Her Royal Husband

“I like my boring life, and my volunteer work,” Jordan said, a touch testily. She had experienced the other. She had experienced exhilaration. Magic. Wonder. It was exhausting. The pain of losing those kinds of things never dulled, ever.

Boring on the other hand was nice and dull to begin with. It was hard to go downhill from there.

“Of course you adore boring, dear,” her aunt said soothingly, “but you must come. You must. As a teensy-weensy favor to your favorite aunt who can no longer survive without you. Who else could I trust with the icing for the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy?”

“I won’t leave my daughter and Marcella in order to baby-sit your active bacterial cultures.”

“Darling, you never even let me get to the best part! Whitney can come. They’ve given me a blank check. Me and my entire entourage are expected in Penwyck by tomorrow evening. Lady Gwendolyn used that word. Entourage. I mentioned Whitney, of course. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry you away from her. They’ll provide a nanny!”

“I can’t,” Jordan said, sensing a danger she did not understand. “That kind of trip sounds like it would be terribly unsettling to a small child. Too whirlwind. Too exotic. Too chaotic. Too…you know.”

“No. You know. Me. And I am not taking no for an answer. I will come right over there and tell Whitney her deranged mother has refused an all-expense-paid trip for two to an island with a real castle, a real king and queen, real princesses, and two real princes.”

“Don’t you dare! She’ll—”

“—torment you until you agree to go,” Aunt Meg said with satisfaction. “Don’t make me do it, Jordan. Just say yes to the adventure, for once!”

“I said yes to an adventure, once,” Jordan reminded her aunt stiffly.

“And you have a lovely daughter to show for it. Besides, I’ll pay you double, plus a very generous living out allowance. Aren’t you saving for a microwave for that little meeting room of yours? So you can serve nice, healthy soup to all your young moms-to-be? I’ll even donate soup.”

Sometimes there was just no arguing with Meg. Besides, Marcella did have a good support network. Her mom and her sister were both very supportive of her, and both had already expressed an interest in being there for the delivery.

Suddenly, without warning, that yearning came over Jordan. To say yes to adventure even though the price could be so high. Wasn’t it worth it?

Just by closing her eyes she could still remember how it felt, those seven weeks in July when her soul had been on fire.

“All right,” she said slowly, giving into the impulse, the yearning, “All right. I’ll come.”

Her aunt whooped so loudly into the phone that she nearly deafened her poor niece. After hearing what needed to be done, and in very short order, Jordan hung up the phone and looked at it bemused.

“Why do I have the awful feeling I’m going to regret this?” she asked herself. And yet, if she was honest, regret was not what she felt.

She felt the tiniest stirring of excitement, a feeling she had not allowed herself to have, not in this way, since a morning five years ago when she had woken up to the cold, hard reality of a bed empty beside her, and the terrifying knowledge she was now totally alone with the secret of the baby growing inside of her.

“Meg,” Jordan told her aunt, “no nasturtiums. I cannot find a fresh nasturtium on all of Penwyck.”

“Oh,” her aunt wailed, “the pastry just doesn’t have the same flavor with geranium leaves. See what it would cost to import some. Orange. I only want orange ones. No yellow.”

Jordan stared at her aunt, and allowed herself to feel exhausted. They’d arrived here in Penwyck less than twenty-four hours ago. Jet-lagged, arriving practically in the middle of the night, Jordan had not really noticed much about the island as they were whisked to the castle, and into quarters that adjoined the banquet kitchen. The quarters were motel room plain and seemed distinctly humble and uncastlelike.

The nanny, Trisha, had been introduced to her early the following morning. A teenage girl, she was an absolute doll. With those shifting loyalties young children are so famous for, Whitney had given her heart to the young girl completely and irrevocably and only stopped by on brief visits to the kitchen to tell her mother she had seen “a weel thwone with weel jewels” or “a weel pwincess with a weel pwetty smile.”

Jordan, on the other hand, had seen only her quarters, the kitchen and the small office off of it, which housed a cranky telephone that was like nothing she had ever seen in America. She was developing a healthy hatred for the instrument and dreaded trying to call overseas now in the never ending search for nasturtiums.

She’d been going flat-out, putting out fires, soothing her ruffled aunt, trying to find impossible ingredients and, of course, nursing that active yogurt culture, the secret ingredient that made her aunt’s Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy so unbelievably delicious.

She was exhausted. “Only orange nasturtiums,” she repeated, turning from her aunt.

“Miss Jordan! Miss Jordan!”

Her relief at being called from her quest for orange nasturtiums was short-lived. Trisha was rushing across the kitchen toward her, obviously close to tears.

“I’ve lost her,” she wailed. “Miss Jordan, I’ve lost Whitney.”

For the first time since they had arrived, Jordan allowed herself to wish she had listened to her doubts.

“I knew I was going to regret this,” she said. “I just knew it.”

“Jordan, don’t overreact,” Meg said, bustling by, her hands full of something that looked dangerously like the moss that crept up the castle walls. “Whitney has gone exploring. Perfectly normal for a child that age. She’s having fun. You know, maybe a few yellow would be all right.”

“My daughter is missing, and she’s four years old. Excuse me if I give that priority over yellow nasturtiums.”

Meg gave her a hurt look, put the moss in a large pot and turned her back on her.

“One minute she was there, ma’am,” the young nanny said tearfully, “and the next she simply wasn’t. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“How long have you been looking?” Jordan asked firmly, though she would have liked dearly to wring her hands and cry just like the nanny.

“Nearly an hour.”

An hour. In an enormous castle, full of hazards, coats of armor waiting to be pulled down, swords waiting to impale. And what of all the strange people? The prince had been kidnapped from this very castle only two weeks ago!

Jordan forced herself to take a deep and steadying breath. She whipped off her apron.

Her aunt peered up from the pot she was stirring, which was emitting strange clouds of green steam. “I wish you’d think of the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy. A mistake at this phase, and it’s ruined!”

Jordan glared at her, and turned back to the quivering nanny. “Where were you exactly when you noticed her gone? Take me there.”

For the first time, Jordan entered the main part of the castle. Despite her worry for Whitney, she could not help but notice the richness all around her. Thick muted carpets covered stone floors. Richly colored tapestries and stern oil paintings covered the stone walls. The furniture was all antique, glowing beautifully from hours of elbow grease. Intricate crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings. Oak had been used extensively on bannisters and window casings and doorways. All in all, the opulence was somewhat overwhelming.

“We were right here, ma’am,” the girl finally said, stopping in a quiet hallway on the second floor. The carpet under their feet looked priceless. A muted tapestry, obviously silk and obviously ancient hung on one wall, a portrait of a fierce-looking man mounted on a horse hung on the opposite wall.

Jordan could see nothing here that would fascinate her daughter.

“I had just paused for a moment, to talk to Ralphie, one of the gardeners, and when I looked at where she had been, Whitney was gone!”

Jordan decided not to pursue what Ralphie-the-gardener might have been doing on the second floor of the palace.

There only seemed to be one place Whitney could have gone. “And this door goes where?” Jordan asked.

“That’s Prince Owen’s suite, ma’am.”

“Did you tell her that? My daughter? That a real live prince resided behind those doors?”

Trisha looked painfully thoughtful. “Well, yes I might have mentioned it.”

Jordan pushed down the handle, but the young nanny flung herself in front of her, wide-eyed with disbelief.