Read Online The Runaway Princess by Christina Dodd - Free Book Online

wouldn’t let anyone mistreat her. No, more likely he’d make up some story that she was already his wife so he could keep her in his bed.
    Her mouth dried, and she tried to swallow. Her imagination had allowed the skinny, frightened, defiant orphan to make up stories when no hope remained. Her imagination had whisked her from Leona’s house in East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall, to China and the Canary Islands and Turkey. Her imagination had been a blessing.
    Now, her ability to fantasize placed her between the sheets with Danior, and trapped her between anticipation and fear.
    In her quietest voice, she asked the bodyguards, “What would you gentlemen do if you knew I wasn’t the real princess?”
    To her surprise, Victor answered. “I’d drop you right here in the middle of the path and let the revolutionaries pick you up.”
    Victor, she discovered, had no sense of humor at all.
    Danior whirled around again. “Santa Leopolda’s bones!” Plucking her out of her living chair, he said, “If they can’t keep you quiet, I can.”

Seven
    Danior didn’t, as Evangeline feared, throw her over his shoulder again. This time he held her against his chest—and he was warm. Not like the faded warmth she’d received from the other men, but really warm, like the blacksmith’s forge back in East Little Teignmouth, Cornwall.
    â€œIf we get caught,” she muttered, “it’ll be because of your shouting, Your Highness.”
    â€œI was not shouting.”
    Of course he wasn’t, it was only that his voice didn’t go below a rumble, much like a subterranean volcano. “Almost.”
    He put her on her feet so fast that she thought he was going to leave her for Dominic. Instead, he removed his cloak, turned his back, and squatted on his haunches. “Climb on,” he said quietly.
    She, too, kept her voice to a murmur. “Wh . . . what?”
    â€œClimb on my back.”
    She glanced around, half expecting to see Victor and Rafaello ready to make her obey. They’d faded into the darkness. “Why?”
    â€œI need my hands free.”
    What he said made sense, but . . . she looked down at her evening gown. The fine silk skirt was gathered beneath her bosom, with cotton petticoats beneath. “What about my . . . limbs?”
    â€œWhat about them?”
    His obtuse ignorance fed her stubbornness. “They’ll be exposed.”
    â€œIt won’t be the first time I’ve seen your legs, nor carried you this way. Remember how, when you were a child, you used me as your horsie?”
    â€œNo.” She wanted to stomp her foot, but that would hurt the blisters that had formed. “No!”
    â€œWe don’t have time for these games. Dominic can’t be far behind. Get on, girl!” Then Danior corrected himself through clenched teeth. “Highness.”
    She couldn’t prevail. She either had to walk in her thin shoes and ruin her feet and with them her chances of ever escaping from this madness—or she had to get on his back. But she remembered something from her years of research. A tip from a sixteenth-century Italian mediator. When your enemy is backed into a corner, that is the time to negotiate . “Evangeline,” she said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy name is Evangeline. If you’ll call me that, then I’ll get on your back”
    â€œI don’t believe this.” His tone made it dear he’d been driven to the limit.
    â€œDominic can’t be far behind,” she reminded him.
    His teeth gleamed, his breath rasped, his hands twisted, and she realized he was mangling his owncloak rather than her neck. For one moment, she wondered if he would attack. Then, in a goaded voice, he said, “Get on my back . . . Evangeline.”
    She’d won. Oh, God, she’d won a skirmish with Danior! She wanted to jump, to yell, to dance. But the mere