To Dance with a Prince (6 page)

“Not yet,” he said.

There was something in him that would not be refused. It went deeper than the station he had been born to, it went deeper than the fact he spoke and people listened.

There was something in him—a man prepared to lay down his life to protect those physically weaker than him—that challenged him to conquer her fear.

“Touch him here,” he suggested, and ran his hand over the powerful shoulder muscle under the fringe of Ben's silky black mane.

She glanced toward the gate, but then made a choice. Hesitantly Meredith laid her hand where Kiernan's had been.

“I can feel his strength,” she whispered, “the pure power of him.”

Kiernan looked at where her hand lay just below the horse's wither, and felt a shattering urge to move her hand to his own chest, to see if she would feel his power, too, his strength.

Insane thoughts, quickly crushed. How was he supposed to dance with her if he followed this train of thought? And yet still, he did not let her go.

“If you put your nose to that place you just touched, you will smell a scent so sweet you will wonder how you lived without knowing it.”

“I hope I'm not allergic,” she said, trying for a light note, he suspected, desperately trying to break out of the spell that was being cast around them. But it didn't work. Meredith moved close to the horse, stood on tiptoe and drew in a deep breath.

She turned back to the prince, and he smiled with satisfaction at the transparent look of joyous discovery on her face.

“I told you,” he said. “Do you want to sit on him?”

“No!” But the fear was gone. He saw her refusal, not as fright, but as an effort to fight the magic that was deepening around them.

“It's not dangerous,” Kiernan said persuasively. “I promise I'll look after you.”

He didn't know what he had said that was so wrong, but she suddenly went very still. The color drained from her face.

“Maybe another time,” she said.

“You're trembling,” Prince Kiernan said. “There's no need. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

 

Meredith knew a different truth. There was so much to be afraid of people couldn't even imagine it.

But when she looked into Prince Kiernan's eyes, soft with unexpected concern, it felt as if the fear was taken from her. Which was ridiculous. The fact that she was inclined to trust him should make her feel more afraid, not less!

“Here, I'll help you up. Put your foot here, and your other hand here.”

And she did. Even though she should have turned and run, she didn't. The temptation was too great to refuse.

She was a poor girl from Wentworth. And even though she had overcome her humble beginnings, she was still only a working woman.

This opportunity would never, ever come again.

To sit on a horse in the early spring sunshine on
the unspeakably gorgeous grounds of the Palace of Chatam.

With Prince Kiernan promising to protect her and keep her safe.

I promise I'll look after you.
Those words were fair warning. She had heard those words, exactly those words, before.

When she had told Michael Morgan she was going to have his baby. And he had told her not to worry. He'd look after her. They would get married.

She could see the girl she had been standing on the city hall steps, waiting, her baby just a tiny bulge under her sweater. Waiting for an hour and then two. Thinking something terrible must have happened. Michael must have been in an accident. He must be lying somewhere hurt. Dying.

Her mother, who had refused to attend the ceremony, had finally come when it was dark, when city hall was long closed, and collected Meredith, shivering, soaked from cold rain, from the steps.

That's where trust got you. It left you way too open to hurt.

But even knowing that, Meredith told herself it would be all right just to allow herself this moment.

She took Kiernan's instructions, put her foot in the stirrup and took the saddle with her other hand. Despite her dancer's litheness, Meredith felt as if she was scrambling to get on that horse's back. But then strong hands lifted her at the waist, gave her one final shove on her rump.

Despite how undignified that final shove was, she settled on the hard leather of the saddle with a sense of satisfaction.

For the first time—and probably the only time—in her life, Meredith was sitting on a horse.

“Should we go for a little stroll?”

She had come this far. To get off without really riding the horse seemed like it would be something of a shame. She nodded, grabbed the front of the saddle firmly.

With the reins in his hands, Kiernan moved to the front of the horse. Instead of taking her for a short loop around the fountain, or down the driveway to the closed main gate, he led the horse off the paved area and onto the grass that surrounded the palace.

The whole time, his voice soothing, he talked to her.

“That's it. Just relax. Think of yourself as a blanket floating over him.” He glanced back at her. “That's good. You have really good balance, probably from the dancing. That's it exactly. Just relax and feel the rhythm of it. It goes side to side and then back and forth. Do you feel that?”

She nodded, delighting in the sensation, embracing the experience. She thought after a moment he would turn around and lead her back to the courtyard, but he didn't.

“You'll see the first of the three garden mazes on your left,” he said. “I used to love trying to find my way out of it when I was a boy.”

He amazed her by giving her a grand tour of parts of the palace grounds that were not open to the public. But even had they been, the public would never have known that was the place he rode his first pony, that was where he fell and broke his arm, that was the fountain he and Adrian had put dish detergent in.

With the sun streaming down around her, the scent of the horse tickling her nostrils, and Kiernan out in
front of her, leading the horse with such easy confidence, glancing back at her to smile and encourage her, Meredith realized something.

Perhaps the scariest thing of all.

For the first time since the accident that had taken her baby six years ago, she felt the tiniest little niggle of something.

It was the most dangerous thing of all. It was happiness.

W
HEN
K
IERNAN GLANCED BACK
at Meredith, he registered her delight. There was something about her that troubled him. She was too serious for one so young. Something he could not understand haunted the loveliness of the deep golds and greens of her eyes.

And yet looking at her now those ever-present shadows, the clouds, were completely gone from her eyes. It made her lovely in a way he could not have guessed. He turned away, focused on the path in front of him. Her radiance almost hurt.

“Oh,” she said. “Kiernan! He's doing something!”

Kiernan turned to see the horse flicking his tail. He laughed at the expression on her face.

“Now, that's a
swish
,” he said. “A bothersome fly, nothing more.”

But some tension had come into her, and he was driven to get rid of it.

“On this whole matter of swishing,” he said solemnly. “A hundred years ago I could have had you hauled off to the dungeon to straighten you out about who was the boss. Ten days of bread and water would have mended your ways.”

He was rewarded with her laughter.

“And if it didn't, I could have added rats.”

“Really, Kiernan,” she laughed, “you've proven you can have your way for a pastry. Hold the rats.”

Have his way?
Having his way with her suddenly took on dangerous new meaning. He could practically feel her hair tangled in his hands, imagine what it would be to take the lushness of her lips with his own.

He risked a glance at her, and saw, guiltily, that her meaning had been innocent. He was entranced by her sunlit face, dancing with laughter.

Her laughter was a delicious sound, pure mountain water, gurgling over rock, everything he had hoped for when he had given in to a desire to chase the shadows from her eyes. More.

The laughter changed her. It
was
the sun coming out from behind clouds. Meredith went from being stern to playful, she went from being somewhat remote to eminently approachable, she went from being beautiful to being extraordinary.

He laughed, too, a reluctant chuckle at first, and then a real laugh. Their combined laughter rang off the ancient walls and suffused the day with a light it had not had before.

Kiernan knew it was the first time in a long, long time that he had laughed like this. It was as if his relationship with Tiffany had brought out something grim in him that he never quite put away.

But then the moment of exquisite lightness was over, and as he gazed up into the enjoyment on her face he realized that he was not fully prepared for what he saw there. Even though he had encouraged this moment, he did not feel ready for the bond of it. There was an utter openness between them that was astounding.

He felt like a man who had been set adrift on ice, who was nearly frozen, and who had suddenly glimpsed
the promise of the warm golden light of a fire in the distance.

But his very longing made him feel weak. What had he been thinking? He needed to guard against moments like this, not encourage them.

Kiernan was not sure he had ever felt quite that vulnerable. Not riding a headstrong horse over slippery ground, not even when the press had decided to crucify him, first over Francine, ten times worse over the Tiffany affair.

He turned abruptly back toward the courtyard, but when they arrived, he stood gazing up at her, not wanting to help her off the horse.

To touch her now, with something in him so open, felt as if it guaranteed surrender. He was Adam leaning toward the apple; he was Sampson ignoring the scissors in Delilah's hand.

Hadn't Tiffany just taught him the treacherous unpredictability of human emotion?

Still, Meredith wasn't going to be able to get off that horse without his help.

“Bring that one leg over,” he said gruffly, and then realized he hadn't been specific enough, because she brought her leg over but didn't twist and swing down into the stirrup, but sat on his horse, prettily side-saddle.

And then, without warning, she began to slide off.

And he had no choice but to reach out and catch her around her waist, and pull her to him to take the impact from her.

She stood there in the circle of his arms, her chin tilted back, looking into his face.

“Kiernan,” she said softly, “I don't know how to thank you. That was a wonderful morning.”

But that was the problem. The wonder of the morning
had encouraged this new form of familiarity. Barriers were down. She hadn't used his proper form of address.

She didn't even know she hadn't, she was so caught in the moment. And she never had to know how he had
liked
how his name had sounded coming off her lips.

But it was just one more barrier down, one more line of protection compromised. He should correct her. But he couldn't. He hated it that the moment seemed to be robbing him of his strength and his resolve, his sense of duty, his
knowing
what was right.

Aside from Adrian, who was this comfortable with him, there were few people in his world this able to be themselves around him, this able to bring out his sense of laughter.

Francine had. Tiffany never.

She did not back out of the circle of his arms, and he did not release her. The laughter was gone from her face. Completely. She swallowed hard.

The guard he had just put up felt as if it was going to crumple.
Completely
. And if it did, he would never, ever be able to build it back up as strong as it had been before, like a wall that had been weakened by a cannonball hit. “Your Highness?”

Now
, she remembered the correct form of address. Too late. Because now he longed to hear his name off her lips.

That's what he had to steel himself against.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for not letting me fall,” she said.

But the truth? It felt as if they were falling, as if they were entering a land where neither of them had ever been, without knowing the language, without having a map.

“It's not if you fall that matters,” he said quietly. “Everyone falls. It's how you get up that counts.”

A part of him leaned toward her, wanting, almost desperately to explore what was happening between them. As if, in that new land he had glimpsed so briefly in her eyes, he would find not that he was lost.

But that he was found.

And that he was not alone on his journey.

Kiernan gave himself a mental shake. He couldn't allow himself to bask in that feeling that he had been
seen
, this morning, not as a prince, but for the man he really was. And he certainly couldn't allow her to see that her praise meant something to him.

Music suddenly spilled out an open window above them. She cocked her head toward it. “What on earth?' she asked. “What kind of magic is this?”

The whole morning had had that quality, of magic. Now, it seemed imperative that he deny the existence of such a thing.

“It's not magic!” he said, his tone suddenly curt. “The palace chamber quartet is practicing, that's all. It happens every Tuesday at precisely eleven o'clock.”

He liked precise worlds. Predictable ones.

“Your Highness?”

He looked askance at her.

“Shall we?”

Of course he wasn't going to dance with her! He was too open to her, too aware of how the sun shone off her hair, of the light in her eyes, of the glossy puffiness of her lips. He had a horse that needed looking after. Her laughter and his had already made him feel quite vulnerable enough.

And yet this surprise invitation had that quality of delicious spontaneity to it that he found irresistible. Plus,
to refuse might deepen her puzzlement, and if she studied the mystery long enough, would she figure it out?

That there was something about her he liked, and at the same time, he disliked liking it. Intensely.

But there was one other thing.

He had seen a light come on in her today. It still shone there, gently below the surface, chasing away a shadow he had realized had been ever-present until this morning.

He might want to protect himself.

But not enough to push her back into darkness.

And so he dropped the reins, uncharacteristically not caring if the horse bolted back to the stable. He felt like a warrior at war, not with her, but with himself. Wanting to see her light, but not at the expense of losing his power.

He felt as if he was walking straight toward his biggest foe. Because, of course, his biggest foe was the loss of control that she threatened in him.

Here was his chance to wrest it back, to take the challenge of her to the next level. He gazed down at her, and then took her hand, placed his other one on her waist.

There was something about the spontaneity of it, about the casualness of it, about the drift of the music over the spring garden, that did exactly what she had wanted all along.

Something in him
breathed
. He didn't feel rigid. Or stiff. He felt on fire.
A man who would prove he was in charge of himself.

A man who could flirt with temptation and then just shrug it off and walk away.

A man who could see her light, and be pulled to it, and want it for her, but at the same time, not be a moth that would be pulled helplessly into the flame.

He danced her around the courtyard until she was breathless. Until she was his whole world. All he could see was the light in her. All he could feel was the sensuous touch of her fingertips resting ever so lightly on the place where his back met his hip. All that he could smell was her scent.

The last note of music spilled out the window, held, and then died. He became aware again of a world that was not Meredith. The horse stood, his head nodding, birds singing, sun shining, the scent of lilacs thick in the air.

Now, part two of the equation. He had danced with the temptation.

Walk away.

But she was finally looking at him with the approval a prince deserved. He steeled himself not to let it go straight to his head.

“That was fantastic,” Meredith said softly.

“Thank you.” With a certain chilly note, as if he didn't give a fig about her approval.

“I think you're ready to learn a few modern dance step moves tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.
He'd been so busy getting through the challenge of the moment that he'd managed to completely forget that.

There were more moments to this challenge. Many more.

Kiernan had known she would be that kind of girl.

The if you give an inch, she'll take a mile kind.

The kind where if you squeezed through one challenge she threw at you, by the skin of your teeth, only, another would be waiting. Harder.

And just to prove she had much harder challenges in
store for him, she stood on her tiptoes and brushed his cheek with her lips.

Then she stepped back from him, stunned.

But not as stunned as he was. That innocent touch of her lips on his cheek stirred a yearning in him that was devastating. Suddenly his whole life seemed to yawn ahead of him, filled to the brim with activities and obligations, but empty of the one thing that truly mattered.

It doesn't exist,
he berated himself. He'd learned that, hadn't he?

For a moment, she looked so surprised at herself that he thought she might apologize. But then, she didn't. No, she crossed her arms over her chest, and met his gaze with challenge, daring him to say something, daring him to tell her how inappropriate it was to kiss a prince.

But he couldn't. And therein was the problem. She was challenging his ability to be in perfect control at all times, and he hated that.

Resisting an impulse to touch the place on his cheek that still tingled from the caress of her soft lips, Kiernan turned from her, and went to his horse. He put his leg in the stirrup and vaulted up onto Ben's back. Without looking back, he pressed the horse into a gallop, took a low stone wall, and raced away.

But even without looking, he knew she had watched him. And knew that he had wanted her to watch him and be impressed with his prowess.

Some kind of dance had begun between them. And it had nothing at all to do with the performance they would give at
An Evening to Remember
.

 

On the drive home from the palace, Meredith replayed her audacity. She'd kissed the prince!

“It wasn't really a kiss,” she told herself firmly. “More like a buss. Yes, a buss.”

Somehow she had needed to thank him for all the experiences he had given her that day.

“So,” she asked herself, “what's wrong with thank you?”

Still, if she had it to do again? She would do the same thing. She could not regret touching her lips to the skin of his cheek, feeling the hint of rough stubble beneath the tenderness of her lips, standing back to see something flash through his eyes before it had been quickly veiled.

She parked her tiny car in the laneway behind her apartment, a walk-up located above her dance studio in Chatam. She owned the building as a result of an insurance settlement. The building, and No Princes, had been her only uses for the money.

Both things had given her a little bit of motivation to keep going on those dark days when it felt like she could live no more.

Tonight, when she opened the door to the apartment that had given her both solace and sanctuary, she was taken aback by how fresh her wounds suddenly felt.

It had been six years since it had happened.

A grandmother who had just picked up her granddaughter from day care walking a stroller across a street. Who could know why Meredith's mother, Millicent, had not heard the sirens? Tired from working so hard? Mulling over the dreams that had been shattered? A stolen vehicle the police were chasing went through the crosswalk. Meredith's mother, Millicent, had died at the scene, after valiantly throwing her body in front of the stroller. Carly had succumbed to her
injuries a few days later, God deaf to the pleas and prayers of Meredith.