The Prince’s Bride (27 page)

Pierre glared at him with malice. “And condemn your wife at the same time? Because
if I find myself in Briggin’s Prison, I will most assuredly be forced to talk. Naturally,
I would wish to cooperate. I would have no choice but to confess everything.”

Nicholas rubbed the back of his neck while his blood pulsed feverishly through his
veins. “I will need time to consider this,” he replied as he imagined all the worst
possible scenarios.

“I will give you three days,” Pierre said. “All I require is that you bring me the
deed to d’Entremont Manor, sign it over, and all this will go away. No one will ever
know. You can continue to enjoy your respectable new life with your lovely bride,
and I will have what is owed to me. It will be a happy ending for everyone all around.
Otherwise, I will go to the papers.”

“And confess your own guilt,” Nicholas reminded him.

Pierre shook his head. “It won’t matter, because by the time the news becomes public—if
it comes to that—I will be long gone. Without Lord d’Entremont, I have no more ties
to France. Who knows where I might choose to live?”

“Have you forgotten the property he willed to you?” Nicholas asked.

Pierre’s mouth pulled into a thin-lipped smile. “I have already sold it.”

Nicholas stood before his half cousin in a state of blind rage, cracking his knuckles
while he contemplated the disastrous state of his life. He had faced scandal before
and never broken a sweat, but everything was different now. He had a wife. He couldn’t
let this get out.

All at once, he felt almost murderous. He wanted to shove Pierre’s head into a bucket
of water and watch him drown. He’d keep the secret then, wouldn’t he?

It was the first time Nicholas had ever felt such a strong desire to kill a man. The
urge was vile and carnal, like a disease in his blood.

Véronique said she saw something sinister in Pierre. Perhaps they were more alike
than he realized. Cut from the same cloth, so to speak. The thought made him shudder.

“I will meet you in this room in three days,” Nicholas said as he turned and headed
for the door. “Be here at this hour.”

“Oh, I will,” Pierre replied with a chuckle that caused all Nicholas’s muscles to
strain against his skin as he forced himself to walk out and shut the door behind
him.

*   *   *

Nicholas’s hands shook uncontrollably when the coach pulled away from the hotel. He
felt dangerously on edge, and had to crack his neck from side to side to release some
of the pent-up tension in his shoulders.

“Is everything all right, Your Highness?” the guard asked, sounding concerned.

Nicholas merely nodded as he stared out the window, for he could not discuss what
had just happened.

He would discuss it with Randolph, however, and together they would decide how best
to proceed. Just the thought of that conversation gave Nicholas a headache, for he’d
foolishly begun to imagine that all the scandals were behind him.

Then he began to envision what would happen if he wrapped a cord around Pierre’s neck
and pulled it tight. But what would he do about the body?

No, he couldn’t think that way.

Growing more agitated by the second, he ripped his hat off his head and set it on
the seat beside him, then pounded a fist hard against the side wall of the coach.
“Let me out!” he shouted. “I need air!”

“But, Your Highness,” the guard argued. “We’re in the Green District.”

“I bloody well know where we are. I’ve been here before.” Many times, in fact, when
he was living a life of debauchery, outside the courtly realms of Petersbourg Palace.
Perhaps this part of town was a more suitable outlet for a man like him—a bastard
son who contemplated murder and had no business calling himself a prince.

The coach pulled to a halt and he got out. He was not surprised when his guard followed
and walked a short distance behind while the coach rolled along beside them.

Bloody hell.

He stopped abruptly and looked up at a wooden sign that said simply:
ALEHOUSE.

Perfect.
He strode through the door and down the steps to a damp, musty, dimly lit cellar
with low ceilings. The floors were wet under his feet. The place reeked of stale liquor.

It was blessedly quiet, however, except for a few hard-looking patrons who sat alone
on benches at the long tables.

Nicholas went to the bar, ordered a tankard of ale, then found a small private table
in the shadows at the back. He sat down and kicked his booted legs up onto a second
chair.

His guard also ordered a tankard and took a seat at one of the long tables near the
door, where he could keep an eye on things.

Where was this obsessive sentry on the night Nicholas attended a masked ball in Paris
and was abducted by a beautiful Frenchwoman? A woman who had been working secretly
with the man who now threatened to destroy him and everything he cared for?

Nicholas took another swig of ale. A part of him wanted to blame Véronique for all
this, but how could he, when it was
he
who suggested marriage and allowed her to turn him into a gentleman hero for the
first time in his life—at least in the eyes of the people.

But he was no gentleman. He was the same bastard he’d always been, and he doubted
he could ever truly become what she expected him to be.

Could he really be faithful to one woman for the rest of his life? A few short months
ago, the answer would have been a resounding no, but somehow Véronique had made him
believe it was possible. He wanted it to be, but there was so much water under the
bridge of his miserable life. He couldn’t erase all the women, nor could he erase
the fact that he was the product of his mother’s secret adultery, and the proof had
finally come back to haunt him. And he wanted to murder it with a thin rope.

The barkeep arrived with a second tankard of ale and set it down on the table. Nicholas
fished in his pockets for coins and dropped them into the man’s open palm.

A few minutes later he was waving at the barkeep for something stronger—a bottle of
whiskey—and feeling grateful for its numbing effects, for it took some of the edge
off his murderous inclinations. Though the self-loathing was becoming rather more
profound as he took in his surroundings and wondered what the hell he was doing here
in this abominable place on the worst side of town.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder just then. He tipped his head back on the chair
to look up through clouded vision at the upside-down image of a woman’s face.

She was leaning over him.

Golden-haired. She wore a pale blue gown.

Her hand slid across his chest as she bent forward to whisper in his ear. “Would you
like some company?”

Nicholas was drunk, but not that drunk. He knew better than to invite this woman to
join him, for she was a whore, and he was Prince Nicholas of Petersbourg, recently
married and teetering too close to the edge of a terrible fall from grace.

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, “but I’ll be on my way shortly.”

Her eyes warmed with a smile. She moved around him to push his legs off the facing
chair. “Then I’ll just sit with you for a little while until it’s time for you to
go. What’s your name? I’m Jennie.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jennie,” he replied with seductive charm—for old habits
died hard, especially when one was soused. “What brings you out on this fine afternoon?”
he asked.

She leaned forward in her chair and slid her hands up his thighs. “The chance that
I might meet a man like you. But clearly, the more pertinent question at hand is what
brought
you
out on this fine afternoon? I’ve never seen you here before, and you don’t look like
you belong in this part of town.”

Her hand continued to massage his thighs, and he found himself wondering if she knew
who he was.

He also wondered if he would ever be capable of forgetting the wife who waited for
him at home. Would he ever wish to return to this perverted existence, where he could
flirt unreservedly with willing women, and give them what they wanted? Take what he
wanted?

“I should go,” he said, blinking slowly through the heavy haze of his inebriation.

She slid onto his lap. He sat back in the chair, wanting to get up, but he couldn’t
seem to make his body move.

“One kiss,” she said with another tempting smile that reminded him of his old self
when he could charm a kiss—and a great deal more—out of any woman he desired.

“No,” he gently replied, so as not to reject her too cruelly.

Seconds later, however, he regretted not using a firmer tone, for her moist lips found
his in the cold shadows of the alehouse—and he allowed it, at least for a few seconds
before he shoved her away.

“I said
no.
”

She slid her hand into his coat and stroked his chest. “I don’t think you mean that.
I think you want to come upstairs and let me open your breeches. This mouth of mine
likes to do more than just kiss.”

His head nodded back. He was drunker than he realized, but not so incapacitated that
he couldn’t lift this woman off his lap and place her on the opposite chair. After
doing so, he rose unsteadily to his feet. She glared up at him with seething anger.

Tossing a few coins onto the table, he walked out of the shadows, past his guard.
“If you tell anyone about this,” he said, “I swear to God you’ll rue the day you were
born.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

By the time Nicholas reached the king’s royal court chamber, he was sober again—at
least sober enough to speak clearly and make some sense out of the situation. He explained
everything to his brother and showed him the letter Pierre had handed to Véronique
at the outdoor concert.

Randolph stared at him, incredulous. “He is blackmailing you?”

“Yes. He wants d’Entremont Manor.” Nicholas sat down. “Perhaps I should just give
it to him.”

Randolph scoffed. “Or he could conveniently meet with some sort of unfortunate accident.”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it,” Nicholas replied. “In far more detail than I
should have. But he has left instructions with someone in France to send the incriminating
information to the Petersbourg newspapers if he does not return in person by a certain
date. So if anything happens to him, the truth will be revealed, regardless.”

Randolph paced about the room. “He will not get away with this. You will give him
nothing. We will take him into custody and force him to confess who has this information.”

“As I suggested before,” Nicholas said, “wouldn’t it be easier to simply give him
the manor house? Do I really need it?”

Randolph stopped pacing. “That is for you to answer, not me.”

Nicholas rubbed his pounding temples. “Bloody hell. Either way, if I surrender to
him, he will only return later with more threats, looking for more money. It will
never end.” He stood and moved to the mantel, rested his hands on it, and gazed down
at the empty grate.

“What if I reveal everything myself,” Nicholas suggested, “before the three days are
up? Then he will have nothing with which to bargain.”

“We could arrest him for your kidnapping,” Randolph said.

Nicholas faced him. “If we arrest him, we will have to arrest Véronique as well. That
cannot be an option.”

His brother stared at him for a moment. “Do you realize what you are saying?”

“Yes, I intend to confess the truth about my legitimacy.”

“You will lose your title,” Randolph told him. “You will no longer be Prince Nicholas.”

“What about the dukedom?” he asked, focusing on the particulars.

“That is a separate title I bestowed upon you,” his brother replied. “I will not take
it away, but you would no longer be a royal duke. Your rank would change.”

“I can live with that,” Nicholas said.

“The gossip will be fierce,” his brother warned. “The newspapers will have a field
day. The editors will jump for joy. They won’t be kind. Even Véronique will be dragged
into the slaughter, and will likely be cut to pieces. Will she be strong enough to
weather it?”

Nicholas remembered the day she kicked Pierre in the nether regions, and the day she
walked in on a man’s suicide.…

“Yes, she’s made of stern stuff, and she won’t be sorry to see Pierre cut off at the
knees. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Randolph walked to the desk, where he stood for a long time with his back to Nicholas.

“What’s wrong?” Nicholas asked.

His brother faced him at last. “I am thinking of our mother. Everyone always thought
she was a shining example of purity and dignity. She was a beloved queen, but this
will change that forever. The Royalists will say what they always do—that our family
is not worthy of the crown.”

Nicholas sighed. “Yes, but now we have you and Alexandra as our sovereigns. Alexandra
is descended from the ancient Tremaine dynasty, so no one can ever dispute the legitimacy
of your heir’s rightful claim to the throne. The monarchy is safe at least.” He paused.
“But, Randolph, if you must wash your hands of me to protect your crown, I will not
begrudge you for it.”

“Wash my hands of you?” Randolph replied in shock and dismay. “I intend to stand by
you, Nicholas, no matter what occurs.”

His heart ached with love for his brother. “I don’t want to bring you down.”

Randolph laid a hand on his shoulder. “None of this is your fault, and perhaps it
won’t be as bad as all that. What Mother did … it was a long time ago. Perhaps the
people will be forgiving. We will do our best to put the right spin on it. We will
focus on your courage and honesty in coming forward.”

Nicholas stared at him for an overlong moment. “It’s going to be rough on all of us.
I had best go and prepare Véronique.”

He thought of her family just then, and hoped they would not regret giving him permission
to marry their daughter.