Her Royal Husband (15 page)

For she knew she was going to the ball, after all.

“With my luck,” she muttered, “at the stroke of midnight, it will be all over, just like it was for Cinderella. Not that I’ve ever cared for Cinderella, a childishly dependent fool who waited for a prince to solve her problems for her.”

Still, she picked up the dress, a dress made of froth and dreams and nothing else, and hugged it to herself and knew she was going to the ball.

“D
inner is exquisite, don’t you think, Owen?”

“Exquisite,” he muttered, to his sister Anastasia. The truth was he might as well be eating cardboard for all that he had noticed the taste of the meal in front of him. He had noticed, abstractly, that the food looked rather odd, but since Jordan had walked in the room, it was as if his every sense was locked on her. Those senses that weren’t needed to look at her seemed to have shut down, sending all their energy to the ones that were.

Which might explain why it felt as if scales had fallen from his eyes, as if he had been blind, but now could see. He had never seen a woman so utterly and breathtakingly gorgeous!

The gown, that had looked so innocent in its box, fit her beautifully. Made of what appeared to be antique ivory silk, there was nothing old-fashioned about the fit of that dress. It slid sensuously around her curves, accentuating the ultrafeminine swell of breast and hip. It made her every move seem like a siren song.

The dress had obviously been a big mistake on his part. Before, when her beauty had seemed more inward than outward, he’d been the only man who knew how beautiful she was. Now, he could see every man in the room had her on radar, just as he did, aware of her every movement, tracking it, all the while trying to appear not to be the least bit interested in her!

And it wasn’t just the dress, or the grace that she wore it with, as if she’d been born to wear such things.

Tonight she had her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and it might have looked severe, except that the hair that hugged the lovely shape of her head was so glossy that he knew that there was not a man in the room who was not picturing himself pulling the pins out of it, watching it cascade down toward round, soft shoulders, running his fingers through the silk of it. He was probably the only man here who knew that hairstyle was some sort of illusion, a feminine trick. She didn’t have enough hair to pull it back like that, to have it in a bun.

When had Jordan become versed in feminine wiles? It was a frightening thought. She was far too smart already! If she started directing all that intelligence at attracting male attention, hope for his half of the species was over.

Still, whatever she was doing was working, because he commanded himself not to be sucked in to her new-found power, to look away, but he could not. Instead he found himself analyzing how the hairstyle showed off bone structure that amazed him. When had she developed those kind of cheekbones? How had she made her eyes look so huge and so blue? Had her mouth always looked that sensuous, that wide, that kissable? Had her mouth always looked like it tasted good?

And then, she leaned forward to talk to someone—a
man, of course, at her end of the table, and his focus was once again on the dress.

What kind of engineering marvel was keeping everything in? And she did not have breasts like that! She didn’t. He had just seen her in a bathing suit and her figure was delightful to be sure, but this? If he had noticed the dress had this kind of neckline when it was in the box, it would still be in the box! The straight line had looked so innocent!

Who could have guessed the upper portion of her was going to be on display, the creamy swell of flawless skin showing so tantalizingly, round, full—

“What part do you like the best?” his sister asked.

Of Jordan?
He avoided looking at his sister, thinking he had probably been caught staring inappropriately at Jordan’s cleavage. That would probably be tomorrow’s headline. Pervert Prince Eyes Decollete.

“Owen,” his sister said, rolling her eyes, “really! I meant the meal.”

There was a smile in her eyes and he suspected she knew darn well he wasn’t tasting a thing on his plate.

“This,” he said, trying to fool her, touching something with his fork that looked like seaweed topped with flowers. Were those nasturtiums forming that colorful orange banner across his plate? Were they the very nasturtiums he had used to barter an afternoon with Jordan? What a lot of good they had done him!

“I loved that, too,” Anastasia said, “What would you call that flavor. Smoky?”

Jordan’s eyes were smoky. The flavor was…interesting. “Delicious,” he said with not an ounce of sincerity.

His sister laughed. “And what do you think of the
beef? I understand the sauce was prepared with velvet from the antler of a moose.”

Oh, shut up—can’t you see I’m preoccupied?
He hated it that he had involved his sister in his life by borrowing that gown from her. Next thing he’d known, Anastasia and Jordan had been hanging out together. He was sure it was Anastasia leading Jordan astray, showing her all those tricks with makeup and decollete.

All day, the pair of them had been acting like schoolgirls, Jordan acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world, instead of like a woman with a major decision to make.

Stay or go.

So far, his mother was going to help Jordan get home if she decided to go, and his sister was going to be her best buddy. Instead of him.

Not that he was thinking anything like buddy thoughts every time he glanced down the table and saw her. In that dress. He picked the tinkle of her laughter out of the sounds around him, and thought he should leave here. He would love to go and change out of this stiff formal wear. He hated it anyway, the white collar, heavily starched, chafed at the bottom of his jaw. The tailed black jacket looked pompous, the royal medallion pinned so precisely on his chest made him look like a general in some wildly warm jungle nation. He disliked cummerbunds and gloves and bow ties.

He was going to be king, and he hated pomp and circumstance.

He closed his eyes and imagined himself anywhere but here. He would like to be in the stables, surrounded by the rich, ripe real smells of the place. He thought of brushing the coat of his big Friesian gelding until it gleamed blacker than coal. He could see himself putting
on the saddle, tugging the girth tight, turning the stirrup, and leaping on in one smooth motion.

He ordered his mind to take him down forest paths bathed in moonlight, but his mind rebelled. In his imagination, instead of riding into the inviting silence of the forest, he was riding toward the palace. Right up the stairs and into the ballroom, delighting in scattered people and tables. He swooped her up, covered her protesting mouth with his, whirled the horse and—

“Oh, look,” Anastasia said, “there’s Ralph and Trisha. Don’t they look lovely? Owen, it was so sweet of you to ask them to come.”

He opened his eyes and looked where his sister gestured and then wished he hadn’t. His mother’s tradition was that palace staff were to be treated as members of their extended family. They were to be included in functions whenever possible, so given that Ralph’s romance seemed to be progressing quite a bit better than his own, and to reward his loyalty in reporting Jordan’s escape attempt, Owen had invited him to bring his girl to the ball.

The young couple looked blissfully happy, Ralph as unaware of what he was eating as Owen was, and for a completely different reason. Trisha was focused so intently on Ralph, smiling up at him. As Owen watched, she hesitated, looked around and then mischievously popped a pickle into Ralph’s mouth. At a royal banquet!

Owen looked swiftly away. That’s what Jordan should be doing! Smiling at him and flouting convention, as always, by popping pickles into his mouth.

But oh, no, Jordan was sitting halfway across the room looking absolutely fascinated by Peter Webster, looking like she had been born to settings like this one, and not flouting convention at all.

Owen frowned. Was Webster the type women thought of as good-looking? He felt he was seeing the man’s solid build, his square jaw and blond hair for the first time. Bodyguards and the women they protected had long histories of the forced intimacy of that relationship crossing boundaries.

“Can you tell me why she isn’t sitting beside me?” he asked Anastasia. The question required him to swallow his pride. Jordan had tried to escape from him! She had acted as if he was capable of the most despicable kind of behavior! Okay, maybe her believing that was not completely out of line, but how long did she expect him to wear sackcloth and ashes over it? How long until she forgave him?

He frowned suddenly. It occurred to him that he had never asked her to forgive him.

“Why who isn’t sitting beside you?” Anastasia said innocently.

“You know darn well who. Quit toying with me.”

“Or what? Off to the dungeon?”

“She’s been giving you lessons in snippy repartee, I see.”

His sister didn’t ask who this time. “If you don’t enjoy her conversation, I can’t see why you’d disapprove of her sitting over there. Mr. Webster looks like he is thoroughly enjoying her company.”

He felt like his teeth were going to be ground to dust before the evening was through. Had everyone forgotten this celebration was supposed to be about him?

“Who said one word about disapproval? I asked a simple question. Why is she sitting over there? With Peter Webster?”

“Oh, Jordan and I played around with the seating plan
a bit. So much more interesting when you sit beside someone you don’t know.”

He could point out that he was seated beside her, his own sister, whom he knew quite a bit better than he wanted to at the moment. Or he could point out that Ralph knew Trisha, but he had the feeling that he would only be rising to the bait.

“Did she request a seat beside Peter?” he heard himself asking, despite the order he had just given himself to not say one more word about Jordan Ashbury.

His sister glanced over at Jordan, and smiled as if Jordan’s obvious enjoyment of the evening was her own personal triumph. “I don’t think so. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”

How sure?
“You’ve been cozy with Jordan today.” He tried not to make it an accusation and failed miserably.

“I thought, given your interest in her, the fact she is the mother of my only niece, I should get to know her. She is so much fun!”

Jordan fun? She was about as much fun as playing in a tubful of tacks! So why did he feel he could no longer live without her?

Because he had always seen the softness she tried to disguise with those sharp edges. He had always been able to coax the fun side out of her. Was he mildly annoyed that she had showed that side of herself to his sister so rapidly when he had to work so hard to get to that place in her?

“I took her horseback riding this afternoon. She’s a natural.”

“Jordan? On a horse? What are you doing? You could have killed her!” The fierceness of his instinct to protect caught even him off guard.

“Nonsense. I teach riding to disabled children, for heaven’s sake. The horse was only slightly bigger than Tubby and not nearly as energetic. You know that little Fjord gelding that we received as a gift from Norway?”

“Why would you take her horseback riding?” he asked. “She never expressed the slightest desire to go with me.”

“Did you ever give her a chance to express her desires? Or were you too busy expressing your own?”

He looked at Anastasia narrowly. How much information had the two young women been exchanging? Did his sister put just the slightest emphasis on the word desire, as if she knew things about him that he considered intensely private? Like how much he enjoyed kissing Jordan’s toes?

Not that what she said was completely untrue. He’d done a lot of talking to Jordan about what he wanted. How much had he asked about what she wanted?

“Because she told me,” his sister said sweetly, “she doesn’t want to ride on the back of a horse, like some fainting flower who could be swept off her feet by a man. She wants to ride her own horse through life. I think those were her words. I say bully for her.”

“As if she could ever be a fainting flower,” he grumbled, and nixed the horse into the ballroom plan. If he couldn’t sweep her off her feet, what the hell was he supposed to do?

Dessert came. He stared at it glumly. Jell-O at a royal banquet. Not plain Jell-O. It looked like it had fall leaves set in it. He could not even pretend interest in it.

The dishes were, finally, mercifully cleared away. He entertained the possibility he might get through this evening.

But then the band began warming up their instru
ments. There was going to be dancing soon. He was not going to get through this evening if he had to watch her dance with Peter Webster!

“Would you have the first dance with me, brother dearest?”

“No.”

He got up swiftly, and wound his way to Jordan. There was this thing left undone between them. These words left unsaid. He stood there for a moment, and when she didn’t look up, he touched her shoulder.

A mistake. It was softer than silk, familiar. It reminded him of touching her shoulder in other times, all he had walked away from, all he had lost.

“Would you dance with me, Jordan?” Those weren’t the words he intended at all.

And yet somehow they were the right ones, because when she looked up at him, he saw she was pleased to be asked. Still, she hesitated.

Cinderella was not supposed to reject the prince! That was not in the script. His script. How did her script read?

Then she put her hand in his, and he suspected, not without pleasure, that she was as powerless over these forces that swirled around them as he was.

Her hand was small and lovely, and yet strong. It fit perfectly into the curve of his. He bent over it, very formally, and kissed it, and then drew her to him, led her to the very center of the empty floor.

This was one thing they had never done together. They had never danced. The music started and they were alone in the middle of the huge polished ball room floor. He bowed to her.

She curtsied.

His hand found hers again and he drew her to him. He had danced formally all his life. He had begun ball
room dancing lessons almost as soon as he had learned to walk. It was part of what he did, part of his duty as a prince. He had opened more dances this way than he cared to think about.

But never once had it been like this. Dancing with Jordan was not a duty. Not in the least. Dancing with her was magic.