The Runaway Princess by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online

just touched the precious bag when he seized her from behind by her sash.
    â€œDamn you, woman.”
    She screamed and fought, but he hoisted her over his shoulder.
    â€œYou’re not dying on me, too.”
    He sprinted from the room. His shoulder bones battered her ribs, while she cried out and stretched toward the open doorway where her money, her precious money, remained.
    They had almost reached the main hall when the flash of the explosion blinded her. The blast made her ears ring. The concussion of air sent Danior stumbling forward.
    When Evangeline opened her eyes, she saw flames shooting from the doorway of her luxurious bedchamber.
    Danior swung around and faced the conflagration. A shudder swept him. “Just like before,” he muttered.
    Pandemonium sounded from the dining room. Gentlemen and ladies, some holding napkins, some dabbing their mouths, crowded the doorway. They gaped at Danior and Evangeline, then at the inferno down the corridor.
    Evangeline pressed her hand to her chest. “It really was a bomb.” A bomb. In her bedchamber. And she’d lost everything. “My money. My future.”
    â€œBe quiet,” Danior snapped.
    He didn’t understand. He’d never been hungry. She grabbed the waist of his trousers and jerked as hard as she could, and she hoped those manly parts he was so proud of trekked clear up his spine.
    â€œDamn!” Danior slammed her down on her feet—feet that tried to run, but got nowhere. “Try that again and I’ll . . .” He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “We’ll be lucky if we escape to have a future, you and I. Don’t you understand? They’ve found us.”
    She didn’t understand. Why should she? The cosmic threat that he saw so clearly meant nothing to her. She only understood that when this matter of the princess was cleared up, Evangeline Scoffield would go back to England and face the poverty she had feared her whole life. Scrubbing at her wet cheeks with her fists, she whimpered, “My bookstore. It’s gone.”
    Danior bared his teeth, but before he could shake her, a ripple surged through the guests. Ladies squealed as two darkly clad men charged through, knocking all aside with no deference to gender or age.
    Danior waved to them, and like wraiths they closed around Evangeline. With a glance, each summed her up. Despite her tear-stained cheeks and wild eyes, they apparently found her of noble aspect, for they bowed their heads in one short, jerky nod. Then they turned to Danior, and the remote homage they had paid her became a very personal devotion. These men were Rafaello and Victor, she supposed, the ubiquitous bodyguards, and they clearly adored their master.
    â€œThe bastards’ll be waiting outside,” one said. He wore subdued, elegant clothing, but he tugged at his cravat and hunched his shoulders. Although he spoke fluent French, his lips barely moved, as if the act of articulation was arduous.
    â€œThey’re waiting for us to run out.” The other man was refined from the graceful sweep of his short cloak to the even trim of his fingertips, and he spoke easily, with the polished delivery of an aristocrat.
    Yet whatever their differences, the three men communicated with the ease of those who had been together for years.
    Their master spoke. “Take care of it, Rafaello.”
    The aristocrat turned to the throng spilling out of the dining room. With a perfect, upper-class English accent, he called, “I say, I think that was a bomb. Do you suppose more will come flying through the dining room windows?”
    As a diversion, it worked well. Well-clad people shrieked as they streamed into the large sitting chamber.
    The maître d’hôtel bounded out on their heels, and Evangeline screamed, “Henri! Help me!”
    Danior’s big hand covered her mouth, cutting her off, but Henri barely glanced her way. Instead he stared at the