by J. M. Stengl
“As you discovered today,” I added.
The little fairy nodded. “Lady Beneventi was very sad and frightened. I thought I could fix everything at sundown, but I cannot restore broken hearts, minds, or lives.” She paused, still hovering in the air. “I will stop granting her wishes. But . . . may I still bring Arturo to keep her company when she wishes for him?”
Geoff, Rosa, and Manny all looked to me. I nodded. “He truly is a comfort, and his visits cause no harm.”
“Then you may grant only her wishes for Arturo,” Rosa said firmly. “If we hear that Lady Beneventi’s wishes are causing further trouble, we will need to inform the Gamekeeper.”
The fairy shook her head, her eyes wide and anxious. “I won’t cause any more trouble, I promise!”
The enchanters both nodded. Geoff looked to Manny, then to me. “Is there anything else?”
Manny also looked to me. “No, I believe that covers everything,” I said. “Thank you so much for coming.” But as I accompanied them to the door, I realized this might be my only chance to get answers to my questions. “Can you please tell me why I can see the fairy now? Before, I sometimes saw Lady Beneventi’s hair moving or an impression of something on her shoulder. But now I can actually see a fairy!”
Rosa glanced at Geoff, then explained: “Once the fairy spoke to you, you could see her. I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see other fairies, but don’t be surprised if you do. I doubt you will see other magical creatures since fairy magic is distinct from all other varieties.”
Although this was more information than I really wanted, I smiled and nodded. My brain felt buzzy again. Excitement? Emotional exhaustion? Possibly both.
“Oh!” Rosa turned back in the doorway. “Would you ask the fairy if she would like a tour of the gardens here? I believe she would enjoy seeing them and possibly meeting some of our resident fairies.”
“We will ask her in the morning.” Manny spoke from just behind me, and I suddenly felt his warm presence at my back. “She is singing a lullaby to Lady Beneventi right now.”
We both thanked them again, and Rosa offered us a garden tour as well. To my own surprise I accepted, and she gave me a friendly smile.
After Manny closed the door behind Geoff and Rosa, we both stood there awkwardly. What now? “That went well,” I commented, trying and failing to sound casual.
“I agree. Amazing, how a human can give orders to a fairy! Who is this Gamekeeper person Geoff mentioned?” His voice sounded strained too.
“I don’t know; I guess he’s somebody important in the magic world.” I couldn’t look at him. My heart felt too large for my chest, and my knees were shaky.
“Will you walk with me in the garden?” he asked, his voice quiet and slightly tense. “I know it’s late, but we . . . should talk. And I could use some fresh air.”
I nodded without looking up. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I’ll let Maria know.”
Soon we stepped through the castle’s main doors into a quiet, starry night. As we walked along the drive, I could hear small waves lapping at the lakeshore, and wild creatures called in the silence. “I don’t think I’ve ever been outside this late without a big party going on and crowds of people,” I commented, huddling in my cardigan.
“Would you rather go back inside?” he asked.
Hearing a hint of disappointment in his voice, I answered, “No! Oh, no. This is perfect. I’m not afraid or anything.” I was shivering, but not with cold. What did he want to discuss? The hope and terror tangling in my chest nearly stifled me.
We entered the garden through a gate and strolled along one of its paths, the air around us light and scented. “Would you like to take my arm?” he asked. “You’ve had a terribly stressful day. I was hoping a walk would help you relax.”
I laid my hand on his forearm, but he took it and tucked it through his elbow, resting his other hand on mine. My heart gave a hopeful bound. “Gillian, there is so much I need to tell you, but first I want to thank you for your heroic care of my grandmother these past several months. Today was the pinnacle: You were amazing.” His voice sounded rough. “I know she is difficult, to say the least. She deliberately offends nearly everyone she meets—seems to go out of her way to keep people at a distance. But you . . . well, as the fairy said, Nonna Catriona likes you. I would even venture to say she loves you, in her own way. At Christmas, they say she talked about you constantly—proud to have the most beautiful companion anyone has ever seen, a girl who couldn’t be chased off.”
My heart had swollen until speaking was difficult. “I couldn’t quit, you know. I wanted to very much, but . . . my family.”
“Your family—” His voice hardened. “Your father, at least, has done nothing to deserve your loyalty.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t loyalty, really. My motives were selfish. I couldn’t bear the idea of losing my place in society, my chance of marrying a prince or duke like my sister did. I didn’t want my brother to inherit the title but not Roxwell Hall, and my sister and her children would suffer shame if our parents were disgraced. Honestly, it was pride that got me started and kept me going, not good character.”
He gently squeezed my hand on his arm. “I know. But I also know that you have gone far beyond just sticking it out.”
I bowed my head and shook it. “I wish you wouldn’t praise me when you know very well that I’ve been horrid from the beginning.” I tried to let go of his arm, but he held onto my hand. “Manny . . . Raoul, I used you. I treated you like dirt and then forgot all about you. Just like I treat most people.”
“And I was angry and wounded and wanted to get back at you somehow. I’m no angel either, Gillian. After you turned down my proposal, I wanted revenge . . . but I also wanted to give you a chance to restore your family honor by doing something unselfish. It was my idea to hire you as companion to Nonna for a year to pay off your father’s debt. My family agreed to the idea, but they don’t know . . . I mean, I didn’t tell them you’d rejected me. They assumed I chose not to offer marriage after I met you, and I was too proud to tell them otherwise.”
Just as I had guessed. I glanced up. “So they don’t hate me?”
“Not at all. My entire family is grateful to you, and they’ll be even more so once I tell them about today’s fiasco. I can’t imagine Nonna would survive long if we moved her away from the villa. I have fond memories of swimming in the pool there as a child and playing in the gardens with my brothers and the Ganza boys—but that was when my grandfather was still alive. After she lost him, Nonna didn’t want us around.”
“Arturo. You know, the first time I saw him, I thought he was . . . you. And I panicked. But afterward I didn’t connect how much he was like the Manny version of you in manner and features as well. I simply felt comfortable around him, even though he was a ghost or a memory or whatever magical thing he is.”
“If I’m anything like my nonno, I’m pleased.” I heard the deep fondness in his voice. “He used to swim and play with us boys—we all thought he was the best ever. Now I realize that he put up with a great deal from Nonna and loved her through it all.”
We descended a stairway, then strolled across a lawn amid scented beds of roses surrounded by high hedges. I was starting to relax and enjoy learning these details about the man I loved.
“It was my idea to restore the villa too,” he admitted. “None of the family realized how badly it had degraded over the years. I really am the head of our family’s renovation business—I have a post-grad degree in construction management. That part was all true.” Then he laughed softly. “I confess, it was another blow to my ego when you didn’t recognize me at the airport. Being forgettable in every way. . . A guy can only take so much rejection.”
“Oh Manny, I’m so sorry!” I paused. “I should call you Raoul though.”
“I asked you to call me Manny because that’s what everyone at the villa calls me. My first name is Emanuele, same as my father’s. But people
call him Manny too, so when I reached my teens I started going by my second name, Raoul.”
I clung to his arm with both hands. “I like both names, but . . . I feel like an idiot for not recognizing you just because you shaved off a beard. How could you even stand to be around me?”
“I wasn’t pleasant company either, if you recall. I told myself I wanted to keep an eye on you, make sure you would do your job and not slack off. But after seeing how you stuck it out that first week—poodles and all—I came around because I wanted to see you. I mean, I still didn’t think you would last the full year, but I would have either convinced my family to forgive the debt or paid it off myself. For your sake, not your father’s. Meanwhile, I decided to play along and see if you ever did recognize me.”
“I didn’t,” I mumbled. “Sometimes you seemed familiar to me, but I didn’t come close to realizing why.” Memories closed in on me—the cavalier way I’d treated him last summer, the cruel things I’d said, and then my attitude of superiority to a common working man. “I lived for your visits,” I confessed.
“So did I.” He huffed a quiet laugh. “It would have spoiled everything if you’d called my work number, so that first week I bought myself a second phone just to communicate with you, and I saved your voicemails to listen to again and again. I got so deep in deception . . .” He shook his head. “I lived in daily terror that one of the Ganzas would slip and tell you the truth and you would hate me.”
“I was just as obsessed with your texts and voicemails.” Suddenly, it dawned on me: “The roses at Christmas—you sent them?”
There was a pause before he admitted, “They were really for you. Nonna hates floral arrangements, so I hoped you would take them.”
“And the note?”
“That was for you, too. I couldn’t apologize directly . . . Gillian, I didn’t dare kiss you under the mistletoe! It was difficult enough to hide my feelings . . . That would have blown everything wide open.”
The long-held anger dissolved into a warmth around my heart. “I got so nasty to you when you didn’t call or text for weeks at a time.”
He let out a shaky breath. “I was trying to back off so it wouldn’t hurt as much when you . . . when you married someone else. Gillian, I looked at your social media pages. Obsessively.” Guilt laced his voice. “Every time you liked some other man’s posts or photos, I died inside. It was stupid and juvenile . . . but that’s why I stopped texting and calling.”
“You saw the comments I wrote on Fidelio’s photos? And all those disgusting things Max wrote on my photos?” I asked.
He nodded.
“And then Max made that announcement about coming to see me and having big news . . . Why don’t you hate me?”
“Sometimes I did. But even though I fought it tooth and nail, I fell harder and harder for you. I never stopped hoping.”
My heart kicked into a full gallop.
During all this time we’d been walking, I had scarcely noticed the beauty and serenity of our surroundings. When Manny led me to a bench and sat beside me, I moved as if in a dream.
He took my cold hands in his to warm them. “You’re a beautiful person, Gillian. Inside and out. Once you learned how to really see people, you started making friends right and left. Everyone at the villa loves you now.”
When I dared to look up, I saw him, really saw him. Moonlight shone on his hair and glittered in his dark eyes as he continued: “But I . . . I’m not the man you thought I was when we spoke on the phone a few weeks ago. I thought you’d found me out, and I panicked. But then you told me . . . you loved me. I hope you don’t hate me now that you know everything.”
“I could never hate you!” I exclaimed.
I saw the flash of his white teeth when he smiled. “I thought I loved you last summer, but . . . I’ll be honest: It was mostly infatuation with your beauty. I didn’t really know you. Now—” His voice cracked, and he paused to regain control. While his thumbs gently rubbed my hands, I thought my heart would explode right out of my chest. “Now, I know you’re much more than an incredibly beautiful, clever, funny girl with some crazy ideas. You’ve become a strong woman who cares about people and accomplishes whatever she sets out to do. Gillian, do you still care for me?”
“More than ever,” I declared, my voice a mere croak. After clearing my throat, I tried again. “I don’t deserve you, Manny. I didn’t deserve your proposal last summer, and I don’t have a clue why you would care for me now. But I’m sure not complaining!”
I heard his uneven breathing and saw his beautiful smile. “I love you, Gillian.”
“I love you,” I blurted, dizzy with happiness. He reached up to touch my hair, then let his fingers trail down my cheek.
“Would you really have married a construction supervisor?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted, “in a heartbeat. Are you going to kiss me or not?”
He pulled me to my feet and gave me the tenderest, sweetest . . .
Yeah, I might forget faces, but I’ll never forget that first kiss. Or the second or third . . . you get the idea.
Then he simply held me close as he had after my ocean adventure, only this time kissing my temples and rocking me gently while I let the joy flood through me. He loved me! Raoul Trefontane, my darling Manny, truly loved me. Not for my title or fortune or beauty or social standing, but for myself. Which possibly reflected badly on his discernment, but I’d be the last to point this out.
All too soon, he pulled back and took my hand. “Come with me.”
Not that I would let him stay that far away for long. Wrapped up in each other as we were, I’m not quite sure how we climbed a set of dark stairs covered with some sweet-scented vine, or how Manny remembered the way to the Vetrician garden, but it happened, and I gazed around at the silvery statues and the pool. Guilt struck me a painful blow. “Oh, not this place,” I moaned.
“But it’s a beautiful, romantic spot,” he cajoled me, leading me to the very bench we’d occupied that terrible day.
I obliged him by sitting in my place, but this time, when he perched facing me on the bench, I focused entirely on his dear bearded face and clung to his hands. Then he very deliberately went down on one knee, gazing up at me, and his moonlit expression brought happy tears to my eyes.
“I love you, Gillian, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” I blurted almost before he got the words out.
To my complete surprise, he produced a ring box and slid a ring onto my finger. I gasped at the beauty of the dainty diamond cluster twinkling in the moonlight. “It’s perfect!” My mind could hardly grasp the moment—I was engaged to marry the (aptly titled) Honorable Raoul Trefontane, my adored Manny.
Then it dawned on me. “You bought this ring for me?”
He nodded, sliding back up onto the bench. “I’ve been carrying it around since before Christmas. I just couldn’t give up hope.”
I reached out to stroke his beard, then leaned over to kiss him.
“I’ll shave the beard if you want,” he offered.
“No, no! You look amazing in it, and I don’t mind the scratchiness.” Words I had never dreamed of thinking, let alone speaking! “I do prefer it short, however, so no birds will get nesting ideas.”
He had the grace to laugh. “I’ll keep it trimmed.”
I kissed him again for that.
We were both exhausted but deliriously happy when we slipped into the castle through a back door and climbed endless stairs to the top floor.
Manny stepped into the suite for one last goodnight kiss, but to our surprise, Lady Beneventi waited on the sofa in the sitting room, looking wide awake and much like her usual self. “Do you realize the hour? I began to think you’d run off together,” she snapped. The fairy, who’d been curled up on her shoulder, yawned and stretched her tiny arms.
“We’ve been walking and talking in the garden,” Manny said, and bent over to kiss her. “How are you feel
ing, Nonna?”
“Never mind me.” Lady B observed us with approval no scowl could conceal, as if she had planned the match from the beginning. “I wish you two would just get married and stop this mooning around.”
The very words “I wish” sent a chill through my bones. “Oh no!”
The fairy had brightened, sparkling, but now faded, looking wistfully down at the old lady. “I can’t grant the wish,” she said.
A great sigh of relief escaped me as Manny slipped both arms around my waist and pulled me close. “There’s no need for wishing.” He lifted my hand to show his grandmother my beautiful ring. “She has already said yes.”
“Well, then.” Lady B grinned from ear to ear, looking much like her young self. “I suppose that’s a good thing.”
I stood on tiptoe and thoroughly kissed my fiancé right there in front of his grandmother. “It’s a very good thing!” I stated with conviction. “Who wants a marriage that ends at sundown?”
THE END
Two princesses. One rivalry.
Don’t miss Faraway Castle Book 5—
THE MIRROR AND THE CURSE
A Snow White Romance
COMING SOON
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Jill Marie is a native of southern California who, after a whirlwind life as a military wife, now makes her home with her husband in North Carolina, where she serves at the beck and call of two purebred cats and one adorable granddaughter. Obsessions include all things animal rescue, fairy-tale romances, knowing the lyrics to the best songs from old musicals, and perfecting the perfect pastry crust.
During her former career as a historical romance novelist, Jill Marie won both the Carol Award and RWA's Inspirational Readers' Choice Award. Now she prefers her novels to include a dash of magic along with the heart-melting romance.
