The Prince's Slave Read online

  Seconds later, the car pulled up.

  The part of Belle’s mind that could still think through her shock, that had been doing nothing but thinking, was surprised to see that it was a Cadillac. A very large one, not something you could buy on the street. Recently washed and waxed, it seemed out of place in these dingy environs. People stepped out of the way, making room only reluctantly. A few flipped off the driver, but more or less good naturedly. Private cars were something of a rarity on these streets. The culture wasn’t like what it was in America; even people who could afford cars usually rode bikes, here. It was better exercise, better for the environment, and quicker. A car, trying to make its way through the narrow and clogged streets, always looked something like a snowplow.

  The driver got out and opened the back door. If he thought his employer’s habits strange, he gave no sign. Belle wondered how many times he’d done this.

  The offending hand was still on her shoulder, and now it propelled her toward the curb. She took a step, and then another step, like she had upstairs, moving mechanically. And then a voice, a strong voice she almost didn’t recognize as her own, yelled stop!

  What are you doing? If you get into that car, you’re dead. It’s the end. You’re free. Right now, you’re free. You’re in public; people are all around you! Just like you wished for upstairs.

  Belle took a deep breath.

  The voice was right.

  The only thing holding her captive was her belief that she was a captive! This man, however odious, was one person. One! He didn’t have an army with him. Inside, she hadn’t had much of a chance; there’d been one of her and seemingly hundreds of them. They’d had drugs, and soundproof walls. But here…this was a busy street. People were passing by her all the time who didn’t believe in human trafficking. Who voted a liberal ticket and believed in helping others. She could ask them for help.

  Her bare feet screaming in pain, she pivoted on the rough concrete and made a run for it. She was somewhat hampered in running by the fact that the sidewalk was littered with obstacles, many of them sharp, and she had to hold her coat closed. She was as ungainly an escapee as there ever was, and seconds after she’d broken free hands closed around her waist.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked. “Let me go, I hate you!”

  Gradually, people began to stop and stare. Belle had become the star of her own production. Her captor dragged her toward the car, even as she kicked and fought and screamed obscenities.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “There’s glass all over the sidewalk; you’ll cut your feet.”

  She elbowed him as hard as she could, in the stomach. Which was hard; growing up, she’d dreamed of becoming a professional athlete. He grunted, but didn’t loosen his grip. “I’m getting away from you!” she screamed. And then, “help! He’s kidnapping me!”

  Passersby began to exchange glances, wondering what they should do. Or, rather, if they should do. Much like in America, people were loath to get involved in each others’ business. And there was a general belief that since someone would do something, they didn’t have to. The specter of being wrong, or being unpopular, weighed far heavier on the average mind than the specter of accidentally letting a crime occur. And judging evil was still seen by most eyes as far worse than doing it.

  “He’s kidnapping me!” she repeated. “Help!”

  One man, a punk with spiked epaulettes on his jacket that matched his mohawk, stepped forward. “Mate,” he said hesitantly, in a strong British accent, “is everything, ah, alright here?”

  “No!” Belle screamed.

  “It’s fine,” Ash replied easily. “She’s been drinking, and she’s got nothing on beneath this coat. She’s angry with me because I won’t let her run down the street with no identification, no money and no knickers.”

  Her would-be rescuer glanced at Belle, his worry softening into amusement. “So that’s it, then. Well—”

  “That is not it! He bought me at an auction and now—”

  “She’ll be fine,” Ash cut in, “once she’s had some sleep. I’m taking her home.”

  “Good luck with that, mate.” He turned and, saying something to the friend he was with, walked off toward the club. Laughing.

  “Wait!” Belle cried. “Come back! Don’t leave me—”

  Someone in the crowd, another English speaker, made a joke about tequila makes her clothes come off. Belle was acutely aware that the more she struggled, the more out of control she looked—and the more believable her captor’s story was. Twisting in his grip and sobbing, frustration a white-hot ball of knives in her stomach, she was desperate for someone to believe her. Anyone. But the crowd was beginning to break up, and even though she was surrounded by people Belle had never been so alone. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people on this street, and not a single one cared enough to call the police.

  ELEVEN

  He forced her, still kicking and screaming, into the leather-clad womb of the car. It still smelled new; it probably was. He got in after her, pulling the door shut behind them. There was a click as all the doors locked. Belle pulled at the handle anyway, her fear forcing new tears down her cheeks. They felt hot, as hot as molten lead.

  The driver got in. He still hadn’t spoken, and seemed entirely unaffected by her pleas for help. Instead, he merely adjusted his mirrors.

  “Go,” her captor said.

  Smoothly, the car pulled away from the curb. Through the tinted windows, the city was awash with twinkling lights. Belle had heard that Prague, like Dresden and most of this part of Europe, put on quite the show for the holidays. Now she’d never see it.

  “No one,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “Not a single person.”

  “Most people see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear,” came the cool response. And then, “would you care for a glass of water?”

  Belle turned, showing him her tear-streaked face for the first time. She’d hunched in the far corner of the backseat, as far away from him as possible. “No,” she said.

  He was unmoved. “You’re just being difficult.” He pressed a divider and a glass panel rose between them and the driver. Smoked, like the windows. Pouring himself a drink from a cut crystal decanter in the bar, he relaxed and stretched his legs out. Taking a sip, he rested the glass on his knee. She might as well not have been there at all.

  “Are your feet alright?” His tone was almost—solicitous.

  She stared, her mind rebelling at the oddly domestic question. “I…I think so,” she said finally.

  “You’ll feel better when you’ve had some rest.”

  “Why—why are you doing this?”

  He took another sip of his drink. “To you or in general?”

  She blinked. He was so calm. He must be insane; that was the only explanation.

  When she didn’t respond, he continued. “In general, because I have…what, ah, I suppose might charitably be referred to as exotic tastes. Tastes that aren’t easily fulfilled by most women. And you, because I want you. Fortunately for me,” he added, “I’m wealthy enough to buy what I want.” His tone turned philosophical. “Money is enough to overcome a great many things. A great many…obstacles.”

  “Not some things,” Belle countered.

  His expression turned unreadable. “I know,” was all he said.

  The city crawled by and then, as they hit the D1, sped. “Are you the one who had me kidnapped?” she asked finally.

  He’d finished his drink. Alcohol didn’t seem to affect him at all. Occasionally, he’d regarded her with the same curiosity he’d shown before, but he’d said nothing. He seemed willing enough to respond when she spoke, but that meant talking to him and she hated the very idea. Talking to him was too much like—like being friends with him. And she wanted him to know that she hated him. She’d hated him from the minute she’d first laid eyes on him, a visceral reaction that she couldn’t explain. Perhaps, on some level, she’d known: that something awful was going to h
appen and that he’d be involved.

  “No,” he said, she thought honestly. “But I might have taken you anyway, if I’d had the opportunity.”

  “Wait, you—”

  You didn’t? she wanted to ask. She’d been so sure…. But no, she amended to herself. Not really. She was sure of nothing, anymore. She huddled further into her coat, making herself into as small a ball as possible.

  “People are going to look for me, you know.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Charlotte is going to. In fact, I’m sure she’s already reported me missing.” Although Belle was sure of no such thing. “And Charlotte is very proactive, and she has connections.” She felt like a skunk, threatening a car on the highway with a bad smell. A false and pathetic show of bravado, before the end.

  “No she won’t,” he said easily. “She’ll assume, as all people do, that you’re like her. And thus explain your disappearance tonight by substituting what would have made her disappear under the same circumstances. To wit, she’ll assume that you’ve gone home with someone. Perhaps, indeed, me.” He paused, letting his words sink in. His summation of Charlotte’s thought processes was succinct, but cruelly accurate.

  “She won’t start wondering where you are until noon tomorrow, around the time when you should be dragging yourself home to your squalid little flat and ringing up a suitable dry cleaner. And by then,” he added, “it will be too late.”

  “But why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  He didn’t respond.

  They rode in silence for what felt like hours. Might have been hours, she didn’t know. She wondered if they were even still in the Czech Republic and then realized that they must be; they hadn’t crossed any checkpoints. What would happen when they did?

  She gazed out the window, headlights illuminating the world as it went by. From what she could see in the darkness, highways in the Czech Republic looked remarkably like those in America. Cars drove on the right side of the road, the same as in America. Trees lined the road, decked out in their fall colors. They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere.

  A sign flashed bright: 196 B for E65 toward Bratislava. Belle knew generally that Bratislava was in Slovakia. South, then. South, and east. Another sign flashed briefly in the headlights, announcing that they were in a place called Brno. Belle wondered how that was pronounced, that hitherto unknown part of her brain still working furiously.

  Signaling, the driver switched lanes and took the exit. There were signs for places called Hodonin and Breclav. Trnava. Vienna. Vienna, she knew. Where on earth were they going?

  “Where are you from?” he asked suddenly.

  She started, surprised. He’d been quiet so long, she hadn’t expected him to speak. She’d been hoping he’d fallen asleep. “America,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, “I have your passport. But where?” His admission sent a chill down her spine, although he seemed not to notice. Or care. “When I first heard you speak, I couldn’t place your accent. I thought you might be Canadian. And you might as well look at me,” he added, in that same reasonable tone. “There’s no point in pretense, we’ll know each other quite well soon enough.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like you,” she grated, surprising herself. Her plan had been to keep quiet, to do as little as possible so as to avoid angering him. He might be a crazed, violent lunatic and he was certainly planning on raping her. But it was like her mouth was wired to a different brain. “And I don’t have to pretend that this is normal, in order to feed some sick fantasy. I hate you, and I want to go home.”

  “Yes,” he agreed again, pouring himself another drink. “To where?”

  “Scarborough, Maine. And before that, Julia Cove.” And then, surprising herself yet again, “you thought I was Canadian because we all sound like we’re Canadian. Scarborough is five hours’ drive from Montreal but my father is from Saint John on the Bay of Fundy and my mother is from Belfast. Belfast, Maine, not Belfast, Ireland. Julia Cove is on the border. They moved south when I was a child to find work and then they got divorced.”

  Why had she told him all this? She supposed it must be the shock. Under normal circumstances, she wasn’t much for talking about her family. Not even to her closest friends, like Charlotte. There were no great secrets, not really, just nothing she cared to share.

  The Bay of Fundy was famous for one thing: having the largest tidal range in the world. Otherwise, nothing much of interest happened there. There were fishermen, the white ones, and there were members of the various Algonquin tribes. Canada had made a treaty with them, offering certain fishing and hunting rights, which it honored. And there were moose. Lots and lots of moose. Moose were ill-tempered, aggressive creatures that had been known to attack cars. Local magazines offered suggestions for how to respond when this happened, the most popular being to turn off the headlights and back away slowly, thus affecting a posture of defeat.

  Her father had been happy in the small town of Julia Cove, its only claim to fame that it neighbored a town called Bailey’s Mistake. And he’d been happy in Saint John before that, or so she’d been led to believe. But he wasn’t happy in the south, where her mother had insisted they go. After having the world to himself, with miles and miles of unincorporated territory to call his own, Portland had been noisy and overcrowded. The harbor smelled of diesel fumes. And Scarborough, the place where they’d settled, had been little better than a bedroom community to the hated Portland. They might as well have been living in any suburb, anywhere in the world. There was nothing of Maine, of its wild and untamed beauty or of its uniquely eccentric character, in these tract homes and fast food joints.

  The divorce had come soon after, but not before the drinking. What had started out as a beer after work turned into six, and soon her father wasn’t waiting for after work. And then there was no work, but still he stayed. Belle, who’d been small then, had thrown herself into ballet. A hobby became a passion. Belle’s mother encouraged her, perhaps for the first and last time. Ballet was exotic; ballet was glamorous.

  Ballet was the furthest thing from an alcoholic fisherman in the world.

  “Scarborough,” he repeated. “A bastardization of the Viking name, Skarthborg. The suffix borg means stronghold; Skarthborg was Skarthi’s stronghold. In 1066, an ill-fated individual called Herald Hardrada attacked the place. Months later, he in turn was attacked by an opponent who’s become rather well known: William the Conqueror.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how Skarthborg became Scarborough,” she pointed out. She’d grown intrigued, in spite of herself. Moreover, she was surprised to hear anything intelligent out of this man who dressed like an escapee from a renaissance fair and drank like a fish.

  “No one’s entirely sure,” he replied, still acting as though this were the most normal conversation in the world. “It was Scarborough by the time its particulars were recorded.”

  “Most people just sing that Simon and Garfunkel song.”

  “Theirs was a cover; the original dates to 1235.” He shrugged slightly, a gesture that—annoyingly—he managed to make look elegant. “I sang it in choir at Harrow. And please, call me Ash.”

  “Why?” she asked, accusingly.

  “Because it sounds so much better than I hate you.”

  “But I do hate you.”

  “And look, we were having such a lovely conversation.” His eyes met hers, black and unreadable in the gloom. His tone held just the faintest trace of mockery. And something else, something she couldn’t place.

  She looked away, uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment. She didn’t want to be intimate with this man, didn’t want to share anything with him. Not even something so minor as conversation.

  He sipped his drink and looked out the window, apparently at ease except for the tension around his shoulders and—somehow, in the way he sat. He was far more alert than he appeared, far more aware. Which scared her. She still remembered how quickly he’d grabbed her before, and
how easily. He moved like a cat, when he wanted to. “The Abenaki, whom your Canadian ancestors rather unfortunately dispossessed, called their homeland Owascoag.”

  “Place of much grass.”

  “Indeed.” He turned. He seemed oddly…almost pleased. The first image that came to mind was of a child praising his pet for learning a new trick. She resisted the urge to spit at him. Don’t make him angry, she kept reminding herself. But for some reason, the urge to tell him what she thought—and how—had been almost overwhelming since the moment they’d met. She knew what was wrong with her, but she wondered what was making him so tense. Perhaps he was afraid she’d attack him again. She hoped so. Or perhaps he was preparing to attack her.

  She looked away.

  “You’re not the only one with a penchant for useless information,” he said after a moment. He had a courtly, almost outdated way of speaking. He would’ve, she thought, gotten along well with William the Conqueror. That man, or so she’d read, was famously immoral. And she bet he talked just like this. She wanted to ask him if he just naturally sounded like a Shakespeare groupie or if he had to practice in front of a mirror.

  “I think you’ll find,” he added, “that you and I have a great deal in common.”

  TWELVE

  “This is sick!” she blurted. “You’re acting like—like we’re dating.”

  “No,” he said coldly, “I’m being polite. If you’d prefer that I beat you and lock you in the trunk, that can be arranged. The trunk is well ventilated; you’d survive.”

  She saw the look in his eyes, and her rage was gone in an instant. Replaced with ice-cold fear. He spoke just as casually about beating her as he did about the origins of the name Scarborough. And his eyes…his eyes were hard. And somehow empty. She knew, in that moment, that he’d hurt people before. Maybe even killed them.