Once Upon a Star

by Nora Roberts

  From

  Ever After

  By #1 New York Times

  Bestselling Author

  NORA ROBERTS

  Under him she lifted and moved as if they’d danced this dance together for a lifetime. Flowed with and against him, now fluid, now strong. And the quickening pulse that rose in her was like his own.

  Her scent was soap, her taste fresh as rain.

  He watched her glide up, the faerie again, soaring on one long spread of wings. As she crested, her eyes opened, met his. And she smiled.

  No one had brought her so much, or shown her how much she had to offer. Her body quivered from the thrill of it, and in her heart was the boundless joy of finding home.

  She arched up, opened so he would fill her. As he slid inside her, the beauty dazzled, and the power hummed.

  While they took each other, neither noticed the star carved in silver, glowing blue as flame.

  Titles in the Once Upon series

  ONCE UPON A KISS

  ONCE UPON A ROSE

  ONCE UPON A DREAM

  ONCE UPON A STAR

  ONCE UPON A CASTLE

  Once Upon A Star

  NORA ROBERTS

  JILL GREGORY

  RUTH RYAN LANGAN

  MARIANNE WILLMAN

  JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ONCE UPON A STAR

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the authors

  Copyright © 1999 by Penguin Putnam Inc.

  “Ever After” by Nora Roberts copyright © 1999 by Nora Roberts.

  “Catch a Falling Star” by Jill Gregory

  copyright © 1999 by Jan Greenberg.

  “The Curse of Castle Clough” by Ruth Ryan Langan

  copyright © 1999 by Ruth Ryan Langan.

  “Starry, Starry Night” by Marianne Willman

  copyright © 1999 by Marianne Willman.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1432-9

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  CONTENTS

  EVER AFTER

  Nora Roberts

  CATCH A FALLING STAR

  Jill Gregory

  THE CURSE OF CASTLE CLOUGH

  Ruh Ryan Langan

  STARRY, STARRY NIGHT

  Marianne Willman

  Once Upon A Star

  EVER AFTER

  Nora Roberts

  To my sisters in magic—

  Ruth, Marianne, and Jill

  1

  “THIS,” THE OLD woman said, “is for you.”

  Allena studied the pendant that swung gently from the thickly braided links of a silver chain. Really, she’d only come in to browse. Her budget didn’t allow for impulse buys—which were, of course, the most fun and the most satisfying. And her affection for all things impulsive was the very reason she couldn’t afford to indulge herself.

  She shouldn’t have entered the shop at all. But who could resist a tiny little place tucked into the waterfront of a charming Irish village? Especially a place called Charms and Cures.

  Certainly not Allena Kennedy.

  “It’s beautiful, but I—”

  “There’s only one.” The woman’s eyes were faded and blue, like the sea that slapped and spewed against the stone wall barely a stone’s throw from the door. Her hair was steel gray and bundled into a bun that lay heavy on her thin neck.

  She wore a fascinating rattle of chains and pins, but there was nothing, Allena thought, like the pendant she held in her bony fingers. “Only one?”

  “The silver was cured in Dagda’s Cauldron over the Midsummer’s fire and carved by the finger of Merlin. He that was Arthur’s.”

  “Merlin?”

  Allena was a sucker for tales of magic and heroics. Her stepsister Margaret would have sniffed and said no, she was simply a sucker.

  “The high king’s sorcerer wandered through Ireland in his time. It was here he found the Giant’s Dance, and coveting it for Arthur, floated it away over the Irish Sea to Britain. But while he took magic from this land, some he also left.” Watching Allena, she set the pendant swaying. “Here is some, and it belongs to you.”

  “Well, I really can’t…” But Allena trailed off, her gaze locked on the pendant. It was a long oval, dulled and tarnished a bit, and centered in it was a carving in the shape of a bursting star.

  It seemed to catch the murky, cloud-filtered light coming through the small shop window, hold it, expand it, so that it glittered hypnotically in Allena’s eyes. It seemed the star shimmered.

  “I just came in to look around.”

  “Sure and if you don’t look, you can’t find, can you? You came looking, all the way from America.”

  She’d come, Allena tried to remember, to assist Margaret with the tour group. Margaret’s business, A Civilized Adventure, was very successful—and very regimented. Everyone said that Allena needed some regimentation. And Margaret had been clear, brutally clear, that this opportunity was her last chance.

  “Be organized, be prepared, and be on time,” Margaret had told her as she’d sat behind her polished desk in her perfectly terrifying and perfectly ordered office in New York. “If you can manage that, there might be a chance for you. If you can’t, I wash my hands of you, Lena.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time someone had washed their hands of her. In the past three years she’d lost three jobs. Well, four, but it didn’t seem necessary to count those hideous two days she’d spent as assistant to her uncle’s mother-in-law’s sister.

  It wasn’t as if she’d spilled ink on the white Valentino gown on purpose. And if the Social Dragon hadn’t insisted that she use a fountain pen—I mean, really—for all correspondence, there wouldn’t have been ink to spill.

  But that wasn’t the point, she reminded herself as she stared at the pendant. She’d lost that job and all the others, and now Margaret was giving her a chance to prove she wasn’t a complete moron.

  Which, Allena feared, she probably was.

  “You need to find your place.”

  Blinking, Allena managed to tear her gaze away from the pendant and look back into the old woman’s eyes. They seemed so kind and wise. “Maybe I don’t have one.”

  “Oh, there now, each of us has one, but there are those who don’t fit so easily into the world the way others see it. And us. You’ve only been looking in the wrong places. Till now. This,” she said again, “belongs to you.”

  “I really can’t afford it.” There was apology in her voice, even as she reached out. Just to touch. And touching, she felt heat from the silver, and terrible longing inside her. A thrill raced up her spine even as something heavy seemed to settle over her heart.

  It couldn’t hurt to try it on. Surely there was no harm in just seeing how it looked on her, how it felt.

  As if in a dream, she took the chain from the old woman, slipped it around her neck. The heaviness in her heart shifted. For a moment, the light through the window strengthened, beamed brilliantly over the trinkets and pots of herbs
and odd little stones crammed on the shelves and counters.

  An image swam into her mind, an image of knights and dragons, of wild wind and water, of a circle of stones standing alone under a black and raging sky.

  Then a shadow that was a man, standing still as the stones, as if waiting.

  In her heart she knew he waited for her, as no one had before and no one would after. And would wait, eternally.

  Allena closed her hand over the pendant, ran her thumb over the star. Joy burst through her, clear as the sunlight. Ah, she thought. Of course. It’s mine. Just as I’m his, and he’s mine.

  “How much is it?” she heard herself say, and knew no price would be too dear.

  “Ten pounds, as a token.”

  “Ten?” She was already reaching for her purse. “It has to be worth more.” A king’s ransom, a sorcerer’s spell, a lover’s dream.

  “It is, of course.” But the woman merely held out her hand for the single note. “And so are you. Go on your journey, a chuid, and see.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re a good lass,” the woman said as Allena walked to the door. And when it shut, her smile turned bright and crafty. “He won’t be pleased, but you’ll bring him ’round by Midsummer’s Eve. And if you need a bit of help, well, that will be my pleasure.”

  Outside, Allena stared at the sea wall, the dock, the line of cottages as if coming out of a dream. Odd, she thought, hadn’t that all been wonderfully odd? She traced a finger over the pendant again. Only one, cast in Dagda’s Cauldron, carved by Merlin.

  Of course, Margaret would sneer and tell her that the old woman had a dozen more in the stockroom ready to pass them off to birdbrained tourists. And Margaret, as always, was probably right. But it didn’t matter.

  She had the pendant and a wonderful story to go with it. And all for ten pounds. Quite a bargain.

  She glanced up now, wincing. The sky was heavy with clouds, and all of them were thick and gray. Margaret would not be pleased that the weather wasn’t falling in line with today’s plans. The ferry ride to the island had been meticulously arranged.

  Tea and scones would be served on the trip over, while Margaret lectured her twenty-person group on the history of the place they were about to visit. It had been Allena’s job to type up Margaret’s notes and print the handouts.

  First stop would be the visitors’ center for orientation. There would be a tour of a ruined abbey and graveyard, which Allena looked forward to, then lunch, picnic style, which the hotel had provided in hampers. Lunch was to last precisely sixty minutes.

  They would then visit the beehive cottages, and Margaret would deliver a lecture on their history and purpose. The group would be allotted an hour to wander on their own, into the village, the shops, down to the beach, before gathering at four-thirty on the dot for high tea at the restored castle, with, naturally, another lecture on that particular spot.

  It was Allena’s job to keep all of Margaret’s lecture notes in order, to help herd the group, to watch valuables, to haul parcels should there be any, and to generally make herself available for any and all menial chores.

  For this she would be paid a reasonable salary by Margaret’s definition. But, more important, it was explained, she would receive training and experience that, her family hoped, would teach her responsibility and maturity. Which, by the age of twenty-five, she should have learned already.

  There was no point in explaining that she didn’t want to be responsible and mature if it turned her into another Margaret. Here she was, four days into her first tour and already something inside her was screaming to run away.

  Dutifully, she quashed the rebellion, glanced at her watch. Stared at it, dumbfounded.

  That couldn’t be. It was impossible. She’d only meant to slip into the shop for a few minutes. She couldn’t possibly have spent an hour in there. She couldn’t—oh, God, she couldn’t have missed the ferry.

  Margaret would murder her.

  Gripping the strap of her bag, she began to run.

  She had long, dancer’s legs and a slim build. The sturdy walking shoes Margaret had ordered her to buy slapped pavement on her race to the ferry dock. Her bag bounced heavily against her hip. Inside was everything ordered from the Civilized Adventure directive and a great deal more.

  The wind kicked in from the sea and sent her short blond hair into alarmed spikes around her sharp-boned face. The alarm was in her eyes, gray as the clouds, as well. It turned quickly to despair and self-disgust when she reached the dock and saw the ferry chugging away.

  “Damn it!” Allena grabbed her own hair and pulled viciously. “That’s it and that’s all. I might as well jump in and drown myself.” Which would be more pleasant, she had no doubt, than the icy lecture Margaret would deliver.

  She’d be fired, of course, there was no doubt of it. But she was used to that little by-product of her professional endeavors. The method of termination would be torture.

  Unless…There had to be another way to get to the island. If she could get there, throw herself on Margaret’s stingy supply of mercy, work like a dog, forfeit her salary. Make an excuse. Surely she’d be able to come up with some reason for missing the damn ferry.

  She looked around frantically. There were boats, and if there were boats, there were people who drove boats. She’d hire a boat, pay whatever it cost.

  “Are you lost, then?”

  Startled, she lifted a hand, closed it tight over her pendant. There was a young man—hardly more than a boy, really, she noted—standing beside a small white boat. He wore a cap over his straw-colored hair and watched her out of laughing green eyes.

  “No, not lost, late. I was supposed to be on the ferry.” She gestured, then let her arms fall. “I lost track of time.”

  “Well, time’s not such a matter in the scheme of things.”

  “It is to my sister. I work for her.” Quickly now, she headed down toward him where the sea lapped the shore. “Is this your boat, or your father’s?”

  “Aye, it happens it’s mine.”

  It was small, but to her inexperienced eye looked cheerful. She had to hope that made it seaworthy. “Could you take me over? I need to catch up. I’ll pay whatever you need.”

  It was just that sort of statement, Allena thought the minute the words left her mouth, that would make Margaret cringe. But then bargaining wasn’t a priority at the moment. Survival was.

  “I’ll take you where you need to be.” His eyes sparkled as he held out a hand. “For ten pounds.”

  “Today everything’s ten pounds.” She reached for her purse, but he shook his head.

  “It was your hand I was reaching for, lady, not payment. Payment comes when you get where you’re going.”

  “Oh, thanks.” She put her hand in his and let him help her into the boat.

  She sat starboard on a little bench while he cast off. Closing her eyes with relief, she listened to the boy whistle as he went about settling to stern and starting the motor. “I’m very grateful,” she began. “My sister’s going to be furious with me. I don’t know what I was thinking of.”

  He turned the boat, a slow and smooth motion. “And couldn’t she have waited just a bit?”

  “Margaret?” The thought made Allena smile. “It wouldn’t have occurred to her.”

  The bow lifted, and the little boat picked up speed. “It would have occurred to you,” he said, and then they were skimming over the water.

  Thrilled, she turned her face to the wind. Oh, this was better, much better, than any tame ferry ride, lecture included. It was almost worth the price she would pay at the end, and she didn’t mean the pounds.

  “Do you fish?” she called out to him.

  “When they’re biting.”

  “It must be wonderful to do what you want, when you want. And to live so near the water. Do you love it?”

  “I’ve a fondness for it, yes. Men put restrictions on men. That’s an odd thing to my way of thinking.”

&nb
sp; “I have a terrible time with restrictions. I can never remember them.” The boat leaped, bounced hard and made her laugh. “At this rate, we’ll beat the ferry.”

  The idea of that, the image of her standing on shore and giving Margaret a smug look when the ferry docked, entertained Allena so much she didn’t give a thought to the shiver of lightning overhead or the sudden, ominous roar of the sea.

  When the rain began to pelt her, she looked around again, shocked that she could see nothing but water, the rise and fall of it, the curtain that closed off light.

  “Oh, she won’t like this a bit. Are we nearly there?”

  “Nearly, aye, nearly.” His voice was a kind of crooning that smoothed nerves before they could fray. “Do you see there, through the storm? There, just ahead, is where you need to be.”

  She turned. Through the rain and wind, she saw the darker shadow of land, a rise of hills, the dip of valley in shapes only. But she knew, she already knew.

  “It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

  Like smoke, it drifted closer. She could see the crash of surf now and the cliffs that hulked high above. Then in the flash of lightning, she thought, just for an instant, she saw a man.

  Before she could speak, the boat was rocking in the surf, and the boy leaping out into the thrashing water to pull them to shore.

  “I can’t thank you enough, really.” Drenched, euphoric, she climbed out onto the wet sand. “You’ll wait for the storm to pass, won’t you?” she asked as she dug for her wallet.

  “I’ll wait until it’s time to go. You’ll find your way, lady. Through the rain. The path’s there.”

  “Thanks.” She passed the note into his hand. She’d go to the visitors’ center, take shelter, find Margaret and do penance. “If you come up with me, I’ll buy you some tea. You can dry off.”

  “Oh, I’m used to the wet. Someone’s waiting for you,” he said, then climbed back into his boat.