Cursed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 5

by Jennifer Chance

  Which should have made Vince nervous, but at the moment, he was merely grateful to be finished lugging the couch upstairs.

  “Come, come,” his mother said nearly a half hour later, the boys now deposited on the couch eating a pizza and the apartment as clean, he suspected, as they’d ever see it again. “Walk me back to civilization.”

  She trotted down the three floors lightly enough, and he found himself appreciating anew how healthy she and his father were. How healthy and, if he was honest, how sane. Turning Edeena’s situation over in his mind had yielded only endless frustration. How could you combat a father who still believed in arranged marriage?

  When they reached street level, his mother turned to him, her eyes searching and serious. He finally realized the danger he was in, but by then it was too late. He was trapped.

  “So,” his mother announced imperiously. “When are you bringing Countess Edeena Saleri to our home, eh? Your brothers are gone now, it will take me one, maybe two days to clean. But then, she must come.”

  “What?” he looked at her, stunned, then immediately put the pieces together. “Just how well do you know Prudence Vaughn?”

  “Well enough that she was willing to tell me her young and beautiful cousin has a crush on you, and well enough that she begs me to encourage the flirtation, because this Edeena, she is so sad.” His mother’s Greek accent was surging to the fore again, a sure sign she was emotionally invested in the conversation. “It’s not like you to not help someone in need, Vince. I didn’t raise you to be so callous.”

  “Edeena does not have a crush on me,” he protested, lifting his hands to ward off his mother’s accusation. “I’ve seen her every day for two weeks. Trust me, I’d know.” Even as he spoke the words, though, he ran his memories of Edeena through his mind. She’d been polite, cheerful, and reserved ever since the night at the club. While he hadn’t imagined the attraction between them then, she’d had a highly defined purpose at the time—irritating Janet Mulready. Which she’d done, and to spare. The woman had not texted Vince once since that night, and he suspected she had quite definitely moved on.

  “Ah! You are making some important connection. Tell me, I’m your mother.”

  “I . . .” Vince shook his head, but what would it harm, truly? “Edeena Saleri doesn’t have a crush on me,” he said firmly. “But since she doesn’t, she . . . well, she did something that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “And that was?”

  “She . . . suffice it to say she did something that seemed completely unmotivated, other than to make another woman jealous. But after that mission was accomplished, she went back to a perfectly appropriate, business-like demeanor. So maybe I imagined her interest.”

  “Business-like demeanor,” his mother echoed. “This is the woman who is haunting Heron’s Point, and you call that business-like?” She shook her head. “What kind of security service are you running, that you lack so much discernment?”

  “What are you talking about?” Vince stared at her. “Edeena and her sisters are perfectly safe. We’ve got a full-time team with them whenever they set foot out of the house, we’re tracking all incoming traffic to the house and any electronic hits—which have been non-existent—and we’re even keeping tabs on international travel manifests out of Garronia in case her father decides to take a trip. No one can be any safer than Edeena Saleri right now.”

  “But is she safe from herself?” protested his mother. “No. No, she is not. Prudence has not told me nearly enough, but I know that your Edeena worries all the time. That’s no way for a young woman to live, I don’t care who she is. That is what you need to save her from.”

  “It’s her life, Mom,” Vince grumbled, but that only merited him another scoff.

  “It is not her life. It’s the life she is choosing to live because she has no other alternative, because you are not helping her. Go!” his mother ordered. “Go and let that poor girl relax for whatever time she has left of her own. In fact, bring her to dinner tomorrow night, yes? Dinner at our house, with our whole family. She is not Greek but she is close enough. We’ll take care of her.”

  “Just her, or do you want her sisters, too?”

  “Her,” his mother said emphatically, surprising him. “I’m sure her sisters, they are lovely girls. But this is about Edeena. You bring her tomorrow, and before that you take her somewhere, anywhere. Get her out of her own head.”

  Vince was still shaking his own head an hour later, as he found himself trotting up the wide white staircase of Heron’s Point. The place was quiet, but he expected it to be quiet, the two younger sisters off for a day of shopping in Charleston.

  Still, a sense of vague uneasiness slipped over him as he crossed the front porch to the door. Having arrived here every day for the past two weeks, Prudence had finally convinced him simply to enter and announce himself, so he unlocked the door and slipped inside the house, drawing breath to call out.

  And then he heard a sound that nearly chilled him to the bone.

  Hysterical sobbing.

  Chapter Seven

  “You have got to be kidding me! Boris?”

  Edeena nearly doubled over in laughter, her sides hurting so much that she thought she might have burst something. Surrounding them were nearly twenty short stacks of files detailing the marital prospects of every quasi-noble family within the borders of Garronia.

  And all too soon, she’d be declared open season for all of them.

  The shock of her father’s initial letter had taken two stiff mojitos to work through, but as the sweet, yet potent, drink seared through Edeena’s system, the hilarity of her situation had quickly come to the fore.

  No longer did she have to worry about catching the eye of a prince, as Prudence had suggested. She merely needed to catch one who “comported himself in a princely manner, or was known to be princely.” This—this!—was what the letter from her father’s lawyer had pointed out, recalling the same ancient language from the Saleri illuminated bible that Prudence had shared with her. Apparently, with Edeena’s birthday nearing, everyone was hitting the good book.

  “Boris goes into the pile of last resort,” Edeena said now, wiping her hand against both cheeks. “I can’t possibly be expected to entertain marrying him with a straight face.”

  At that moment, they heard the sound of resolutely-striding feet, and both of them turned on the ornately embroidered couches to see Vince stalk into the room. His face was set in a rictus of pain, and he looked like he hadn’t breathed in three days.

  Prudence rose quickly from her seat. “Prince, what is it?” she asked, clearly forgetting herself enough to use his nickname. “Is it your mother—”

  “What? No!” Vince jerked to a halt, scowling first at her, then Edeena. “Who was crying?” he growled.

  “I’m sorry. That was me,” Edeena said hastily. She wiped her eyes again, more fervently this time. “I wasn’t crying so much as . . . well, I probably sounded hysterical no matter what.”

  “Sit, dear, sit,” Prudence said, pushing Vince into a wing-backed chair. “Maybe you could help us puzzle through this.”

  “Why are you hysterical?” He eyed the stacks of folders with a frown. “What’s happened?”

  Before Edeena could speak, however, Prudence gathered herself up. “To understand that, you must first understand the history of Edeena’s country, or at least a small portion of it.”

  Edeena instantly turned to her. “Prudence, truly. He doesn’t.”

  “He does,” her cousin said dourly. “The way your father has interpreted the curse may not be what its originators intended, but it is viable nonetheless.” Prudence eyed Edeena repressively. “Even Boris is viable.”

  Edeena pursed her lips. Boris was so not viable.

  Prudence turned her gaze on Vince. “What do you know of the history of Garronia?” she demanded.

  “I, uh, don’t,” he said, and Edeena noted the flare of a blush that edged over his crew-neck technical tee.
He was dressed casually, in his tee shirt and khakis, no doubt expecting her to be sitting in her house as she always was, waiting for life to catch up with her . . . so she could watch it pass her by.

  Suddenly, Edeena didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  “Then consider this your introduction,” Prudence said. “The country of Garronia was created in the tenth century by Otto the Great, then Holy Roman Emperor, in exchange for services rendered by the warriors of the region. There were many, many small families who produced those warriors, and they existed in harmony, content to manage their own small fiefdoms without much need for centralized government. Times changed, however, and with it the needs of the people.”

  Edeena wanted to groan. Vince didn’t need to be bored with all of this. “Prudence . . .”

  “No, it’s fine,” Vince said, leaning forward “I want to know.”

  Edeena sighed, picked up another file folder. “Then cut to the chase, if you would.”

  Prudence merely nodded. “Eventually the age of familial wars resulted in the rise of the Andris family, Garronia’s current ruling family. Second in strength was the Saleri family, but they’d been playing poor younger sibling for some time even before the declaration of Otto. There has been an ancient and well-sown line of jealousy in the Saleri family, and a constant push to ensure the family is put in its rightful place at long last. But that push has not always served the family well. There has been great estrangement among the more distant branches of the Saleri family—an estrangement that is, essentially, the family’s curse. Along with the curse, come several ways to beat it.”

  “Several ways?” Vince’s eyes widened. “There’s more than one?”

  “Of course. Whichever one is most expedient for the generation is the one proffered as the proper method to break the curse, usually conjured up by the oldest member of the previous generation. In this case, it would have been Silas’s mother, a battle axe of a woman. As the story goes, Edeena’s grandmother waited until her mother could or would no longer bear children, then consulted the good book to determine the fate of Edeena and her sisters, which she announced at Marguerite’s christening. If the old harridan was a little bitter, she could be excused. Her fate had similarly been decided when she was born the oldest of two sisters, with no boys. Once again, a ‘special generation.’ She also had been challenged to secure a royal paramour in order to bring the family back together again, and failed.”

  “But the line didn’t die out, even though she didn’t marry her prince,” Edeena protested, drawn into the story despite herself. “I mean, sure, there wasn’t a reconciliation, but neither was there was plague, sickness, financial loss . . .”

  “Oh, there were all of those things, if you looked deeply enough.” Prudence waved her hand. “The Saleri family has many branches linking it to your main line. And they all hold the primary family bitterly accountable for the failure to bring those far-flung branches back together again. Which is why you don’t know or speak to any of your extended cousins.”

  Edeena fought the urge to put her head in her hands. She knew she had cousins, great armfuls of them, according to her mother, yet Prudence was right. She’d never met any of them. She stared in horror at the file folders stacked around her. Surely her father knew who their extended relations were . . . right? He wouldn’t make her marry some actual first cousin to break the curse. Surely not.

  . . . right?

  Prudence plunged on. “If the family had united earlier against the monarchy, it’s quite possible that it would be a Saleri upon the throne now, not the Andrises. By the nineteenth century, however, overthrow was no longer on the table. Instead, marrying into the monarchy was the preferred method of regaining family honor. As you can see, however, it’s never been accomplished.”

  “Because the Andrises don’t want it.”

  Prudence shrugged. “In all truth, previous generations of Andrises have come close to intermarrying with the Saleris, but such is the nature of curses . . . it’s never happened. The family remained at odds with itself. The curse evolved over the years, and it couldn’t be broken. The Saleris have always married well, but not well enough. And certainly not well enough to bring the family together.”

  “Bring the family together,” Vince frowned. “So that really is required?”

  “So it would seem,” Edeena took up the narrative from Prudence, since Vince seemed determined to hear it all. “Father has reviewed and interpreted what he’s found as an edict requiring me to find a man of princely comportment who can bring together our extended familial factions. I do that, then success for the Saleri family is assured for all future generations.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Technically, the family dies out,” Edeena said, grimacing. “More realistically, one of my sisters will be put under tremendous pressure to marry a man she doesn’t love, will never respect, and will likely end up resenting all the rest of her days.” She shook her head. “There’s no way I can allow that to happen.”

  “So, what, you’re just going to sacrifice yourself?”

  The anger in Vince’s voice made Edeena look up sharply. Over the course of the past hour she’d gone through every emotion imaginable, from manic laughter to grim acceptance. But anger was new, and anger mixed with defensiveness was both new and sharply irritating.

  “Yes, I’m going to sacrifice myself, Vince. And before you express your outrage, I’d suggest that if you had a similar situation befalling your family, your first instinct would be to sacrifice yourself, too.”

  “You don’t know that,” he taunted her back. “You don’t know a thing about my family. You don’t have any idea what I’d do.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m not an idiot.” Edeena’s tone was sharper than she intended it to be, but she didn’t care. Vince didn’t—couldn’t—understand what she was facing. “You don’t handle your business, handle women, handle your work the way you do without a strong family bond. If your parents, your brothers and sisters were here right now, they’d tell me you’d do anything for them.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “We’ll ask them ourselves tomorrow. But that’s not what’s important here. You don’t even know what you’re giving up.”

  Edeena stiffened. ‘Tomorrow?’ she wondered, but Vince kept going

  “You’re so quick to give up your freedom because you’ve never had freedom. So my challenge to you is: live a little. You’ve got all the time in the world to cozy up to Prince Wafflecone or whoever you decide to marry. Why not enjoy yourself until you turn twenty-seven or whatever, and experience what life truly could hold for you?”

  Edeena lifted a sardonic brow. “And I suppose you’ll be my guide?”

  He stared at her, eyes glittering. “You could do worse.”

  Vince gripped the sides of the ridiculous wing-backed chair and leaned forward, sure that he’d gotten Edeena’s attention. “Way I look at it, you’ve got one week. One week to choose one of these idiots for your husband, and one week for you to realize there’s more to life than doing what your daddy tells you.”

  As he suspected, that hit a nerve, but he didn’t care.

  “You don’t know anything about what it’s like to be me,” Edeena said hotly.

  “You’re right, I don’t. And the only way I could possibly figure that out is if you tell me. So I’ll give you that option. Let yourself go for the next week, be crazy, actually take the vacation you’ve so carefully set up for you and your sisters. Go on a bike ride. Eat ice cream sundaes and elephant ears and walk barefoot on the beach at sunset. And if along the way you can convince me that your way is the better way, that your way makes sense, I’ll personally escort you back to Garronia and serve you up to your father on a silver platter. If you don’t, however, I’m going to track you down and hold you accountable for making the dumbest decision I’ve ever heard of in my life. I’ll send Christmas cards to you and your husband until three years after you’re dead. My mother has a neighbor who does tha
t kind of thing.”

  Edeena stared at him. “She sends Christmas cards? That’s a job?”

  Vince snorted. “Not the most ridiculous job we’ve discussed today, I can tell you that. But every year you’ll get your card, and you’ll lean over and kiss—” he looked at the nearest file folder “—Frederic, and know that he may be an absolutely stand-up guy but you married him because you were in the chute and you’d decided to get married, not because you loved him or loved yourself. You’re making a choice for your past, not your future, and that never ends well.”

  “Why are we even having this conversation?” Edeena retorted. “I’m paying you and your team to provide security services, not to be my therapist.”

  “Because somebody needs to do it.” Vince had her though. He knew he did, and he suspected Edeena knew it, too. He swiveled his gaze to Prudence.

  “First things first. How many of these . . .” he waved a hand at the stacks of dossiers, “guys know that Edeena is now on the menu? Is her father making a general announcement in Garronia, or will it be more circumspect than that?”

  “At this point, he’s in no position to act,” Prudence said. “He’s only recently emerged from . . . ah, convalescence after he attacked Prince Aristotle, and he’s being watched very closely. I suspect that will continue until Edeena’s birthday.”

  “So we have a week.”

  “I fail to see what value a week will provide one way or another,” Edeena groused, but Vince ignored her complaint, instead fixing on her for a different reason.

  “None of them are going to come over here, as far as you know?” She shook her head. “What about the real princes?”

  Edeena made a face. “I suspect those are now officially off the table,” she sighed. “I went through this once before, when Ari had been missing for a few months. I knew Silas would eventually come around to having an issue over my continued mourning for the Crown Prince, and force the question. But the true princes who were available were every bit as hopeless then as they are now. My father’s not an idiot—he knew that. He’s apparently spent his convalescence working out ways to get around the prince issue. ‘Princely comportment’ appears to be the ticket, currently.”