The Pirate Prince by Gaelen Foley Page A

was a quarter past one. Not enough time.
    Growling at himself, he put the thing away. Even if he had a week, he was not going to make love to this woman. He was not even going to think about it. Perhaps he was a disgrace to his family, but he wasn’t that far gone.
    Besides, what kind of twisted fiend could think of seducing a woman he intended to kill in a few hours’ time? But was it right that such a lovely creature should die a virgin?
    You evil bastard , he said to himself.
    He glanced at the yawning black mouth of this branch of the tunnels.
    “Come on,” he grunted, refusing to see her beauty or to gaze at the moonlight shining through the outline of her dress, where he could see every long, elegant line of her legs, all the way up to the apex of Aphrodite’s mysteries.
    “Why are you taking me in there?” she asked, finally showing she had sense enough to be at least a little afraid.
    “To feed you to the bears,” he muttered. “Hurry. I haven’t got all night.”
    “Is your faction waiting in there?”
    “My what?” He turned around.
    She stepped closer to him, gazing up earnestly at him. “You’re not going to leave me with them, are you? People are angry at my father, and I—I should feel so much safer if you were there.”
    “Safer?” Bewitched, he stared down at her.
    She glanced up shyly at him, a brave smile on her lips as she brushed a billowing lock of hair behind her ear. “I know you wouldn’t let them hurt me. You already saved me once tonight.”
    Lazar stared down at her as understanding slammed through him. She trusted him.
    Agonized, he realized the conclusions Miss Monteverdi had drawn about his motives, and it came to him why she was cooperating so nicely.
    Oh, his spies had told him all about the little patriot’s democratic leanings, picked up from the new philosophers in the salons and cafés of Paris. Allegra Monteverdi was a regular champion of the people. He knew all about her charity projects and her efforts to save the world—as if to atone for her father’s sins.
    Don’t give her false hope. She deserves to know the truth , he thought, but he found he could not bring himself to tell her.
    What good would it do to let her spend the final hours of her life in a state of panic and hysteria? he reasoned. He didn’t want her to suffer any more than necessary. It was her father he wanted to suffer, not her. No, let her grasp the seriousness of her situation by degrees, he thought. It might be easier on her that way.
    God knew it would be easier on him.
    She was gazing up at him with wide eyes full of hope and trust mixed with fear.
    How could that heartless fiancé of hers look upon such innocence, he thought, and think of rape? Aye, do more than think of it. At that moment, he decided to send men out after Clemente—he would hunt the viscount down and kill him for what he’d done to her.
    Maybe that would help ease his own conscience a little.
    For a moment, Lazar reached out and cupped her lovely face in one hand with a sense of ineffable sadness. By the happenstance of lineage, destiny made them enemies. If to this day he were some decadent, idle Crown Prince—for he had no doubt Father would still be alive, just turning sixty—and if Allegra had followed as lady-in-waiting to his little sister, Princess Anna, just as her mother, Lady Cristiana, had once attended his mother, Queen Eugenia, who knew? Perhaps he’d have made a conquest of her and been the one to instruct her in the arts of love.
    “Come, chérie . We’ve little time,” he said, his voice a trifle hoarse. He took her hand and led her into darkness.
     
    The rebel was an enigma, Allegra thought as he guided her slowly into a cave that was even darker than his midnight eyes. After having seen him beat Domenic so brutally, she never would have thought his large, warm hands could be so gentle, untangling her hair from the thornbush and presently steadying her as they went.
    “There should be a torch