At the Queen_s command

Chapter Forty

October 15, 1763

Prince Haven

Temperance Bay, Mystria

S nowflakes sped on a shrieking gust of wind coming through the wurmrest's door and sizzled on the giant boiler. Vlad, down in the pit, tossed another log on the fire beneath the iron tank, then looked up toward the door. He smiled, despite being sweaty, mud-streaked, and soot-stained.

"You should not be in here, Highness."

Gisella pulled off a thick woolen cloak and hung it over the pit's railing. She stamped her feet, freeing them of snow, then returned his smile. She wore a baggy pair of riding breeches and a homespun shirt with a knitted sweater over it.

"I thought, Highness, you might value help on this bitterly cold night."

"Baker will be back after he gets some supper and a little sleep." Vlad tossed another piece of wood on the fire. "And while your help would be welcome, you know why you should not be here. We are unchaperoned."

"Not true, my Prince." She started down the ladder into the pit. "We have your Mugwump."

Vlad turned. The wurm had huddled himself into a circle with head and tail pointed away from the river. Wooden shutters had been closed over the river entrance, and a copper pipe ran from the boiler down into the pit. Steam came off of it and combined with the heat of the fire to render the wurmrest as warm as a windless August day.

"Though he seems to be tolerating the cold better than he has in the past, I am afraid, Princess, that Mugwump is not really much of a chaperone."

"It does not matter; wurms are known in all the medieval tales to be fine chaperones. Knights of great virtue have rescued princesses by the dozen, and the presence of the wurm was enough to ensure no loss of honor."

"Do you believe such tales are true?"

She came to his side and grabbed a piece of wood. "It matters only what others believe. You are an honorable man, so there is no question of my virtue being in jeopardy."

"I hope the Count agrees. I recall the joy with which he relates his dueling stories."

"The Count is unconscious, buried beneath many blankets." She tossed her log in.

The Prince grabbed another. "Ouch."

"What?"

Vlad tossed it onto the fire, then shook his right hand. "A splinter." He held out a grimy hand, then spat on his finger and wiped away the dirt. "Right there."

Gisella took his hand in hers. "Hold still." She ran a finger gently over his skin. When he jolted, she murmured, "Sorry." Then she deftly caught the splinter between two fingernails and yanked it free.

"Thank you."

"In Kesse-Saxeburg we have a superstition." The Princess raised his hand toward her lips and gave the wound a gentle kiss. "That will make it better."

Vlad smiled and reluctantly drew his hand from her grasp. That kiss-by its very gentle nature-stirred something in him. He found Gisella physically attractive, with his affection growing through all the time spent with her. She was, in many ways, more beautiful a woman than he had ever supposed he would have in his life.

Because of his bloodline, however, his destiny had never been his own. He had forced himself over the years to be cordial, but to reject the advances of many women who had dreams of someday being the Governor-General's wife or perhaps even Norisle's queen. He had learned to quickly turn away from the biological urgings such as those her presence encouraged.

She cocked her head. "What is it, Highness?"

"You are a conundrum, Princess Gisella, much akin to du Malphias' pasmortes. "

"I assure you, my lord, that I am quite alive."

"You are wise enough to know that is not what I meant." He tossed another log on the fire. "You have been plucked from your father's domain and sent here to marry me, and you actually appear to like me."

"This would be because I do."

"This is what I find to be so peculiar." Vlad shook his head. "You are less than half my age and from another nation. You have told me, and I have seen, that you enjoy many things that other ladies at court loathe. You are in the midst of a grand adventure, one the equal of any in a variety of novels…"

"I do not read novels, Highness. They are persiflage that does not educate nor illuminate and seldom succeeds in amusing. Writers of such fanciful tales should find something useful and honorable to do with their lives, instead of filling their days writing lies."

Vlad laughed aloud. "Yes, perfect."

"What?"

"And you are a woman of strong opinions, not afraid to express them."

She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, then picked up a firerake and reduced a log to coals. "I should think, for Mystria, this would be preferred."

"I agree." Vlad smiled. "My father's most recent letter had explicit instructions for me to follow concerning my upcoming marriage. He began, of course, with the Church's teachings. He cannot help it. He's been a monk longer than he has been a father, but he tries at the latter. He told me that to marry someone I barely knew and didn't like was a duty. In time, he said, we would come to understand each other. We might even get to the point where we tolerated each other's company. If blessed, we might even be friends. He said our children would be a point of commonality and would reflect our shared values. But the idea of liking each other…"

"Or loving each other?"

Vlad looked down. "Yes, these were things, he said, dreamt of by fools and novelists."

"Because of what your father wrote, you cannot believe I like you?" Gisella smiled and stepped closer to him. "You cannot believe I might love you?"

"It is, I think, far too early to be speaking of love, Princess, lest you commit foolishness for which you would condemn a heroine and the novelist who created her."

"I should tell you, I do not think it is so." Gisella reached up and stroked the side of his face, then turned away. The fire flooded her hair with golden highlights. "I was raised at court, my lord, where I did not fit in because that which attracted others bored me. Like you, however, I was prepared to do my duty. I would come here and marry a man I did not know. I would bear him children and I would hope he would go off to wars or to tour his lands. I would hope he was an ambitious man and that his ambitions took him far from me. And this is why I hate ambition."

Vlad smiled. "Princess, I am an ambitious man."

She turned, her eyes alight. "Your ambition is practical. Your laboratory shouts it. You want to know things, to discover things, to learn. You seek to make the world a better place. Ambition can be selfish or selfless, and you are the master of the latter form. For that reason alone I would like you; and certainly do love you."

"But I am not…"

"Not what, my lord? Dashing and handsome like von Metternin? I would tell you that you are. Handsome, most certainly, and dashing, of course. Who else in all the world rides a wurm beneath the river? You enter worlds no other man has seen. Countless are the fools who charge into battle and think themselves brave because their enemies cannot shoot straight. Their foe's incompetence somehow becomes a shining sign of God's favor."

Her face lit up as she paced. Even Mugwump stirred at her words, sliding his tail out of her way as she paraded. "Shall I tell you, my lord, why it is I love you, for I do love you, and it does not matter to me if you do not return that love? Knowing I have found a man worthy of being loved is enough. But do you wish to know?"

Vlad met her gaze and nodded. "I should be honored."

"You are a man who deals in realities. You acknowledge that honor and glory exist, but you do not seek them as a hound seeks a fox. You see them for what they are. Glory will feed no one. Honor will keep no one warm on a night such as this. A bullet will kill the virtuous and brave as easily as the dissolute and craven-and often side by side with the same volley."

She pointed back toward the house and his laboratory. "The model you have created, the men you have sent to scout it, none of these things are matters for the Governor-General. Your responsibility would have ended with sending reports to Launston. That would be your duty as seen by the Crown, but you see more. You see what is necessary and you execute."

Gisella smiled. "And here, my lord, the fact that you have sent your wurmwright to bed while you stoke these fires, it pleases me. I can imagine you sitting up the night with a coughing child or…"

"Or a wife entering labor?"

"A silly girl who is afraid of how her body is changing?"

Vlad reached out, resting his hands on her shoulders. "I do not believe you will ever be described as silly. And I would tell you that I would thrash any man who dared say so. I also believe, my dear, you would have thoroughly dealt with such a foolish man well before I had a chance to intervene."

She looked up, a tear glistening in an eye, but she smiled. "I have practiced my thumbs red with a dueling pistol, to my father's delight and disgust."

Vlad brushed the tear away, smudging her cheek. "Princess, my lack of belief in your feeling for me is no fault of your own. No, please, let me explain."

He smiled, suddenly warmed by the memory of her sitting behind him on Mugwump, her arms tight under and around his shoulders, as the wurm first slid beneath the river. She had laughed with surprise, killing the sound as she closed her mouth quickly. She clung to him, her breasts pressed to his back, her body shaking. Only after he surfaced, tugging Mugwump up quickly, did he find her shaking with delighted laugher. Drenched, her clothing hanging from her, she did not care about appearances, but she wished to take a deep breath and go under again and again.

"I have spent so many years, Princess, dreading the day a bride would be chosen for me. I had hoped, honestly hoped, that my aunt would see the possibility of my having children as a threat to the throne. I hoped, and fervently believed, that when she did send a wife for me, it would be some old Morvian dowager duchess who would hate me, hate everything I do, and resolve to remain on the Continent while I stayed here.

"And here she has chosen someone who is perfect for me, who is intelligent and beautiful, practical and witty." Vlad shook his head. "It is a dream which I fear will end."

Gisella hung her hands around his neck. "Kiss me, Highness. I promise this dream will not end."

His arms slipped around her, drawing her to him, pressing her tight to his chest. He lowered his mouth to hers. That first kiss, warm and firm, tightened his stomach. He held her closer, not wanting to let go, not wanting to break it, not wanting to even breath. And she held him tightly, not letting him go, not letting him break the kiss.

And she took his breath away.

He could not tell how long they kissed. Empirically he knew it had to have been less than two minutes, since he could only hold his breath that long. Realistically it didn't matter. It could have been a heartbeat, but might as well have been forever. In that moment, a part of himself that had been shut away for so long became free.

The look on her face as their lips parted said she read it all in his eyes. He had no words for the emotions racing through him. The freedom, the towering joy. It was every bit as exhilarating as the first time Mugwump had dived beneath the river with him. It was the complete satisfaction of having found something he never even knew he had lost. And he wondered how he could have survived so long without it.

He laughed silently, then kissed her again. Is this love? He knew lust was involved, certainly, for hungry were their kisses and hot their desires. But he found more there, more that was frustratingly elusive. He could not measure it nor describe it-an ability for which he had to grudgingly admire the much-disparaged novelists. And yet, even though it escaped measurement, it existed because it quickened his pulse and brought him such great joy he could not stop smiling.

Reluctantly he released her. "I fear, Princess, Mugwump is a very poor chaperone."

"This may be, my lord, but he is a silent one, which could make him a wonderful chaperone." She laughed lightly and he adored the sound of it. "But we shall not do anything which would besmirch von Metternin's honor."

"It's best we don't." He took her hand and led her back to the ladder. "And we need to refill the boiler."

He bled the steam off, then opened the boiler. They took turns pumping water and hauling it to the boiler. When they'd filled it two-thirds full, he sealed it again, then climbed back down into the pit to stoke the fire.

She remained above, leaning on the rail, smiling down at him. "I find your working this way very attractive."

He smiled, but stopped himself from preening foolishly. He raked the coals around and started laying in more wood.

"I have a question for you, Princess."

"Ask, my lord."

"In your family, the women bear strong children?"

She nodded, her golden hair shimmering. "Very, my lord."

"So then, by three or four, my sons will be able to tend the boiler on cold nights?"

She grinned. "Only if, my lord, you excuse them from hunting jeopards, which they will want to do from two."

"Very good, my dear, very good. We are splendidly matched. Perfectly." Vlad beamed for her sake and tossed more wood onto the coals. And I wonder, when my aunt discovers this fact, what she will do to ruin us.