Penelope & Prince Charming (5 page)

Damien began to admire her. He’d quickly grasped that Lady Trask was a silly, vain woman, whose head was easily turned by pretty jewelry. Most ladies of her ilk would have thrown over their plain gentlemen to marry Damien in a heartbeat.

But Lady Trask had decided that she wanted the man at her side more than she wanted to be a princess. More than she wanted the rubies. He must be a remarkable man.

Damien hoped that one day a lady would find him as remarkable.

Sasha looked crestfallen. “But she wears the ring. We cannot return to Nvengaria without it, without her…”

“Never mind, Sasha,” Damien said.

His gaze swiveled to where it had been drawn all this time. To Penelope, with her golden hair shining and her green eyes full of emotion.

Next to her, Meagan gasped and clapped her hands. “Oh, of course. Silly me, I never thought of it. Penelope must be a princess, too. He can marry Penelope!”

Damien’s gaze locked with Penelope’s. Her hair was still mussed from when he had stroked it, when he had kissed her.

She’d wanted to resist kissing him, he’d felt it in the stiffening of her body. But she’d kissed him back anyway, her lips innocent.

He’d felt something in his heart change, and he hadn’t understood. But he understood now. Perhaps Nedrak wasn’t such a charlatan after all.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Penelope will do very well for me.”

Penelope’s green-gold eyes were wide, her face white with shock. “No,” she said. She shook her head until her golden hair danced. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Do not be hasty, Penny, dear,” her mother said. “Those rubies are awfully big.”

“I cannot marry him,” Penelope said desperately.

Not when he looked at her like that. She saw danger, she smelled it. And so, like an animal, she scrambled to avoid it.

“Of course you can marry him,” her mother prattled. “You certainly show no sign of marrying anyone else, not after you jilted two perfectly good gentlemen.”

“Mama,” Penelope began.

“You will not mind if I borrow the rubies from time to time, will you?” her mother went on. “And do say I can stay in your palace. Tuck me into a suite, nothing extravagant, just ten rooms or so. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“Mama!”

Prince Damien said nothing. He simply watched her, his gaze so intense it tingled the blood in her veins. Sasha, on the other hand, chewed his lip. “It is not that simple, Your Highness. She does not bear the ring.”

“Oh, that is easy.” Lady Trask tugged the silver ring from her finger, held it out to Penelope. “Here you are. I am leaving it to you in my will anyway. My mama told me to.”

Sasha cringed. “No, no, you mustn’t! It must be done with the proper ritual. If there is no ritual, the line is broken, and it means nothing.”

“What is the ritual then? Let us get on with it. I want my daughter betrothed to a prince. Lady Matthews will be beside herself. Her daughters only married earls, and she does lord that over me something terrible.”

“Oh, this is madness,” Penelope cried.

“No, it isn’t,” Meagan said. “It’s quite exciting. You’re a princess. When Papa marries your mama, I’ll be your stepsister, like in the story about Cinderella, except I won’t be wicked or cut off bits of my feet or anything.”

“Meagan, hush.” Michael’s deep voice cut through the shrill female ones, and everything went silent.

Michael had dressed hastily, and his coat was buttoned wrong, but his presence overpowered everyone in the room. Except Damien, of course.

Michael reached over and deliberately closed the lid on the rubies. He eyed Damien, face to face. “We have no idea who you are, sir. You could be a mountebank, a charlatan. I no more like this marriage idea when you offer it to Penelope as when you offered it to her mother. Unless you can convince me that you are other than a trickster, I will ask you to leave the house.”

Damien inclined his head, but Sasha’s jaw dropped. He glanced about as if expecting Michael to be struck by lightning. “How dare you speak so to His Imperial Highness?”

“Why the devil should a prince of Nvengaria come to Little Marching?” Michael asked. “Looking for a long-lost princess, no less? How foolish do you believe we are?”

Damien met his gaze, his expression as quiet as Michael’s.
He knows who he must convince,
Penelope thought.
Not me, not my mother.

Of course Damien was not worried about Penelope. Penelope had instantly succumbed, had melted in his arms and let him do what he wanted. He must believe he’d already won over Penelope.

She studied his upright figure, his powerful body, his still, steady gaze. He might not be wrong about having already won over Penelope.

“But, Papa,” Meagan began, also sizing up Damien. “He
looks
like a prince.”

“Penelope, please take Meagan to your room until we get this sorted out.”

Meagan knew better than to argue when her father took that tone. She said, “Yes, Papa,” and curtsied. Numbly Penelope allowed Meagan to tow her out. Michael followed them to the door, then closed it firmly behind them.

The hall was chaos. At least a dozen men in militarylooking livery bolted up and down the stairs, while Mathers shouted at them all, and they blithely ignored him. Two tall footmen pointed and barked orders in Nvengarian.

The prince had brought at least forty trunks with him. They stood in a line by the stairs, ready to be hauled up one by one.

“No, no!” Mathers cried. “You cannot take them
all
up, there is no room. You, there, put that down!”

Mathers dashed after a lackey who had picked up one of Lady Trask’s favorite statues and replaced it with a bust of the prince.

Meagan burst into giggles. “Oh, lud, Papa will have to believe him now. I’m going to write Katie Roper and tell her all about it. To think, she puts on airs because her sister married a baron. And you will marry a prince.”

“I am not marrying anyone,” Penelope tried to say.

No one paid attention. Meagan dashed up the stairs.
Mathers shouted. The lackeys shoved their trunks about with enthusiasm. Another bust of the prince came out.

Penelope fled the house.

She hurried down the path across the grounds to the folly nestled deep in the woods. The folly was a circular building with one side open and lined with Greek-style columns. The interior housed several statues of Greek philosophers in various poses of oration. Sayings of Aristotle, written in Greek, decorated the upper walls.

“Your grandfather’s folly,” her father always sneered. “A great eyesore, that’s what it is.”

Penelope liked the folly because no one ever came here. Also, the open side of the building afforded a view of the river rolling quietly at the bottom of the meadow. It was a peaceful place. Her place.

What had happened to the world today? She’d started a walk to the village with Meagan, and now everything had turned upside down.

She could not be a princess. How ridiculous! And yet, Damien believed it and that man with him, Sasha, believed it as well.

As soon as they had started talking about rings and tracing her mother’s destiny, Penelope realized that she, too, was in the line of this ancient princess.

And then Damien had turned to her with those intense eyes and said that she would do for him.

Penelope sank to sit on the steps. She dropped her head back and let the wind ruffle her hair.

All the talk of falling in love with her had been flummery. Whether he was prince or trickster, whoever he was, Damien had come here to get himself a bride. His reasons for fixating on her were slightly more bizarre than the average gentleman’s, but it made no difference.

A part of her had so wanted to believe him when he’d touched her face and said, “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

All this couldn’t be real. Her thoughts flew back to him standing with her in the meadow, his lips on her face and throat.
That
had been real.

She remembered the haze in her mind, how it had felt exactly right to let him cup her waist, bend to her, nuzzle her. She’d smelled the dust in his hair, tasted the sharp spice of his mouth.

She’d never let a man kiss her like that. Reuben had given her a chaste peck when she’d accepted his proposal. Magnus had tried to thrust his unpleasant tongue into her mouth, and she’d twisted away in disgust.

It had never occurred to her to flee Damien. She didn’t
want
to flee Damien. She wanted his mouth on hers while she felt his hard muscles beneath her fingers. And yet, she did not believe herself a wanton. What she’d done had been…right.

When he’d flicked his gaze to her, knowing she was the inheritor of the ring, that too had felt right.

Nothing made sense.

Penelope tried to still her troubled thoughts, something she was generally good at, but they jumbled up on themselves.

“You are clearheaded, Penelope,” her father would say. “Not like your mother, who is a flibberty-jibbet. That is why I love you.”

He’d pat her fondly, eyes shining with pride.

In her childhood, Penelope had warmed to his praise. As she grew older, she’d noticed that his praise had a double edge—his words both commended Penelope and derided her mother.

Sir Hilton Trask had not liked his wife. “You are very beautiful, Penelope,” he’d say. “Your mother, too, was once beautiful. But she has an empty head and frivolous emotions. She is nothing but a shell of a person. You, however, are thoughtful and smart. You outshine her in every way.”

Penelope had thought her mother did not care what he
said. But then she’d catch her mother crying, when moments before she’d airily tossed off her husband’s insults.

“Mama, he does not mean to be cruel,” she’d say.

“Yes, he does,” Lady Trask would sob. “He hates me and loves you. He always has. I do not understand what I did wrong.”

Indeed, her father had once said to Penelope, “The only decent thing your mother ever did was give me you.”

Her father had turned all his devotion to Penelope. If Penelope had been a shallow person, she’d have reveled in his attention, gloating over the fact that she’d edged out her mother. But Penelope was not shallow, and she could only be sorry that her father had dismissed Lady Trask as nothing. “Be kind to her, Papa,” she’d beg him.

“I am kind. I give her as much money as she needs and all the gewgaws she wants. A woman like her is happy as soon as you dangle a trinket before her.”

For some reason, this particular memory chose to haunt Penelope now. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her face.

“I never meant to make you cry,” Damien said behind her.

Penelope jerked her head up. He leaned against the column nearest her, his coat stirring in the breeze from the river. He was hatless, his dark hair black in the shadows of the folly. His boots were polished, buckles shined, the soles muddy from their walk through the meadow.

His kisses still burned on her mouth. He’d touched her with gentle hands and awakened a fire she’d never felt.

Desire,
she thought in dismay.
I desire this man. Whether he be prince or liar.

“I am not crying because of you,” she said with difficulty.

He took two slow steps, then lowered himself to the stair next to her. “I am pleased.”

He smelled of the outdoors and tobacco and a male
scent. His bulk shielded her from the breeze, warming her. His blue eyes swept to take in the view, his black hair brushing his shoulder as he turned his head.

“Does no one in Nvengaria wear hats?” she asked, sniffling.

“What?”

“Hats. You have not worn a hat, and neither have your men.”

He turned his gaze to her, catching her once more like a moth entranced by a candle flame. If she moved too close, she’d incinerate.

“Hats never caught on as fashion in Nvengaria.” A smile tugged the corners of his lips. “Too windy.”

“What do you do in the winter?”

“We have fur things—
gzizbas
, they are called. They cover the head and ears. They look silly, but keep us remarkably warm.”

She crossed her arms over her bent knees and laid her head on them. “You really are from Nvengaria.”

“I know.”

Her eyes stung, her cheeks wet. “I did not like the way you and your man so easily dismissed my mother in favor of me.”

“She refused me. It was logical to next go to you.”

“So I must be this princess? And marry you? You might have told me from the beginning and spared me your talk of love.”

His thigh rested close to hers, muscles filling out his breeches. He was large and masculine, like no other man she’d met.

The silver ring clasped his forefinger. She looked at it, and saw what his gloves had hidden when she’d ridden with him, that his hands were callused and workroughened. His strong, blunt fingers dwarfed hers as he lifted her hand.

“It is done, Penelope.” His words were quiet, but final.
“I came here to find my bride, and you are she. I knew so when I first saw you, though I did not understand.”

He was doing it again. His voice was smooth and low and wrapped her senses. She’d determined to be skeptical, but under the spell of his voice, she could only stammer.

“How could you know?”

He gave her his smile. “I told you I had fallen in love with you. In ten minutes. It was the prophecy, and my sage told me I would follow it, whether I willed it or not. I fell in love because I was destined to.” He ran his thumb over the joint of her first finger. “Why I fell in love does not change the fact that I did so.”

She pulled her gaze from his with difficulty. “You must be completely mad. Or I am. Princes of Nvengaria do not turn up in out-of-the way villages and declare they want a bride.”

“You know all about princes of Nvengaria, then?” he asked, humor in his tone.

“Well, not much. But Michael is right. You could be a charlatan. Most likely, you are. Nvengaria is a great long way away from here. Near Transylvania and Moldova and lands of the Ottoman Empire.”

“You are well informed. Most English people have no knowledge of it.”

“I know of it because I study fairy tales. I collect them into little books.”

He looked interested. “You know Nvengarian fairy tales?”

“Only one,” she said, trying to sound indifferent. “I found it in French. It was all about a fountain and a coin and an old woman and a goose. I could not understand it very well.”

He nodded gravely. “I have heard that one. I do not understand it, either.”

“I never found any about an eight-hundred-year-old ring and an English girl who should marry a prince.”

His eyes twinkled. “That is because it is still being written.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I wish you would not look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

He leaned forward, his dark hair brushing his shoulders, his eyes blue and intent upon her.

“Like you want to kiss me again,” she said faintly.

“Would that be so bad?”

Yes
. She was confused, and another dark kiss would confuse her more. “It would be very, very bad.”

“I do not think so.” He touched her hair.

“I think so,” she said breathlessly. “Definitely, very bad.”

He moved closer still, the heat of his body wrapping her like a blanket. “No, Penelope. With you it will always be good.”

He leaned down and brushed her lips with a small, slow kiss.

Penelope drew a sharp breath. He smiled. His eyes went dark, flecks of black in the blue.

“Stop,” she whispered.

“Why?” He caressed her lips again. “You will marry me. We may kiss as much as we please.”

She drew back. “I have not said I would marry you.”

“You will.”

“You are arrogant.”

“It is not arrogance. I know it will happen.”