Hanging back from the entrance to the playroom, Sophie stood quietly and watched the crown prince of Montgermane as he sat on the floor at a round table and
played
. Beside him, wearing her customary somber face, Anna Colbert worked fastidiously at forming shapes with modeling clay.
“No matter how hard I try, I can never get the shape right.”
That confession from Stephan made Sophie smile.
“That’s all right. It doesn’t matter if what you are making doesn’t look like an elephant to anybody else. It’s your art and can be however you want it to be. That’s what my papa used to say.”
“Your papa sounds as if he was a very wise man.”
Sophie held her breath. Anna hadn’t spoken of her family since waking in the hospital, the lone survivor of a car accident that had taken her parents and younger brother nearly six months before.
“It was my fault. They’re all dead and it’s my fault.”
“Why do you say that?”
Sophie’s eyes widened, and she nearly stepped forward. Stephan couldn’t possibly know the importance of this moment. Yet something held her back, something in the tone of his question asked even as he continued to work with the modeling clay.
“Papa told me to leave Emile alone. He told me to sit still and be quiet. But I was so mad at my brother, I took his little truck from him and threw it on the floor of the car. Emile started to scream, and Papa yelled, and we crashed. It was my fault because I was bad.”
“I have a younger brother, and sometimes he would make me so mad I wanted to throw something at
him
.”
“But you didn’t make your Papa have a car crash.”
“No, I didn’t. And neither did you. Your teacher,
Xavière
, told me about your car accident. It was not your fault,
petite
. A man in another car driving on the autobahn was drunk.”
Anna’s eyes widened and true horror filled her face. “You’re not supposed to drive when you are drunk!” It was the most impassioned sentence Sophie had ever heard the little girl speak.
“You’re right. The
gendarmes
think that the man fell asleep, which was why his car crashed into yours. He was arrested after he got out of the hospital. He is going to be spending a very long time in jail.”
Sophie’s vision blurred as Stephan turned to the little girl. He touched her cheek gently and Anna looked up at him, hanging on his every word. “It
was
wrong to taunt your brother when your papa told you to leave him be. But that did not cause the accident. And I think your papa, and your mama too, would be very sad if they knew you thought so. Do you know what else I believe? I believe their hearts would be filled with joy that you survived the crash, that you’re well. They would want you to be happy, too.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. If you don’t believe me, just ask Princess Sophie.”
They both looked at her at the same moment. Despite her own tears, Sophie smiled and went to them. She sat on the floor on the other side of Anna. Instead of talking, though, she simply opened her arms to the child. As Anna’s tears soaked her shoulder, Sophie held her tight, and met Stephan’s gaze.
He shook his head gently, but smiled. One masculine hand stroked a small female head, and Sophie thought she’d never seen a more compassionate gesture.
* * * *
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?” Stephan asked. He had accompanied Sophie back to her office, once they’d turned an exhausted Anna over to one of the volunteers. The grandmotherly woman had put her arm around the little girl, snuggled her in, and assured Sophie that she’d be just fine.
“What to say to Anna. We’ve been trying to reach her for months. None of us have been successful.”
“She wasn’t ready then. Today she was.”
“I don’t think you understand—”
“Yes, I do.” Stephan took Sophie’s hand, brought it to his lips. “I came here to see if I could entice the headmistress to join me for lunch.”
“It isn’t really lunch you want.”
He laughed, delighted with her teasing. Wrapping his arms around her, he said, “It is lunch I want. With you on the menu. Main course and dessert.” A wave of need washed through him, and he tightened his hold on her, even as his smile sobered. “There are so many things I want to do with you. To you.” It pleased him enormously not only that she seemed flustered, but also so obviously aroused. He could smell her heat, a fragrance that screamed to all his senses, demanding that he take what belonged to him, what had belonged to no other. His mood had shifted again, damn it, and he didn’t truly know what to do with these fierce compulsions. He stepped back, took her hand, and began to lead her out of her office. They
would
have lunch somewhere quiet. Then they’d see if they could find a nice, private spot. Somewhere. Anywhere.
“You shouldn’t talk like that. You’re leaving after father’s wedding tomorrow, and we haven’t had much luck getting together, lately. Perhaps it’s for the best.”
“What if I decide to extend my visit?”
“Then you could help fend off the crazed would-be knights, should the need arise.”
He’d pushed open the door to the outside, and was about to ask her what she meant by that odd remark. He didn’t get the chance.
A veritable sea of paparazzi pressed forward, shouting questions as flashes exploded before their eyes. It was his instinctive reaction to shield Sophie by pulling her behind him. The muscles of his face drew taut, and as used as he was to the attention and scrutiny of the world’s media, he wondered if
this
time he was about to lose his temper.
“Prince Stephan, is it true that your father has threatened to disown you if you don’t enter the tournament?”
“Princess Sophie, how do you feel about being offered up as a prize to the winner?”
Stephan gauged his chances, then shot a look over his shoulder. “Do you want to run for it?”
“Yes, please.”
Facing the crowd, he ordered, “Out of the way!”
He’d been counting on his uncharacteristically fierce expression to clear a path. As soon as a space opened, he surged forward, pulling Sophie after him. It took only moments to get her into the car. Ignoring the reporters who’d mounted a new offensive, he got behind the wheel, fired the engine, and stepped on the gas.
Watching the horde disappear in the rearview mirror, he asked Sophie, “What the hell was that?”
“According to my father,
that
was a typographical error.”
Hannah remembered very clearly her first wedding day. They hadn’t had a lot of money, and her mother had set very definite restrictions on the event. Because Hannah had been sixteen and pregnant, her mother had forbidden her to wear white. As well, only a handful of people were invited to the church, and a restaurant dinner afterwards. She’d gone to the hairdresser’s alone, and gotten dressed alone. No twittering and giggling friends passed the preparation time with her. No photographer stood ready to record the day for posterity. She recalled thinking, as she waited for her father to walk her down the aisle of their small church, that the occasion had resembled a penance more than a celebration.
She’d kept her mother’s unbending attitude in mind when, nearly twenty years later, her own teenage daughter had gotten pregnant. She’d promised Catharine then if she wanted to walk down the aisle eight months pregnant wearing white, that would be fine with her.
The memory slid back into the past where it belonged, replaced by the images she’d gathered so far of
this
wedding day.
She’d awakened in Alex’s arms, surrounded by his heat and his love. They’d come together without words, the emotion between them so potent, so breathtakingly moving, she nearly cried.
At breakfast, there had been laughter and teasing. Justin had served mimosas, and Philip and Catharine had arrived from the farm, interrupting their honeymoon to share the day with Hannah and Alex.
In the afternoon, her daughters and daughter-in-law brought her into the Queen’s Solar, where she experienced that ritual of female pampering she’d enjoyed once before. But this time, not only did the attendants fuss over her, so did the girls. They were all excited and nervous for her.
Hannah wasn’t nervous at all, only impatient for dusk to arrive so she could exchange vows with the man she loved.
She returned to her room to dress, planning to wear an ivory satin cocktail suit, one of the outfits Alex had given her a couple of weeks before. He’d offered, of course, but she’d declined the services of a dressmaker. She didn’t need a fancy wedding dress. She just needed Alex.
As she entered the bedroom, she saw the box on the bed. Alex was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered if that was on purpose. Shaking her head she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Alex had told her she needed to get used to receiving gifts. As far as she was concerned, the very fact that he loved her and wanted her for his wife was gift enough to last a lifetime. But as he seemed to derive great pleasure out of giving her things, she guessed she’d best get used to it.
Sighing, she approached the box. It was plain white, decorated with a red ribbon and bow. There was a large tag attached, with a message written in sparkly gold script.
“
From your fairy godmothers
,” Hannah read aloud. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Godmothers? Plural?” Maybe it wasn’t Alex who’d done this. Shrugging, she pulled off the ribbon and opened the box.
“Oh my God.”
Her fingers shook as she lifted out the gown, instantly familiar yet not seen in more than thirty years. Her mind flashed back to that long ago time when she’d been looking through the pages of a bridal magazine. She’d turned a page and been instantly captivated, in love with the dress as only a teenage girl could be. It had been an almost iridescent white, gossamer, with tiny gold threads woven throughout. At the time, the way the fabric cascaded over the model’s figure had made Hannah think of fairies’ wings. Empire waist, long flowing skirt, the gown had been the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Oh, how badly she’d wanted it, and how bitter had been her tears when her mother had told her that such a dress could never be hers.
And here it was now, in her hands! She laid the wedding dress on the bed, gently smoothing the fabric, though of course it needed no smoothing. For a long moment she simply stared at it, the wonder and the magic she sensed in it shimmering through her.
“Grandma, are there really such things as fairy godmothers?”
“Yes.”
The words echoed in her memory. Hannah’s heart filled with joy and gratitude.
“Thank you. Not just for the gown. But for everything. For me and Alex, Catharine and Philip, Peter and Rachel. And Sophie, too, as I doubt you’ll leave the task only partly done.”
No one answered, of course. But she didn’t need to hear the voices. Faith was like that.
Discarding her robe, Hannah reached for the gown. She didn’t check the size. She knew it would fit perfectly.
Faith was like that, too.
* * * *
Alex remembered his first wedding day. It had been regimented and choreographed to the finest detail. He’d gone through the motions, knowing with every breath that it was duty, not love that steered the events, and accepting that with—well, if not with a cheerful heart, at least a heart that was free of resentment.
This
day had been free of regimentation and filled instead with joy. Even as the women of his family had ushered Hannah off to be pampered, the men had taken him in hand.
“There’s a tradition in Canada,” Peter had said as they’d entered the games room, “called the bachelor party. Usually it takes place about a month before the wedding, allowing the groom sufficient time to recover.”
“Recover from what, Uncle Peter?” Jamie had asked.
Alex had enjoyed the look of chagrin on Peter’s face, the laughter on Craig’s, and the curiosity of his sons and other grandsons.
“That’s not important. What
is
important is that as men we need to at least give some attention to this fine tradition.”
They played poker and ate pizza. The younger males among them—Richard, John and Jamie—had shown enough affinity for the card game that it left their fathers more than a little nervous. With laughter and wisecracks, they had each given Alex their theories of and advice about marriage and relationships. Jamie’s contribution, “when you’re married you have to kiss your wife
all the time
”, pronounced with such disgust, had been especially heartwarming.
No honor he’d ever received meant more, and no gathering had ever been more fun than this bachelor party.
Now, under the stars all was nearly ready. The archbishop had arrived, and was proving a good sport about performing a wedding ceremony on the beach. Justin had seen to transforming the venue into something quite special. Red carpet provided a temporary floor, and candles protected by glass globes leant the beach an exotic appearance.
All that was needed was the bride.
He and Hannah had decided theirs would be a simple ceremony. They’d chosen to forgo formal attendants. His oldest friends, the Benets, were here. Together with his children and Hannah’s, and their grandchildren, they formed a semi-circle, enclosing them all in an intimate group.
As soon as Hannah appeared at the top of the beach stairs, he was mesmerized. It was as if everyone else had disappeared and they were the only two people in the world. Had there ever been a more beautiful woman? Alex knew the answer was no. The light from the candles became tiny jewels, sparkling and twinkling all through her hair as she descended the stairs with slow, seductive grace. Her dress shimmered, swirling colors of white and gold, pink and silver and a fine delicate blue, as if the garment had been woven by magic from mother of pearl. No wonder she’d declined his offer of a new gown when she already had the perfect one chosen.