Romancing the Crown Series

by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)

  She told herself these things, but in a state of fearful wonderment, not quite able to believe they were true —like a caged bird who hasn't yet realized that the door has been left open, or a child too young to grasp the fact that the wonderful new toys in the gaily wrapped packages are hers to keep. This is my house, she thought as she walked slowly down the curving staircase, trailing her fingers on the polished wood banister. This is our home.. .mine and Cade's. The thought produced more of those happy shivers, and she was biting her lip and smiling as she went into the kitchen, like a child with a secret.

  Betsy was standing at the sink, stemming strawberries and singing along with the music from a radio turned down low. When Leila said "Good morning!" she turned with a little cry and a smile of welcome that made her cheeks look round as pomegranates. "You're awake! I bet you're hungry. Sit down, sit down—I'll make you some lunch."

  "Lunch!" Leila looked for a clock. "What time is it?"

  Betsy leaned sideways to peer at a digital clock on the back of a gleaming white stove. "Almost two."

  "Two! In the afternoon? But—I have never slept so late!"

  "Jet lag," said Betsy, waving a hand. "Take you a couple days to adjust. Here—have some strawberries. They're pretty good right now—don't even need sugar. I thought I'd leave a bowl in the fridge for you— they'll be good for your breakfast tomorrow, too." She pushed a blue bowl heaped high with the berries over in front of Leila and put a fork beside it.

  Leila picked up a berry with her fingers and closed her eyes as she bit into it, wondering how Betsy could have guessed that strawberries were one of her favorite foods.

  "I guess Cade told you he's not going to be home to-night—got a business trip this weekend." Betsy sounded wary.

  "Yes, I know." Leila picked up another berry. "This afternoon I think I would like to see the outside—the horses."

  "You sure?" Betsy seemed relieved as she cocked an eyebrow. "It gets hot out there, middle of the afternoon."

  "That is good, I like the heat," said Leila, showing her dimples. "It will make me feel as if I am at home."

  Betsy gave her a doubtful, sideways look as she opened the refrigerator. "If you say so, hon."

  Leila ate a delicious meal of strawberries and a chicken salad made with strips of roasted sweet red peppers and pecans, sitting in a breakfast room with a wall of windows that looked out on a swimming pool surrounded by lawns and flower gardens. Beyond that she could not see, because of course there were more trees, making walls of green all around the garden. She also drank a very delicious iced beverage made with tea and lemon and a great deal of sugar. If I am not careful I will get fat, here in America, she thought.

  When she had finished her lunch, Leila opened a door in the breakfast room and stepped out onto a flagstone patio. Once again she gasped involuntarily when she felt the slap of hot, wet air, and heard Betsy call out from the kitchen, "I told you."

  I keep forgetting about the humidity, Leila thought as she forced herself to breathe the thick, soupy air. But it was only a small thing, and she would get used to it.

  She lingered at the pool, pausing to trail her fingers in the clear, tepid water and sniff some roses that had no scent. Then she set off briskly, following a flagstone pathway that led along the side of the house and through a wrought-iron gate. Just past the gate she came to the corner of the house, and there the walls of greenery ended. Interrupted by only a few very large trees and bisected by a curving gravel lane, the grassy ground swept away to the stables, which were made of wood, painted white with green trim. Beyond the stables were fields and paddocks of emerald green, ringed by white-painted fences, and in the paddocks she could see horses—mares with foals!—and Rueben, leaning on the fence, watching them.

  Her heart quickened with excitement and she no longer noticed the heat and humidity. As she hurried along the gravel lane she was thinking, These are Cade's horses—my husband's horses. And, with a sense of awe, Mine, too.

  As she came nearer to the paddock where the man stood vigil, she could see that it held only a mare with a mottled gray body, darker face and legs, and jet-black mane and tail.

  "She is very beautiful," she said as she joined Rueben at the fence, keeping a respectful distance between them. She did not ask what was obvious, even to her, but after a moment said, "She will have her foal very soon, I think."

  Rueben glanced briefly at her, as if she had surprised him, then looked back at the mare and nodded. "Maybe today...maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow."

  Leila didn't say anything, but her insides had those joyful shivers again. The birth of a foal—she had never seen such a thing. It must be the most wonderful thing that could happen, she thought. She wondered... she hoped.. .if she was very careful not to get in the way, if Rueben might let her watch.

  But that would be later. Right now there was something else she wanted to ask him, and after a long and oddly comfortable silence, she did. "The horses that are here—are there any that may be ridden?"

  He gave her that look of surprise. "You like to ride?"

  "Oh, yes," Leila breathed, "very much."

  Rueben lifted up a shoulder. "Okay, sure—we got a couple that're real gentle..." Leila didn't tell him that "gentle" was the last thing she wanted. "Not right now, though," said Rueben. "Too hot. Maybe this evening. Tomorrow morning."

  "Thank you," said Leila. "I would like that very much. And.. .where can I ride? Only here, in the pastures...?"

  "The pastures, sure." Rueben gave his shoulder another hitch. "There's a trail, too. Goes down along the creek."

  Leila nodded, but didn't say anything. She was looking at the neat green paddocks with their white rail fences, and remembering her dream about riding across endless plains with the wind in her face and her hair blowing free. So, here I am in America, in Texas, she thought. But.. .where are the vistas?

  "You want to ride, tell me," said Rueben. "I fix you up."

  "Thank you," said Leila softly. She turned away from the paddocks and walked slowly back to the house.

  * * *

  She woke in the darkness and was strangely wide awake and rested. Jet lag, she thought, stretching her body in the great wide bed she had yet to share with her husband. My days and nights are turned around.

  Knowing it would be useless to try to sleep any longer, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. Without turning on the light she made her way to the window and stood with her arms around herself, looking out on the shadowy, dark landscape.

  " This is Texas.. .America."

  She said the words deliberately as she had been saying them over and over to herself all day, but they failed to give her those joyous and optimistic shivers. Around her the house was empty and still, and there was a hollow feeling of loneliness inside her. She missed Tamir, and the palace that was always so full of people —her family, the servants. She remembered that she had sometimes had to steal away to secret corners of the gardens to find moments to herself. Now, as the silence of the house pressed in around her, she would have given almost anything for the sounds of laughter.. .people's voices.

  But... there—surely that was a light! She peered into the thick gray darkness, trying to see through the deeper blackness of trees, remembering that earlier she had seen glimpses of the stables through the leaves and branches. Excitement gave a kick beneath her ribs. Rueben had told her the mare, Suki, would have her foal soon. Maybe today.. .maybe tonight...

  Without stopping to think whether or not she should, Leila turned from the window and was already pulling her nightgown over her head. She dressed quickly in the same slacks and blouse she'd worn that day, slipped bare feet into her shoes and ran down the stairs. At the back entrance she remembered just in time to turn off the security alarm before opening the door.

  This time she was ready for the warm, wet slap of humidity. What she hadn't expected was the noise. Inside the well-insulated and air-conditioned house she hadn't realized how loud the night was, in this place of so
many trees and lush vegetation, so many ponds and fields and streams. All around her the night was filled with sounds—busy sounds, ratcheting, chirping, hooting, clicking, screeching sounds.

  After the first surprise, Leila decided she liked the racket. And here I thought that I was alone. She almost felt like singing along with the night creatures herself as she found her way along the flagstone path. To be out alone in the night gave her shivery feelings of excitement, anticipation and a delicious sense of adventure.

  She unlatched the gate and slipped silently through. And her nice little shivers exploded all through her muscles like slivers of steel. Her scalp bloomed with prickles and her heart rocketed into her throat. All of a sudden the night was full of large warm bodies, wiggling, snuffling shifting bodies, pressing in on her from all sides. As her back slammed against the gate she sucked in air and whispered, "Oh—good dogs.. .nice... dogs..."

  Something warm and wet slapped the back of her hand—then the other hand as well. She moved her fingers and felt them burrow through silky-soft fur. She could hear coming from the squirming, waggling shapes little whines and whimpers and panting sounds that sounded like laughter. Friendly sounds.

  Taking a deep breath and summoning her courage, she pushed away from the gate and took several tentative steps. The dogs moved with her, arranging themselves in front and in back and on both sides of her, keeping just out of range of her feet as she walked. Just like my father's bodyguards, she thought, as the last vestiges of her fear slipped away.

  The dogs followed her to the stable door, but made no move to go inside with her. Clearly, they knew this was not allowed.

  Although the lights were on in the stable, no one was inside. Finding her way through a stall filled with sweet, clean straw, Leila found herself in the paddock where she had seen the mare, Suki, that afternoon. There, in a corner of the paddock just to the left outside the doorway in which she stood, by the light leaking through the stall's half doors, she could see the mare's pale shape lying on the darker grass. Rueben was there, too, crouched on one knee with his fingers braced on the ground, like a runner at the start of a race.

  Leila ventured toward them as silently as she knew how. Rueben glanced at her as she crouched down beside him, but without much surprise—almost, it seemed to her, as if he had expected her to come.

  "She's not doin' so good," he said in a low voice.

  "What is the matter?" Leila breathlessly whispered back.

  "Got halfway and quit. Happens sometimes. I think she'll be okay, though—just have to give her a little help."

  "Help?"

  "Yeah...gonna pull a little bit. She should start pushing on her own then."

  "Should she not be inside, in the stable?" Leila's heart was beating very hard.

  Rueben lifted one shoulder in his familiar shrug. "She's where she wants to be. Horses are meant to have their babies in the open. It's their nature. If the weather's bad, I bring her inside. When it's nice like this, I let her choose." He pushed himself up from his crouch. Leila did the same.

  "What can I do to help?" she whispered.

  He nodded toward the mare, who had her head up and was quietly watching them. "You can keep her calm, if you want. Just pet her... talk to her. Rub her under her jaw, like this..."

  Leila nodded and began to move cautiously toward the mare's head, crooning to her softly in Arabic, the language her nanny had used to soothe her when she was a baby. Her heart hammered and her lungs ached as she felt the slick, warm horsehide beneath her fingers, and smelled the familiar salty horse-smell. The mare gave a little whicker of uncertainty as Leila began to stroke her sweat-damp neck, but didn't try to rise. "Beautiful, noble lady..." Leila murmured. "You must be strong...you must have the courage of a lioness."

  The mare grunted. Leila felt the surge of powerful muscles, and then a groan that seemed to come from deep inside the mare's belly.

  "That's it—she's pushin' good now," said Rueben after a moment, panting a little. "Okay.. .okay—that's good. Let her go—she'll do it herself now, I think."

  Leila pushed herself away from the mare's surging body and scrambled around to join Rueben just in time to see the foal's body slither onto the grass like a puddle of spilled ink.

  "Nice filly," said Rueben. "Nice big girl."

  "Is she all right?" Leila asked fearfully. The foal had not moved. Leila's heart was knocking painfully; she felt as if she could not breathe. "Is she...dead? She is not breathing."

  "She'll be okay." Rueben pulled his white T-shirt off over his head. "Here—wipe her head a little bit," he said as he tossed it to her.

  Then she was on her knees in the wet grass, trying not to shake as she wiped frantically at the film of mucus that covered the foal's mouth and nose. Sweat trickled down her sides, dripped from her nose and ran stinging into her eyes. She kept making desperate little whimpering noises, but didn't realize then that she was crying. Not until the foal suddenly jerked her head up and shook it hard, her long ears making a slapping sound against her neck.

  "She'll be fine now," said Rueben, as Leila collapsed backward onto the seat of her pants with a loud, quivering sob.

  But she was laughing, too. Laughing and sobbing as she gathered the newborn foal's head into her arms and pressed her cheek to its soaking wet hide.

  Chapter 8

  Betsy and Rueben were in the kitchen when Leila came down to breakfast the morning after the birth of the foal. She'd heard their voices and didn't mean to listen in, but then she'd heard her own name and naturally that made her hesitate.

  "I wish you could have seen her, Bets. That black hair of hers—you couldn't tell which was her and which was the filly."

  Rueben's chuckle was lost in a loud metallic clang. "I wish he could have seen her, that's what /wish. He should have been here." Betsy's voice sounded angry. "Ooh, sometimes that man...Brings home anew bride and then goes off and leaves her!"

  "He said it was business." She couldn't see it, but Leila knew Rueben had lifted a shoulder in his special little shrug.

  "Huh. He couldn't cancel it? Just once? What kind of thing is that to do? Go off and leave his bride all alone...And such a nice girl, too. Really sweet, you know?"

  Leila had gone into the kitchen, then, and her cheeks were hot and her heart beating fast.

  Now it was Sunday afternoon, and Leila was lying on a chaise longue beside the pool, remembering that conversation from two mornings ago, and the moment that followed when she had walked into that room that was flooded with sunlight and the warm smells of coffee and bacon and toast.

  Rueben had been at the sink preparing a large plastic bottle with a long red rubber nipple on it for the new foal, because, he said, the mare's milk wasn't comin' in so good yet, and maybe Leila would like to help him feed the baby in a little while. Betsy's eyes had lit with welcome and her smile had been warm.

  Leila remembered the strange little lump of yearning that had come into her throat just then, the sting of lonely tears that she had blinked hastily away. Because she understood that she had interrupted a moment of special intimacy between these two long-married people—she knew because she had encountered such moments between her own parents, many times before. There was such ease between them. She could hear it in their voices—trust and understanding, respect and friendship. It was, she thought, just what a marriage should be like. It was what she wanted her marriage to be like.

  But.. .what of her marriage? Would she and Cade ever know that kind of ease? Right now such a thing seemed impossible.

  Hopelessness settled over her, more oppressive than the midday heat. She'd managed to keep it at bay the past two days, spending most of her time in the stables with Rueben, working with the new foal. Oh, and she'd been riding, too, and was getting more and more comfortable with Western-style saddles. At night she watched old movies on television until she fell asleep on the sofa.

  But now, lying on her stomach beside the swimming pool with the sun like a hot anvil between her s
houlders and her forehead resting on her hands, she could not stop the tears from seeping between her eyelids. She had never, even as a child in those first wretched months of boarding school, been so lonely.

  Because today was Sunday, Rueben and Betsy had the day off. Rueben had come early to feed the horses and then had gone off to his home on the other side of the pasture, taking the dogs with him. Betsy had left fruit salad and cinnamon rolls for Leila's breakfast, and deviled eggs and sliced ham and tomatoes stuffed with tuna salad and sliced strawberries to eat with ice cream for later. She would be cooking at home today, she had told Leila, because her kids were coming over. According to Betsy, she was going to have a "houseful." You should come on down, she had said to Leila. You should come and join us.

  But Leila had not wanted to intrude on their day off, on their family's time together.

  Now she thought that she had been very foolish to say no. Proud and foolish. Because of course she would not have been intruding at all. If there was one thing she had learned in these past few days, it was that Rueben and Betsy Flores had hearts as big as the wide-open spaces Leila had come to Texas expecting to find. They would welcome her with open arms, she was sure of it. And if she was feeling lonely and sorry for herself right now, then she had only herself to blame.

  She could hear them down there now, on the other side of the pasture. If she stilled her own breath she could hear distant music—sometimes Mexican music and sometimes American country and western music. She could hear shouts and laughter.

  Finally she could stand it no longer. She rolled over and sat up. A particularly loud burst of laughter at that 1 moment settled her resolve; she would not play this role she despised—the pitiful abandoned bride. She was Princess Leila of Tamir. She had been invited to a party, and she would go.

  She was in America, now. She could do whatever she pleased.

  She rose and dressed quickly, putting on a brightly colored wraparound skirt and a loose-fitting T-shirt over her modest one-piece bathing suit. She had braided her hair for swimming, one long braid that hung straight down her back. It would do fine as it was, although she did dip her hands in the pool and smooth back the loose wisps of hair around her face. Then she slipped into her sandals and set out.