Except for the hair tapering down his forehead, nothing about him suggested that he was from anywhere but Earth, and that he was indeed an Earth human of the highest standing. He was dressed in a white shirt with black triangular neckwear, and a black leather longcoat with the lower back cut into tails. His shiny trousers were black, his leather boots black as well. The cut and fit of his outfit suggested that his garments were tailored to the muscles of a figure out of Earth's most heroic legends. The arresting handsomeness of his face, leaving out the forehead hair of his species, was the handsomeness of a young nobleman out of bedtime stories of centuries gone by. This prince of another world in the guise of a prince of Earth could be none but Dagin. Danielle watched him courteously kiss the hand of some redhead heiress in a slinky, glittery blue gown and rolled her eyes at how slender and shapely she was. Danielle had no doubt that this Dagin would have such women orbiting him like the moons of Jupiter tonight, and one of them would surely awake in his bed after a night of interstellar sex. Well, good for the lucky, skinny girl, she thought. I'll just make my introductions and my small talk and leave him to her.
As if on cue, Danielle had someone on one arm and someone else on the other. Mildly surprised, she glanced from side to side into the smiling faces of her parents. Sylvia Dryden was a brown-haired beauty of a certain age, who would have been as thoroughly filled out as Danielle herself, if not more so, if she had submitted to the whims of nature. Instead, Sylvia had submitted to the bodily reconstruction procedures easily obtainable by the wealthy and frequently used by the less well off, and banished the fat from her body to have herself made a stately, swan-like society matron. Many times she had urged, cajoled, even pleaded with Danielle to have the procedures herself, but Danielle had held fast to what her mother called "romantic" notions of the man of her dreams loving her in her natural form, just as she was. After the experience of Braden, Danielle had grown to see just how "romantic" her ideas really were, yet she still clung stubbornly to the idea of finding the love she wanted in the body in which she had been born.
Thomas Dryden, her father, had also refused to accept the hand that his genes had dealt him. His age was disclosed only by the general roundness of his face, not by the full thickness and darkness of his hair, not by the perfectly subtle lines of his features, and not by the flatness of his midsection. The physical effects of age had become very much a choice, not the destiny it had been in the past, a destiny that people largely rejected regardless of their walk of life.
"Danielle, darling, you're finally here! We're so glad you came out for this. You look wonderful!" Her mother beamed at her, giving Danielle's stout arm a squeeze.
"Thank you, Mom," Danielle replied with her politest smile, mentally continuing the conversation that always went on between her and her mother whether openly or between the lines with, ...even if I won't go under the adipose lasers.
Her father gathered Danielle into a warm embrace and said, "Everyone's here, sweetheart. The president, the ambassador—we've just been waiting for you to arrive. We're all going to be introduced to the prince. Come on..."
And with his daughter on his arm and his wife at their side, Thomas Dryden escorted his family to the receiving line. At the end of the line, Danielle maintained her party smile and waved cordially at people she recognized while scoping out the ballroom for a table to which she could retire once this formality was over, and the delicacies she would round up onto her plate once she could finally sit down. Rituals of this sort had been going on since the days when Earth people took their ships to the seas and used the stars to navigate. They were still going on now that they were sailing their ships between the stars themselves. She could only imagine that they were as tiresome then as they were now. She thought it might be best if she were to concentrate on the reason for all this folderol and trained her eyes on the end of the line where Prince Dagin, looking as Earthly and civilized as he could despite belonging to a ruling family of alien warriors, was still engaged in the shaking and kissing of sundry hands. Are you as bored as I am, Your Highness? she wondered.
If Danielle had kept her eyes on the entrance to the ballroom, she would have noticed the entrance of another figure, tall and decked out in a suit of silk, flannel, and leather. The former college athlete had short dark hair, piercing eyes set into a face of strong and seductive handsomeness, and—under his formal attire—a body of muscle as solid as the mountains of Mars. He scanned the multitude of partygoers as he might have scanned a field of opponents back in school, as if he were assessing and analyzing his competitors—or seeking a specific target. The piercing eyes came to rest on the pretty-faced, roundish figure in the Saturn-colored gown near the end of the receiving line. And onto his face blossomed a charming, ingratiating smile that he was well accustomed to using on influential people. There she was—just as he’d been told she would be. Weaving with practiced skill in and out among other people, he headed for the line.
The Drydens were approaching the middle of the line when Sylvia gave Danielle's arm another squeeze and whispered, "It won't be long now. That Dagin gets handsomer the closer you get to him, doesn't he?"
Truth to tell, Danielle did not particularly like it when her mother squeezed her arm. It only seemed to underscore the fact that Sylvia thought there was too much meat on it, as well as on the rest of her. But she dismissed that for the moment and trained her eyes on the end of the line, where the sight of Dagin more than lived up to Sylvia's opinion of him. Without question, in his alien way, the prince was breathtaking. Danielle remembered pictures that she had seen of Sarmians dressed for hand-to-hand combat. The women made her think of space Amazons, but the men were an extraterrestrial version of Spartan warriors, all bare muscle with helmets and strategic pieces of cloth and armor, brandishing laser rifles as well as swords and axes and spears and shields. Danielle could easily imagine Dagin that way, not dressed for human grace and refinement like he was now. It was an image she had to admit was not unpleasant.
It was far more pleasant, in fact, than the feeling that came over her when the face of Braden Carson suddenly appeared in front of her, wearing the same winning smile that he had used on her when they first met. Then, it had been charming. Now, it was a shocking reminder of what Danielle wanted to leave in the past.
"Danielle!" he said as if nothing had ever happened. "I heard you'd be here. You look great."
Danielle, struck speechless at the intrusion of her ex into her evening, studied Braden with the suspicion of someone sticking a fork in a piece of meat cooked long after it had gone bad—which was essentially what Braden was to her now. "Braden. You 'heard' I'd be here. Of course, I'm sure you did."
No doubt Braden had used his network of well-placed contacts to learn that she was coming to this ball. It was what any good social climber would do. Danielle looked at her parents' fidgety expressions. They had always liked Braden right up to the point when their heartbroken daughter told them about the blonde. His ingratiating, winning ways, so well cultivated for his social gain and economic advancement, had worked well on them, much to their embarrassment now.
"Mr. and Mrs. Dryden, it's nice to see you again," Braden had the nerve to say.
"You're looking well, Braden," said Thomas, flatly.
"It's bad form to come up to us this way," said Sylvia. "It'll look like you're trying to cut ahead in line."
"It is bad form," agreed Danielle, sounding as if she would love to stick a fork in him for real. "You should go to the end of the line. Now."
Braden said to Danielle, "We really should talk. There are some things I have to tell you—"
Danielle cut him off: "They can wait." Implicit in her reply was the word forever.
At his end of the receiving line, Prince Dagin noticed a minor commotion a few meters in front of him. He and the two gold-clad male members of the Sarmian diplomatic corps accompanying him spied what was happening down the line and exchanged bewildered looks. Behind him, Dagin heard one of his compan
ions whisper, "Who are those humans behaving in so unseemly a manner?"
The other diplomat whispered back, "I believe the male in the queue is the owner of a space mining industry. I don't know who the young one is who's accosting him. He should be grateful he's here, instead of on Sarma. He'd be dragged out and tossed in the rubbish for behaving thusly."
Dagin said nothing, just taking in the little drama being played out in the line. It was the most interesting thing that had happened all evening. Of particular interest was the reaction of the pretty-looking, plump girl in the pastel gold gown. Doing the emotional maths on the situation, he guessed that the one trespassing on the queue must be a former or would-be suitor, trying to curry her favor again. Dagin smiled at the thought of what a Sarmian woman would do in such a situation. What would the pretty, plump human do?
Down the line, Danielle cast her eyes anxiously around, growing ever more uncomfortable at the spectacle they were starting to make. "Braden, you're being rude," she scolded in a hushed voice. "You need to go to the end of the line or someone is going to ask you to leave." To which she mentally added, Then again, go on and keep being rude so they will!
"Danielle, baby, I don't care how it looks. I don't care about etiquette. I only care about you. I want to talk to you. Promise me we can talk sometime this evening, please."
"Anything that I'd want to say to you," Danielle said in an acid tone, "I wouldn't want to say at a party. Especially this party. Go away."
"Danielle is right, son," said Thomas. "This isn't the time or the place. You know better than this."
"Sir," pleaded Braden, "all I want is to tell Danielle I know what a mistake I made and ask for a chance to start over. I know we can get over this—"
"I don't want to 'get over' anything, Braden. I can't 'get over' it," Danielle said coldly. "And I don't want up you here. It's a big party full of rich girls. Go and bother one of them."
Braden pleaded all the harder, "Baby, don't say that—"
"And I told you never to call me 'baby' again!" Danielle almost shouted.
Dagin's initial amusement was changing to concern. He did not care for the presumption of the one intruding on the line, and he cared even less for the effect the intruder was having on the pretty, plump girl. He leaned back to one his attendants and said, "I think the young lady needs some assistance. Go and help her before this incident escalates."
"Yes, Your Highness," said the tall Sarmian in gold, stepping away from the receiving end of the line and striding ahead to where the unpleasantness was occurring.
In a few steps, the tall diplomat—who looked every bit as if he did half of his "negotiating" with a sword or an axe—was at the trouble spot and glaring down at Braden. "Young man," he said politely but sternly, "are you aware that you are committing a breach of form? Prince Dagin shall be happy to greet you—in your proper turn."
With all the defiance of the social climber unwilling to let go of his intended meal ticket, Braden looked up at the diplomat and said, "I didn't come here for Prince Dagin. I just want to talk to Dani—" He corrected himself, feeling a need for formality, "Ms. Dryden, here."
The diplomat, his glare unwavering, said, "If you are not here for the prince, you should not be here at all." And with that he suddenly reached out and grabbed Braden's shoulder—hard. Braden started and winced at the Sarmian's grasp. "You may go to the end of the queue or you may excuse yourself. At this moment the eyes of both my world and yours are upon you. Your president and other leaders are here. The Prince of Sarma himself is here. Disgrace yourself not before them. Are we in understanding?" And he gave a squeeze for emphasis, making Braden wince harder.
Braden, his options growing decidedly narrow, looked from the frowning expression of the diplomat to the frowns on the faces of the Drydens and the almost scowling look of contempt that Danielle wore, and said in a pained voice, "I understand."
The Sarmian released Braden's shoulder and said, "It is good that we can thus communicate. Enjoy the ball." And he spun on his heel and walked briskly back the way he had come.
Braden, too mortally embarrassed even to clutch the shoulder that the Sarmian had grabbed, looked pitifully at the distaste on Danielle's face, the mortified expressions of her parents, and the embarrassment of the other people in the line, and words utterly failed him. He turned around and stalked away towards the ballroom entrance. Danielle faced her parents with the words good riddance to bad rubbish in her eyes, and together they faced again the front of the line, where the prince stood. Danielle could not help but notice the sparkle in the wondrously handsome Dagin's eyes. He seemed to approve very much of the way his attendant had seen off her unappreciated ex.
Dagin fixed his eyes on Danielle and wondered how she would have handled this situation without his intervention. She was so unlike the women he had known, many of them in bed, on his own planet. Young women, and for that matter young men, on Sarma were not as soft and round as this one. Stout bodies were for the elders, whose warrior days were behind them. And yet, he did not know when he had seen a woman of either planet as lovely as this one, in spite of her girth. How would it be, he wondered, to bed such a woman, to lie with those full round curves? How would it be to feel her response to his arms around her, his body atop her, his erect zazansa penetrating her wet and yielding gliarra? Dagin had never imagined such a thing. Truly the universe beyond Sarma was about new possibilities. Assuming, of course, that she was open to such a possibility.
The procession of guests down the line to meet the prince continued uneventfully. One of the two diplomats accompanying Dagin had a linker from which he read the names of the guests as they presented themselves. In due turn, he came to Danielle's parents. They shook his hand with as much sangfroid as they could manage, but Danielle was almost afraid her mother would swoon and keel over when Dagin gallantly kissed her hand.
Once her parents moved aside, it was Danielle's turn. The diplomat with the linker announced, "Ms. Danielle Dryden, heiress to Dryden Industries, of the Martian Colonies."
At last, Danielle's eyes met Dagin's from within arm's reach. In such close proximity to such otherworldly sexiness, Danielle thought she could feel a charge in the air emanating from his dark pupils and his gleaming smile. His was a handsomeness such as she had never known, a male beauty never made on Earth. He extended his hand as he had done dozens of times this evening, but with a practiced poise that made it seem like a personal gesture and not a reflex. The prince spoke in a voice deep and melodic: "I'm enchanted to meet you, Ms. Dryden."
Danielle gracefully reached out with her gloved hand to let him kiss it, and was almost grateful that she was wearing gloves. To have the kiss of this man on her bare hand, she thought, would surely make her catch fire. "Enchanted as well, Your Highness," she said. "I hope you're enjoying your evening."
"Everything has been lovely," he replied, with a sparkle in the darkness of his eyes. "Well, almost everything. The gentleman from earlier... I gather you're acquainted?"
Danielle blushed slightly. "He wasn't exactly being a gentleman tonight. And our acquaintance is over, thank you."
"You shall make better acquaintances tonight, I am certain," Dagin said with a smile on his lips. A very kissable smile.
"I'm sure I will, Your Highness," replied Danielle. "I'm glad I decided to join my parents this evening."
"As am I, Ms. Dryden," said the Prince, his eyes following her in a most un-princely manner almost like those of a stalking beast as she stepped away from the line to join Thomas and Sylvia.
At her parents' side once again, Danielle had an odd feeling that Dagin was glancing at her from the corners of his eyes before he turned his attention to the next guests, a couple of plant-beings who coiled their fronds about his hand in greeting. Then came another of those disconcerting squeezes of her arm from her mother. "Now you see, darling?" Sylvia grinned broadly at her. "If you'd stayed in your suite at home, you'd never have had your hand kissed by an actual prince!"
&n
bsp; Keeping an eye on Dagin—whom she was now finding it increasingly difficult to look away from —Danielle said, "I also wouldn't have had to be bothered by my ex-boyfriend who actually thinks I'd take him back after what he did."
"Don't bother yourself about him any more," said Thomas. "You're done with him. I can't believe I actually approved of such a bounder."
"It's not your fault, Daddy," Danielle sighed. "People like him are good at getting the approval of people who they want something from. I should be happy I found out about him now instead of later."
"That's right, sweetheart," Thomas said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "Now let's just find a table and have something to eat."
At the moment, Danielle found the prospect of a meal positively seductive. Food may put pounds on a girl, but it would never sneak from her plate onto that of some other girl. And the cuisine was not standing at the end of a receiving line, looking utterly gorgeous but completely out of reach.
At length, the receiving line ebbed away and Dagin and his attendants took their places at the table of honor in a raised area of the ballroom where they, the lady President and First Gentleman of Earth, and the other highest-ranking dignitaries, sat a step higher than the rest of the partygoers. Dagin's attention was half on his meal and half on the throng of humans and extraterrestrials seated before him. With eyes trained to pick out targets both human and animal from the deserts, fields, forests, and cliffs of his home planet, he scanned the party for one particular figure in one particular dress. He found her at once, with her mother and father, near the middle of the area of tables arranged around the dance floor, dining away and seeming to enjoy herself.
Highlander's Pride: Winter Solstice (Against All Odds Series 1) Page 49
