Chapter 2
Mid-June, 1822
Chateau de Chevalier, Bratavia
“Your Highness, a letter has just arrived for you.”
Prince Valentin Chevalier turned from a window overlooking the castle courtyard, his breath stilled at the sight of an envelope atop the silver tray the footman held out to him.
An ivory envelope bearing the blood-red seal of Donovan Trent, the Duke of Arundale.
Valentinhad seen the seal once before, upon the letter bearing grim news from Porthleven that had transformed him from a hunted fugitive to a shackled prisoner.
By choice…and he would do it all over again.
Anything to protect the loveliest girl he had ever seen, as well as her family, from further harm. Now he would learn, finally, if he might see her again, Estelle Easton no longer fifteen or sixteenyears old, but a young woman of eighteen if he judged rightly.
Valentin hesitated. For some reason he could not bring himself to pick up the letter. So many unanswered questions stormed through his mind.
Would he discover she was recently married and unable to attend his coronation? Perhaps simply indifferent to his invitation and not interested in making the journey? Or perhaps even taken illat some point during the last two years and no longer among the living—God help him, why would he torment himself with such a thought?
“My lord, shall I open the letter for you?”
Valentin slowly drew in his breath, not realizing his valet, Robert Benoit, had come up beside him. More a trusted friend than servant, he’d been imprisoned, too, but fortunately his treatment more humane though henow walked with a limp. Valentin shook his head no, and picked up the envelope that felt heavy in his hand.
It seemed the world around him strangely faded away as he broke the wax seal and pulled out a sheet of ivory paper bearing the Duke of Arundale’s bold handwriting. All he heard was the pounding of his heartbeat as he skimmed through the letter.
“Good news, my lord?”
Valentin exhaled slowly,the fierce drumbeat of his heart receding as he nodded at Robert.
“The Duke and Duchess of Arundale send their regrets, but Miss Estelle Easton and her sister Linette, Viscountess Linley, and her husband, Adam Whitaker, Viscount Linley, will arrive in Calais at the end of the month. Arrangements must be made to meet their ship, Robert, carriages and the best accommodations if they arrive toolate in the day to travel here directly…”
Valentin fell silent and closed his eyes, allowing the tension that had built inside him since he’d sent the messenger to England to finally release from his body.
Allowing the news that Estelle was alive and well and would be attending his coronation to sink like a soothing balm into his very soul.
“You are in pain, my lord?”
Valentin opened his eyesto see that Robert’s face had grown anxious, the older man’s once dark hair now fully gray after two years spent in an adjacent cell deep in the castle dungeon. “Less than yesterday. Today is a good day. A very good day.”
Robert at once appeared to relax and gestured for the footman, who still stood at stiff attention, to leave Valentin’s private apartment. As the young man bowed and then hastenedaway, Robert turned back to Valentin. “Your privy council awaits you downstairs. You’ve scarcely slept these past weeks and there is yet so much to do—”
“How could there not be after two and a half years of rule by a brutal despot?” Valentin cut him off, his voice grown harsh. All he had to do was think of what he had suffered, Robert had suffered, and the good people of Bratavia had sufferedat the hands of his uncle, Archduke Henri Chevalier, and worse still, his uncle’s accursed son, Gaston, and the happy news Valentin had just received seemed to recede beneath a cloud of choking hatred.
Thank God at least Henri had been shot dead during the violent coup that had freed Valentin at last, along with others left to rot in the dungeon. Sickened by the torture and cruelty, a guard hadfinally revealed to townspeople that Prince Renaud, Valentin’s father, was still alive and held prisoner, as was Valentin, though both were long believed dead.
Word had spread like wildfire throughout Bratavia, citizens arming themselves and storming the castle gates that miraculously were opened by that same guard, and Henri and his minions quickly killed or subdued.
Well, except for one. Valentin’scousin, Gaston, had somehow escaped into the countryside to become a hunted fugitive, a price of gold bullion upon his head, dead or alive.
It wouldn’t be long before he was found and killed outright or returned in chains to face a tribunal and execution. Even that would not atone for the death of Valentin’s beloved father only weeks after the coup, his body broken though his spirit had remainedindomitable until the end.
Prince Renaud had wept only once…when he saw Valentin after they had been released from their cells. Both of them filthy and bloodied, his father unable to rise from his stretcher though somehow he threw his skeletal arms around Valentin to hold him close…
His eyes welling at the vivid memory, Valentin swallowed hard and clasped Robert’s arm in apology. “Forgive me,my loyal friend,” he began, but Robert interrupted him by firmly shaking his head.
“No need, my lord. We’d do well to think of the future…and a certain ship arriving at the end of the month with a very special guest. Miss Easton must remember you quite fondly to travel all this way for your coronation. But after all, you saved her life.”
