Fancytales: The Once Upon A Time Collection

by Leighann Dobbs

  Chapter Eight

  Arielle made her way across the ballroom, searching for the second of the three ladies she had decided would be Max's best choices for the new duchess of Rothminster.

  Tonight, they had agreed he would endeavor to spend some time with each lady, and then tomorrow, on the third and final night of this grand bride-finding ball of his, Max would announce his engagement to the woman of his choice, who would soon become his bride.

  Arielle had already determined she would not be present for his announcement.

  Once his decision was made, she did not care to watch him smile and dance with the lady in question while the full weight of knowing it could never be her pressed down upon her thoughts. Her soft, yet rather fragile heart could never withstand such pressure.

  Though she had earlier made light of their encounter the night before, the truth of the matter was, Arielle had been half in love with Max since a week after she had come to live at Rothmeade.

  His kisses had only made matters worse, and now it had become imperative for her to finish what they had started – to help him find his bride - and then put as much space between herself and Maxwell Denning as she possibly could.

  Spotting the Marquess of Boutwycke's daughter, Emily, in the crowd, she sought out Max. Their gazes caught and held until, with a brief inclination of her head, she hinted he should ask the lady to dance.

  He nodded in agreement and started forward, and Arielle had to turn away. Though it pained her to admit it, she did not enjoy watching him dance with other women.

  "Hello, Harry."

  Andrew. The one person in all of Max's guests who might guess her ruse and foil all their plans.

  Arielle was surprised he had not realized the truth while they danced last night, after as many times as he had seen her here during his occasional and sometimes frequent visits with Max. Her stomach knotted.

  Pasting on a bright smile, she turned to him and said, "Good evening, my lord Atlindale. Are you quite enjoying the festivities?"

  “Hmm,” he murmured distractedly in reply. “If enjoying the festivities includes my finally putting together the puzzle of the unexpected arrival of a visiting foreign princess to Rothmeade and the duke's odd behavior last night, I would have to say yes. Yes, I am, princess. Quite so.”

  “I'm afraid I don't take your meaning, my lord,” Arielle hedged, unable to meet his eye.

  “Oh, do stop, lady Harry Elle. I know who you are, though I must admit it took me a while to put everything together.” He leaned close. “In the end, it was those big, beautiful green eyes of yours that gave you away.”

  Arielle bowed her head and clasped her hands together at her waist. “Will you reveal me, my lord?”

  He reached out with a finger and raised her chin to peer into the turbulent depths of the very eyes which had betrayed her. “Should I?”

  She refrained from answering and looked for Max instead. He would know what to do. But when she met his gaze, she found him scowling at her over his partner's head. “I think not, Andrew. Or may I call you Drew, as Max is so fond of doing? I do believe you and I are about to become the best of friends.”

  Andrew had followed her gaze and chuckled. “I, too, recognize the hand of Fate when it is dealt.”

  Surprised, Arielle blurted, “You are not appalled?”

  “Appalled to find my best friend attempting to pass off his mother's ward – granted, a ward they have never met - as a foreign princess to his peers? I am utterly horrified,” he teased and held out his arm. “Shall we dance, Your Highness?”

  Arielle offered a wobbly smile and took his arm.

  “I do believe I would be pleased to dance with you, my lord. Very much so.” She glanced toward Max. His expression had become even more thunderous and she half feared he might well stalk across the floor after her if she did not soon make her escape. “In fact, we should hurry onto the floor.”

  Max watched her glide about the ballroom in Andrew's arms and something akin to seething anger filled him. Arielle wasn't supposed to dance with everyone who asked her, blast it. She was here for him and no one else. Still, he could hardly stalk across the ballroom and demand she share her dances with none but him.

  Focusing instead on the lady in his own arms, Max tried to ignore Arielle and the knowledge of just how close Andrew was holding her until the sound of her lilting laughter reached him over the noise of the murmuring crowd and Max felt it in his gut, much the same as her chuckle had affected him last night after their first kiss.

  He wanted her.

  Not only did he want her, he didn't want anyone else to have her.

  Somehow, in his mind, she had become his, and quite unlike he would feel if he were still his usual, unaffected self, Max realized he most decidedly was not in the mood to share her. With anyone. But most especially not with the charming, wealthy, and in Arielle's case, potentially dangerous Andrew Skuffing, even if Drew was his best friend.

  Not a dance, a laugh, not even one simple smile.

  “The princess is quite beautiful, isn't she?” Lady Emily asked, bringing his attention back to the woman in his arms. The woman Arielle thought would make a perfect duchess for him.

  She was wrong.

  Lady Emily was lovely, of course, and possessed of a somewhat charming though rare sense of humor as well as a sense of duty. But for Max, there was one very important quality missing.

  She was not Arielle.

  But Arielle cannot be your duchess, his conscience reminded.

  Bloody hell.

  He had thought of nothing but her, long into the night, remembering the weeks after she had first come to Rothmeade. How she had refused to settle in as a guest of the family might, but preferred to act as companion to the duchess when she was not offering up a helping hand to the staff – which she often did.

  For him, she had always been there with a ready smile, a quick wit, and when necessary, a firm but gentle hand to keep his sometimes rowdy behavior in check. Those memories brought a smile to his lips.

  During the past six months, he and Arielle had spent quite a lot of time together – mostly in conversation, whether with him stretched out upon the lawns while she sat in her chair on the terrace and read through luncheon or with the both of them each nestled cozily into a chair by the fire in the library where they often met to share an evening of reading after dinner.

  With Arielle around to keep him company, Max had rarely seen a need to go out, and during those brief months spent companionably at each others side, she had become his dearest friend, without his realizing it.

  When duty allowed and he stayed at Rothmeade, Arielle's was the first whose company he sought and the last he wished to leave. When he had to be away, it was her infectious laughter and smiling green eyes that always made him want to return.

  For him, Arielle had come to represent not only Rothmeade, but all that was home. She had managed to wiggle her way into his heart and mind without his being aware of it, and then, last night, her body had challenged his in passion and that was how, Max knew, Arielle had finally won his very soul.

  The music from the orchestra faded and Max immediately stepped away from his partner, offering a quick bow. “Lady Emily, thank you for the dance, but there is someone I simply must have a word with, if you will excuse me?”

  Chapter Nine

  Fragile, like the dainty crystal slippers Max had bought for her which she had worn on her feet for the past two evenings, Arielle knew her heart was in imminent danger of being shattered.

  She danced with Andrew, but her thoughts were fully centered on Max, until he asked, “Do you love him, Harry?”

  Arielle didn't even bother to pretend. “Yes, I do.”

  Drawing in a deep breath for composure, she said, “But I am not so foolish as to expect him to return my feelings.”

  “He has promised to choose a bride from among the guests here tonight.” He peered at her. “Somehow I think you know this.”

  She
nodded even as she felt the prickling heat of tears begin behind her eyelids. She swallowed once, trying to keep them at bay, but quite feared it a futile effort, for she could practically taste the saltiness at the back of her throat.

  She drew in a deep breath. “He asked me to help him. In exchange for gaining my in-independence, I was to help him ch-choose.” Her voice caught, making her words come out like something between a croak and a sob, and she blinked hastily in an attempt to keep her tears from falling, though it did, indeed, prove futile.

  Drew muttered a curse and she felt his arm come quickly around her waist. He led her off to the side of the crowded ballroom floor to a somewhat secluded alcove, doing his best to shield her from view of curious onlookers.

  “Here now, let's have none of that,” he chided, offering his handkerchief.

  “Thank you.” Dabbing at tears she could not seem to suppress, Arielle drew in a shuddering breath. “What am I to do, Andrew? I truly thought I could do this. I believed I could help him choose his duchess and then live out the rest of my life without wondering what might have been, but...”

  “But? Something happened?”

  Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “He kissed me. We kissed each other, actually. It was...”

  “Spare me the details, please,” he begged, holding up a hand as if to block any potentially embarrassing tidbits she might reveal, and she laughed.

  He smiled. “There, that is much better.”

  Glancing around to note whom he might need to reassure as to her condition, he froze.

  “Uh-oh. Best to clean up your eyes, my lady, else his Almighty Highness is going to know something is very much amiss,” he warned.

  Too late.

  Max took one look at her reddened, tear-stained face and his furious gaze turned on Drew. “You made her cry! You bastard, what did you do to her?”

  Stunned by the angry tone of his voice, Arielle leaped to her feet.

  “Max! Stop it!” She hissed between teeth clenched in what she hoped at least resembled a bright, though fake, smile for the curious glances they were drawing from the guests. “He didn't-”

  Thwack!

  The sound of Max's knuckles connecting with Andrew's cheek rang out through the ballroom and five hundred pairs of eyes turned their way to stare in gleeful anticipation of what was to happen next which, when he thought upon it later, Max was certain was as unexpected to one and all, including Andrew, as it was to him.

  Arielle shoved him.

  She put both dainty hands on his chest and pushed. Hard. And he fell. Like a sapling in the face of a mighty wind, he toppled to the floor. Of his own ballroom. But the fall was nothing in the face of her tearful admonition.

  “How could you? Maxwell Denning, that man is your friend, probably your best friend in the entire world, and you hit him!”

  “You were crying, Arielle!” he offered in defense, but she was having none of it, and too late, he realized what he had said. Connections were made and gasps and murmurs rose up among the throng of people gathering around.

  Arielle stiffened.

  Putting his head back, Max closed his eyes, cursing himself for seven kinds of fool. After a moment, he opened them again to see Arielle, spinning on her heel.

  She tried to run. Instead, she immediately stumbled, only to be righted by Andrew, his best friend, who wiped away her fresh tears with his thumb, turned her in the direction of the gardens and gave her a little push.

  “Go,” Max heard him whisper, and he winced.

  She somehow managed to make her escape into the gardens while Max simply sat there and watched her go - until he noticed Drew had bent down to pick up her slipper from the floor.

  His gaze went from the shoe in his hand to Max and then back to the fragile piece of footwear. Finally, the corner of his mouth kicked up into a tiny grin.

  Turning, he offered a hand to help him up from the floor, and Max took it. Drew shook his head. “Glass slippers? Who in their right mind would have thought to have a lady dance in something every bit as delicate as her heart?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Arielle?”

  Max found her in the gardens, sitting on a bench, her shoulders slumped while she cried as if her entire world had been destroyed.

  He sat beside her and drew her into his arms, where she laid her head against him and cried all the harder. He pressed a kiss against her hair and whispered, “Please stop crying, Arielle. I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt anyone, I just-”

  There weren't words to explain how he had been unable to face the choosing of a woman to spend his life with without her by his side.

  The truth was, Max hadn't wanted to face anything without her for quite some time now. She made all his choices easier. She made his entire life easier. Better. She made him feel whole inside, and somehow he had to convince her of that truth. But first, he had to get her to stop crying. “Arielle?”

  “Don't, Max. Just-I don't want to know. I only want you to hold me. Hold me, for now, and tomorrow I will figure out how to put the world back together again.”

  Tomorrow.

  Yet another something Max did not want to face without her. He put his finger under her chin and tilted her face up to tell her exactly that, but the words would not come. Instead, he kissed her. He kissed her as if there would be no tomorrow, for indeed, without her by his side, there would not be, for him.

  She kissed him.

  With every wild and tumultuous emotion rioting inside her at the moment, Arielle kissed him, holding nothing back. She kissed him for every day of the rest of her miserable life in which she would not be able to do so. She kissed him for every day since she had come of age that they had missed before he came into her life, and she kissed him once more for the forever they would never be allowed to have.

  And then, she sat up, carefully extricating herself from his embrace as she did so. “I am fine now, Max. You can return to your guests. Go back inside to your future duchess and dance.”

  Staring into her eyes, Max could not help but notice the sparkle he loved seeing more than almost anything else in the world sadly dimmed. He shook his head. “I cannot.”

  She groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “Of course you can, Max. All you need do is stand up and walk.” She pointed toward the terrace. “That way.”

  Her voice sounded raw and Max felt like the worst sort of heel for actually doing that very thing of which he had accused Drew. “I can return to our guests, Arielle, but not my future duchess because the future duchess in question is not inside.”

  Her brows drew downward. “I don't understand. Max, we...”

  He put a finger over her lips, shushing her. “I love you, Arielle. I love you and I do not give a flying damn what society thinks of it. In light of this, returning to my future duchess would be quite impossible because, as you can plainly see, I am sitting with her now, right here on this cold, stone bench while berating myself for being an ass and making her cry. And all of this while trying to find the words, the right words, mind you, to convince her I am telling the truth. And to ask her to be my duchess, if she will have me, but I am afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  He nodded. “Yes, for you see, there is something I've kept from you, Arielle. Something of which even I was not aware, until you walked through those doors last night, looking like a goddess and peeled back the veil from my eyes.”

  “What do you fear, Max? You're a duke. As such, you can do pretty much anything you please.”

  “I am afraid you will not understand when I tell you how much I need you with me, Arielle. I am afraid when I say I love you, that I have loved you for ages although it took coming close to losing you to realize it, you will not believe me.” He drew in a breath, and continued. “But most of all I am afraid you won't save me, heal me, soothe me, Arielle. I am so very afraid you might not love me back.”

  The tears were back. Max wiped away one and then another until f
inally she put her palm against his cheek and rested her forehead against his before saying, “I do love you, Maxwell Denning, 4th duke of Rothminster. You're perfect. How could anyone not love you?”

  “Oh, I don't know, Arielle. You might be surprised, but there are a few who would be so inclined - Drew for one. He thinks I am a blind, arrogant, ignorant pig of a man. Told me so himself not more than a few moments ago.”

  She chuckled. “Drew thinks very highly of you, Max. I do hope you have apologized for bruising his cheek.”

  “I have, right after I retrieved this from him.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out her slipper and leaned down so she could slide her bare foot into it.

  “Will you come back inside and dance with me, Arielle? Not as a member of my household, certainly not as staff, or even as my friend, which you are, and I am glad, but as my future duchess and the bride of my heart?”

  Smiling, she nodded and he stood to help her to her feet.

  Inside the ballroom once more, Max signaled to the musicians for a waltz, and while Arielle felt as if they danced upon a cloud, Max held her carefully, tenderly, knowing at last the full weight of dancing on glass.

  The Beast Of Edenmaine

  Once upon a time...

  ...a young English lord lost his brother in a terrible fire. Unable to bear the guilt of not being able to save his beloved sibling, the young lord soon fell to a curse through which his mind deceived him into believing he faced the fiery flames which had taken his brother's life, night after night, and his family was forced to send him away.

  Five long years passed, years in which stories of the young lord-turned-mad-earl were bandied about from parlor to parlor, each more embellished and frightful than the last until all London began to quake in secret, silent fear of the beast he had become. Then one night at a ball, said beast stole away with Lady Jane Cerrigwyn and made her his reluctant bride.

  Lady Jane is horrified to find herself wed to a madman, but perhaps, she thinks, all is not as it seems for by day the earl wooes her as carefully as any lover might. But by night, bound by terror and the tragedy of his past, he locks himself away, far beyond her reach.