The Carnelian Tyranny: Savino’s Revenge Page 9

  “I think we’d better quit while we still can.”

  He gazed into her eyes, whispering softly, “Marry me and we would not have to quit.”

  She brushed the lint from his cloak, avoiding his stare. “I’m so used to having you around me now that it will feel strange when you’re gone.”

  “I shall always be here for you, Maraya.” His tone was serious, his gaze intense. “Even when I am not.”

  Maraya.

  It had been the royal name of her birth from the time of their betrothal many years before. It was the name he called her whenever he wanted to express his deepest love and respect. To everyone else she was Her Royal Highness or Marisa, but to Darian, she would always be Maraya.

  “Come,” she said, taking his arm. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Marisa, wait,” he said, stopping her. “I do not pretend to understand your reasons for delaying our marriage, but, if time is what you need to feel certain about us, then I shall wait. As long as is necessary.”

  “Darian, it’s not you; I love you.” She took his hand in hers, suddenly feeling guilty. “But I’m only eighteen. Women in my world don’t even start to think about marriage at my age. It’s a big deal and it’s not something I thought I would ever face so soon.”

  “You, better than anyone, ought to understand that life rarely happens the way we plan.”

  She squeezed his hand tightly. “You’re absolutely right. And I can’t ever imagine being without you. But you’ve got to give me some space here. The whole queen thing is a lot for a girl to deal with and a large wedding on top of everything is just too much for me to handle right now—so soon.”

  “We could elope,” he suggested, kissing her hand tenderly.

  “Let’s just get through my coronation first, okay? Please?”

  “As you wish,” he said, releasing her hand. He turned away from her and strode through the vestibule, opening the front door and hurrying down the steps.

  She followed him out but stopped just outside the front door. She had crushed him with her words and it made her feel horrible to see him like this.

  Without a word, he strolled across the driveway toward the waiting carriage. Reaching for the door handle, he stopped, pausing for a few seconds before turning around to face her.

  “I believe the time apart will be beneficial for us both. It shall give you the opportunity to think about your future and decide exactly what it is that you want.” He climbed into the carriage and sat down, avoiding her sad stare.

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed too softly for him to hear.

  After the footman closed the door, he lifted a hand in farewell in the carriage window. Even from a distance, she could see the hurt in his eyes.

  As the carriage pulled up the driveway, she kissed her hand before stretching it out to him. “Darian, you are all I want,” she whispered under her breath.

  “Everything all right?” Alessio asked from the doorway.

  “Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes before turning to him with a smile. “Everything’s fine.” She brushed past him and climbed the staircase, considering the fact that her temporary separation from Darian might be a good thing. It would also give her the chance to catch up with her uncle and Mark.

  And, yet, as she closed the door of her chamber, there was a strange niggling in her head that a wedge of doubt had just been driven between her and her handsome fiancé.

  CHAPTER 10

  BETRAYAL

  That evening after dinner, Marisa joined her brother and uncle in the sitting room, plopping down on the sofa near the fire. Alessio poured himself a glass of red wine and settled back in the overstuffed chair across from them.

  “Do you think they miss us back home?”

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Alessio said.

  She smiled. “Where does everyone think I am, anyway?”

  “Scotland.”

  “Perfect. You know I always wanted to go there.”

  As thoughts of her best friend invaded her mind, her smile slowly faded. “I miss Danielle, though. And I feel terrible that I just disappeared after the funeral without saying goodbye.”

  Alessio shrugged. “Wasn’t your fault, Risa.”

  “Yeah, I know, but still…I had promised to call her, but I never did.”

  “She phoned us that night,” Mark said.

  “She did? What did you tell her?”

  He shrugged. “She sounded worried. She said that she’d tried to reach you but kept getting your voicemail. I told her you were too upset to talk and had gone to bed early.”

  “Good thinking. Then what?”

  Alessio shifted in his chair, staring into the flames. “She came by the house a couple days later. I told her that I had decided to send you away to stay with family in Scotland for a few weeks. She was a little upset that she hadn’t heard from you, but I told her you didn’t have cell coverage in the Highlands.”

  She shook her head. “Poor Danielle.”

  “I told her that I’d call her on your birthday, but things got a little hairy that morning when Celino showed up and told us to get our affairs in order. It wasn’t until after we landed in Carnelia that I realized I’d forgotten to call her—I had been so busy trying to contact everyone from the fellowship.”

  When his niece never returned from her ride on Siena that night, Alessio decided to tell the secret network of Carnelian friends in Jacksonville about her mysterious disappearance and his suspicions about where she was. But when Celino showed up on their doorstep and told them they were going back to Carnelia that evening, Alessio raced to contact the original survivors of the Carnelian, offering them the chance to return with them. But most of the surviving Carnelians had long gotten on with their lives and none had decided to return. They all wished him well and a few even gave Alessio messages to deliver to their loved ones still living in Carnelia.

  “Well, I don’t miss the homework,” Mark said. “Especially calculus!”

  “Give it another six months and you might just prefer calculus to the things you will have to learn here.” Alessio joked.

  “I miss the guys on the team, though,” Mark said, gazing wistfully into the fire. “The homecoming game was probably a few weeks ago. I bet Coach Callahan was swearin’ up a storm.” He chuckled sadly. “I guess I’ll never play basketball again.”

  “Cheer up, Mark,” Marisa said. “Maybe you can teach Darian and some of the Crimson Knights how to play. You could put an undefeatable team together.”

  “There are things I’m definitely gonna miss,” Alessio agreed. “Like my Harley road trips out to Gold Ray Dam. The Saturday pancake breakfasts down at the Short Stop. Shootin’ the breeze with the Howell brothers out on the front porch and taking the Rover on a long weekend camping at the coast. Yep, those things I’m really gonna miss.”

  “But I know you’re glad to be back with Aunt Cinzia again.”

  “Of course I am. All that other stuff pales in comparison to being back with her.”

  “How did you feel when you thought you would never see Arrie and Cinzia again?” Marisa asked. “You must have lost all hope.”

  Alessio watched the flames hungrily consume the logs. “I wouldn’t say that hope was totally gone, but it was certainly nowhere to be found. When we were caught in that maelstrom, all I could think about was the fact that I would never see Cinzia or Arrie again. I knew I was dead and, yet, somehow I survived.”

  “That must have been awful,” Mark said.

  He rubbed his temple. “I’m just glad that neither of you can remember it. When we reached the coast of Oregon, we were all so happy to be alive. When a man stares death in the face like that, it makes him reprioritize his life pretty quick.”

  “I bet you missed Aunt Cinzia and Arrie like crazy.”

  “And how! I missed them something awful, but at least I knew they were safe and sound. Which was more than they could say for me.”

  “How did you to keep the secret fr
om us for so long?”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t easy. A few times I almost slipped up by mentioning Arrie. But your father made us seal a pact that we would never reveal the past. It absolutely killed your mother that she couldn’t tell you about your royal heritage.” He shook his head, remembering his sister-in-law. “The whole thing gave her a broken heart.”

  “I remember how sad she was,” Marisa said softly.

  “So none of the locals discovered our secret?” Mark asked.

  “No. But our cover was nearly blown after a tragic incident.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, we’d been in Jacksonville for a while when your father and I discovered that there was a traitor in our midst.”

  Marisa’s eyes widened. “A traitor?”

  “Yep—someone we’d trusted with our very lives.”

  “Who?”

  Alessio stopped, bothered. He scratched his head and poked at the fire, debating himself about something. He eyed them both for a long moment before finally breaking his silence.

  “Oh, what the heck. You might as well know the whole story.”

  They watched him take a sip of his wine and lean back in his chair, staring bleary-eyed into the fireplace. He cleared his throat, turning his attention back to his niece and nephew.

  “There was a man who traveled with us on that fateful voyage to Terracina—Lord Dastar Raniero was his name. He was your mother’s political advisor and a member of the royal household. At the time, no one doubted his loyalty to your mother. But, then again, no one knew that he had secretly been hired by Gregario to spy on her. Among other things…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, gosh, how do I tell you this?” Alessio paused, his eyes locking on hers. “Your mother wasn’t killed in a car accident, Risa.”

  Both of them gasped.

  “She wasn’t?”

  “She was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Mark shouted.

  Alessio held up a hand. “I’m sorry we had to keep the truth from you all these years, but your dad wanted to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  He bent down, poking at the logs. “From the information we were able to piece together, Lord Raniero was under contract with Gregario to assassinate your mother. Of course, you two never knew Queen Sophie’s husband, but he was a vain, selfish man—a lot like Savino is now. Gregario thought that, in murdering your mother, he could seize power through Sophie. Turns out he was right.

  “Months before our voyage to Terracina, there were several attempts on your mother’s life, but we couldn’t determine exactly who was behind it. Your dad decided it wasn’t safe here at Beauriél, so he moved you all back into the castle and closed up the house.”

  “So that’s why you don’t want me out here alone.”

  Alessio nodded. “Within weeks after they moved back to the castle, we boarded the Carnelian. And after the ship was transported to Earth through the vortex, we moved inland toward Jacksonville. We picked up the pieces and got on with our new lives. Meanwhile, Raniero was building up your parents’ trust only to betray them later. Except then, he was known as David Ranier.”

  “But why did Raniero still try to kill her?” Mark asked. “We weren’t in Carnelia anymore. Who was gonna know?”

  “We can only assume that, somehow, in his twisted mind, he still felt under obligation to fulfill his contract.”

  “Unbelievable!”

  “One day he asked to meet with her alone, claiming that he’d gotten some news about Carnelia. He said it was a matter of life and death. Your parents trusted him, so your mom didn’t think twice about going to meet with him.

  “He met her down at the J’Ville Tavern and slipped some slow-acting poison into her drink. He didn’t take her home but instead brought her over to my apartment. He’d ginned up some excuse that she’d gotten drunk and he couldn’t take her home because your father might suspect that they were having an affair.

  “Something about Raniero’s story just didn’t gel, so, as soon he left, I called your dad and told him what had happened. He rushed over to get your mom, but, since she was unable to mutter a single intelligent word, we had no idea if Raniero had been telling the truth or not. Your dad didn’t want to accuse him of anything, even though we both knew she’d never been drunk a day in her life. I knew something was horribly wrong, but my own brother wouldn’t listen to me.

  “The next day she had a high fever, so your dad stayed with her while I took you both to the petting zoo in Medford. In the early evening, your dad phoned Dr. Wilson in a panic, but he was already on another call and couldn’t come. By that time, your mother was barely breathing.

  “When we came home, she was still alive. I put you kids to bed and went out looking for Raniero. I searched his house, but there was no sign of him anywhere. When I came back and saw your father sobbing next to her bed, I knew she was already gone.

  “Right away I called a Carnelian secret society member who also happened to be the county coroner. He arrived within minutes and confirmed she was dead. When I told him what had happened, he advised us to keep our mouths shut and quickly whisked away the body.

  “In order to keep it from turning into a criminal investigation, the coroner wrote up his report, stating that she’d been involved in a fatal car crash. We even had to hold a closed-casket ceremony just to keep up the charade.

  “How awful that must have been for Dad,” she whispered through tears. “So that’s it? End of story?”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid not, darlin.’ The day after her death, your father discovered your mother’s journal. On the very last page was a suicide note, and, when he read that, he was inconsolable. I must’ve read and re-read that page a thousand times, refusing to accept the fact that she’d killed herself. It was so unlike her. Then I noticed a very significant clue and pointed it out to your dad.”

  “What clue?” Mark leaned forward, hanging on every word.

  “She had written that she’d loved your father ever since the day they had first met in Terracina. But they didn’t meet in Terracina. They met in Marken Meadow on the outskirts of Crocetta. I remember it well because it was the same day I met Cinzia.”

  Marisa’s eyes widened. “I just heard that story yesterday!”

  “Raniero had forced her to write the entry in the journal, but your mother was trying to tell us that it wasn’t a suicide.”

  “And you’re sure it’s her handwriting?”

  “Oh, she wrote it all right. Raniero had probably threatened to kill you and Mark if she didn’t. So she wrote it, but, like the smart cookie she always was, she left us a clue he would never suspect.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said, incredulous.

  “The coroner listed the official cause of death as ‘DUI traffic collision.’ We knew it was bogus, but we had to let it go in the end. It would have been impossible to convict Raniero in court without attracting attention to our secret society.

  “From that point on, your father was filled with guilt. I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but he wouldn’t listen. He blamed himself for letting her go out with Raniero alone. He thought he should have protected her better.”

  “How awful for Dad,” she remarked sadly.

  Alessio nodded. “After all the challenges they had faced, beaten and survived, your dad was angered by the fact that he had allowed something like this to happen. For the rest of his life, he did whatever he could to protect you. He lived in constant fear that Raniero would come after you two someday.”

  “Does Darian know about this?” Marisa asked.

  “Yes. The day after your birthday ball, I told him everything. And Risa, I know he may seem overprotective of you at times, but it isn’t without good reason.”

  Her eyes locked on his. “What do you mean?”

  Alessio sighed. “I’m afraid the story doesn’t end there. After your mother died, we never saw Raniero again. He just seemed to drop of
f the radar. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Our spies are telling us that he’s back again, alive and well in Carnelia.”

  “What!”

  “We don’t know how or when he returned. All we know is that he’s back in Abbadon and fiercely loyal to Savino.”

  “Are they sure it’s Raniero?” Marisa asked. “Couldn’t it just be someone pretending to be him?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It’s him.”

  Mark spoke slowly. “But if Raniero is back in Abbadon, does that mean that…”

  “That Savino knows? Yes. We must assume that Raniero has told him everything. Or soon will if he hasn’t already.”

  “Oh no,” she moaned, leaning back into the couch.

  “I’m sorry to have to break the bad news. Believe me, I had never intended for either of you to find out about this. But now that Raniero has returned to Carnelia, you need to know what we’re up against.”

  “You were right to tell us,” she said softly.

  “It’s getting late now and you both should get to bed. We’ll continue this discussion in the morning.”

  Marisa kissed her uncle on the cheek. She and Mark trudged slowly up the stairs, the news that their uncle had told them weighing down their thoughts.

  Alessio downed the rest of his wine, gently setting the goblet on a side table. Staring somberly into the soft glow of the flames, he pondered the dark days that his family would almost certainly be facing very soon.

  CHAPTER 11

  EMAN

  The next morning, Darian, Arrie, Tino, Cozimo, Bruno, and Cinzia were conveyed to Castle Beauriél in two carriages to continue the royal training sessions. In between the classes, Marisa spent her breaks with Darian, and when all her lessons had been concluded, he kept his promise to take her out for a long walk. It hadn’t snowed in several days, but from the look of the heavy clouds above them, more was soon on the way. If the weather turned, she and Darian would be forced to return to Castle Beauriél right away.