Authors: Cara Colter
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.”