stake?
She sighed. Oh, how she had cursed this spell that had been put on her. How she had railed against it and wallowed in self-pity over it.
But, ever so reluctantly, Princess Meredith Montrosa Bessart, aka Merry Montrose, realized a truth. She had become a better person than she had been before.
Because, for just the briefest moment in time, just long enough to make up her mind, she was able to put the future happiness of two other people ahead of her own.
Rick and Cynthia it is, Merry decided, and began humming the wedding march. Naturally, he thought she was inspired by the imminent arrival of the new chapel, designed by him, but he winced nonetheless.
Chapter One
“No.”
Cynthia Forsythe marveled at the enormous power of that small word. She said it to her mother, the famous writer Emma Bluebell Forsythe, rarely, and she expected to feel guilty, saying it now.
Instead, she felt a delicious and rather wicked sense of delight.
Her mother, dressed in a Chanel gown with her hair dyed a new shade of dark brown, stood in the door between their adjoining suites.
“No?” her mother repeated, as if she might not have heard correctly. “Cynthia, of course you are coming. I’ve met a real live baron. From Germany. He’s only a year or two older than you and he is one of the world’s wealthiest industrialists! Isn’t that exciting?”
“No,” Cynthia repeated.
“It’s not exciting?” her mother said, her hazel eyes wide with bafflement.
Cynthia really didn’t think it was that exciting—no more exciting than the newspaper magnate, the oil tycoon or the banker, but she clarified. “No, I’m not coming out tonight.”
“Dinner is going to be exquisite, and I understand there is a show after that we really can’t miss. Oh, how I love it here at LaTorchere, Cynthia. It’s better than Tuscany, which I must admit was a bit of a disappointment. But this place is so exclusive and classy, and there are just oodles of well-heeled people here. You can’t miss it. You simply have to come!”
Cynthia was a trifle amazed to find she didn’t have to, and she wasn’t going to. She folded her arms over her chest and said that powerful little word again.
Her mother’s eyes filmed over with tears, but she was quick enough with her handkerchief that her makeup was not affected by the little cloudburst. “Why are you being like this?”
“Mother, I’m just tired.”
“That’s why this holiday is for you! I’ve worked you much too hard. I should have broken the Civil War into chunks, instead of tackling the whole thing at once. Now you’re exhausted, and unhappy, and it’s my fault. I am honor-bound to fix it.”
“No,” Cynthia repeated again. That heady word was proving absolutely addictive. It was true she did work hard. Her mother was known to the world as Emma Bluebell Forsythe, writer of historical volumes of nonfiction that consistently made the bestseller lists.
The research for each novel was meticulous, and Cynthia’s job also involved keeping her mother’s many social activities and obligations sorted out and scheduled.
It was true that as her mother’s personal assistant Cynthia was exhausted.
Unhappy? She supposed there was truth in that, too, though she didn’t feel particularly unhappy. She wasn’t sure when she’d last felt anything at all. She was going through her life like a wooden puppet, making the motions, dancing the dance, but strangely detached from the whole process.
“Mother, if this holiday is truly for me, could you just let me have some breathing space, some time to myself?”
“Well, of course, it’s truly for you,” her mother wailed, “but I’m the one who knows what is best for you!”
Cynthia closed her eyes. And tonight that was a wealthy German industrialist. Last night it had been the exceedingly boring, but rich, Maxwell Davies. Tomorrow, unless she put her foot down, it would be Count Dracula if he was on vacation here and single.
There was a loud knock on her mother’s door, and then a deep, masculine voice called, “Bluebird, what on earth is the hold up?”
Cynthia opened her eyes to see Jerome Carrington coming though the door of her mother’s suite.
Jerome was a silver-haired dynamo whom her mother had recently met. He was the only one who could get away with calling Emma Forsythe Bluebird. The occasional very good, very old friend was allowed Bluebell, but no derivatives of the unusual name had ever been allowed.
“Good evening, Cynthia,” he said, and then turned to her mother with a stern expression on his handsome face. “You said that you would be outside my room at nine o’clock precisely, and here it is, nearly nine-fifteen.”
Her mother glared at Jerome. Not only was he the only one who called her Bluebird, he was certainly the only one who would have the nerve to reprimand her over such a small thing as fifteen minutes of tardiness.
Emma was a shrewd judge of character, though, and had obviously decided Jerome was not one to accept any form of excuse. Naturally, she blamed Cynthia for her lateness.
“It’s Cynthia’s fault,” she wailed prettily. “I’ve been standing here forever trying to talk sense into her. I have the most wonderful evening lined up for all of us, and she says she’s not coming. Jerome, talk to her!”
“All right,” he said, and he turned to Cynthia. She saw the loveliest spark of mischief in those steel-gray eyes. “My dear,” he said to her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six,” she replied.
“Hmm. Plenty old enough to be making your own plans for the evening. Bluebird?” And he crooked his elbow to Emma.
Emma sputtered and looked between him and her daughter and back to him. He did not remove his arm, but arched a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Oh,” she sputtered, “all right then. Cynthia, you and I will talk later.”
Much later, Cynthia hoped as she shut the door of her private suite on the departing couple. She looked around. She loved her rooms. They consisted of a small living area, an island kitchen, and a small alcove for dining. There was one bedroom and a bathroom. Outside, a patio with deep inviting deck furniture stretched the full length of the ground-floor suite, and both the bedroom and living room had French doors that opened onto that outdoor living area. It was separated from the public walkways by a bevy of gorgeous flowering shrubs and gardens. Beyond those gardens and pathways, in the distance, Cynthia could glimpse the endless blue of the sea.
The color scheme was serene and tropical. The furniture was not just beautiful, but also comfy and inviting. Everything at La Torchere Resort was a delight to the senses, including these lovely rooms that seemed to be awash in light and cheeriness.
Her own apartment at home did not give her this same sense of lightness. Of course, it was furnished with antiques, discards of her mother’s. Her own sofa was French Provincial in design,
