crest.”
“A crest, like a family crest, dukes and all that?”
“Or a king, yes. The lions depict a battle between two brothers of the same house. After nearly killing each other, they decided to join forces and save the kingdom from outsiders, hence the two lions.”
“Is that what happened in Lantanya?” she asked.
He nodded, then swung open one of the doors, disclosing an opulent room of crystal chandeliers, polished black granite and mirrors softly reflecting the view from every wall. She was speechless. Not even her father’s house was this grand.
“This is magnificent. Who are you?” she asked, knowing she must look like a wide-eyed naif.
“Just a man,” he said, turning her toward him and holding her lightly, carefully in his arms. “One who has been enchanted by moonlight and music…and one very special rose.”
She shivered at the intensity in his voice and looked away as the innate shyness possessed her.
“You are a shy princess,” he murmured.
“Yes. Katie and I are the quiet ones,” she explained, referring to her sibling. “We have two brothers, both older. Trent is CEO of the company. Danny…well, he’s been living in seclusion since too many tragedies took their toll on him.”
“I see.” He took her hand. “Now about that dessert.” Ivy was glad he picked up on the fact that discussing Danny was too personal.
In a kitchen that had more marble and polished granite than a museum, he prepared cherries jubilee. After flipping out the lights and setting the cherries aflame, he spooned the concoction over ice cream and set a large bowl in front of her.
“I can’t possibly eat this much,” she protested.
He handed her a silver spoon with the lion crest and took one for himself. “Not alone perhaps. I shall help.”
With her sitting on one side of a marble counter and him standing on the other, they ate spoonfuls of the dessert when the flames died and gazed at each other, their eyes saying more than the few words they shared. Soon the treat was gone.
When she started to pat her mouth one last time with the linen napkin, he caught her hand, then kissed her with the greatest tenderness she’d ever known.
Underscoring the tenderness was the passion.
She sensed it in him as a great force, a river that ran silently and deep, a part of his being, and she knew instinctively that it was more than desire, although that was there, too.
She gave herself to the kiss and to the passion and the desire…and to him….
Two
M axwell von Husden, Prince Regent of Lantanya, was having a bad day. He’d had a bad week…month…in fact, the whole year had been rotten.
His restless gaze stopped on a vase of roses, white with a coral blush, fresh from the royal gardens.
Except for one night of splendor, he amended his earlier observation. That one night with the rose, as he thought of her to himself in the few moments of privacy he had before falling into an exhausted sleep, had been the one grace note of the summer, a gift he’d never expected. The gods had been kind—
A discreet knock on the door preceded the entrance of his valet. “Ready, Your Highness?” Ned Bartlett asked, looking him over like a mother with a youngster heading for his first day of school.
The man’s ancestors had served the kings of Lantanya, the third longest continuous monarchy in Europe after Britain and the Netherlands, almost as long as the kingdom had existed. And they were as thoroughly English as the British crown.
“Yes.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. Max recognized sympathy in the valet’s familiar gray eyes. Fifteen years older than his own thirty-three years, Bartlett was the only person alive who had witnessed the tears and sorrows of a young prince growing to manhood under the watchful eyes of his parents and the residents of the kingdom. The valet had been his most constant companion from the time he was six.
Taking a deep breath, Max let it out and with it the doubts and pain of what was to come. Today he would pass a life sentence on his uncle, his dead father’s half brother, and on the former minister of state, for high treason.
During the traditional year of mourning after his father’s death, the two men had planned a coup to take over the country before Max was formally crowned at the end of the grieving period. With the deed accomplished, they would then deny him reentry into the country.
Max had unexpectedly returned from eight restless, sorrow-driven months abroad a day before the attempt. That night, hired assassins had broken into his bedroom, planning to kill him.
Only he wasn’t there. He’d been at the resort, sleeping peacefully—his last night of rest in over six weeks—in the arms of the rose. The need to be with her had been stronger than the prickles of his conscience, urging him to return to the palace.
Staying with her had saved his life.
As for the traitors, confusion at not finding the prince in his bed had destroyed the attackers’ plans and timing. The royal palace guards had seen the men and arrested them.
The next morning, upon his return, he and the guards, assisted by his security advisor, had arrested the main culprits, his uncle and the minister, and quelled the coup before it had a chance to get started, much less succeed.
During the past month, the culprits had been tried by the High Court, composed of the twelve lord mayors, each representing one of the twelve counties of the country. The three members of the Supreme Court had sat as judges over the proceedings.
Today was the last step—the formal sentencing. Only the king could do that since it was a case of high treason. His title was Prince Regent until the coronation ceremony, but he was the ruler and the job was his.
“Will I do?” he asked impatiently.
After Bartlett had pronounced him fit to be seen, he left his suite in the residential side of the palace and strode toward the justice chamber where much of the business of the kingdom was conducted. He glanced at a portrait of a sixteenth-century ancestor as he strode the long corridor separating the two areas.
That particular king had been beheaded by a trusted friend while they were having dinner in the king’s apartment. Again loyal officers had saved the day and the infant prince and, therefore, the kingdom.
“There, but for the grace of God and an ironic twist of fate, I almost went,” he murmured, his blood warming at the memory of that night and the woman who had been as stirred as he by their kisses.
A door opened to his left, and his security advisor, who’d been his roommate and best friend at university in the U.S., stepped out. Like Bartlett, Chuck Curland looked him over as if to detect any cracks in his armor.
“I’m all right,” Max said tersely, although he hadn’t been asked.
His friend opened a door with a digital security
