Her Royal Husband (6 page)

“You certainly do have priority,” Owen said, amused despite the fact the nut might very well be Jordan.

“If you want, I’ll bring some fall leaves, and make a pile over there for the little girl to play in. And I could weave some maple branches over the arbor, so they could enter the garden through a tunnel of red and yellow.”

“How did you know about the little girl?” Owen asked, surprised.

“Her nanny, Trisha, is my friend as well as Cookie’s granddaughter, and so she heard about the cupcakes.”

“So, is the castle abuzz?”

“No, sir. Of course not. When I told Trisha I’d been assigned to work here today, she told me why. That you had special guests. That’s all.”

The guilty way he said,
that’s all,
made Owen realize it probably wasn’t.

“Thank you for making it so special,” Owen said. “I appreciate it.”

The boy blushed and looked at his toe, obviously debating, then blurted out in a rush, “Trisha, told me your, er, lady friend, isn’t very happy about all this.”

“She isn’t?”

The boy was looking uncomfortable. “Frothing mad is what Trisha said.”

“What else did Trisha say?”

“Well, ah, the lady might try to get out of staying for tea. Might beg off that she’s needed in the kitchen.”

“So why are you going to all this trouble?”

“I guess I thought if I made it really pretty, she wouldn’t be able to resist staying. Kind of like a fairy tale.”

Owen smiled. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Loyalty, sir. But I kind of have this feeling for Trisha, and I tried to think what she would like, what might make her see me differently.” The boy suddenly looked around, obviously aghast at how personal he had gotten with the prince, discussing the pitfalls of unrequited love.

He glanced around. “I’ve forgotten me place,” he mumbled. “I’ll just get back to work now, sir.”

“Would the garden look nice in the evening?”

“Oh, yes sir. It would. You could put some small white lights in amongst the flowers and drape those light nets over the shrubs. It would be extraordinary.”

“Do that for me, as well, then.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”

“At 8:00 p.m,” Owen said softly, “I’ll have Cookie
deliver a carafe of hot chocolate and a plate of those chocolate dipped wafers. Would your girl like that?”

“For me?” the boy whispered. “For me and Trisha?”

“No sense having us both strike out after all the work you’ve done.”

“Thank you, Your Royal Highness,” Ralph stammered. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Well,” Owen said with a sigh, looking around the beautiful garden after the boy had departed, “apparently it has no value unless it brings joy.”

Taking a deep breath, he headed for the banquet kitchen. He realized he had made the assumption that winning Jordan back was going to be easy, that she would be as powerless in the face of their shared passion as he felt he was.

Now he could see it was going to be like playing a very difficult game of chess.

Thankfully, Jordan was not in the kitchen.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. And he made his deal.

Jordan arrived late and breathless. Owen sat at the table and watched her and Whitney come hand in hand through the arbor.

He noticed, amused, Jordan still underplayed her every asset. Her hair was in a maintenance-free style, she wore no makeup, she was in a dowdy gray slack suit that disguised any curves she might have. He thought he’d seen prison uniforms that were slightly more appealing than the outfit Jordan had on.

And despite that, pure energy crackled in the air around her, just as it had always done. Her eyes snapped blue heated sparks. His mouth went dry when he re
membered what it was to have all that energy and all that heat brought to him, willingly.

Her jaw had a familiar stubborn set to it, and he realized he better not hold his breath waiting for the willingly part of it.

His daughter was in a red beret, and a lovely white sweater, a plaid skirt and red tights.

He watched with pleasure, as they both stopped under the arbor and looked up, bathed in astonishing color as sunlight filtered through the branches Ralph had put there.

“Welcome,” Owen said gravely, standing.

“Pwince Owen,” Whitney said. Somebody had taught her to curtsey, and he was willing to bet from the look on her mother’s face, it hadn’t been her. The clumsy little curtsey was interrupted as soon as Whitney’s eyes fell on the pony, who was happily munching the pile of leaves Ralph had brought for her. She squealed, prince, protocol and mother all equally disregarded as she broke free and ran over to where Tubby was firmly in the groom’s grasp.

Owen was glad Ralph had warned him, because he would have been bitterly disappointed if he expected Jordan to share his pleasure in his introduction of Whitney to the equine world. Jordan watched her daughter for a moment, allowed herself to glance around the garden, and then straightened her shoulders as though she was doing battle with the devil over her soul.

“I’m sorry,” she said coolly. “I won’t be able to stay. There’s far too much work in the kitchen. I’ve brought Whitney, though, and I can call her nanny if you don’t think you can manage her by yourself.”

He battled the desire to wipe that chilly expression off
her face with his lips. Equally coolly he said, “Actually I’ve had a chat with your charming aunt. Meg, isn’t it?”

She nodded warily.

“She was quite happy to relieve you of your duties this afternoon.”

Jordan blinked hard. “Happy to let me have an afternoon off? You couldn’t have met my real Aunt Meg.”

“This high? Plumpish? Um, eccentric?”

Jordan squinted at him. He remembered that look.
You haven’t really researched that at all. You’re making it up.
“You bought her,” she guessed. “What did it cost you, Blond Boy?”

He thought that might be a good sign, the almost unconscious use of the endearment.

“She traded you for nasturtiums, Blond Girl.”

“Don’t call me that.” Obviously she had now realized old endearments would move them toward the dangerous ground of sweet memory. “And what do you mean, she traded me for nasturtiums? There are no nasturtiums on Penwyck. There are no nasturtiums in the whole universe as far as I can tell. And how did you know that you were going to need to make a trade? That I wasn’t coming to your little party willingly?”

He thought her use of the word willingly was unfortunate in light of the context he had been using it in only moments before. It made him want to skip all this—the anger and the awkwardness—and just get to the part where his lips met hers, and her resistance melted completely.

“Palaces are funny places, Jordan. Your plot not to join me reached me before you had fully formed it.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Owen, you sound like some medieval despot. I was not plotting. I have responsibilities. And pleasing you is not one of them. You have a staff
of a hundred and ten fawning, adoring, loyal servants to do that for you.”

“I don’t refer to my staff as servants.”

“Fiefs? Serfs?”

“Make fun of me if you must, but don’t make fun of the people who are so loyal to me.”

“Misguided as that may be,” she murmured edgily. “You didn’t really find nasturtiums, did you?”

“That was her price. Aunt Meg wanted nasturtiums.”

Reluctantly, stiffly, her arms folded in front of her, Jordan took a seat. She watched her daughter gushing over the pony.

“It’s not nice to trick little old ladies. You won’t be able to find nasturtiums. Not anywhere, not for any price.”

He smiled. “I already did. Fifty dozen orange and a dozen yellow from the hothouse of a friend of mine in England.”

“I hate you,” she said in a low voice. “And you may have bought my presence for an afternoon, but you can’t make me like it, and you can’t make me like you.”

It occurred to him this wasn’t going well, not at all according to his script, not producing any of the enjoyment a well-matched chess game gave him.

“Jordan, all I want is a chance. To tell you what happened. That’s all. One chance.”

“All right,” she said. “One chance. And that’s it, Owen. No more vulgar displays of power and wealth—buying the affection of my aunt and my daughter.”

He supposed that meant now would not be a really good time to present Whitney with the tiara.

Jordan was looking around, but rather than looking enchanted as he and Ralph had hoped, she looked de
cidedly cynical. “The garden doesn’t usually look like this does it?”

“I wanted it to look special,” he admitted.

“You wanted to manipulate my impressions of you.”

“You know, you are beginning to make me feel angry.” The statement astonished him. The last time he’d felt angry he’d been able to smash his captor in the mouth. This was a different kind of opponent altogether.

And yet he felt more helpless than he had when he was in chains.

“Angry?” Jordan laughed without humor. “That’s how I’ve felt for five years. I think it’s your turn.”

It was absolutely the wrong time for the platter of scones and the clown cupcakes to arrive, but they did anyway. The girl who delivered them, insensitive to the mood at the table, fawned over him terribly, while Jordan looked on, disgusted. He didn’t think the fact that his staff liked him should be held against him.

Whitney would not get off the pony to try them and Jordan would not touch the delectable offerings set on the table before them.

He ate the entire plate of scones in an atmosphere of tense silence. The girl raced out with another platter of them, and fawned some more.

When she was gone, he cast around in his mind for a way to repair this. For the first time, he entertained the thought it might be beyond repair.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I caused you so much pain.”

There. He had humbled himself before her. It was a task that, as a prince, he had not had to perform often.

He waited for her face to light up with gentle understanding. Instead, she shoved her pert little nose a few
centimeters higher in the air, and then regarded him down the length of it.

“You know, Owen, I might find that a whole lot easier to believe if you had sought me out, instead of fate dropping me in your lap. You told me yesterday you knew nothing about me coming here.”

“I didn’t,” he admitted, wishing he could take back yesterday and adjust that statement so it looked like he had brought her here.

“It’s been five years since I woke up one morning to find you gone. Did you just figure out now that you’re sorry about it?”

It occurred to him that she had matured into the most puzzling creature on the face of the earth—a woman. And not even being a prince was going to help him out of this mess.

“I was always sorry about it, Jordan. It wasn’t until I had a few days in a dark cell to review the events of my life that I realized how sorry.”

He saw sympathy flash in her eyes, and curiosity. But only briefly, and then she quelled both. He pushed on.

“It seemed, in that cell, I had to look at my own mortality. And I had only one regret, Jordan. That I turned my back on love.”

He could tell she was listening. He hoped it was a good sign that she picked up a scone and began nibbling.

“When I was only eighteen, Jordan, it was becoming apparent to me I was probably going to be chosen as king one day. I was able to bargain for a summer of freedom. One summer. I swore two oaths to win that period of freedom. The first was that under no circumstances would I reveal my true identity to anyone. And the second, I gave my oath I would return here, to this island, to my life, to my duties.

“People not born to this lifestyle do not always understand the power of an oath. Giving my oath means swearing my total allegiance, with every fiber of my being, my soul. If I were to break an oath, how could people who must rely on me to guide our country ever trust me? And how could I ever trust myself? I admit, in the beginning, I enjoyed that you didn’t know who I was. I enjoyed feeling normal. I enjoyed being loved for who I was, and not for what I was. But as I came to know you, Jordan, I would have told you, if I could have. I would have trusted you with my very life, had that decision been mine to make.”

“And those words, Owen, that you said to me, that you whispered against my hair, and into my breast, they meant nothing?”

“They meant everything. I have never said those words to another, Jordan. Nor will I ever.”

“And is that your oath?” she said, scornfully.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It is.”

“Owen, it’s too late. You broke my heart too thoroughly, you abandoned me too completely. I have spent too many agonizing nights remembering the sweetness of our time together. I thought,” she looked swiftly away from him, but he was dismayed to see the tears forming in her eyes.

“I thought,” she said, her voice trembling, “that you must be dead. I thought the only way you could not come back to what we had, was if you were dead. How could you not even say goodbye? How could you?”

If he’d thought the tears made her vulnerable, he saw he was mistaken. She was very, very angry.

“I wanted to. Jordan, I’d only been granted permission to stay for five weeks, the length of the course. I asked, and was granted permission to stay two weeks
after that. When I asked for another extension, I was summoned home. I ignored the summons.

“That last morning, I woke up beside you, and kissed your cheek and ran my fingers through your hair. I got up and got dressed. I was going to go to that little coffee shop and get you the cappuccino you like, and a croissant.

“I had become too predictable in my habits. Several members of the Royal Elite Team were waiting for me. It was their duty to escort me home. And it was my duty to go. To not make their lives, or yours, more difficult by making a scene, by demanding to see you one last time. I had always told you it might end swiftly.”

“Yes, that was a great comfort to me,” she said. She was regaining her composure now, hiding behind sarcasm. “How could that have made it more difficult for me had you had the courtesy to say goodbye?”