Free The Runaway Princess by Christina Dodd

her, and she made plans. In a place full of women where Danior was alien, surely she would be able to get help. Don an inconspicuous habit. Or even just climb out a window. It could be done. She would do it.
    When she returned, she climbed on his back with less reluctance. She was tired, ready for this pitiable escapade to end, and that wouldn’t happen until they reached the convent.
    The convent. It had begun to assume the aspect of heaven.
    Â 
    â€œEthelinda.” He corrected himself before she could. “Evangeline. Look.”
    Muzzily, she noted that her cheek rested on the top of his shoulder, that he’d hooked his arms underher bare knees to keep her in place, that her right heel rested in a place no self-respecting heel would ever visit.
    She’d been asleep, and probably been snoring in his ear. Or worse, drooling on his jacket. She was never at her best during slumber.
    â€œLook,” he whispered.
    She pried open her eyes. Streaks of dawn light banded the light blue sky like ribbons on an Easter package. Lifting her head, she realized they’d left the cliff sometime in the night and stood just inside the shadow of the forest. Just ahead and across an alpine meadow, Mother Earth gave birth to a split and rocky crag. Behind it the sun was rising, and the rugged stone that lifted itself to the heavens was topped by the spires and walls of a medieval structure. “What is it?” she asked.
    â€œThe convent of Santa Leopolda—and our destination.”
    She blinked against the light and stared again at the forbidding gray walls perched on the sheer rock spike. This was a Gothic fortress, built to withstand attack and accessible only on a narrow, precipitous path carved into the very rocks that gave it existence. The trail wound its way to a narrow door—the only entrance to Santa Leopolda.
    The only exit from Santa Leopolda.
    Dear God. She could never escape. Never in this lifetime.

Eight
    Evangeline stiffened on his back as she gazed up at the convent silhouetted against the sky, and Danior experienced a surge of satisfaction. In the short time since he’d plucked her from Château Fortuné, he’d formed a favorable opinion of her intelligence, and he knew Evangeline must see the impossibility of escape from this place.
    Evangeline. A foolish name for a foolish girl, and Danior could scarcely believe that the princess—his little princess Ethelinda—had forced him to accede to her wishes and call her by that ridiculous moniker.
    But his princess had changed. She had grown tall, with an aura of dignity that bespoke her noble heritage. She had acquired a lively tongue, a defiant attitude, and some rather unusual skills. And she had grown wily.
    So he would call her Evangeline. It was, after all, a common name in Serephina, and it could not be an accident that she had picked one of the many family names given at her christening. If she preferredEvangeline, that was fine, and he was willing to call her that as long as she behaved herself.
    Which, from what he had seen of her, was unlikely.
    When Rafaello had brought him the rumor of a wealthy mystery woman at Château Fortuné, he had gone to the resort expecting to retrieve little Ethelinda without incident. He’d planned to scold her, to humor her, and to have her humbly agree she was being unreasonable in denying her destiny. Instead he’d seen across the crowded dining room an Amazon: full-breasted, round-hipped, wary-eyed.
    He’d lifted his glass to her, aware of several things. That he’d been too long without a woman. That beneath his fashionable, restrained clothing lurked a barbarian and a descendent of barbarians. And that this woman, with her sherry brown eyes and fluttering eyelashes, was his. Totally, completely his.
    His body had surged in anticipation. Stupid, really, when he’d known he had to wed the girl and be stuck with her for the rest of his life, but there it was,