Lost Princess (14 page)

I just stared at him, dumbfounded.

“As your father told it, he met your mother before she wed, and they created you. But then she was betrothed to another and summarily wed. Your father said he tried to get her to run off with him, but she refused. It was the day after the wedding she told him she was carrying his child. She managed to keep it a secret long enough that her husband, once she began to show, thought the child was his.”

I couldn’t believe it. My mother had been married to another? “Why wouldn’t she run off with Papa?” I demanded. “He was a kind man.”

“Kind,” Max mused. “Well, perhaps to you he was.”

Upset, I sat up straight. “He was nice to everyone.”

Max put up a hand to take one of mine, which I was waving around to punctuate my point. “You would know him better than I,” he said. “If you say he was kind I believe you.”

“So why didn’t Mama just marry him?” I asked, slightly mollified.

“Your father wasn’t…someone a woman like your mother would marry.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that his station was not as high as hers.”

“Who cares?” I asked. “You married me, and I’m nothing at all.”

“Yes,” he said, drawing out the word. “But you were my ward, and I knew you weren’t either a thief or a killer.”

I thought about that. “Are you saying my father was a thief?”

“No, he was an assassin,” Max said gently.

I blinked, unable to take this in. “You’re wrong.” I stood up and backed away from Max. Why was he telling me these lies? “You didn’t know him.”

“Katrina, he told us himself who he was,” he said, coming over to me.

I spun, grabbed my skirts and ran to the door, having no further plan than to leave this room, Max, and his slander of my father.

Max reached me just as I opened the door and took my arm. “Katrina, you’re not leaving.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked desperately. “What could the purpose be to ruin the memory of my father like this? You’re telling me I’m a bastard daughter of a killer!”

Max shut the door and set me away from it. “Katrina—” he began.

“No!” I cried, slapping at his hand when it reached for me. “I don’t want to talk to you any more!“Again he reached for me, and this time I missed his shoulder, where I was aiming, and hit his face. I froze. I’d just slapped my husband’s face. My husband, the Regent who I’d seen kill someone for a simple verbal insult.

Max took my wrists and said, “You are overwrought. But I swear if you hit me again I’ll beat you until you won’t sit comfortably for a week! Do you doubt me?”

I shook my head numbly.

His angry look faded. “Katrina, none of this changes who you are. You’re the same person you were when you thought your parents married and your father just a kindly man.”

“Am I?” I asked. “Are not the sins of the father visited upon his children?”

Max said, “I hope not. I have quite a few sins that I hope my sons do not have to bear.“I sighed, and Max stepped closer and pulled me into his arms. “Katrina, if I was sure the news wouldn’t reach you in another way, I’d spare you this as my brother suggested. But as you’ve so amply proven, gossip flies far and wide. You would rather be prepared, wouldn’t you?”

I nodded slowly. “But…he just killed people for no reason? He just killed them?”

Max said a little wryly, “He was paid well to do so. He was sanctioned by the King.” Max took me back over to the table and picked up the chair I’d knocked over. He gave me an expectant look, and I sat back down, as did he.  “So, your father and your mother were from different stations,” he began.

“I suppose I should be thankful my mother wasn’t a prostitute or something.” My eyes flew to his. “She wasn’t, was she?”

“No,” Max said, amused by something I’d said. “She was a lady.”

“How would an assassin even know a lady?” I asked.

“Your father wasn’t just any assassin, but the King’s assassin. People who threatened the King or his power found themselves face-to-face with death in the form of your father. He was an absolutely lethal man, and I do not impress easily.”

“How would you know he was lethal?” I asked.

“Katrina, this will take the entire day if you keep asking questions. Let me continue. There isn’t really that much more to tell.“I nodded reluctantly.

“So, your father saw your mother growing large with you, and he had a choice to make. Either he could stay quiet and let another man raise his son or daughter, or he could take the child once he or she was weaned and run away.”

“I thought he was this terrible assassin! Why not just kill the husband? And how many men would bother with just a girl child?”

“Katrina,” Max said, clear warning in his voice.

“Fine,” I said shortly, crossing my arms across my chest.

“He chose to take you and run. He came here, and we promised him anonymity and the protection of our forces, should it become necessary.” He saw I would question and shook his head. “There was a kingdom-wide hunt for you and your father, but no one suspected him to be living quietly in Faralee, and eventually it was thought that you either died, or that he had gone beyond the reach of the King.” He looked at me and nodded. “Ask your questions.”

“Why would the King care about one small girl?”

“Because your mother married his brother.”

“Mama married the King’s brother? Did he have more than one?”

Max shook his head, waiting for me to put it all together. “Then my mother is Queen Ophelia? Max nodded. I stared at him. “That can’t be.”

“Not only that, but Ophelia never told her husband the truth, assuming your father told us the truth about being your real father. So the new King—Walter, believes that his eldest daughter is you. Rather important since no other heirs have survived.”

“Do they know I’m here?” I asked.

Max hesitated. “Yes, they do. That was what the message was about. Somehow that fact has leaked out. The King is not pleased that I’ve married his daughter without his permission. He would be mad if anyone did it, but since he already considers me a possible rival, he’s even more furious. He demands you be returned to the palace posthaste. He’s declared our marriage nullified.” He was watching me carefully. “Before you say anything, know that you are my wife, and I will not relinquish you, not even to the King.”

“He can nullify our marriage?” I asked. This was all too much. I felt like I had to just deal with one fact at a time.

“He’s the King,” Max said with a shrug. “That doesn’t mean as much here as it does in the Capitol city, but he is still our King.”

“Then I—we’re not married.” I stared at him.

Max rose and pulled me to my feet. “You’re my wife, and you’ll remain my wife, come what may.”

“But what if the King’s armies….”

“I have armies of my own,” Max said.

“But why? Why does anyone care anything about me? Why does he—King Walter want me back? Why do you want to keep me if there could be fighting? I’m nobody at all!”

“You’re a princess. It wasn’t so bad while the old King lived. Then you were just his niece who had disappeared. You were fifth in line for the throne, after his three children and his brother, assuming that his brother had no sons, who would put you further down the line. You know how often young children die, and he assumed that is what happened to you. Now, though, after the accident that took his children, and then dying himself, you’ve moved up to first in line for the throne. And I, as your Consort, have immense political power both as Regent and Consort. If he worries that I want the entire kingdom, then I certainly have the ammunition to do it now.”

I just stared at him. A strange feeling was starting in my stomach. “So you’ve always known I was a princess?”

Max nodded.

“Would you have ever told me?”

“I doubt it,” he said quietly. “What would be the point?”

“The point?” I asked. “The point would be that my mother is alive. The point would be that I have other family. The point would be that it’s the truth!”

“The truth is that you’re my wife,” Max said.

“Why did you marry me?” I asked suddenly.

Max said slowly, “What are you asking?”

“Did you marry me because I’m some political prize? Or did you marry me to put me under your thumb, so you could punish me for the rest of my life? Or did you marry me because you needed sons? Or did you marry me on a whim?

“My reasons for marrying you are my own,” he said quietly, but with some edge to his voice. 

I shook my head. “I still don’t understand why you’d even shelter a man running away with a child who might have a king looking for her. Why did you do it?”

Max took a deep breath. “I wasn’t that old when your father came here. Your father was a famous man, and I wanted to learn from him. So I made a deal with him. He would teach me to fight and would do some work for me if I called upon him, and I’d give him my protection.”

I nodded slowly, remembering my father’s periodic absences where I would stay with the local minister and his wife. He must have been training Maximus then. “What kind of work would he do for you?”

Max said nothing, and I realized the only kind of work my father would be called upon to do. “Killing people?“Max didn’t answer my question, but I didn’t really need him to. I looked off across the room, trying to reconcile my kindly father with a famous assassin. Trying to change my dead mother into a Queen. It just seemed too much.  I stood and walked across the room. “I suppose I should thank you for telling me.”

“Yes,” Max said.

“I don’t know what to do now.  Max?” My voice broke, “What do I do now?”

Max stood but didn’t approach me. “There is nothing for you to do. I have assigned two men to guard you.”

I stopped him before he could say more. “Guard me? From what?”

Max’s jaw flexed. “From assassins, from kidnappers, from anyone who wishes to harm you!”

“I don’t—”

Max crossed the room in his long strides. “I didn’t ask you,” he snapped.

“Why not?” I snapped back, too confused to think what I was saying. Max had it right when he said I was overwrought. “They’re guarding me! Should I not have some say?”

“No,” Max said ominously.

“I don’t need—”

“Katrina, cease your arguments! You’ve been a princess for ten minutes and you are already acting spoiled!”

We glared at each other for a half a minute, then a reluctant smile began to grow on my face. I broke from fury into laughter then, letting the absurdity of the situation flow over me. I put out a hand on Max’s chest and steadied myself as tears came to my eyes along with the laughter. As I wound down, I looked up at Max, who was wearing a small grin.

“Max?” I said, knowing now what was scaring me so. “Will they take me away from here?” From you, I wanted to say, but couldn’t, not yet.

Max pulled me into his arms and held me tightly. “No, they won’t. I won’t allow it.”

“But—”

“You doubt me?” he asked, his voice rumbling.

“No, but I can’t let anyone get hurt over me. I’m not that important.”

Max looked down at me, his expression unreadable. He said softly, “Your father thought you important enough to spend the rest of his life in hiding. A girl child.”

“You can’t understand that, can you?”

Max shook his head. “No, perhaps for a son, but not a girl.“I expected to be hurt by that, but he didn’t mean to say anything cruel, he just didn’t see it. I smiled up at him.He lowered his head and kissed me, first gently, then harder. He gave me a smile and said, “Take off your dress. I want you.”

I unfastened my dress while I watched him take several covers off the bed and toss them down in front of the dying fire. “What are you doing?” I asked.

He returned to me and pushed me over by the fire. “I want to take you here in front of the fire. I want you sweaty and heated.”

I looked down at the covers with new interest. “You do?”

He was pulling off his shirt. “Yes.“I opened my mouth to say something else when he said, “Katrina, just put it all aside for now. I’ve told you what you need to know.”

I shook my head. “No, I wanted to ask you something about…uh, about you.” I think my blush would have been visible even had the room been full dark.

“Ask your question,” he said, coming over and pulling me down to the floor and the nest of blankets.

“Well, you know what you did—to me?” I made a vague gesture, and he laughed.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if it would be really wrong of me to ask if I could do that to you.“Max looked like he was holding in laughter. My blush, if possible, burned even brighter, and I rushed to deny the whole thing. “Never mind, my lord, I don’t know what I was thinking, I—”

Max stopped me from talking by putting his mouth over mine and kissing me while lowering me down to the blankets. He pulled back, examined my face and kissed me some more. Finally he seemed satisfied with what he saw on my face. “Now, perhaps you’ll allow me to speak? I was not about to laugh at you, truly, but at the idea that you would be so worried about asking that. Wife, you may do as you wish.” He still looked somewhat amused.

“Can I do it now?” I asked.  His eyes darkened and the amusement left his face. He gave a nod. 

I moved down closer to that part of him. “You know, that’s what I was ‘thinking’ about this morning.”

Max said nothing, but he watched me intently.

I reached out and touched him, running my fingers lightly over that part of him that so fascinated me. “You’re so soft,” I murmured. I leaned over and gave him a long lick. “It’s salty,” I said. I looked up at him as a thought came to me. “You’ll tell me if I do something wrong, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, but his voice sounded odd, almost strangled.

I turned my attention back to him and played my tongue along him. I licked the tip and brought him into my mouth a little, although he was too large and my mouth too small to get him very far. I gave an experimental suck and swirl with my tongue.

Suddenly he captured me, flipping me to my back and beginning to slide inside. I blinked at him in surprise. “Max?”

He didn’t answer, and as I felt him fill me tightly, I closed my eyes and moaned at how wonderful it felt. Max was quickly seated fully inside me and moving more frantically than I’d ever felt him before. The pleasure I was growing addicted to swept up on me without warning and I arched up strongly against him, a scream breaking from my mouth. This seemed to drive him even harder, and the next time my pleasure came upon me, he joined me in crying out. He didn’t roll immediately to the side like usual but let his weight lay on me, the blankets not doing enough to keep me from wondering I might die from lack of air. I made a sort of wheeze, and he moved to the side. I breathed gratefully, although I had enjoyed his weight on me—holding me down.  He had his eyes closed, and his arm up over his eyes. I sat up. “Max?”