Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(15)

Sir Hilton Trask had not liked his wife. You are very pretty, Penelope, he’d say. Your mother too was once beautiful. But she has an empty head and frivolous emotions. She is nothing but a shell of a person, while you are thoughtful and clever. You outshine her in every way.

Lady Trask had said she did not give a toss for what her husband said about her. But Penelope would catch her mother weeping when moments before she’d airily dismissed Sir Hilton’s insults.

Mama, he does not mean to be cruel, Penelope would say.

Yes, he does, Lady Trask would return. He hates me. He always has. I do not understand what I did wrong.

Indeed, her father had once said to Penelope, The only decent thing your mother ever did was give me you.

Her father had turned all his devotion to Penelope. If Penelope had been a shallow person, she’d have reveled in his attention, gloating over the fact that she’d bested her mother in his eyes.

But Penelope was not shallow, and she could only be sorry that her father dismissed Lady Trask as nothing. Be kind to her, Papa, she’d beg him.

I am kind, Sir Hilton would say. I give her as much money as she needs and all the gewgaws she wants. A woman like her is happy as soon as you dangle a trinket before her.

This particular memory chose to haunt Penelope now—after she’d watched her mother nearly wilt as she’d gazed at Damien’s box of rubies. Tears welled up in Penelope’s eyes and spilled down her face.

“I never meant to make you cry,” a deep voice said.

Penelope jerked her head up. Prince Damien leaned against a column, his coat stirring in the breeze from the river. He was hatless, his dark hair black in the shadows of the folly. His boots were polished, buckles shining, edges muddy from their walk through the meadow. He was alone, no Sasha, no entourage.

Damien’s kisses still burned Penelope’s lips. He’d touched her with skilled hands, awakening a fire she’d never known existed.

Desire, she thought in some dismay. I desire this man. Whether he be prince or liar.

Penelope hastily wiped her cheeks. “I am not crying because of you,” she said with difficulty.

Damien took two slow steps toward her then lowered himself to sit next to her. “I am pleased.”

He smelled of the outdoors, wood smoke, and wind, his body close enough to warm hers. Damien’s gaze moved to take in the view, his black hair burnished by sunshine.

“Does no one in Nvengaria wear hats?” Penelope asked distractedly.

“Pardon?” Damien frowned as he studied the landscape.

“Hats. You run about bareheaded, as do your men.”

Damien turned to her, blue gaze catching her. She was like a moth entranced by a candle flame—if she moved too close, she’d incinerate.

“Hats never became fashionable in Nvengaria,” Damien said. “Too much wind.”

“What do you do in the winter?”

Damien indicated his head with a flick of fingers. “We have fur things—gzizbas, they are called. They pull all the way down over the ears. They look silly, but keep us remarkably warm.”

Penelope folded her arms over her bent knees and laid her head on her forearms. “You really are from Nvengaria.”

Damien gave her a nod, looking neither pleased nor proud. “I am indeed.”

Penelope’s eyes stung, the breeze drying her damp cheeks. “I did not like the way you and your man Sasha so easily dismissed my mother.”

“She refused me,” Damien said in a careful tone. “It was logical to next turn to you.”

“So I must be this princess? And marry you?” Penelope shook her head. “You might have told me in the meadow why you’d come here and spared me your talk of love.”

Damien’s thigh rested close to hers, the thin leather of his breeches molding to muscle. He was large and powerful, like no man she’d ever met.

The silver ring clasped his forefinger. As Penelope studied it, she saw what his gloves had hidden—his hands were callused and work-roughened, not soft and manicured as an aristocrat’s might be. He’d labored with these hands. Whatever princes did in Nvengaria, it was not simply sitting on a throne.

Damien lifted her hand, his strong, blunt fingers dwarfing hers. “It is done, Penelope.” The words were quiet, but final. “I came to England to find my bride, and you are she. I knew so when I first saw you, though I did not understand.”

He was doing it again. Damien’s voice was velvet-smooth and wrapped her senses. Penelope had been determined to be skeptical when she spoke to him again, but under the spell of his voice, she could only let him hold her hand.

“How could you possibly know that?” she asked faintly.

Damien studied their hands together, not looking at her face. “I told you I had fallen in love with you—in ten minutes, as you said. It is the prophecy, the one that said the rings would at last be reunited. A mage called Nedrak told me I would follow this prophecy, whether I willed it or not, and he was right. I fell in love because I was destined to.” Damien ran his thumb over Penelope’s first finger. “Why I fell in love does not change the fact that I did so.”

Penelope pulled her gaze from their clasped hands with difficulty. “You must be completely insane. Or I am. Princes of Nvengaria do not turn up in out-of-the-way villages and declare they are in love and will take a bride.”