Charmed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 6

by Jennifer Chance

  With airy gesture to the room, she smiled. “We started small—so small. Everyone was afraid, and when you’re afraid it’s difficult to let go of what little you had, even for good cause. But eventually, tiny donations started coming in. A fan from the Civil War,” she pointed to a far corner, then shifted her hand slightly to indicate another alcove. “A letter from Betsy Ross dating from the founding of our country. Grander things too—dresses from bygone eras, treasures from the sea. But that day, I and all my friends followed the beautiful lady into the house, knowing she would have a gift to outshine all gifts.”

  She looked into the crowd, and nodded. “You remember it, don’t you, Merle?”

  Simon’s brows lifted. His grandmother had never called on one of her friends to embroider the tale. This was different.

  The wizened old man nodded, his shaky voice raising with effort. “Like it was yesterday,” he rasped. “The beautiful woman dressed all in white, scarf flowing in the wind, looking like an angel. She had a carved box, but you instantly knew it wasn’t the box that was important.”

  “I remember her bracelets.” This time, a different woman chimed in, Daisy. She was plump and beaming and her husband grinned beside her, nodding with every word. “They seemed like they were hung with little bells, but they were tiny little seed pearls, the most exquisitely pretty things I’d ever seen.”

  “And she spoke—well, you knew she wasn’t from around here, that much was certain.” Bill Williamson leaned on his walking stick, his slack and dour face lit up with an expression Simon had never seen. “Nowadays, you hear all manner of talk. But back then…no. She was something special.”

  His grandmother beamed as they all weighed in, then continued on. “She opened the box, and there on a bed of velvet, was a necklace, earrings, bracelets and two rings, all in the most beautiful pink—pink stones! We’d certainly never seen the like.”

  “Your father had to glare at us to step back, but it was the toughest thing we’d ever done,” Daisy said, sighing.

  Belle nodded. “The woman turned to us then—we still didn’t know her name—and gazed out at all the children standing there. We must have been a motley lot, sunburned and ragged-clothed, rough from a summer’s morning down at the beach. But she studied us as if we were all kings and queens and princes, and said we must keep the story close to our hearts.”

  “Ah!” Another woman lifted her hands to her chest, nodding with tear-bright eyes. Margaret Tuppleworth, Simon thought. Who’d never cried once in all the time he’d known her.

  “Then she said that these jewels were very special stones, come all the way from a kingdom far across the sea. Garronia, she said, though we’d never heard of such a place. A land where there was a real-live king and queen and their princesses and princely children, but that outside that first family, there were dozens and dozens of royal families filled with counts and countesses. She said she herself was a countess, and we well believed it. There was just…”

  Another man sighed, deep in the back of the room. “…Something about her.”

  Belle nodded, a little too quickly. “She said she was gratified to give this jewelry to us, because it wasn’t truly hers, and yet it couldn’t yet go back to Garronia. It wasn’t time, she said. And so she would be grateful if we could watch over the jewels on her behalf.”

  Then she turned to Caroline, who had gone completely still during the speech, her face frozen in shock. “But one day, when we least expected it, many years in the future, one day it would be different. One day a new countess would come from that faraway kingdom, and she would be beautiful and light and full of joy. All we had to do—was wait for her.”

  Simon forestalled the urge to hug Caroline. This was the end of the story—the story he’d heard countless times. Only, his grandmother didn’t stop talking. Her eyes now trained on Caroline, she drew in a deep breath. “But there was more to the story, more that we were sworn never to repeat—to anyone outside this very room all those years ago. It was a secret, a precious secret, that no one from Garronia or any other country could know. And it was this: When our fairytale countess came, if we were very lucky, she would ask for those jewels back.”

  Simon stared as Belle laughed, and several in the crowd laughed with her. “As you can imagine, we were all shocked. How could it be a good thing, for someone to come and take our priceless treasure away? But the answer was simply this: If she had come to reclaim the jewelry, it meant a curse had been broken. A curse that had ravaged one of the oldest families in Garronia for centuries. And this countess reclaiming her jewels would be able to put her family on the path to happiness—and bring enduring happiness to Pinnacle House as well. She would bring everything back to life.”

  The tiniest, most delicate sniffle broke the silence, then was joined by several others. Simon glanced over to the newcomer, and saw her accepting a brilliant white handkerchief from one of her attendants, which she used to dab her eyes. Then Belle spoke again, and he swung his gaze back around to her.

  Belle held out a hand to Caroline. “And today I’m so happy to share, that with us is no other than the Countess Caroline Andromeda Marie Saleri, come all the way from Garronia, come to make the prophecy come true.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Caroline moved forward as if in a trance, until she reached Mrs. Wetherington in the center of the room. The rest of the audience had pressed back against the wall, creating an open space for her, and to her surprise, Mrs. Wetherington held up the delicate necklace of Saleri jewels.

  “Would you wear these for us, Countess Saleri?” The old woman asked, her eyes shining. “You’ve already brought such magic to our house, it’s only fitting that we give you your magic back.”

  “Of course,” Caroline said, or she thought she spoke such words anyway. She turned around and let Mrs. Wetherington string the jewels around her neck, and she felt their gossamer weight as a cool balm. She looked up in surprise as the room burst into applause, and then somehow, there was music filtering into the room. A set of orchestral strings swelled, and Simon stepped forward, holding out his hand.

  “I don’t—”

  “Just go with it,” he murmured, and Caroline reacted instinctively, stepping into his arms. A rich American voice streamed over them, buttery smooth, and the lyrics “All…or nothing at all…” filled the room. All at once, as if on cue, several of the couples paired off into slow dances around them—even Mr. and Mrs. Wetherington, though they mainly leaned into each other and swayed, tears running down their faces.

  “But what…”

  “It’s Frank Sinatra,” Simon said quietly, moving her around the room. “This was the most played song in 1939, the year the jewels came to Pinnacle House. I didn’t know they had this all planned, but that song…” he shook his head, and she could see a new brightness in his own eyes, while she was having a hard time keeping the tears from falling. “They played that song all the time when they talked about the Contos Collection, imagining the fairy tale countess who would come here one day.”

  “You knew all that?” Caroline gasped, and Simon shook his head.

  “Not the end part,” he said. “Not the bit about you taking the jewelry back. I thought they acted a little oddly when you first said you were taking the original jewels away, but I assumed that was because of the historical office person being here, all the excitement that caused.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize that this party was more a celebration of the fairy tale countess, than the possibility of Pinnacle House becoming a historical landmark.”

  “I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t think you have to say anything at all.”

  He smiled down at her, and twirled her again around the room, and suddenly, it was as if they were dancing together all alone, with no one else around them. Staring into Simon’s eyes like that that, Caroline thought she would never be happier than she was in this moment. For once in her life, she was a part of a community th
at she had found all on her own, a community that had welcomed her home as much as it had welcomed her in, a gathering of people she had never met before, and yet who seemed as real and true as her own family. She was dancing in the center of a house she absolutely adored, on an island she’d quite fallen in love with, and in the arms of a man who’d confounded and beguiled, challenged and drawn her since the very first moment she’d seen him. She didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. All she knew, in fact, was that she never wanted this moment to end.

  It was a foolish thought, of course, and no sooner had she had it than the final strains of music faded away. Simon stopped dancing, the world stopped spinning, and Caroline took in a deep, shaky breath, feeling she should say something—but not having any idea what it should be.

  Fortunately, she didn’t have to.

  Into the spell that the music and dancers and the jewels themselves had woven around her, came a voice—a voice she recognized with another lurch.

  “My name is Queen Catherine Andris, of the royal first family of Garronia, and I have had the pleasure of seeing many beautiful things since ascending the throne of my blessed kingdom,” Queen Catherine said, and now it wasn’t Caroline’s moment to stiffen, but everyone else’s in the room, all of them swinging around with surprise to stare at the elegant monarch—none more so than the historical office representative, whose eyes had grown so big and her face so pale she looked like she might faint dead away. “But perhaps none so beautiful in recent memory as the sight of a daughter of Garronia doing her part for her family. The Saleris are triply blessed to have daughters such as you Caroline. You and Edeena and Marguerite.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Caroline said quickly. “I cannot thank you enough for coming all this way.”

  “Had I known how lovely the islands of this fair state were, I would have come long since.” Catherine inclined her head. “Your mother often spoke of it, and I never quite understood the attraction. But now I do.”

  Caroline glanced to the Wetheringtons, but they were as mesmerized as the rest of the crowd, staring at the queen. She looked up to Simon with concern as the moment lengthened, but he merely gazed back at her, his expression unreadable, his gaze as fathomless as the far ocean.

  “Well!” she said at last, her nervousness returning. What were they all waiting for? “The transfer is complete now, and the story is done.” When no one moved, she gave a helpless shrug. “I’ve nothing left to say.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Wetherington started visibly, as if coming out of a fugue. “Oh dear me, yes. I’m sorry, I felt like…” she frowned, shaking her head. “I felt—well, no matter, dear. Let’s all—”

  “Wait.”

  Caroline felt a shiver run through her, as Simon’s single word caused everyone to stop again, stop and watch him expectantly. But he wasn’t looking at anyone else—not his grandparents, not the queen. He was looking at her.

  He took her hands, and turned Caroline to face him more fully. “My grandmother has been waiting for eighty years for the magic to return to Pinnacle House, but as someone who first found this haven when I was only five years old, I can tell you that I always knew it was magic. I didn’t understand—couldn’t understand how it could get any better than what it was.”

  His gaze never left Caroline’s as he inclined his head slightly, the effect that of a courtly bow. “But then, several days ago, a fairytale countess arrived on my doorstep.”

  Someone in the crowd gasped, but Caroline suddenly wasn’t sure who…or if it had been herself.

  “Simon…” she began, but he forged on.

  “I knew she was something out of a storybook, because everything she touched came to life,” Simon continued, a smile now touching his angular face. “The pictures in the front parlor, the cushions on the chairs, the tiny houses tucked away in the hidden woodland glen. She no more than had to set eyes on them than they sparkled, and I suddenly wanted to show her everything about Pinnacle House, the forest and the dunes, the beach and the sea. Wherever she walked, the breeze seemed a little softer, the sunlight brighter.”

  He turned back to the crowd, and Caroline realized he was looking first at the historical society representative, who at this point seemed in a thrall, and then at the queen, who was staring at him with such frank intrigue that Caroline felt a sudden stirring of concern. She’d seen that expression on the queen’s face before, and it was never one to be ignored. The queen’s gaze flicked briefly to the way Simon remained holding fast to Caroline’s hands, and her worry increased. This wasn’t at all what it appeared, but Queen Catherine didn’t know that. To the queen, the vexing and ongoing challenging of marrying off every last one of Garronia’s noble children no doubt appeared to get one countess closer, but Caroline couldn’t come up with any way to share the truth of the situation to her monarch. She’d have time later, of course. Later she could explain it all away.

  “And now this countess has come to our island not only with her sister and her gift, and her part to play in a fairy tale almost a hundred years in the making, but she brings with her a queen.” He gave a lopsided smile. “It seems like even though Garronia is a very real place, it truly is a kingdom filled with magic.”

  He looked back to Caroline then, and for some reason, the infinite tenderness in his expression made her want to cry. Yes, this, she silently keened, struggling to store up every moment of this in her heart, so she could remember it in all the long weeks and months and years to come. Yes, this, her heart echoed back. This island, this house, this place…this man.

  She struggled to keep her smile steady, expecting Simon to close out his comments, gesture everyone outside where there were people and sunshine and the world she’d somehow felt she’d left behind.

  Instead he sighed, shaking his head, and lifted a hand to her face, brushing back her hair over her shoulder to reveal the necklace at her throat.

  “But if you will indulge me,” he finally said. “There’s something else I have to say.”

  Simon felt the weight of two dozen pairs of eyes on him, none more surprised than the woman who stood safely within her crowd of attendants…the queen. The Queen of Garronia. Somewhere distantly in the back of his brain he recognized that he should interview the woman while she here, and yet—all of that seemed to fade away as he gazed at Caroline.

  She searched his face almost worriedly, her brows furrowing as the moment of silence stretched out. “Simon?” she prompted at last, and as if her voice turned a key that opened a long-locked door, he found the words coming easily…more easily than they ever had in his life.

  “When I was a little boy growing up in this house, I used to dream of being a pirate captain, with a world full of oceans to conquer,” he said, and though his voice was pitched low, it seemed unnaturally loud to his ears. “Always—always, I knew that meant I would need to sail far away from Pinnacle House, seek fame and fortune elsewhere. The years passed and so many things changed in my life, but this place was always here. Sturdy and strong, I always thought. Boring and protective.” He shook his head. “Someplace safe for my grandparents to grow old, but not me—never me. And then you came and tossed everything upside down.”

  “I didn’t mean to—” she began, but he squeezed her hands, shaking his head slightly.

  “I know you didn’t. You came here to reclaim some jewelry for your family and—on seeing how much that exhibit meant to my grandparents—figured out a way to do so that no harm was done…never realizing that you were part of a much bigger story, a story whose ending you not only made possible—but improved upon. Because don’t you see? You’ve given so much more than a new donation to this house. You’ve given it life. You’ve given it hope.” He squeezed her hands again. “You’ve given it magic.”

  Caroline’s brows lifted and he managed a wobbly smile. “And I don’t believe in magic, you know. I’ve never believed in it. Magic doesn’t happen to real people, not even to pirates destined to sail the seven seas.”


  He turned to the broader group. “In fact, I didn’t believe in magic so much that I made a study of it in kingdoms and monarchies across the globe, from Europe to Asia to Africa and South America. I studied their superstitions and gathered all my data and created a lecture series that met which such grand success that I knew my future was made. Little did I suspect that my very first talk would draw the attention of the same fairytale countess my grandparents were waiting for, all those years…and that she would be furious with me.”

  A chuckle rolled through the room, faint and papery, and Caroline reddened with embarrassment. “She had every right to be furious of course, but how could I know that her beliefs in things like family curses and royal superstitions came not from the insecurities and petty justifications of squabbling generations, but from a kingdom that I’m beginning to believe is a little bit magical down to its core. So of course its cherished daughter would believe in superstitions, and of course she would carry the soul of that magic everywhere she went. And once I took the time to think about it—really think—I realized that keeping that kind of enchantment alive matters so much more than a lecture series or a book, or a future talking about royal superstitions. Not when I have seen that magic with my own two eyes, not when I’ve felt its effects.”

  Caroline’s stared at him, and Simon blew out an unsteady breath. “And I guess…I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve never met anyone like you, Caroline Andromeda Marie Saleri. Not in this country or any other. And I can’t bear the thought of you lighting up the world without me there to see that brightness reflected back to you. I…I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  “Simon.” Caroline half-choked the word and it came out as a ragged sigh.

  “I’m not asking you to stay here with me, of course,” he said hurriedly, afraid he’d already said too much. “I’m not asking you—”