Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4

by Jennifer Chance

  “Really?” Fran tilted her head, trying to remember. “Do you remember their names?”

  “Caroline and Marguerite, though Marguerite usually goes by Meg. Their dad’s name was…” Emmaline raised her gaze to the ceiling. “I don’t know. Silas…I think Silas Saleri.”

  “Silas Saleri,” Fran said. She couldn’t place the man, and she should, she thought. But she honestly hadn’t been paying that much attention during the ball. It was so much more fun to watch Emmaline and Kristos resist the pull of falling in love…and witness the varying responses to that fact, from ignorance to irritation. Had Silas been among the older guard of men scowling at Kristos? They all blended together after a while.

  “This one!” Lauren announced, pulling a gown out of the pile and thrusting it at Fran. “You have to try this on.”

  Fran took it dutifully enough, but she frowned at Lauren. “It’s green,” she said. “I thought you said you didn’t want me to wear green again.”

  “It’s not green—it’s cream, with a sage green bustle and gorgeous emerald embroidery. And it’s going to be perfect on you. We’ll need to put your hair up—even though guys generally like hair down. With that kind of neckline, you’re totally going to want to keep your hair off your shoulders. Try it on.”

  Fran shrugged, and Nicki moved to her side to help her undo the fastenings of the gown. “I thought this wasn’t supposed to be a meat market.”

  “Everything’s a meat market,” Lauren said, refocusing on the racks. “And that gown costs four thousand dollars retail. Someone ought to wear it, and it might as well be you.” She frowned over her shoulder at Nicki. “Nicki, stop fussing, you’ve got to try this gown on.”

  “My meat’s totally off the market now,” Nicki objected, but Lauren shook out a new dress, markedly different than the belle-of-the-ball gowns she had been pawing through before. “I hate these kinds of events anyway.”

  “All the more reason for you to wear this. Stefan’s entire face is going to melt. He’ll hustle you out of that ballroom so quickly your head’s going to spin.”

  “Ohhhh,” Nicki said. She pulled the gown from Lauren’s grasp and held it up to the mirror as Fran worked her head through the neckline of her gown with Emmaline’s help. Nicki grinned and Emmaline laughed, giving Nicki an enthusiastic thumb’s up.

  “I have to be in the room when he sees you in that,” Lauren said triumphantly. “Dimitri will have his hands full keeping all the marriage-minded misses from tripping over Ari, so I need something to bring me joy.”

  “That dress will definitely do it,” Fran agreed.

  Nicki grinned, kicking out a leg to follow the line of an impossibly high slit in the deep black gown. At the last ball Nicki had worn a toga dress, which as Fran recalled Stefan had taken slight exception to as well. But this gown put that one to shame. Flowing, sleek, and perfectly proportioned for Nicki’s compact but lithe figure, the material practically shimmered as Nicki swung around to face them all again.

  Then she stared.

  “Oh my God, Fran,” she breathed.

  “What?” Fran’s hands went instantly to her hair, knocked askew by her efforts to get into the dress. “What’s wrong?”

  A knock at Emmaline’s door immediately distracted them, and Lauren pivoted sharply as a voice called from the corridor. “Girls? It’s Catherine. May I come in?”

  “Of course!” Emmaline called out before Fran could ward her off. She was too far away from the mirror to see what had startled Nicki so, but a moment later the queen burst into the suite and took them all in with a sweeping glance.

  She froze when she saw Fran, her face arrested.

  “What?” Fran cried, looking down her the length of the dress. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing at all, my dear,” the queen said, walking around her. Her eyes were lit with speculation as she surveyed Fran from top to toe. “Nothing at all. This will do very nicely.”

  She slanted a glance toward Lauren. “You picked this out, didn’t you?” she charged, and Lauren laid a modest hand on her chest as Fran lifted her skirts and finally positioned herself in front of the mirror.

  “Oh,” she managed, blinking fast.

  She of all people knew the truth in the statement “the clothes make the man.” She’d gone through several identities, and her outward appearance had as much if not more to do with her success than the paper trail she’d created both before she arrived and after she left.

  But nothing could have prepared her for this gown.

  It wasn’t like Emmaline’s fairytale pink confection from the ball a few weeks ago. That gown had done everything to showcase Emmaline’s ethereal beauty and incandescent joy. This dress was every bit as big but it was…elegant. Sophisticated. It slid along Fran’s body as if it had been tailored specifically to her, but somehow made her seem taller, almost regal.

  It wasn’t a gown for a princess. It was a gown for a queen.

  And it was a queen who walked up next to Fran now, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder in the mirror’s reflection. “You are absolutely stunning, Francesca,” Catherine said, her arm snaking around Fran to give her a hug. “In that dress, I do believe you could do anything.”

  Ari stomped down the hallway, his head buzzing with too many meetings, too many file folders, too many screens of information. His memory was dropping in new facts and realizations by the hour, and what it wasn’t willing to provide, Cyril was ready as backup.

  But none of it was providing him the information he most sorely needed.

  Something had happened in the run-up to his flight from the municipal airport. According to Dimitri, Ari had been toying with new gadgets for days, talking about taking a flight to test his new instrument panels. So he hadn’t been fleeing headlong into the skies that night—not that that would have made any sense anyway. Dimitri hadn’t even known he was going to attempt a flight.

  According to Cyril, there were no threats to the royal family recorded in the days prior to or immediately after his disappearance—no activity at all, in fact, other than a building excitement about the prince’s planned Accession activities. The night of his flight, he’d attended a state function with his parents—not at the palace, and had rubbed elbows with all the usual government officials, captains of industry, and members of Garronia’s noble families.

  Though the Andris line had sat atop the throne for centuries, Garronia had started as a collection of tiny city-states, each of them boasting a landowner with the title of “count.” With the consolidation of power under a central king, the original monarch had seen the value in allowing the tiny fiefdoms to retain their noble titles, regardless if their estates were governed by the larger whole. The result made for a country full of noblemen and women, each with varying degrees of royal blood in their veins.

  Ari’s allotment of royal blood was about to boil over, however, if he didn’t figure out soon who he’d been—

  “Aristotle.” The voice cut across his thoughts so abruptly he halted, gaping at his mother.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he said, blinking quickly as he re-set his expression. “My thoughts were a million miles away.”

  “Walk with me?”

  Ari was instantly on his guard, but he tidied the papers in the folder he’d been glaring at while walking, and tucked them under his arm. His mother usually didn’t make a habit of strolling through the south wing of the palace, so her presence here was suspect. This was the main area for the business of the kingdom, and she usually left that to her husband…and to Ari, he realized, the certainty of that memory merely serving to heighten his concern.

  Still, he nodded to her, gesturing her down the hall. “The gardens aren’t too hot at this hour,” he suggested.

  “My thoughts exactly.” She beamed at him and he sensed more danger here. His mother was up to something. He suddenly felt the weight of all those still-lost memories piling on his shoulders. Was there something he should have known, should have don
e already? He couldn’t imagine what.

  They stepped out into the coolness of the early evening, and some of Ari’s tension rolled off him. He remembered this place, and now each new memory that returned to him was no longer accompanied by pain. But this garden had been one of his favorite retreats once he’d started frequenting the government section of the palace. It was rarely used, and could always be counted on to be quiet.

  His mother remained silent until they rounded the first corner of the manicured space. Then she began almost casually, ensuring Ari was prepped for anything from a breakfast menu discussion to war time alliances.

  What she said, however, still managed to take him by surprise.

  “What do you know of Francesca Simmons—truly know of her?” she asked.

  He blinked down at her. “Know?” he replied. “Not much beyond Stefan’s report.” His mother didn’t need to know that he’d pored over that report among all the stacks of documentation he’d been delivered that day. The four girls had had fairly complete workups done after Kristos had taken a fancy to Emmaline. “Psychology graduate student, studying at George Washington, completing her coursework within the next year. No prior arrests, no tax evasion charges, family in upstate Michigan. Her father remarried after her biological mother died, and she has two step-siblings from her step-mother’s previous marriage.”

  “I noticed that,” the queen said, and of course she would have been given access to the girls’ files as well. “There’s not a great deal of information about her family beyond what’s in the file, however. No mention of grandparents, no social media profiles of any of them.” She sighed. “And believe me, I looked.”

  “Why?” Ari tried to keep his tone light, but he could feel his irritation expand. His mother was allowed to be protective of him, of course. But from what he’d been able to pry out of Dimitri, she was the one who’d most wanted Francesca thrown in his path. Now she was worried about whether or not Francesca’s grandma had a Facebook page?

  “She’s just so—polished, I guess is the right word. Seasoned. She’s different from the other three girls, who are all lovely don’t get me wrong. But they don’t have the sense of age that Francesca does. Like she’s seen more in the space of her young life than any person should—and yet it’s shaped her in the best possible way.”

  “Well, she did decide to go into psychology,” Ari said. “Maybe experiencing some of the trials in her own life gave her the idea that she could help others get through their troubles, too. That would tend to encourage you to grow up fast.”

  “True.” His mother still seemed unconvinced, and she slanted him a questioning glance. “Why did you ask her to go with you when you left the island and struck out for the capital city?”

  “Why—what?” Ari hadn’t remembered his mother’s cross-examination being so oblique. Had it always been that way, or was this a new development in the past year? When she kept her serenely expectant gaze pinned on him, however, he took a stab at a response.

  “I—well, she was there, primarily, and she’d been there with me when I had…an episode, for lack of a better term. I remembered something that caused me distress, and she—well, she held my hands. She didn’t say anything, really. She simply was there. Steadying me, supporting me I suppose, until I was ready to go on. I appreciated that about her. Both that she stayed and that she didn’t try to do anything but be there. It was all I really needed, and I think she knew that, somehow.” He shrugged. “Again, she’s had some training in this area, which you knew before you sent her my way.”

  His mother didn’t take offense to the accusation, but she also didn’t seem convinced either. “And when you landed with her, where did you go, exactly? We know about where you lodged but…well there’s a story we can’t quite countenance from a cabbie who insists he saw you. Yet the story he tells is of a ragged, raving worker with a young American tourist—strangely enough, a tourist who he’d picked up at the municipal airport.” She studied him. “Why did you go there?”

  For a split second, Ari thought about lying. But he couldn’t afford to. Not until he understood if there had been any threat to the family, real or imagined.

  “I wanted to see the airfield where my plane had been that night. To see if it jogged any memories.” He shrugged. “It didn’t.” None that he could understand anyway.

  “And this delirium the cabbie mentioned?”

  Ari shrugged tightly. “The attempt threw me a little. I recovered, but I’m sure I wasn’t the most pleasant of fares.”

  “But Francesca was there.”

  “Yes,” he said studying her. “She was there. Why?”

  “It makes me happy to know it, dear,” his mother said, patting his arm. “We all should have someone with us when we most need them, don’t you think?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Over the course of one and a half days, Fran found herself running so fast, she almost could accept the fact that she was never going to see Ari again.

  Part of the problem was her sleeping arrangements. While Emmaline now had a gorgeous solo suite that was near enough to the royal quarters as to make clandestine meetings with Kristos at least technically possible, Nicki, Fran and Lauren were grouped together in a series of suites with adjoining doors. Doors that stayed open twenty-four seven. If Fran decided to sneeze on her own it would be noticed.

  Not that it mattered anyway. Ari hadn’t made a single attempt to contact her over the intervening day…and nor should he, she reminded herself now as she leaned into the mirror, applying another layer of mascara to lashes that were already sharp enough to pierce armor. Ari wasn’t her no-strings boyfriend, he was the soon-to-be crown prince of an entire country. She’d helped bring him back, yes, which was super impressive. But not impressive enough to merit a check-in.

  And she had been expecting a check in, as pathetic as that was. Which of course pissed her off.

  “Fran, can you zip me up?” Nicki walked into the room in stilettos that rivaled Fran’s eyelashes in terms of being deadly weapons. Her get-up was so completely un-Nicki that Fran grinned despite her foul humor.

  “Stefan isn’t going to know what hit him.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope he gets hit in a hurry,” Nicki groused. “I haven’t balanced on anything so narrow since I tried tightrope walking in the sixth grade. If I fall so much as three inches this dress is going to split right up the seam.” She glanced down at her cleavage. “As it is there’s no way I’m going to be able to wear a bra. I don’t know who designed this thing, but it definitely gets an F in functionality.”

  “You’ll thank me later.” Lauren sailed in with a dress that Fran would never have picked for her in a hundred years, yet it was somehow absolutely perfect. The lightest shade of pink—almost a creamy petal—it was a soft sheath gown that dropped silkily over Lauren’s body like a second skin. She wore her hair down and around her shoulders, secured with a single clip, and the entire ensemble made her seem soft and eminently touchable.

  The other thing that tied Lauren and Nicki’s dresses together was the word sleek. While there was nothing sleek about Fran’s ball gown.

  A sick wash of dread pooled in her stomach. “Guys, you both look way chicer than I do. I can barely get through a door in this gown.”

  “You look beautiful,” Lauren said, and Nicki blinked as she nodded her head several times.

  “Seriously, girl, you do. Like, I wouldn’t know it was you except I know it’s you. You were born for that dress,” Nicki said. “Even the queen thought so!”

  “Yeah, like she was going to tell me I looked terrible,” Fran cracked, but as she said the words, she realized they were unfair. The queen had been nothing but kind to them since they’d come to the royal palace. She’d welcomed Emmaline with open arms, had pushed Dimitri and Lauren together, and had arranged it so Stefan and Nicki would take off on a grand adventure…an adventure that had ended with them falling in love. She’d even attempted some matchmaking, Fran was certain, w
ith herself and Ari—at least in a general sense. She’d wanted Ari to have a friendly female face to help him through his transition back to Garronia and, well…Fran had been that for him. The queen was grateful, she was sure. But she was hardly going to embrace Fran as her bosom friend.

  Even if she was wearing a four-thousand-dollar gown.

  “Will Em meet us there?” Nicki asked, then slapped her hand to her ear. “Oh my God, I forgot my earrings. How could I forget my earrings?” She held up a finger. “Talk loudly or come with me.”

  Fran and Lauren exchanged a knowing grin, then dutifully trooped into Nicki’s room, a veritable disaster of clothes, makeup and shoes. “I put the ones I wanted to wear right over here,” she muttered, then she glanced up. “Keep talking, though. Is Emmaline meeting us there? She’s a part of the family right? She should be meeting us there, going with Kristos and the parents. Don’t you think? Oh—here they are. Okay, good. What do you think?”

  Fran blinked, trying to follow Nicki’s rapid words, but it was Lauren that replied first. “Yes, Emmaline is with Kristos, and no to the other open question, I have no idea if he’s planning to propose tonight. Dimitri refuses to speculate.”

  “Propose!” Nicki’s eyes narrowed. “He already proposed.”

  “I mean propose properly, with a ring,” Lauren said. “Kristos gave Em some kind of military pin, which she wears everywhere now and that’s darling, but it’s not a ring. She deserves to have a ring, and I think Kristos should propose tonight.”

  Fran thought the same thing. “Is there any chance of that?”

  “Well, I think that’s why despite the fact that the occasion is so intimate, we’re all dressing like Royal Barbie. If there’s going to be an official photographer on hand, you might as well show the American girls in a good light, especially since we’re all fast friends of the newest princess of Garronia.”

  “Princess or Queen?” Nicki was shaking her head in the mirror, watching the dangle of her earrings. “Is Ari seriously going to bounce Kristos off the throne?”