in the palace blazed, and the gardens that unfurled from its rock walls were strategically lit to invite the fairy Queen Mab’s dreamers, or young lovers in clandestine escape.
It was unusually warm for the first week in September, sultry, deceptively lazy, for the humidity lent an electric quality to the air, almost as if the thunderclouds looming in the distance might roll by and let loose with a wild abandon that would rival the emotional storm brewing beneath her breast.
Palms to the ornately carved window casing, she levered herself from her fascination with the arriving guests and moved to her vanity to give her gown a tentative twirl and to check her makeup one last time for flaws. After a breathless inspection, she deemed herself to be as ready as she’d ever be, and set off to find her sisters.
“How do I look?” Marie-Claire burst into Ariane’s suite to find her helping Lise fasten a dazzling choker of platinum, gold and diamond baguettes about her neck. No doubt a gift from Wilhelm Rodin, Lise’s husband of less than a month. Appearances were important to Wilhelm.
They both spared Marie-Claire a casual glance.
“You look quite grown up this evening,” Ariane allowed. “Hoping to catch Sebastian in a weak moment and club him over the head and drag him by the hair to your cave?”
Fingers to lips, Lise pinched back her amusement.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.” With a grin, Marie-Claire waved off the sisterly jibe. “Any advice?”
Lise sobered. “Yes. Stay away from men.”
“This from a newlywed?” Marie-Claire’s own smile faded and she exchanged a concerned glance with Ariane.
“Wilhelm and I were never a love match, you know that.”
“Yes, but we thought you were at the least very good friends.”
Lise shrugged. “They say that even for lovers, the first year is the hardest. For friends, I imagine it to be…less appealing.”
Marie-Claire ached for her sister. She could never imagine agreeing to a marriage of convenience. It was lucky Papa hadn’t chosen her to create a political alliance between St. Michel and Rhineland because, though Wilhelm was handsome and charming, there was no warmth in the depths of his velvety brown eyes.
Not at all like the sexy twinkle that sparked in Sebastian’s eyes when he caught her gaze and held it across a crowded room. Marie-Claire gave her head a slight shake. She would ponder Lise’s marriage another time. Tonight, she had a date with destiny.
To Ariane, “What from you, dear sister? Any words to impart, to aid me in my mission?”
Ariane sighed. “Quite simply? Stay off the floor, try to keep your hair pinned neatly to your head, and check your teeth for spinach, if you must eat. Speak when spoken to, and don’t, under any circumstances, let on that you care. Play it cool. Men like that.”
Marie-Claire frowned. They did?
Always the practical one, Ariane had little time for whimsy.
But Marie-Claire was a much freer spirit. “I’m off.”
“But we’re not ready.”
“So?”
“You’re surely not thinking of descending the stair by yourself?”
“Oh, pish, Lise. This is the new millennium. You don’t have to do everything you are told to do, you know.” Marie-Claire moved to the heavy double doors and swished through to the hall. “Don’t dally, or you’ll miss all the fun.”
As Sebastian LeMarc watched Marie-Claire descend the grand staircase into the spectacular Crystal Ballroom—named for the priceless one-of-a-kind set of Austrian crystal chandeliers that shimmered fire the full length of the ceiling—he was transported back five years, to a night not unlike this.
His eyes caught hers and held and the age-old tightening kindled within his gut. Just as it had every time he’d caught her eye for the last five years.
Yes, it had been a night very much like this indeed. The second of September, to be exact. The air had been heavy that day, too. Muggy. Thunderclouds threatened harmlessly on the horizon, omitting an occasional distant rumble. The trees were only just beginning to turn into what would soon be a kaleidoscope of lemon-yellows, burnished golds, rusty oranges, and blood-reds.
It was that hour of the day just before the sun fell off its tentative perch on yonder hilltops and cast an ethereal glow over the land, turning raindrops to diamonds and ordinary leaves into a vibrant, translucent mass of color that would rival any pirate’s treasure trove. Against the charcoal gray of the dramatic sky these colors came to life in a way that only the most talented old masters had been able to replicate on canvas.
Sebastian had been out riding with friends when he reined in his mount in order to bask in the glory of this magic view. His friends—royal consorts and visiting dignitaries deep in a political discussion—hadn’t bothered to look up and rode on ahead for the palace stables.
The air held anticipation.
But of what? Sebastian couldn’t pinpoint the source of the restlessness he felt burning deep in his gut. Perhaps it was the changing of the seasons. Or, the melancholia of saying goodbye to another warm sunny time of year and heading inside to spend months beside the fire.
Then again, perhaps it was the feeling that in three short years he’d be thirty. An age when people began to look toward producing a legacy of some sort. A marriage. An heir. To contribute to society in ways other than hunting with the boys and making the aristocratic social scene that had been handed him at birth.
For a long moment, Sebastian sat on his mount and pondered his universe as the sun began its nightly descent behind distant hills and the shadows grew long.
And then, just as he was about to turn homeward for the night, a blinding streak shot out of one of the royal stables farthest from the main compound. With a gleeful war whoop, this shrieking banshee took off across the meadow on a horse—or a bolt of lightning, Sebastian couldn’t be sure—and headed toward the woods nearly a kilometer away from the rear of the stables.
Sebastian squinted into the setting sun. Where would a stable boy be charging off to at this hour? Unless he was up to no good.
Reining his horse around, Sebastian set off after the boy, knowing that King Philippe would never have sanctioned such after-hours escapades. The quickest way to ruin prime horseflesh was to ride at breakneck speeds in the dusk.
The wind whistled in his ears as he hunched low and followed the boy over the rolling hills of St. Michel to the edge of a great forest that was rumored still to harbor a fire-breathing dragon and a band of magical fairies. Well, Sebastian didn’t know about that, but when he caught up with this kid, be might just breathe a little fire himself.
Upon reaching the forest, he had to slow dramatically to pick his way through the trees to avoid being clothes-lined by a low-lying branch. He could hear the horse and rider just ahead, crashing through the underbrush, and then the roar of falling water as a rushing river cascaded over a precipice at one end of the king’s well-stocked fishing pond.
A poacher, no doubt. There to catch a few illegal fish for his undoubtedly lazy,
