by Cara Colter
Me, too. Just tell me where he is, and I’ll make a rip in him. Limb from limb. Kissing my true love’s toes, wrecking my daughter’s toys, I’ll—
“Mommy says he’s just a baby, he’ll be better when he grows up. He won’t pee under my bed anymore.”
“Are we talking about Justin Jason, Jason Justin?” he asked uncertainly.
Whitney nodded solemnly. “Our cat.”
The man in her life was a cat! The one she had said she was going to marry. He met Jordan’s eyes.
She was smiling, a little abashed.
And then he knew exactly why she’d said it. To protect herself. From feeling all the same things all over again that had hurt her the first time. Except she probably already was feeling those things.
He stared at her, and the truth stared back at him.
She loved him. Jordan loved him. He was going to be given a second chance. Was his world going to allow him a second chance?
Was he going to be allowed a life that included his daughter? He noticed the aroma coming off Whitney, wonderful, soapy and sleepy. Her pudgy hand had crept into his. Could this be his life?
“Would you be ruined if this cozy little picture made the papers?” Jordan asked, and he could tell she was only partly kidding.
“The palace is secure. Nothing ever gets out of here.” Though since the kidnapping he was not quite as willing to see things as completely secure as he had once been. And occasionally a staff member, usually someone new, did get a story bribed out of them.
“Thank God. How could a person live if they thought their every move was going to be recorded? Every bad hair day a topic of public ridicule.”
He wondered if that meant she had gone from her vehement “I could never live like this” of yesterday, to thinking it was the remotest possibility.
He did not know if he had ever known contentment such as this: sitting on a big bed in a humble room made so lovely by the presence of the most beautiful girls in the world. Contemplating a future…
Whitney said suddenly, “I love Penwyck, Mommy. Can we stay?”
And there it was, right out in the open.
“I don’t know,” her mother said, ruffling her daughter’s hair, not looking at him.
Much better than an out-and-out no, he decided. He wished he could get down on one knee right now and turn that I-don’t-know into a yes.
The phone rang and Jordan hesitated, obviously regretting an intrusion into their lovely little morning as much as he did, but then picked it up.
“A call from America?” she said. “Oh, yes put it through. Mom? Sorry, you’ll have to speak up. I’m what? On the front page of the Connecticut Chronicle? Me? And I look awful? I don’t remember where I got the sweatshirt. No, I am not throwing it away. It’s my best Chocolate Ecstasy shirt. No, you won’t be reading about that next. It’s Meg’s most celebrated dessert not a perverted act.”
Jordan studied her fingernails and listened. Owen could hear the excited rise and fall of her mother’s voice on the other end of the phone.
She sounded…intimidating.
“The prince?” Jordan glanced at him guiltily. “Mom! You’re always the one who told me not to believe everything you saw in the paper. Especially that paper.”
So, if he didn’t want Jordan’s life too upset he had to make his move quickly.
“I wanna talk to Gwandma,” Whitney said. Jordan looked like she couldn’t unload the phone fast enough.
He hoped Whitney’s enthusiasm about talking to her grandmother meant she wasn’t nearly the dragon her disembodied voice indicated.
“Hi Gwandma. I have a pony named Tubby. He’s pwetty. And Pwince Owen is in bed with Mommy.”
Jordan snatched back the phone. “Mom, quit shrieking. She calls her elephant that now. I have to go, bye.”
And she crashed down the phone and closed her eyes.
“Mommy, you lied,” Whitney said, appalled.
“Yes, you did,” Owen said, trying not to sound too cheerful.
He didn’t succeed, because Jordan glared at him.
“Are you going to do it all over again?” she asked. “Ruin my life?”
It occurred to him that he was going to marry her. And that if he was going to do that he better start laying the groundwork. And that meant meeting with his own mother before he even gave another thought to Jordan’s.
He had a sudden sinking sensation. What if he was unable to obtain permission to marry Jordan?
And then he looked at her, and his small daughter, and knew. If he was not granted permission to marry the woman he loved and had loved since he was eighteen years old, then he would not stay in Penwyck, never become king.
The relief he felt at that confirmed the final lesson he had learned while being held prisoner in Majorca. He had no real desire to be king.
Still, he would try proper channels first.
“I have some things to do,” he said regretfully.
“Pwince things?” Whitney asked.
“Yes.”
“Liking kissing a pwincess?”
“Yes,” he said, leaned forward and kissed her soundly on the cheek, and her mother on the mouth. “Tell grandma that the next time she phones,” he said.
He closed the door, and heard the pillow crash against it a millisecond later. He grinned and tried to remember when he had felt so happy in his entire life.
He noticed, an hour later, when he was ushered into his mother’s quarters that she looked dignified and beautiful, as always, but there were strain lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth.
The kidnapping had taken its toll on her, and he was glad he had said yes to the celebration, because maybe it would bring her some joy.
Plus, indirectly, wasn’t that what had brought Jordan and Whitney to him?
He went forward and took his mother’s hand, kissed it gently. She dismissed her staff, and they were alone.
He had always loved her apartment with its rich furnishings and lovely, light colors. But today it didn’t hold a candle to a small room in the servants’ quarters in the basement.
“I’m proud of you, Owen,” Queen Marissa said, in that quiet, well-modulated voice. “I’ve been hearing reports all morning about how you conducted yourself at the mine yesterday. Of course, I would have preferred you didn’t find it necessary to go underground.”
“I needed to.”
She sighed and smiled, touched his cheek. “Just like you needed to try and escape from the kidnappers, needed to fight your way out of there, when a perfectly trained group of men could have rescued you.”
“I’m not Dylan,” he said, and saw that look on her face that she could never quite hide from him. A deep pleasure, now mingled with pain because his brother was gone. “I don’t always think things all the way through like he does. And you do.”
She scanned his face. “The bruises are healing well. Are you using the cream I sent?”
Of course, he wasn’t using cream on his face. He said, smiling, “I understand happiness is the greatest of healers.”
They were doing that delicate dance that would slowly move them toward the point he was here to discuss. Dylan was always so good at this sort of thing, enjoyed the preliminaries, but Owen had a more impatient nature.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Owen,” she said, and he detected caution in her tone. “I heard about the carriage, and the er, highwayman. The palace is abuzz with it today. She must be a very special girl.”
So, she wasn’t going to mention it first if she knew Jordan was the mother of his child, of her granddaughter.
Dylan would have toyed with it a while longer before getting to the point, but Owen found he did not have the patience for the verbal preliminaries. “Isn’t that why you brought them here, mother, Jordan and Whitney. To make me happy?”
She regarded him without speaking.
“How long did you know about them?” he asked her.
She sighed. “Owen, it was naive of you
to believe you would be allowed to go to America without protection of any kind.”
“I realize that now,” he said stiffly.
“It was for your own protection, not as an invasion of your privacy. I hired a top American surveillance team. You never knew they were there.”
“And so did you know everything that was happening?” he asked, hating it that the most intense moments of his life had been recorded, reported, defiled.
“I’m sorry, Owen, yes I did.”
He detected that she was still sorry about something, that she still knew things he did not, things she thought were going to hurt him.
Did she think he would not be allowed to marry Jordan?
“Did you know about my daughter?”
She hesitated. “I did.”
“How could you keep that from me?”
“Owen, being naive at eighteen is forgivable. But not now. There are dangerous undercurrents in the palace, as there always are in royal life. It is my sacred mission to protect this family, and the heir to the throne. Sometimes, to do that, I have to make choices that are not going to be popular. Can you understand that?”
“You kept me from my daughter. You knew about her. You knew about Jordan trying to raise her by herself, struggling, giving up her dreams.”
“Owen, I understand your anger. On the other hand, you must see that our enemies were able to come in this very palace and get you right from under the noses of one of the most highly trained security teams in the world. Your daughter was in America, completely unprotected, a weak spot. How much better that no one, including you, knew about her?”
“If you would have told me, I could have brought them here. They would have been safe here.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But it was not the right time for the people of Penwyck to know you had fathered a child with an American girl.”
“Because it would have reduced my chances of being chosen king,” he guessed coldly, and watched something flicker in his mother’s eyes. He realized, again, uncomfortably, there were yet more secrets. “And why is the time right now? Obviously, you wouldn’t have brought Jordan and her child here if you felt it would still be damaging to the all important royal image.”
He saw her struggling, knew that she was a brilliant strategist who had survived the intrigues of court life, thrived on them, because she had always played her cards close to her chest, known precisely when to lay them on the table.
He knew he did not share that ability with her. Dylan did. He felt weary to the bone from it all, the manipulations, the intrigues, the chess games played with real human lives.
“The time was right to bring them here,” she said, not elaborating.
“And you have that right to play with my life, to make decisions like that for me?” It was the closest he had ever come to speaking disrespectfully to his mother.
“I hope you will understand someday, Owen.”
“I’ve lost four years of my daughter’s life. I missed her being born and her first steps and her first words. I left Jordan when she needed me most. I didn’t know her need, but you did.”
Again, she said, “I hope you will understand someday, my son.”
“If I were to ask your permission to marry Jordan now?” he asked.
“I would give it,” she said, without hesitation.
He tried not to show how stunned he was by this easy victory. It made him suspicious.
“Why?”
“Owen, plots that have been brewing for twenty-five years are coming to fruition. Soon, you will know how much I owe you. I hope to repay my debt to you in your happiness.”
“Though you cannot give me back that which was taken, Mother, you owe me nothing,” he said, concerned by the torment in her face.
“I owe you everything,” she said enigmatically, and then she smiled. “I am anxious to meet my granddaughter. Perhaps she and Ms. Ashbury could join me for lunch today.”
“Whitney doesn’t know yet, that I’m her father. I need to wait for the right time.”
“Trust my discretion,” his mother said.
And he realized that he could trust. His mother knew secrets—possibly all the secrets of this family and this palace. And she kept them all until the precise moment they needed to be played.
He had thought he would find it unforgivable that she had stolen the first four years of his daughter’s life from him. But looking at her, he understood the weight of responsibility she carried, saw it in the lines of her face, and the sadness in her eyes.
She had paid a price for her secrets.
And he knew he would pay his price, too, to be king. He would hold life and death, war and peace in his hands.
He realized how totally he did not want this job.
“Owen, you are too young for such worries,” his mother said, as if she had read his mind. “Go and enjoy being in love. And for God’s sake, get that young woman of yours a gown for the upcoming ball that will show her off and make those fools at the papers see how they missed her beauty entirely.”
“A gown?” he said. “Don’t they take time to make?”
His mother smiled. “How lucky for you that you have three sisters. Try Anastasia. She’s closest in size to your Ms. Ashbury, and her closets are full to overflowing. I’m positive she’ll have something suitable.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“By the way, Owen, I heard many stories of what your Ms. Ashbury did at the mine yesterday, as well. She possesses a quality of humility that speaks to me of uncommon and quiet strength. You have chosen well.”
He blushed at his mother’s approval. It wasn’t until he walked away, that he realized her approval had struck him as different than normal. Authentic.
He was not sure what that meant, until he realized how often her praise for him had occurred in public. It had embarrassed him at times, how she would single him out for attention, say nothing about Dylan’s accomplishments, though Dylan would have so enjoyed the praise.
He frowned, now thinking of that.
Had his mother deliberately underplayed Dylan? He loved her, but she had a gift for being calculating. She didn’t do anything by accident. Was there meaning to the fact she had never drawn attention to her other son?
He did not want to ponder palace politics and intrigues at the moment. It gave him a headache.
He went in search of his sister.
“First a tiara, and now a dress?” Anastasia said, letting him in. “What’s gotten into you, Owen?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
She laughed. “The whole palace is talking about you snatching the kitchen help from that carriage yesterday and bringing her to the grotto.”
“Don’t say kitchen help like that. You don’t know anything about Jordan Ashbury.”
“Owen, I was just teasing!”
“The dress?” he reminded her mulishly.
“Owen, you’re blushing! I would never have thought you could be romantic. That’s not what Charlotte Hendron told me. She wept after you’d been with her. She said you were an insensitive boor.”
“I was not! It’s just that she was a bore. I cannot stand these candidates for royal marriage that have been paraded in front of me.”
“It’s true, Charlotte never would have been caught dead in an outfit like that one within a ten mile radius of anyone with a camera—if that’s what you call boring. Besides, no one has dared parade a woman in front of you for years. You always send them home in tears.”
“Anastasia, could I just pick a dress without the lecture? Please?” He tried to remember if he’d really sent anyone home in tears.
“Tell me about the girl?” his sister pleaded. “I can’t believe things have moved this fast. I mean Owen, aside from on the polo field, you are not a fast mover.”
“Things between us haven’t exactly moved fast,” he said uncomfortably. “I knew her from before.”
“From before? That’s impossible. I know everything about you.�
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“Maybe not everything. I met Jordan the summer I went to California.”
His sister looked hard at him. “I always knew you came back from there changed. Is she the reason?”
He said nothing.
“She is, isn’t she? She’s the reason poor Charlotte never had a chance, and why Suzette and Brenda and all those others were sent home in tears. My God, Owen, you’re in love with her.”
Her attitude changed instantly. “Does she return the feeling?”
“I hope so, but I’ve hurt her badly. Maybe even unforgivably.”
“Come, then. We will try and find the dress that will soften her heart to you.”
She ushered him into her bedroom. It was the second time that day he had been struck by how the richness of surroundings could seem empty, somehow.
“Here,” she said, throwing open an immense closet door, “Choose.”
“Oh, God.” There looked to be a mile of long dresses in front of him. He didn’t even want to touch them, they looked so frilly and fragile.
“They don’t bite,” his sister said. “You can touch them.”
Slowly, he began to look through the dresses. He had seen his sister in most of them, and her style was not Jordan’s. Anastasia could carry off the very flashy with great class. Many of her dresses were bright colored silks, sequined.
“This one?” his sister said, holding a black number in front of her. She twirled in the narrow space of the closet, and knocked open a large box that had been standing in a corner.
They both stared.
Inside was a gown of creamy ivory silk. It was long and flowing with an overskirt and sleeves of film. It was simple but extraordinarily elegant.
“I’ve never worn that dress,” Anastasia said. “I bought it, but didn’t like it when I got it home. Don’t tell mother.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll get the spoiled little princess lecture.”
“Which you deserve,” he said. He touched the dress, and almost had to pull his fingers away. It seemed alive it was so beautiful.
“Cinderella,” he said, “get ready for the ball.”
“It is a Cinderella kind of dress,” Anastasia said with wonder. “It will look so nice with her eyes, her coloring.” She looked at her brother. “Owen,” she whispered, “are you going to ask her to marry you?”
