Part 29 (1/2)
She really must have fancied her English stud if she would go to such lengths as to drown her sorrows in wine over him. What man was worth it?
”Your Highness?” Alexa murmured carefully, making sure.
There was no response.
Her heart thumping, Alexa reached down and gently brushed back some of Her Highness's wild raven curls, revealing her tear-stained face.
The princess was in dreamland, just like her guards soon would be.
Alexa's pretty face hardened. Perfect. Now all she had to do was smuggle the princess out of the palace. Thanks to Colonel Knight's revelation of the secret tunnel leading out of the wine cellar, Alexa knew the route to take. She had investigated it earlier on her own, making sure her plan would work.
It was not going to be easy tugging her friend along through that dark, rocky tunnel, but once they reached the stable, she could easily spirit Sophia away in the back of her curricle. The drugged royal was in no shape to fight her.
”First things first,” she said to herself under her breath. Obviously Sophia could not go out in her dressing gown.
Alexa shook Sophia by her shoulder, rousing her from the depths of her slumber. She knew she would have to help dress her mistress for their excursion, just as she had a.s.sisted her so many times before-only more so this time, thanks to the laudanum.
If anyone saw them making their way down to the wine cellar, Alexa planned to insinuate that Her Highness was drunk. No one would have any trouble believing that, given the fireworks display between Sophia and Colonel Knight earlier today. Most of the courtiers had witnessed their pa.s.sionate lovers' quarrel, and tonight the palace still buzzed with the gossip; Alexa did not think anyone would find it all that strange that the outrageous princess had spent the evening trying to forget the lover she had banished with a bottle or two of expensive champagne.
That, indeed, would be Alexa's explanation for anyone who saw them heading for the wine cellar, with herself acting the part of the dutiful companion, watching out for her distraught highborn friend in her state of intoxication.
Some of the kitchen staff might still be on duty tonight when the ladies pa.s.sed through on their way to the wine cellar, but Alexa trusted that, like good servants, they would see nothing.
By morning, it would be too late for them to report the ladies' visit to the wine cellar, for, by then, the two of them would be long gone. Alexa supposed that the truth of her guilt would be known as soon as the bodyguards woke up, but she could not think about that right now.
Her new life in France would be worth it.
She shook Sophia's shoulder again, determined to get this unnerving night over with. ”Your Highness, wake up!”
The dose of laudanum she had poured into the wine was too strong to restore Sophia to a state of clarity, but Alexa's efforts to rouse her finally succeeded in bringing the princess to a groggy state of semiconsciousness.
”What's the matter?” Sophia slurred. Her eyes focused enough to make out Alexa. ”What do you want with me? I'm not speakin' to you.”
”I know you're angry,” Alexa said with an angelic look. ”But I've come to make it up to you! You must get up, get dressed! Lord, how much did you drink?”
Sophia growled at her and started to roll over to go back to sleep. ”Leave me alone.”
”You don't understand-Colonel Knight is waiting to see you!”
”Gabriel?” she breathed, dragging one glazed eye open in question.
”Yes, he sent me to fetch you! He wants to see you, Your Highness. He's waiting to apologize.”
”Oh...Gabriel,” she uttered in a plaintive moan.
”You won't disappoint him, will you? We must go to him.”
”Where is he?” Sophia mumbled in confusion.
”He's waiting for you just outside the castle grounds. The soldiers won't let him through the gates now that you've dismissed him. He is distraught over you, the poor man!”
”Oh, Gabriel.”
”Will you let him speak his piece? Your Highness, he said if you do not come to him at once, then he will know you do not love him-”
”But I do!” she whispered with a bleary stare full of misery.
”I know you do. I realize that now. That's why I want to help the two of you, to make it right. Sophia, he said if you do not go to him tonight and give him some shred of hope that you care, he will know he means nothing to you and will never seek you out again.”
”Never?”
”That's not what you really want, is it?”
”Oh,...no.” Sophia struggled to sit up, rubbing her head with one hand as she wove unsteadily. She looked so helpless and uncertain, in all, so un-Sophia-like in her drugged state, that Alexa was nearly overcome with guilt. ”I love him,” the princess uttered barely audibly.
”And he loves you.” Alexa chased off her momentary faltering, reminded anew of how unfair her own life was.
It wasn't enough that Sophia got a crown and half the world bowing and sc.r.a.ping to her; she also got the devotion of a man like Gabriel Knight. Alexa did not feel at all sorry for her royal mistress in that moment.
Instead, she reserved her pity for herself alone. ”Come. We have to get you dressed so you can see him.”
”Yes. Let us go. Oh, Lord-I'm drunk, I fear. The wine gave me such a headache tonight! I feel so strange...”
”You didn't eat any supper,” Alexa reminded her. ”You were too upset.”
”I s'pose you're right. Help me, Alexa. The room is spinning.”
”Of course,” Alexa murmured, helping her wobbly friend to rise from her bed. ”I've already got your clothes ready.”
She dreamed she was in Gabriel's arms and he was rocking her slowly like that night in his bed...
She could almost taste the salt of his skin, or perhaps it was the flavor of the tears that streamed down her face as he made love to her, whispering that he'd never leave her again.
The dream changed.
She was locked in an icy castle, banished alone beyond the sea, screaming his name from the highest tower. She paced the battlements with a sword in her hand like a warrior queen, heedless of the piercing cold, but she was frantic with the fear that she would never see her mate again.
The urgency that invaded her sleep tightened her body, her head jerked against the unfamiliar-smelling pillow, and all of a sudden, the distant but still piercing cry of a bird awoke her decisively.
At once she winced and brought one leaden hand up to her head. She was thoroughly groggy, her skull throbbing as though someone had clubbed her. Her mouth was painfully dry.
The salty smell from her dream still lingered.
As she dragged her eyes open, it took a moment for her fuzzy gaze to focus. G.o.d, how much wine had she ended up drinking?
She did not remember giving way to quite so much intemperance. But as her vision cleared, she stared without recognition at the cramped wooden s.p.a.ce in which she found herself. Another bird's cry pierced the stillness and made her flinch from her headache.