She ignored Gabe and gave the captain a puzzled look. “Rescue me from whom?”
The captain looked at Gabe and then back at Callie. “I thought—is that thug not the enemy who stole you away?” he said doubtfully and looked to the count as if for confirmation.
“Enough of this nonsense,” the count said and lunged at Gabe with his sword.
“Callie, Nicky, get the hell outside! The rest of you, stay back,” Gabe warned as he parried the count’s thrust. Count Anton was a skilled swordsman with a stylish manner, but Gabe had been fighting for his life for eight years: there was no comparison.
Gabe thrust and at the same time twisted his blade. It slashed into Count Anton’s left shoulder and blood blossomed through his coat. He snarled and thrust wildly back at Gabe and with a flick of the wrist, Gabe sent the count’s blade spinning out of his hand and across the floor. Harry clamped a boot on it and the fight was over.
The count stood panting, staring at Gabe with flat malevolence. “Kill them all!” he ordered the guards.
“Sheathe your swords,” Captain Kordovski ordered, and the guards sheathed their swords.
The count swore viciously.
“That’s enough,” Gabe snapped. “Were it not for the presence of this lady and her child I would butcher you where you stand. As it is I’ll be glad to see you dance at the end of a rope.”
“You can’t touch me,” the count snarled.
“Nash, you’re the diplomat, what say you? Surely a member of a foreign royal family cannot be immune from prosecution for arson, kidnapping, and attempted murder?”
“What are you talking about?” Captain Kordovski demanded belligerently. “Arson? What arson? And as for kidnapping—you are a fine one to talk, you, who stole our prince and princess from us. And as for attempted murder, we are all witness to the fact that it was a fair fight.”
“What areyoutalking about?” Callie stepped forward. “Nobody stole me. But he—” She pointed at Count Anton, who sat nursing his wound. “He stole my son from his bed last night as he slept.”
“His agents did,” Captain Kordovski corrected her. “He organized the rescue attempt to save the prince from the fiend who was holding him prisoner.” He glared at Gabe.
Suddenly it was clear to Gabe. The count’s so-called agents—he’d wager the original plan had been for them to assassinate Nicky. Planned for the night of the party, when everyone would be distracted and the count himself would be downstairs innocently hobnobbing with the highest born collection of witnesses in the land.
Then Captain Kordovski and his Royal Guards arrived on the scene and the assassination had to be turned into a rescue attempt.
“Stop calling him a fiend!” Callie snapped. “He is my husband. My beloved husband.”
Gabe blinked. What had she just called him?Beloved?
“And he wasn’t holding anyone prisoner, or hidden away. Nicky was peacefully asleep, and Gabriel was downstairs dancing with me at the party to celebrate our wedding.”
Captain Kordovski’s jaw dropped. “What? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Callie said.
Neither did Gabe. Had she really called him her beloved husband? And if so, did she mean it, or was it just to calm that captain fellow?
“I do,” an unexpected voice said. Nicky stepped forward and pointed at the count. “Hetold you we were prisoners of Mr. Renfrew, didn’t he? Andhetold you that Mr. Renfrew was responsible for us fleeing Zindaria.”
“Fleeing?” Captain Kordovski repeated. “You were stolen.”
“No, Mama and I fled becausehe”—he pointed again at the count—“was trying to kill me and nobody would believe Mama.” Nicky looked at Captain Kordovski. “That’s why you didn’t stop me back then, isn’t it? You weren’t holding me prisoner, you thought you were rescuing me.”
Captain Kordovski nodded, a grim look in his eye.
Nicky grinned. “And becausehe”—he stabbed his finger at the count for the third time, this one with glee—“didn’t know I could ride I was able to steal a horse and get away.”
The count glowered at the small boy. “You should have been drowned at birth, a twisted little weakling like you,” he snarled.
“Weakling enough to outwit you,” Nicky crowed, undaunted.
And Callie saw…In that tiny spilt second as Nicky crowed, she saw the expression on the count’s face change. She saw his hand move…
