But as Marcus trailed his sword tip down my neck, still taunting me, I could come up with no options for escape. I closed my eyes as I desperately searched for inspiration. There must be some way, surely there must be some way.
A muffled thump and the sound of a body hitting the ground made my eyes shoot open. Marcus lay crumpled on the stones of the road, and Frederic stood in his place. He had never looked so handsome.
He held a naked sword in his hand but had evidently used the hilt to knock Marcus out rather than the blade.
“I should have liked to fight and defeat him in a straight battle,” he said in a quiet voice, looking down at the body. “But I couldn’t afford the noise. I only have two men for backup.”
He looked back up at me, and the expression in his eyes would have made me back up if I hadn’t already stood against the wall.
“Evie…” He sheathed his sword and closed the gap between us. “What were you thinking?”
He had reached me now, and he took a single curl in his hand, running it through his fingers. “Cassian must have been mad to let you go alone. I came after you as soon as I heard…”
The trembling hit me harder now that I had been rescued, and he slipped his arms around my waist to support me as if it were a matter of course. I had no idea where to start, so I said nothing. His arrival, even just his presence, felt like a dream—the feel of his arms around me both the strangest and the most natural thing in the world.
I leaned into him and turned my face up to examine his expression. He had returned to the mansion and rushed straight to my rescue. Why was I not surprised? The connection I had felt between us couldn’t have been all on my side.
His eyes moved from mine to my mouth. “Evie, you could have been killed.” His voice trembled on the last word.
I licked my lips, and he swallowed, his eyes flicking back to mine for a moment. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” And then he pulled me tight against his chest and pressed his lips down hard against mine.
Chapter 29
The darkness, the building, the road, everything swirled away from me. Nothing existed except this moment and this man. Every home I had ever left had been worth it to bring me to him.
My already trembling legs gave out completely, and Frederic broke off the kiss to scoop me into his arms. I thought hopefully that he might start kissing me again, but Marcus stirred behind us.
Frederic went rigid and spun around, carrying me with him as if I were the lightest of burdens.
“Men,” he whispered, “bind him.”
Two guards with unnaturally straight faces emerged from the gloom and made short work of binding and gagging Marcus. Once the job was done, they hoisted him up between the two of them, and we all began to move quietly away from the rebel stronghold.
I wanted to kick myself for wasting time in such a dangerous place. We should have moved out immediately. And, yet, I couldn’t bring myself to regret anything of the last few minutes.
I made a half-hearted effort to signal my willingness to use my own two feet, but Frederic’s arms merely tightened around me. I happily gave up and let him carry me away from the fear and tension of the last hour.
Even when we reached a more populated part of the city, he made no effort to put me down. There were stories to tell on both sides, but neither of us spoke, content for the moment simply to enjoy each other’s presence.
I noticed several familiar faces coming in and out of view and smiled to myself. Apparently my urchin friends meant to see me all the way back to the mansion. The sight of them brought back some of my questions.
“How did you find me?”
Frederic’s arms tightened around me. “Your young friends saw you were in trouble and were on their way to the mansion. Thankfully they ran into me, out looking for you, first.”
They had been waiting closer than they should have been then. But once again I couldn’t find it in me to regret their actions. I would have to talk to Frederic about rewarding them somehow. Without their assistance we might have been rounding up the northerners right now.
Celine must have been watching for us because she appeared before the gate had even closed behind us. A satisfied expression flitted across her face as she saw my position, and I blushed, but it was gone a moment later.
“You found her! Is she hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.” This time I wriggled forcefully out of Frederic’s arms. “And I have something I need to tell you all, immediately.”
I looked up at Frederic and read rebellion in his face.
“It’s important,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “Very important.” Once he heard what I had to say, he would understand. A conversation about us would just have to wait until we’d dealt with the rebel attack.
Within minutes we were back in the princes’ sitting room once again, the same five of us gathered to talk about the rebels. I described everything I had seen and heard, my words sending a spark through both princes. Within moments of the end of my tale, the door was open, and they were calling orders out into the corridor.
The Tour’s guard captain soon arrived, along with two of his lieutenants and several nobles. The first of the nobles to arrive was the Earl of Serida, and Frederic ignored the chaos that had erupted around us, bringing him straight over to me.
“It seems you have some sort of connection to the rebel leader, Earl,” said Frederic, his tone giving nothing away.
The earl jerked in his grip, his face showing what looked like genuine shock and confusion. “Me, Your Highness?”
Frederic let go of him and nodded to me. “Tell him what you heard the man say about him, Evie.”
I repeated the line as faithfully as I could remember it. When he still looked confused, I added a physical description of the Shadow Man. As I spoke, a look of understanding and dawning horror filled the older man’s face, and he sank into a nearby chair.
Slowly he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” asked Frederic, watching him closely.
“I think I mentioned before that I came into my title unexpectedly,” said the earl, slowly. “But there is more of a story to it than that. My father was the previous earl’s cousin and passed away a mere month before the old earl. But I had never expected to inherit because the earl had a son. A healthy, intelligent, capable young man my own age. I had met him only once when we were both young because we rarely left the islands in those days.”
He shook his head. “And then the old earl died, and the truth came out. His countess, dead some years before him, had never actually been the countess at all. She had never actually been his wife. Everyone had believed them to be so, and they had lived for decades as if they were, but it turned out it was all a lie. The various houses of Lanover have some odd succession laws—you would know that, Your Highness.”
A strange flicker crossed Frederic’s face, but he merely nodded, and the earl went on. “It turns out that my title comes with restrictions. One of which is that if I wished to keep the title, I was required to marry into the nobility. The earl had always claimed his wife as the daughter of a baron from a small southern barony. But she was no such thing, and a legal marriage ceremony would have required proof. So they had simply never bothered.” He shook his head again. “The whole thing was simply incredible. The extended family wanted to hush it up as much as possible, so the illegitimate son was hurried away, and I was brought in to take his place. The family let people assume he had died, and I suppose I had come to believe it myself.”
“Well, it seems he has not died,” said Frederic. “Though how a penniless outcast managed to raise a rebellion I cannot imagine.”