Fairy Godmothers, Inc.

by Jenniffer Wardell

  Next time . . . Kate heard Rellie’s sigh of relief, the small sound only managing to make things worse. “Like I told Rellie, yelling isn’t going to fix any of this.” Her voice sounded empty and tired even to her own ears, and she could feel Jon’s grip on her arm tighten ever so slightly as she spoke. She had to get him to stop, or there was no way she was going to be able to think enough to protect them. “What might help, though, is for you to go back inside and reassure your subjects that you haven’t just been kidnapped or run off to join your brother.”

  She felt fingertips come to rest on the side of her jaw, let her head be turned enough she looked directly into Jon’s steady, worried eyes.

  “And if I do, you won’t be here when I come out,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but the way his jaw tensed suggested he took her silence as its own answer. “Give me another option, Kate.” His voice was rough as he slid his hand up to cup her cheek. “Tell me what I need to do to make sure you don’t slip away while I fix all this.”

  Kate refused to let herself lean into his touch, determined to cling to whatever shreds of control she had left. “You can’t fix this, Jon,” she said quietly, giving up on any chance of putting her walls back up for the moment. All she could do was keep the tears that thickened her throat from getting anywhere near her eyes, and focus on getting through this so she could keep both of them from drawing Bubbles’ attention. “It’s not your fault, but too much has gone wrong too fast. The most either of us is going to be able to do is damage control.”

  “Enough damage control,” Jon said softly. “You’ve usually ended up solving the problem.”

  “Not this time.” She inhaled another shaky breath, closing her eyes when his other hand reached up to cup her cheek. “Don’t do that,” she breathed, finally making herself pull away from him. “It just makes everything harder than it already is.”

  “You’re trying to leave me.” Hurt crept back into his voice.

  It was a final rip to her heart, deep enough she realized she had no other choice but to get it over with. Quick and clean, because if she kept trying to do this slowly it would kill her. “If I stay, another Fairy Godmother will just sneak in and dose you with the company love potion.” When she felt him freeze, she opened her eyes and tried not to think about what she saw in his. If he knew what was coming, he’d stop trying to make her believe again and start working on the real problem. “It’ll convince you that you’re so madly in love with Rellie you won’t even remember what I look like.”

  Jon only stared at her, horrified, and she suddenly knew exactly what he’d meant when he said yelling was so much easier to take. Rellie, as always, was much more direct, and gave Kate a half-hearted kick in the leg. “Even I know you don’t tell guys stuff like that, Kate,” she said morosely. “You guys are supposed to be making up, not making everything worse!”

  Kate opened her mouth, but whatever he was about to say vanished forever when she caught the first faint edges of a glow forming behind her. She hadn’t even managed to turn around completely before she heard the all-too-familiar sound of tinkling bells and caught the first wisps of purple smoke. She tensed, some ridiculous instinct making her stand between Jon and the doorway as she wished hopelessly that it wasn’t Bubbles who was about to arrive.

  But it was Ned who stepped through the gate. He held out a wand attachment no one ever used, starting to talk before his feet even touched the grass. “I saw that you forgot this back at the office, and I thought maybe—”

  He caught sight of Kate and Jon’s faces, processing the fact that Rellie was sitting on the lawn beside them rather than dancing at the ball like she was supposed to. He opened his mouth, then closed it, completely at a loss as to what to say.

  “You might as well sit down,” Rellie said kindly, gesturing to a spot on the grass beside her. “It looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”

  FOURTEEN

  Working the Room

  Ned knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d been ready with a long explanation about Kate leaving behind what must be an incredibly useful attachment (even though he’d never actually seen any Fairy Godmother use one before) and how important it was to bring it to her in the field. Then, if that didn’t work, he’d planned to throw himself on her mercy and hope he’d get the chance to at least see Rellie from a distance.

  Clearly, no one was having much luck with plans at the moment.

  “Uh . . .” Ned stood there like an idiot, trying to make his voice work as he stared at Rellie. No matter how pretty she was, she was the client, and even he knew she was definitely not supposed to be out here at this point in the evening.

  He turned to Kate, hoping she could somehow help. “Did the ball get cancelled or something?” he asked.

  “Ned.” Kate hesitated, as if trying to come up with an explanation of some kind, then clearly gave up and shook her head. She ran a tired hand through her hair, glancing behind him to the spot where he’d just arrived. “Let’s just say you really don’t want to get involved in any of this.”

  The one non-panicking part of Ned’s brain chimed in its support at Kate’s suggestion. Leaving was probably the only way he could actually be of any help in all this. “That’s probably a good—” Then Kate turned her head just right, or the light shifted somehow, and he realized she had that look in her eye his mother always had when she was trying not to cry. “Oh, no,” he breathed, thoughts of fleeing temporarily forgotten. “Kate, are you okay?”

  Kate blinked, startled at the question. “I . . . I’m fine.” But she pressed her lips together after she said it, as if she knew just how much the pause had given her away. “Rellie and Jon were just about to go back inside.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Ned could see Jon take a step forward, hand half raised as he reached out toward her. Ned beat him to it, cutting off Jon’s approach as he glared at the other man in a way he wouldn’t have normally even considered doing. He turned back to Kate. “Seriously, what happened?”

  Kate paused, long enough to come up with a different version of “I’m fine.” A relatively gentle kick somewhere in the vicinity of his left calf grabbed his attention. When he turned, Rellie was looking up at him. “It’ll just be easier if I fill you in,” she said. “How much do you already know?”

  Ned was about to tell her when Kate interrupted with a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve run into some problems, but I’m going to take care of them,” she said quickly, shooting Rellie a pointed look that was almost as good as a hand against her mouth. “A few of the job details may end up having to be shifted around a little, but there’s no need for you to worry. For my sake, please just go home for the rest of the night and get some sleep. I’ll see you back at the office as soon as I can—”

  “No, she won’t,” Jon cut in, suddenly close enough to lay his own hand on Kate’s shoulder. He scowled at Ned, a clear warning not to interfere this time, then turned to her with a look that was somewhere between anger and pleading. “Kate, just give me some time so we can talk about this.”

  Kate’s jaw tensed. “What you need to do is go back inside the palace and be the prince your subjects are expecting right now. The last thing we need is everyone inside that building knowing what’s going on.”

  Ned’s brow furrowed. “Wait, Jon’s a prince? But that means . . .”

  No one else was paying attention. “Everyone had to have seen you running out of that ballroom, and they’re probably getting more and more worried that you haven’t come back yet.” Kate’s voice was sharp, frustrated. But at no point did she make a move to shake off Jon’s arm. “In fact, someone should be showing up to drag you back inside in a complete panic any minute now.”

  “No one’s going . . .” Jon’s denial trailed off, clearly not believable enough to get all the way out of his mouth. “All I’ll have to do is threaten to make them my mother’s personal assistant. Whoever it is will be back inside so fast they’ll leave a flame trail.”

 
“If your job really is anything like you described it, it won’t matter what you tell them, because they won’t be able to pull themselves back together without you. Both you and they know that.” Kate’s words were cool, but Ned could feel the anger simmering closer and closer to the surface. Weirdly enough, it was the first comforting thing he’d seen since he’d gotten here. “So you might as well go back inside now. The longer you wait, the worse the mess with your subjects will get and the harder it will be for you to clean up.”

  Jon’s jaw clenched, his own anger flaring like someone had taken a match to it. “What good will cleaning up my own mess do if a Fairy Godmother is just going to show up as soon as I’m done and pump me full of love potion? It’s not like you’re giving me a choice in any of this!”

  Pain flared in Kate’s eyes, her face going pale as she fought to get her composure back. “I know,” she said, her voice deathly serious. “I promise you I’ll figure out some way to keep that from happening.”

  Helplessly listening, Ned finally started to comprehend the full picture of everything that had gone wrong. Even the thought of anyone he knew being forcibly dosed with True Love sent cold chills racing down his spine, and that didn’t begin to cover what Bubbles would do to Kate if their boss knew she’d thought about trying to stop the contract. Crushing Ned into an intern-shaped smear wouldn’t even slow her down.

  The thoughts faded as Ned felt small, cool fingers wrap around his; he turned to meet a pair of violet eyes that sparkled in a way he couldn’t have imagined by just looking at the photo. “Could you help me up?” Rellie said. “They’re going to be at this for a while, and even when I try to be sensible neither of them listen.” She let Ned help her to her feet before brushing some of the grass off her skirt. Then, she grinned at him, bright enough to dazzle, and Ned imagined his brain melting around the edges. “But if you take me inside to dance, maybe they’ll be fought out by the time we get back and everybody will be calm again.”

  Ned stared at her, transfixed. Right at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than to say yes, even as a part of him tried hard to remember the crisis occurring only a few feet away. “I can’t. I mean, Kate . . .”

  Rellie nodded as if she’d heard some sort of coherent response. “Kate! Can Ned please take me dancing?” When Kate turned, still looking frustrated and miserable, Rellie made her eyes go big and puppy-like. “Watching you two argue instead of kiss is really upsetting me, and getting to twirl around the dance floor in my poufy skirt was always going to be my favorite part about tonight. I promise we’ll be good and come right back out as soon as you’ve stopped fighting.”

  Kate hesitated, clearly wanting to say no, but didn’t seem quite able to come up with a good enough reason. Jon didn’t say anything, but watched every movement she made with a storm cloud of emotion in his eyes.

  Finally, Kate sighed and rubbed her eyes. “This is probably going to be another mistake, but I’ll let you go inside for one dance.” When Rellie opened her mouth to protest, Kate held up a warning finger. “One. And I’m making Ned responsible for knowing when it’s time to come back out.”

  Rellie thought about this for a moment, then nodded in agreement and tugged on Ned’s hand. “Come on.” She smiled again. “If you want, I can teach you the steps.”

  It will serve Jon right if the guests actually start stampeding.

  Lawton felt a quick stab of guilt at the thought, a sure sign that alcohol deprivation was doing terrible things to his brain. Without letting himself think about it he snagged a glass of hideously pink champagne off a passing tray, downing it in a single swallow before grabbing the shirtfront of the violinist who was trying to sneak out the back exit. “Did I say you could stop playing?”

  The man crumpled. “We were told we could have breaks!” he wailed, fat fingers trying and failing to free his clothing from Lawton’s grip. “I skipped dinner because I knew we’d be coming to this thing and I’m starving! I could hear my stomach growling over the music!”

  If Lawton had been free to indulge himself, he would have guided the fool to a heaping tray of Madame Stewart’s hors d’oeuvres and watched in amusement as the man sealed his own gastronomic doom. Unfortunately, the distraction provided by the music was currently the only thing keeping the ballroom full of elegantly dressed, nervously muttering sheep from devolving into a total panic. “You should be grateful your stomach at least has the ability to growl in harmony, a skill you yourself apparently lack.” He flipped the man around by the shoulders and shoved him back toward his orchestra mates. “Be grateful. I’ve saved you from a poisoning.”

  Lawton stayed where he was, glaring, until he heard the music start again. He turned his attention to the other skittish, stupid souls Jon persistently felt was his responsibility to take care of. Of course, Jon was not actually here to take care of them at the moment, having been seen several minutes before on the back lawn in the midst of an intense and apparently unpleasant discussion with the love of his life. Lawton had ordered that both of them be left alone, suspecting there was more at stake than he realized, and had taken it upon himself to keep the crowd contained so no one got spooked enough to counteract his order.

  If Jon hadn’t calmed his Katharine down in fifteen minutes, Lawton decided, he was going to go out there and drag the woman back into the palace himself.

  He heard whispered discussion from somewhere to his right. Though he hadn’t particularly want to, his excessively keen hearing caught the word “prince” at least twice during one of the asides. Accepting the inevitable, Lawton squared his shoulders and prepared to do what he could to hold back the tide of gossip with a few carefully constructed countermeasures.

  “What a dedicated royal heir we have—so intent on keeping the country running smoothly he can’t even stay for his own party;” “Oh, they’ve been discussing this for weeks. I heard your approval was the loudest—with how frantic your schedule is, no wonder it’s slipped your mind;” “Haven’t you heard? It’s all the rage for princes to dash madly out of balls. I’d be afraid we were out of fashion if it hadn’t happened to us;” “What a delicate, feminine creature our queen is. Of course she’s supportive of her son’s new position;” “Oh, you know Rupert. Such an independent thinker.”

  Halfway through his route, Lawton caught sight of one of the pages he often used to keep track of comings and goings in the palace. He threaded his way through enough full skirts to reach the young woman, pulling her into a reasonably soundproof spot behind a life-size, faux-ice sculpture of a unicorn. The girl’s face lit with an expression of vehemently-defended innocence. “I swear, sir, the big to-do with the announcers and his Highness’s new title was the first anybody had heard about it! All of the horses in the stables are still present and accounted for, including Prince Rupert’s. And if he’d been seen near any of the departing carriages, there would have been an uproar about it long before now. I can get you a list, just in case, but with the ball tonight most of them have been arriving.”

  Lawton waited patiently through the guilt-induced burst of information, staying silent for a few moments after it was over to make sure he had truly gotten everything. When he was certain, he gave the page a measuring look. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of your system, it’s time to prove that intelligence of yours is useful for something more than crafting excuses. I’ll not only need that list of departing carriages, but also the names of everyone who spoke to Rupert this morning. Preferably in chronological order.”

  The words cut off as he realized someone new had arrived.

  As the page scurried off to begin her overtime, Lawton’s attention shifted, head turning to follow a newly arrived guest. No horns blew, no announcement was made, and the lack of specialized lighting meant the oohing and aahing was almost completely nonexistent. On top of that, as Lawton discovered when his eyes passed over the staircase Jon had so recently utilized, she hadn’t even used the proper entrance.

  The girl stepped onto a relat
ively clear patch of dance floor, her lilac-colored eyes huge and sparkling as she took in the rich decorations and expensive costumes of her fellow partygoers. True, her dress was the same hideous pink as the champagne, but the shade blended surprisingly well with the hideously green, purple, and gold gowns only a few feet away.

  She closed her eyes, gracefully stretching her arms out. She spun around once, golden hair floating gently behind her as if she was dancing to fairy music instead of the efforts of the increasingly more off-key orchestra. The surrounding dancers ignored the girl, having long been trained to dismiss anything that didn’t follow their well-established societal structure.

  Lawton, on the other hand, couldn’t help but be fascinated by the sight. Looking at her, it was easier to remember why it was supposedly such a privilege to come to these ridiculous things in the first place.

  The girl stopped, as if realizing she’d forgotten something, then resolutely dove back into the crowd. She emerged again, briefly, then disappeared for a second as the hand of her mysterious dance partner began to resist. After considerable physical effort and more than a little sweet-talking, her companion revealed himself to be the young man who had accompanied Kate to her one and only even semi-official date with Jon. Ned, Lawton believed his name was.

  Which meant, then, this was Rupert’s bride-to-be, though that unfortunate future seemed to be the furthest thing from the girl’s mind at the moment. She whispered something to the young man, causing him to blush to the tips of his ears before he began, rather creakily, to follow her into the waltz. She laughed, a sound of pleasure rather than humor at her partner’s lack of skill, and even from here Lawton could see a dazed, adoring look in the young man’s eyes.

  As the song ended, it became clear Lawton was not the only person to have noticed the duo. One of the Baron LeMarche’s endless sons took the opportunity to approach the couple, his doublet glittering obnoxiously as he put a proprietary hand on the girl’s shoulder. A defensive look flashed across Ned’s face, and as the girl turned, Lawton found himself moving forward to assist.