The Rebel King

Chapter 12

I don't understand. If Lord Vladimir is Silas Donovan, how could he just…slip on a whole new identity and for thirty years live right here in Silvershire, in plain sight, and not leave any kind of trail?"

"People do it," Nikolas said grimly. "All the time."

"Not to us," Rhia said, gritting her teeth as she clutched at the dashboard of Nikolas's middle-aged Opal. "The Lazlo Group's resources aren't that easy to outwit."

He threw her a glance, then brought his narrowed gaze back to the road ahead-a great relief to her, since their speed had been hovering somewhere between suicidal and insane ever since they'd left Nik's apartment in Dunford. At the moment, they were careening along an almost deserted highway that followed the rugged coastline from the town of Dunford to the northeasternmost tip of the island kingdom. It would probably be a spectacular drive, she thought, under calmer circumstances. Walls of white that were a smaller version of the famed White Cliffs of Dover towered above the road on one side and on the other, dizzying drop-offs plunged to rocky shores and crashing surf. At the moment, however, she was too busy careening back and forth between nausea and fear of imminent death to appreciate the view.

She could see the muscle working rapidly in the hinge of Nikolas's jaw. Sympathy for him tugged at her like a child begging for attention. Ignoring it. she said impatiently. "Dammit, Nik, people know what Vladimir looks like!"

"Do you?" he asked, without looking at her.

"Do I…what? Know what Lord Vladimir looks like? Of course I do-what he used to look like, anyway. I've seen pictures."

"Okay, describe him for me."

She stared straight ahead, concentrating on the pictures in her head and trying not to think about the precipice hurtling by a few feet from the car's tires. "All right, let's see. Tall-over six feet, if I remember right. Strong build. Bald head…blue eyes…aristocratic features-thin lips, high-bridged nose, hollow cheeks, prominent jaw-" She let the words trail off into nothing as the portrait of Vladimir's hirsute ancestor floated into her mind. She turned her head slowly to look at Nikolas. He was nodding, lips curved in a grim little smile.

"It didn't occur to me until I saw that picture. I don't know whether Vladimir was naturally bald or shaved his head, but all he'd have had to do to disguise himself was acquire hair- his own or a wig-and grow a full beard. The rest would be a matter of stance-changing his walk, stooping instead of standing tall. Things like that." He paused, and the smile tilted wryly. "My uncle always stooped. And he walked with a pronounced limp-from an old boating injury, he told me."

Rhia was silent. Her mind was racing madly, trying to take it all in. There'd been no time, until now, to talk about it, work out all the implications, make sense of it. Immediately after Nikolas's stunning announcement, they'd had to dash to meet the chopper. Conversation had, of course, been next to impossible during the short flight to Dunford, and at Nikolas's apartment they'd taken time only to shower and refuel themselves on canned soup and crackers from his meager larder before heading up the coast to a destination he had yet to reveal.

"I take it you know where he is-your, uh…Silas?" Rhia had asked him as they were leaving, trying to curb her annoyance at being left in the dark, hating the distance he'd put between them, the distracted way he spoke to her, the way he carefully avoided her eyes as he replied.

"I believe I know where he might have gone, yes."

They would take his car, he said, rather than the helicopter, which Elliot had told them was at their service for as long as they needed it. He offered no more explanation, and Rhia, looking at his stony jaw and cold-steel eyes, had decided not to argue the issue.

Now, she rather wished she had.

She also wished she'd insisted on acquiring a weapon.

Rhia seldom carried a gun, although she was skilled in the use of firearms and fully licensed to carry concealed. Naturally, bringing a weapon of any sort along on this particular assignment-accompanying Silvershire's crown prince to a clandestine meeting with his father the king-had been out of the question.

She'd asked Nikolas before they'd left his apartment if he was bringing a gun along-it seemed a reasonable question to her, considering they were heading off to confront a possible kidnapper and murderer. He'd told her flatly that he didn't own one. Sorry.

She wished now she'd taken the time to insist on getting herself one. But they'd been in such a hurry…

"There's something else I don't understand." she said, again striving for distraction after a particularly hairy turn had caused her stomach to lodge itself temporarily in her throat. "Lazlo has a pretty extensive dossier on Silas Donovan, ineluding family history. The information goes back a good long way-generations, in fact. A couple of hundred years' worth. How is it that an imposter can come along and insert himself into the Donovan family tree, and nobody be the wiser? What about kinfolk? Neighbors?"

His smile broadened, though there was no more humor in it than before. "Patience, my love," he said softly, the first words of endearment he'd spoken to her since they'd left Vladimir's castle. "All will become clear in due time, I promise. Very soon now, in fact…"

Except for one sharp exhalation, by clenching her teeth and counting silently to ten Rhia managed to keep her seething impatience locked inside.

The car sped on. hurtling around corners on a road that wound steadily downward, ever closer to the foaming surf… then climbed steeply up again, arrowed through a cut in the shallow cliffside to emerge at last onto a barren plain. The plain, studded with scrubby vegetation, stretched ahead to a cloudless blue sky and ended in a rocky point that jutted like an arrowhead into a churning sea. At the tip of the arrowhead, a lone structure rose like a stubby white candle from a gray stone holder.

"It's a lighthouse." Rhia said, with a little hiccup of surprised laughter, and then went silent as Nikolas pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped, leaving the motor running.

He'd had to stop. For a minute. His heart was racing and his hands were cold and sweaty on the steering wheel. Though, at least his voice seemed gratifyingly normal as he said conversationally. "It's called the Daneby Light. A few centuries ago, wreckers made a pretty good living here, using lanterns to lure unwary sailors onto those rocks. The crown put an end to that activity sometime in the mid nineteenth century when they built this lighthouse and appointed someone as full-time keeper. Someone named Donovan, I believe."

Beside him, Rhia was staring at the lighthouse, slowly shaking her head. "My God, Nikolas…this is where you grew up? You must have been-" her voice slipped away from her and she snatched it back with a hard, hurting breath "-so lonely."

She turned her head to look at him. and he saw her throat ripple and the intense shine of her eyes beneath sooty lashes, and he felt something hard and cold inside him soften and warm. For the first time since they'd left Perth Castle, he smiled a real smile. "Darling," he said softly, stroking her cheek with the back of his finger, "your empathy is showing."

He shifted gears abruptly and pulled back onto the road. He felt renewed…strengthened, suddenly, all the tension and dread in him gone. "Actually, it wasn't all that bad. You don't really need chums, you know, when you're just a little tyke. And then, I had all this as my backyard. Silas used to take me out on the moors, or along the beach, or exploring the tide pools, and he'd teach me the names of everything we found. And at night, when it was clear, there were the stars-he taught me their names, too. On a moonless night…you wouldn't believe the stars-there aren't any lights out here to compete with them, you see. Can't say I was fond of the storms, though. Or the fog."

"This is what you meant when you said if there's anything you know about, it's-"

"-fog," Nikolas joined in, wryly. "Yeah…I did have my fill of that. But then…I went off to school." He paused, looking back, then let out a breath. "That was the only time I was really lonely, I think. The first year was rough, but at least I had the solace of company. There was a lot of sniffling that went on in the first-term's dormitory after lights out, I can tell you. But…it got better. And later on I met Phillipe and started spending summers and holidays with him. and after that I didn't come back here much at all, actually."

"But…wait." She tilted her head, frowning. "Silas doesn't still live out here, does he? According to his file, he lives and works in Dunford. At the college."

"He does. He moved to Dunford when they closed down the lighthouse-or automated it, which amounts to the same thing. That happened when I was at Oxford. After I started teaching at the college, I got him a job there as a custodian." He gave a sharp bark of laughter as it struck him. "My God- can you imagine it? The Duke of Perthegon-working as a janitor?" He paused, then said in a voice with no humor in it whatsoever. "He's been AWOL from his job, and he's not at his apartment in Dunford, either. Believe me, the first thing I did when I heard about…all this, was go looking for him. Figured he owed me some sort of an explanation. Didn't think of it then, but it has occurred to me that he might…just possibly…have come here to hide out. He'd done it once before."

They were both silent for a moment, watching the lighthouse loom steadily larger in the car's windshield. Then Rhia said slowly. "Okay, I get how Vladimir could have disguised himself as the old lighthouse keeper and escaped notice all these years-I mean, living way out here, no neighbors-especially if he hadn't any family. There's just one thing I don't understand." He felt her head swivel toward him…felt the burn of her eyes. Felt a chill wash over him before she even asked the question.

"What happened to the real Silas Donovan?"

He turned his head and met her eyes-briefly-but couldn't say the words. He knew he didn't have to.

She closed her eyes, let out a hissing breath. "God, I wish I had a gun."

The feeling of lightness and optimism left him as quickly as it had come. "Silas would never hurt me." he said stiffly, and felt her eyes turn on him again.

"Nik, the man is very probably a sociopath-you do know that, don't you? He has no feelings, for you or any other human being. People only matter to him if he can use them. Otherwise, they're disposable. He used you-"

He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, surprising himself as much as her. It was a child's anger, stubborn and irrational. He knew that, but it made no difference. "Dammit, Rhee! The man was a father to me!"

"He stole you from your father. And raised you, groomed you, planned to use you to fulfill his own sick agenda for revenge. You think you know him? How can you know what he'll do?"

He stared bleakly through the windshield. He didn't want to quarrel with Rhia; quarreling with her made him feel cold and sick inside. But he couldn't let himself agree with her. He couldn't. "He was both mother and father to me," he said in a voice that hurt his throat. "The only parent I ever had. I can't forget that."

She didn't reply.

The car topped the last rise and began the long gradual descent toward the tip of the arrowhead. And although outside the sun continued to beat down from a cloudless sky, inside the car Nikolas felt the way he had as a child when the fog rolled in from the channel and shrouded the lighthouse and its two lone occupants in a blanket of white-chilled, isolated… .alone.

It seemed fitting, somehow.

"Doesn't look like anyone's here. I don't see a car," Rhia said in a low voice that was a measure of how tense she was rather than fear of being heard by anyone outside the vehicle.

Nikolas had parked the Opal nose-in to a row of white-painted rocks separating a bare gravel parking area from an overgrown garden. He was staring through the windshield at what had once been a charming lightkeeper's cottage, built of white-painted stone with a slate-tile roof to withstand the buffeting of storm and sea. Now. wind and rain had scoured away most of the paint, so that the cottage seemed almost to be trying to return to the rock that surrounded it. Windows set deep in the thick stone walls were clouded with cobwebs and salt spray, and wooden shutters tearing slivers of blue paint hung crookedly from rusting hinges.

"There's a garage around the back," he said absently. "If he's been living here for a while and doesn't want that fact known, I expect he'd keep his car in out of sight."

She nodded, but didn't reply. Her throat felt clogged with emotions she couldn't express…words she couldn't say. Oh, how she wanted to reach out to him…touch his cheek…take his hand. What are you feeling now, Nikolas, my love? This must be so hard…and you are so far away from me.

He turned his head to give her a lopsided smile. "I must say, the place has gone to ruin a bit since I saw it last. A pity, really. A lot of history here…"

She cleared her throat and returned the smile. "I think it definitely ought to be preserved. When you're king, you should turn it into a museum, or a national monument." Nikolas snorted and reached for the door handle. "Sure," she said as she followed suit, "you know, turn it into a tourist attraction, like they do the childhood homes of presidents back in the States. You could-" The rest froze solid in her throat.

The door of the cottage had opened partway-no more than a foot or so. Through the crack came a pair of arms holding a rifle, and a voice that was cold and hard as steel.

"Ye have 'til I count ten to get back into your car and drive away. On the count of eleve,. I start shooting. One…"

"Nik-" I knew it-I should have insisted on bringing a gun.

"Shh-it's all right." He pushed the door open and called cheerfully. "Don't shoot, Uncle-it's me, Nik."

The rifle barrel wavered, but didn't withdraw. "Show yourselves-the both o' ye," the voice commanded. "And keep your hands where I can see them."

Rhia eased herself out of the car slowly, hands on the top edge of the door but keeping most of the rest of herself barricaded behind it. Nikolas, meanwhile, stood up boldly, unconcernedly slammed his door and held his hands out to his sides.

"Come on, Silas, what are you doing? This is a fine welcome. For God's sake, put that thing away."

While Rhia held her breath, the gun slowly lowered, then abruptly disappeared. The door opened wider, and a man emerged, scowling into the sunshine. He was tall, but stooped and gaunt-a big-framed man losing flesh to age, though he looked strong and wiry still. He was wearing olive-green wool trousers tucked into knee-high boots, a black knit long-sleeved sweater and an open brown leather vest. He also wore a black wool fisherman's cap over long graying brown hair that had been pulled back into a clubbed ponytail. His beard, moustache and bushy eyebrows were almost entirely gray, and what visible skin he had was weathered as old leather.

"Nikolas, me boy-is that you? Ah-" he made a gesture of impatience with his hand "-forgive an old man. I don't see as well as I used to." As if daring her to challenge the statement, eyes as sharp and blue as steel knives flicked at Rhia before returning to Nikolas, and she winced involuntarily, to her inner fury, as if stung by a lash.

"Thought you'd be Weston's men, come to arrest me for trespassing in me own house." Silas Donovan went on, thin lips drawn into a sneer. Then he laughed-a single harsh sound, like the crack of a whip. "But I hear that's who ye be, ain't it? Weston's man? Henry Weston's whelp, so they're saying. Who'd've thought it, eh, boy? If I'd known who ye were when I found ye on me doorstep thirty years ago. I'd've drowned ye like a runt pup. I would." Baring strong teeth in a wolfish grin, he clasped Nikolas's hand and pulled him into a hard embrace. The two men thumped each other soundly on the back for a moment or two, then Silas turned and aimed his fierce glare at Rhia. "And who is this ye have with ye?" And he bowed his head and doffed his cap in an oddly charming gesture. "Aye, I must be getting old indeed, me lass, to have mistaken ye for Weston's, or any sort of man."

Rhia was rarely tongue-tied, but the bombardment of conflicting thoughts and impressions she was experiencing had her reeling. It was all she could manage just to mutter her own name as she placed her hand in Silas Donovan's leathery grip.

Who is this man? Can this crusty old seadog possibly be the exiled Duke of Perthegon, cousin to King Weston and erstwhile heir to Silver shire's throne? This is the man who raised Nikolas, nurtured him as an infant, was both teacher and companion to him when he was a little boy. Can this be the same sociopath who plotted against the crown for more than thirty years, kidnapped an infant prince, arranged one murder and committed another…and who knows how many more?

Could we…could Nikolas…be wrong? What is a picture, after all-a portrait painted more than a century ago? A couple of chests made by the same craftsman? Can it have been as this man says? Was he only a lonely lighthouse keeper who chose to raise the foundling infant left on his doorstep?

"…a friend of mine." Nikolas was saying.

She felt the brush of whiskers and warm breath on the back of her hand, and a shiver ran down her spine. She lifted her eyes, seeking Nikolas's, and found them resting on her, their gray gaze calm and reassuring.

"Well, come in, come in." Silas said, straightening with a beckoning gesture. "I've just put the kettle on-about to have me tea and a bite. I was. You're welcome to join me, if ye don't mind tinned meat and a bit of bread."

"Nothing to eat, thanks." Nikolas said. "I wouldn't mind tea, though, Rhia?"

She mumbled something in acquiescence, feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland as she followed him into the cottage. And she took care to note, as she did, that the rifle was propped against the wall beside the door.

The front door of the cottage opened directly into a large room that was all but bare of furniture, although a large stone fireplace at one end still held the remnants of a recent fire. It was dim inside; the only light was that seeping in through the small, dirt-and salt-encrusted windows. The place smelled of stale ashes and abandonment.

"I stay mostly in here in the kitchen." Silas said as he led the way with a sprightly step across the room and through a doorway opposite the fireplace, his boots making echoing footsteps on the dusty wood-plank floor. "Make me fire in there at night, when ye canna see the smoke." He swept off his cap and favored them with his wolfish smile as he gestured toward a wooden table and chairs. "Rather not advertise me presence here, if ye take me meaning."

"Why are you here, Uncle?" Nikolas sounded merely curious. He pulled out a chair and sat down, leaving Rhia to do the same while Silas turned his attention to the teakettle steaming on a portable gas camping stove that had been placed on the warped linoleum-covered countertop. "I've been looking all over the map for you, since I found out I'm not who I thought I was."

Silas nodded without looking away from his task. "Aye, ye'd be wanting answers, I'll warrant." He spooned tea leaves into a pot and poured boiling water over them. "Ask your questions, lad, and be done with it. We have important things to talk about, ye and me."

"Is that how it happened?" Nikolas asked, and though his voice was quiet, something in it made Rhia feel chilled. "You just…found me abandoned on your doorstep?"

The old man gave his whip-crack laugh. "You think the likes o' me crept into the royal palace one fine eve and stole the royal babe from its mother's arms? Am I a ghost, then? A will-o'-the-wisp?"

"No, not a ghost." Nikolas said softly.

Silas seemed not to hear that as he carried the teapot and three crockery cups to the table and set them down with a thump. His eyes were aglow with a feverish light. "And what does it matter to ye now, eh? That's in the past and done with. This is the time that matters. It's our time now, boy-everything we've worked for, planned for-it's here now-" he made a fist with one hard bony hand and shook it in front of Nikolas's nose "-right here in our hands. Not quite the way I'd planned it…but either way, that conniving thief Weston's done. Silvershire's ours. Nikolas-ours. At last…"

The countryman's lilt had disappeared from his voice, Rhia noticed. He spoke now in the clipped accent of Silvershire's upper class-British, only more so. She reached unnoticed for the heavy crockery cup, weighing it in her hands, assessing its possibilities as a weapon.

Nikolas leaned casually back in his chair. "Ours, Uncle? Exactly how is Silvershire "ours"? I thought we were working to build a new democracy here."

Silas straightened and drew back, his eyes suddenly wary and his smile more fox, now, than wolf. "Why, that's what I meant, lad…what did you think? Democracy, aye, that's what we've been about, ye and me, t'be sure 'tis."

"Is it?" Nikolas's voice had gone deadly quiet. His eyes, Rhia noticed, were iron-hard, and were fixed unwaveringly on the other man's face. "I know what I've been working for, but somehow I don't think we've had quite the same goal in mind… .Lord Vladimir."

For the space of a half dozen heartbeats, everything stopped-all sound, all movement…even breath. The air itself seemed to freeze solid.

The older man broke the stillness first, cracking it like a stone thrown onto an ice-covered pond. But before his harsh croak of denial could form into words, it was overridden by Nikolas's cold and implacable voice.

"Don't, I've just come from Perth Castle. I've seen the proof with my own eyes." He leaned forward and placed his hands on the tabletop, and to Rhia. watching with suspended breath, he seemed almost to grow taller…broader. Every inch a king… "The only thing I want to know, Lord Vladimir, is how you did it. And why. Was it all about revenge?"

"Revenge?" Every muscle in Rhia's body tensed as Vladimir swooped down like a hunting hawk, eyes fiery with rage, fingers curved into talons. Hers clenched around the crockery teacup, relaxing only slightly when he grabbed hold of the table's edge. She could see droplets of spittle on his lips, shining like tiny diamonds. "You call it revenge? I call it justice! I was King Dunford's choice! I was supposed to inherit his crown. That weasel…Henry Weston…he plotted behind my back…poisoned the king's mind against me. He took what was mine! Took my crown, my life…left me with nothing!"

On the last word he pushed back from the table, and Rhia started to breathe again, though she kept her eyes riveted on the man's face the same way she would a coiled-up rattlesnake. He's insane, she thought, watching his glittering eyes. Completely mad.

Why, then, does he seem so familiar to me?

Vladimir drew himself up and glared down at them from his full height with the haughty bearing of an emperor. "So, I took what was his-I took his son. Is that not justice?"

"Brilliant." Nikolas murmured, studying him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. "How on earth did you manage it? Must have had help from inside the palace, I imagine."

"Help? Pah-never needed it." His face took on a crafty look, and his eyes shifted to a distant place only he could see. "I have my ways…come and go from the palace any time I please, yes, I do…and no one the wiser. Took the babe from under their noses…" He laughed-a thin, gleeful snicker. "Raised the boy to despise his father, too…taught him to hate everything the man stands for…educated him…" His gaze snapped back to Nikolas, sharp and bright again. "Oh, and you were a fine boy, a clever boy, Nikolas. Blood will always tell. That was my one mistake you know-that brat I put in your place. Low-class genes…should have known better…"

"Who was he-Prince Reginald?" Nikolas asked softly.

A sneer curved Vladimir's lips. "Bought him. Didn't cost me much-mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. She was glad to get the bit I offered her."

"What happened to her? Did you have her killed, too?"

"Didn't have to," said Vladimir with a disdainful sniff, looking as if he'd gotten something foul on his hands. "Naturally, the bitch took the money I paid her and bought drugs- too much, as it turned out. Just as well-saved me the trouble of getting rid of her."

He seemed so pleased with himself, seemed not to realize how damning his boasting was. Rhia wondered whether he didn't care if they heard his confession-and the implications of that were chilling-or whether he was simply relieved after so many years of silence finally to be able to let the world know how clever he'd been.

"Wait." Nikolas said, shifting forward in his chair like an interested student at the feet of the master. "I don't understand. If you can get into the palace whenever you want, why didn't you just kill Weston and be done with it?"

Vladimir grimaced. "You disappoint me, boy. Think- what would that have gained me? If the king dies, the crown passes to a child-Reginald, and the power to a regent. I'd have my revenge, yes. but not the rest that I'm entitled to. The power, lad." He clenched a fist as if plucking that elusive commodity from the air. "The power that should have been mine."

"So…what was your plan? And why kill Reginald, after all those years? I thought he was your ticket to the power."

Vladimir snorted. There was a pause while he picked up the teapot and lifted the lid to inspect the brew. "Why, indeed. As I said, the boy was a lowlife, and stupid in the bargain. I'd kept the proof of your identity, of course-hidden safely away until I had need of it. I meant to use it to blackmail Reginald into doing my bidding-he'd inherit the crown, but I'd be the real ruler of Silvershire-the power behind the throne. But alas, the twit got a bit too big for his britches- tried to have me killed, if you can believe it! Stupidly, too-fortunately for me, I suppose." He leveled a glare at Nikolas from under bristling eyebrows. "Well, after that, what could I do? The nitwit left me no choice. Ah…but this is so much the better. We can have it all now. Nikolas, my boy, don't you see?" He was smiling again, that wild, insane light glittering in his eyes.

He seemed to have forgotten Rhia, who sat rigid in her chair, fighting a disgust so intense she could feel her nails biting into the palms of her hands.

She looked at Nikolas, caught his eye…and the instant flash of communion between them was like electricity in a dark night, a beautiful light flooding her soul. The message in his eyes was plain as spoken words, calming as a touch.

She cleared her throat…pushed her chair back. "I'm afraid that's not going to happen, your lordship, or…whatever. You see, I'm a licensed bounty hunter with the Lazlo Group. I've been commissioned by His Majesty King Henry Weston and his regent. Lord Russell, Duke of Carrington, to take you into custody and return you to Silverton to answer charges of kidnapping, extortion, murder, attempted murder, treason…let's see, what else? Oh. a bunch of things. Anyway, now-" she rose, hitched in a breath "-I'm going to have to ask you to put your hands behind your head-"

Vladimir's whip-crack laugh cut off the rest. "You? Think you can arrest me? Tell me, wench, how you mean to do that, precisely." His sneer was almost audible. "You don't even have a weapon!"

Rage sizzled behind her eyes…twisted cold in her belly. But it was the flash of recognition that took her breath away… turned her body to stone. My God…that's who he reminds me of. Except for the madness, he's my father.

Nikolas was smiling without a shred of humor. "Trust me, Vlad," he drawled, "the lady doesn't need one. Make a move on her, and you'll find that out soon enough. I'd do as she says, if I were you. And, by the way…" His voice tookon an edge of steel.

"In the unlikely event she should need an extra set of hands, she's got me. It's been awhile, but I've found that my commando training does come back to me when I need it. I don't think you'd get far against the two-" That was as far as he got.

Rhia had quietly slipped her handcuffs from the back of her belt where they'd been hidden by her leather jacket. She was bringing them into view when Vladimir, shrieking curses, hurled the teapot full of scalding hot tea at her face and bolted from the room.