Penelope & Prince Charming (24 page)

Her face scalded, and she hugged the journal to her chest. “You cannot blame me, Michael. It is so very intriguing, and quite adept.”

He framed her face with his hands. “You beautiful, wonderful woman.”

She gasped. “You have forgiven me?”

“I love you,” he said. “Marry me.”

She gave a squeal of joy and threw her arms around his neck. “Yes, yes, yes!”

He kissed her, delving the depths of her mouth—he had such skill in kissing. He held her close, his arms strong and caressing, then reached behind him and turned the key in the lock.

In the early hours of the morning, Damien awoke Penelope and whispered to her that they should adjourn upstairs to her chamber. If he knew his men, the Nvengarian entourage would gather outside the bath chamber door at morning light and lead rousing cheers when he and Penelope emerged. He should spare her that mortification.

He helped her into her dressing gown, kissing her deeply when he held it closed in front of her. He was in danger of tearing it off and devouring her again, and by the way she kissed him, she was ready for it as well.

He made himself back away, take her hand, and lead her to the door. It was still dark, and they had to fumble their way across the room, Penelope smothering giggles.

They found more light in the hall, sconces kept lit all night in case members of the household were restless.

The house was quiet, which suited him, most of his rambunctious footmen finally asleep, probably with whatever maids they’d enticed to their beds this time. He and Penelope had not been unguarded, however. Two Nvengarians were stationed at the end of the short hall, blocking any route to the door of the bath chamber.

They straightened and saluted when Damien brought Penelope by them. As soon as Penelope had gone past, they smirked knowingly at Damien.

As he and Penelope reached the first landing, a lugubrious lackey who had been half asleep on a cushioned bench sprang to his feet and plucked the sleeve of Damien’s dressing gown. “The Regent requests a moment of your time, sir.”

Damien recognized the man who hovered about to carry messages for the Regent. “He requests a moment, at this moment?” Damien asked. “He must know it is my wedding night.”

“He does, Your Imperial Highness. He knows you leave in the morning and wishes to speak to you before then.”

Damien chafed, ready to tell the lackey to push the Regent and his Bath chair into the nearest pond. Penelope, blushing beside him, murmured, “Perhaps you had better see what he wants.”

“Damnation,” he said, his contentment falling away. He needed to keep the Regent and the rest of England on his side, but hell, did he have to in the middle of the night with Penelope, tousled and sleepy-eyed, heading for her bedchamber?

She rose on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I’ll wait for you,” she whispered, then scurried up the stairs to the passage that would take her to her bedroom.

Damien cast her a regretful glance, knowing this would be the first of many times he would have to put politics before pleasure, then gestured for the lackey to lead him to the Regent.

The Prince of Wales sat in his Bath chair in a ground-floor room that had been refurbished for him. Once a lavish salon, it had been transformed into a bedchamber and sitting room for the prince.

“Ah, Damien.” The prince climbed out of the Bath chair when Damien entered, the better for Damien to see his sumptuous brocade and velvet dressing gown.

Damien made a polite bow. “Wales,” he said. If the prince could not be bothered with formalities, neither would he.

The prince preened, as though pleased to be on such an intimate basis with the most fascinating royal in Europe. They were not exactly private; six footmen and a valet scuttled about the room in various duties, none of them trying very hard not to eavesdrop.

“My felicitations,” the prince went on. He held out a pudgy hand.

Damien shook it. “Thank you.”

He wanted the prince to get on with it, but the Regent called for brandy, and one of the lackeys broke away to fetch a cut crystal decanter and glasses.

“I did not intend to linger,” Damien said.

The Regent gave him a knowing look. “She’s a comely lass, eh? Of course you want to go back to it.” He winked and chuckled, his chins wobbling.

Damien pasted a smile on his face, remaining polite.

“Truth is, Damien, we have much to discuss.” The prince waved his hand, loaded with rings, at a nearby
chair and himself sank back into his wheeled conveyance with a grunt. “I’d rather discuss it, don’t you know, at Carleton House. You’ll travel up with me in a few days, eh?”

“Actually, I am leaving tomorrow with the princess for Nvengaria.”

The prince looked uninterested. “All you do is dash about, Damien. Hither and yon, up and down. ’Twill make you unpopular.”

“I have an appointment,” he said tightly. “On Midsummer’s Day.”

The prince waved that away. “Oodles of time, my boy. You are quite famous and you’ve just gotten married, and I want you at Carleton House first, before you go off wooing the crowned heads with your beautiful bride. You’re mine, Damien.” Steel entered the watery blue eyes turned toward him.

“Nvengaria is always grateful for the friendship of the English monarch,” Damien said neutrally.

“I
am
the English monarch,” he snapped, then softened his tone. “Or will be very, very soon, and not before time. You need me, or your pocket-sized kingdom will crumple into dust. Already you are beset by internal strife, are you not?”

Damien accepted the glass of brandy that the very interested footman handed him, and regarded the prince coolly. “And who has told you this?”

“Common knowledge. Common knowledge.” He drank his brandy, evading the question. “Your father tore Nvengaria apart and you need more than a little princess to put it back together.” He tried to look wise, but his face had always been rather round and foolish, and the expression failed.

“What precisely are you offering me?”

“Not here.” The prince looked about hastily. “At Carleton House. Where we may talk freely with all my advisors.” He beamed. “And I will host several grand balls to
celebrate your nuptials. People will talk of the celebrations for years.”

Damien caught on. The prince’s advisors had told the Regent to get Damien there at all costs so they could make all kinds of binding treaties with Nvengaria.

Damien knew the Regent was right about one thing. Nvengaria was weak and divided, with Russia nibbling on one end and Austria nibbling on the other, and the Ottoman Turks watching like a vulture, waiting to pounce on the carcass. An alliance with England might keep the two powers at bay, but Damien had observed that the English often “helped” by walking into a country and taking over, even if only temporarily. He wanted to be no pawn of Englishmen.

He would have to walk a delicate balance, be every inch Prince Charming.

Inwardly, he rolled his eyes; outwardly, he smiled and said, in the thickest accent he could muster, “But of course. My bride will have pleasure at your gatherings. We look forward to this very much.”

Late the next afternoon, Penelope rode toward St. James’s Palace in the opulent coach Damien had hired. She’d traveled the distance to St. James Street from Little Marching alone in the carriage, accompanied only by Wulf, who’d promptly curled up on the seat opposite and fallen asleep, and her maid, Hilliard, an Oxfordshire woman of about thirty whom Damien had hired to look after Penelope until other servants could be arranged. Hilliard had never been to London before and was quite nervous.

Both the Regent and Sasha wanted Penelope and Damien to enter London in a landau, the top pulled back so that they could wave at the people. Damien and Petri said no, too much risk. The matter was settled by the rain that had begun to pelt in earnest at Maidenhead and showed no signs of slacking.

Damien had been a bit distant with her ever since she’d risen early this morning, alone, said her good-byes to her mother and Michael and Meagan, and entered the coach.

Meagan and Lady Trask had wept copiously, and Michael had hugged Penelope hard and said “Be well, Penny,” and “Thank you.” Before the coach pulled away, she saw him slide his arm around Lady Trask’s waist and hold her close. That, at least, had gone well.

Hilliard craned her head to look at the approaching palace in awe. “Oh, miss—I mean madam, I’ll get lost in there, surely I will. And likely the royal servants are too hoity-toity to point me right.”

“We are not staying in St. James’s,” Penelope said, her own stomach beginning to flutter. “We are staying at Carleton House.”

“What is Carleton House? I thought we were to lodge with the Prince Regent and all the royalty.”

“Carleton House is the Regent’s own house not far away. We’ll be right at the park, where you can stroll to your heart’s content. It will be quite beautiful.”

She spoke reassuringly, but she far from felt it. This was Penelope’s first foray into Damien’s world, the world of princes and kings, palaces and royal estates. Her mouth was dry and her fingers frozen.

It was one thing to promise to be his bride and his princess while safe in her father’s house in Little Marching. Now she truly had to be a princess, and she hadn’t the remotest idea how to go about it.

I will be fine. Sasha will help me. He must have memorized every protocol in the world.

But Sasha, too, was used to the royal way of life. To Damien and Sasha and Petri, Penelope’s corner of Little Marching had been the odd place; places like Carleton House and St. James’s and Kensington Palace were common and everyday. The inhabitants would know her for a country girl, and she’d embarrass herself and Damien.

No, she was panicking. Damien would help her, he’d said so. And Egan McDonald, Damien’s friend, had come
along, riding lazily in a linen shirt and old kilt, nothing hoity-toity about him.

“They like the antics of the Mad Highlander at Carleton House,” he’d said, winking at her as they prepared to leave. “They’ll likely ask me to toss the caber in the ballroom or play the pipes, maybe dance a Scots reel. What they don’t know is I think tossing logs about is boring, the pipes give me a headache, and I can’t dance worth a damn.”

He’d made her laugh, no doubt his intention, because her tears threatened to pour like the rain banging on the carriage roof.

When they rolled in through the ornate gates of Carleton House, Hilliard gave a groan of despair. “This is even worse, madam. I should have stayed at home, like me dad told me. ‘No good comes of getting above yourself, girl,’ he said, and he’s right, most like.”

“Most like,” Penelope echoed faintly. She gazed at the opulent house that rose at the end of the drive, and knew that she’d gotten above herself with a vengeance.

Three nights later, she descended a wide flight of sweeping marble stairs on her way to the public rooms, dressed in the finest ball gown she’d ever owned.

Her transformation from plain Penelope Trask to Princess of Nvengaria had happened astonishingly fast. Because Midsummer’s Day was only two and a half weeks away, Damien had insisted to the Regent that any celebrations or soirees in their honor had to be given immediately. The Regent blustered, but Damien was firm. Penelope knew time was running out for the two of them to reach Nvengaria by Midsummer’s Day, though the Regent seemed obtuse about their need for urgency.

That meant Penelope needed new gowns, fast. The dressmakers summoned to Little Marching had already given her a fine wardrobe for traveling with Damien, but
the three modistes and their flurry of assistants, who had flocked to Carleton House on their arrival, alarmed her.

They’d sewn ’round the clock. The modistes, at first painfully polite to each other, fell to screaming obscenities like fishwives by day two, while their assistants bowed their heads and sewed like mad.

The results of this temperamental trio were incredible. Tonight Penelope wore a gown of shimmering rustcolored satin, decorated with darker rust braid and bronze-colored lace at the hem. The décolletage skimmed her shoulders and bared more of her bosom than she cared to, but Madame Gautier, who had created the gown, assured her, “Zis is ze best for you—your shoulders zo lovely, your breasts zo creamy white. You will draw attention of every man in the room.”

Penelope knew that Madame was not really French; when screeching at her rival modistes she’d lapsed into the almost unintelligible accent of Manchester. Penelope was not certain she wanted the attention of every man, or woman, in the room, but she knew it was inevitable, no matter what she wore.

The tale of her marriage to Damien had drawn the attention of the world. Every newspaper she saw bore an account of Damien’s search for his bride, describing how he’d found an unspoiled English rose buried in the country of Oxfordshire, how he’d fallen on his knees and begged her to marry him.

The writers, often proclaiming that they had witnessed the events, described in luxury of detail, entirely made up, the wedding ceremony in the “rustic country chapel” of Little Marching and the elaborate betrothal ceremony in Lady Trask’s ballroom. They went on for pages about Damien, Imperial Prince of Nvengaria, bringing out anecdotes of whatever charming or outrageous things he’d done in his past.

Other papers went on and on about Nvengaria itself, with descriptions of its soaring mountains, deep river valley, and castle-dotted slopes. “Picturesque,” most newspapers called it. “A charming, pocket-sized, fairy-tale kingdom” another noted.

Penelope read every story about Nvengaria, knowing in the back of her mind that many were made up, but at the same time, wanting to know whatever she could. Sasha’s lessons tended to be political, rather than about the people and the landscape, but the newspapers lavished attention to the fashions, castles, city squares, palaces, forests, and craggy mountains of the country.

A few did dwell on the political situation, speculating that Damien would find difficult opposition from Grand Duke Alexander and the Council of Dukes.

One article focused on Alexander himself, going on at length about how the Grand Duke’s father had been executed by the old Imperial Prince and that Alexander’s wife, the Grand Duchess, had recently died of a wasting disease. Now he was a grieving widower with a small son. A drawing of him, a fierce-looking man of Damien’s age with a handsome Nvengarian face, broad shoulders, and sharp eyes, peered out at her from the pages of the story.

Penelope looked back at him, realizing that here was a man who would not simply bow out and let Damien walk to his throne unmolested. What would Duke Alexander make of Penelope, the simple English girl who claimed to be Princess of Nvengaria? She saw no sympathy in that gaze, only ruthlessness.

She had no chance to discuss these newspaper stories with Damien because neither of them had a moment to spend alone together. Damien had been pulled off almost immediately behind tall, gilded doors to mysterious meetings, and Penelope had been pushed and pulled by
dressmakers, and given more hasty lessons in Nvengarian by Sasha.

Not to mention looking after Wulf. The boy wanted to explore every cranny of the gaudy palace, and saw no reason not to change into his demon form to climb to the lofty ceilings and examine paintings there.

“If we take him to Westminster Abbey,” Egan McDonald said on one occasion when Penelope had to coax him down, while the terrified staff looked on, “mebbe he could be a gargoyle.”

She thanked heaven for Egan’s presence every day. While Damien wooed ministers and ambassadors, Egan remained at Penelope’s elbow, escorting her through the palace and relieving tension when she was scrutinized by the Prince Regent’s many guests, including the beautiful countess and baroness whom she’d overheard talking about Damien at the fete. She was not certain she could have survived the first days without Egan.

Egan even now met her on the wide landing, resplendent in crisp plaids and lawn shirt, and led her down to the ballroom for the first of the Regent’s planned extravaganzas.

“Don’t look so disappointed to see me, lass,” Egan said, grinning. “You hurt a man’s feelings.”

She smiled, contrite. “I’d hoped Damien would be able to escort me tonight.” She rubbed her cold fingers together, absently noting the new diamond-studded band next to her silver Nvengarian ring.

Damien had given her the diamond ring the day they’d reached London, having sent for it from Bond Street jewelers. “The first of many such things I will give you,” he’d murmured as he slid it on her finger. He’d kissed her with promise, his blue eyes dark, then disappeared to meet with the Regent.

“He’s being pulled this way and that, poor lad,” Egan
said as Penelope slipped her hand in the crook of his arm. “Everyone wants a piece of the Imperial Prince, and he’s trying to run through them quickly so you can leave for Nvengaria in time for the Midsummer festival. The Regent, now, he doesn’t understand the hurry.” He winked. “Why rush away when you can linger over fine wine, lavish entertainment, and beautiful women?”

“There are many beautiful women about, aren’t there?” she said glumly.

Egan lifted his brows. “Now, then, Miss Princess, none of that. Damien has eyes only for you. I’ve never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you. Like he wants to eat you up.”

She felt herself blush. “But this is their world. The ladies here are sophisticated and know all the rules. I blunder and never realize it. I am the simple country fool who caught the prince’s eye, and they wait eagerly for him to turn his eyes elsewhere.”

“Which he’ll never do.” Egan pressed her hand. “I know Damien. He’s loyal and true when he believes in someone, and he believes in you.”

“And that plunges me into abject terror,” she said. “What if I disappoint him? What if I cannot be the princess he needs me to be?”

“My dear, you need some Egan McDonald wisdom.” He grinned. “You said they know all the rules and you don’t. Well, then you make up your own rules. If they want a charming country lass; be a charming country lass, don’t try to be one of them. When they look at me, they see the Mad Highlander, so the Mad Highlander I become. I can do and say what I like, and no one says the worse of me, because I’m the Mad Highlander. Do you see?”

“It is a bit easier for you,” she pointed out. “You are a war hero.”

“And you are the Imperial Princess of Nvengaria.
They’ve never met an Imperial Princess, so you can be Imperial Princess any way you like. They believe everyone from Nvengaria is half-mad anyway, which is true.”

“You are saying I should be eccentric?”

“With you, lass, you be just as you are, and you’ll wrap these posh ladies and gents around your little finger, just like you’ve done me and all the Nvengarians.”

She took his arm again. “You are very flattering.”

“I’m only truthful. Come on, then, let’s join the queue. Think of it this way—the Regent spent a fortune on this knees-up. The food and drink should be palatable.”

She laughed, knowing that he was trying to make her laugh, and let him lead her through wide halls to the crowd gathering at the top of the ballroom stairs.

When it was their turn to enter, the major domo straightened to his full height and bellowed: “Lord Egan McDonald and her Imperial Highness, Princess Penelope of Nvengaria.”

All faces turned upward as Egan led Penelope down the grand stairs. She felt every gaze in the ballroom rivet to her, curious, or hostile, or excited. But her eyes were only for Damien, who had just slipped through a door on the other side of the ballroom, one that led to the Regent’s chambers, where they’d presumably been meeting.

He looked every inch a Nvengarian in severe military-style suit, with his rows of medals dangling from his chest, his gold sash of office a bright slash from shoulder to waist. Gone was the casual man who’d ridden across Holden’s meadow with her weeks ago, who’d kissed her in the tall grass. Gone was the man who’d tossed his clothes from his body and slid into the river to suckle her toes. In his place was the Imperial Prince, his stance straight, his face severe. Only his blue eyes glittered as he took her in, his bride, his princess, his showpiece.

She lifted her chin, knowing that diamonds sparkled
in her hair and that her gown was a masterwork. The lines about his mouth softened a little, the corners tilting upward.

The guests at the bottom of the stairs crushed forward, each wanting the privilege of being the first to meet the new princess.

“Ah, McDonald,” said a gentleman lucky enough to be at the forefront. “Introduce me, there’s a good chap.”

He held out a pudgy, beringed hand to Penelope, bowing and grinning and taking in every inch of her apparel. He turned out to be an earl, the men with him, a baron and a general. Their wives nearly shoved themselves across the ballroom to take advantage of their husbands’ “in,” and Penelope faced their smiling, eager faces with a demure smile of her own.

When Egan led her away, her legs were shaking, and her smile felt stretched. “Nicely done,” he murmured in her ear.

“Thank you, may I retire to the privy now?”

He chuckled. “No, lass, you’re doing fine.”

He led her in Damien’s general direction, but so many people shoved themselves in front of them, all thrusting hands to her and demanding introduction, that it took the better part of an hour to get through them all. Not only did she have to greet them, she also had to spend a few moments conversing on all sorts of subjects—they wanted her opinion on everything from the latest fashion in riding boots to the King of France’s restoration.