Читать книгу Her Royal Husband - Cara Colter - Страница 9

J ordan Ashbury woke partially, her heart beating frantically within her chest.

So real was the feeling that his kiss was on her lips, that she ran her tongue along them, hoping the faint taste of salted sea air would be lingering there. When it was not, she reached across the tangle of her sheets, wanting to be reassured by the silky touch of his skin under her fingertips, wanting the ache within her to be eased by his presence in her bed.

When her fingertips touched cold emptiness, Jordan came fully awake and smelled the mingled aroma of wood smoke and fall leaves coming in her open window, not the sea. Her sheets were covered in a prim pattern of yellow teacup roses. They were sheets that had never known the skin of a man.

The ache was there, though, as real as if it had been yesterday, instead of just over five years ago, that she had awoken and he had been gone. For good. Forever. Without so much as a goodbye.

He had warned her it would be that way. The warning had not made it one bit easier to cope with when it had happened.

Jordan shook herself fully awake, angry. She sat up and fluffed her pillow with furious punches. She glanced at her bedroom clock. It was only three-thirty in the morning. She clenched her eyes tight, commanded herself back to sleep.

She had not had one of those dreams for so long. It had been at least six months. She thought that meant her heart was mending, finally.

She would not go as far as to say she was happy. Jordan Ashbury mistrusted happiness. It was the crest of an exhilarating wave you rode before it tossed you carelessly onto sharp and jagged rocks.

But she would say she was content. She had her girls—the young, unwed mothers she did volunteer work with. She had her job with her aunt. She had this little humble house she had just purchased. And of course, she had Whitney, her four-year-old daughter, who had enough exuberance for both of them.

And she had the new male in her life. There he was now. He prowled into her bedroom, leapt onto the bed in a single graceful leap, curled up by her ear and began to purr.

Jay-Jay, named in honor of Jason, whom she had dated once and hated, and Justin whom she had dated twice and liked. Both had been dismissed from her life with equal rapidity.

“No time,” she’d told her mother who had set up both disasters.

“But aren’t you lonely?” her mother wailed.

“Of course not,” she had said, strong and breezy. “It’s a brand-new world, Mom. Women don’t need men to feel they have purpose, to feel complete.”

“Working with those unwed mothers is making you cynical about men,” her mother said.

No, it wasn’t. It was reminding her, over and over, of the life lesson she most needed reminding of.

Love hurt.

Well, not Whitney love. Not Mom and Dad love. Not Jay-Jay love. Just the other kind. Man-woman love.

Only in the middle of the night, like this, did the insanity of loneliness take her, try to pull her down, make her wistful, make her ache with yearning.

“Weak ninny,” she scolded herself, opened her clenched eyes to glance at the clock then closed them again with renewed determination. Sleep.

Instead, a chill washed over Jordan, a chill not caused by the cool September air sliding through her open window. In that space between wakefulness and sleep where her mind sometimes shook free of her tight hold on the reins, she allowed herself to wonder, did it mean something that she had dreamed of Ben?

Why did she feel a knot in her stomach, a shadow in her soul? Was he in trouble? Was he dead?

She shivered, caught in the grip of something that felt weirdly like premonition.

Ben Prince did not exist, she reminded herself bitterly. How could he be dead when he had never been alive?

Except he was alive, amazingly so, in the sapphire-blue eyes of their daughter. Her daughter. The child he knew nothing about.

Jordan had tried to tell him. It seemed the only thing, the decent thing. That was when she’d found out, through the registrar’s office at the Smedley Institute where they had met during a summer program, there was no Ben Prince.

Short of yelling at them that a figment of her imagination could not have produced a pregnancy, there was nothing more she could do. He was gone.

Except in that place where her dreams took her.

Restless, she got out of bed, went over and slammed the window shut. She paused and looked out at Maple Street, Wintergreen, Connecticut. This was not the best area of town, but it was old, so the maple trees were enormous, just beginning to hint at their fall splendor. The houses that lined the street were tiny, asphalt-shingled boxes, but the yards were generous, which is what she had wanted for Whitney.

When she was growing up, Jordan had always assumed she would end up in a neighborhood like her parents, spacious Dutch colonial and Cape Cod homes set well back from the road, sporting wraparound verandas and porch swings and lawn chairs where people whiled away hot summer nights.

A perfect all-American street in a perfect all-American neighborhood. The scent of apple pies baking wafted out the windows at this time of year, and red, white and blue flags flew from porch pillars.

Of course, she had spoiled her parents’ all-American dreams for her by showing up pregnant, no marriage, no man.

Forgiveness had been some time coming though Whitney’s entrance into the universe seemed to have greased the wheels of progress considerably.

Her parents had objected to Jordan buying her own little house six months ago. Of course, it made more sense for her to continue living with them. She was a single mom with a limited income. Her options, which had once seemed endless, now seemed limited.

Even so, she liked her life. Was contented with it. Ninety percent of the time.

Still, looking at that quiet street, washed in silver moonlight, Jordan felt restless. What had happened to the girl who beamed out of her senior high yearbook, the banner Most Likely To Succeed draped across the picture?

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, she had been politically ambitious, certain she would be the first female mayor of Wintergreen.

It was that ambition that had made her sign up for an intense political science summer program at Laguna Beach the summer after her graduation from high school.

It had turned out to be her date with destiny—and she was not sure yet that she had recovered from the surprise that her destiny was not even close to what she had planned for herself.

Now, she was a chef’s assistant working for her aunt. It was a job Jordan had fallen into, rather than planned for. Given that, it was surprisingly satisfactory.

She no longer had any desire to be mayor. She just wanted to be a good mom to her small firebrand of a daughter. She wanted to help other girls, who like herself, found themselves thrown up on love’s rocks, battered and bruised. Priorities changed that quickly.

Reminding herself sternly she had to work tomorrow, she climbed back into bed, and tossed restlessly until the phone jangled shrilly. Startled, Jordan looked at her bedside clock—6:00 a.m. No one in their right mind called that early in the morning. It must be Marcella. She was due the third week of September.

“Hello?” she answered, already pulling on her jeans. She could drop off Whitney at her parents, call Meg, be in the labor room in fifteen minutes.

“Jordan, you are not going to believe this!”

She sat down on the edge of her bed, and eased the jeans back off. “I’m already having trouble with belief. Aunt Meg, when have you ever been up at this time of the morning?”

“Never,” her aunt admitted. “But it was worth it! Did I wake you? Never mind. You’ll think it’s worth it, too.”

“We’ve been hired to cater the presidential ball?” Jordan asked, tongue-in-cheek.

“Better. It’s because of the time zone difference that they called so early.”

Better than the presidential ball? Jordan was intrigued despite herself. “Aunt Meg, who called so early?”

“Lady Gwendolyn Corbin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marissa Penwyck of the island kingdom of Penwyck.”

Jordan, confused, checked her calendar. As she thought, it was still September, not anywhere near April Fool’s day. She sighed. Her lovely aunt, a chef extraordinaire, always walked the fine line between genius and eccentricity. Sadly, she had obviously finally crossed the line.

“Jordan, listen! She wants me—us—to cater the party. At the palace! Right there on the island of Penwyck! We get to go there, all expenses paid. Oh my, Jordan, it is the break I’ve been waiting for. I told you that little piece in Up and Coming People was going to do it. I told you!”

The article in the national magazine Up and Coming had been dreadful. It had made her aunt seem considerably more eccentric than she was, which must have been a stretch for the writer. It had featured Meg’s experiments combining edible flowers with pastry. “Flaky Flowers” had been the title of the piece and it had gone downhill from there.

“Aunt Meg, slow down,” she suggested gently, suspecting the article had generated a prank. “Where have you been asked to go? And what have you been asked to do?”

Her aunt took a deep breath. “You read about it in the papers, didn’t you? Or saw it on television?”

“Flaky Flowers was on television?” Jordan asked, appalled that her aunt might have been held up for ridicule at a new and dizzying level.

“Not Flaky Flowers. Jordan, the whole world has been talking about nothing else. You missed it, didn’t you?” This was said with undisguised accusation.

“I suppose I might have,” Jordan admitted uncertainly.

Her aunt sighed. “You are taking this heartbroken recluse thing to radical limits.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a strong, independent woman,” Jordan said, miffed. She could feel a headache coming on. She did not feel prepared to defend her lifestyle choices at six in the morning.

“Same thing,” her aunt said.

“What world event did I miss?” she asked, trying to get her aunt back to the point and away from her personal life.

“The kidnapping of that prince! And now he’s been safely returned to his home and his mother, the queen, is having a party to celebrate, and I’m catering and you’re coming with me!”

I hope this isn’t real, Jordan thought. “Is this real?”

“Of course. A celebration for those closest to the family. Which is a mere one hundred and seventy-five. Dinner, of course before the ball. Did you hear me, Jordan? A ball, like in Cinderella.”

The fairy tale Jordan most alluded to when she told frightened young expectant mothers not to believe in fairy tales. The prince was not coming to rescue them. Sometimes, Jordan even found herself wishing the story could have a different ending, but it rarely did.

“A midnight snack will be necessary,” her aunt went on, not intercepting the chilly response to Cinderella. “What do you think? My Moose Ta-Ta for the main course?”

Despite the name, Meg’s Moose Ta-Ta was to die for: roast beef done in a secret sauce that Meg claimed included the unshed velvet of a moose antler.

When she debated saying it might be hard to procure that much velvet, Jordan realized she was being sucked into the incredible vortex of her aunt’s enthusiasm. “I can’t help you, Aunt Meg.”

“What?!” This said in the same tone Cruella used when she was refused the puppies.

“No,” Jordan said firmly, “I can’t possibly. I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t travel. Couldn’t. I am giving my daughter stability.”

“What you are giving your daughter is a boring life. Boring. Boring. Boring.”

“Plus, Marcella’s baby is due any day. I can’t just leave her in the lurch.”

“Jordan, which member of your group had her baby last? Stacey? You had nine people in the delivery room with her. That’s a baseball team. You don’t need to be there.”

“The girls like knowing I’m there for them.” Like no one else ever has been.

“I think you should find a volunteer activity that doesn’t underscore your anger at men.”

Menu discussion to free psychology advice from the woman who had proudly named Moose Ta-Ta. Jordan noted her headache seemed to be intensifying, moving around from the center of her forehead toward her ears.

“I like my boring life, and my volunteer work,” Jordan said, a touch testily. She had experienced the other. She had experienced exhilaration. Magic. Wonder. It was exhausting. The pain of losing those kinds of things never dulled, ever.

Boring on the other hand was nice and dull to begin with. It was hard to go downhill from there.

“Of course you adore boring, dear,” her aunt said soothingly, “but you must come. You must. As a teensy-weensy favor to your favorite aunt who can no longer survive without you. Who else could I trust with the icing for the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy?”

“I won’t leave my daughter and Marcella in order to baby-sit your active bacterial cultures.”

“Darling, you never even let me get to the best part! Whitney can come. They’ve given me a blank check. Me and my entire entourage are expected in Penwyck by tomorrow evening. Lady Gwendolyn used that word. Entourage. I mentioned Whitney, of course. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry you away from her. They’ll provide a nanny!”

“I can’t,” Jordan said, sensing a danger she did not understand. “That kind of trip sounds like it would be terribly unsettling to a small child. Too whirlwind. Too exotic. Too chaotic. Too…you know.”

“No. You know. Me. And I am not taking no for an answer. I will come right over there and tell Whitney her deranged mother has refused an all-expense-paid trip for two to an island with a real castle, a real king and queen, real princesses, and two real princes.”

“Don’t you dare! She’ll—”

“—torment you until you agree to go,” Aunt Meg said with satisfaction. “Don’t make me do it, Jordan. Just say yes to the adventure, for once!”

“I said yes to an adventure, once,” Jordan reminded her aunt stiffly.

“And you have a lovely daughter to show for it. Besides, I’ll pay you double, plus a very generous living out allowance. Aren’t you saving for a microwave for that little meeting room of yours? So you can serve nice, healthy soup to all your young moms-to-be? I’ll even donate soup.”

Sometimes there was just no arguing with Meg. Besides, Marcella did have a good support network. Her mom and her sister were both very supportive of her, and both had already expressed an interest in being there for the delivery.

Suddenly, without warning, that yearning came over Jordan. To say yes to adventure even though the price could be so high. Wasn’t it worth it?

Just by closing her eyes she could still remember how it felt, those seven weeks in July when her soul had been on fire.

“All right,” she said slowly, giving into the impulse, the yearning, “All right. I’ll come.”

Her aunt whooped so loudly into the phone that she nearly deafened her poor niece. After hearing what needed to be done, and in very short order, Jordan hung up the phone and looked at it bemused.

“Why do I have the awful feeling I’m going to regret this?” she asked herself. And yet, if she was honest, regret was not what she felt.

She felt the tiniest stirring of excitement, a feeling she had not allowed herself to have, not in this way, since a morning five years ago when she had woken up to the cold, hard reality of a bed empty beside her, and the terrifying knowledge she was now totally alone with the secret of the baby growing inside of her.

“Meg,” Jordan told her aunt, “no nasturtiums. I cannot find a fresh nasturtium on all of Penwyck.”

“Oh,” her aunt wailed, “the pastry just doesn’t have the same flavor with geranium leaves. See what it would cost to import some. Orange. I only want orange ones. No yellow.”

Jordan stared at her aunt, and allowed herself to feel exhausted. They’d arrived here in Penwyck less than twenty-four hours ago. Jet-lagged, arriving practically in the middle of the night, Jordan had not really noticed much about the island as they were whisked to the castle, and into quarters that adjoined the banquet kitchen. The quarters were motel room plain and seemed distinctly humble and uncastlelike.

The nanny, Trisha, had been introduced to her early the following morning. A teenage girl, she was an absolute doll. With those shifting loyalties young children are so famous for, Whitney had given her heart to the young girl completely and irrevocably and only stopped by on brief visits to the kitchen to tell her mother she had seen “a weel thwone with weel jewels” or “a weel pwincess with a weel pwetty smile.”

Jordan, on the other hand, had seen only her quarters, the kitchen and the small office off of it, which housed a cranky telephone that was like nothing she had ever seen in America. She was developing a healthy hatred for the instrument and dreaded trying to call overseas now in the never ending search for nasturtiums.

She’d been going flat-out, putting out fires, soothing her ruffled aunt, trying to find impossible ingredients and, of course, nursing that active yogurt culture, the secret ingredient that made her aunt’s Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy so unbelievably delicious.

She was exhausted. “Only orange nasturtiums,” she repeated, turning from her aunt.

“Miss Jordan! Miss Jordan!”

Her relief at being called from her quest for orange nasturtiums was short-lived. Trisha was rushing across the kitchen toward her, obviously close to tears.

“I’ve lost her,” she wailed. “Miss Jordan, I’ve lost Whitney.”

For the first time since they had arrived, Jordan allowed herself to wish she had listened to her doubts.

“I knew I was going to regret this,” she said. “I just knew it.”

“Jordan, don’t overreact,” Meg said, bustling by, her hands full of something that looked dangerously like the moss that crept up the castle walls. “Whitney has gone exploring. Perfectly normal for a child that age. She’s having fun. You know, maybe a few yellow would be all right.”

“My daughter is missing, and she’s four years old. Excuse me if I give that priority over yellow nasturtiums.”

Meg gave her a hurt look, put the moss in a large pot and turned her back on her.

“One minute she was there, ma’am,” the young nanny said tearfully, “and the next she simply wasn’t. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“How long have you been looking?” Jordan asked firmly, though she would have liked dearly to wring her hands and cry just like the nanny.

“Nearly an hour.”

An hour. In an enormous castle, full of hazards, coats of armor waiting to be pulled down, swords waiting to impale. And what of all the strange people? The prince had been kidnapped from this very castle only two weeks ago!

Jordan forced herself to take a deep and steadying breath. She whipped off her apron.

Her aunt peered up from the pot she was stirring, which was emitting strange clouds of green steam. “I wish you’d think of the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy. A mistake at this phase, and it’s ruined!”

Jordan glared at her, and turned back to the quivering nanny. “Where were you exactly when you noticed her gone? Take me there.”

For the first time, Jordan entered the main part of the castle. Despite her worry for Whitney, she could not help but notice the richness all around her. Thick muted carpets covered stone floors. Richly colored tapestries and stern oil paintings covered the stone walls. The furniture was all antique, glowing beautifully from hours of elbow grease. Intricate crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings. Oak had been used extensively on bannisters and window casings and doorways. All in all, the opulence was somewhat overwhelming.

“We were right here, ma’am,” the girl finally said, stopping in a quiet hallway on the second floor. The carpet under their feet looked priceless. A muted tapestry, obviously silk and obviously ancient hung on one wall, a portrait of a fierce-looking man mounted on a horse hung on the opposite wall.

Jordan could see nothing here that would fascinate her daughter.

“I had just paused for a moment, to talk to Ralphie, one of the gardeners, and when I looked at where she had been, Whitney was gone!”

Jordan decided not to pursue what Ralphie-the-gardener might have been doing on the second floor of the palace.

There only seemed to be one place Whitney could have gone. “And this door goes where?” Jordan asked.

“That’s Prince Owen’s suite, ma’am.”

“Did you tell her that? My daughter? That a real live prince resided behind those doors?”

Trisha looked painfully thoughtful. “Well, yes I might have mentioned it.”

Jordan pushed down the handle, but the young nanny flung herself in front of her, wide-eyed with disbelief.

“You can’t just enter his suite,” she whispered.

“My daughter might be in there!”

“Surely not.” The girl looked terrified.

“What is the prince? Why are you so afraid? Is he some sort of old ogre?”

A blush crept charmingly up the girl’s cheeks. “Oh, no, ma’am. Not in the least. I mean nothing further from an ogre. He’s not old for one thing. And he’s the most handsome man who ever lived. And so wonderfully kind. He’s very, oh, just the best. But you can’t just enter his quarters.”

So much for Ralphie, Jordan thought, grimly amused by the girl’s obvious crush.

“I could never presume to knock on his door,” the girl whispered. “If he finds out I’ve lost a child in my charge, I’ll never live with the shame of it. He’s going to be king some day!”

“What nonsense,” Jordan said, and hammered on the door. Despite the nanny’s gasp of dismay, she pushed down the handle before there was an answer. Prince or not her child was lost and royal protocol came a long way down the list from that.

“Excuse me—” she stopped dead in her tracks, and felt the blood drain from her face.

Whitney was there after all, sitting happily at a huge table, manipulating chessmen that appeared to be made of crystal.

But the discovery of her daughter brought none of the expected relief. Instead, Jordan felt close to panic.

She tried to tell herself her mind was playing tricks on her.

Of course it was.

A man sat at a polished table with her daughter. Not the prince, obviously. He was dressed in faded jeans, and a denim shirt with a smudge of dirt on the elbow. He had the build of a prizefighter, all sinewy muscle, and the look of one, too, his face bruised, his lip split. This must be the famous Ralphie-the-gardener. Obviously those distortions to his facial features had momentarily made her think the impossible.

And yet she could not deny his resemblance to the man she had loved so many years ago, when once before she had said yes to adventure.

No, it wasn’t him.

Ben had been blond. This man’s hair was dark as fresh-turned loam. Besides, he was broader through the shoulders, and the chest than Ben had been. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

She reminded herself that this happened to her from time to time—a glimpse at a stranger set her heart to beating wildly, filled her with the joyous thought, it’s him, before she had a chance to remind herself seeing him again would be nothing to be joyous about.

He glanced up. The way his hair, just a touch too long, fell over his brow, made her take a step back, and then his eyes met hers.

Deep, cool, the exact color of sapphires. The exact color of the little girl’s who sat across from him.

This was a dream. No, a nightmare, that she imagined her daughter sitting across the table from the man who bore such a frightening resemblance to the man who had fathered her.

But if she could have convinced herself it wasn’t him, the look on his face shattered that.

Stunned recognition washed over his features before he scrambled to his feet.

“Leave us,” he said to the flustered nanny, sending only the briefest glance her way.

“You do not have to leave us,” Jordan snapped. “I’m sure your duties do not include taking instructions from Ralphie-the-gardener.”

Trisha looked like she was going to faint. “No ma’am,” she whispered, standing like a deer caught in headlights, “but this is not Ralph.”

“Leave,” he said again, curtly.

The girl actually curtsied, and flushed to a shade of purple that reminded Jordan of the fresh beets lined up for the Blushing Beet Borscht they were preparing in the kitchen.

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Trisha squeaked, and backed out of the room, tripping over herself in her haste to get out of the door.

Your Royal Highness. Jordan let the shock of it wash over her. The man who had loved her was a prince. A living, breathing, gorgeous prince.

He was still the man who had left her, she reminded herself. That meant he was still a cad.

The silence was electric as she regarded him. She wanted him to flinch away from the fury in her look, but instead she could feel the familiar intensity of his gaze, could feel it threatening to melt in an instant what it had taken her five long hard years to build.

“Hi, Mommy,” Whitney said, looking up, breaking the silence.

She saw the shock cross his features.

“Mommy?” he said, almost accusingly, as if he had a right to know what had transpired in her life in the past years—as if he was shocked she had the audacity to have a life without him.

“Your Royal Highness?” she shot back, just as accusingly.

“Pwince Owen,” Whitney filled in helpfully.

“Oh my,” Jordan said, allowing a faint hint of sarcasm into her voice, “and I thought it was Prince Ben. Or was that Ben Prince?”

“It was Blond Boy, wasn’t it?” The faintest twinkle appearing in his eye.

How could he be trying to make this light? She hated that twinkle. It was part of his easy charm, his great big lying charming self. There had probably been dozens after her, who felt the very same weakness she had felt when he gazed at her with those amazing passionate seductive eyes.

The bruises, the marks of the beating on his face only added to his pull—the almost irresistible desire to touch him with tender fingertips. Traitor fingers!

“Of course, you feel passionate about him,” Jordan would tell those sobbing girls who came to her house late in the night, “that’s what got you into this mess in the first place. But there’s no need to be a weak ninny about it.”

Here she was, being given an opportunity to practice what she preached. She was not going to forgive the betrayal that had nearly torn her soul from her body five years ago, the betrayal that had turned her from an innocent and idealistic child to a cynical and wounded woman in the blink of an eye, just because he had the most mesmerizing eyes of any male on the planet.

“Well, Your Royal—” she hesitated, tempted to call him Your Royal Muck-muck, to show his title did not impress her in the least, did not make up for his great failings in character, but she thought he might think she was playfully referring to their shared past, so she bit her tongue and called him Highness. “I guess your identity explains a great deal, up to and including this dream contract of my aunt’s.”

“Jordan,” he said quietly, “my identity explains nothing, least of all the abysmal way I treated you. Obviously seeing you again has come as a shock to me. I don’t know your aunt, or anything about her contract.”

“Well, whatever,” she said, trying to shrug carelessly, knowing she could not allow that sincere tone to disarm her.

“Jordan, why are you in Penwyck?” he asked.

How dearly she would have loved to tell him she was here for a meeting of municipalities. That she was the best mayor in the world and she had come to receive a medal.

Childish to want to build herself up like that, just because he was a prince and she was a kitchen assistant. “I’m working with my aunt on the banquet preparations for next Saturday. Whitney, we have to leave.” This room, this castle, this island.

Whitney gave her an amazed look. “I not leaving. You leave.”

Not now, she begged inwardly. This would be the worst possible timing for that stubborn streak to put in an appearance. “Whitney,” Jordan said, using her sternest mother voice, “we are leaving right now.” She held out her hand.

Whitney ignored it, studying the chess players with single-minded intensity.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” Jordan warned Ben. Owen. The prince. His Royal Highness. She had to get out of here.

“I’m not laughing,” he denied. “Whitney, please do as your mother asks.”

“I’m Princess Whitney,” the tyke decided.

“All right by me,” Owen said easily. “Princess Whitney, I think you should go with your mother.”

Jordan wondered uneasily if her daughter really was a princess since her father really appeared to be a prince.

She didn’t like how his gaze lingered on the child, and then a frown creased his forehead.

“Whitney—” she said.

A sudden light came on in his eyes, and with breathtaking swiftness he had crossed the distance between himself and Jordan. His fingers bit into her elbow and he looked straight into her eyes.

“My God, is she mine?” His tone was quiet, intense, loaded with that same princely authority that had made the young nanny quake.

Jordan felt both frightened and furious. “If you were that interested, you should have taken a miss on the melodrama with your middle-of-the-night departure all those years ago.”