Penelope & Prince Charming (4 page)

Damien abruptly released her. Penelope drew in a long breath, like she’d not had air in several minutes.

“Er,” she ventured. “Did he just say
Your Highness?”

Damien took a step away from her, one of the hardest steps he’d ever taken in his life. The world came hurtling back at him in the form of Sasha, who sprinted toward them, holding his sash high out of the tall, damp grass.

His mission, the prophecy, Grand Duke Alexander, everything Damien had wanted to forget for a moment in this woman’s arms, rushed at him again.

Let her go,
his common sense told him.
She is only one woman.

His heart told him differently. She was delectable and sweet, and he’d never tasted anything like her. Her golden hair was like summer wheat, strands of brown and gold rippling round one another. Her eyes were jade, light and translucent, with flecks of gold swimming in them. The top hook of her bodice was undone, drawing his eyes and making his fingers itch.

He could not have her, and he knew it. A dalliance, perhaps, but no more. He’d come here to find Lady Trask, to explain that she’d have to leave England and travel with him to Nvengaria to save his kingdom.

Because if he did not, Grand Duke Alexander would win, and Damien, in some grand, dramatic Nvengarian fashion, would die.

Penelope, standing next to him with her golden hair mussed and her chest rising against her loosened bodice, suddenly made all of it seem so trivial.

I need this,
he’d thought.
I need it.

“Your Highness,” Sasha panted. “We thought you were lost.”

He spoke Nvengarian, but his first cry had been in English, as though to warn the country girl in his arms that he was not for her.

“Here I am,” Damien said in clipped tones.

Sasha looked confused. “I feared for you, Highness. Was that wrong?” He glanced at Penelope.

Damien relented. “No. Thank you for your concern.” He put his hand on Penelope’s shoulder. “But she is no assassin.”

Sasha did not look so certain. “Who is she?”

Damien switched to English. “Penelope, this is Sasha, my royal advisor.”

“Royal?” Her green eyes had lost their softness, returning to the wary light he’d seen there before.

“Your Highness,” Sasha continued in Nvengarian, “you know she is not the one.”

“Yes, I do know.”

“Nedrak told you—”

“Nedrak is a charlatan,” Damien said impatiently.

Sasha looked horrified. “He is a sage, and a great seer. He is never wrong.”

“Well, he was wrong in this case.” Nedrak, the highest of the Council of Mages, had told Damien that when he found the woman he was to marry, he’d fall in love with her. The prophecy was never wrong, he’d said.

The prophecy must be a bit off, because Damien had just met the woman he’d die for.

“Royal?” Penelope repeated. “Your Highness?”

Sasha bowed. “May I present his Imperial Highness, Prince Damien Augustus Frederic Michel of Nvengaria.”

She stared at him, her well-kissed lips parting. “Prince—”

“Call me Damien,” he said, his voice cool. “It will save time.”

In a daze Penelope led Damien and the little man called Sasha the rest of the way to Ashborn Manor. Damien guided the horse, the reins looped in confident hands, his movements as graceful and animallike as his horse’s.

It was not often that a handsome prince popped out of nowhere and asked to kiss you, Penelope reflected. Never, in fact.

Even in her stories, the prince was preceded by fanfare and pageantry and the country girl he fell in love with turned out to be a long-lost princess anyway.

She’d read of Nvengaria, the tiny country hugging the western border of Moldova, near the Black Sea. It sat in a deep fold between mountain ranges, following a river gorge a few hundred miles long and not even a hundred miles wide. She had found this information in a book when researching Nvengarian folk tales. No one in England knew any tales from that country, it seemed, and she’d hoped to be the first to offer a collection.

But the books she’d read were sketchy; only one mentioned an obscure folk tale she hadn’t understood, and that was all. She never met anyone from Nvengaria, nor known a person who’d gone there.

The likelihood that this man was its prince was remote. He must be a strolling player or similar kind of trickster, ready to prey on an unsuspecting spinster.

With kisses that took her breath away.

She glanced sideways at him, only to find him looking sideways at her. When their gazes met, he smiled.

It confused her, and frightened her, how hot she grew whenever he smiled.

They neared the house, a wide-winged Palladian mansion built a century earlier and then ruthlessly modernized by Penelope’s mother. At the same time, the large carriage pulled by the gray horses with purple plumes turned onto the drive. Behind the carriage came several heavily laden carts.

Damien did not seem inclined to wait for them. He tossed his horse’s reins to Sasha and strode toward the front door, which stood open to the summer air, without waiting for Penelope. The tails of his black coat parted as he walked, letting her see the lean muscle of his inner thighs, and how very tight his breeches truly were.

Sometimes Penelope and Meagan, while sitting as wallflowers in London ballrooms, played a naughty game of deciding which man in the room had the finest-fitted tight trousers. TTs, Meagan called them. If Damien appeared at a tonnish ball in the breeches he wore now, he would win hands down.

Damien disappeared into the shadow of the house. Penelope scuttled after him, breathless, pretending she could care less about his breeches.

Lady Trask and Michael Tavistock were nowhere in sight. The butler, Mathers, a man devoted to Lady Trask, stopped short in astonishment as Damien strode unim
peded into the hall. He seemed masterful in her own house, in a way her father never had been.

“Ah,” Mathers dithered.

“I have come to see Lady Trask,” Damien said. “Fetch her for me. I shall I wait in the drawing room.”

Mathers gaped. “But…”

“It is all right, Mathers,” Penelope said quickly, then wondered if everything really was all right. “Please take him to the drawing room and serve him tea. I will fetch Lady Trask.”

Without waiting for reply, she turned away, heart thudding, and whisked toward the stairs.

She felt Damien’s gaze on her as she swiftly ascended. His eyes held caution, but they also held warmth. He looked at her because he wanted to look at her. It made her uncertain and unsteady on her feet.

She reached the top of the staircase without falling, and hurried down the long hall to her mother’s chamber.

The corridor outside Lady Trask’s bedchamber door was deserted without a lookout. Penelope eased the door handle silently down and opened the door a crack.

She saw Michael Tavistock, naked, the sun shining on his dark red hair and muscular back as he faced the bed.

Swiftly, Penelope closed the door, her cheeks scalding. From inside, she heard her mother moan Michael’s name, and Michael say, “I love you.”

Penelope stopped, frozen, as his hoarse words caught in her throat.

I love you.

Michael Tavistock truly did love Lady Trask, Penelope knew that. She saw it in his eyes whenever he looked at her. For his own reasons, the handsome, forty-five-year-old man had become enchanted with Penelope’s rather featherheaded mother. Penelope was glad, for her mother’s sake as well as her own, because she very much
liked Meagan’s father. He was a kind man, and looked upon Penelope with as much protection and benevolence as he would his own daughter.

Now she felt a strange pain in her heart. Damien had kissed her, had told her, with that same catch in his voice, that he’d fallen in love with her. But he could not be real. None of this could be real.

Penelope went back down the hall, counted to twenty, then walked to her mother’s bedchamber again, making as much noise as she could.

When she reached the door, all was quiet within. She knocked and said brightly, “Mama? Are you awake?”

After a time, the door opened a few inches. Michael stood behind it, in trousers and half-laced shirt, his hair mussed. “What do you need, Penelope?”

Michael had brown eyes and a strength and quietness that Penelope liked. His dark red hair had started graying at the temples, but still spilled from his forehead in thick waves. His face was not handsome like Damien’s, but square and plain, the face of a man who knew what he looked like and was not bothered by it.

Michael had a commonsense wisdom that counteracted Penelope’s mother’s flightiness, and Penelope quite looked forward to the day he would become her stepfather. He and her mother had not mentioned marriage to either of the girls, but Penelope and Meagan had already decided upon the outcome of their affair.

“We have visitors,” Penelope said, her mouth dry. “From Nvengaria.”

Michael raised his brows.

“I know,” Penelope said. “But I think it’s true. And you are never going to believe this…”

The drawing room was simply decorated and a bit drafty. Damien waited in it with Sasha as three people entered
the room. The first was Penelope. Behind her came a woman of mature years but fresh beauty, whom he guessed was Lady Trask.

Last came a man slightly younger than Lady Trask, with red hair just going gray and an air of wise authority about him. Before the butler could close the door, the younger girl Damien had met on the road dashed into the room behind them, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Papa, you will never guess what happened.” She stopped short when she saw Damien and Sasha. “Or, perhaps you would. Hello again.” She waved at Damien.

The butler, looking harassed, leaned in the door. “Milady, there is a great lot of men and carts at the front door. Were we expecting visitors?”

“Ah,” Sasha cried. “It is the prince’s entourage and baggage, at last.”

Sasha was never happy unless Damien surrounded himself with a dozen servants and six trunks full of clothes. If Sasha knew that Damien had once survived in the mountains of Nvengaria without a change of shirts or even any food and water, he’d faint dead away.

“What entourage?” Lady Trask asked, looking interested.

“What prince?” the man next to her demanded.

The younger girl—Meagan, that was her name—went to stand by them. The four faced him, a unit, together. The younger girl had the same brown eyes, dark red hair, and thoughtful brow as the man. Father and daughter.

The older woman and Penelope shared wide green eyes, golden hair and a certain set to their features. Mother and daughter.

Damien said to Sasha in Nvengarian, “No one told me the princess had a daughter.”

Sasha spread his hands, palms upward. “Nothing mentioned a daughter. The ring passed to Lady Trask, no further.”

The butler cleared his throat. “Milady, what shall I do with the, erm, entourage?”

“Put them upstairs, of course,” Lady Trask said. “We have plenty of room. And prepare chambers for the prince.” She stepped toward him, smile wide. “Are you truly a prince?”

Damien inclined his head. “I am Prince Damien of Nvengaria. You are Lady Trask?”

“Yes, indeed. Are we not introduced? Good heavens, Penelope, where are your manners? Make your curtsy, darling. He is a prince.”

Penelope performed a model curtsy that would bring pride to any mother. Her expression, however, remained fixed, her eyes troubled.

“And Mr. Michael Tavistock, a—er—friend of the family. And his daughter, Miss Meagan Tavistock.”

Tavistock bowed, as wary as Penelope. When he came back up, he took a step closer to Lady Trask so that he stood at her shoulder.
Ah.

Tavistock was her lover. A man shared a certain close space with a woman after he’d bedded her. He did it unconsciously. Tavistock betrayed, by that slight possessive movement, what Lady Trask was to him.

That could be a problem.

Tavistock’s daughter was a bit more enthusiastic. She curtsied, her young smile wide. “Pleased to meet you. The girls in London will be pea green when I tell them I met an honest-to-goodness prince.”

The entourage was making much noise in the hallway. Over it rose the voice of the butler. “No, no, don’t put that there. Bring it this way, man.
This way,
don’t you understand English?”

Mr. Tavistock said quietly, “I think you had better explain yourself, sir.”

Damien met his gaze. Here was the person who would oppose him if he could. This man was no fool.

“It is very simple,” Damien answered. He snapped his fingers. “Sasha.”

Sasha bowed and lifted a rosewood box he’d set on the table in preparation. Turning to the four watchers, Sasha reverently opened the lid. “From His Highness Prince Damien, to the most beautiful Simone Bradshaw, now Lady Trask, princess of Nvengaria.”

Inside the box, on a lining of black velvet, lay a necklace of old, square-cut rubies. The center of the setting held a ruby the size of a robin’s egg, polished and glinting dull red.

Lady Trask gaped. Her hand went to her bosom. “That is for me?”

“Lud,” Meagan breathed. “Were I Catholic, I’d cross myself.”

Penelope took a step back, putting herself behind the others, her eyes overly bright.

“Why did you call her a princess of Nvengaria?” Tavistock asked, brows lowered.

Sasha answered, “Because she is descended from his most divine majesty, Prince Augustus Adolphus Aurelius Laurent of Nvengaria.”

Lady Trask blinked. “I am?”

“Did you not know?”

She laughed. “It is news to me.”

“This is nonsense,” Tavistock broke in.

“Oh, Michael, be a pet. I am enjoying myself. How do you know I am descended from this Prince Augustus Aur—whoever he is?”

“Because the lineage has been most carefully traced for eight hundred years,” Sasha explained. “You are descended from the princess bound so fortunately in marriage to Prince Augustus of old. Your line is traced through the ladies of that house, while his Imperial Highness Prince Damien’s is traced through the male line of his house.”

“Are we cousins, then?” Lady Trask giggled. “Two hundred times removed? Fancy.”

“No, not cousins,” Sasha said quickly. “It all began in the year 1000, or the Year One of the most splendid reign of the two princes—”

“Sasha,” Damien said. “Later.”

Sasha did not deflate. “Yes, there will be plenty of time to tutor you in the glorious past of Nvengaria and its seventeen dialects. For now, do you have the ring?”

Lady Trask blinked. “Ring?”

“The one you wear on your middle finger,” Damien said. He came forward, lifted Lady Trask’s hand. “There.”

It was the ring all right. Lady Trask stared at it like she’d never seen it before. It was silver, heavy and old, a thick band with a flat top. It had once held the crest of Prince Augustus the First, but time had worn down the etching.

Damien tugged off his glove. A twin of Lady Trask’s ring encircled the forefinger of his right hand. Silversmiths had restored this ring every fifty years or so, so the crest of Damien’s family was still quite plain.

He brought his own hand up to rest alongside Lady Trask’s. Lady Trask said excitedly, “Look, Michael. They’re the same.”

“They were forged at the same time,” Damien said. “Eight hundred years ago. They were a pledge, a bond of friendship. It is said that when the rings are brought together again, Nvengaria will prosper, as it did of old.”

“Oh,” Lady Trask said, green eyes starry. “My mother gave me this ring when she was dying. She said something about it being my destiny. I thought she was just senile.”

“No, dear lady,” Sasha said. He moved close to Damien and Lady Trask. “She was a most honored princess, pure of the line of Prince Augustus. As are you. And when you marry Prince Damien, you will bring together the lines of two dear friends to unite the kingdom.”

“Marry?” Lady Trask breathed.
“Me?
Penny, dear, did
you hear that? A prince wants to marry your mama.” She smiled at Sasha. “Do I get the rubies, too?”

“Of course,” Sasha said. “They are the prince’s betrothal gift to you.”

“Fancy that, Penny. You’ll be a princess, too, won’t you? I wager Prince Damien will find a handsome duke for you.”

Penelope was staring at Sasha, her look frozen, her thoughts obviously a little quicker than her mother’s.

Meagan’s expression had changed from excitement to confusion to hurt. “But, Lady Trask,” she asked in a small voice. “What about Papa?”

Tavistock stood a few paces behind Lady Trask, his face as frozen as Penelope’s.

Lady Trask’s smile dimmed. She looked at the rubies. She looked at the ring. She looked at Damien.

Damien watched her consider going ahead and marrying Damien, then bringing her lover Michael along to Nvengaria, possibly as her “advisor” or some such thing. She searched his eyes, and obviously found that Damien would be wise to that and not allow it. She could not have it both ways.

She let out a long, heartfelt sigh. “You are awfully flattering, Your Highness, but I am afraid that I am already spoken for.”

She gave the rubies in the box a long, wistful glance. Then she lowered her gaze, took a step back, and held her hand out to Tavistock. He took it without a word.