“Miss Hammerstein-Smythe,” the prince tucked a finger under her chin and gently brought her face to meet his dark brown gaze. “I am different now. I would never do anything to harm you. I assure you with all my heart, it is the least of my intentions.”
Bewildered, she asked, “Why are you here, then?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE PRINCE LOOKED DOWN at her delightful features and reluctantly removed his finger from her chin. He placed his hands behind his back and took a couple of steps forward and away from the girl, pleased to see her following. “It would seem you and I have a mutual friend.”
“We do?” asked Cecelia, not certain how this could pertain to his delight in tormenting her.
Alexander peeked around a few of the bushes surrounding them, making certain no one was listening, and then stepped toward her, his deep baritone whispering in her ear. “A magical friend.”
Cecelia gasped, not sure if it was from the close proximity of the prince, or from what he had said. Either way, it took a few moments to catch her breath. When she was finally able she hesitantly whispered back, “Do you mean an animal friend?”
Prince Alexander swayed under the onslaught of her sweet warm breath just below his ear. Before he realized what he was meaning to do he’d grabbed her shoulders for support. Clearing his throat he answered, “Yes. A wolf who can speak.” Good great grief, he was dizzy. The girl merely asked him a question and near enough brought him to his knees. What had come over him? He’d never before felt such an attraction, and he wondered briefly if he was falling in love with her.
“Prince Alexander?”
Cecelia’s voice brought him back to the present. He looked down at her rose-colored lips and watched as her teeth tugged and pulled at the bottom one. “Yes?” he asked a bit mesmerized.
“You’re holding my shoulders very tightly.”
“I am?”
“Mm-hm…are you all right?”
Her blue eyes were endless. Had he never noticed the color of her eyes before? “Better than I’ve ever been.” He leaned down and kissed the girl right on her perfect lips. They were as soft and as sweet as he imagined.
Cecelia quickly pulled out of his arms. “Prince Alexander! What in the world has come over you?”
He wanted to taste her lips again. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m fully sound at the moment.”
She was surprised when a giggle popped out of her. Never had she seen him look so bewildered. “You simply cannot go about kissing girls in their mother’s rose garden during broad daylight. It is just not done. Especially ones you feel nothing for and could care less about.” Her hand unconsciously touched her tingling lips, marveling at the sensation he was able to create.
Appalled at how ungentlemanly she must think him now, he immediately began to apologize. “My dear Miss Hammerstein-Smythe, you must forgive me—”
Her blue eyes turned to steel. “If you say one more word I’ll box your ears.”
Alexander’s eyebrows rose.
“No, sir. You do not get to now tell me how deeply sorry you are for ruining my life. Indeed you did not ruin my life, you simply enhanced it.”
“Enhanced it?” He pursed his mouth together to prevent the grin from forming.
“Yes.” She bit her lip again to stop her own chuckle. “It was very nice, and I am not sorry it happened. However, you can never do it again.”
“Never?” He took a step forward.
She laughed and put a hand between them. “Never, ever again.”
“And why is that?” asked the prince coyly.
“Because you and I despise each other and always have. Besides, then everyone would assume we were engaged.”
Engaged.
To Miss Cecelia Hammerstein-Smythe.
Princess Cecelia.
His princess.
He had never wanted anything more.
While Alexander’s heart was learning how to beat properly again, Cecelia had obliviously and quite cheerfully continued to chatter as she began to search for the perfect rose.
“So how did you meet the wolf? Isn’t he simply astonishing? Did you know he can read? It was so inconceivable to see him lying down and reading a book when I met with him last night. I’ve never encountered a magical creature like him before, have you?”
She stopped and turned, a beautiful yellow rose in her hand. “Prince Alexander?”
He shook his head and stepped forward. “Uh, yes?”
“Have you?”
He sheepishly grinned, looking like a boy in a top hat and princely finery. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t attending. What did you ask of me?”
Puzzled, she glanced over him. “Did you hear none of it, then?”
Alexander put his hands behind his back and admitted, “None.”
“Oh.” Cecelia looked at him peculiarly for a moment and then said, “I guess what I wanted to know most was, how do you know the wolf?”
He’d been pondering that exact same question, knowing without a doubt she would ask it of him, so he was definitely prepared to answer it. “I came across him one evening in the woods a while ago. We’ve been friends ever since.”
“Isn’t he fascinating?”
Alexander shrugged and then nodded. “Yes, I guess that’s a good word for him.”
“Were you startled when he began talking to you?”
The prince chuckled. “Yes. I was grateful he spoke, actually. Because it proved he could communicate and wouldn’t eat me.”
Cecelia laughed and continued on down the path, the prince close beside her.
“Did he frighten you?” He watched her closely.
“Yes. He did a little.” She slowed and turned more fully toward him, her skirts swirling below her. “But then, I don’t know what happened, when I looked back and replayed the meeting over and over again, I just knew I could trust him.”
“Good. You can always trust him.” He touched the soft petal of a yellow rose next to him as he walked past. “Do not doubt he is the most dependable creature you will ever come across.”
It was interesting to see Prince Alexander so serious and calm. Honestly, she could hardly believe he was the same person she’d met previously. There really was something most decidedly different about the man. “I like that you know him, and can vouch for him,” she said as she followed his example and trailed her fingers lightly over the rosebushes as they walked.
“You do?”
“Yes. I do not understand why, but it makes me appreciate you more that we share the same friend.”
“Does he mean that much to you, then?” Alexander stopped breathing as he awaited her reply.
Cecelia paused, her fingers absentmindedly caressing a small leaf. “I don’t know.” She continued to step forward again, allowing the leaf to be plucked. “He has the potential to be someone I care about, yes. So maybe that’s it?”
Could she really be saying what he thought she was? Could this sweet girl before him truly not judge a hideous wolf and see him as an equal, as a friend? As someone she could care for? The prince watched in wonder and silence for a few minutes as he absorbed all the magnificence that was Miss Hammerstein-Smythe. She was an even greater person than he could have imagined.
Cecelia’s thoughts naturally gravitated toward the enigmatic wolf. Never had she met someone so fascinating before, or so kind. A smile played upon her lips as she thought of the passage of poem he had had her read aloud. How had he known the precise thing to say to her when she needed it most? How could anyone, let alone a beast, know her so well?
She walked forward a few more steps and plucked another leaf before her feet stopped altogether. What did he mean when he said today would change everything in my life? Glancing at the profile of the prince she absentmindedly mulled over the cryptic comment from the wolf before she silently gasped. The beast sent the prince. He would not dare do such a thing! She began to walk again. And yet, it would seem he had done just that. Her hands grew cold as she rea
lized that the dear creature she had begun to trust had indeed betrayed her.
“He told you about me, did he not?” she asked rather quietly.
Alexander glanced over. “The wolf?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath and stopped walking altogether. The more she thought about it, the more bothered she became. Everything they had just been discussing, all the camaraderie she’d felt with the prince, vanished before her eyes. “He told you about me—about what had happened to me—which is why you have come here now, to rescue the poor damsel and make sure all the village believes you are courting her, and in love with her. The beast said before I left last night that today would change everything in my life. He meant you, didn’t he? He meant to come to you and tell you all about my wretched existence, so that way you would take pity and help.”
“Would it be so bad if he did?”
“Yes!” Distressed, she looked away.
He stepped in front of her. “Why?”
“Because—because, it’s you! Because you have never taken a moment out of your life to say one good thing about anyone, least of all me. Because I am humiliated beyond belief you know about my trials and heartaches. Someone who has only ever scorned and mocked me publically now comes in as my great prince on a white horse.”
“Miss Hammerstein-Smythe, please, you said so yourself just a few weeks ago that I have changed. I did not own it then, but believe me, my dear, I have. I know I have.” He shockingly knelt down in front of her, placed the rose she was holding on the ground near her feet, and took her hands. “Allow me this opportunity now, for if you will not accept my friendship, then please accept my apologies. My dearest, most sincere apologies for everything—all those cruel days of my past—I was a monster. I was a horrendous, horrid beastly monster, and I treated you abominably. I will forever be in your debt, Miss Hammerstein-Smythe, if you could but forgive me and see that I am and will always be a changed man.”
She squeezed his hands not quite willing to let the fight go. “You were brutal to me.”
“Yes, I was. And to many more people, as well. I would do anything to go back and change it all now—anything.”
She searched and wandered across his earnest attractive features. “How can I trust you?”
“Have we not had a pleasant time these past twenty minutes or so? Can this not prove that we can get along? That maybe I am not as ghastly as I once was?”
A lopsided grin formed upon her lips. “Perhaps not as ghastly.”
In all tender seriousness he said, “I am sorry. I am wholeheartedly, earnestly, profusely sorry. And I vow, if you allow me, to make it up to you every single day of my life.”
“Did the beast really send you?”
“Yes, he did.”
She sighed in frustration before stating, “You are forgiven. I will proceed to allow you to rescue me, and perhaps become your friend. However—” she raised an eyebrow to ward off his happy smile—“I’m pretty positive tonight I shall taste my first wolf stew.”
Alexander threw his head back and laughed, more in love with her than before.
It was at this exact moment, while the prince was kneeling before Cecelia— with a rose lying between them and their hands clasped tightly—looking like the happiest man on earth, that her mother happened upon them both.
“Cecelia! Cecelia, my dearest girl! You are to be married to the prince?! My daughter, the soon-to-be queen!” she exclaimed loudly, in all the ecstasies of a mother’s wildest dreams coming true, before she swooned and crashed gracefully upon the cobblestones before them.
CHAPTER NINE
PRINCE ALEXANDER WAS STILL chuckling over Cecelia’s shocked countenance at her mother’s announcement and then dramatic fall as he rode his horse, Sterling, home. You would have thought someone had slapped Miss Hammerstein-Smythe, she was so appalled.
He was not appalled. He should have been. But he wasn’t.
In fact, the sweet irony of the situation did much to please him in his good humor as he travelled back to the castle. He would’ve loved to have stayed longer, just to guarantee those rumors spread like wildfire even faster than they were already going, but he had a meeting with his cousin, the Grand Duke, Lord Bellemount—heir to his throne—within the hour and so could not waste another minute.
He did, however, allow his thoughts to roam with great care over the delightfulness of Cecelia. How could he not? Never had he met a female more enchanting than her, and he’d be a simpleton not to spend a good portion of his day thinking about her.
It was very, very true. He wanted to marry the gel.
He needed to marry her, so he could wake up each morning and see what it was she would do or say that would make him laugh. Oh, how she made him laugh! How she made his heart prick into consciousness whenever she was around. He wanted to be a better man for her. He needed to be. He wanted to slay all her dragons and show her the carefree beauty of the world.
He needed Cecelia like he’d never needed any girl before.
She was lively, and endearing, and strong, and humorous, and simply charming.
Alexander was so busy allowing his mind to wander over the past memories of her that he did not fully acknowledge the pickle he’d placed himself in for quite some time. Indeed, it was not until his horse was entering into the castle courtyard that the smallest fissure of doubt crept into his thoughts at all. But when it came crashing into his euphoria, it did take hold and lay claim to all other previous moments of happiness and perfection.
For in that instant he realized he would never own her. She would never become his because she would have to be in love with the beast for him to break the spell. And yet, he had just entangled them both in a very large and scandalous “imaginary engagement,” that the whole village was speaking of. He was in love with her as the prince and the wolf, but she—she may become forced out of propriety’s sake to accept a real proposal of marriage from the prince. If he did not propose now, how much worse would the ramifications be? If Prince Alexander walked away, hoping to court her as an impossible beast, wouldn’t her life be over? Would not the town destroy what little bit of dignity and gaiety and laughter she had left? It would ruin her for sure.
And yet, if he did not, how could he live without her forever? In just over six months, he would evermore remain a hideous beast without any chance of regaining normalcy again.
She, in the end, would lose him anyway.
And he would lose her.
Gah! Prince Alexander dismounted from Sterling and shook his head to chase away the frustrations. He needed to clear his mind for his meeting with Lord Bellemount in a few minutes. Leaving the stables, he quickly changed into clean clothes—deciding something less “princely” and more “normal” would be best for his cousin the duke.
By the time he’d made it back downstairs and into the great room, Lord Bellemount was already waiting for him. “So there you are!” his cousin exclaimed as he came into the room.
“Here I am.” Alexander smiled. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Not as long as I would have preferred to.” Bellemount smirked and nodded his head to the side. “Your maid is quite fetching.”
Alexander watched as the pretty maid blushed and then dipped into a curtsy. “You’re welcome to go, Madeline. Tell my mother I’ll be in here with Lord Bellemount for a good hour or so.”
“Yes, your highness.” She curtsied again and scurried out.
Alexander watched his cousin closely. “You didn’t do anything to the poor girl, did you?”
Bellemount laughed and shrugged, looking everything but innocent. “And what would I do within the walls of the castle, knowing you would be joining me soon?” He chuckled as if he knew something the prince did not.
“Frederick.” Alexander called him by the name his cousin had detested since childhood. “If you even lay a finger on the gel, I’ll chop it off.”
“I vow I did not touch her. I only flirted a bit and made her blush. She is v
ery sweet.”
“She is also very off limits.” The prince found a chair and sat down facing his cousin.
Frederick followed suit and sprawled out upon the large sofa. “Admit it, cuz. You’ve thought about kissing her more than once.”
Images of Cecelia’s perfect lips sprung to Alexander’s mind. He smiled.
“Aha!” crowed Lord Bellemount, “I knew you had. I can tell you have just by your smile.”
Alexander simply stated, “Then you would be wrong. I have never looked at Madeline in that light and I never will.”
“Then who made you smile just then?” he asked, thinking perhaps to ferret out of the prince that indeed he was thinking of the maid.
“A beautiful girl.”
Frederick’s chest tightened and he quickly sat up. “What are you talking about? I mean, who are you talking about?” This could not be, he could not be falling in love now. Not now, not when Frederick was so close to actually having the throne abdicated to him. It was no secret Alexander hoped to do just that and soon, though Lord Bellemount pretended not to know anything of the kind. It simply would not do if he showed too much interest. But, curses! That was his throne, and he’d be good and sure no upstart girl, who would hope to raise a family one day and have heirs of her own, got between him and his dream.
Lord Bellemount realized Alexander still hadn’t said anything. The prince serenely sat across from him with a look he’d never seen before. A look that guaranteed his worst fears; his cousin was indeed deeply troubled and deeply in love.
“Ahem.” Frederick cleared his throat, trying again. “So who is this beautiful girl that has you so silent this afternoon?” He would find her and destroy her the first moment he had.
“Am I silent?”
“Yes.” Lord Bellemount chuckled uneasily. “You look like a man who could use some advice. Do you need help with something?”