missionaries in particular, had ventured this far from the border to slaughter innocent people.
Her family had begged her to find another way to do good. There were thousands of charitable causes that wouldn’t put her life in danger. But on a photo safari to Chakul she’d discovered the people were loving and peaceful, grateful for any kindness from a stranger.
The tour director had told everyone to bring extra paper and pens to give out to the children. Those were treasures to them. When Lise had discovered how delighted they were with the merest trifle, despite their great impoverishment, it had touched her heart and set her on her particular path. At the time it had been an easy choice to make, considering she’d been running away from pain for years.
But as she lay there, trussed up like a prized fowl to be butchered, she was aware the consequences of those choices had caught up to her. Certain death was coming. Her senses could feel it, smell it.
Celeste had finally stopped crying. The poor little thing was too ill. With no mother to hold and kiss her, she’d given up.
The quiet had an unearthly quality now. Her captors were outside, planning something. Lise broke out in a cold sweat. If she’d known how and when she was going to die, would she have still chosen to work in this part of the world?
Of course she already knew the answer to her own question, or she wouldn’t be here, but she could still grieve for certain experiences she would never know—like marriage to a soulmate, like being a mother to her own baby.
Lise had to dig back a long way to understand how she’d come to do her life’s work in Chakul. She supposed it had started as a form of rebellion against the life she’d been born into. Not against her parents, who were wonderful people, but against the royal institution itself, with its archaic betrothals, used as a sole instrument to aggrandize wealth and property.
Her betrothal had been sanctified in the church on her tenth birthday. To this day all she could remember was a fifteen-year-old beanpole, with an evil smile and black coals for eyes. Afterwards in the courtyard she’d heard him call her a royal pudding behind her back—in Italian, no less. She’d swung around and thrown pebbles from the fountain at him, screaming that she would never, ever marry anyone so mean.
That was a lifetime ago. As far as Lise was concerned, marriage was the most individual, sacred matter on earth. To enter into it for any reason but love was anathema to her.
She’d always believed that if she ever met a man she truly loved, she would seek out Prince Raimondo in secret and end their betrothal. It would kill her parents. She would be forever diminished in their eyes for putting love before them and the crown, but she knew herself too well. A marriage based on anything less would never work.
Lise knew her betrothed felt exactly the same way. Not once in eighteen years had he tried to make contact. She suspected he nursed the hope she might even have died by now. He was probably going to get his wish.
As tears trickled across the bridge of her nose, her ears picked up a sound. It wasn’t Celeste. Someone was moving inside the hut with great stealth. Dear God, please help me.
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