7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Flaming summer charms the earth with its own fluting, and under leaves the cicada scrapes its tiny wings together and incessantly pours out full shrill song." SapphoHenrique thanked the tavern server and swallowed the port. A second more, and the princess, his friend’s sister, would have sported bruises on her royal face—a purple testimony to his lack of care. He stared at the swirling liquid until his vision blurred. What in Dante’s many hells was she doing in that room?

Henrique would have better luck solving the Riemann Hypothesis than understanding his meddling princess. One moment, she disparaged the woman for dancing too close to her partner. In the next, she turned her cheek to receive a blow in the woman’s place.

The door swung open. Dio strolled inside as if presenting himself to court, his posture erect and his face impassive. A challenging undertaking with his coat wrinkled and splattered by blood and his curly hair sticking out of his head like a magpie’s nest.

Henrique kicked a chair for him to sit. "And?"

"I’ve locked the fellow in his room. The hotel clerk will release him in the morning after we leave. It’s not as if he could compose a pastoral and break out into verses. Your goodnight swing put him to sleep."

Henrique gripped the stem of his glass. "And the princess?"

"The pretty maid wouldn’t let me inside the chamber. She informed me Isabel was resting and in perfect health."

Henrique exhaled heavily and leaned back in the chair. The movement upset his sore shoulder, and he winced.

Dio eyed his bloodied knuckles. "Shouldn’t you clean your battle wounds?"

"It’s nothing. You know her better than I do. Why was she there?"

"Maybe she does it for sport. Who knows, you could’ve interrupted the performance of a pugilist."

Dio laughed at his own joke, and Henrique glowered at him. He usually went along with his friend’s ability to find humor in the most gruesome of situations, but tonight, he had no stomach for it.

"I’m serious."

"Look, she might or might not be the adopted little sister I grew up with, and you might or might not be the much older brother figure who gave me liquor and the odd aphrodisiac, but it does not mean I will carry tales back and forth between you two."

"I’m only four years older than you."

"If you say so." Dio’s chuckles dwindled to a stop, his gaze turning serious. "Talking about performances… You should have told me you embraced the hero’s quest. I would’ve come to your first battle. Instead of Hercules defeating the Nemean Lion, we had Henrique beating up the Copa’s drunk."

Henrique pushed the glass away and crossed his arms. "Leave it be."

Dio lifted a brow. "Seriously, though. If you had invited the chap for a drink, told a joke to dispel the gloominess… Violence is not your style."

Indeed, it wasn’t. But when he saw the swine about to hit Isabel, he became a savage. Luckily, Dio had arrived before he could do more damage.

"Good night." Henrique grabbed the bottle and stood, leaving behind the tavern and Dio’s unwelcome questions.

Outside, the hotel stared at him, a gray lump of concrete sticking from the ground, beams of light escaping from the closed shutters. He lifted his gaze to the third floor, the fourth window to the right. Dark. She must be sleeping. Excellent. At least one of them would rest.

He crossed the empty square and neared the entrance. A pitiful whine—midway between a broken steam valve and a wheezing dog—made him halt. Would there be no end to the night’s pitfalls? He followed the sound around the building. The pebbled path opened to a kitchen garden, the scent of rosemary thickening the air.

It was her.

The bane of his existence huddled against the graying wall, the tiara at odds with her old-fashioned dressing robe. A shaft of moonlight gave her a translucent and altogether vulnerable aura. By Saint George, what the hell was she doing there?

Henrique came closer, the grass muffling his steps. She startled, her head lifting, a gasp escaping her lips.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed up at the light spilling from a single window above them. "I can’t say it’s a lovely night."

She brushed at her tears and raised her chin, fixing him with a defiant gaze. "If you came here to reproach me—"

"For almost getting your beautiful face smashed? No, never crossed my mind." He dropped by her side. With a heavy sigh, he leaned on the icy wall and stretched his legs.

She shifted away, studying him with her usual intensity. At least this side of her was predictable. "I wonder if making fun turns everything easier."

"It is an acquired art… But I must admit, not for everyone. Some find better solace in wine." Henrique smiled self-deprecatingly and placed the port bottle in the space between them. She looked like she needed a bit of Bacchus’ oblivion.

Her eyes widened, and she stared at Vesuvio’s best vintage as if he had offered her vulgar aguardente. "I don’t drink port."

Another of life’s delights she avoided. He shrugged and reached for the bottle. She beat him to it and, placing her lips over the rim, gulped it down like the last drop of water before a drought.

"Easy there."

She grimaced and returned it to him.

Henrique rested his weary bones on the wall and sighed. It was one of those nights where the cicadas’ song rose in waves, lifting to a melodious pitch and then lowering in unison.

"Their call reminds me of Braganza. I used to sit close to the river, listening until my mother herded me to sleep."

"Why do they sing?" she asked.

"They spend seventeen years underground, and on one special night, no one knows why, they emerge and shed their carapaces to experience flight."

She took a shuddering breath. "Isn’t the carapace safer?"

Henrique tugged off his coat and placed it around her, careful not to touch her. Somehow, he knew she would flee if he did.

It shifted something inside him, seeing her engulfed by his coat. "Do you think you could fly with a carapace?"

She observed the movements of his hands, her lips pressed firmly. "I don’t care much for flying."

"That’s a pity. I would love to see you fly." For a quiet moment, their gazes met, and Henrique knew his words to be true. He would love to see Princess Isabel de Orleans fly.

She broke eye contact first, staring at his bruised knuckles.

"You are hurt." After producing a handkerchief from somewhere in her voluminous clothes, she grabbed his wrist. His protest fell on deaf, delectable shell-shaped ears. She wet the cloth on his best port. He stiffened, reading for pain, but she was delicate, dabbing at the dried blood with angel-soft hands.

"I must thank you... I didn’t know you could, you know…"

Hurt another? Lose his temper? Neither did he. He pulled away from her tender ministrations, flexing his fingers. "Why were you there?"

"I wasn’t negotiating a treaty, I can assure you." She blinked at him, those green eyes flashing as if she spoke with a nitwit instead of the country’s most sought-after scientist. "He abused her. Couldn’t you hear her screams?"

His face grew warm, and he looked away. "I went down to the stables. The groom thought my horse had colic. When I returned to my room and heard the screams... It was too late."

The cicada’s quieted, leaving only the rasping sounds of his failure.

She shifted closer and sighed long and deep. "You were not too late."

Henrique snorted. "Luis shouldn’t have trusted me to—"

She placed her fingertips on his lips. Henrique froze.

"The king would have been proud of you."

She removed her fingertips, her gaze softening. Henrique needed no affirmations, but her praise was port wine-sweet and appeased the worry inside his chest better than alcohol. Did Hercules feel the same when he defeated the Lion? As if to prove him right, the constellation of Leo, named after the hero’s first task, winked at him from its place in the sky.

They leaned their backs on the wall, gazing at the valiant effort clouds made to cover the moon. Still, the silvery disk prevailed, bathing tomatoes, cucumbers, ripe melons, and a lonesome grapevine in a soft glow. A dog howled in the distance. Somewhere in the hotel, a door opened and closed. If someone had told him he would end this day seated on the grass, posterior soaked, knuckles bloodied, drinking with the princess, he would have the fellow interned.

He fingered her tiara. "Is there a protocol? A princess must not be seen in public without her crown? So no one forgets your status?"

"It keeps me from forgetting it." Her voice became frail and transparent.

Henrique didn’t like the bleakness in her eyes and changed the subject. "What did you do with… What was her name?"

"Carlota. I helped her clean her bruises. She is resting in Sophie’s bedroom."

"Good."

"She trained to be a ballerina. The monster lured her from Theater San Carlos with an offer of marriage."

Certainly, she would show some disdain for the woman’s profession. Though many ladies in the theater led respectable lives, most people thought they earned their livelihood not on the stage but on their backs.

Henrique studied her. "What will she do now?"

She shrugged, her hands fiddling with the grass. "For ages, Sophie has been asking me for an assistant. She complains about how I rip my gown’s trains, and she barely has time to sew them with all her other duties. I offered Carlota the position."

Had he heard her correctly? She would employ Carlota, the ballerina with a shady past? His theory of a moralist prude who hated her sex had just been ruled out. Had he misjudged her? Instead of disdaining women, she wanted to protect them—an armorless Dom Quixote. God save them both.

She leaned forward, her eyes searching his. "Why do men hit women?"

He sustained her gaze, cursing the drunkard for exposing her to violence, and yet, he sensed her question had a deeper root. Isabel de Orleans had a lousy view of males. "Not every man uses his fists. Some prefer a subtler seduction."

She tilted her head to the side. "Is there a difference?"

He was tempted to show just how different it could be. His fingers tingled to touch the slanted corners of her eyes and the little dimple she had on her left cheek. To brush the tears and kiss the corner of her lips until her gaze lit up with lust, and they forgot what happened. He settled for tucking a strand of silky hair behind her ear.

Her breath caught, and she gazed at him, a question in her lovely green eyes.

Henrique drank the port. He shouldn’t entertain unchaste thoughts of his friend’s sister. "So, my valiant Dom Quixote, how many more women will you take in until we arrive in Comillas?"

"How much space do we have?" Isabel smiled, unleashing a chain reaction. It sparkled her eyes, glowed her cheeks, glistened her lips.

Henrique brushed his chest, staring at her face. Isabel’s smile was one of those events a man caught once in life—discovering a new species, a total sun eclipse, or losing one’s innocence. She had smiled for the first time, and he understood why she reserved it for special occasions—it must be a political decision, magnanimous and charitable—to guard males’ hearts.

With reluctance, he stood up and offered his hand. "Come, Your Highness., For the safety of the other men in this hotel, I must bid you retire."

She placed her palm atop his. "Call me Isabel."

He stilled, her hand grasped in his. "I will do nothing of the sort."

Her eyes widened, no doubt startled to have her words flung back at her.

He grinned. "I’ll call you Isa."