Her Every Pleasure Part 26

"Of course. I just-can't believe he caught one of them. W-what did he look like?"

"Very ugly."

That sounded accurate enough. Oh, G.o.d, with all her soul, Alexa longed to run away and forget all of this had ever happened, but as they reached the ballroom again and Sophia turned on her usual charm, giving no out-ward sign of her distress-d.a.m.n her courage!-Alexa knew her own situation was futile.

If she dared flee without keeping up her end of the bargain, the Tunisian would only hunt her down and cut her into pieces. She had to save herself.

Slightly faint with terror, she s.n.a.t.c.hed a champagne flute off the tray of a pa.s.sing Bacchus-waiter and realized she had to stay calm or she would give herself away.

She gulped down a swallow to steady her nerves; it instantly gave her a throbbing headache. Think.

From what she recalled of her tormentors, the pure ruthlessness oozing from the Tunisian and his companions, their dead, soulless eyes, she had to believe that any one of those brutes could withstand days of torture before they would break and expose her. There was still a little time.

For now, she was still valuable to them. She dared not anger them or make any foolish mistakes. This turn of events was not her fault and they would understand that, as long as she wrote to the Tunisian right away, just like he had instructed her to do if there were any problems.

She knew how to contact him, and realized her best chances of survival lay in warning him that his plans must be changed immediately. He might not even know yet that one of his men had been captured. She must tell him they could not afford to wait another week. The timetable for Sophia's abduction must be swiftly sped up.

Oh, G.o.d, she thought. It was coming on too soon. What if she lost her nerve? But she could not, not if she liked to keep her head upon her shoulders. Whatever resentment she had toward Sophia, it would not have thrust her into this kind of treachery if her own life were not at stake.

At least she knew that outsmarting her Greek lovers would be easy because they would never suspect her. But what was she to do about Colonel Knight?

She had to get rid of him somehow...

But wait! she told herself as she gulped down another steadying swallow of liquid courage. This would not be as difficult as it seemed. After all, the blue-eyed cavalryman was Sophia's weakness.

Alexa saw that she would not have to try anything dangerous to get rid of him. She would not need to try to shoot him or poison him or anything nasty like that. She need only discredit him. Yes.

All she had to do was get him sacked.

And that was easy. Over the years, several tasty males in Sophia's entourage had been dismissed from service because of Alexa. Sophia always fired them; she never banished her. She was very protective that way.

Besides, the princess could not get rid of her so easily! They were stuck with each other. That was their curse, left to them by both their dead families. The courtiers served and the royals protected. That was the way it had always been, for generations.

But Alexa was tired of serving. Soon, she told herself, slowly regaining her courage, she would be free.

She'd use her wits and await her opportunity. She would write to the Tunisian. Then he could tell her what she must do next.

CHAPTER.

FOURTEEN.

M aybe the bodyguards really were innocent.

A day and a half later, the guests were gone, and the castle was still cleaning up after the ball. Gabriel had been up for most of the night again, waiting for one of the Greek guards to act, but nothing had happened.

If anything, the men had become even more protective of Sophia. They were, or at least pretended to be, so impa.s.sioned in their anger that someone would want to do her harm that they didn't even notice they were under constant watch by British soldiers from the garrison, and by Gabriel most of all.

They were fixated on the prisoner, itching to get their hands on him. Never much of a liar, Gabriel wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up the charade.

Taking a much-needed break from his duties, he stood inside a lesser-used morning room that overlooked the soggy autumnal grounds. A gray drizzle speckled the wide span of windows where he leaned idly, watching Sophia practice her various skills and feats of arms on horseback.

At the ball, he had mistaken her for Aphrodite, but on this dreary afternoon, she was dressed all in black with her hair plaited severely behind her. Intensely focused on honing her feminine ruthlessness, she looked much more the part of the fierce virgin huntress G.o.ddess, Artemis.

He tracked her with his stare as she galloped past on the bay horse that he once had thought his Gypsy girl had stolen.

The castle offered an elaborate course with jumps and shooting targets, medieval-style quintains altered for cavalry usage, and diverse obstacles to sharpen one's skills. Smiling faintly as she pa.s.sed, he made a mental note of a few pointers he could give her to polish her technique. He watched in admiration until she rounded a stand of trees and disappeared into the parkland, her horse's dark tail flying out behind him like a pennant as they continued on the course.

If only he could figure out what was going through that head of hers today.

Obviously, something was bothering her.

Maybe it was just the threat that she was under, he thought. The strain of it all had to be getting to her.

The Grecian Gala had ama.s.sed the princely sum of three hundred thousand pounds for the people of Kavros. He would have thought she'd be happier about it, but the truth was, she had been acting strangely ever since he had kissed her in that dank cell the other night.

He did not know what had come over him, but as much as he had relished it, he was not happy with himself about it. His ironclad control had slipped, and that was not a good sign.

Sophia didn't seem too pleased about it, either. By the morning after the ball, she had turned distant, and today was even more withdrawn. He had not thought it possible for his frustration to escalate further, but that brief taste of her and the distance she had put between them ever since had put him on edge.

He shouldn't have kissed her and he was a little chagrined after the fact, especially after he had been so self-righteously insistent that nothing like that could happen between them.

At this point, she was probably equally confused about where the two of them stood with each other.

Or perhaps she was just off thinking about Monsieur Denmark, he mused with a brooding stare in the direction she had ridden. He sincerely hoped not.

But Gabriel was no fool.

A part of him felt as though he had already lost her to the Crown Prince, or rather, to her duty. But then again, he thought with a low sigh that fogged the gla.s.s before him, Her Royal Highness of Kavros had never been his to lose.

This is torture. What am I to do?

I need these men in two different ways, but I can't have them both.

Sophia was in the teeth of a crisis of faith, and it all had started with Gabriel's kiss the other night down in that dungeon. She urged the gelding on faster, as if she could outrun the choice she had to make.

The mud flew from under her horse's hooves, flecking her long coat of black leather, while the cold drizzle of the overcast day froze on her cheeks. She did not care.

She kept waiting for the crisp air to help clear her head, but it did not seem to be working. She aimed her pistol at one of the painted circular targets as she cantered by.

Crack!

She scowled at the poor shot, the powder all but ruined by the wet. But she quickly slipped the gun back in its holster at her hip and signaled the bay to gather his stride for the upcoming fence.

They sailed over the jump, landed in a satisfying spray of mud, and pounded on over the spongy turf, the breath of both horse and rider clouding in the cold.

Sophia's forward stare was fierce, her jaw taut as she forced herself to confront the reality of her situation.

From the day Gabriel had agreed to become her bodyguard, he had told her it was necessary to keep an emotional distance, or this whole proposition would become even more dangerous for both of them.

Now the very thing he had warned of was happening, growing stronger every hour. She was falling for him, falling so desperately in love with him, and on the night of the ball, his control had slipped, too, as proven by his kiss. While her heart rejoiced to see that his feelings for her were becoming so strong that they had begun to outstrip his will, her objective, logical mind was frightened by the implications. He had warned her that he had to keep a certain distance from her in order to protect her properly.

Now that distance was vanishing, and it chilled her to her core to think that the next time they were attacked, Gabriel's feelings for her might impair his judgment, cause him to make a mistake, and get him killed. She could not bear it. If she did not end this now, they could both wind up dead.

She had to get Gabriel out of here. She had to let him go. She was already asking too much of the man; he had only just healed from a near-fatal wound. He deserved a chance to live in peace, which was all he had really wanted before she had dragged him into this.

She thought of him looking after those kittens back at the farm and couldn't believe she had been so selfish to send for him in the first place. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she have left him alone?

And now there was Crown Prince Christian Frederick.

A stray thought came and pa.s.sed of poor Cleopatra, dependent on Caesar's doting affection, while perfectly obsessed with her handsome general, Mark Antony.

Sophia didn't feel that she was behaving much better than the two-faced Egyptian queen, by comparison. She had been so desperate to have Gabriel beside her, back in her life, that she had ignored his cautions.

Selfish girl.

She could never, ever forgive herself if Gabriel was harmed. Why hadn't she stuck with her safe, old philosophy of avoiding romantic entanglements?

She had made up her mind a long time ago to give her heart only to her country, just like Queen Elizabeth of olden days. After having her family torn apart, this vow had made perfect sense to her, for a country could not die. And besides, as Alexa's many adventures had proved, men were so often false.

Like the prince...?

No, he'd be the opposite, after what had happened with his first wife. He would be suspicious of her faithfulness every hour of every day, she thought. Her life would be a cage. And indeed, what if the day came when she had to marry this man for her nation's benefit? Did she intend to keep Gabriel selfishly on hand until that necessity arose, and then kick him away when it was more advantageous to her to switch loyalties? Never. She could not do that to him.

That would have been as cruel as what the prince had done to his first wife, banished now beyond the icy fjords of Jutland. No, she could never take advantage of Gabriel's n.o.ble nature, nor risk his dying for her sake like Leon had.

All this was becoming just too hard.

He had captured that b.u.mbling Radical and deceived her men with the tale that he had caught one of the attackers from the night of the ambush; this was only a ruse, but soon the danger would be real.

With every pa.s.sing day, life got more dangerous for everyone around her. Just being near her could be deadly, as if she carried some sort of plague that ended not in horrid boils but in b.l.o.o.d.y murder. None of this should have ever been turned into Gabriel's problem.

The merest chance had brought her to his doorstep the night of the ambush. He had been living quietly on that farm, where she knew he still had more healing to do, perhaps not physically, but in his soul. He had been nothing but good to her, and this was how she thanked him?

She had to get him out of here, had to end this while there was still time. She simply could not bear for this man to end up dead like her father, her brothers, and now Leon. Once they sailed for Kavros, it would be too late. If she cared for him, she should let him go.

He had so much to live for.

Unlike her, Gabriel still had a family who loved him. And all of those wonderful people were going to hate her and blame her if anything happened to him, she realized.

Whack!

Morosely, she struck the quintain with the flat of her sword and sent the dummy spinning as she rode on.

Oh, what was the point of going to all these lengths to preserve her life from these silly a.s.sa.s.sins, anyway? If she had to live out the rest of her days without Gabriel's love, maybe she'd be better off if her enemies got her.

Maybe she should abandon this quest and run away with Gabriel, live as commoners on some hayseed farm in the middle of nowhere. Au revoir, duty. They could live like two happy peasant farmers, raising an army of apple-cheeked tots. That plain, lovely dinner they had shared had been the happiest night of her life.

But he would never go along with that, of course. Not him, not the soul of manly honor. Nor could she. She could never abandon her people and disgrace the royal house.

Thud!

The target rocked slightly with the impact of the knife she had just thrown.

Her own skills pleased her, restoring a little bit of her shaken faith. Those enemies hadn't managed to get her last time, so why was she overreacting so much now?

Because she was in love.

Oh, calm down, she scolded herself tersely. Leave off with these dramatics. You are acting like some ninny-headed fool. Do you really think you need to play the mother hen to a warrior whose motto was once "No mercy"?

She ignored the memory of his insistence that he was no longer that man. There was no need to send Gabriel packing. All would be well. We'll just continue on the way we have been, she a.s.sured herself.

Friends. n.o.bly focused on our duty.

Hypocrites.

Pretending we are not in love.

Poor Colonel Knight.

A man like that should never go deprived. Whatever Her Highness was giving him, it clearly wasn't enough.

No, Alexa knew the hungry look of a s.e.x-starved man when she saw one. She stared at him now as she lingered in the doorway to the lower morning room, preparing to make her move.

He was staring out the bank of windows with a brooding expression, watching the princess at her unladylike pursuits. Since the magnificent brute was not yet aware of her presence, Alexa indulged in letting her gaze travel over his tall, powerful physique. G.o.d, she l.u.s.ted for this man. He wore civilian clothes today, but his gentlemanly attire could not disguise his lethal aura. What it would be like to bed him made her quiver just to imagine.

The curve of his strong lower back in that snug waistcoat, down to his solidly muscled b.u.t.tocks-which she had studied from a distance through his breeches on several previous occasions-all led her errant thoughts down the fascinating path of what hard thrusts he could deliver, what pleasure he could give. The bulky outline of his biceps visible through his loose white shirtsleeves made her think of how long and how tightly he could hold her if she was lucky enough to lure him to her bed.

But of course, that was not the true purpose of her visit. She wouldn't have minded a whit, but all she had to do today was get him to consider it...

She quite believed she was going to enjoy this.

My darling beast, you are going to waste, pining for her, Alexa thought as she sauntered toward him.

Unfortunately, in truth, it was too late to bed him. He had lost his chance.

Yesterday she had received her instructions from Kemal, along with a small bottle of pure laudanum. Of this, she had already poured a dram into the bottle of Sophia's favorite red Greek wine, which she kept in her apartments. The rest she was saving for the bodyguards.

But she couldn't take the chance of that simple trick working on Colonel Knight. Unlike the others, he had no particular reason to trust her.

With him, her wisest move was to see him gone entirely. She had been watching for her opportunity, and she knew that it had come.