by Cara Colter
He ordered his mind to take him down forest paths bathed in moonlight, but his mind rebelled. In his imagination, instead of riding into the inviting silence of the forest, he was riding toward the palace. Right up the stairs and into the ballroom, delighting in scattered people and tables. He swooped her up, covered her protesting mouth with his, whirled the horse and—
“Oh, look,” Anastasia said, “there’s Ralph and Trisha. Don’t they look lovely? Owen, it was so sweet of you to ask them to come.”
He opened his eyes and looked where his sister gestured and then wished he hadn’t. His mother’s tradition was that palace staff were to be treated as members of their extended family. They were to be included in functions whenever possible, so given that Ralph’s romance seemed to be progressing quite a bit better than his own, and to reward his loyalty in reporting Jordan’s escape attempt, Owen had invited him to bring his girl to the ball.
The young couple looked blissfully happy, Ralph as unaware of what he was eating as Owen was, and for a completely different reason. Trisha was focused so intently on Ralph, smiling up at him. As Owen watched, she hesitated, looked around and then mischievously popped a pickle into Ralph’s mouth. At a royal banquet!
Owen looked swiftly away. That’s what Jordan should be doing! Smiling at him and flouting convention, as always, by popping pickles into his mouth.
But oh, no, Jordan was sitting halfway across the room looking absolutely fascinated by Peter Webster, looking like she had been born to settings like this one, and not flouting convention at all.
Owen frowned. Was Webster the type women thought of as good-looking? He felt he was seeing the man’s solid build, his square jaw and blond hair for the first time. Bodyguards and the women they protected had long histories of the forced intimacy of that relationship crossing boundaries.
“Can you tell me why she isn’t sitting beside me?” he asked Anastasia. The question required him to swallow his pride. Jordan had tried to escape from him! She had acted as if he was capable of the most despicable kind of behavior! Okay, maybe her believing that was not completely out of line, but how long did she expect him to wear sackcloth and ashes over it? How long until she forgave him?
He frowned suddenly. It occurred to him that he had never asked her to forgive him.
“Why who isn’t sitting beside you?” Anastasia said innocently.
“You know darn well who. Quit toying with me.”
“Or what? Off to the dungeon?”
“She’s been giving you lessons in snippy repartee, I see.”
His sister didn’t ask who this time. “If you don’t enjoy her conversation, I can’t see why you’d disapprove of her sitting over there. Mr. Webster looks like he is thoroughly enjoying her company.”
He felt like his teeth were going to be ground to dust before the evening was through. Had everyone forgotten this celebration was supposed to be about him?
“Who said one word about disapproval? I asked a simple question. Why is she sitting over there? With Peter Webster?”
“Oh, Jordan and I played around with the seating plan a bit. So much more interesting when you sit beside someone you don’t know.”
He could point out that he was seated beside her, his own sister, whom he knew quite a bit better than he wanted to at the moment. Or he could point out that Ralph knew Trisha, but he had the feeling that he would only be rising to the bait.
“Did she request a seat beside Peter?” he heard himself asking, despite the order he had just given himself to not say one more word about Jordan Ashbury.
His sister glanced over at Jordan, and smiled as if Jordan’s obvious enjoyment of the evening was her own personal triumph. “I don’t think so. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.”
How sure? “You’ve been cozy with Jordan today.” He tried not to make it an accusation and failed miserably.
“I thought, given your interest in her, the fact she is the mother of my only niece, I should get to know her. She is so much fun!”
Jordan fun? She was about as much fun as playing in a tubful of tacks! So why did he feel he could no longer live without her?
Because he had always seen the softness she tried to disguise with those sharp edges. He had always been able to coax the fun side out of her. Was he mildly annoyed that she had showed that side of herself to his sister so rapidly when he had to work so hard to get to that place in her?
“I took her horseback riding this afternoon. She’s a natural.”
“Jordan? On a horse? What are you doing? You could have killed her!” The fierceness of his instinct to protect caught even him off guard.
“Nonsense. I teach riding to disabled children, for heaven’s sake. The horse was only slightly bigger than Tubby and not nearly as energetic. You know that little Fjord gelding that we received as a gift from Norway?”
“Why would you take her horseback riding?” he asked. “She never expressed the slightest desire to go with me.”
“Did you ever give her a chance to express her desires? Or were you too busy expressing your own?”
He looked at Anastasia narrowly. How much information had the two young women been exchanging? Did his sister put just the slightest emphasis on the word desire, as if she knew things about him that he considered intensely private? Like how much he enjoyed kissing Jordan’s toes?
Not that what she said was completely untrue. He’d done a lot of talking to Jordan about what he wanted. How much had he asked about what she wanted?
“Because she told me,” his sister said sweetly, “she doesn’t want to ride on the back of a horse, like some fainting flower who could be swept off her feet by a man. She wants to ride her own horse through life. I think those were her words. I say bully for her.”
“As if she could ever be a fainting flower,” he grumbled, and nixed the horse into the ballroom plan. If he couldn’t sweep her off her feet, what the hell was he supposed to do?
Dessert came. He stared at it glumly. Jell-O at a royal banquet. Not plain Jell-O. It looked like it had fall leaves set in it. He could not even pretend interest in it.
The dishes were, finally, mercifully cleared away. He entertained the possibility he might get through this evening.
But then the band began warming up their instruments. There was going to be dancing soon. He was not going to get through this evening if he had to watch her dance with Peter Webster!
“Would you have the first dance with me, brother dearest?”
“No.”
He got up swiftly, and wound his way to Jordan. There was this thing left undone between them. These words left unsaid. He stood there for a moment, and when she didn’t look up, he touched her shoulder.
A mistake. It was softer than silk, familiar. It reminded him of touching her shoulder in other times, all he had walked away from, all he had lost.
“Would you dance with me, Jordan?” Those weren’t the words he intended at all.
And yet somehow they were the right ones, because when she looked up at him, he saw she was pleased to be asked. Still, she hesitated.
Cinderella was not supposed to reject the prince! That was not in the script. His script. How did her script read?
Then she put her hand in his, and he suspected, not without pleasure, that she was as powerless over these forces that swirled around them as he was.
Her hand was small and lovely, and yet strong. It fit perfectly into the curve of his. He bent over it, very formally, and kissed it, and then drew her to him, led her to the very center of the empty floor.
This was one thing they had never done together. They had never danced. The music started and they were alone in the middle of the huge polished ball room floor. He bowed to her.
She curtsied.
His hand found hers again and he drew her to him. He had danced formally all his life. He had begun ballroom dancing lessons almost as soon as he had learned to walk. It was part of what he did, part of his duty as a prince. He had opened more dan
ces this way than he cared to think about.
But never once had it been like this. Dancing with Jordan was not a duty. Not in the least. Dancing with her was magic.
Pure and undiluted magic.
Never before had his eyes locked with another’s like this, never before had he felt the subtle pull of energy shivering in the air between two bodies. He drew her a little closer, put his hand on the small of her back and felt the warmth, the mystical force of her radiating to him.
He felt her find his rhythm at the exact moment he found hers.
They didn’t dance, so much as they floated. Mortals danced. They became something more. Winged. Free. They had found their way to a place beyond words, beyond misunderstandings, beyond human failings and frailties. Finally, they had found their way.
Everything that had passed before this moment in time faded to utter insignificance. Everything that would come after was illuminated in a soft light, the future and all its promise dancing with them.
Love shimmered and played in the air around them. It soared on wings made stronger for the fact they had been singed.
Owen became aware of an odd quality of silence in the ballroom. Always, above the strains of the music were other sounds: chatter, laughter, waiters clinking glasses, chairs being shuffled. He was not sure he had ever heard an opening dance this silent. The music, the sound of her gown swishing across the floor and their hearts beating. Nothing more.
They swept around the floor, her following his lead perfectly, effortlessly, gracefully, and it was as if the world belonged to just the two of them. Finally, they were perfectly in step, perfectly in tune.
The music of the first dance ended, and after a long space, far away he heard the sound of applause, but even that did not come into his world.
The words poured back, the words his soul needed to speak.
“I needed to ask you something,” he said, his mouth near her ear, smelling the sweet smell at the curve of her neck.
She pulled back from him slightly, scanned his face.
His voice caught in his throat. “I need to ask you two things,” he corrected himself.
She nodded. He could feel she had stopped breathing against him.
“I need,” he whispered in her ear, “to ask your forgiveness.”
She stood very still. She looked straight into his eyes. He could see every pain he had ever caused her there, and for a moment her pain felt like it would rip out his very heart.
And then the miracle happened. She reached up, and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand, and it was a gesture of such exquisite tenderness. And as she looked at him, the pain faded from her eyes and was replaced with a lustrous and miraculous light that was like nothing he had ever seen, ever. The stars coming out would be shamed by it, the sun in the morning was not so pure as was the light in her eyes.
A single tear trickled down her cheek.
“Of course I forgive you, Owen,” she said, her voice raspy with emotion. And then she smiled, radiant, tried to wipe away the tear. He caught her hand, and kissed the tear from her cheek.
It tasted pure and sweet and free of bitterness.
“And the second question,” he said huskily—
“Your attention, please. Everyone. Your attention.”
Annoyed at this interruption to the most important moment of his entire life, Owen had no option but to turn to the podium. Her hand slipped into his and her shoulder rested against his chest.
“Prince Broderick of Penwyck.”
The crowd clapped politely, but Owen eyed his uncle warily. Broderick seemed to be delighting in all the pomp and circumstance. Like his nephew, he was dressed very formally. Owen noted his uncle looked unusually happy.
Or on closer inspection, perhaps happy was the wrong word, but definitely pleased with himself. Sly. Smug.
Owen shot a look at his mother. She, too, looked on guard as Broderick took the microphone.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Broderick said, “and especially a good evening to you, Your Royal Highness Prince Owen, whose safe return from peril is the cause for this celebration tonight.”
Owen acknowledged his uncle’s bow with a slight inclination of his head.
“I wanted to take this opportunity to commend our Royal Elite Team,” Broderick went on smoothly, “for their quick action in finding our prince and returning him, unharmed and safely to us.”
The applause was deafening.
Broderick held up his hands, obviously enjoying the limelight.
Owen wished he did not feel such dislike for his uncle. It was the system that had created this man. And if he and Dylan were not careful, the same system would do this to one of them.
“Naturally,” Broderick said sadly, “a nation holds its breath when the heir apparent goes missing.”
He cleared his throat, shook off the sadness with dramatic flair, and smiled. “But what if it wasn’t really the heir apparent who had gone missing?”
All chatter ceased, every rustling of gowns, every clinking of glasses, and then a whisper of confusion swelled within the crowd.
“I have a confession to make,” Broderick said, and Owen felt his unease grow.
What on earth was his uncle up to?
“Twenty-three years ago, twins were born to our wonderful king, Morgan, my brother, and his beautiful wife, Marissa. But it was me, always cognizant of the danger surrounding heirs to the throne, who thought perhaps I could serve my country best by putting the new princes out of harm’s way.”
Owen felt mesmerized, as if he was watching a snake being charmed out of a basket. He was able to pull his eyes away from Broderick only long enough to look at his mother.
She looked very pale.
Broderick’s smile deepened, and he dropped his bombshell. “I switched the twins at birth.”
A gasp went up from the crowd. Owen might have laughed at his uncle’s absurdity had he not seen the effect Broderick’s words had on his mother. Owen was not sure he had ever seen her look anything but composed. At the moment, Queen Marissa looked distinctly shaken.
“The true heir to the throne, will not be our Prince Owen, who is in fact, by birth not a prince at all, as all of Penwyck has believed. Nor will our future king be his happily wandering brother, Dylan.”
By birth not a prince at all. Owen registered the words, but felt oddly unmoved by them.
“The true heir to the throne of Penwyck will indeed be one of Morgan and Marissa’s twin sons, but not the boys we have watched grow to young manhood. The true heirs to Penwyck were raised, thanks to me, in complete safety and comfort by a very wealthy family in America.”
For a moment, there was stunned silence, and then the hall dissolved into chaos, as people all began to talk at once.
Owen felt Jordan’s fingers dig into his arm where she had been holding him. He glanced down at her, and saw her eyes wide on his face, disbelieving. He scanned her features, and a small smile tugged at his lips.
She was worried, not that he might not be a prince, but about him and how he might be reacting to not being a prince.
He, on the other hand, was worried about his mother. Or the woman he had always thought was his mother. Perhaps only he would have noticed how she flinched back from Broderick’s words, but already he could see she was composing herself.
She got to her feet, regal and serene, and as soon as she stood, silence once again fell over the hall. She looked every inch the queen, tall and imperious. She wore a small and tasteful tiara tonight, and a brocaded gown.
Every eye was on her as she made her way gracefully to the microphone. She didn’t walk to it, she swept to it, the most powerful woman in Penwyck. Broderick was dwarfed by her power and he seemed to know it, shrinking back from the microphone.
“My dearest brother-in-law,” she said with great and grave dignity, “I would fear you had been in the sun too long, but since the hot days of summer are over, perhaps it is the influence of those soap operas you
like to while away your afternoons watching that have caused you to make this very strange and very disturbing announcement.”
A nervous laugh swept the hall, and Broderick’s color became very unbecoming as Marissa looked at him steadily, until finally he looked away.
Owen was far less interested in Broderick than the queen. Ah, she was handling herself beautifully, as always, but still he could tell something in Broderick’s announcement had touched a nerve in her that she was being very careful not to let others see.
“Though I have no doubt,” she said, her voice smooth and soothing and unperturbed, “that one of the sons I have raised will one day wear the crown of his father—”
Again, Owen heard what others might not hear. His mother had not named him as the certain successor to his father. Her eyes met his, held and then skittered away, and he was sure he had not misinterpreted her action.
“—I will, of course, investigate this claim that Broderick has made, just as I would any that was so disruptive to our family and indeed to all the people of Penwyck. I will have a special meeting of the Royal Elite Team tonight, and we will decide on a course of action. I’m sure, that within weeks, I will be able to confirm, with proof, who the heirs to the throne of Penwyck really are.
“Naturally, Prince Broderick,” the queen looked over her shoulder at her brother-in-law, but still addressed the crowd, “I would have much preferred you bring such a serious matter to me privately, but I understand we each have our own style of dealing with things.”
Her reprimand, her implication that Broderick’s handling of this sensitive matter had been tasteless and crass caused another nervous little twitter of laughter to sweep the crowd.
Broderick looked absolutely apoplectic, his face flushed, his features twisted into a fury that reminded Owen that his uncle could be dangerous.
The tension in the room was now palpable. Owen could see enormous damage was going to be done to Penwyck if people were allowed to leave the ball on this note. Rumors would spread. Gossip would catch fire. It would be as if the monarchy, the leadership, of the country was unstable.
