by Cara Colter
Of course, she started to cry.
“Oh, Jordan,” he said and put his arms around her.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, then traitorously snuggled deeper into his embrace. Why did her heart think it knew things that her head could not accept?
That some men—that this man—was someone she could trust.
Forever.
“You heard part of a very long conversation. I would never take Whitney away from you. Never. Nor would I allow anybody else to.”
“So you’ll keep me here, against my will, just to keep Whitney.”
“I won’t keep you here against your will.”
“You already have,” she reminded him tartly, but still didn’t pull out of his arms like a stronger, saner woman would have done.
“Your security team has standing orders. They are for your protection.”
“My security team?” she echoed. “I have a security team?”
“Yes. Webster heads it. He’s one of my most trusted men.”
“Why would I have a security team?”
“Even before your name was publicly linked with mine in the paper, the people who kidnapped me knew your name and expressed interest in you. That made you vulnerable in ways you never were before.”
“How could they have known my name?” she said.
He looked away, embarrassed. He said, very softly, “When I was their prisoner, I called it in my sleep.”
She stared at him. Could he be making this up? He looked too thoroughly embarrassed to have made it up. He had called her in his sleep!
She could feel the defenses crumbling again. She hated it that he had this effect on her. Hated it.
“Is Whitney safe?” she asked, with new fear. “From kidnappers?”
“Of course she is. Both of you have been under intense security.”
“But how could I not know that?”
“A good security team can be nearly invisible if they have to be.”
She was falling for it. It all seemed so plausible. She wanted to believe him. But she couldn’t. Mustn’t. “Be that as it may, I still know what I heard you say to your sister.”
“Look, we’re late for lunch with my mother. No one keeps the queen waiting. After lunch we’ll talk about what you think you heard. If you still want to leave,” he shrugged, almost carelessly, “I won’t try to stop you.”
Irrationally, she felt annoyed at how easily he was going to give her up. “I’m not going for lunch with your mother.”
He smiled, just a touch testily. “Jordan, you can say no to me, but nobody says no to a summons from the queen.”
It was tempting to be the first, but the truth was, curiosity overtook her. The truth was she felt suddenly too tired to fight.
The truth was he had called her name in his sleep.
At least that sounded like the truth.
An hour later, dressed in her best black slack suit Jordan, Owen and Whitney were ushered into the palace dining room. Whitney had a ribbon in her hair, and was wearing an adorable white dress that did not possibly look like it could survive lunch with a four-year-old. Owen was in pressed slacks, a shirt, a pullover sweater.
He looked every ounce the prince that he was.
Queen Marissa made a terrible fuss over Whitney and Whitney lapped up every ounce of it. Jordan, tired and cranky, only just managed to be polite.
But the queen seemed to take everybody by surprise when lunch was over and she said to Owen, “Son, why don’t you take Whitney down to the kennel? I heard there was a new litter of puppies there.”
Owen looked surprised, but after a quick glance at his mother gave no argument.
Jordan waited in silence after they had gone. She wanted to dislike the queen, but found she could not. The woman was gracious and dignified and personable. There was a softness in her eyes that was most compelling.
“I want to thank you for your work at the mine yesterday, Ms. Ashbury. Or may I call you Jordan?” At Jordan’s nod, she went on. “I heard how you worked in the canteen, did practical things to bring comfort.”
“Do you hear everything?” Jordan asked.
The queen smiled. “Just about.”
“Then do you know I tried to leave the island this morning?”
“Yes. Would you like to tell me why?”
So she told her about the part of the conversation she had heard Owen have with Anastasia.
“Oh, my dear, how dreadful for you to think we would steal your daughter from you! It’s completely untrue, of course. You must have only heard part of a more complicated conversation.”
How could you not believe a woman who possessed this much grace, and whose eyes were lit from within with character and strength?
“It’s true, I would like to be a part of my granddaughter’s life,” the queen said quietly. “Would I keep you here against your will to make that happen? No.”
Jordan sighed. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“The truth is you haven’t known what to believe since he left you five years ago, isn’t that true?”
She looked at the woman startled.
“Trust shattered is the hardest thing to repair,” the queen said. “I know that. My brother was murdered many years ago. It changed who I was, just as Owen leaving you alone changed who you are.”
“Yes.” It felt like no one had understood that before.
“At the risk of sounding trite, I have found dark clouds do have silver linings. My loss taught me to appreciate what I have while I have it.”
“I suppose I learned things, too,” Jordan said reluctantly. “I just don’t know what.”
The queen smiled. “In a time when everyone puts themselves first, Jordan, you learned to be selfless. You learned to put another first, your daughter. And I understand you’ve used the experiences of your own life to help other young mothers. To me, this is the greatest test of character—can we use what life hands us to become better and stronger and wiser instead of bitter and cynical and self-protective?”
Jordan thought, not without shame, that she had been bitter and cynical and self-protective with Owen. So much so, that perhaps it was that—her own attitude—that had sent her running for home, not the words she had overheard.
“I think I’m afraid of loving him,” she said out loud, and then blushed wildly. She had just told the queen of Penwyck she was in love!
And the queen was smiling gently at her, as if that was not such terrible news.
The queen said, “Perhaps I could share something with you that life has taught me?”
“Please.”
“We use this word called love because it is convenient, but really I have found love encompasses many feelings and emotions. It is part passion and part exhilaration and part hope and part wonder. Love has so many elements, but as the years go by, I find one element of love stands apart from all the others.”
Jordan found herself holding her breath, as if the secret to the universe was about to be revealed to her.
“And that part,” the queen said softly, “is forgiveness. You see, the initial stages of love lead us to believe the one we love is perfect, but who in this world is perfect? And so as the years go by that illusion of perfection is replaced by something more real. We find our loved ones, far from belonging on the pedestals we have placed them on, have foibles and weaknesses.
“To truly love,” she continued softly, “is to see all of a person, to forgive them their imperfections, their humanity. It is the quality of forgiveness that lifts love up to the next plane, where we no longer love an illusion that fulfilled some need in us, but rather we love someone who is real, who we can give something to, rather than take from.
“To me, it is as if love grows up, leaves its childish illusions behind it, and becomes real. Many years ago in California,” the queen said gently, “you fell in love with a man who became your prince, a fairy-tale love. Now, the question is, can you love a prince into becoming your man?”
“That’s why I want to go home,” Jordan confessed. “I feel too confused here, as if I will never find the answer.”
“You are free to go home if you wish,” the queen said. “Please just notify me so that I can make the proper security arrangements for you. But if I may say something? I have rarely found myself able to solve a problem by running away from it. Mind you, I have rarely found an answer by running after it, either. The harder I chase, the further it gets from my grasp.”
“Then what?”
“Why don’t you just wait,” the queen said. “And let the answer find you?”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“But it will.”
“I believe you,” Jordan said. “I know it’s probably improper to say this, but I feel as if I have known you for a very long time, and as though I can trust you.”
The queen looked troubled. “I am honored by that, my dear, though my failings are also many, and I too must count on forgiveness being an element of love in the near future.”
Owen was waiting for her when Jordan finally came out of the dining area. “That was quite the lengthy lunch. What did you talk about?”
“Where’s my daughter? You’re supposed to be looking after her.”
“She’s having her nap. What on earth did you and my mother talk about for so long?”
“Do you think I would have nothing to say to a queen?”
“Has anybody ever told you a porcupine has less prickles than you?”
“That would have been you. On our second date. Murphy’s Pub and Pizzeria. We had pepperoni and draught beer. Your mother, on the other hand, seemed to find me quite charming. She told me I could go home if I wanted to. That she would help me make the arrangements herself.” She recognized she was trying to goad him, make him plead with her to stay.
“She what?” He did sound annoyed.
“You heard me.”
“Jordan, you’re being unreasonable.”
Now that she knew she loved him, he was supposed to get down on one knee and confess his love for her, beg her to stay! No, instead, a porcupine had less prickles.
“Stay until my celebration,” he suggested, his voice cool. “It’s only one more day away. If you want to go after that, I won’t try to stop you. I promise.”
“Oh, the oath thing.” Wouldn’t try to stop her? That wasn’t how the script went. The prince was supposed to track her to the ends of the earth, glass slipper in hand.
“You know, you are difficult, impossible and preposterous. I can’t think why on earth, with all the women to choose from, I’m so in love with you.”
She stared at him, open-mouthed, as he stalked away from her down the hallway.
I’m so in love with you, sang in her head. “I guess if you want me to stay that badly,” she called after him, “I could. Just for the ball.”
“On second thought,” he called over his shoulder, “don’t bother.”
Oh! Don’t bother? Wild horses couldn’t keep her away from that celebration now! She would show him a thing or two! He was going to be sorry he had called her difficult. Impossible! Preposterous! And unreasonable!
She was going to show up at his celebration, and she was going to be so beautiful he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.
Every name he had called her would be shoved from his brain.
Any doubt that he ever had that she would not fit perfectly into his world would be washed away.
She was going to make Prince Owen Michael Penwyck sorry he had ever messed with her. He was going to be the sorriest man in the world that he had ever walked away.
She stopped herself.
Who was she trying to kid? She had never been that kind of woman. She had never been a showstopper, never once in her whole life turned a head.
She might as well go and pack her bags and leave Penwyck now.
She found her way back to her room. And sitting in the middle of her bed was a huge box. She opened it, and when she saw what was inside, tears came to her eyes.
For she knew she was going to the ball, after all.
“With my luck,” she muttered, “at the stroke of midnight, it will be all over, just like it was for Cinderella. Not that I’ve ever cared for Cinderella, a childishly dependent fool who waited for a prince to solve her problems for her.”
Still, she picked up the dress, a dress made of froth and dreams and nothing else, and hugged it to herself and knew she was going to the ball.
Chapter Nine
“Dinner is exquisite, don’t you think, Owen?”
“Exquisite,” he muttered, to his sister Anastasia. The truth was he might as well be eating cardboard for all that he had noticed the taste of the meal in front of him. He had noticed, abstractly, that the food looked rather odd, but since Jordan had walked in the room, it was as if his every sense was locked on her. Those senses that weren’t needed to look at her seemed to have shut down, sending all their energy to the ones that were.
Which might explain why it felt as if scales had fallen from his eyes, as if he had been blind, but now could see. He had never seen a woman so utterly and breathtakingly gorgeous!
The gown, that had looked so innocent in its box, fit her beautifully. Made of what appeared to be antique ivory silk, there was nothing old-fashioned about the fit of that dress. It slid sensuously around her curves, accentuating the ultrafeminine swell of breast and hip. It made her every move seem like a siren song.
The dress had obviously been a big mistake on his part. Before, when her beauty had seemed more inward than outward, he’d been the only man who knew how beautiful she was. Now, he could see every man in the room had her on radar, just as he did, aware of her every movement, tracking it, all the while trying to appear not to be the least bit interested in her!
And it wasn’t just the dress, or the grace that she wore it with, as if she’d been born to wear such things.
Tonight she had her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and it might have looked severe, except that the hair that hugged the lovely shape of her head was so glossy that he knew that there was not a man in the room who was not picturing himself pulling the pins out of it, watching it cascade down toward round, soft shoulders, running his fingers through the silk of it. He was probably the only man here who knew that hairstyle was some sort of illusion, a feminine trick. She didn’t have enough hair to pull it back like that, to have it in a bun.
When had Jordan become versed in feminine wiles? It was a frightening thought. She was far too smart already! If she started directing all that intelligence at attracting male attention, hope for his half of the species was over.
Still, whatever she was doing was working, because he commanded himself not to be sucked in to her new-found power, to look away, but he could not. Instead he found himself analyzing how the hairstyle showed off bone structure that amazed him. When had she developed those kind of cheekbones? How had she made her eyes look so huge and so blue? Had her mouth always looked that sensuous, that wide, that kissable? Had her mouth always looked like it tasted good?
And then, she leaned forward to talk to someone—a man, of course, at her end of the table, and his focus was once again on the dress.
What kind of engineering marvel was keeping everything in? And she did not have breasts like that! She didn’t. He had just seen her in a bathing suit and her figure was delightful to be sure, but this? If he had noticed the dress had this kind of neckline when it was in the box, it would still be in the box! The straight line had looked so innocent!
Who could have guessed the upper portion of her was going to be on display, the creamy swell of flawless skin showing so tantalizingly, round, full—
“What part do you like the best?” his sister asked.
Of Jordan? He avoided looking at his sister, thinking he had probably been caught staring inappropriately at Jordan’s cleavage. That would probably be tomorrow’s headline. Pervert Prince Eyes Decollete.
“Owen,” his siste
r said, rolling her eyes, “really! I meant the meal.”
There was a smile in her eyes and he suspected she knew darn well he wasn’t tasting a thing on his plate.
“This,” he said, trying to fool her, touching something with his fork that looked like seaweed topped with flowers. Were those nasturtiums forming that colorful orange banner across his plate? Were they the very nasturtiums he had used to barter an afternoon with Jordan? What a lot of good they had done him!
“I loved that, too,” Anastasia said, “What would you call that flavor. Smoky?”
Jordan’s eyes were smoky. The flavor was…interesting. “Delicious,” he said with not an ounce of sincerity.
His sister laughed. “And what do you think of the beef? I understand the sauce was prepared with velvet from the antler of a moose.”
Oh, shut up—can’t you see I’m preoccupied? He hated it that he had involved his sister in his life by borrowing that gown from her. Next thing he’d known, Anastasia and Jordan had been hanging out together. He was sure it was Anastasia leading Jordan astray, showing her all those tricks with makeup and decollete.
All day, the pair of them had been acting like schoolgirls, Jordan acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world, instead of like a woman with a major decision to make.
Stay or go.
So far, his mother was going to help Jordan get home if she decided to go, and his sister was going to be her best buddy. Instead of him.
Not that he was thinking anything like buddy thoughts every time he glanced down the table and saw her. In that dress. He picked the tinkle of her laughter out of the sounds around him, and thought he should leave here. He would love to go and change out of this stiff formal wear. He hated it anyway, the white collar, heavily starched, chafed at the bottom of his jaw. The tailed black jacket looked pompous, the royal medallion pinned so precisely on his chest made him look like a general in some wildly warm jungle nation. He disliked cummerbunds and gloves and bow ties.
He was going to be king, and he hated pomp and circumstance.
He closed his eyes and imagined himself anywhere but here. He would like to be in the stables, surrounded by the rich, ripe real smells of the place. He thought of brushing the coat of his big Friesian gelding until it gleamed blacker than coal. He could see himself putting on the saddle, tugging the girth tight, turning the stirrup, and leaping on in one smooth motion.