There were races for ponies and men and children, archery competitions, a gypsy fortune-teller, games of chance, exhibitions in Nvengarian-style wrestling—which had become quite popular—fencing matches, country dances for the villagers, puppet theatre, and pantomimes.
Carriage after carriage arrived from London, guests filling the Trask home and neighboring houses and inns for miles. Ambassadors and other dignitaries visiting the Regent had been invited, along with his London set. Russian, French, and even Piedmontese noblemen met Penelope and declared her an unsullied beauty, and wasn’t Damien lucky to find himself a fresh English rose? The Londoners peered at her avidly, then congratulated Damien, looking a bit puzzled, as though wondering
why
Damien would want such a fresh English rose.
No sophistication,
she could almost hear them say. One
stooped, white-haired man bent to Damien, saying, “Innocence is lovely, Your Highness, but a short time at court will tarnish her. Ladies’ heads are so easily turned by fashion and money.” The man meant to say this in confidence, but he must have been hard of hearing, for his loud voice bellowed this proclamation over the crowd.
Damien, smooth as ever, only replied that Penelope was quite wise for her years, and she showed remarkable good sense. The white-haired man snorted in disbelief, and moved off.
Damien shot her a sly smile like it had been a good joke. Penelope said nothing, wondering if Damien truly thought that of her, or whether he’d been placating the white-haired London gentleman.
No matter what their reaction, Damien’s betrothal to Penelope would be seen, witnessed, and remembered by people with connections all over Europe. The new Nvengaria ruler was taking a bride of both English and Nvengarian lineage to cement his position within and outside of Nvengaria.
He was busy turning the entire world up sweet.
Penelope bowed and shook hands and smiled until her face ached. Damien kept his hand on her arm or the small of her back, possessive, as he introduced her to his London friends and acquaintances. He made certain, somehow, that each person saw the silver rings on his finger and hers, the symbol that they belonged together.
Not until late afternoon could she snatch a moment to herself. When she saw her chance, she slipped away to the folly to rest in its cool shade and listen to the music of the river. She could not entirely shut out the noise of the fete, because the tents and stalls had encroached to within twenty feet of the folly. Only the woods around it had kept the tents out.
She sat on the steps, her back to a pillar, and stretched
her legs out in front of her. She removed her bonnet and ran her hands through her loosened hair.
So much had happened since she’d sat here the day Damien had arrived and told her he was in love with her. He’d inflamed her with kisses, convinced her she was a long-lost princess, enchanted the villagers, told her stories, given her healing powers, and brought the Prince Regent to visit.
It was all too much. He rushed through this, she knew, so that she’d grow bewildered and give in to what he wanted. Damien was a charmer, but a strong-arm charmer. He got his way in the end, even if he did it with a dazzling smile and a wink of his blue eye.
She felt the trap of it close around her, slowly, gently, but inexorably. Like a doe trusting an approaching hunter, she dazedly watched herself be pursued. If only the hunter were not Damien. He’d trapped her the moment he’d kissed her in Holden’s meadow, and he knew it.
“He has certainly not lost his charm,” said a haughty Englishwoman’s voice, as though answering her thoughts.
Penelope froze. The most difficult thing about the fete had been meeting and speaking to the ladies of the
ton
and their foreign friends. They stared at her coldly, not hiding that they considered her an interloper. How dare she, a mere daughter of a baronet, try to rise above herself and marry a prince. Especially
that
prince? Damien was the most eligible bachelor in Europe, and this plain miss had snared him by trickery.
She remained still, praying the ladies would not see her. She could smile and make polite conversation with them when Damien stood next to her, but she had no wish to face them alone.
“Yes, a charmer, zat one,” said a woman in a full-throated Russian accent. Penelope had met her, a Russian
countess who fluttered her lashes at Damien and hung all over him. “Damien is zo handsome, zo—ah, I have no words to describe zis man, zis incredible man.”
To Penelope’s surprise, the other two ladies with the Russian countess dissolved into titters. “Oh, goodness,” said the Englishwoman. “Do you think that poor mousy thing
knows?”
“Incredible
is a good word,” a woman with a French accent said.
“Stamina,
this is another good word.”
More titters. “Incalculable length, is what I say,” the English one said.
The three ladies giggled, this time like they knew they were being naughty. “Eleven inches, would zis be not too far-fetched?” the Russian asked.
“No,” said the lady with the French accent, and they laughed again.
Penelope’s face scalded. Oh lord, if they saw her now! She remained rigid, her hands balling in her skirt, praying they would not notice her in the shadows of the folly.
“Do you know,” the Russian countess went on. “I was wiz him when his man came knocking on ze door to tell him he was Imperial Prince. Ah, he was in zuch a state. Zo angry, and yet zo cold. Dangerous he was, in zat mood. I was zat afraid of him, and at ze same time—ah, glorious.”
The other ladies agreed, sounding a bit jealous, that Damien unpredictable was quite exciting indeed.
“But what shall we do now?” the French lady asked. “He is marrying. We shall never see him again. Or his inches.”
“Nonsense,” the English lady said briskly. “He will deposit the chit in his castle, get a son on her, and forget about her. He will need to make state visits to England, and France, and Russia. And I imagine all that traveling will make him lonely…” She trailed off suggestively.
The other two ladies were silent a moment, then they
burst out laughing, even more merrily than before. “I look forward to zis,” the Russian countess gloated.
“The poor child will not know what to do with him, in any case,” the Frenchwoman said. “She will hardly know the bed games Nvengarians like.”
“Indeed.” The Englishwoman put heavy emphasis on the word. “They are quite depraved, really quite depraved. She will be shocked out of her senses over what she is expected to do. One can almost feel sorry for her.”
Did they know Penelope sat not five feet from them, hearing every word? Perhaps they did, and spoke so for her benefit. She remained still, smarting in rage and humiliation.
“Not quite,” the Frenchwoman put in.
“Perhaps we ought to give her a book on
positions,”
the English baroness suggested. “And explain to her about bed toys. Really, sending an untried miss into Nvengaria is a bit cruel.”
“And ze little whips,” the countess said eagerly. “Do not forget ze little whips.”
Again they fell silent, and again, they burst into merry laughter. “Depend upon it,” the Englishwoman said. “We will have our prince back.”
“La, it is hot,” the Frenchwoman complained when their laughter had worn down. “I must return to the house, although that simpering woman is all over me. It is more comfortable than the outdoors.”
“Yes, what were they thinking, having a fete here, of all places?” The Englishwoman’s voice grew fainter as she and the other two ladies began strolling away. “Damien could have asked
me
to host it in Hertfordshire.
We
have a proper house.”
The other two murmured agreement and disappeared down the path.
Tears of fury fell from Penelope’s eyes before she
dashed them away. How dare they sneer at her mother and the Trask home? How dare they flaunt that Damien had charmed every woman in Europe?
She got to her feet, glaring at the ring on her finger. She wanted more than anything to pull it off and fling it into the river. Her hand went to it.
She touched the cool band and stopped. The ring had belonged to her mother and her grandmother before her. It had nothing to do with Damien. Reluctantly, she breathed a sigh and let her hand drop.
Hugging her arms to her chest, she left the folly and strolled the path to the river. It was cooler here, with overhanging willows in the shallows. Not far along, the river gurgled into a deep pool, where Penelope and Meagan had swum as children.
She sat down on a log that formed a bench on the bank, stripped off her shoes and stockings and dabbled her feet in the soothing water. If Damien took her away, she could never come here again, to this place of her childhood where she’d found a modicum of peace. He’d take her away from her mother and Meagan and these woods and her fairy tales.
She clenched her hand. No, he would not. Just because he and Sasha had bounded here with stories of prophecies and princesses, and turned Ashborn Manor into a summer palace for their pleasure, she did not have to obey his commands.
Yes, he’d charmed her. Yes, she’d near fallen in love with him. But he could not take everything away from her.
“Penelope.” His voice drifted down to her from the top of the hill, rich and deep, with his full-throated Nvengarian accent.
She heard him move through bracken down the hill from the path. She did not look up, keeping her eyes on the calm current of the river.
She saw his booted foot land on the log beside her, a
supple, now muddy boot that hugged the firm muscle of his calf and folded about his ankle.
His leg bent to show her a thigh in black breeches, his arm in a well-fitted brown coat resting on his knee.
“‘Tis not safe to wander here by yourself.” He clasped a branch above him with a strong hand. “I do not trust Alexander to send only one assassin.”
Penelope kept her eyes on the water. “I will be safe, Your Highness. I have decided not to be your princess, or marry you.”
He said nothing.
Penelope risked a glance at him. He was not looking at her, but staring across the river as though he studied something she could not see. The faint white patches in the corners of his eyes were pale against his darker skin.
“That will not keep you safe,” he said after a time. “As long as someone believes you are a Nvengarian princess and precious to me, you are not safe.”
Precious to me.
She tried to sound cold. “I do not want a marriage of convenience.”
He turned to her, brushing his fingers over her hair. “I know that.”
“And yet, that is what you try to rush me into.”
His hand moved to the nape of her neck. “I hope it will be more than that to you.”
“Is it more than that to you?”
He leaned down and buried his lips in her hair. “I be
lieve I have more than demonstrated what this marriage will mean to me.”
When he spoke in that tone, when he caressed her, it was so easy to believe he loved her. If only she hadn’t heard those women—his mistresses—speaking of him as though they owned him, as though he’d run back to them as soon as they crooked their fingers.
What had he whispered to them in the night? Not words of love, or they’d have boasted of it. But he’d touched them with warm fingers and kissed their hair—
Penelope pulled away. “If not for the prophecy, you never would have come here. You never would have looked at me twice.”
“You are half right.” He did not reach for her again, but twined his strong fingers over his knee. “I would never have known that Little Marching existed if not for Sasha. But had I encountered you in London or elsewhere, I would have looked at you for a long, long time.”
Eager need stirred in her, but she quickly suppressed it. “I am not fishing for flattery.”
“I know.” He glanced at her bare calves and feet in the water, his look appreciative. “I envy the fish come to nibble your toes.”
Penelope resisted pulling her legs up and covering them with her dress. He grinned, the side of his mouth pulling.
“What I mean is, you never would have journeyed here and proposed to me if not for your prophecy,” she said, a little shakily.
“Very likely not.” He nodded once. “Although I like to believe that fate has been driving us together.”
“That would indeed be a fairy story,” she said. “The story you told me, the one about the princess in the tower—she ended not by running off with the handsome stranger from far away, but by staying with the true and trusted friend she’d known all her life. That is the moral of the story, is it not?”
He looked at her with a touch of bewilderment. “It is only a story, Penelope. It has no meaning.”
“All tales have meaning. Usually, ‘Be good and patient, and you shall be rewarded.’”
“In my experience, that never happens.”
She glanced at him. “But it should be true. That is why people tell the stories.”
He slid his hand under her hair again, teasing the curls at her nape. “When people tell our story, they will tell how I traveled many miles and through great peril to find you waiting for me at the end of the journey.” His smile returned. “You made the peril worth every moment.”
“You have a honeyed tongue.”
The smiled turned wicked. “No, but you give me a good idea.”
She blushed. He made his wanting for her so plain.
“We are talking about our marriage of convenience,” she said.
“You like this word,
convenience.”
He sat down next to her and began to pull off his boots.
“I will be plainer, then. Mr. White wished me to marry him and have his children so that he could ignore me and do as he pleased. I would not do it for him, and I will not do it for you. I refuse to be a wife who is
convenient.”
He pulled off his second boot and tossed it aside, then stripped off his stockings and dangled his feet in the pool.
His bare brown calves hung close to her slender ones, wiry black hair curling down his shins and onto his strong feet. They sat side by side, hips and shoulders touching.
It felt shockingly intimate, even more so than when he’d kissed her and touched her in her bedchamber. This was casual, an implication that he had every right to be casual with her.
“Penelope,” he began, his voice holding a dangerous note. “For me to travel three thousand miles in search of a bride is not convenient. It is not convenient to leave my
kingdom vulnerable to a scheming Grand Duke, nor is it convenient to scrape and bow to your joke of a Regent so that I may hold England’s support.” He slid his hand to her thigh. “And it is not convenient to find you here like this, knowing that if I take you the way I wish to, my very superstitious Nvengarians will declare the prophecy void, and I will have done all for nothing. No, I do not find this at all convenient.”
She bit her lip. “I did not mean—”
“I will marry you, Penelope. I will do anything to fulfill the prophecy and save my kingdom. I want to do it with soft words, but if I have to throw you over the pommel of my saddle and gallop away with you, I will.”
His hard expression told her he’d do it. When, like now, he dropped his suave and civilized facade, she saw the true man, the one who had survived hunger and pain and darkness and hatred. She had no doubt that if he wanted, he’d sweep her up and gallop away with her, like a nomad from a desert tribe.
“That would be a bit uncomfortable for a three-thousand-mile journey,” she said in a small voice.
“Not for me, love. I could rest my hand on your very fine backside all the way.”
She blushed. “You really should not say things like that.”
“You must grow used to me complimenting your body. Your backside is fine, as are your breasts.” He looked into the water. “And your toes are adorable.”
“Now you have become Prince Charming again.”
His look turned curious. “Is that how you think of me?”
“No, I think of you as exasperating. I do not know what to think of you.”
He twined his bare foot, long and broad, around hers. “Fall in love with me, Penelope.”
She quirked a brow. “Like every other woman across the breadth of Europe?”
His glance turned questioning, and Penelope wanted to slap her hand across her mouth. She’d not meant to admit that she’d heard the shameful conversation of his paramours. A well-bred woman never discussed such matters.
“Think you every woman in Europe in love with me?” he asked. “I assure you, that is not true. I believe my mother loved me, but she died when I was very small.”
“Oh,” she said, deflating. “I am sorry. About your mother, I mean.”
“It was a tragedy. Also very dramatic, Nvengarian style. She climbed upon the gate tower of my father’s castle and shot herself in the head.”
Penelope stared at him in horror.
He glanced out over the water, his tone neutral. “It was her finest moment. My father was evil, but she got her revenge. Instead of quietly poisoning herself and letting the incident be swept under the carpets, she stood up on a moonlit night in full view of the city, and announced to the world exactly what my father had done to her. She showed the truth of what he was, a madman to fear and hate.” He stirred the water with his foot. “At the time, I was very angry at her for leaving me alone, but I understand now that she had to do it. Her death was her only weapon against him, and she used it well.” He fell silent a moment. “I do not know why I tell you these things. I never speak of them to anyone.”
“Damien.” Her voice held anguish.
He smiled. “Do not feel sorry for me, Penelope. My childhood is behind me. My life is much better now.”
“With men trying to kill you right and left?”
“A few dodged knives is nothing compared to the barbs of my father, love.”
He chuckled as though he’d told her a reassuring story. Penelope traced the sinews on the back of his hand. The scars that crisscrossed his skin spoke more clearly than words of the harshness of his life.
“It is better now,” he repeated, “because I have found you.”
Flattery again. His eyes had gone dark, and his head dipped toward hers as though he was ready to kiss her.
“You are asking me to leave behind everything I have ever known,” she said desperately. “You wish me to ride off into the wilderness with you on the strength of a silver ring and Sasha’s prophecy.”
“I know.” He smoothed her cheek. “And you are brave enough and strong enough to do it. You have the heart of a lion.”
“I have not.”
He nuzzled her, his breath warm on her skin. “You could face down the entire Council of Dukes and Alexander himself. You could have even faced down my father.”
“The man who put you into a dungeon?” She stopped. “I am very angry at him for that, you know.”
“You see? You have fight in you, Penelope. You will make a fine princess. Nvengarians love a woman with fight.”
“I have never fought anyone in my life,” she protested.
He shrugged. “I wonder what it must have been to jilt your Mr. Reuben White in the face of all the world. The English are not kind to a woman who decides to send a man away. They believe she should swallow what the gentleman does so that she may have a husband and a name. In Nvengaria, we admire a woman who takes a knife to a cheating betrothed.”
She blanched. “I would never do that.”
“No, you are civilized, and English. It took much courage for you to defy Mr. White and your mother and father, and the entire English
ton,
did it not?”
She nodded, remembering the pleading arguments from her mother, the cool anger of her father, the outrage of Reuben, who threatened to sue for breach of contract, the stares and whispers when she went out in public, the label of
jilt.
But she could not have sold herself to a life of misery. She had dried her tears and gone on, pretending she was not in pain. Shortly afterward, her father had died, and the grief of that, coupled with the lack of funds to keep them in London, had forced her to think about other things.
“It was difficult,” she said.
“You understate it, I believe. Yet, you did it. You defied them. A lesser woman would have accepted her lot and married him.”
“You wish me to accept my lot with
you.”
He chuckled, a warm sound. “Penelope, you are a fine one at debate. As I said, you will defy the Council of Dukes.”
He slid off his coat and laid it carefully on the bank. Next he untied his cravat, unwound it from his neck, and folded it over his coat. He began to unbutton his waistcoat, tanned fingers deft and sure on the buttons.
Penelope’s gaze riveted to him as he shrugged off the waistcoat. Beneath his London-tailored clothes, he had the body of a warrior. No wonder the Regent regarded him with jealousy.
He stripped off his shirt. His torso, brown with sun, was tight and strong, muscles moving under the skin with animal grace. Black curls dusted his chest, spreading across his pectorals, thinning where his flat, male nipples lay brown-red again his skin. His arms were large with muscle, round and hard biceps tapering to hollows on the insides of his elbows.
Black hair twined his broad forearms, his skin there even more tanned, the part of his body that saw the most sun. She had never seen a man completely bare-chested before, and she found that she wanted to look at him, to explore with her gaze what he was.
She wanted to touch, too. She imagined her pale fingers
on the brown flesh, tracing collarbone and hollow of throat, the damp skin over his Adam’s apple. She’d move down to feather the indent between his pectorals, letting his dark curls of hair twist round her fingertips. Then to his brown nipples, drawing them lightly between her fingers, discovering whether they felt like her own or different.
She flicked her gaze to his face, knowing her eyes would betray her hunger, but not knowing how to hide it. She traced the sharp line of his jaw, the black curled hair that trailed behind his ears to his bare, strong neck. He smelled of sweat and salt, and she wondered if he’d taste of salt if she trailed her tongue across his throat.
He smiled at her, his lips moving slowly, as though he knew she wanted to taste him and liked it.
He lifted himself on the log, balancing on flat hands, arms tightening, and, before she could speak, he slid down into the water.
The pool was deep. Damien dove into the cool depths, the water heavenly after the warm summer sun.
His arousal was screaming at him. Damn, but he wanted her. Finding her here with her skirts rucked to her knees, her bare legs dangling, her toes tracing languid circles in the water, had made him hard as a rock.
He’d argued with her to keep his mind off her beddable body, but to no use. Thank God the water was cold.
He surfaced, and shook water from his hair. She was watching him, eyes round. “What are you doing?”
“Swimming.”
“What about assassins?” She peered about her worriedly.
“I have men stationed along the hill and river to watch.”
Penelope hastily pulled her dress over her legs. “Good heavens. You might have warned me.”
“My men are trained to look without looking,” he said. “Does it make sense in English?”
“I suppose,” she said.
He laughed. She was so pretty with the sun on her hair, her lip drawn down in confusion. He wanted to kiss her and kiss her. He wanted to hold her against him in the water, to lift her dress and settle her on his very needy erection.
He swam across the pool, then dove again, reveling in the soothing water. He surfaced, right at her feet.
She looked at him in surprise. Slanting her a wicked grin, he lifted her bare, clean toes and drew one into his mouth.
He expected her to gasp and pull away, but she stretched out her foot, leaning back on her elbows, her eyelids heavy. She’d look so in bed, he imagined, lying back and waiting for him, lips parted.
He nibbled the toe, then suckled it, loving the taste of the water and her skin. Her posture pressed her breasts against her thin gown, her nipples tiny points against the fabric.
He’d never seen such a sensuous woman. Hers was a natural sensuality, free from the artifice of court women, closer to the wild beauty of the women of his own country.