Penelope & Prince Charming (15 page)

As she stepped off the last stair, her thoughts still far away, Petri, Damien’s valet, emerged from the sitting room and stopped in front of her.

“Highness,” Petri said. “I speak to you, yes?”

Petri did not know as much English as Damien or Sasha, or even the footmen Rufus and Miles. His lack of English had not stopped him from making conquests of several of the Trask maids, if all she heard was correct. She hadn’t the heart to scold the girls since Petri’s master was busy weaving his spell around Penelope.

“Yes,” Penelope said to Petri, nodding. “I mean, of course.”

“Please to come,” he said, bowing and gesturing to the sitting room.

The chamber was mercifully empty, the guests still reveling at the fete. They would be for most of the night, Damien having promised a feast, a bonfire, and fireworks.

Petri waited patiently in the middle of the room. A tray with a coffeepot, cup, and honey waited on a table, as though he’d prepared carefully for this conversation.

The enigmatic valet complemented Damien well. They were the same age and possessed roughly the same looks. Petri had black hair, clear blue eyes, and a brutal handsomeness that was wreaking havoc below stairs. Damien had the same brutal handsomeness, but one controlled and contained, like a honed sword, to serve his needs.

Petri’s attractiveness was unstudied and raw. He had no need to be cultivated, unlike his master.

He gestured Penelope to a chair, and she sat. Like the good valet he was, he fetched her a footstool, then care
fully poured coffee and added the exact amount of honey Penelope liked.

“Thank you.” She accepted the cup and sipped. He nodded and gave a grunt, as though he did not know the words for “you’re welcome.”

She politely gestured to the chair facing her, but he refused it, and stood, his hands behind his back in a military stance. “My English,” he said, “is not so good, I am sorry.”

“That is all right,” Penelope said. “Take your time.”

Petri studied her coffee cup and then the tray, then drew a breath as though what he had to say would condemn him, but he had to say it anyway.

“You marry Damien, yes?”

She shook her head slightly. “I have not decided.”

He leaned forward, his blue eyes piercing. “No. You marry him.”

“Petri…”

He held up his hands, made a curt gesture. “You marry him. If no, die.”

She started. Did he mean to make a threat, or was he simply struggling with English? “What do you mean?”

He frowned in frustration. “I have not the way to say.”

“We can send for Sasha if you like. He speaks English well.”

“No,” Petri said harshly. She thumped back into the chair. “No Sasha.”

“Oh.” She grew nervous. Violence lingered close to the surface in all of Damien’s Nvengarians. She’d witnessed that in their exhibitions of wrestling and sword play. She’d seen that Damien trusted Petri more than he’d trust a brother, but would Petri have the same loyalty to her?

Petri motioned for her to stay in the chair, nodding as though to reassure her. He crossed to the door, opened it, and called out into the hall, “Rufus!”

After a few moments, one of the tall footmen who followed Damien about like dogs appeared. He and Petri spoke rapidly and quietly in Nvengarian. Rufus looked past Petri at Penelope waiting, then he came into the room. Petri closed the door.

Rufus bowed to her. “I help Petri speak English.” He looked proud and slightly superior that Petri needed his help.

Petri said something else in Nvengarian. Rufus bowed at Penelope again. “He says he wants you to know. If you do not marry Prince Damien, he will die.”

Something jumped inside her, as though he told her something she’d already been aware of but had refused to acknowledge. “What?”

“It is the prophecy,” Rufus said apologetically. “The prince must fulfill it or die. So if you do not marry, if you do not become the princess…” He trailed off, giving a little shrug as though he could not help what happened next.

Penelope’s mouth went dry. “It is only a prophecy. Just words.”

Rufus and Petri looked at each other. Rufus said a few words in Nvengarian, and Petri shook his head. “You understand not,” Petri said.

“I know that you and Sasha believe in the prophecy,” she tried, “and Damien believes in it, too, even though he claims he does not.”

Rufus scratched his head as he translated for Petri. Petri gave a harsh laugh.

It was frustrating having a conversation in this fashion. She waited impatiently for the two to talk and for Rufus to translate back into English.

“Petri does not believe in prophecies, or magic, either,” Rufus said at last. “I do, but Petri has had harsh life. No, he says the prophecy does not kill Damien. The Grand Duke does.”

She gripped the arms of the chair. “Who?”

“Grand Duke Alexander Octavien Laurent Maximilien, head of Council of Dukes.”

She remembered Damien mentioning the name
Alexander,
though she hadn’t been certain who he meant. “This grand duke sent the assassin?”

Rufus nodded. He snarled something in Nvengarian, then said, “He is evil man.”

Petri agreed, his scowl dark.

Rufus said, “If Prince Damien returns without princess, then no prophecy. No prophecy, then…” He broke off as though groping for a word.

“What?” Penelope put her hand to her throat. Damien had said nothing of this. He’d gone on about rings and love and being drawn together, and said nothing about dying if he did not bring her to Nvengaria.

Rufus beckoned to Petri. “Like this,” Rufus said.

Rufus mimed tying a blindfold around Petri’s eyes, then stood him against a wall. Petri waited, calm and still. Rufus picked up a tall silver candlestick and shouldered it like a rifle.

He grunted as he jerked into the perfect mime of
ready, aim, fire.
An explosive sound came from his mouth as his imaginary gun went off, right at Petri’s chest.

Penelope rose from her chair, hands to her face. “Dear God. You mean he will be executed.”

Rufus brightened. “Yes, that is word. Executed.”

Penelope froze in place while the room whirled around her. She saw not Petri against the wall, but Damien, waiting stoically while blue-coated Nvengarian soldiers raised rifles and fired a volley of bullets into his body.

She heard the roar of the guns and smelled the acrid stink of gunpowder and the iron bite of blood. Damien’s blood.

Her knees gave. The floor rushed up at her, and then she suddenly found herself supported by the strong arms of a concerned Petri, who barked an order at Rufus. Rufus, alarmed, got rid of the candlestick and found brandy.

Petri made her drink it, pressing the glass to her lips himself. His handsome face, faintly scarred, hovering close to hers, held worry.

The bite of the brandy made the room stop spinning. Penelope drew a long breath. “Thank you for telling me, Petri,” she whispered.

Rufus translated, though Petri had gotten the gist. He grunted.

His blue eyes held relief but also grim determination. He was a servant, but he cared for Damien, she could see that. He’d do anything, she sensed, to save his master’s life, including tie her up and drag her to Nvengaria to marry his prince if he had to.

They heard a step, and all three looked up as Damien entered the room.

Damien’s light mood evaporated when he saw Penelope surrounded by Petri and Rufus, who seemed to be ministering to her. Penelope’s face was white, her eyes enormous. Ringlets of damp hair straggled across her face, making his blood burn.

He regarded the tableau with narrowed eyes. Rufus looked guilt-stricken, Petri defiant. Penelope rose slowly, never taking her gaze from him. She moved to him as though dazed, and not until she put her fingers out to touch his arm did she blink.

“Damien,” she breathed.

They’d told her.

“Petri,” he growled in Nvengarian, “I will boil you in your own blood for this.”

“She deserved to know, sir.” Petri’s back was straight, his eyes steady. “She needs to marry you. I know you will go back with or without her, and I can’t let you go back without her.”

“Do not blame him,” Penelope said quickly. “I do not know what he is saying, but it is not his fault. It is yours for not telling me the truth.” She glared, her beautiful eyes shining with anger.

“Do not defend him,” Damien said. “I told him to keep his mouth shut.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Damien saw Rufus trying to sidle away. He pointed at him. “I will deal with you later.” To Penelope he said, “I want your decision to be a
true one. I want you to marry me because it is your choice.”

Her cheeks grew pink. “You said you’d carry me off if I said no.”

“Still I might,” he said. “But I wish it to be a true choice from you. Your decision should not be based on a threat to my life.”

“Damien, I cannot let you die.” Her eyes flashed again, her face still more beautiful for her anger. “How did you think I’d feel when I learned that my decision sent you to your death? That I’d condemned you because I worried that you will ignore me after we marry? No matter how much you ignore me, I will not let this Grand Duke execute you.”

“How could I ignore you?” Damien asked, incredulous. “I have thought of nothing but you since I arrived, and I will likely do so for the rest of my life.”

He would likely be permanently aroused with her. Even now, thoughts rose unbidden of Penelope in the river with her wet chemise clinging to her body, her dark aureoles pressing the fabric, every curve of her outlined for his hands.

Her hair was still damp from their encounter, and this fact was incredibly erotic, especially when he remembered tasting her.
Sweet, sweet woman, all honey and cream and all for me.
If he didn’t have her soon, he’d explode.

“You are changing the subject,” she said.

“You
are
this subject, love. I will not ignore you or allow Alexander to kill me. If you believe he will embrace me tenderly when I return to fulfill the prophecy, you are wrong. He will still try to kill me, whether I fulfill the prophecy or no.”

“But if I understand right, if you arrive with me, your people will believe in you. They believe in the prophecy, like Sasha. They would help you defeat this Alexander. Without me, they will lose faith in you.”

Damien said nothing, because she was right. Having the people of Nvengaria on his side would give him more power than Alexander, despite his control of the military. The Nvengarians would also embrace Penelope wholeheartedly, and not just for Damien’s sake.

She was beautiful and spirited. They would adore her.

She would marry him and go home with him. He saw that in her eyes. She was willing to risk all the danger for his sake. He knew that if he tried to leave her behind now, she would smuggle herself along in the baggage, no doubt aided by Petri, Sasha, Rufus, and all the other servants. They already adored her.

He reached out and traced a curl on her cheek. “I suppose I will have to live with having an astonishing woman in my life,” he said with a lightness he did not feel.

“You ought to have told me,” she said stubbornly.

“I ought to do so many things. I am not one for obedience.”

She watched him, agitated, her green-gold eyes filled with fear and anger and worry. Worry for
him.
Women in the past had chased him and desired him and threatened suicide when he left them, but not one had ever worried about him.

She grew more astonishing every day. He tilted her chin with his fingers, brushed a kiss to her mouth. “‘Tis done, love,” he said, his groin tightening in anticipation. “I will tell Sasha to begin the betrothal rituals.”

“You seem preoccupied,” Grand Duchess Sephronia said.

Alexander came out of his reverie at the sound of his wife’s voice. Sephronia lay on a scroll-backed chaise, plumped on pillows. The beribboned peignoir she wore and the cashmere blanket over her legs could not disguise her extreme thinness.

Her beauty had gone, her once-vivacious face now
sunken, her skin stretched over her skull. Her luxurious black hair had been shaved for her fever, and what little had grown back consisted of thin black wisps on her head.

She no longer allowed anyone into her rooms, except her maids and Alexander. She would have kept Alexander out if she could, but he insisted on visiting her every day. He had never been in love with her—she had been too frivolous for deeper emotion—but she was his wife, and he would not allow her to die alone and forgotten.

He stirred now and answered her question. “My sources inform me that Damien has found his princess, and she has agreed to marry him. Also that more than one assassination attempt has failed.”

“Oh, dear.” Sephronia bit her lip. She did not really understand the prophecy business, but she knew that Alexander wanted Damien dead.

“One tried to stab him in broad daylight and was thwarted by his bodyguards,” Alexander went on. “The other tried to shoot him as he frolicked with his princess in a river and was frightened off by another young lady and guests at the house.” He shook his head. “These hotheads want glory in killing the Imperial Prince, but what they mostly do is make fools of themselves. One might find luck and kill him, I suppose, but I will simply have to deal with Damien when he reaches Nvengaria.”

“Poor Alexander.” Sephronia gave him a weak smile. “Prince Damien is a headache, isn’t he?”

“He is like his father. Has his father’s luck. But I will snip this sapling of the family tree and be rid of him.” Alexander scissored his first two fingers. “No more Imperial Princes. Nvengaria can emerge into the modern world. We are four centuries behind, at least.”

“What about the princess?” she asked. “Will you snip her, too?”

He smiled a little. “No need to be so barbaric. She is an
Englishwoman with no knowledge of Nvengarian nonsense. I will send her back home. She is an imposter, in any case.”

“Your subjects might not think so,” she pointed out.

Sephronia could sometimes see to the heart of a matter. If the romantic Nvengarian people wanted to see a longlost princess, they’d convince themselves she was a longlost princess. “I have the proof,” he said, thinking of the papers hidden away in his chamber. “They dislike being duped, and will not accept her.”

“The people might not believe you. Of course,” she said slowly, “you could always marry her yourself.”

She sounded wistful. Sephronia had never been in love with Alexander, but she had loved being Grand Duchess, loved dressing in finery, loved playing hostess, loved setting fashion for Nvengaria and countries around them. Even Parisian ladies looked to see what Sephronia wore in any given season. Her greatest regret was that her illness no longer allowed her to assume her duties.

“I will not marry again,” Alexander said. Courtship and marriage were the last things on his mind. “I have no need. I have a son, and he is enough for me.”

“Yes,” Sephronia said proudly. She’d never taken much notice of their small son, now five, but she prided herself on having given Alexander a robust male heir. “You are a handsome man, Alexander. You will need a woman.”

He shook his head. “Not a wife. Nor a mistress. I have no need to slake my lust every night.”

“You are so strong.” She reached out a wasted hand and touched his knee. “I wish I could have been strong, like you.”

He covered her hand with his own, her fingers like bare sticks. Sephronia had slaked her own lusts in wild affairs with dandies and roués pleased to bed the wife of one of the most powerful men in Nvengaria. She was always discreet, bringing no open shame on Alexander, but he knew
about every single one of her lovers. He kept his eye on them, in case they were scoundrels trying to use her to get to him. She had been very careful, he granted her that.

“You were strong enough,” he said.

She gave him a tender look. “Did you ever take lovers? I never knew.”

“One or two.”

“Good. I am glad you were not alone.”

Her concern amused him. Alexander had never been one for sentiment and romance. He enjoyed his pleasure with women, but did not lose his heart. He admired and delighted in beautiful women, but he did not need a female to make his life complete. His marriage to Sephronia had been political, and both of them had known that.

Her eyes took on a faraway look. “We were beautiful together, weren’t we, Alexander? Me on your arm at every ball and soiree and every gathering at court. You, the most handsome man in Nvengaria, and I the most beautiful woman. Everyone envied us.”

“Yes,” he said.

He remembered her black hair shining with pearls, her gowns cut to show her slim shoulders and elegant breasts, the lift of her head on her long neck. He’d escorted her in his Nvengarian regalia and sash of office, the most powerful couple in the kingdom.

They’d been invited everywhere; hostesses were known to lock themselves into their chambers for days and not come out if Alexander or Sephronia turned down an invitation. Sephronia had danced and laughed and flirted and wooed and been the toast of the town. Had Alexander ever had the opportunity to take her to Paris or Rome or London, she would have forced society there to eat from her hand.

Even her pregnancy had been celebrated. She’d set fashion again by having her dressmaker create clever gowns to hide her swelling figure.

She’d always been careful in her love affairs never to conceive a child that was not Alexander’s. She knew that putting another man’s son in Alexander’s nursery would not only be embarrassing, but dangerous. The father might use the child to gain power or to manipulate Alexander. Politics in Nvengaria always balanced on a knife’s edge.

She sighed. “I know balls and soirees are not as important to you, but they were my life. They were my triumph.”

He squeezed her hand. “I was always proud of you, Sephronia.”

Tears shone in her eyes. “Where are they all now? All those men who declared they loved me and threatened to shoot themselves if I did not abandon you for them. Since I fell ill, not one of them has tried to see me. Not one. Only you.”

“I am your husband,” he said simply.

She gave a little laugh. “No one would blame you for deserting me. You are kindhearted.”

“I believe you are the only person in the world who calls me kindhearted.”

“You
are
kind. Deep down inside. I’ve seen it in you.” She gave his hand a weak squeeze. “What I would like you to do is find someone to make you happy. Not for politics or power, but just happiness. I could never give you that.”

“I am happy enough.” He had Nvengaria to rule, and that took all his time and attention. “I do not think rulers have time for happiness. We rule, and this matters.”

“I know, but you deserve someone to love you.” She withdrew her hand, resting it on her chest. “That is what I wish for you. And you will best Damien. I know you will.”

Alexander rose. He’d learned to sense when she was too tired to continue talking, and rather than embarrass her by letting her fall asleep, he’d rise and say a formal goodnight.

Tonight, for some reason, he had the compulsion to lean over her and press a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep well, Your Grace.”

She touched his face. “You as well, Your Grace.”

Alexander left her without another word. He closed the door, his heart heavy. She would die soon. He’d provided the best in care for her, but nothing could cure her. She would have the most elegant monument in the country, but that hardly compensated.

“Papa.”

He heard his son’s voice calling from the upper balconies of the prince’s palace. He took the steps two at a time and caught up with his wandering son. “What are you doing out of bed, pup? It’s past midnight.”

“I could not sleep, Papa. I managed to slip past my nurse before she awoke.”

Alexander suppressed a grin at his choice of words. Little Alex already loved intrigue and covert meetings. He’d make an excellent Grand Duke.

“Let us return before she misses you.” With his son perched on his shoulder, Alexander climbed into the dark reaches of the castle. He liked that Alex did not flinch from the shadows. The old prince had died when Alex was young enough not to remember the horrors of him. With any luck, Alexander would banish every horror the old man had perpetrated, so that his son grew up in a new world with nothing to fear.