PRINCESS

By

Gaelen Foley



CHAPTER ONE



May 1805

The sound of her rapid, shallow panting filled the narrow space between the box-hedge walls of the garden maze. The hedges towered over her, closing in on her, and the pounding of her pulse was so loud in her head she knew they would hear. She inched down the narrow lane, her bare toes creeping silently over the cool, lush grass, her chest heaving. Constantly . she looked over her shoulder. Her whole body was shaking, her hand bleeding, maybe broken from punching Philippe in his smug, sneering face with the sharp edge of her huge dia­mond ring. But at Least she had managed to throw herself out of his iron grasp and had torn into the maze, where she thought she could evade them. She dared not call out for help because only the three men would hear.

No one else was outside on such a night, when the breeze spattered rain from a sky deepest indigo smeared with gold clouds. The cicadas roared in waves, while the wind, as it rose and fell, brought fragments of a tinkling minuet spilling out over the vast gardens and the royal park from the ball in progress--her engagement party. Her fiancé had been unable to attend

She jerked her face wildly to the left, hearing movement on the other side of the dense hedge.

He was right there. The acid taste of the wine she'd drunk rose in the back of her throat.

She could see the shape of him, tall, bedecked in his finery. She could see the shape of the pistol in his hand and knew her pale silk gown was sure to be visible through the branches. She crouched down and moved silently away.

"Don't be afraid, Your Highness," came Henri's mellifluous voice from several rows away. "We're not going to hurt you. Come out now. There's nothing you can do."

They had split up so they could surround her. She choked back a sob, clawing to keep hold of her fragile control as she tried to decide which way to go. She had run around in this maze since she was a little girl, but she was so frightened she had lost all sense of direction.

She heard the lulling splash of the fountain in the tiny center courtyard of the maze and used the sound to try to orient her­self. Clenching her fist so tightly her nails dug into her palm, she huddled against the bush, edging inch by inch down the lane. At the end, she pressed her back flat against the scratchy bushes, too scared to turn the corner. She waited, shaking, praying, trying to gather her nerve, her stomach in knots.

She didn't know what they wanted.

She had been propositioned many times by the gilded, preda­tory courtiers of the palace, but no one had ever attempted to haul her away before. No one had ever used guns.

God, please.

She would have cried, but she was too terrified. The breeze rose again. She smelled cut grass, jasmine, man.

They're coming.

"Your Highness, you have nothing to fear. We are your friends."

She bolted, her long, black hair streaming out behind her. Thunder rumbled, the scent of a summer storm on the wind. At the end of the lane, she stopped, again too petrified to turn the comer, lest she find Philippe or the blond one, Henri, stand­ing there waiting to catch her. She kept thinking how her ex-governess always said something like this would happen to her if she didn't mend her wild ways, stop acting so bold.



She vowed she would never be bold again. Never flirt. Never trust.

Her chest lifted and fell, lifted and fell.

They were coming. She knew she could not remain where she was for more than a few seconds longer.

Iam trapped. There is no way out of this.

And then there came another voice, barely audible, a ghostly whisper.

"Princesa."

The single word seemed to rise from the earth, or to slip out of the very air.

She nearly sobbed aloud to hear it, wanting with all her heart lo believe it was not her panicked brain playing tricks on her. Only one person called her by that name, the Spanish version of her proper Italian title, Principessa.

If ever she'd had need of him, it was now.

Beautiful, blackheartedSantiago .

He alone could have saved her from this nightmarish game, but he was faraway on the king's business, intelligence- , gathering and protecting the ambassador inMoscow , where the new alliance against Napoleon was being formed.

Darius Santiago was an insolent, arrogant heathen, of course, but he did not know the meaning of fear and she quite believed he could do anything. She had not seen him in nearly a year, but he was always lingering near the outskirts of her heart, with his arrogant smirk and his coal-black eyes, as though watching her from across the miles by some occult vision.