journey was long and arduous, so he would alternate between them, riding one while the other served as pack animal. He checked the bedroll and saddlebags, neatly tied.

  He was satisfied, as well, that his weapons would be in easy reach: a large knife at his side, two pistols in shoulder holsters, and a loaded rifle across his back.

  He had to keep moving to hold on to his few hours’ lead. He did not intend to take Virgil’s boys on alone if he could avoid it. He’d deal with them once he reached Waldfort Castle and joined his father, who should be bringing along a force of Promethean fighters, as Niall had advised in his note.

  They could pick off the bastards following him, as well as quelling Falkirk’s little insurgency. Niall was not above letting someone else do his fighting, never having been plagued with a need to be a hero.

  With that, he swung up onto the horse and rode out of Calais at a gallop, heading eastward across France.

  Bavaria

  Emily did not know where Drake had slept. He had not returned to the room the night before, and clearly, she had lost her bet. She didn’t like to lose.

  By morning, she was itching with restlessness, pacing and perturbed. Where the devil is he?

  God, I have got to get out of this room.

  Determined to find out where he was hiding from her, she needed some excuse to wander round the castle, so she went to the servants’ area down by the kitchens and asked if there was anything she could do to help.

  Her tasks for her so-called master were already completed, she told the old housekeeper, and she couldn’t just sit around staring at the walls.

  The old German woman, stout, formidable, and devoted to keeping her domain in tip-top shape, was impressed with Emily’s willingness and allowed her to go around tending to the candles.

  So Emily went from room to room on the main floor, carrying a small folding step stool and a basket of supplies for the simple task.

  She trimmed a wick here, replaced the sideboard candelabras there, and threw the spent taper stubs and clumps of wax that she collected in her basket. They would be melted down and added to the new batches of wax and tallow to be poured into candle molds and used again.

  Pulling her step stool over to the wall, she tended the sconces, too, replacing the candles as needed and cleaning the soot off the glass with a rag doused in vinegar.

  Back at Westwood Manor, this was work that made the housemaids groan, but Emily found the drudgery of her assignment oddly soothing. Besides, it gave the perfect opportunity to look for Drake.

  She really was surprised that he hadn’t come back to her. Perhaps he was embarrassed. Perhaps he’s furious at me. It was hard to say what might happen the next time their paths crossed in the intimacy of his room.

  She tamped down the gnawing worry that she might have overplayed her hand. She was not entirely convinced, after all, that he had not turned into a true Promethean.

  She simply couldn’t tell, and it was a hard thing to love a man who was such an accomplished liar . . .

  Ah, well. She could have used a lot more illumination than what these candle stumps had to give. Wryly picking up her basket and the
stool, she moved on to the next room in the rococo section of the castle.

  Crossing the entrance hall to the opposite State Room, she heard the distant clash of metal on metal, faint battle sounds. They grew louder as she stepped into the gilded sitting room, where two maids were already at work, dusting the furniture and sweeping the floor.

  They nodded to her when she arrived; she returned their greeting and was relieved that they seemed unperturbed by the sound. It must be nothing. Perhaps the guards were at practice somewhere nearby.

  Not wishing to get in the maids’ way, she started to leave, intent on returning later, when they were through. But one of the women said something to her in German and pointed to a door on the back wall.

  Emily glanced over and saw through the bank of gothic windows a covered outdoor balcony, where, she gathered, more candles awaited her attention.

  Two men loitered outside there, sheltered from the moody gray drizzle. One was smoking, the other leaning on the balcony railing as they talked.

  One of the men was James Falkirk.

  Instantly, Emily’s guard went up. She looked uncertainly at the maid. “Should I wait?”

  The woman answered, and though she probably did not understand the question in English any better than Emily could translate the German answer, her gesture, tone, and facial expression easily conveyed that it was fine for her to go and continue her task.

  She got the impression that the gentlemen would not object or pay her any mind.

  Emily hesitated but summoned up her courage and took the woman’s word for it. She could go about her business as invisibly as any servant, she supposed, and besides, she would not mind the chance to eavesdrop on Falkirk’s conversation.

  She did not trust that canny old man one iota.

  As she crossed to the gallery door, her heart pounding, the martial sounds grew louder. They sharpened greatly when she opened it to a damp, chilly burst of breeze.

  Falkirk and the other man glanced over at her. “Why, Miss Harper,” the old man greeted her with his cool, superior amusement.

  Emily bobbed a curtsy like any humble maid and kept her head down. “Pardon, sir. I’m to tend the candles. Shall I come back later?”