Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(22)

Despite their differences in station, Petri was closer to Damien than any brother could be. They read each other’s moods and knew what the other would say before he said it.

Petri pursued women with enthusiasm. Being valet to a prince gave him a certain cachet among the servants of the noble classes of Europe. While duchesses and countesses vied for Damien’s notice, Petri busily seduced their maids.

“Behave yourself while you are here,” Damien had told Petri when they’d arrived.

Petri had widened his blue eyes in innocence. “When have I ever not? Do I not know discretion?”

He did—Damien had to credit him with that. Damien never once had to extricate Petri from a delicate situation, not even when the man involved himself with more than one woman at a time. Petri knew how to woo and seduce, and then withdraw with no anger on either side. Damien had to admire him.

As Damien sipped his brandy—purchased in Paris and lovingly carried by Petri the rest of the way to Little Marching—he listened to the sounds of a household trying to control its sobbing mistress. The walls were thick, but when doors opened and closed, voices drifted down the halls.

“My lady, my lady you must not—”

“She is hurt. She is bleeding!”

“Whatever is the matter?”

The last voice was Penelope’s. Her gentle tones rose in exasperation, then the door closed, shutting out her words.

Damien smiled into his brandy. Penelope made his blood sing.

He wished she didn’t. Damien had survived all this time by not letting himself feel. Flirt, yes. Seduce, yes. Feel, no.

Enchant a woman, enjoy every moment with her, cut the tie. That was his rule. Most women with whom Damien had affairs—nobly born widows and married women, or courtesans—did the same with him. They did not have time to waste letting Damien break their hearts, and he did not have time to waste cultivating more than a few days’ affairs with them.

All that had changed with one smile from Penelope’s lips.

After a time, Damien heard Penelope leave her mother’s room. “Good night, Mama,” she said firmly, and closed the door behind her.

The mother was weak and weeping, the daughter a pillar of strength. Penelope was strong, and Damien liked that.

No, he needed that.

“Something amusing, Highness?” Petri asked. The man refilled Damien’s glass, poured brandy for himself, and sat down, choosing a chair less comfortable than Damien’s. Petri always reminded Damien that they came from different classes and always would.

“I am thinking of irony, Petri.” Damien sipped the mellow brandy. “What did I expect to find here? I no longer remember.”

Petri shrugged. “You expected a European princess with no chin, bad breath, and an irritating titter. Or so you said.”

“And I found a beautiful Englishwoman with a heart of steel.” Damien gazed moodily into the amber liquid. “I sound like a fool in a bad Nvengarian drama.”

Petri grinned, his dark face creasing. “I know what you need.”

“A hearty kick with a thick boot?”

“A dose of what bit you, sir. You want this woman.”

Damien made a gesture of acknowledgment. “That is so. What betrays me?”

“Perhaps you should consider wearing looser breeches, Highness. At least until we’re finished here.”

Damien raised his brows. “You are exceedingly coarse, my friend.”

“You need a bit of relief, that is all,” Petri said with finality.

Damien shook his head. He could not imagine going to any other woman now that he’d met Penelope. The ladies he’d had in the past, bejeweled countesses and beautiful duchesses, paled when compared to this English girl with golden hair and green-gold eyes.

“I will not insult her by visiting a courtesan to deflate myself. Besides, I do not think it would work.”

“I did not mean that,” Petri said. “I meant her.”

Damien had a sudden vision of Penelope beneath him on a bed, her hair loose, her eyes heavy with passion. He would kiss her breasts as they rose with her breath, take one nipple into his mouth.

“’Tis tempting, Petri,” he said. “But I cannot circumvent the rituals. The prophecy depends on them.” Damien could not break the prophecy, no matter what. The consequences were too dire. “In any case, Sasha would kill me. He spent all his time in prison obsessing about the prophecy, going over it from memory, writing lines in the dirt … He has sacrificed much for me.”

“When did you grow interested in following rules, Highness?” Petri asked. “Sasha has gone a little mad, I think, over this prophecy.”

“He has,” Damien agreed. “But he survived my father’s dungeon by believing that magic would bring me back to him. I did return for him, and he is convinced that the prophecy made it happen. His entire life centers around it.”

The prophecy claimed that Damien and the princess would bear a child who would be the pride of Nvengaria. Nvengaria would be raised high again, and the sorrows that plagued the country under Damien’s father would be erased.

If Damien sired the child before the official betrothal, he or she would be illegitimate and not accepted as the next prince or princess, and the prophecy would fail. Damien had come very close to seducing Penelope in the meadow today before he’d understood who she was. He’d been tight with need, and she’d not fought him.