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  The Prince laughed.

  “Because he has lied to you in more ways than one. His name is not ‘Lorenc’ at all.”

  “W-what is it – then?”

  Prince Stefan’s eyes narrowed.

  “What good would it do you to know that? The only name you need when you lie in my arms is mine!”

  With that he stalked out. Bujar followed, the door closed behind them and Ariana heard the key turn gratingly in the lock.

  *

  Ariana fell into a despair that was deeper than she would have thought possible.

  She could not believe that the man she still thought of as Lorenc was the villain the Prince portrayed. He was certainly no traitor. He had become an outlaw precisely because he loved his country and wished to free it from the Ottoman yoke.

  But what did the Prince mean when he had said that Lorenc had betrayed his family?

  She wished that she had thought to put the question to the Prince after she had asked why he and Lorenc were such mirror images.

  But her mind had been thrown into confusion at Stefan’s admission that he and Lorenc were twins.

  She might well have guessed it before, but that the relationship was never mentioned by either brother.

  Lorenc! Lorenc! The idea that this was not in fact the real name of the man she loved tormented her. It was as if she loved a ghost and she had no doubt that Lulé knew the truth. If Lulé was so honoured, why not she, Ariana?

  What was there to do now but go to bed?

  The candle sputtered out as she climbed between the sheets. She lay, staring into the darkness. It was no comfort to know that Lorenc was under the same roof. He might as well have been in the deserts of Arabia! She could not reach him, speak to him or feel his lips on hers.

  It might well be that she would never set eyes on him again. She had seen that massive barred door that led down into the Castle Dukka dungeons.

  It was certain that the Prince would never allow her to visit the prisoner – unless she could convince him that he, Stefan, was now the sole focus of her desires.

  Although her desire to set eyes once more on the man she loved was overwhelming, she shuddered as she mused at the means she must employ to make the Prince agree.

  She had always been too proud to lie. Well, now she must learn what other women seemed to know from the cradle.

  She turned her face into the pillow and breathed in its lavender scent.

  She thought of how Lorenc loved the freedom that his life gave him and began to weep. How would his spirit respond to a cold dark dungeon and to imprisonment?

  She was prepared to pretend to love the Prince in order to see Lorenc and prepared to submit completely to the Prince’s will in order to save Lorenc’s life.

  Now it struck her that this might well be a needless sacrifice. Perhaps he would rather die than be condemned to a life without freedom!

  How could she live, day after day, knowing that he languished far below? Could she lie with the Prince at night, knowing that her real love lay alone in his cold cell?

  It was with some effort that she banished such dark thoughts. As long as Lorenc was alive there was hope and she started to pray that somehow she could be brave or clever enough to save him from a terrible fate.

  The Prince sometimes left her alone at Dukka. She might then be able to help Lorenc escape. She might then be able to flee with him – if he would take her when she was no longer a maiden but had been sullied by Stefan’s ugly embrace!

  She wondered where Lulé was now. Was she still tending the wounded Lorenc? Would she be restored to Ariana as lady’s maid tomorrow?

  *

  Daylight at last arrived.

  Ariana rose and rang the bell. She remembered then that her door was locked and was not surprised when it was Bujar who answered her call.

  The housekeeper came in and locked the door again behind her. The key dangled from her little finger as she stood frowning at Ariana.

  “What do you want?”

  Ariana did not need to effect a subdued air to her.

  “I need help to dress. Is – is Zhenka not available?”

  “Zhenka was dismissed,” Bujar smirked.

  “Dismissed?” echoed Ariana.

  “The Prince felt that he could not trust her. She left in the early hours after tending to the prisoner.”

  Ariana regarded Bujar, who looked so grim that it took some courage to pose the next question,

  “And what news of – the prisoner?”

  Bujar shrugged.

  “The bullet passed straight through his shoulder and Zhenka tended him well, but his life was never in danger, but then none of this should be of any concern to you.”

  Ariana knew that she needed Bujar on her side to stand any chance of winning the Prince’s confidence.

  “You are right, Bujar,” she replied slowly. “I-I was simply interested in a situation – that must have unpleasant consequences – for my fiancé, the Prince.”

  Bujar’s eyes narrowed as Ariana plunged on,

  “I have had all night to reflect on my behaviour. What a fool I have been not to recognise the better man! I left my uncle with so little experience of the world.”

  This was so very patently true that Bujar gave an understanding nod.

  “Certainly,” she said, “your youth might be deemed an excuse for your transgressions.”

  “I was truly frightened,” continued Ariana, “that if I confessed all to the Prince, my maid, Bonnie, would have been put in great danger. And my weeks in the mountains made it difficult for me to see my captors as complete villains. For they treated me well, you know.”

  “So they should. You were of great value to them.”

  “I did not understand the extent of my value.”

  Bujar’s expression seemed to soften a little.

  “No. Why would you? These brigands are cunning people. Especially their leader – ”

  Her voice trailed away. For the first time it struck Ariana that Bujar would have known Stefan and Lorenc when they were boys and she longed to ask why Bujar’s loyalties had remained with Stefan and not Lorenc, but felt that this was a matter best left alone for the present.

  She gave a sigh.

  “I wish – I knew how to win Prince Stefan’s heart. I fear he can only see me now – as someone who does not put his interests first.”

  Bujar eyed her eagerly.

  “You are reconciled to the marriage?”

  Ariana lowered her head as if to hide a blush.

  “I – anticipate it now – with great pleasure,”

  Bujar clasped her hands together.

  “I will tell him so. Now I must go and order your breakfast. And later I will help you dress.”

  Left alone Ariana now rose slowly and went to the mirror. She wondered if her lying, so alien to her nature, had left a trace upon her features.

  But no, she looked the same Ariana as yesterday.

  Bujar seemed in high spirits when she returned to dress Ariana.

  The Prince wished to see her later that morning and she was to visit him in his library.

  “I shall do – as he bids,” said Ariana meekly.

  Bujar fussed around her like a mother hen. She felt that the housekeeper had repeated all that she had said to her to the Prince and he had been satisfied.

  If Ariana had known a little more about the vanity of men, she might have been less surprised at how quickly her ruse had worked.

  She appeared before the Prince with a more demure and obedient demeanour than she had ever shown.

  He took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips.

  “It pleases me to hear that you have now somewhat reformed your opinion of me,” he murmured.

  “Circumstances dictated that I should,” she replied, not altogether untruthfully.

  The Prince regarded her sharply, but her lowered lids and bent head reassured him. He tipped Ariana’s chin up so that she was forced to meet his eyes.

&n
bsp; “But don’t submit too eagerly to my embrace,” he advised. “Remember that I like to overcome a degree of resistance in a woman.”

  “I am sure I shall experience the resistance natural to all women – who have not known what passion is,” she promised artfully.

  “You seemed to know passion when you pleaded for my brother’s life.”

  Ariana thought quickly.

  “What I felt for him was as nothing to what I now realise – that I might feel for you.”

  The Prince’s lips twitched with pleasure.

  “You begin to inflame my desire, Ariana. No other woman has made me anticipate quite so keenly the moment when I might love her.”

  Ariana gave a little gasp of shock at the revealing expression ‘no other woman’, but he chose to ignore her.

  “Only once did I find a woman who so enraptured me,” he continued. “She was a beauty, but wild as a cat. I enjoyed trimming her claws, I can tell you. There was no question of marrying her, of course. She was of the lower orders and my father wished me to marry into the local aristocracy, such as it is. I might have complied, but none of the women were interested in me then. They were only interested in my brother. He was always the one who was favoured!”

  “Favoured?” Ariana echoed.

  The Prince gave a scowl.

  “We are just so alike, it does not seem possible, but everyone saw something in him they considered lacking in me.”

  Ariana regarded him carefully and wondered if this was the moment to ask the favour only he could bestow.

  “When you came across us in the clearing,” she ventured, “you said that – you had thought him dead.”

  The Prince flashed her an uncomfortable look.

  “I told you, I meant dead to me.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Ariana agreed quickly. “But it has made me think – ”

  The Prince waited.

  “Made you think what?” he prompted impatiently.

  “All the same it made me want to set eyes on the wretched fellow one more time,” Ariana replied softly. “I should like to inform him, face to face, that he is now as dead to me as you say he has been to you.”

  “You would like to set eyes on him?” repeated the Prince. “Then you will marry me with no more thought of him at all?”

  “But it is you – who are to be so favoured,” replied Ariana carefully.

  It was not a lie. The Prince would indeed be the favoured one when she gave him her hand, for she had no other choice.

  The Prince made his decision.

  “Tonight at midnight,” he declared. “I will take you to see the prisoner. But I warn you, I will remain within earshot. If your manner should displease me in any way, Ariana, my brother dies!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was just past midnight and Ariana was being led as promised to visit Lorenc in his cell.

  She stumbled along the cold passage in the Prince’s wake. The flaming candelabrum Stefan carried threw eerie shadows on the walls.

  He stopped outside one of the heavy doors lining the passage and slid back its bolt, ushering Ariana in.

  Such a dank air met her that she reeled. A gloomy corridor stretched ahead. From its vaulted ceiling clammy cobwebs swung.

  At last the Prince commanded her to stop. In the candles’ flickering light she saw that the passage ended in an alcove sealed off with iron bars.

  “There’s his cell,” said the Prince in a low voice. “Go to him. But remember, I am listening close by.”

  She felt her way forward to the cell and there she sank to the ground, pressing her face to the cold bars.

  “Lorenc – ” she called out softly.

  It might not be his real name, but it was all she knew him by.

  There was a rustle of straw and then a voice replied in sleepy disbelief.

  “Ariana?”

  She heard him move forward and then felt his hand reaching for hers. She grasped it and shivered at the touch of his fingers.

  “Be on guard,” she whispered, “I am not alone.”

  “I understand.”

  The next moment his lips found hers. The kiss was soundless, as it had to be, but Ariana marvelled that the Prince did not hear the sudden boom of her beating heart.

  Drawing away, Lorenc spoke quietly from behind the bars.

  “Who is with you?”

  “The Prince,” murmured Ariana. “He is behind me, listening. If we speak low, he will be suspicious.”

  Lorenc nodded, cleared his throat and spoke loudly.

  “What are you doing here, Ariana?”

  “I came to tell you that, henceforth, you are as good as dead to me,” Ariana replied even more loudly. “I have learned the truth about you.”

  In response Lorenc drew her hand through the bars and, turning it over, settled a soft kiss on her palm.

  She felt herself shudder with longing.

  “If that is how it must be,” she then heard him say in an exaggeratedly doleful tone.

  “That is how it must be,” confirmed Ariana. “But before I go, I would like to know why you lied to me when you said that your name is ‘Lorenc’.”

  There was genuine indignation in this question that he did not fail to detect, as he kissed her fingertips softly before replying,

  “Had you known my real name and then divulged it unwittingly to Stefan, the consequences would have been even greater than they are now.”

  “He,” murmured Ariana, “whom you neglected to tell me is your twin brother.”

  “He told you that? Then it is certain that I shall never see the light of day again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The iron against her wrist felt cold as she reached through the bars, seeking Lorenc’s face. She touched only air and it seemed that he had moved back from the bars.

  Lorenc spoke loud as he replied,

  “Stefan cannot allow me to go free if it is known that I am his brother. To understand that you must hear my story from the beginning.”

  By instinct the two waited, each wondering whether the Prince would intervene and prevent the truth as Lorenc saw it from being told.

  But it seemed that Stefan was as curious to hear this version of the story as Ariana.

  Reassured, Lorenc began,

  “I was born an hour before Stefan. As we two grew up, only our doting mother could tell us apart. We were naturally thrown very much into each other’s company, but we were never close. I wished that it was otherwise, but our differing prospects seemed to drive a wedge between us from an early age.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing,

  “As the first born, albeit by only an hour, I was the legitimate heir and to me fell all the rewards that such a position entails. My brother was treated well, but not with the same deference and this rankled with him. I think he was happiest when I was sent away to school in England and then later to Constantinople. My father considered it politic to send his son to university in the Ottoman Capital. While I was in Constantinople, my mother died. I came home for her funeral, but soon had to return to complete my education. I left my father a broken man, a man upon whom any tune might now be strummed by any player.”

  His hand now took Ariana’s as he went on,

  “And indeed, Stefan seized the opportunity to work him to his will and convinced him that a wise course would be to enrol his elder son in the Ottoman Army, for this would prove our family’s loyalty to their rulers. The fact that it might also lead to my death was no doubt an added attraction for my brother. In the Army I experienced at first hand the oppressive nature of the Empire and I began to espouse Nationalist ideals. When news arrived of the death of my father, I set off for home full of grief and very anxious about the role I must now take on as Prince.”

  Lorenc took a deep breath and resumed his story,

  “I had barely crossed the border into Albania when I was attacked by five ruffians, their faces hidden. I don’t doubt I would have been murdered were it not
for the fact that two of the ruffians suddenly rounded on the others and helped me to finish them off. One of my saviours revealed himself to be the companion of my brother and me when we were children, a young Dukka retainer who had taught us to fish, ride and hunt. His name was Ilir.”

  Ariana started. So Ilir had known the twin brothers as boys, just like Bujar?

  In the dark Lorenc’s voice grew grave,

  “I learned from Ilir that my father, during his last illness, had become mentally confused. So it was no great effort to get him to change his will naming Stefan as the real first born and thus the legitimate heir to Dukka and its lands. Stefan was aided and abetted in this deceit by one, Bujar, the housekeeper at The Castle, who had become my father’s companion after our mother’s death.”

  Lorenc’s tone now became decidedly bitter.

  “It seemed Stefan had long been plotting against me. He set spies on me in Constantinople. Getting wind of my conversion to the Nationalist cause, he had publicly declared me a traitor to Albania, its lawful rulers and his own family, who had proved loyal servants of the Empire. No doubt he hoped to thereby silence anyone who might question the sudden change in my father’s will. It would not be politic to champion someone known to be a traitor! But even this was not enough for Stefan. He obviously began to feel that he could never be safe with me alive. So when he had heard that I was heading home to claim my inheritance, he set up a band of Dukka servants to attack and kill me in the guise of bandits. Ilir undertook to be part of this retinue expressly to be on hand to rescue me. He convinced another servant, Gorci, to join him.”

  ‘Gorci! No doubt this was the very man who was now husband to Bonnie!’ thought Ariana.

  She sensed him pass a hand over his troubled brow.

  “I had no money, no retinue, nothing. My brother had usurped all. Worse, he wanted me dead. It seemed the best thing for the moment was to seen to be dead. Gorci was sent back to Dukka to deliver the news that, although I had managed to kill Ilir and the other attackers, I had died before Gorci’s eyes of my own wounds.”

  Ariana felt herself shudder as he carried on,

  “Ilir and I joined with the growing numbers in the mountains who opposed Ottoman oppression. Gorci joined us later. To my new companions I was ‘Lorenc’. It was too dangerous to give my own name and risk Stefan hearing that I was still alive. But I will tell you my name now. It is ‘Eduart’.”