My Ruthless Prince Read online

  “No, no, it’s all right. Carry on.” His gaze skimmed the step stool and basket she carried as she whisked past him, going obediently about her task.

  Falkirk turned to his fellow conspirator and informed him in German who she was, or so she gathered.

  “Ah,” said the other man. He was at least a decade younger than Falkirk, with fiery dark eyes and a short black beard.

  He eyed her suspiciously; Emily kept her distance. Skirting the wall behind them, she set her stool down under the first iron lantern she came to, then she stepped up on it and went about her business.

  “Spricht sie Deutsch?” Falkirk’s companion asked.

  Does she speak German?

  The old man shook his head. “Nein.”

  And that was true, for that was the only part of their conversation she understood. Still, she was intelligent enough to realize they were talking about her. The other one asked some questions; James answered them, apparently informing him that she was the girl who had followed Drake.

  From the skeptical tone of his voice, she got the impression the other man did not trust James’s handsome head of security—and trusted her even less.

  All the same, she pretended not to hear or notice anything as she changed out the fat, short candles inside the lantern. But she was unable to make her hands stop shaking in the proximity of such evil men.

  Cleaning the lamp’s glass casing with some vinegar on a rag, she noted the tone of urgency beneath their quiet exchange, but it was impossible to know the particulars of what they were saying.

  Done with the first lantern, she went to the second and placed her stool beneath it, climbing up. From this vantage point, she was able to steal a glance over her shoulder at the scene below the balcony, and at last, she discovered the source of the battle sounds.

  The stone balcony overlooked an enclosed courtyard where the castle guards were training and, of course, there was Drake, in the thick of the fight.

  She went motionless for a moment, staring at him.

  The fine rain had plastered his black hair to his head and soaked his ivory shirt so it clung to his skin; but as beautiful as he was, his onslaught against the three unlucky opponents surrounding him was downright vicious.

  He swung and thrust and lunged as though he fully intended to skewer them. It did not look like practice from where she stood, at least.

  When a scarlet slash bloomed across one man’s arm, she shook her head in shock that they were not even using blunts on their weapons—and then she felt naïve for even thinking that they would.

  The wounded man withdrew from the fight, and another grimly took his place. Drake attacked him, too.

  Staring at him, the droplets of rain flying off his blade, she barely breathed, chilled by how much he was clearly enjoying the chance to batter the men into a state of cringing fear.

  She had never seen him fight. She had never been allowed. Now she rather wished that she had not, considering this wild creature was her roommate.

  Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze away and turned back to her chore, but the brief glimpse of his ferocity made it clear the sort of fire she had been playing with last night.

  The realization shook her. If he had wanted to, he could have easily taken what she had offered as a bribe.

  It could have gone very badly if not for his discipline, his honor.

  She also suddenly realized that the frustration she had whipped up in his blood last night was being vented on his opponents.

  When another cry of pain from the courtyard rang out while she cleaned the second lantern’s glass, she winced with a wry sense of responsibility for his wrath.

  Drake had stabbed the other soldier in the leg.

  Emily finished cleaning the lantern and decided to go back upstairs and fetch her bag of dried apothecary herbs. Knowing Drake’s tendency to get into trouble, she had seen fit to bring it along. She would take it down to the surgeon and offer to make a poultice of comfrey.

  He could apply it to his patients’ wounds at the first change of bandages to ease some of the sting of their cuts and help keep their wounds from becoming infected.

  Going down there would also bring her one step closer to Drake. Pleased with that prospect, she shut the little glass door of the lantern, then stepped down off the stool and picked it up to return inside. Sketching a quick curtsy in acknowledgment of the gentlemen, she walked away and got the door herself though her hands were full.

  Falkirk and the stranger watched her go.

  “Look at what he is capable of!” Septimus Glasse insisted. “I’m glad you are so sure of him, but you must pardon me if I do not share your confidence.”

  “I thought Drake laid to rest your doubts about him when he spoke to the Council about his conversion.”

  “The others might be satisfied, but I saw him from the start. It was my men who captured him, remember? I saw him when he was very much an Order agent, and I know firsthand how dangerous he is. It took a dozen of them to bring him down. This man fought like a demon, and yet here he is—and we are simply to accept that he is now one of us?”

  “He took the Initiate’s Brand,” James pointed out. “That’s no small thing.”

  “Pshaw! So we seared his body. That is nothing. You have not seen the man’s tolerance for pain. I have.”

  James shook his head, serene, but frowning. “Septimus, my friend, you are jumping at shadows. I fear defying Malcolm has rattled your nerves.”

  “Or maybe you’ve been blinded by his pretty face?” his friend retorted with a shrewd, knowing glance.

  Not that James’s proclivities for handsome young men were much of a secret. Still, he was too old these days to bother with comely youths.

  “His presence here could be a trap set by the Order,” the German added.

  “For the tenth time, Drake’s loyalty is to me. He saved my life—”

  “Yes, yes.” He waved this off.

  “The Order wants to kill him now even more than they want our blood!” he insisted with an impatient gesture toward the men slashing about in their brutal training. “Lord Westwood is no longer what he once was. Your torturers saw to that,” he added in distaste. “Pushing him to the point of madness . . . they succeeded all too well in destroying the Order agent he used to be. But look at him now. Magnificent creature. He is like the very incarnation of our creed,” he murmured, as Drake sent another opponent sprawling with a vicious kick. “He has come through the fire as few ever have and has been reborn, just as in our most sacred prayers. He has become a weapon in our hands.

  “Besides,” James added after a brief, reluctant pause, “there is a particular prophecy I found in Valerian’s scrolls . . .”

  Septimus looked at him keenly.

  James was not sure how much to say. He had been shocked, himself, to find it in the Alchemist’s writings.

  “What sort of prophecy?” the count prompted.

  “Don’t tell the others. But there was a quatrain about a knight of the Order who would one day become the Prometheans’ greatest leader.”

  The German’s dark eyes widened in astonishment. He stared at James, then glanced down at Drake.

  “You really think he could be the one?”

  James shrugged. “Well, we don’t get many converts from the Order, do we? I scarcely know what to think at this point.”

  Septimus fell silent for a moment, watching Drake intently, then he shook his head. “If it is fate, it will be so whether we like it or not, but I say, all the more reason to watch him with the utmost care.”

  “You still don’t trust him.”

  “Of course not! I might have, once you told me that—but then this girl arrives? It’s all too suspicious if you ask me. Maybe she’s an Order agent!”

  “Emily Harper?” James exclaimed, laughing. “Oh, my friend, you are overwrought.”

  “Let him prove it if he’s really one of us!”

  “How?” James replied. “What would satisfy you?” />
  “The same sacrifice we all make,” Glasse replied, staring at him. “Dearest blood.”

  James’s smile faded.

  “Let him give up the girl for the night of the eclipse,” he answered. “Then I will be satisfied.”

  James looked away, hiding a slight grimace.

  He was well aware that he needed to keep his strongest allies happy. They had to be sure of him, and he had to be sure of them, in turn. He could not forge on ahead with his plans without the support and loyalty of Septimus Glasse and a few of the others.

  If he refused to make his bodyguard pay the toll that every member of their brotherhood’s higher echelons paid eventually, himself included, some might begin to doubt his commitment, his judgment, putting him at risk before his tenure as the new head of the Council had begun—and then what?

  As James was even now working to overthrow Malcolm, if he didn’t show he was in full control of all pertinent matters, it wouldn’t be long before someone was plotting to overthrow him.

  Drake’s servant girl wasn’t worth that risk.

  Neither was Drake, for that matter, though he’d been of use.

  Besides, James was not blind. He saw the tender way those two looked at each other. Drake had claimed she was no more than a plaything, but that was obviously a lie though it was a small matter, probably nothing more than male ego that made him deny his feelings for her.

  Nevertheless, if the former Order agent lied about small matters, what else was he lying about? James mused. At length, he nodded, conceding to his friend’s advice.

  “Call the others,” he murmured. “We will put the question to him. And then we will find out where his loyalty really lies.”

  Drake’s chest still heaved as he strode back under the shelter of the colonnade, where more of the men leaned out of the rain, watching the others’ progress and awaiting their turns. One of the Promethean bodyguards threw him a towel, along with an admiring remark on his performance.

  Drake dried his face and nodded his thanks but walked on, hauling open the thick doors to the Hall of Arms on the ground floor. There, he picked up his canteen and took a long swig of water.

  At last, he let out a large exhalation, his pulse slowing to normal.

  Damn, that had felt good.

  His muscles were a bit sore, but at least he had vented his frustration. A hard round of training always made him feel better. The practice helped to dissipate his seething, inexplicable emotions. Besides, it was oddly reassuring to fix his attention for a while on an area of his life where he was in full control.

  Unlike last night.

  He could not get the taste, the smell, the satiny texture of Emily out of his mind, but he was doing his best to ignore it. With a low sigh, he stretched his neck a bit, leaning his head from side to side and shrugging some of the tension out of his shoulders.

  He took another drink; his skin was still hot from his exertions, but the rain that had soaked him began to bring a chill. He lifted his drenched shirt over his head, smirking at the distant groan of the injured man being treated by the surgeon at the other end of the hall.

  Eh, you’ll thank me someday.

  Good old Virgil had taught them young to train in all conditions—rain, snow, blistering heat, half-light or darkness—and after a certain point, not to bother using blunts, at least on occasion. Real danger and real fear had to be created every now and then to reach the level of expertise that they would need. After all, fear did things to a man’s mind in actual fighting conditions that made it useless to train when one knew it was only an exercise.

  One had to learn to fight around the panicked seconds that met every human being sooner or later—the tunnel vision, a distorted sense of hearing, the fleeting clumsiness that could overtake one’s usual coordination, and, if not overcome, could quickly get one killed.

  If the lads got a little bloody in the meanwhile, Drake thought, they would gain some experience that might one day save their lives. Besides, the harsher forms of training would weed out the weak.

  Best to know who was not built for combat before it came to the moment of do-or-die. He’d find other jobs for them.

  As he pulled a fresh, dry shirt over his head, the smart ring of bootheels approached him over the cold stone. “Falkirk’s asking for you, sir.”

  Drake cast a businesslike glance over his shoulder, still buttoning his shirt. He nodded to the guard who’d come to fetch him. “I’ll be right there.” Then he pulled on his black jacket, smoothed his wet hair, and straightened his weapons belt, before marching toward the interior castle doors.

  He went through the heavy doors, stepping into the dim, square chamber used as a fencing studio.

  “Drake. Stop right there, please.”

  He didn’t see anyone, but he stopped and looked up. Instantly, he was on guard, not liking his position one iota.

  Up on the gallery from which an audience could watch demonstrations of fine swordplay, he saw that he was surrounded by the Promethean masters, their faces cast in shadow.

  His position below them in the center of the floor was absolutely open and exposed.

  James rested his hands on the railing. “We have a request to make of you, Drake.”

  “Yes, sir, how may I be of use?” he answered, glancing around uneasily at the men above him.

  He was a sitting duck here. He did not know what they wanted, but it was very clear that, one wrong word, and they could blow holes in him where he stood. He could not see weapons trained on him, but he was sure they were.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Even the tone of James’s voice sounded odd when he spoke again, cool and tense and distant. “It’s about the girl,” he informed him. “Emily Harper.”

  At once, the dark phantom of fear that Drake had trained against all morning rose at James’s mention of her; but he checked himself immediately, determined to display no visible response. “Yes, sir?” he answered calmly.

  “We want to know if you are ready for the next step in your initiation.” Count Septimus Glasse had spoken, leaning into view at the railing above but behind Drake.

  He turned, his heart pounding. But seeing the owner of Waldfort Castle, it was more difficult for him to hide his hatred. The Bavarian lord had been in command of the soldiers who had captured Drake.

  And killed his team.

  “The time has come to prove that you are really one of us.”

  Drake choked back his rage and gazed at him serenely. “What would you have me do?”

  Emily descended the stone stairs to the lower regions of the castle, having fetched her herbs from Drake’s chamber to give to the surgeon for the poultice.

  Though she was a little reluctant to share the supplies she had brought chiefly for Drake and herself, she felt duty-bound to at least offer them, considering it was Drake who had inflicted the various nasty scratches on the other men. Why she still felt responsible for him and his actions, she barely understood.

  Surely he was a grown man and knew what he was about. Nevertheless, she didn’t like to see anyone suffer when she could do something about it.

  As she made her way toward the Hall of Arms, she heard voices echoing to her from down the dim corridor. Her brisk walk slowed as she approached the chamber that opened off the passageway ahead.

  She heard Drake’s voice, strong, calm, and sure. Inevitably, she followed that beloved, familiar sound.

  Yet, as she approached, she heard other voices, too, so she took care to stay out of sight, keeping to the shadows.

  “How long have you known her?”

  “All my life.”

  “And how is that?”

  “Her father worked for mine,” he replied.

  Her eyes widened as she sidled up to the wall, listening. They’re talking about me?

  She saw him standing alone in the middle of a bare stone chamber. Whoever was asking the questions was hidden from her line of sight, as she huddled by the gothic-pillared doorway.
/>
  “So, she caught your fancy, did she?”

  Drake stared upward at his unseen interrogators, his posture bristling, his hands resting tensely on his waist near his weapons. “You could say that,” he replied.

  Emily watched him, her heart pounding. She was not sure what was going on in there, but she could sense that he felt a threat in this situation and could hear it in his tone of voice, the note of warning, taut restraint, dark authority.

  She held her breath and listened to various invisible speakers firing questions down on him.

  Demands meant to shake him.

  “How old were you when you first took her?”

  Drake floundered, perhaps tongue-tied by the coarseness of the question. “I don’t see why you need to know that.”

  “Surely you’ve nothing to hide? If she means so little, as you claim, then why won’t you answer the question?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Everything about our members is our business, Lord Westwood, as you know full well, and this is doubly so when it comes to you, in light of your past associations. Now, you’re either one of us or you’re not.”

  “Haven’t I proved myself enough?”

  “No, you have not. So I suggest you answer in full any questions you’re asked—and do not attempt to lie. If you are lying, James will know.”

  He lowered his head. “Very well.”

  Emily huddled out of sight, observing from just beyond the doorway. She did not dare move for fear of being seen. “So her father worked for yours and you have known her all your life. Played together as children?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she your first?”

  Emily stared, appalled. The cruelty of these men, forcing him to break open the secret intimacy between them that had been his only refuge.

  And hers.

  But the Prometheans did not want their new recruit to have any such safe place to turn to. They wanted all his loyalty for themselves alone.

  “All those years of playing together . . . you must have been quite young when you first began to notice her as a female. Was she your first?”

  He stood there struggling, until someone out of sight suddenly spoke up.