Return of the Prince: Medieval Romance (The Three Kingdoms Book 1) Read online

  “I am Eloise,” she said, smiling wryly when he grasped the ends of her fingers, his expression uncertain. She gave his hand a shake, a common greeting, having had no expectation that he would either bow over her hand or kiss the back of her fingers.

  “And I am Destrian,” he replied.

  Her smile faded. “But that’s the prince’s name.”

  “Not exclusively,” he said dryly. “He has been known to share it with others.”

  “So, you’re saying you are not the prince?”

  He eyed her warily, and a lump formed in Eloise’s throat. If he was King Cedric’s heir, she understood his reluctance to disclose his identity, as the price on his head was sure to be exorbitant. But where that left her, she did not know. Rebuking a member of royalty for bad manners after dragging them through a thicket would have been more than enough cause for execution under Althelos’ reign, regardless of one’s motivation.

  “If you were the prince, I should address you as ‘your highness’ or ‘your grace’,” Eloise said, hoping a round-about attempt at deference was better than no attempt at all. “Are either to your liking?”

  “Not particularly,” he said, his expression inscrutable. “Destrian will do.”

  “Very well, Destrian,” she said with the slight bob of her head, as one couldn’t be too careful. In her experience, members of royalty were a fickle bunch and prone to changes of mood and the rewriting of history when it suited them.

  “How about we get my boots off, so we can see what damage I have done to this ankle,” Destrian said, seemingly done with the topic. “The pain is getting rather unpleasant, although the pounding in my head is providing a distraction.”

  “Very well then.” Eloise wiped her hands on her skirt before doing the almost unthinkable. Straddling his thigh, she bent over with her bottom virtually in his face and took hold of the prince’s foot. The boot didn’t budge despite her using considerable force.

  “It might help if I steady you, my lady,” he said, grabbing hold of her hips when she would have fallen.

  “Just Eloise.” She shot him a glance over her shoulder, and he offered an apologetic smile. This time, she had better luck . . . other than landing in the prince’s lap when the boot finally came free. Scrambling to her feet, she turned to face him, red-faced.

  “I’m so sorry, my lord, I mean your Highness, I mean—”

  “Destrian will do, and there is nothing to apologise for. If it weren’t for you coming to my aid . . .” His words trailed away, and she nodded shakily.

  “Removing the other boot the same way isn’t an option,” he added. “You will have to cut it off.”

  “Cut it off?” Eloise frowned. “But it would be ruined.”

  He lifted a shoulder indifferently. “I have other pairs.”

  Appalled by the idea of destroying something so finely made, she studied the boot in her hands before placing it aside. “Of course. How silly of me,” she said in a small voice, having forgotten what it was like to have the luxury of treating one’s possessions with such little regard. There was a time when she wouldn’t have considered the gowns she was reduced to wearing fit for rags, not that she’d had to do the polishing back then. Her father had employed servants to keep their household running . . . maids, a laundress, kitchenhand . . . all roles she now filled with scant help and no thanks. That was when she wasn’t out foraging in the forest for truffles or collecting herbs for the salves and tonics she made and sold for her step-mother at the markets.

  Fetching a knife from the shelf where she kept her few cooking utensils, Eloise turned back to see Destrian looking around the cabin, a frown marring his brow. When his gaze returned to her, it lingered on the patches and frayed hem of her gown.

  “I shall make sure you are recompensed for helping me, but you are welcome to keep the boots. Perhaps you could salvage them if you cut along the seam?” He gestured to the almost invisible stitches that formed a line up the back.

  “Perhaps.” Eloise raised her chin. She hadn’t gone to his aid with any thought of payment in mind, but she had already come to the same conclusion about his boots. If she didn’t damage them too badly, the local cobbler would be able to repair and sell them, earning her some valuable coins she might be able to keep out of her step-mother’s hands.

  After kneeling down, she carefully cut along the line of almost invisible stitching. Doing her best not to jostle Destrian’s injured ankle in the process, she rested it on her lap.

  “I would say you should not, you’ll muddy your skirt, but . . .”

  Eloise looked up to meet his rueful gaze. “Since I am already well covered, what’s a bit more?”

  He smiled, his green eyes sparkling and forming little lines at the corners. His teeth were white and even, a rarity, and a rather delightful looking dimple had formed in one cheek. Even pale and with his hair resembling a haystack, he was the most appealing looking young man she had ever encountered. When she realised she was gaping, Eloise snapped her mouth shut and focused on her task.

  “I can’t imagine anyone stumbling upon this cabin, as it is so well hidden, but it doesn’t seem overly secure,” he said of the ramshackle structure, one she had worked hard to make habitable. “I lost my sword in the fall—can’t believe I didn’t think to search for it, though I suppose I was a bit dazed. Do you have anything with which to defend yourself.”

  “My wits.” She smiled at her jest, but it fell when she considered his valid concern. “The path you were riding on is rarely used, as it is blocked by a rock fall farther along the way. This part of the forest sees few visitors other than me. I overheard the captain who shot you say he would be back to make sure you were dead, but I trailed your cloak towards the river, so hopefully he will think you have been swept away.”

  “Wise indeed.” Destrian smiled, but she refused to become distracted this time.

  “A visitor, you say. You don’t live here permanently?” He seemed bemused by the idea, not that she could blame him. Her quarters back home were the meanest her step-mother could provide, but they were plush in comparison to the cabin’s meagre furnishings.

  “Not permanently, no,” she said, though the thought had crossed her mind. Gloria, her step-mother, would never find her if she chose to remain living in the forest. The thought of thwarting the woman, whose rage at losing the income and service her step-daughter provided would be formidable, was tempting, but Eloise was a realist. She wouldn’t survive the winter, the loneliness, or knowing she had abandoned the servants who had become both family and friends since her parents’ deaths. Running away to another village wasn’t an option, as she would only be caught and dragged back or find herself in an even worse situation. At least living in her father’s home, if no longer as a member of the family, she could sometimes protect the other servants from her step-mother’s cruelty, just as they looked out for her.

  “I live in Hal—” She almost said the name but cut herself off at the last moment, shooting the prince a wary glance. There was probably no harm in revealing such a detail, but ingrained wariness tempered her words. “One of the villages between here and the palace.”

  “What are you doing so deep in the forest?” he asked, and she met his curious gaze. “If your husband or father were accompanying you, I am sure you would have mentioned it. Have you run away?”

  She shook her head, cutting carefully as she reached his ankle, mindful of Destrian’s winces. “I come here for a few days or a week at a time, gathering herbs in the warmer months and truffles when they are in season. We sell them at the markets.”

  “We?” He grimaced as she removed first the boot from his foot then his long woollen sock.

  “My, er . . . family,” she said after a pause. Claiming a husband or father would be coming to check on her might have offered an added layer of protection besides Destrian’s word that he would not harm her, but she doubted he would believe such a tale. Only a step-mother, driven by greed and with little care for her ste
p-daughter’s safety, would send a young lady venturing out into the forest alone.

  “What about your men?” she asked while examining his swollen, discoloured ankle. “They’ll come looking for you, won’t they?”

  “Eventually. Once they make it to the palace and realise I didn’t arrive. In hindsight, attempting to get through alone wasn’t my wisest decision, but I didn’t want to risk my companions’ lives and thought my superior horse could outrun my attackers.”

  “Their horses, maybe, but not an arrow.” Eloise felt along the bones in his foot and ankle, searching for a break.

  “No, not an arrow.” He ground the words between his teeth, flinching as she poked and prodded. “What’s the verdict?”

  “Not obviously broken.” She looked up at him. “No bones poking through the skin, and I can’t feel any gaps or overlaps.”

  “Then why does it hurt so much?”

  “Because you have a nasty sprain.” She propped his foot on an upturned bucket and went to fetch a small jar of salve. “I’ll make you something for the pain, and this should help bring down the swelling. After I’ve rubbed it in, I shall bandage the ankle for support. Hopefully it won’t take too long to heal, but I can’t see you walking on it for a few days, at least.”

  “A few days!” He went to rise from the chair, before collapsing back, the colour leeching from his face. “I can’t stay here that long. My father is waiting for me.”

  “I don’t see that you have much choice.” Eloise shrugged and got on with tending his ankle. “If I could get word to your men without getting myself killed or captured in the process, they could carry you out of here. But they won’t know you didn’t make it until they reach the palace—”

  “Then they’ll have to return, with a much larger force, defeat Carac’s men, and begin the search,” he finished with a sigh.

  “Don’t worry. I have enough supplies to keep us for a few days, and I can check my traps once the weather clears. We won’t starve.”

  “That’s something, I suppose,” he muttered before heaving a sigh. “Forgive me, Eloise. You have gone out of your way to help me, and I am showing a decided lack of gratitude.”

  “I understand.” A wave of shyness overtook her, making it difficult to meet his gaze. He was an important man in the Kingdom, and she was next to nobody with her father gone. “You have the coronation to attend, and then there’s the alliance everyone is talking about, the possibility of peace.”

  “Peace.” He pulled a face. “At the price of my marrying King Gorvenal’s daughter.”

  “You don’t want to marry Princess Seraphina?” Eloise looked up in surprise. The neighbouring King’s eldest daughter was renowned to be the most beautiful lady in the three Kingdoms.

  Destrian shrugged. “A choice would be nice.”

  “A choice.” Eloise couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a say in what happened in her life. She shuddered to think who her step-mother would choose for her husband. The only reason she hadn’t been married off to the highest bidder already—old, decrepit, cruel . . . none of it mattered as long as his purse was fat—was because she was more valuable to Gloria in her current role. With her nineteenth birthday approaching, her time was rapidly running out.

  After rubbing some herbal unguent she had made herself into Destrian’s ankle, she bandaged it with strips of cloth she tore from the hem of her spare petticoat. Then she set about making him a willow bark brew for the pain. It was only after he had drunk it all, grimacing at the sour taste but offering no complaint, that she examined the cut on his forehead. It had stopped bleeding and wasn’t as deep as she had feared. Wrapping a bandage around his head to hold a fresh cloth in place over the wound, she sighed with relief that sewing the sides of the cut together would not be necessary.

  “All done,” she said, and turned her back on him. “If you could remove the rest of your garments and get in the bed, I shall hang them up to dry.”

  “Then you must change out of your wet clothes, and get some rest,” he ordered. “You look frozen to the bone.”

  Eloise opened her mouth to argue, as her list of chores was barely begun, but he was right . . . about her needing to get dry and warm, at any rate. As soon as he was settled in the bed, she reached for the towel, her only one, and wiped her face. It came away stained with mud, the rain that had washed Destrian’s face clean apparently not having done her the same favour. Her reflection in the fragment of mirror she kept on a shelf confirmed her fears, and she shook her head at the sight of her mud-smeared face. Quite aside from her ragged clothes and lack of escort, it was little wonder he had sounded surprised when she had said she was a lady. After fetching a bowl of water from the bucket she kept near the door, she took a moment to wash her face. Then she removed her head scarf, unwound her braids, and towel dried her long, brown hair.

  A glance revealed Destrian had turned to face the wall, allowing her some privacy. Quickly removing her mud splattered gown, she put it aside to be scrubbed before taking off her damp petticoat, chemise, and bloomers. Nervous about being naked in a room with a man, Eloise’s fingers shook as she donned a clean chemise and her spare dress. Even more drab than the one she had removed, it hung limply without a petticoat, but there was not enough left of her spare to make it worth wearing. Lifting her crocheted shawl off a hook, she wrapped it around her shoulders then huddled near the small fire for a moment while she ran her comb through hair. Once she had stopped shivering, she put a kettle on to boil, stifling a moan at the thought of a hot cup of tea.

  “You can turn around now, if you like. I’m getting us something to eat,” she said after she had hung her unmentionables up to dry in the minimal space remaining. Their presence was no more embarrassing than Destrian’s breeches hanging on the line, she supposed, but she couldn’t keep her face from flaming. Intent on fetching the bread and cheese she kept stowed in a box beside the bed, she left the shadowed corner, her head down.

  “Hell and damnation,” Destrian swore and caught hold of her arm.

  “What is it?” Eloise searched his face for answers. “Is the pain worse? Are you going to be ill?”

  “No, I was just taken aback by how beautiful you are. I had no idea.”

  Stunned by his words, she stood perfectly still while he twined a waist-length lock of her hair around his fingers.

  “I could see you had nice eyes, like a doe with such long lashes, but the mud hid your face, and as for your hair . . .”

  His eyes darkened, and he tugged her towards him, his gaze dropping to her mouth. Wondering if he was going to kiss her, Eloise’s heart pounded with a combination of fear and anticipation. She had never been kissed, and the thought of touching her lips to Destrian’s was enticing, until she considered the ramifications. He was a man, not a boy, and he wouldn’t be satisfied with kisses alone. With mere inches between them, she came to her senses.

  “You promised.” She pressed a hand to his bare chest.

  “That I wouldn’t hurt you, and I have no intention of doing so,” he said, his voice a low, husky rasp. “But you are right.” He released her with a sigh. “There are other ways to harm a lady, and it wouldn’t be very honourable of me to take advantage of one who had gone to such lengths to save my life.”

  Stepping back, Eloise was torn between feeling grateful and disappointed that he had remembered he was a gentleman. What that said about her claim to having once been a lady, she wasn’t sure.

  Chapter 3

  The girl’s hands shook as she poured tea into a chipped cup before placing it on the table by the bed. Destrian hadn’t meant to frighten her, acting purely on instinct when she had moved out of the shadows and come close enough for him to touch. Desire had never hit him so strongly before, but he had forced it aside when he saw the fear in her eyes, wanting to reassure her she was safe with him—safe from him.

  Having never bedded an unwilling serving girl, he wasn’t about to start now. In truth, he had rarely taken advantage of what w
as freely offered. Unlike his younger brother, Merek, who would happily tumble anything in a skirt, he found casual couplings not to his liking. Ignoring the ribald teasing he received for his conservative inclinations, he had eventually decided to hold out for something more. Justin, his best friend and man-at-arms, shared Merek’s eye for the ladies, but he seemed to understand Destrian’s motivation.

  “It’s not wrong to want to feel something with your heart, not just your loins,” he had told him two days earlier on their journey from Angeles, their home in exile these last five years. “With your parents’ example, it’s unsurprising you have set yourself a high ideal. Here’s hoping you shall find what you’re looking for with Princess Seraphina.”

  Destrian’s confidence wasn’t high. He had only met her the once, but once was enough to know they shared little in common other than a privileged heritage. While his mother assured him there was more to the renowned beauty than met the eye, she had offered only the most superficial of opinions, their conversation soon faltering. Regardless of what may or may not be hidden behind her banal veneer, he had felt no spark, no fire. Unlike his reaction to his bedraggled rescuer with her tattered clothing and bossy manner—one he had to thank for keeping him alive. When she had stepped out of the shadows, her long, brown tresses falling in waves almost to her waist and her heart-shaped face free of dirt, the air had rushed from his lungs.

  Eloise.

  The name was common enough, he supposed, though there was nothing common about the girl who had galvanised his attention. With his heart continuing to beat heavily in his chest, he couldn’t take his eyes off the young woman whose refined speech and obvious education confirmed her claim to having once been a lady. Not just any lady. Destrian could only conclude that he had been too busy trying not to hinder her efforts to get them both to safety to see how truly lovely she was. Merek might not agree, the girl’s allure too subtle for his brother . . . which was a good thing.