The Knight's Kiss
Page 15
“What is going on here?” she demanded. “Is the princess all right?”
“I—” Nick stopped cold. “I was searching for someone. My, uh, my secretary. Did she come this way?”
Nerina frowned. “Your secretary? What secretary?”
He studied Nerina’s face. No, she’d truly never met Anne. Either Anne—Rufina—had somehow managed to erase Nerina’s knowledge of her presence, or he’d truly gone over the edge.
Entirely possible, given what had happened to him in the past few hours.
Behind him, he could hear the click-click of high heels against the sleek palace floors, approaching at a jog.
“My apologies, Nerina. I meant that I was looking for a secretary. I…” He improvised what he hoped was a beliveable excuse for tearing through the palace halls, “I just wanted to catch you before you went home for the night, to see if you could assist me.”
Nerina looked past him, then gave a curt, professional bow. “Your Highness.”
Nick turned to see Isabella, her face flushed from running to catch him. At least her presence in the storeroom hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. “Princess. I was just asking Nerina about hiring a secretary.”
Isabella’s eyes widened.
“Your Highness?” Nerina pulled out her electronic organizer, “did you want me to hire a secretary for Mr. Black? I wasn’t aware—”
Isabella waved for her to put the organizer away. “Don’t worry about it, Nerina. I’ll handle it myself.”
Nerina looked as if she might drop the expensive device. “Are you certain?”
“Certain. Please, spend the evening with your husband at home. If I need any assistance, I’ll give you a call.”
Nerina’s face showed her confusion, but to her credit, she didn’t question the princess. “All right. I’ll be here at 6:30 a.m. We can go over your schedule then.”
“Thank you, Nerina.”
When the secretary was out of earshot, Isabella grabbed Nick’s elbow, and without speaking, guided him first down one hall, then another. They passed a guard, who straightened at the sight of the princess, then entered what Nick immediately realized was the princess’s private apartments.
“Princess—”
She spun to face him. “At this point, I really think you should call me Isabella. Don’t you?”
Nick stared at her for a moment, then allowed the stress of the day to roll off him. He flopped in a delicate velvet-covered chair, belatedly hoping it could handle his weight. “I don’t know what to think anymore. About anything.”
Isabella fell to her knees in front of him, and grabbed his hands in hers. “Then let me do the thinking. Stay. There’s no harm in it now.”
“So you did see Anne.”
She rolled her eyes, and he would have laughed at the incongruity of the beautiful, polished princess making such a gesture if the situation wasn’t so serious. And if he hadn’t seen her do it before. “Of course I saw Anne.”
“Nerina didn’t. Didn’t even know who I was talking about.”
“I gathered that.” She squeezed his hands to drive her point home. “Doesn’t that tell you what you should believe? Rufina was real. And so are her powers. I can’t say I understand them, but…” Isabella shrugged, then shot him a megawatt smile that would have made the paparazzi drool. “I’m willing to bet the curse truly is broken. Willing to bet my future on it, in fact. Stay. Finish the museum project. See my doctor and get your headaches cured.”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at her lean, manicured fingers, interwoven with his scarred ones. He didn’t feel any different. Not physically. If the curse had been broken, wouldn’t he feel different?
“Do it for me.” Isabella rose up enough to look him in the eye. “Even if you believe it’s a risk to your privacy. Even if you think I’ll be hurt. Just give me six months, until the museum opening. Given how long you’ve lived, six months is nothing. By then, we’ll know if the curse is broken. If it’s not, then we’ll decide what to do. And if it is…”
Her amber eyes filled with tears of joy, and Nick fought to control his own response. He hardly believed it possible.
“I love you, Isabella.” He pulled her into his lap, then held her tight. “I’ll give you six months. And if we’re lucky, I’ll give you the rest of my life.”
Epilogue
Nick’s arm tightened around Isabella’s waist as they circled the dance floor in the museum’s grand marble atrium. The light of the full moon streamed in through the glass ceiling, five floors above their heads. All around them, on the four stories of balconies surrounding the atrium, couples chatted, drank champagne and discussed the artifacts they’d seen during their tour of the museum’s new wing, now officially open and dedicated to Isabella’s mother, the late Queen Aletta.
“It’s magical, isn’t it?” Isabella murmured in his ear.
“Magic. That’s one way to describe tonight.” Nick grinned as they spun to the gentle strains of the San Rimini Royal Orchestra, set up on the opposite side of the atrium. “But yes, it truly is. You’ve pulled it off. And from the look on your father’s face tonight, you’ve made him a very happy man.”
“I think so.” She smiled. Her features seemed lit from within as they spun between two other couples, then passed by Crown Prince Antony and his wife, Princess Jennifer. “And you seem to be a very happy man, too.”
“How did you guess?” He laughed. “You know, Jack Donnington is an impressive man. Without his help, I wouldn’t be here tonight.” Over the past six months, Donnington had used his skills to fill in the gaps in Nick’s history. If a tabloid reporter went scrounging into Nick’s past, they’d find he had an unquestionable background. And one entirely suited to a man about to propose marriage to San Rimini’s only princess.
Isabella looked up at Nick and smiled, which prompted a flurry of activity amongst the photographers lining the atrium walls, all of whom jockeyed for position to capture the first-ever photos of the princess kissing a man.
“You know,” she teased, “without all you’ve done, none of us would be here tonight.” She reached up to run her fingers through his hair, then stopped short.
“Follow me.”
Nick frowned at Isabella’s sudden seriousness, but allowed her to guide him away from the dance floor, toward one of the museum’s hallways.
“Arturo and Paolo aren’t expecting us tonight, Isabella.”
“I know,” she replied, “though I’m terribly jealous that they prefer to hear their stories from you now.”
“Hey, I can’t help it if I’ve got more stories to tell.
Maybe tomorrow night I’ll tell them about Napoleon and Josephine.”
“Don’t you dare!”
He smiled to himself, then asked, “So where are you taking me?”
“Here.” She stopped in front of an oversized gilt mirror, then turned him to face it.
“What?”
“Notice anything?”
He stared at himself, seeing the same reflection he’d seen for nearly a thousand years. “No.”
Then he noticed it. Just at his temple, a gray hair stood out amidst the black.
“That’s the story you should tell Arturo and Paolo,” she said, her rich voice cracking as she spoke. “The fairy tale of The Cursed Knight. Because now it has a happy ending.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4603-4
THE KNIGHT’S KISS
Copyright © 2003 by Nicole Burnham Onsi
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