Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker Page B

ill,” Lucine said.
    â€œAs you wish.”
    â€œDon’t be silly.” Kesia walked toward the door.
    Natasha bolted to her feet. “Where are you going?”
    â€œSit, dear. He didn’t call for you. Perhaps it’s time I find out exactly what this duke’s true intentions are.”

NINE
    T he duke Vlad van Valerik remained at the Cantemir estate for no more than ten minutes, walking the garden with the lady Kesia and filling her ear with his lies, surely, before Lucine was called out to meet them both by the fountain.
    I watched from a window next to Natasha and Alek, and I was inflamed with jealousy. The orders I’d received by letter now screamed terrible possibilities at me. What if the empress had been referring to this duke, Vlad van Valerik, in her mention of an enemy who might seek Lucine’s hand?
    â€œHe wants to court her,” Natasha said excitedly. “Of all the luck, Vlad wants to court her!”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” I snapped.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so,” Alek agreed, and I latched onto those words.
    But when Lucine came back in only minutes later, she refused to speak of it.
    â€œTell us, Mother!” Natasha demanded. “What does he want?”
    â€œNothing. Mind your own business, Natasha.”
    â€œHe wants to court Lucine!” She was practically jumping, and I swear if Lucine herself hadn’t been standing ten feet away I would have slapped Natasha for her delight in such a proposition.
    â€œAs I said, mind your own business.”
    â€œI knew it! What did I say, Lucine? A big stallion will one day rip your clothes off, and you’ll know why you waited. This is delightful!”
    Lucine’s expression remained flat. She turned on her heels and left the room. I cannot begin to express what kinds of emotions coursed through my veins that afternoon. My whole world caved in on me.
    I had once been taken captive by the Turks in Istanbul when my spying on the enemy had earned me a jail cell. They put me in shackles in a dark dungeon, beat me, burned my lips with hot coals. Day and night, I was certain death was only hours away.
    But the hours stretched into days and days into weeks and I withstood that certainty, taking strength from my endurance. Three months into my captivity I escaped, having regained enough strength to overtake two guards who’d come into my cell to deliver me to yet another session of torture.
    It wasn’t the only time I had been taken captive, not the only time I had endured and taken strength from facing my pain. My latest captivity was one of the heart, here at the Cantemir estate in Moldavia, and once again I had withstood my torture.
    But now everything changed on me. The moon lost its place in my sky. There was another light edging into my horizon, and jealousy came like a storm to block it out.
    The only way to cope, I reasoned, was to physically remove myself from that horizon. And so I took another long ride around the entire property on my dark steed, quickly bringing him to a frothy sweat.
    But I could not draw my mind away. The duke Valerik would not court Lucine, naturally. For starters, neither Kesia nor Lucine had admitted that the Russian expressed any such intention. Even so, Lucine would never agree.
    Given my instructions from the empress, I had the right to demand that Kesia tell me of Vlad van Valerik’s intentions. I was to protect Lucine’s heart from any suitor, was I not? Had I been in a clear frame of mind I would have pressed then. But in my eagerness not to show the slightest jealousy, I steered clear.
    But if I learned that the duke meant to court Lucine, I would stop him immediately.
    It was already dark when I turned my snorting mount over to the stable and headed up to the house. But I couldn’t bring myself to go find the others. Dinner was rarely served until well into the night, and I would wait until then to show myself.
    Instead I