as he stripped, showered and changed into more formal clothing for the expected meeting with the duke and duchess. If he told his parents what he suspected, they would most likely have a marriage arranged for him before he could sail across the twenty-six miles to Penwyck and consult with the princess.
Heading down the steps, he decided it was better to keep his thoughts to himself, at least for now.
“Jean-Paul,” his mother said, pausing in the hall and smiling up at him.
She was French and spoke English with an enchanting accent. Her hair and eyes were dark, her form petite. Daughter of a vintner with more family pride than money, she and his father had met in Monte Carlo, taken one look at each other and run off to Africa for a month before returning home to face the music.
Quickly descending the stairs, he suppressed thoughts of the strange but rapturous night when he’d also fled civilization and found his own magic land…
“Mother,” he said, bending to kiss her on each cheek when he reached the marble entry hall. His heart gave a hitch of emotion as he smiled down at her.
“And what are you doing home? You found what you sought?” she demanded in her feisty-as-a-sparrow way.
For a second he considered confessing all, but realized he didn’t really know anything.
“Something came up.” He dropped an arm around her shoulders. “You look marvelous. Is that a new outfit?”
She slapped him on the arm. “You are not to distract me with fashion, which I, of course, adore. What is this something that has come up? Or should a mother not ask?”
He grinned. “Don’t ask.”
“Then go greet your father in the library while I have another place set for lunch.”
She waltzed away, looking much younger than her years, and again his insides were tugged by unexpected emotion. He hurried toward the room his father used as an office and a family gathering place before meals.
He thought about asking his sire how he’d felt upon meeting the dainty Frenchwoman who had so taken his fancy and apparently his heart at their first glance.
But that might lead to other questions, and he had no answers, none at all….
“The king isn’t available,” the king’s secretary said.
Jean-Paul suppressed a frown of irritation. “Prince Bernier was assured King Morgan would see his emissary without delay.”
The secretary’s pale, ascetic countenance didn’t alter a fraction as he apologized again but offered no explanation for the postponement.
“When may I expect an audience?” Jean-Paul demanded.
This time a flicker of emotion narrowed the cool gaze. Sir Selywyn spread his hands in an artful gesture that indicated his helplessness to set a date. “I will contact you,” he promised. “Are your quarters satisfactory?”
Jean-Paul considered the royal secretary about as helpless as a viper on a hot rock, but there was no point in pressing further. He’d been given quite adequate guest quarters in the royal palace, so he nodded, then left the office when Selywyn escorted him to the door, an obvious invitation to depart.
Standing in the great hall, used as a reception chamber and sometimes as a ballroom, Jean-Paul contemplated his next move. He’d done his duty for his liege, Prince Bernier of Drogheda, who’d asked him to fill in for the ambassador to Penwyck who’d taken ill. Now he’d have to wait on the whim of King Morgan for an appointment. Such were the affairs of state.
That left him free to pursue his prime reason for coming to Penwyck.
Megan.
He’d seen her as a young girl just entering the flower of womanhood in this very chamber at her sister’s birthday ball. Ten years ago. Megan had been seventeen. He’d been twenty and much more worldly than the young girl he’d waltzed about the room.
His parents had insisted he attend the ball. They’d had an eye toward an alliance even then and had hoped he and Princess Meredith might form a tendresse for each other. He’d seen through their obvious ploy and kept his distance from the birthday princess.
There’d been no harm in flirting with the younger sister, though. Megan with the sun-kissed face and intriguing tan line on her throat that disappeared between her breasts, he recalled, then frowned at the heat that ran through his loins.
She’d admitted that she preferred walking along the shore to being here in the ballroom. Whirling her to the open terrace door, he’d then taken her hand and run with her through the formal gardens to a side gate. “Can you open it?” he’d asked.
“Of course.”
She’d done so and led him through the family gardens to another gate, then down a sloping path along a cliff and thus to the sea. Kicking off their shoes, they’d walked along the strand for more than an hour, speaking only to indicate points of interest—seals sleeping on the breakwater rocks, the beam of a lighthouse keeping watch over the ships that plied the sea at night, palm trees growing along the secluded shore.
“The Gulf current brings warmth to the islands,” he’d said, showing off his knowledge, “else we’d have a climate similar to Canada’s, cold and snowy.”
“I love the cove,” she’d confided. “This was our private place to play and pretend and dream out of sight of the public, especially the news media.”
She’d stopped as if embarrassed at complaining.
“It’s hard having your every move watched, isn’t it?” he’d said to put her at ease. “Sometimes I want to escape, too.” He’d surprised himself at the confession.
“But we can’t. And we shouldn’t dwell on it. Our lives are really very privileged.”
He’d frowned at her prim tone…until he’d looked at her. Her pose belied her words. She faced the sea, her eyes filled with longing so intense it had stunned him, as if something out there beyond his sight beckoned her.
“A selky,” he’d murmured, stroking her hair. “Trapped on shore in a human body. Do you long to return to the sea?”
“Yes,” she’d said, her voice as sad as the call of a lonely gull.
At that moment, he’d wanted to pull her to him, to calm the urge that tugged her toward the sea, but he hadn’t.
Washed in moonlight, her dress white and virginal, her eyes wild with grief for something that could never be, she’d seemed another being, ethereal and dangerous but mesmerizing the way the seal-folk were supposed to be. He’d been afraid to touch her more intimately.
But he’d wanted to, he admitted now with raw candor.
“How serious is it?” Carson Logan, the king’s personal bodyguard, demanded. “When will he come out of it?”
The chief medical officer shook his head. “I can’t predict the future. The king is in a coma. The question may not be when he’ll come out of it but if.”
Admiral
