Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(2)
Damien doubted that rulers of other countries cut medals for the rescue of an Imperial Prince’s cat from a tree, but Damien’s father did. Damien’s father handed out medals for anything—he thought it made him look like a benevolent man, though no one was foolish enough to believe this.
Damien recognized the leader of the pack, a hardened soldier called Misk. Misk was the man Damien’s father sent whenever he had an important message, quite often a death threat. Damien’s father sent his son many death threats, and likely had been responsible for the assassin’s attempt on Damien today. Misk wore more medals than the others, and Damien absently wondered how the man could stand upright with all the metal hanging from his chest.
“Your Highness.” Misk bowed low. “Terrible, grievous news I bring.”
Misk always had terrible, grievous news. Unworried, Damien gave him a nod.
Misk reached into his pocket, removed a velvet drawstring bag, and took from this a small wooden box with the Nvengarian imperial family crest inlaid in rosewood and teak. The box was very old, polished with time until the inlay was worn.
Misk opened the box and handed it to Damien. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a silver ring, thick and heavy, bearing the signet of the Imperial Princes of Nvengaria.
Damien’s alarm at last stirred. He pinned Misk with a sharp stare. “This ring belongs to my father.”
“No, Imperial Highness,” Misk said, a mixture of grief and anger in his eyes. “It is yours. Your father is dead.”
Damien remained still, the strange shock that rippled through him not letting him react.
The Imperial Prince, the man who’d imprisoned Damien then thrown him into exile, who’d threatened his own son with execution if he so much as looked in Nvengaria’s direction again—dead and gone.
Damien was now the Imperial Prince of Nvengaria.
He drew a sharp breath and lifted the ring from the box. The ring’s silver, eight hundred years old, gleamed softly in the candlelight.
Every man in the room, including Misk, dropped to their knees. Damien gazed across their bowed heads to the gilded vines lining the walls of the Parisian antechamber. So far from home was this modern city of Damien’s exile, so different from the ancient one of his ancestors.
Here were his two choices: Accept the ring and rule Nvengaria as was his birthright, or throw the ring at Misk and tell him to find some other fool to take over the pocket-sized principality.
The men remained motionless, waiting for Damien to tell them what to do. To command them, to rule them.
Damien stood poised on the knife-edge of change—whatever decision he made here would seal his fate forever. No going back.
He closed his fist around the ring. “Petri,” he said softly. “Pack my things.”
Chapter 2
England, May 1819
Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened in Little Marching, Oxfordshire. Ever.
May the twenty-third, 1819, Penelope’s friend Meagan sighed when it was all over. I will never forget that day as long as I live.
The morning dawned as an ordinary one, spring in rural England, with wildflowers pushing up through green grasses, an arch of blue sky, soft air and sunshine. Meagan and her father had come to visit and were now staying in Ashborn Manor, the Trask country home.
“Where are you off to, darlings?” Penelope’s mother, Lady Trask, asked as Penelope and Meagan donned cloaks and gloves in the high-ceilinged hall.
Lady Trask stood at the large oval table in the center of the hall, arranging flowers of varying shapes and clashing colors in a huge oriental vase. She was good at arranging flowers, hostessing at-homes, pouring tea, and generally being decorative.
Penelope went to her mother and kissed her cheek. “We are walking to the village to buy ribbons for our new summer gowns. Shall I bring you something?”
Lady Trask returned the kiss, a long-stemmed, early rose in her hand. “Very sweet of you to ask, dear. I need only yourself.” She turned back to the flowers, then called over her shoulder, “Oh, be sure to take one of your books to Mrs. Swanson. She enjoys your little stories.”
Penelope had already put one of her collections of fairy tales into her basket. “I will, Mama.”
Lady Trask frowned at the rose and attempted to fit it into the vase. “You will not get white ribbons, will you, Penelope, dear? You are too old for white.”
“Of course not,” Penelope said, unoffended as she tied the very brown ribbons of her bonnet. “I have not worn white in three seasons.”
Lady Trask heaved a sigh, not looking away from her task. “A pity your father died. He could have found you a rich husband in a trice, my poor darling.”
Penelope drew on her gloves, carefully fitting them over each finger to hide the sudden tightness in her chest. “You know I have decided not to marry, Mama.”
Penelope’s two betrothals had been disasters. Reuben White, a handsome man-about-town, had desired a pliable wife who’d look the other way at his blatant affairs. Magnus Grady, whom Penelope had thought older, wiser, and safer, had simply wanted a pretty young girl to chase around the drawing room.
Penelope had cried off both engagements. She’d been labeled a jilt, then a double-jilt. No gentleman would trust her now, Lady Trask’s friends predicted.
When Penelope’s father died from his long illness, his title and money had passed to his distant cousin, leaving Penelope’s mother only a small jointure and permission to live on the estate for her lifetime. The cousin, a modern young man who loved travel, had no intention of rusticating in the family seat, and so generously said that Penelope and her mother might as well have use of the main house, where they continued to live.