by Cara Colter
“Did you order this?” she asked, astounded. She barely refrained from adding for me? She felt stunned by the loveliness of it, and aware she felt her guard was being stormed.
As an only child she had dreamed tea parties, acted them out with her broken crockery, castoffs from houses her mother had cleaned. Only her companion then had been a favorite teddy bear, Beardly, ink stained by some disdainful rich child who’d had so many teddy bears to choose from that this vandalized one had made its way to the cleaning lady’s daughter.
This time her companion was not nearly so sympathetic or safe!
“Sit down,” he told her. Not an invitation.
The delight of the garden, and the table set for tea, had stolen her ability to protest. She sat. So did he. He poured lemonade in crystal goblets.
She took a tentative sip, and bit back a comment that it was fresh, not powder. As if he would know that lemonade could be made from a pouch!
“Have a pastry,” he said.
Pride wanted to make her refuse the delicacies presented to her, but the deprived child she’d been eyed the plate greedily, and coveted a taste of every single treat on it. In her childhood she had had to pretend soda crackers and margarine were tea pastries. She selected a cream puff that looked like a swan. She wanted to look at it longer, appreciate the effort and the art that went into it.
And at the same time she did not want to let on how overawed she was. She took a delicate bite.
She was pretty sure Prince Kiernan had deliberately waited until she was under its influence before he spoke.
“Now,” he said sternly, “we will discuss swishing.”
The cream puff completely undermined her defenses, because she said nothing at all. She made no defense for swishing. None. In fact, she licked a little dollop of pure white cream off the swan’s icing-sugar-dusted feathers.
For a moment, he seemed distracted, then he blinked and looked away.
But there was less sternness in his tone when he spoke.
“I am not swishing my hips,” he told her. “Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
The sting was taken out of it completely by the fact he glanced back at her just as she was using her tongue to capture a stray piece of whipped cream from her lips and seemed to lose his train of thought entirely.
“I think,” she said reverently, “that’s about the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Sorry. What were you saying?”
He passed the tray to her again. “I don’t remember.”
She was sure a more sophisticated person would be content with the cream puff, but the little girl in her who had eaten soda crackers howled inwardly at her attempt to be disciplined.
She mollified her inner child by choosing a little confection of chocolate and flaky pastry. He was doing this on purpose. Using the exquisiteness of the treats to bribe her, to sway her into seeing things his way.
“It was something about swishing,” she decided. The pastry was so fragile it threatened to disintegrate under her touch. She bit it in half, closed her eyes, and suppressed a moan.
“Was it?” he growled, the sound of a man tormented.
“I think it was.” She opened her eyes, licked the edge of the pastry, and a place where chocolate had melted on her hand. “That was fantastic. You have to try that one.”
He grabbed the chocolate confection in question and chomped on it with much less finesse than she would have expected from a prince. He seemed rattled.
“Do these have drugs in them?” she asked.
“I was just about to ask myself the same thing. Because I can’t seem to keep my mind on—”
“Swishing,” she filled in for him, eyeing the tray. “Never mind. It’s not as important as I thought. We’ll figure out something you’re comfortable with.”
He smiled, at first she thought because he had been granted reprieve from swishing. Then she realized he was smiling at her. “You have a sweet tooth. One wouldn’t know to look at you.”
Between his smile and the confections, and the fact he looked at her, she didn’t have a chance.
“Yes,” Meredith conceded, “let’s forget swishing. It would have been fun. There’s no doubt about that. The audience would have gone wild, but it’s not really you if you know what I mean.”
“Why don’t you try that one?”
He was rewarding her for the fact he had gotten his way. She could not allow herself to be bribed. “Which one?”
“The one you are staring at.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” she said wistfully.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“In that case,” she said blissfully and took the tiny chocolate-dipped cherry from the tray. “Do you eat like this every day?”
“No,” he said a trifle hoarsely, “I must say I don’t.”
“A pity.”
Outside the delightful cloister of the garden, she heard the distinctive clop of hooves on cobblestone.
“Ah,” he said with a bit too much eagerness, getting up. “There’s my ride. Please feel free to stay and enjoy the garden as long as you like. Tomorrow, then.”
Again, it was not a suggestion or a question. No, she had just been given a royal dictate. He was done dancing for the day, whether she was or not.
He strode away from her, opened an arched doorway of heavy wood embedded in the rock wall and went out it.
Do something, Meredith commanded herself. So she did. She took a butter tart and popped the entire thing in her mouth. Then, ashamed of her lack of spunk, she leapt from her chair and followed him out the gate. She had to let the prince know that time was of the essence now. If he rode today they would have to work harder tomorrow. She’d made one concession, but she couldn’t allow him to think that made her a pushover, a weakling so bowled over by his smile and tea in the garden that he could get away with anything.
She burst out of the small courtyard and found herself in the front courtyard of the castle. She stood there for a moment, delighted and shocked by the opulence of the main entrance courtyard in front of the palace.
The fountain at its center shot geysers of water over the life-size bronze of Prince Kiernan’s grandfather riding a rearing warhorse. The courtyard was fragrant, edged as it was with formal gardens that were bright with exotic flowering trees.
The palace sat on top of Chatam’s most prominent hill, and overlooked the gently rolling countryside of the island. In the near distance were farms and red-roofed farmhouses, freshly sown fields and lush pastures being grazed by ewes and newborn lambs.
In the far distance was the gray silhouette of the city of Chatam, nestled in the curves of the valley. Beyond that was the endless expanse of the sea.
Ancient oaks dappled the long driveway that curved up the hill to the palace with shade. At the bottom of that drive was a closed wrought iron and stone gate that guarded the palace entrance. To the left side of the gate was a tasteful stone sign, with bronze cursive letters, Chatam Palace, on the right, an enormous bed of roses, not yet in bloom.
Finding herself here, on this side of the gates, with the massive stone walls and turrets of the castle rising up behind her, was like being in a dream but Meredith tried to remind herself of the task at hand. She had to make her expectations for the rest of this week’s practice sessions crystal-clear.
In front of the fountain, a groomsman in a palace stable uniform held a horse. Prince Kiernan had his back to her, his hand stroking one of those powerful shoulders as he took the reins from the groomsman and lifted a foot to the stirrup.
Meredith was not sure she had ever seen a man more in his element. The prince radiated the power, confidence and grace she had yet to see from him on the dance floor.
He looked like a man who owned the earth, and who was sure of his place in it.
The horse was magnificent. It was not one of the frightening horses she had seen in pictures, of that she was almost positive. Though large, and as shiny black as Lucifer, the horse stood qu
ietly, and when he sensed her come out the gate he turned a gentle eye to her.
Except for nearly being trampled by that runaway at the Blossom Festival parade all those years ago, Meredith had never been this close to a horse.
Instead of her planned lecture, she heard an awed ooh escape her lips.
Prince Kiernan glanced over his shoulder when he heard the small sound behind him.
And she, the one he thought he had successfully escaped, the one who could make eating a pastry look like something out of an X-rated film, stood there with round eyes and her mouth forming a little O.
He could leap on the horse and gallop away in a flurry of masculine showmanship. But there was something about the look on her face that stopped him.
He remembered she was afraid of horses.
He slipped his foot back out of the stirrup, and regarded Meredith Whitmore thoughtfully.
“Come say hello to Ben,” he suggested quietly, dismissing his groomsman with a nod.
The debate raged in her face. Well, who could blame her? They had already crossed some sort of invisible line by having tea together. She was obviously debating the etiquette of the situation, wanting to be strictly professional.
And after watching her eat, he could certainly see the wisdom in that!
But he was aware of finding her reaction to the impromptu tea in the garden refreshing.
And he was aware of not being quite ready to gallop away.
And so what was the harm in having her meet his horse? He could tell she didn’t want to, and that at the same time it was proving as irresistible to her as the crumpets had been. She moved forward as if she was being pulled on an invisible string. He could see her pulse racing in the hollow of her throat.
“Don’t be afraid,” Kiernan said.
She stopped well short of the horse. “He’s gigantic,” she whispered.
Prince Kiernan reached out, took her hand and tugged her closer.
They had been touching while they danced, but this was different. Everything about her was going to seem different after the semi-erotic experience of watching her devour teatime treats.
Still, he did not let her go, but pulled her closer, and then guiding her, he held her hand out to the horse.
“He wants to get your scent,” he told her quietly.
The horse leaned his head toward her, flared his nostrils as he drew a deep breath, then breathed a puff of warm, moist air onto her hand where it was cupped in Kiernan’s.
“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes round and wide, a delighted smile tickling her lips. “Oh!”
“Touch him,” Kiernan suggested. “Right there, between his mouth and his nose.”
Tentatively, she touched, then closed her eyes, much as she had done when she decapitated the pastry swan with her lovely white teeth.
“It’s exquisite,” she said, savoring. “Like velvet, only softer.”
“See? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
But there was. And they both knew it.
She drew her hand away quickly from the horse’s nose, and then out of the protection of Kiernan’s cupped palm.
“Thank you,” she said, and then rapidly, “I have to go.”
He knew that was true, but he heard, not the words, but the fear, and frowned at it. The place where her heartbeat pulsed in her throat had gone crazy.
“Not yet,” he said.
There was something in him that would not be refused. It went deeper than the station he had been born to, it went deeper than the fact he spoke and people listened.
There was something in him—a man prepared to lay down his life to protect those physically weaker than him—that challenged him to conquer her fear.
“Touch him here,” he suggested, and ran his hand over the powerful shoulder muscle under the fringe of Ben’s silky black mane.
She glanced toward the gate, but then made a choice. Hesitantly Meredith laid her hand where Kiernan’s had been.
“I can feel his strength,” she whispered, “the pure power of him.”
Kiernan looked at where her hand lay just below the horse’s wither, and felt a shattering urge to move her hand to his own chest, to see if she would feel his power, too, his strength.
Insane thoughts, quickly crushed. How was he supposed to dance with her if he followed this train of thought? And yet still, he did not let her go.
“If you put your nose to that place you just touched, you will smell a scent so sweet you will wonder how you lived without knowing it.”
“I hope I’m not allergic,” she said, trying for a light note, he suspected, desperately trying to break out of the spell that was being cast around them. But it didn’t work. Meredith moved close to the horse, stood on tiptoe and drew in a deep breath.
She turned back to the prince, and he smiled with satisfaction at the transparent look of joyous discovery on her face.
“I told you,” he said. “Do you want to sit on him?”
“No!” But the fear was gone. He saw her refusal, not as fright, but as an effort to fight the magic that was deepening around them.
“It’s not dangerous,” Kiernan said persuasively. “I promise I’ll look after you.”
He didn’t know what he had said that was so wrong, but she suddenly went very still. The color drained from her face.
“Maybe another time,” she said.
“You’re trembling,” Prince Kiernan said. “There’s no need. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Meredith knew a different truth. There was so much to be afraid of people couldn’t even imagine it.
But when she looked into Prince Kiernan’s eyes, soft with unexpected concern, it felt as if the fear was taken from her. Which was ridiculous. The fact that she was inclined to trust him should make her feel more afraid, not less!
“Here, I’ll help you up. Put your foot here, and your other hand here.”
And she did. Even though she should have turned and run, she didn’t. The temptation was too great to refuse.
She was a poor girl from Wentworth. And even though she had overcome her humble beginnings, she was still only a working woman.
This opportunity would never, ever come again.
To sit on a horse in the early spring sunshine on the unspeakably gorgeous grounds of the Palace of Chatam.
With Prince Kiernan promising to protect her and keep her safe.
I promise I’ll look after you. Those words were fair warning. She had heard those words, exactly those words, before.
When she had told Michael Morgan she was going to have his baby. And he had told her not to worry. He’d look after her. They would get married.
She could see the girl she had been standing on the city hall steps, waiting, her baby just a tiny bulge under her sweater. Waiting for an hour and then two. Thinking something terrible must have happened. Michael must have been in an accident. He must be lying somewhere hurt. Dying.
Her mother, who had refused to attend the ceremony, had finally come when it was dark, when city hall was long closed, and collected Meredith, shivering, soaked from cold rain, from the steps.
That’s where trust got you. It left you way too open to hurt.
But even knowing that, Meredith told herself it would be all right just to allow herself this moment.
She took Kiernan’s instructions, put her foot in the stirrup and took the saddle with her other hand. Despite her dancer’s litheness, Meredith felt as if she was scrambling to get on that horse’s back. But then strong hands lifted her at the waist, gave her one final shove on her rump.
Despite how undignified that final shove was, she settled on the hard leather of the saddle with a sense of satisfaction.
For the first time—and probably the only time—in her life, Meredith was sitting on a horse.
“Should we go for a little stroll?”
She had come this far. To get off without really riding the horse seemed like it would be something of a shame. She nodded, grabbed the f
ront of the saddle firmly.
With the reins in his hands, Kiernan moved to the front of the horse. Instead of taking her for a short loop around the fountain, or down the driveway to the closed main gate, he led the horse off the paved area and onto the grass that surrounded the palace.
The whole time, his voice soothing, he talked to her.
“That’s it. Just relax. Think of yourself as a blanket floating over him.” He glanced back at her. “That’s good. You have really good balance, probably from the dancing. That’s it exactly. Just relax and feel the rhythm of it. It goes side to side and then back and forth. Do you feel that?”
She nodded, delighting in the sensation, embracing the experience. She thought after a moment he would turn around and lead her back to the courtyard, but he didn’t.
“You’ll see the first of the three garden mazes on your left,” he said. “I used to love trying to find my way out of it when I was a boy.”
He amazed her by giving her a grand tour of parts of the palace grounds that were not open to the public. But even had they been, the public would never have known that was the place he rode his first pony, that was where he fell and broke his arm, that was the fountain he and Adrian had put dish detergent in.
With the sun streaming down around her, the scent of the horse tickling her nostrils, and Kiernan out in front of her, leading the horse with such easy confidence, glancing back at her to smile and encourage her, Meredith realized something.
Perhaps the scariest thing of all.
For the first time since the accident that had taken her baby six years ago, she felt the tiniest little niggle of something.
It was the most dangerous thing of all. It was happiness.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN KIERNAN GLANCED BACK at Meredith, he registered her delight. There was something about her that troubled him. She was too serious for one so young. Something he could not understand haunted the loveliness of the deep golds and greens of her eyes.