The Pirate Prince (29 page)

It didn’t add up.

The only other option was that the myth that had whipped the general populace into such a frenzy was coming to fruition—that he was none other than King Alphonse’s elder son, Lazar, come back from the dead somehow to restore Fiori rule.

“Sweeting! Your luncheon’s getting cold, my love!” Maria called gaily from the top of the stairs.

“Shut
up
!” he screamed at her. God, the woman acted as though she were his wife rather than a servant—albeit a special kind of servant.

Maria’s mouth was quite clever so long as she wasn’t using it to speak.

“Pirate, pirate, pirate,” he mused, pacing back and forth before the men, tapping the flat of his dagger against his lips.

Or prince—Nay, king?

It was reasonable to assume that if their captain was indeed Lazar di Fiore, he might not have admitted his true identity to these common rude men. Royalty, after all, was not given to explaining itself to anyone.

For his part, Domenic found it easier on his vanity to think that if he had been bested that night, at least it had been by a king and no common Ascencion dog.

He sighed at his prisoners. “Perhaps you truly don’t know anything. Perhaps I tortured you poor souls all for naught. What a waste of my time.” He pivoted at the end of the cellar, then strolled back.

Objectives
, he said firmly to himself.

One:
Get Allegra back from that savage; otherwise, people would think he simply didn’t care what happened to her, and that wouldn’t look very good, would it?

Two:
If that scoundrel was Lazar di Fiore, block him before he came back to take power. Because if he
was
Lazar di Fiore, Domenic had no doubt that he would be back.

Yes, he thought, he had to proceed assuming the worst. No one was going to take his power away from him after he had worked so hard and groveled so many times before men who were not worthy to wipe the mud off his boots.

But then
why
had Fiore sailed away?

Domenic sensed a design in it as devious as his own mind. He had to admit that the black-eyed savage was his equal in strength. He had to assume, then, that his opponent might also be his equal in wit. Though he doubted it. He could not guess at the other man’s strategy yet; he knew only that if Lazar di Fiore returned, there was no way he, Domenic, could remain in power.

Unless…

Unless he waged a full-scale crusade to bring the Devil of Antigua to justice as a pirate before he could declare himself as the Fiore heir. Domenic smiled as he sorted out his next move.

You want to play games with me, you black-eyed bastard?

He would set a huge price on the pirate’s head, and Domenic would make the people love him as they loved Allegra. He would take advantage of their love for her by declaring publicly that he would get her back safely and uphold their betrothal, even though the whole world would privately concur that she was ruined beyond repair.

He would show them he had that great a heart.

He was even willing to overlook the fact that the black-eyed rogue had probably forced his way between her long, slender legs. There was something vaguely arousing to him about the thought of that big, hard body riding her as she fought and bucked and wept.

Well, at least he could take consolation in the certainty that his frigid girl was not enjoying it. She’d better not be enjoying it.

Because that, he thought darkly, would really make him angry.

Issuing ultimatums was the mark of an amateur, Lazar knew, but hurt pride had made him strike out at Allegra. He’d regretted the arrogant threat the moment it had left his lips, because he did not want it to happen that way for her, not in anger. There was something so fragile about her, and now he must break it. He had staked his dignity upon having her tonight, and if he did not carry out his threat, she would think him weak-willed as well as a selfish, pleasure-seeking, suicidal coward.

He told himself he didn’t give a damn what she thought of him. All he wanted was relief for his suffering flesh.

He went about his tasks for the day, distracted and brooding. Not even Vicar dared approach him. Wherever he turned, his men annoyed him, this one dawdling, missing his order to turn the mizzen topsail to starboard, that one clumsily spilling a bucket of the hot tar for the deck, another pair on the fo’c’sle, laughing like imbeciles over some lewd joke.

He knew it was his black mood making them so nervous that they fumbled, so he climbed up to the crow’s nest just to get away from them, ignoring his own observation that the tiny perch was not as much fun without Allegra and her fear of falling.

Surveying the horizon through his folding telescope, he found there was nothing to see but giant cumulus clouds and the other six ships bearing the Brethren home to the West Indies.

He lowered the glass from his eye with a heavy sigh.

“Damn you, Allegra,” he murmured to the air.

How had they come to this impasse? Just when he’d allowed her closer to him than he’d ever let anyone—stalemate. He did not like how much he cared about her feelings, her viewpoint. His own preoccupation with her was all out of proportion, and obviously she did not return his sentiments.

But I opened myself for her
, he thought, a strange ache in his chest.
What the hell else does she want of me? Is it because I didn’t offer marriage?

Maybe it wasn’t marriage, but it was still the finest offer he’d ever made a woman, and she had not even considered it. Flatly refused. He could think of fifty women who’d have kissed the ground at his feet if he’d asked them to bear his children.

Not the headache. Not Allegra, damnable woman, his noble, high-minded little martyr.

From now on, he vowed, he would stick with nonvirgins who were just as selfish and shallow as he. But surely he had not read her so wrong. She wanted him. He could feel it.

Ach, the girl was daft. She was so damned driven to save the world, and him with it, that she gave no thought to her own happiness. It was enough to make him puke.

Not only had she cast away her life to save her miserable family from his butchery, oh, no. Now Saint Allegra would give up what he suspected she very much wanted as well, for Ascencion’s sake.

For
his
sake. His happiness, whatever that was.

Didn’t this girl have any sense of self-interest, even practicality? he wondered. Didn’t she see she was ruined? Well, he would not bloody
permit
her to sacrifice herself for him.

He was particularly capable of ruthlessness when the occasion called for it, and where she was concerned, he fully intended to get his way. With a narrow, crafty smile, he decided he was not merely going to seduce her; he was going to get her pregnant tonight. He would trap her with a child, force her to be happy, damn it.

God, what a stupid idea
. That’s just what he needed. What would he do with a squalling brat? What had he been thinking, with all his mawkish dreams? How Captain Wolfe would have laughed at him, taking this starry-eyed girl so seriously. Bedding her was the only reason he’d brought her aboard in the first place. The sooner he’d had his fill of her, the sooner life could return to the empty joke it was. Then maybe he might start thinking clearly again.

He left the lofty crow’s nest and stalked to his cabin, throwing the door back. The lady was not in, thank God.

He shut the door and locked it. Scoffing at his own soft-headedness, he poured himself a large glass of his finest rum, warily approaching the files the virgin martyr had optimistically left on his desk.

Each of the various account books and official logs and ledgers that he’d taken from Monteverdi’s offices dealt with different facets of the state of affairs on Ascencion. He only meant to take a brief glance when Allegra wasn’t there looking over his shoulder to wheedle and gloat. A simple means of distracting his body’s agitation. He had not intended to get absorbed for almost three hours—or infuriated.

Afternoon turned to evening, and still Lazar sat at his desk, his left eye twitching in rage as he carefully examined the documents. Ascencion’s impending financial ruin was neatly spelled out right there in the report before him. For the life of him, he could find no evidence of any sort of plan under way for averting the disaster.

It was enough to sober any half-cocked hedonist.

Instead, the records showed exactly how Genoa had been bilking Ascencion for all she was worth for the past fifteen years. Now that fortunes had been made and collapse was imminent, the Genovese were quietly pulling out, and hostilities were running hot as the coffers ran dry.

One report after another detailed the revolt of the peasants against the rich, the inhumane crimes by the rich against the native poor. He studied the census, with its appalling vagrancy and infant-mortality rates, pored over reports on everything from crops to crime. He found out about the critical shortage of doctors, the system of graft, the growing influence of the crime families.

No practical solutions had been offered.

On the economic front, even the widest-known, most proven new theories of modernization had been ignored. There was not a word about building a modern canal or turnpike system, nor the creation of decent roads, though this would have been an obvious way to put some of the miscreants to work and to harvest the highland timber forests of Ascencion where he had played Robin Hood with his friends when he was a boy.

Presently he let out a disgusted sigh and pushed the papers aside. He felt a headache coming on to add to his misery, along with his need for a woman.

He got up and poured himself a brandy this time, stretching a bit from the long hours spent at the desk. For perhaps half an hour, he brooded in spite of himself on the various strategies he’d have employed to solve Ascencion’s ills—hypothetically speaking, of course.

And when he began to feel a brilliant eagerness coming over him for the huge project, with all its challenges and intricacies, he shut the document boxes and had another drink.

He refused,
refused
, to get caught up in Allegra’s fantasy. He was not that man. He was not her Prince. Well, he was, but in name only. He had not one noble, self-sacrificing bone in his body, and he was damned glad of it. With his left eye ticking with foul temper, he told himself there were better things to think about.

Allegra’s breasts, for instance, and the joy it would bring him tonight to steal her chastity.

She would be easy. He would make her burn and buck and scream for him, show her what he thought of her morals and all her haughty disdain. Yes, he thought, a little wild sex would put her in her place.

He dropped his gaze to the cruel green sea. The sun was going down.

In bed, he thought dismally as he raised the brandy to his lips. At least there was one place he wouldn’t disappoint her.

Already the sun was setting, and Allegra still did not know how she should answer her captor’s ultimatum.

She spent the day at various tasks, keeping her hands busy with organizing her father’s papers, mending one of her gowns, and staring mournfully at her mother’s miniature, all the while trying to come to terms with Lazar’s dark promise.

She tried to take a nap in the storeroom, using her half-mended gown as a pillow, because she didn’t dare lie down in the cabin, where he could come along at any time. The floor was uncomfortable, and the ghosts wailed around her in the creaking, squeaking timbers of the ship. She closed her eyes.

He wanted to leave the past behind him. He wanted the future with her.

This man—the bravest, most incredible, lovable, heartbroken man she had ever laid eyes on—wanted her to live with him. She still could not absorb it. He had said she was his compass—
every ship needs a compass
, he’d said—and he had said,
Love me
. He had told her beautiful things, told her she was beautiful. He wanted to make a family with her—Lazar di Fiore—her Prince.

And she had said no.

She was too sick to her stomach with the knowledge to cry. He had offered her a fantasy on a silver platter, but it was all wrong. Ascencion needed Lazar far more than she did. Oh, she needed him, to be sure, but she needed her sanity more, and what Lazar truly needed was his kingdom, his home. In his rightful place, he would find healing for those wounds of shame that had struck all the faith from his soul.

“
You do not want me
.” How could he think that? Foolish man! Why must he torment her so? she thought, squirming peevishly on her hard bed. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? And as for tonight, should she fight him? Resist?

Could she?

All he had to do was kiss her once—nay, he need not even touch her—he need only stare at her the way he did, and she would be helpless to resist him. That was the bitterest part of it. Tonight he would come to her as Lucifer, testing her moral strength, probing her for weakness with his many arts of temptation. How could she cling to safety when her body cried out for him, when every look he threw her burned with need? What choice would her heart give her but to bestow on him whatever he asked, everything she had to give?

No, she must give him no encouragement. She must stand firm.

She was willing to do anything to help him regain Ascencion, but she would not cast her heart away on a man she could not have, as Mama had. She would not sentence herself to a lifetime of loneliness, and if she gave herself to him tonight, there would be no way to withhold her complete devotion.

She could deny herself for his higher good tonight, she told herself, just as she had denied his shimmering offer today. Hiding from his destiny on some idyllic farm with happy children underfoot, why, it all sounded lovely. But on Ascencion, their people were being persecuted. For their sake, she could not afford to become his plaything. Only, she did not think he would have it any other way.

She’d seen the hurt in his eyes when she had rejected him. The fool. For wounding his pride, tonight he would take slow, delicious revenge on her, and the truth of it was, she longed for it.