Once a Princess Read online

  "I'll want an accounting—"

  "After I'm done cleaning up last night's mess."

  He flushed red at her answer. She flushed some herself at her audacity. She would never have spoken to him like that six months ago, and they both knew it. She would have rushed to do his bidding, forsaking any other chore, and she certainly wouldn't have interrupted him.

  "I'm sorry," she offered out of habit. "But I'm doing two jobs now, both yours and mine, and there never seems to be enough time in the day to do it all. We really need to hire—"

  "Now, now, you're doing just fine on your own. We already have three others to pay. Any more will cut into the profits."

  She wanted to argue, she really did, but knew it wouldn't do her a bit of good. He made a good profit, he always had, but he never let her spend any of it, not on the tavern that was their livelihood, nor on herself. What the devil did he think he was saving it for? He was sixty years old if he was a day, and he was dying, a fact that elicited not the least bit of sadness from her or anyone else who knew him.

  For the first ten years of her life, Tanya had thought this man and his wife were her parents. Finding out differently had brought her joy, not pain. But who her real parents were she didn't know. Iris Dobbs had been able to tell her only that the woman who had given her to them when she was a baby had claimed to be her mother one minute, then no relation to her the next. But the fever had made the woman say all kinds of crazy things.

  Iris had died eight years ago. She had been Tanya's only buffer, taking many of the beatings meant for her. In fact, it was one of those beatings that had killed Iris, though Dobbs had got away with calling it an accident simply because she was his wife.

  The things a husband was allowed to do didn't bear thinking of. And not for the first time Tanya swore that a husband would never make a chattel out of her, because she'd never have one. If she'd learned anything living with Dobbs all her life, she'd learned how precious her few rights were, and she wasn't about to give them up for anything. She just wished she'd known she had some sooner, wished she'd known that she could leave if she wanted, without being hunted down like a runaway slave. It had taken one of the barmaids to point this out, when she had witnessed Dobbs taking the stick to her, by asking why Tanya stayed.

  In fact, Tanya had threatened to leave then. She'd been all of eighteen, or thereabouts, and could easily get a job in another tavern, since she knew everything there was to know about running such a place. That was when Dobbs had first tempted her with ownership of The Seraglio. But the promise of his leaving the tavern to her was all she'd had, until his illness. Then she'd insisted on having it written down on paper, that precious paper hidden under a floorboard in her room.

  The Seraglio was all but hers now to do with as she would. It might exhaust her and cause one head­ache after another, but it represented independence, peace, and total control, or soon would—things she'd never had before, and which she craved now with a passion. To have them, she only had to take care of Dobbs for his remaining days, no more than she'd done all her life anyway.

  Tanya left him as soon as she could, for she hadn't exaggerated. There was never enough time in each day to do all that was required of her. The three helpers were no help where cleanup was concerned. Dobbs had never wanted to pay them extra when he had Tanya at no cost, and so they left at the close of business even if the common room looked like a storm had come through it.

  It usually was a filthy mess, with mugs left on tables, ale spilled, chairs toppled, some broken, cigar butts mixed with spittle on the hardwood floor. Tanya usually attended to it all before she retired for the night, but last night there had been a fight over the current barmaid, Aggie, between one of the local planters' sons and a sailor from The Lorilie, just docked that morning. Dobbs used to handle all the fights, with a cudgel in one hand and a pistol in the other. Now Tanya had to depend on Jeremiah, who tended the bar; and while Jeremiah might have the bulk necessary to intimidate two drunken customers, he did not have the gumption.

  It wasn't the first time Tanya had had to step in between two brawlers since she'd taken over the run­ning of The Seraglio. Getting a couple of bruises before the fighters realized she was interfering was pretty common, too, but last night had been an ex­ception, since she had been tired and out of sorts, and in no mood to reason first.

  Normally she drew no notice, for she'd learned at an early age how to mask delicacy and fine features with severity, drabness, and a gauntness that could be achieved by using theatrical makeup, if not by actual exhaustion. She was a fixture of the place, sometimes serving customers when Aggie was har­ried because April was performing, sometimes work­ing behind the bar when Jeremiah didn't show up for work. She was always there, ready to attend to what­ever was necessary—even breaking up fights, she, not even five and a half feet tall, with her hair severely pulled back and bundled at her nape, wearing a ser­viceable black skirt, unadorned and unbustled, and one of Dobbs' old gray shirts that reached her knees. The shirts were belted to accommodate the wicked-­looking knife she'd been wearing at her hip ever since Dobbs had taken ill, a longer-bladed weapon than the knife she'd carried in her right boot for as long as she could remember.

  She'd brought both into play last night, slashing in a wide circle that effectively separated the two antagonists. She hadn't had to say a single word after that. The planter's son, who was a regular and well aware that she didn't palm her weapons unless she was prepared to use them, apologized for the distur­bance and resumed his seat. The sailor, there for the first time, was too surprised to offer any more trouble, and Jeremiah, late into the fray but handy just the same, escorted him to the door.

  But despite the ease with which she'd ended the fracas, Tanya's nerves had still been on edge for the remainder of the night, and such extreme tension was debilitating. That was why she'd gone straight to bed as soon as she'd locked up. She could accept violence against herself more easily than she could accept having to dole it out, because receiving it had been a matter of course her whole life. Inflicting some of her own went against her grain. Yet she didn't hes­itate to do so when it was necessary, and it had been necessary a number of times over the years, and more often in just the past six months.

  In spite of everything she did to appear unappealing to The Seraglio's customers, a drunk sometimes didn't see too well, and all it took was the sight of a skirt to make one think he'd found an available female. She'd had her share of pinches and pawing, for the most part ended with a sharp word or a well-­placed cuff to the side of the head. If a man was drunk enough to have blurred vision, he was drunk enough for her to handle. It was those times when she was caught alone outside the common room by men not so drunk, in either the storeroom or the kitchen, or on her way to the stable out back, or even followed into her room once, that she'd had to get serious about protecting herself. But those attempts were made by men who'd known her for a long time, weren't fooled by her normal appearance, and now thought to take advantage of Dobbs' incapacity.

  The only good thing she could say about Dobbs was that when he'd been hale and hearty, he'd been a potent discouragement to anyone who wanted to lay his hands on her. Once, he'd nearly beaten to death one of his own friends who had tried to kiss her, and that kind of news spread fast. Not that he had been protecting her virtue then or in other in­stances. He simply hated fornication with a passion and wouldn't stand for it under his roof. If Aggie and April wanted to accommodate customers in that way, and both of them often did, they made private arrangements. More recently they sneaked off to the stables whenever things slowed down. Dobbs' re­action wasn't normal, certainly, but it was amusing, since Iris had once confessed that it was because he couldn't do it anymore himself. Typical of Dobbs, then, not to want anyone else to do what he couldn't.

  Tanya spared only one sigh as she looked over the common room before she got busy. There was also the beer shipment to see to, lunch and dinner to prepare, new candles to order, which req
uired a three-block walk past gambling dens, brothels, and seedier taverns that were open day and night, since The Seraglio was located in one of the worst sections of Natchez. And then, just before it was time to open the doors, April's little brother stopped by to tell Tanya that The Seraglio's main attraction had sprained her ankle and wouldn't be able to perform tonight or any time soon. Just what she needed to hear minutes before opening. A headache began immediately.

  Chapter 3

  "What in hell are we doing here, Stefan?" Lazar complained as he watched a red-bearded man in fringed buckskins banging on his table with an empty beer mug, crudely demanding that the show begin. "We could have awaited Serge at the hotel, which at least offers a modicum of comfort."

  "You have gone slumming before—"

  "Not where every mother's son is armed to his teeth," Lazar hissed.

  Stefan chuckled. "You exaggerate, my friend, but even so, like Vasili, I'm feeling restless enough to welcome a diversion, no matter its form."

  "Oh, God," Lazar groaned, slumping down in his chair. "With both of you seeking trouble, we're bound to find it."

  Stefan cocked a black brow. "Who said anything about trouble?"

  "A diversion to you is nothing less than a rousing good fight. And I know you are exasperated—we all are after what we learned today. But you, if you will forgive my saying so, are an unpredictable bastard in such a mood."

  Stefan snorted without taking offense. Longstanding friends were occasionally allowed to insult him with impunity.

  "I assure you I will start nothing that I can't finish."

  "Assurances like that I don't need."

  "Stop worrying, Lazar. We are here only to keep Vasili company, and to keep from going at each other's throats while we play this waiting game

  "And what is Vasili's excuse?" Lazar queried, watching the man in question move casually about the room, speaking to the patrons as if he were a regular.

  "He was intrigued by the name of this place when he heard it mentioned on The Lorilie, along with a description of its main attraction. But then he is so homesick he will settle for even the most laughable performance if he can see one single belly undulate."

  "That damned concubine Abdul gave him, she does dance like an angel, doesn't she?" A chuckle broke through Lazar's concern. "She undulates even better in bed."

  "So you've tried her?"

  "Vasili is ever generous . . . you mean you haven't?"

  "Slaves, even freed slaves, are too submissive for my tastes.

  Lazar grinned at that opinion. Submissiveness was nice on occasion, as far as he was concerned, especially when you had a termagant for a mistress, which he did. That one he had been glad to leave behind for this journey, but he hadn't expected to be away so long.

  None of them had expected it, since their task had been so simple. They had merely to contact a Madame Rousseau in New Orleans. Hers was the one name that had come to Sandor all those years ago, as prearranged, and she was to have led them directly to Baroness Tomilova and her royal charge. A week at the most to pack up the princess, and they would have been on their way home. So simple . . . except Madame Rousseau had passed away three years ago, and her husband had moved to Charleston.

  A week was wasted making inquiries in New Orleans about the baroness, but it was as if she had never been there, for no one remembered her. So they sailed to Charleston to speak with the lady's husband. More time wasted, for the gentleman had become a drunkard since Madame Rousseau's death. He could barely remember his wife, much less some woman he might or might not have met twenty years ago. His only suggestion, petulantly given after a great deal of browbeating, was that they speak with his wife's sister, who he thought, to the best of his recollection, though he wasn't positive, had been living with them at the time in question. The only problem, however, was that she had married ten years ago and moved to Natchez, Mississippi.

  So to sail back to New Orleans on the oft chance that Rousseau's doubtful memory might be correct, and journey up the Mississippi River to the old town of Natchez? But what else could they do? Tatiana Janacek had waited all these years to be summoned home to assume her rightful place in Cardinia. She had to be found, no matter how long it took.

  However, frustration was keen by this point. They all felt it. But until the new King of Cardinia lost his patience and said to hell with it, no one else would. But that was before their visit to Madame Rousseau's sister this morning at her plantation just south of town, which proved the worst frustration of all be­cause of the incredible tale she had to relate to them.

  Now Lazar was for quitting the country and simply reporting the tragedy that had befallen the Janacek infant. Serge was for finding another to take her place, someone more to the king's liking, but the trouble with that was the princess had an identifying mark on her left cheek, her sitting cheek, that Sandor had put there himself. But the cousins, Stefan and Vasili, were adamant still for following every lead, no matter how cold, until there was no place left to look. No telling how many more months could be wasted on that kind of doggedness. And what did they have to go on now but the name of the last person who supposedly had seen the baroness alive?

  Learning that Tomilova had died soon after her arrival in this country was a shock to them all. She was to have contacted Sandor only under the direst emergency; otherwise there was to be no commu­nication that could be intercepted and lead the Stam­boloffs to the last Janacek. Was her imminent death not considered an emergency? But who would have thought she might die, and worse, done so before the child was old enough to care for herself, or even old enough to know whom to contact?

  According to Rousseau's sister-in-law, the bar­oness and the infant, assumed to be hers, had spent no more than two days with them after making Ma­dame Rousseau's acquaintance. But she had not been well, having barely recovered from a fever she had contracted on the journey to America. She was suf­fering delusions of grandeur one moment, persecu­tion the next. She claimed to have been robbed of a fortune in jewels her very first night in the city. But when she learned of the yellow fever that could run rife through New Orleans, killing indiscriminately, she became nearly hysterical, insisting she could not stay there another day.

  "My sister could make no assurances that she would listen to," the bearer of these bad tidings told them. "The lady made arrangements on her own to leave the city, but when she told us who with and to where, we tried even more to dissuade her. The woman she meant to travel with was steeped in scan­dal for marrying white trash. But would your bar­oness take heed, or care that the area she intended to travel through was the most lawless in the land? We suspected her fever had returned, she was be­having so erratically. We even offered to keep the child, for its own protection, but the lady was simply not open to reason. 1, for one, wasn't the least sur­prised when her body was brought to us for proper burial less than a week later, because my sister's calling card was the only thing found in her purse. She'd been left on the side of the road, only partially covered by rocks, as if that Dobbs woman had at least tried to bury her."

  Another name to track down, and the only piece of good luck yet, if it could be considered such, was that this Dobbs woman's destination had been right here to the town of Natchez. But would she still be here after twenty years had come and gone? The Rousseau sister had never heard of her again, and she'd been living here ten years herself. And if she was here, would she know what had happened to the child?

  Serge had been sent to speak with the town officials as soon as they returned to town, hopefully to find an answer or two to those very questions. If not, then they would all begin tomorrow to canvas the town, a tedious task, as they had learned in New Orleans. The possibilities were endless, but uppermost in all of their minds right now was the simple fact that the princess might never be found, might even be dead, and as much as the king had hated coming here to fetch her, he did not want to go home empty-handed.

  "I have decided that table over there has the best
view of the stage," Vasili remarked as soon as he rejoined them. "Shall we bribe the occupants into a trade . . . or simply confiscate it? After all, royalty has its privilege. Even these peasants can understand that."

  "When we have been traveling incognito?" Stefan countered dryly.

  "So we have." Vasili sighed. "Then I suppose we must just take it. Might also has its privilege."

  "The devil you will," Lazar hissed, coming instantly to his feet. "My chair has an unobstructed view of the damn stage. Here, take it!"

  "If you insist, my friend."

  Stefan grinned to himself at how subtly Vasili had maneuvered that, with Lazar merely gritting his teeth, relieved that he wouldn't have to draw his sword in their defense—yet. They all had a degree of arro­gance, Stefan would be the first to admit, but Vasili used his like a weapon sometimes, with precision and skill, and a good deal of amusement. Lazar knew that. How could he not, when they had been together since childhood, suffering the same court tutors, the same training, the same enemies. They thought alike, they were alike, they were the best of friends. Lazar just had trouble concentrating on more than one thing at a time, and presently, he had made up his mind that both Vasili and Stefan were eager for trouble as a way to relieve their latest frustration, and he was determined to worry about it.

  Lazar also hadn't realized that Vasili had already found an outlet for his tension—this show. His desire for Lazar's better seat had been very real. He was caught up in the anticipation of the crowd that was growing impatient at the delay in the entertainment.

  The performance was supposed to have started by now. More patrons were noisily banging on their tables in complaint. But perhaps the wait would be worth it. Perhaps this harem dancer was as good as she was touted to be. And whom was he kidding? She had to be a rank amateur, merely giving her interpretation of what she supposed the famed harem dance would be like. These Americans wouldn't know the difference, however, and Vasili was easily pleased, which was fortunate, for Stefan was afraid there'd be the devil to pay if Vasili's present eagerness turned to disappointment.