“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.
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.”
Chapter Five
“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 t
o 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.”