Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4

by Jennifer Chance

  “Yes, if Kristos is really, really lucky,” Lauren said. “And those earrings are ridiculous. Wear these.”

  Nicki scowled as she saw what Lauren had picked up off the dresser. “But those don’t dangle,” she said.

  “Your hair is down and dangling earrings will get tangled in it. They’ll also block your neck, so if you were hoping to get any action from Stefan tonight, you might want to keep all available kissable zones obstacle free.”

  Nicki’s brows went up, then she grinned. “Okay, you totally win at this. Gold hoops it is.”

  Fran touched her own earrings, which were the size of roller skates. “Should I change?”

  “No, but be careful,” Lauren said. “Those earrings don’t have backs and I don’t trust the hook things on them.”

  A staff member came to their doors a few minutes later to walk them through the long hallways of the palace to the cars that would take them to the Visitors’ Palace, where all the special events were held for the royal family. Due to their dress volume, their original limo was scrapped in exchange for an SUV, and two men helped them step into it, picking up Fran’s voluminous skirts as if they were used to handling such cargo on a daily basis.

  “There’s not a receiving line, right?” Nicki asked, her knees pressed together and her hands clutched atop them. “I don’t think I could do another receiving line.”

  “There might be one, but it’s really not supposed to be anything like that first ball, for all the fact that they’re calling it a ball, and that we’re dressed to impress,” Lauren said firmly. “It’s family, friends and dignitaries. That’s it.”

  Fran cocked her a glance. “By all accounts that’s pretty much everyone we saw at the ball last time.”

  “It’s not, truly,” Lauren said, but her mouth pinched into a frown as the car slowed, and they saw the long line of vehicles ahead of them. She grimaced. “Then again, maybe the guest list got out of hand or something.”

  “Or something,” Fran muttered as they slowly crept their way up to the front of the line. She saw a collection of people at the top of the small flight of stairs, and her heart sank.

  “They’re waiting for us,” she said morosely. “We are going to have to endure a receiving line.” She grimaced as Nicki groaned. “I thought once in a lifetime was going to be enough for that.”

  “Uh-huh. You two have entirely the wrong attitude,” Lauren said, opening her clutch to take out a thin compact. She checked her makeup, then critically surveyed both Fran and Nicki. “You both are beautiful, you both have been the source of endless speculation, and you both have been called to make a command performance today. You can totally pull this off, trust me. I’ve had lots of practice.”

  He could not believe the circus this supposedly private ball had become.

  “Where are they,” he gritted out as he watched the sinuous line of limos snake its way up the drive to the Visitors’ Palace’s front doors. “Since when are we supposed to greet guests without them?”

  Beside him, Kristos shrugged. “What’s your problem? Mom wanted to do something to Emmaline’s dress at the last minute, and dad got caught up with Cyril. It’s a dance. You served as primary host for these for the last three months before you—you know. Before.”

  “I did?” Ari winced as a sudden stab of pain clamored through his mind. He’d not had one of those flashes in a while, but tonight, every time he turned around something was setting him off. “And I enjoyed it?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Kristos grinned. “But you didn’t complain about it like a ten-year-old.”

  Ari sent him a withering glance. “Why do I feel like you’re rewriting history?”

  “Probably because I can.” Kristos’s smile broadened. “In fact, the more you can’t precisely remember, the better my life is going to be, I suspect.” He glanced back to the line of cars coming up the drive, and straightened.

  “Okay, this is where it’s going to get a little dicey. Chin up.”

  “Dicey how?” Ari pivoted as well and scowled as yet another black limousine coasted to a stop in front of the palace. The back doors swung open, and two attractive girls stepped out, their hair and skin slightly fairer than typical Garronois women, but the thick accents in their bright chatter proclaiming them as natives.

  There was no mistaking the next woman to step into the glowing lights of the reception carpet. Edeena Saleri looked resplendent in a ball gown of deep rose pink, the color perfectly setting off her flawless skin and long flowing dark hair. “Remind me again, there was no trouble between us?” Ari said. “I get the most incredible headache every time I see the woman.”

  “She’s not the one who gives you a headache,” Kristos said, his voice low enough not to carry. “It’s him.”

  The car’s final passenger emerged, and it was all Ari could do not to falter back a step. As it was Kristos widened his stance so that his right leg was right behind him, bracing his hip. “Easy there,” he muttered. “He’s an ass but you defanged him once already.”

  “Explain,” Ari said tightly as the three girls fussed over the old man, arranging themselves to his apparent preference—the two younger women in front, himself and Edeena following behind.

  “Silas got the idea you should marry Edeena, which was funny since you guys were already friends but not that kind of friends. More the kind who would knock each other into the ocean and throw dirt at each other.”

  Ari snorted, and Kristos continued quickly as Silas and his entourage began strolling purposefully up the red carpet. “You let him know you weren’t interested, and neither was she, but there were hard feelings.”

  “Edeena?”

  “Not her so much. But there’s that curse.”

  That was the second time he’d heard of it, but he’d not followed up. “What curse?”

  “Caroline and Marguerite, you’re here!” Kristos said, grinning as the two women reached them. “I didn’t think we’d be able to pry you away from the beach.”

  “Father insisted,” the first young woman pouted, apparently Caroline. Ari couldn’t place her at first, then she beamed at him, her entire face lighting up. “And we missed you so much, Ari! It’s so much better that you’re not dead.”

  Ari caught her embrace before she leveled him, her hair smelling like honeysuckle and roses and another flower he couldn’t quite place. It was the scent of the flowers that awakened his memory most forcefully, but there was no pain here. He simply remembered the girl.

  Marguerite was easier. Her eyes dancing, she didn’t hug him but dropped into a proper curtsy, mock-glaring at her sister until Caroline did the same. “Sorry,” Caroline whispered, also with mock chagrin, and both young women dissolved into giggles. They were Kristos’s age, Ari knew, but seeing their laughing, carefree faces made him feel a thousand years old.

  The girls shifted to the side and Edeena stepped up, moving slightly ahead of her father. “Ari,” she said, her expression much more tense and maybe a little desperate. Ari stepped toward her and took her outstretched hands in his, drawing them up to his lips in a formal, almost courtly manner.

  “Edeena,” he said, allowing his voice to be filled with rich warmth. “You look beautiful, as always.”

  The relief that flooded her eyes gratified him. He’d said the right thing. He had no interest in marrying the woman—he knew that to the core of his being—but he could make her way easier tonight under the hawkish glare of her father.

  When he turned to Silas, however, Ari nearly blacked out.

  “Count Saleri, thank you so much for coming!” Kristos said brightly, his words overloud as Edeena’s grip on Ari’s hands became more urgent. She nearly crushed his finger bones, in fact, the pain clearing his head as a sharp counterpoint to his own fogged thoughts.

  He stared at Silas Saleri.

  “Count Saleri,” Ari said, and if his voice was several shades cooler, the man didn’t flinch. Instead he peered at Ari almost curiously, his beady eyes dar
k and piercing in the ghostly pallor of his face. This was not a man who spent time in the sun—not enough of it anyway. His skin was the color of old straw, and his hair a sallow near-white, for all that his body remained whipcord tight. The man’s suit was impeccably cut, gold gleamed at his wrist and fingers, and everything about him proclaimed old money.

  “It’s good you are back, Aristotle,” Silas said, and his voice sent another shock of urgency through Ari’s brain. That was it, he suddenly realized. He didn’t feel pain at seeing this man; he felt anxiety, apprehension. Like he needed to be on his guard at all times. “Perhaps now you can attend more intelligently to the business of being a crown prince.”

  “It will be my honor to do exactly that,” Ari said, bowing to the man.

  “Count Matretti!” Kristos’s overloud voice announced the next man in line, and Ari offered Silas a polite nod.

  “I’ll look forward to talking to you further inside, Count Saleri,” he said, his voice a little sharper than he intended. “I’m sure we’ll have much to discuss.”

  Was it his imagination, or did Silas wince?

  Then the family moved on and were replaced by Garronia’s ambassador to the US, a tall, athletic-looking man who greeted them both warmly. But the car pulling up to the red carpet next set Ari’s every sense on edge, and it was all he could do not to bumble Matretti along so that he could peer down at the newcomers.

  “Relax, will you?” Kristos asked, though his tone was wry. “Though I’m not one to talk. I’m honestly glad you missed me making a fool out of myself these past few weeks. Not that I could have done it any other way.”

  The doors to the SUV swung open, and the drivers helped down the first of the American women—Nicki. Kristos’s chuckle transformed into a strangled cough. “Oh, this oughtta be good. Where’s Stefan?”

  “Inside,” Ari said, but he couldn’t keep the humor out of his voice either. He’d never seen Nicki Clark look so utterly feminine and strong at one time—though admittedly, half the time he’d known her she’d been in athletic gear. Now she looked up and waved energetically at him and Kristos as Lauren Grant stepped down.

  “Mom is going to hate missing this,” Kristos said, and Ari slid a glance over to the doorway, further up the stairs.

  “No she’s not,” he murmured back. “Look alive.”

  Queen Catherine Andris stood slightly separate from her husband atop the upper landing, her face lit with satisfaction as she gazed down at the women emerging from the SUV. Her glance took in Lauren and Nicki with a satisfied smirk, then shifted to the car. So it was that Ari’s first impression of Francesca wasn’t with his own eyes—but in the lifted brows and delighted expression of his mother.

  He turned around as Kristos breathed out a startled “well,” and focused on the SUV.

  “Francesca.”

  He nearly spoke the words as a benediction, but he couldn’t help himself. Francesca stepped down on the carpet looking like everything he saw in her every day, but suddenly and fully manifested for everyone else to see as well. She straightened regally in a gown that was absolute perfection. Ari couldn’t pick out the details though, because he couldn’t stop staring at Francesca’s face.

  She was stunningly beautiful, and as her gaze lifted to meet his up the red-carpeted stairs, her smile was bright enough to fill his whole world.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Yo, who’s the old guy staring daggers at you?”

  Nicki asked the question under her breath, but Fran didn’t need the warning. She’d sensed the hatred rolling down the stairs from the Visitors’ Palace since she’d stepped out of the SUV. “I have no idea,” she muttered.

  “He’s not the only one,” Lauren said, drawing up beside her on Fran’s other side. “I’ve counted a half-dozen steely-eyed scowls already. Looks like you’re not terribly popular among the geriatric nobility.” As Fran groaned, Lauren just laughed. “Welcome to being gorgeous, my friend. Keep your chin up and act like you get glared at all the time.”

  Nicki giggled and Fran’s tension eased as the three of them strolled up the red carpet. “We could have used some cameras,” Lauren said, looking around. “This feels positively reclusive without the paparazzi here.”

  “Well, you know, private party—hey, now. Dimitri’s spied you.”

  That seemed to mollify Lauren, and she straightened and stepped regally up the stairs as Fran took an extra moment to gather her skirts. Her dress weighed probably a thousand pounds, but she was pretty sure it could stop a stampede of elephants. Nicki went next, her laughter filling the air as she flung her arms around Kristos and then Ari. “You both look so great!” she gushed, her loud voice drawing more curious onlookers from the castle back out onto the wide receiving porch of the upper landing. Fran glanced to the top of the stairs to see that Stefan had stepped out of the main doorway, and the look he leveled at Nicki was enough to carry Fran for the rest of her days. Fierce and protective and proud all at once.

  With her heart full, she reached Kristos and Ari.

  Kristos said something—she was sure of it—and she said something back, their voices battering against her mind like rain. But it was Ari that touched her, Ari that drew her hand up to his mouth, his lips a bare brush over her knuckles. Perfectly polite, perfectly formal. But the expression on his face was one of transfixed intensity. His eyes bored into hers as if he was trying to see all the way to her heart, and his grip on her fingers was almost painfully tight.

  “Francesca,” he murmured, and in that word there were a thousand other words, all of them rich with promises and possibilities. Beside him Kristos nudged Ari’s elbow and he blinked, as if coming out of a daze. “Thank you so much for coming,” he said, the stilted phrase so awkward that Kristos burst out laughing, clapping his brother on the back.

  The additional human contact seemed to be exactly what Ari needed. He straightened and gave Fran an abashed grin, as if he hadn’t just leveled her with a look of total and abject adoration. “Thank you,” he said again. “It seems far too long since I’ve seen you. You’ll have time to talk inside?”

  “Of course,” Fran said, nodding to him, then Kristos again. She felt painfully awkward all of the sudden, and she stepped quickly around the brothers as car doors slammed below them indicating the arrival of another limo. But as she moved to gather up her dress, Ari caught her hand again, turning her back to him.

  “You’re absolutely beautiful,” he said quietly, and his heart was once more in his eyes, fairly lifting her off her feet by the power of his gaze. “Thank you for being here.”

  “Of course—” she said again, though she unaccountably felt like crying…something she couldn’t allow to happen, given the amount of mascara she’d layered onto her lashes. Nicki said something further up the stairs and Fran used the interruption to break away from Ari, lifting her skirts and hurrying as best she could to catch up with the other women. Who seriously got anything done wearing dresses like these? She was exhausted climbing a single flight.

  At the top of the stairs a second welcoming party awaited—including Dimitri and Stefan. But while she wanted nothing more than to see Lauren and Nicki reunite with those two, she found herself planted in front of King Jasen and Queen Catherine.

  “Francesca, I do believe you’ve quite stolen the show,” the queen said. She glanced to Jasen and scowled. “I told you we should have invited the media.”

  “If you don’t think there aren’t long camera shots being taken this very instant, you’re very much mistaken.” Jasen’s chiding tone was soft, though, and he looked at his wife with indulgent affection. “Nothing happens outside of closed doors in Garronia that won’t get captured on some camera, somewhere. It’s the nature of the beast.”

  Fran was about to move on, but it was Jasen who stopped her, not the queen. “I may not get a moment to thank you later, and so much more than a moment is needed,” he said, his voice deepening with emotion. “Thank you for what you did for Ari.”

>   Fran shook her head automatically, but she couldn’t bear to be given credit a moment longer for something she really didn’t do.

  “Ari’s memory was right there on the surface, wanting to re-emerge,” she said. “That would have happened without me being there. He truly wanted to come back, to work—to take care of his family. That was the foremost concern on his mind, that he had to get back to protect you.”

  Jasen’s own face creased into a soft smile. “The desire I’m sure was there—the doctors said as much. But the doctors, and there were plenty of them, didn’t help him take that first step. Didn’t give him the hand to hold while he made it. You did.”

  The simple declaration was almost Fran’s undoing, but she was saved by the queen linking her arm with Jasen’s, the expression on her face shifting to one of adoration as she gazed at her husband. “I knew there was a reason why I married you,” Catherine said, and her good humor effectively broke the chokehold of emotion that had grabbed Fran’s throat.

  The king laughed, Fran laughed, then she was past the two of them, sailing into the Visitors’ Palace.

  Nicki greeted her on the other side of the door. “Isn’t this place fantastic?” she enthused, tugging Fran inside. “Every time I come here I can’t help but remember you and Emmaline walking through here like a couple of tourists, with no idea how much your lives were about to change.”

  Fran laughed. “Well, I think I had some idea. Emmaline was clueless though—which made her face when Kristos appeared one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “She’s not clueless anymore.” Lauren’s voice rang with pride as she strolled up to them. She nodded to the front of the room, where Emmaline stood in the center of a small knot of women, talking animatedly. “As soon as she realized that half of Garronia seems given over to charitable works, she’s been willing to lend her ear to everyone with a cause. She’s not even officially married yet and she’s volunteered for half the organizations in the city.”