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M aybe this was right.

Maybe it was wrong.

He simply wasn’t sure.

Payne had presented such a strong case to St. Denis that he felt as if his path was set for him now. He couldn’t question it or back out of it. He’d told St. Denis that Blackchurch would be heroic for saving the princess that had been snatched away by pirates, the leader of whom was his own mother.

Was it possible he was trying to save her, too?

Like a child who didn’t understand the consequences of actions—Payne felt as if that was his mother.

Maude had grown up with a pirate father, an outlaw of the sea, but she hadn’t gone to sea until after he died.

She was carrying on her father’s legacy the best way she knew how.

After ten years of it, she’d figured it out.

She did as she pleased, and that included abducting a Portuguese princess.

Perhaps in saving that princess, Payne was somehow trying to make it so the Portuguese wouldn’t go after Bloody Maude for revenge.

God knew, they had the ships for it. Everyone knew that the Portuguese armada was formidable.

And here he was, trying to save everyone.

His mother.

The princess.

Even Blackchurch.

There were about two more hours until morning when he headed back to the Black Cock.

Mostly, he wanted to see his mother, but he’d also left Margit guarding Astria, and there was no telling how that would go if Astria became belligerent.

Margit would be the type to hit her over the head with a piece of wood, and Astria would be the type to punch the woman in the eye, so the more he thought about it, the more he thought he’d better check on that pair first.

He was starting to question why he’d left them so long to begin with.

It was a short walk from Blackchurch to the Black Cock, and he picked up the pace on the road, traveling beneath the bright half-moon in full confidence of his safety.

There were no outlaws anywhere near Blackchurch for several reasons, but the most predominant was that any outlaws would have to be completely daft to inhabit the woods close to a world-class training guild.

The second most important reason was that St. Denis ordered periodic sweeps of the woods surrounding Blackchurch simply to make sure no one had set up shop, so the truth was that the entire area surrounding Blackchurch, including the village, was completely safe.

Probably more so now with a pirate encampment on the outskirts.

Unless the pirates decided to ravage the countryside.

But Payne couldn’t worry about that now.

He picked up the pace, and by the time he reached the Black Cock, it was locked up for the night and he had to rouse Hobbes to let him in.

Unhappy that he’d been pulled out of his bed, Hobbes admitted him to the tavern and Payne headed to the small chamber near the kitchens where he’d left Astria.

The door wasn’t locked, so he was able to very quietly open the panel, sticking his head into the dim room to see that it was completely quiet.

A low fire burned in the hearth, giving off a comforting glow.

Payne heard soft snoring, and looked off to his left to see Margit in a chair, head back and snoring away.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he peered over at the bed, seeing the coverlet bunched up.

He thought it was bunched up over Astria’s sleeping body, but it took him a moment to realize there was no body at all.

The bed was empty.

He bolted.

*

She should have run.

Could have run.

But hadn’t.

After slithering out of the window in the rented room, which was made easy because Margit was snoring like an old bull, Astria rushed into the livery yard with glee.

It was the first true freedom she’d had since Bloody Maude and her pirate horde had confiscated her vessels, so there was almost a euphoric sense of delight at the fact that she was no longer a captive.

Truly free.

But she made it just past the stable before she came to a halt.

There was an encampment behind the tavern, full of the same pirates who had abducted her, so she couldn’t run in that direction. She could, however, go left or right or to the front of the tavern. She had all the space in the world to run and escape her captors.

But she couldn’t seem to do it.

Why?

In God’s name, why couldn’t she do it? Why wasn’t she running?

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she was in a country she didn’t know.

She was in an area she didn’t know. She didn’t even know where the nearest village was, and that would mean running through woods and lands that were possibly teeming with outlaws, and she’d be worse off than she was now if they captured her.

She didn’t want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. That was her caution talking.

But there was also something else.

Ye’ll lose the only ally ye have in this entire situation, so dunna be stupid.

Words that Payne had spoken to her. The only person she’d met during the course of her godforsaken captivity who had actually been kind to her. That big, handsome Scotsman had her second-guessing her desire to escape and here she was, trying to rationalize why she wasn’t taking this obvious chance.

Was it really because she didn’t want to disappoint a man she didn’t even know?

Or was it something else?

Astria had no idea.

There was an upended stump next to the livery and she plopped down on it, watching the bonfire in the distance.

It began to occur to her that because Payne had shown her such respect, she simply wasn’t willing to throw it all away.

She wasn’t willing to shame the only person who had been willing to protect and defend her.

He’s started that from the moment they’d met, so it wasn’t a matter of his protecting a princess.

He hadn’t even known she was one at first. Or had he?

She couldn’t remember. But she did remember one thing.

His kindness.

She’d never met anyone who had shown her such kindness.

Not even her husband. He’d been pleasant, but it was out of duty. And then there was her stepson…

Arnaldo.

She was certain he was looking for her, but even that certainty was damaged by doubt.

Arnaldo was her husband’s sole heir, and even when she had been married to his father, the man had tried to seduce.

her. He’d been annoying and aggressive. She’d had to slap him on more than one occasion because he’d been too forward with her.

There had been no respect there, no kindness.

When her husband finally died, Arnaldo was responsible for it.

She had proof of it. But before she’d been able to prove it, his attitude toward her changed completely and he’d taken to sea.

They’s become rivals.

Arnaldo, the new Duc de Tarragona, didn’t want the dowager duchess involved in the family business.

Oh, that family business that seemed to be so respectable, so legitimate.

Her husband and his father before him had made their money with a fleet of merchant ships, but the truth was so much different than that.

El dios del mar.

The Sea God.

That was what her husband had been referred to, and his father before him.

The merchant fleet was legitimate. The pirate business was not.

The House of San Miguel had made a good deal of money in shipping, from all over the Mediterranean, but that was only part of their empire.

The other part was the fleet of pirate ships that roamed the coasts, sacking towns and burning those who resisted.

Stealing from those who had paid them for shipments.

They knew where all of the big and valuable shipments were going, and once their merchant ships delivered them, the pirates would come in behind them and clean up.

Her husband had let her in on that little secret after they were wed.

He ran the legitimate shipping business while Arnaldo headed the pirate venture as El dios del mar .

Only he wanted it all.

And Astria had tried to take from him.

Astria hadn’t only wanted the merchant business.

She’d wanted the pirate business too, because when she’d married Armand, the merchant business was close to floundering.

His marriage to a royal bride had breathed new life into the merchant business because everyone wanted to do business with the man who had married a princess.

Then came the pirate business.

Astria wasn’t stupid. She understood economics because that was the one thing her father had done for her—he’d wanted his children to understand the economics of a country.

She had applied those principles to the shipping business and then to the pirate business, which Arnaldo completely resented.

He and his father had a terrible argument about it, and Arnaldo was exiled for a couple of years because of it.

That was when Astria took over the pirate business and grew it.

But Arnaldo eventually came back, killed his father, and inherited everything.

But Astria wasn’t willing to readily give up that which she had built.

Even if it technically wasn’t hers.

That was the situation when Maude overtook the two vessels Astria had been in command of.

They weren’t her ships, but Arnaldo’s, because Astria had stolen them from Palma and was quite sure Arnaldo wanted them back.

That was the dark little secret that she knew and Maude didn’t—Arnaldo wasn’t coming to rescue his stepmother.

He was coming for his ships. Astria was quite sure that he would thank Maude for capturing her.

He wouldn’t care at all about the fate of his stepmother.

So… if she escaped, where would she run to?