The Prince's Bride

In the past it had always been Prince Whit who oversaw these glamorous high-publicity events, while Erik tended to shy away from the spotlight. She wondered now what could possibly be forcing the mysterious Prince Erik away from desk duty and out into the public.

Under her hand the phone rang again. Julie jumped, then answered.

“Hello?”

“Julie! What are you still doing there at the castle?”

It was her friend, Annah. “Not much,” Julie said dryly. “Just planning a royal ball.”

“Well, it’s ten hours to midnight, Cinderella. Are you going to come down here and pick out a gown, or were you planning on wearing your rags to the ball?”

“Ten hours to—omigosh! It’s two o’clock already? I’ll be right there, Annah. Bye!”

After a quick check with the head chef on the food preparation for the evening, Julie rushed from the castle, carefully securing the door behind her. Not that she was worried about a break-in. The tiny coastal town of Anders Point, Maine, was hardly a hotbed of criminal activity. But she took great pride in her job as castle caretaker, treating the stately mansion as if it were her home. Of course it wasn’t her castle; it belonged to King Ivar.

But it felt like it was hers, because Julie was the only one who had lived there for the past year, except for occasional visits by the king. He had asked her to take over as caretaker after the death of her grandfather, who had long held the position. The decision was a no-brainer for Julie, who had lived in New York City since the age of three, but had spent most summers at Anders Point with her grandfather. The king’s offer had given her the ideal setup. Her duties had allowed her to continue her career as a reading specialist—she had gotten a part-time position in the town school, which had let out the week before for summer vacation—and she had a place to live.

Not just any place. She paused to look up at the magnificent facade, pushing away wisps of hair that the breeze from the ocean had freed from her braid. The castle, perched on a rocky bluff at the tip of Anders Point, was magical. It was built more for function than form, but it had a raw, elemental beauty set off by the backdrop of the restless ocean. Inside, its stone walls and dark corridors oozed history and romance.

No wonder she had once fallen in love there.

But that incredible night seemed like a dream now. She hadn’t seen Erik since their moonlit dance, nine years ago. But even now, Julie still cringed at the memory. She had crashed, all right, but in time she’d picked herself up and gone on with her life.

Preoccupied with her thoughts, she walked slowly around the castle, smiling wistfully at her long-ago hopes for what might have been with Erik. It hadn’t worked out, but she didn’t regret her decision to take a chance. There had been no happy ending for her, but she still believed in love.

The castle brought out her romantic nature. Especially since it was here that King Ivar himself had fallen in love, when he was still a prince. It was his family’s get-away home, and he had been staying in it while on official business in America, when a girl from Anders Point had captured his heart. She had been similarly smitten, and their storybook romance and royal wedding had thrilled the world, and Julie, too. She herself hadn’t been born when it happened, of course, but she had begged her mother time and again to tell the story of how the girl her mother had once jumped rope with had grown up to become a princess; and then a queen when Ivar took the throne.

In the queen’s memory, the king held a huge ball every few years at the Anders Point castle where they had met, to raise money for her favorite charity. The sweetness of that gesture always touched Julie, who saw it as undeniable proof that even a man as powerful and demanding as King Ivar could be as romantic as she was on the inside—unlike his son. Naturally, the king himself had always hosted the ball. And although he wouldn’t be there this time, he had insisted that the ball go on as scheduled.

Tonight. It was hard to believe. It seemed like only a million details ago that the king had asked her to be in charge of coordinating the preparations for the ball. Julie, who had never so much as planned a wedding, had been flattered by the king’s trust in her, and was determined to prove that it had not been misplaced.

Especially now, with him in the hospital. She had been fond of the king ever since she was a little girl. During the past year her regard had grown. Julie figured she would do just about anything to ease the king’s mind and speed his recovery.

With that thought, she hurried to her car and drove down the hill on the castle road. Julie made herself take deep breaths of the breeze coming in off the ocean. To her knowledge, no one had ever died of excitement, but she didn’t want to be the first, not today of all days. Not when she finally had a chance to get a glimpse of Prince. Erik again.

“Julie! Julie!” Six-year-old Lexi Davis sprinted out from the back room of the two-story house Annah lived and worked in. The little girl’s hands clamped an aluminum foil tiara, which had been knocked askew by her run, onto the top of her head.

“Princess Lexi! How was your morning?” Julie asked as she caught her up in a hug. Lexi’s mother, Julie’s childhood friend Drew, was sheriff of Anders Point. To the dismay of her practical mother, Lexi’s princess phase had far outlived that of most other little girls. Lexi didn’t just play princess; she lived it. Julie, who considered such imagination a priceless gift, happily indulged her.

“It was—” Lexi paused, frowning, no doubt thinking of a word with just the right amount of royal condescension. “Quite satisfactory,” she finished with a smile.

“I’m pleased to hear it, Your Highness.”

“Because this is the best place to play dress up,” Lexi added breathlessly. “I love when Annah watches me.

“Where’s your mommy?”

“Out on a call.”

That could mean anything, Julie knew. As the town’s only elected official, Drew was a combination sheriff, justice of the peace, animal control officer and settler of trivial disputes between neighbors.

Lexi was still chattering as they walked past Annah’s coffee counter and into her secondhand shop in back. “Can you make up another fairy tale with me, Julie? Like the one when the princess saved the kingdom from the dragon?”

“I don’t have time, honey. Tonight’s the ball.”

Lexi sighed. “You get to live in the castle, and you get to go to the ball. You’re the luckiest person in the world.”

Julie smiled at her. “I think I am,” she agreed.

They walked into a tiny room in back, which Annah used as her office. Annah, who was just hanging up the phone, smiled at Julie.

“You look like you just swallowed fireworks,” she said.

Julie shrugged happily, eyes sparkling. “I am going to a royal ball tonight.”

“Yes, I know,” Annah teased. “Maybe you’ll be swept off your feet by a movie star or a diplomat or a multibillionaire—”

“Or a prince,” Lexi suggested.

“In my dreams,” Julie said with a laugh. At least, in her dreams of long ago.

“Are you wearing anything in those dreams?” Annah asked dryly. “I don’t know how you could leave your dress for the last minute like this, but better late than never.”

“I have great faith in you. I knew you would find me something,” Julie said.

“Two somethings.” With a smile, Annah turned to a closet in the corner of the office and pulled out a short, strapless dress of brilliant blue. “Ta-da. What do you think?”

Julie looked at it. “Ah,” she said, noncommittally. “And the other something?”

Annah sighed, and rummaged another dress out of the closet. “This,” she said, holding up a black gown with sheer sleeves and a floor-length hem.

Julie looked at them both. “What do you think?”

“No contest. The blue,” Annah said. “It’s made for you, Julie. You’re the only woman I know who could do it justice.”

Julie looked at the dress doubtfully. “It is gorgeous, Annah. But I’ve heard you can never go wrong with basic black.”

“Black is all wrong for your coloring. No one has bluer eyes than you do, Julie, and this dress will make them shine more than the most exquisite jewels in that ballroom.”

Uh-oh. Annah was starting to wax poetic about the darn dress, which, Julie noticed, barely covered the hanger. “It doesn’t look my size,” she pointed out diplomatically.

Annah thrust the dress into her hands. “Trust me.”

Julie sighed. Annah knew her way around clothes. She had an instinct for knowing what looked good on all of her customers, which was why they kept coming back. And she herself always looked terrific. Annah had class.

She was smiling brightly at Julie. “Try it on,” she urged.

Minutes later, Julie emerged from the dressing room and looked at Annah, waiting for her reaction.

“Oh, Julie,” Annah said, her dark eyes wide. “Even I didn’t expect it was going to look this good.”

Lexi stared at Julie, openmouthed, before bestowing on her the highest compliment in her six-year-old world. “You look like a real princess,” she said.

“Now let’s try something out on your hair,” Annah said, starting in with a brush.

While she was working, the bell on the front door jangled. Lexi flew out to see who had come into the store. “Mommy!” Julie heard her say. “Come see Princess Julie!"

“Drew, stay out there until I’m finished,” Annah called. “I want you to get the full effect.”

“She won’t let me look, either,” complained Julie. She was glad Drew had arrived in time to give her opinion. They had been friends forever, playing together all those summers she had visited her grandfather. They’d had the run of the castle grounds, a kid’s paradise, and had been joined by Prince Whit whenever he and the king stayed at the castle. Whit was Julie’s age, Drew just a year younger, and in those days the three had been as inseparable as the peanut butter and marshmallow goop sandwiches that had been their favorite lunch. But Julie hadn’t seen Whit since they were both sixteen, while she’d seen Drew every summer but one.

“How is everything going for the ball, Julie?” Drew asked her.

“So far, so good, keep your fingers crossed.”

More quietly, Drew said, “When does Whit arrive?”

“Not Whit. Erik.” As she said his name, Julie felt her stomach give a funny lurch to zero gravity.

“Prince Erik?” Drew sounded surprised. “I thought Whit was going to take the king’s place as host.”

“He was supposed to, but I just got a call from one of King Ivar’s men. It’ll be Erik.” It still seemed strange to think that Erik would be at the ball tonight. After all those years, she would see him again. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen. Maybe they would dance, and maybe the magic she remembered would be recaptured, and this time, maybe… Amazed at the rapidity of her chain of thought, Julie was forced to smile at her own expense. More likely he’d pat her on the head and send her away again.

“I’m surprised that Whit would pass up the chance to host a ball,” Drew said. “Talk about being in his element. Glitz, glamour, publicity, beautiful wom-en…”

“I wonder why Prince Erik hasn’t married yet,” Annah mused. “Do you think he’s looking for a bride, Julie?”

The king had made no secret to Julie of his great desire to have his older son marry, but Julie had no idea what Erik’s opinion on the matter was. “If he is, he should hire you as a consultant, Annah,” she told her friend warmly. Annah had an uncanny talent for spotting true love when she saw it. “Would you like me to suggest it to him tonight?”

Annah laughed. “Why don’t you go for him yourself, and avoid the middleman?”

“If the past is any indication, she doesn’t need any encouragement, Annah,” Drew said from the other room.

Julie ignored the hot blush that Drew’s teasing comment had called up and spoke to Annah. “Childhood friends remember the most inconvenient things.” Like an embarrassing crush on a friend’s older brother.

Annah put the brush down. “This sounds interesting,” she said. “Do tell.”

Julie gave a sheepish grin. “I kind of fell for Erik,” she explained.

“When?” asked Annah.

“Ages ago,” Julie said, secure in the knowledge that now she was neither so young nor so naive. At sixteen, she had thought she’d found the love of her life, but he had obviously not felt the same inexorable pull of destiny that she had. At twenty-five she hardly spent her days pining over him.

Still, to be honest, she had to admit that she seemed unable to erase him from her mind completely. She had always wondered what would happen if she got a grown-up chance to see whether her young intuition had been on target. The king’s change of plans had given her an excellent opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. Naturally she had no real expectations; but Julie was an incurable optimist, and optimism sometimes has very little to do with what is realistic. Somewhere inside her lived the battered, but still breathing, hope that someday, somehow, she might have another chance to try to win Erik’s heart. And she knew that seeing him tonight at the ball would either resuscitate that hope or give it the blow that would lay it to rest for good.

Uncannily Drew read her thoughts. “You aren’t really interested in him, are you, Julie?” She sounded concerned.

Julie didn’t answer.

“Everyone has things that they keep from even their best friends,” observed Annah as she put the finishing touches on Julie’s hair.

It was true, Julie knew. Annah herself avoided any reminders of the painful circumstances surrounding her divorce. And Drew never talked about Lexi’s father; had in fact kept his identity a secret, even from them. Close as the three were, they respected each other’s privacy.

“You can come in now, Drew,” Annah said at last.

Drew stopped in the doorway and stood there, star-ing, while Julie turned around in the middle of the room. Drew was the most down-to-earth person she knew. If Julie looked like a hooker on a holiday, Drew would have no qualms about telling her so.

“Well, Drew?” Julie said.

“You’re absolutely stunning, kid. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“That makes two of us,” Julie said, staring at her reflection in the floor-length mirror Annah steered her over to. She hardly recognized herself, with her hair up like this. Annah had been right about what the color of the dress would do for her eyes, too. As for the dress itself, it was a bit of shapely, shimmering magic, hugging curves that Julie hadn’t realized she had. She swallowed. “But isn’t it a little on the—”

“Sexy side?” Drew supplied.

“Omigosh. Too sexy?”

“Not too sexy,” Annah assured her quickly. “Classy sexy. Understated sexy.”

Drew rolled her eyes. “Understated? When she walks through that ballroom, testosterone levels will hit the danger zone.”

Julie knew that Drew, who never exaggerated, must be doing it now—even though it was a heady thought.

“Every woman needs a night like that in her life,” Annah said.

“I’m not really a guest at the ball,” Julie reminded them and herself. “I’m the hired help. Maybe I’d better try on the black one.”

She did, and wondered who ever had come up with the idea that black was sexy and sophisticated. On her, basic black was basic boring. Worse. She looked like a cadaver.

Lexi was the first to speak. “Before you looked like a princess,” she said, looking up at Julie. “Now you look like a lady-in-waiting.”

“What do you two think?” Julie asked her friends.

“The blue.” Annah gave her vote firmly.

“The blue,” Drew agreed.

Julie looked in the mirror and decided that she was tired of being a lady-in-waiting. “All right, all right,” she said laughingly. “I’ll be a princess.”

Julie walked into the castle kitchen and helped herself to a sample from a tray of hors d’oeuvres on the counter.

“Mmm,” she said, smiling up into the frown of the head chef. “Is the rest of the food this good, Gustave?”

“How would I know?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “I have spent the afternoon doing your job, mademoiselle.”

“Oh, then you took care of things while I was gone?”

“Of course. And right now half of the tradesmen in America are in the ballroom awaiting your instructions.”

“I knew I could count on you,” Julie said, giving him an impetuous kiss on the cheek.

The phone rang. “And that’s another thing,” he pointed out. "Mademoiselle, surely even in this godforsaken corner of America you have heard of answering machines.”

“I didn’t think of turning it on, since you were here,” Julie said, adding impishly, “Did the phone ring while I was gone?”

“Incessantly,” he said with a sniff. “I managed to ignore it, until the last time.”

“Who was it?”

“His Highness, the crown prince.”

Julie spun around. Erik called? “What did he say?”

Gustave was busy tasting a sauce that an underling held out to him on a spoon. He gave a few curt instructions, while Julie thought she would burst out of her skin, waiting.

“He said he needed to speak with you privately on an urgent matter and would call back.” He nodded toward the ringing phone. “That would be he, I suppose.”

Julie ran into the library and grabbed the phone. It was indeed Erik.

“Hello, Julie,” he said, his deep voice setting something inside her vibrating.

Her answer was barely a whisper. “Prince Erik.”

He seemed to hesitate before speaking again, and when he did, there was a new warmth in his voice. “It’s…been a while.”

“Yes. It has.” Her stomach gave another one of those weightless lurches, as if she had swallowed a helium balloon. Ignoring it, she warned herself against reading any sentimentality into his end of the conversation. He was no doubt calling on business, now that he was hosting the ball. In a voice that she optimistically told herself sounded perfectly calm, she added, “If you’re calling about tonight, the arrangements are nearly all in place.”

“I imagine so. This is probably not the best time to spring a surprise on you.”

“A surprise?”

“Yes,” he said. “And my plans depend on you, Julie.”

Something in his voice told her that he was talking about a matter of far more consequence than rearranging the seating at the ball, but she refused to allow herself to indulge in any wild speculations. “Your father places great trust in me,” she assured him professionally.

“He has made no secret of that fact.”

His response warmed her. “I understand you saw the king this morning,” she said. “How is he?”

“Not good,” he said soberly.

Julie couldn’t disguise the worry in her voice. “Your Highness, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing that I can’t rectify,” he said. “Medically, the king’s progress has been fair, but it is being impeded by his preoccupation with the succession. Given how closely you work with him, I assume he has shared with you his great desire that I choose a bride.”

“He has mentioned his—ah, concern,” Julie admitted.

Erik seemed amused. “His Majesty will have no reason to question my devotion to duty, after tonight. Everything has been arranged, except for the announcement itself.”

Julie frowned, puzzled. “I—I beg your pardon?"

“My father’s worries will end at midnight,” Erik explained. “When I announce my engagement.”

Chapter Two

Alone in her tower room, the highest point in the castle, Julie looked at her hair with satisfaction. The style was cool and sophisticated, which was exactly the image she wanted to project tonight at the ball. Especially to herself.

She knew one thing as perfectly as she knew her own name: any silly hopes she had for renewing that old spark she’d felt with Prince Erik were now dead and buried.

Granted, the news of his engagement had taken her by surprise at first, but the real surprise was that it had taken him this long to surrender his status as one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. He was not only crown prince of Isle Anders, he was handsome, he was intelligent, and his integrity was unparalleled. He would be a good husband to the woman he had chosen. Julie wished them well.

As for that powerful feeling she had felt with him, whatever it was it obviously meant nothing if he hadn’t felt it, too. He might not even recognize her after all these years, and there was no reason to believe that he would remember a long-ago evening that he, at the time, had taken pains to prove hadn’t meant anything to him. Julie sure hoped he didn’t remember—her own memory of it was embarrassing enough. But even if he did, she had no fear that he would make any reference to it. His sense of honor was as strong as his sense of duty.

Erik belonged to someone else, but he wasn’t going to be the only man at the ball, she reminded herself as she put on the blue dress Annah had pressed for her. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection in the mirror and gave a little rueful grin at the fanciful imaginings that had dwelt deep within her for so long.

This was the perfect dress to wear to dance on the grave of her silly dreams.

Erik stood in the ballroom doorway, looking into the cavernous stone-walled room that would in less than an hour be the setting for a royal ball, a ball people were paying fabulous amounts of money to the king’s favorite charity in order to attend.

He had expected austere dignity, but what he found was a close approximation of bedlam. People carrying flowers were running back and forth, dodging others toting tables and chairs. The decorative fountain had run amok, and a group of people armed with towels were mopping up the resultant river. The head of the wait staff was giving the food and drink servers their instructions, punctuated with wide sweeps of both hands. Security was restless, trying to school their expressions into placidity as they watched the hubbub in the room. From the kitchen came the unmistakable bellow of his father’s head chef, while the orchestra, ensconced on a makeshift stage in the front of the room, added to the chaos as it played snatches of songs for a sound check.

In the center of the swirl of activity stood Julie Brit-ton. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he would have recognized her anywhere. It was obvious that she was in charge—people kept running up to her to tell or ask her something. But she was regal and poised, by far the calmest person in the room. One encouraging word from her, and even the most frantic person left her looking confident. Maybe it was her hundred-watt smile or her obvious delight in the proceedings. Whatever it was, it was working miracles. As he watched, bedlam gradually subsided as the room transformed, surrounding Julie in beauty.

Certainly, Erik thought, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Not that the adjective did her justice, or had much to do with the fact that she was already in formal dress. Much more than outward appearance, Julie’s allure radiated from within. She was so vibrantly alive, and even from across the ballroom, the force of her appeal hit him harder than he was prepared for. It had been the same way one long-ago night; there was something about her that beckoned to him. Now, as then, he was so drawn that he found himself walking across the ballroom toward her.

Amid the frantic last-minute preparations, Julie sensed a movement that was out of place. A man was coming her way, and she didn’t need the discreet nod given him by the chief of security to know that the man was Prince Erik. The confusion around her continued, but as she focused on him, her awareness of all else ceased.

Reality exceeded memory. He topped six feet by an inch or two, and it looked as if all of his weight came from lean, trim muscle. He carried himself with regal assurance; moreover, he exuded an aura of intelligent confidence that suited his tough, rangy build. Crown prince or no, he obviously spent a good deal of time outdoors, because his dark blond hair was sun streaked against his tanned skin. His dark brown eyes still had no bottom that she could discern.