by J. M. Stengl
“I can help with that,” he said in a tone that chilled my blood. “You will learn to value me, Gillian. Our life goals mesh perfectly. You want a high title and social position. I want a beautiful wife from noble bloodlines.”
Something in his voice drew my gaze up to his, and I stood transfixed under that icy stare. A small, frightened part of me wanted to give in, as though my fate were fixed: I would inevitably belong to this man. I was a rabbit caught in his snare. Was there any point in struggling? Resistance only tightened the noose, bringing the inevitable end so much faster . . .
Fidelio’s voice behind me broke through the fog in my brain just enough to snap me into action. I ducked out of Max’s grasp—he didn’t dare grab me again and cause a scene. I rushed away from him to the counter, breathing hard but smiling. If the smile was a little wobbly, I hoped Fidelio wouldn’t notice.
“Good morning, Fidelio! Congratulations on placing second yesterday. I hope my handkerchief brought you that extra bit of good luck.”
Fidelio turned, blinked, went pink in the face. “Oh. Hello, Lady Gillian. Yes, thank you.” He felt around in his various pockets, pulled out a little clump of fabric, and held it out to me. “It was, uh . . . nice of you.”
I wanted to tell him to keep it to remind him of me but didn’t dare. He looked distracted and harried rather than pleased by my attention, and he kept glancing toward Max, who hovered nearby, too close for comfort. Pretending to be unaware of the ominous presence behind me, I smiled bigger than ever, wrapping the returned handkerchief around my fingers. “Are you out flying again today, or do you plan to spend a more leisurely morning?” I fluttered my eyelashes. “I was thinking of a little picnic—”
“Sorry!” Fidelio didn’t quite meet my eyes as he offered a nervous smile. “I’m checking out. I need to help fly the racers back home. To Vetricia, I mean.”
My heart sank. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you would stay until the closing party.”
He shook his head, the pink in his cheeks deepening. Despite his dark hair and eyes, Fidelio had a fair complexion. He was cute and boyish rather than handsome, but I found him appealing. Like a puppy.
“I, uh, came early because Raoul asked me to, so I’ve already been here longer than planned. I’ve got to get back on duty. With the horses, I mean.” He sneaked a quick glance at my face, looked sympathetic, and added, “I’m really sorry Raoul left so suddenly. I’m sure he’ll be in touch. With you, I mean.”
Just as I’d deduced last night, Fidelio thought Bird-nest Beard and I were an item. He really believed it! No wonder he’d made no effort to spend time with me.
Fidelio glanced toward the desk, where the clerk waited patiently. “Uh, do you want me to take Raoul a message? He did tell you goodbye, didn’t he?”
This was absurd. All too aware of Max’s gaze burning into the back of my head, I took matters into my own hands. Resting my fingers on Fidelio’s sleeve, I put deep affection into my voice as I gazed up into his eyes. “Fidelio, don’t you understand? You’re the man I want, not your cousin.”
His mouth dropped open, and his blush turned crimson. “Uh, Lady Gillian . . . Sorry, I need to run! Um, I’ll tell Raoul to call . . . I mean, never mind. Goodbye!” He snatched his paperwork from the desk clerk and headed for the door without a backward glance.
I stood still, watching him go. That . . . hadn’t gone the way I’d imagined the night before. My heart seemed to have stopped beating, and there was a strange buzzing in my ears. I gave my head a little shake. Drew and exhaled a deep breath.
Suddenly aware of the clerk’s curious gaze on me, I composed my face into pleasant lines, offered a cool nod and turned away. But that was a mistake—I found myself facing the grand staircase and Max. He leaned against a carved newel post, his lips curled in a smile that was not really a smile, a confident gleam in his eye.
I spun away, my heart pounding. Fidelio . . . I should go after him. It wasn’t his fault, really. He was so young and shy. The surprise of my interest in him must be overwhelming. I could still fix this. I could! I just had to . . .
“Gillian, what are you doing?”
If I wasn’t such a lady, I might have cursed. Why did Raquel have to show up right now?
I turned to the elevator, smiling at my best friend as she approached me. She wore a chic three-piece travel suit and looked stunning, as always. “Are you leaving?” I asked, trying not to sound hopeful. I really couldn’t deal with Raquel right then.
She glanced around, a tiny frown between her perfect brows. “Where is Fidelio?”
“He just checked out.”
Her head tipped back, and she muttered something I was just as happy not to hear. She then wrapped her long fingers around my upper arm and dragged me off to a corner. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You always spoil everything!”
“What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”
Raquel was incredibly beautiful, with striking blue eyes and long dark hair—like a fashion model, everyone said. She was younger than me by several months, and we’d always been close. Sometimes close like sisters, but lately close like enemies who didn’t want to let each other out of sight.
“Everything is always about you!” she snarled. “You steal the attention of the guys I like then end up scaring them off with your bizarre dramatics. Now, did you or did you not try to steal Fidelio from me?”
As if she hadn’t stolen boys from me too! I drew myself up straighter and lifted my chin to a haughty angle. “You’re the one who hogged his attention these past three weeks. I hardly got a chance to speak to him alone, let alone tell him how much I like him.”
She gave me a look of deepest incredulity. “But you had . . . What about Raoul Trefontane? You hogged his attention so much, he never even glanced in my direction!”
“What? You honestly think I could be interested in an old guy with a beard halfway down to his knees?”
She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. “Gillian, he’s a Trefontane!” She whispered the name as if it meant something to me.
“Yeah? So?” Was I missing something?
She pressed two fingers to her forehead, closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly. “You. You’re an imbecile. Look, I’m warning you: Leave Fidelio alone. He is not interested in you.”
“So you believe,” I snapped back.
She glanced past me, her lips curling into a scornful smirk. Was Max still there, loitering by the staircase? I shuddered, and Raquel’s gaze snapped back to me. “You know, I hope you end up marrying Prince Max,” she hissed. “You two deserve each other. I doubt anyone ever could teach you to think, but he would keep you under control.”
“I will never marry Prince Max,” I growled.
Her brows rose high. “We’ll see!” With a sharp lift of her chin, she returned to the main desk.
I sprang into motion, hastening to the elevator before Max could catch me. I thought I heard his footsteps on the marble floor, but I managed to duck into the elevator, push the buttons, and hide in the corner as the doors swept shut. Only then did I let out a long breath of relief.
Then I sucked in another breath, this time through clenched teeth. It was all so unfair! Why should I end up with Max stalking me while Raquel got to swan around with a sweetheart like Fidelio? No. No, I wouldn’t stand for it.
But what if Raquel was right? What if Fidelio really wasn’t interested in me? He’d never had the chance to get to know me, that was the problem. Maybe if I wrote to him . . .
When I reached my suite, I found my parents in the sitting room, eating breakfast at one of the little rolling room-service tables. The scents of sausage and buttered toast only turned my stomach.
“You’re up early, Gillian,” my mother commented as she poured coffee into a cup and offered it to me. “Did you have a good time at the party last night?”
“No.” I didn’t bother to offer further explanation. The less they knew about yesterday’s fiasco, the better.
I accepted the coffee, gulped a mouthful, and coughed as it burned its way down my throat. I set the cup on the table with a clatter, then turned and sank onto a plush, rose-colored lounge. “I want to go home,” I announced. “Today.”
Mother exchanged a look with Father. They both wore chenille bathrobes, hers in pink, his in dark blue. Mother’s bleached hair was still frizzy before the application of product to tame her curls. Father just looked old, and the dour expression on his face aged him more. He opened his mouth, ready to answer me, but Mother raised a warning hand and turned one of her most placating smiles my way. “My dear girl, just yesterday morning you insisted on staying until the last moment.”
“Things have changed,” I stated firmly.
“Isn’t there some man willing to marry you?” Father asked with heavy significance in his tone.
I glared at him, fire in my eyes. Something in his gaze made me pause, however. Something . . . I couldn’t name. But I didn’t like it. Did he know about Max’s pursuit? Was this his way of telling me he expected me to accept this prince since I missed my opportunity with a prince last year?
I didn’t want to wait and find out. I rose from the lounge, straightened my skirts, and answered coolly, “None that I’m willing to marry.”
With that, I retreated to my room and shut the door firmly behind me.
Two days later found me seated in a comfy chair in my private sitting room back home at Roxwell Hall, staring at the screen of my laptop. The cursor blinked at the end of the last line of an email I’d just spent an hour composing.
So you see, Fidelio—it read—it’s all just been a misunderstanding. I hope that you will—
What did I hope exactly? That he would wake up and realize his undying passion for me? Would an email, no matter how long and carefully worded, be enough to convince him of what he probably hadn’t even realized he felt? Was this the surest way to reach the heart of a nineteen-year-old prince who could barely be pulled away from the flying-horse stables for two minutes together?
I selected the whole thing and deleted it. An hour of work gone in an instant. But what was the use? Maybe I should just send a text. Keep things light and simple.
I bowed my head and rubbed my tired eyes with the tips of my fingers. It was always a bit jarring to settle back into the real world of screens after a few weeks’ stay at Faraway Castle, where the dense magical atmosphere interfered with technology. I always missed access to social media the first few days at the resort, but by the time I left, I missed the peace and quiet of a phone-free existence. And the spontaneously appearing fancy drinks with umbrella straws—I missed those too.
I snapped the laptop shut and picked up my phone again, scrolling through contacts to find Fidelio’s name. Before I’d clicked to begin composing a cheerful, humorous but subtly meaningful text punctuated with a well-chosen emoji or two, someone knocked at my door.
“Yes?”
“Lady Gillian,” came the voice of one of the manor’s many maids. “Your parents have asked for you to join them in the study.”
“What . . . you mean, now?”
“Yes, my lady.”
I sighed but slipped my phone into the pocket of my fitted white trousers. No doubt my parents were going to gang up on me again about marriage prospects. Whatever. It couldn’t be as bad as last summer, after the whole debacle with Prince Omar and the cinder-girl. And if they planned to pressure me about Max, well . . . we’d just have to see about that!
I hurried to the study, ready to get this little family meeting over with. Peering through the door, I saw Mother seated on the loveseat exactly so that sunlight fell brilliantly on her golden curls. Father stood behind his desk, looking grave and authoritative.
Ugh. This couldn’t be good.
“All right, I’m here,” I said, not bothering to hide my annoyance at being summoned like a servant. “What do you want?” I stood on a priceless old rug with my back to the empty fireplace, feeling rather like a little girl again and not liking it one bit.
My parents exchanged glances. Neither spoke for an unsettling few moments. Finally, Mother turned to me, smiled, and said, “Gillian, your father has something he wants to say to you.”
I didn’t let myself roll my eyes. I simply crossed my arms, tilted my head, and shifted my gaze to Father, waiting.
“Gillian,” he said, in his deep voice. He got no further before drawing a long breath and letting it out in a gusty sigh. Only then did he manage to say, “Gillian, it’s time you knew the truth. Our family is facing serious . . . difficulty.” He passed a hand down his tired face, casting a glance my mother’s way. “If only that young man hadn’t backed out on the plan, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“What plan?” I looked from Father to Mother and back again. Something in their expressions disturbed me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Father cleared his throat. “You were supposed to receive a proposal of marriage at Faraway Castle from Raoul Trefontane—”
“Wait, no . . . Wait!” My eyes widened, and my brain went into a tailspin. I stared at my father, my jaw slowly dropping. “Wait just one minute. Are you telling me that proposal was a set-up?” A little huffing laugh burst from my throat. Then another. “I can’t believe it!”
But . . . I could. Something Bird-nest Beard had said that day by the waterfall echoed in my memory: “I came here—to Faraway Castle I mean—to meet you.” I’d hardly noticed at the time, but since then I’d wondered what he meant by it.
Father’s face went gray. “Gillian, are you telling me he did propose to you? And you turned him down?”
Mother tsked and shook her head, her curls bobbing. “I told you we should prepare her. She wouldn’t look twice at a visconte’s heir when her heart is set on a prince.”
“But you know how contrary she can be! I thought we couldn’t miss.” Father sank into the chair behind his desk, muttering a few words I didn’t usually hear him say.
“I warned you she wasn’t taking him seriously.”
“How could she not?” he shouted, pounding the desk top. “He’s a Trefontane! Women around the world throw themselves at billionaire bachelors. Those boys are handsome, successful, athletic . . . All of them—even the married one—require bodyguards, or they’d have to fend females off with a stick. I’ve seen it for myself! What’s wrong with our daughter?”
This was all a tad more intense than I was expecting. My legs felt squiggly, so I moved around the edge of the room to perch on the arm of the loveseat beside Mother. I didn’t feel like laughing, but a nervous laugh burbled up anyway. “Father, you’re laying it on a bit thick. Billionaire bachelor? Maybe I’d go for that! But I had some ancient mountain man with a beard like a ratty bathmat ask to marry me, and you’re saying I was supposed to accept?”
“Ancient?” Mother echoed. “Raoul Trefontane just turned twenty-five!”
I flicked my fingers in the air. “Ancient to me. And that doesn’t fix the beard situation. What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s not as if he’s the last fish in the sea.” When my parents exchanged speaking looks, a chill trickled down my spine like cold sweat. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”
Mother took my hand, linked our fingers, then patted my arm with her other hand. Not a good sign. “Darling, your father is in some annoying legal trouble with some business associates, the Trefontane family, about a sum of money he couldn’t replace in time.”
“Couldn’t . . . replace?” I blinked into her eyes, her words churning around in my head. “As in, he took money from the business without asking?” The chill settled in my stomach. I whipped my head around and fixed a glare on my father. “Don’t tell me . . . You lost it gambling!”
He rolled his eyes, then lurched to his feet and started pacing across the rug.
“Gillian, you don’t understand business matters, so don’t criticize your father’s choices,” Mother began.
“Oh,
really? I don’t understand? Maybe not. Last I checked, I’m pretty sure embezzling was still a crime. Has something changed?”
“Quiet!” Father rumbled. I slumped, and mother made room on the loveseat for me to sit beside her. “Listen and stop interrupting.”
I nodded. But my soul was curling up and dying inside. There would be scandal, and property would be confiscated. If Roxwell Hall had to be sold, my brother Robert would inherit only the title. My sister would lose face, and her children would suffer socially. My father might even go to prison. The family name would become a byword.
I might even lose my honorary title!
Father schooled his face into conciliatory lines and focused on me. “I took a trifling sum from the fund in my care, certain I could replace it before anyone noticed a shortfall. But I had a run of terrible luck, and then . . . Well, all you need to know is that I worked out that deal—a marriage between you and the family’s oldest son. He was supposed to meet you at Faraway Castle and decide . . .” He gave me a sour look. “I thought he backed out, but now we learn that you blew up the deal. You turned down the heir to the Beneventi title and the Trefontane fortune! That family is one of the richest in the entire world! What were you thinking? What good is there in having a beautiful daughter if she won’t use her assets to help the family?”
“Now, Cyril,” said Mother, patting my hand again as she shook her head at my father. “If you had warned Gillian ahead of time, if she had known it was a matter of family honor and fortune, I’m sure she would have done her part.”
Thinking of that beard, I shuddered inwardly. Would I? Would I have made myself smile sweetly at that overgrown bush? Would I have sacrificed my entire future for my family? No! A thousand times, no! Did Bird-nest Beard really think I would marry a man from the family who threatened my entire future? The Trefontanes must be next door to the Mob!
Father raised one finger and pinned me with a stare. “We still have a chance. You have another opportunity to save the family. I received word within the last hour of a counter proposal.”