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Lise and Ariane exchanged droll glances. “When?”
Marie-Claire considered silence but their expressions spurred her to divulge. “It began five years ago. When I was sixteen, and we had a…moment.”
“A…moment?” Lise asked.
“Sixteen? You are hallucinating.” Ariane smirked.
“No. He remembers me, I know it.”
“What kind of moment? Did you run over him in driver’s training?” Pretty heads together, Lise and Ariane hooted. Marie-Claire pulled herself to her feet and, eyes blazing, attempted to tame her flyaway hair.
“He knows who I am, I tell you.”
“He knows all of Papa’s offspring.”
“That’s not what I mean. This is a special connection. You wouldn’t understand.”
Ariane snorted. “Marie-Claire, you are such a dreamer.”
“Be that as it may, he carries a tiny place in his heart just for me.” Marie-Claire turned her back on her skeptical sisters and focused on Sebastian, who in that moment, turned, caught her eye, and shot her a sexy wink. “See? Did you see that?” Her voice a tinny squeak, she yanked on her sisters’ arms. “He winked at me!”
Lise lifted her nose. “He was not winking at you. The sun was merely in his eyes.”
“The sun is behind his head!”
Ariane had to give her that. “Then he winks at all the pesky little kids in the kingdom. See? He just winked at Eduardo.”
“And,” Lise pointed out, “if I’m not mistaken, Eduardo just winked at you, Marie-Claire.”
“He wants you, Marie-Claire.” Ariane laughed.
“Shut up.”
“Marie-Claire Van Groober. That’s very pretty, don’t you think?” Lise and Ariane made slobbery smooching sounds and then snickered into their hands.
Marie-Claire decided to ignore them.
Sebastian…LeMarc.
Marie-Claire LeMarc. Mentally, she traced the letters of his surname in her mind. For five long years he’d starred in her fantasy life, playing the part of her future husband and the father of their four yet-to-be-conceived children, three sons and a beautiful daughter.
Oh, that he would only notice her again, the way he had that night. She flushed, as those memories came flooding back. She knew he remembered. He must. How could he forget?
As he surveyed the fairway, she studied the confident curl of amusement that seemed so permanently etched in his upper lip. She took in the slightly cynical, yet thoroughly charming creases that bracketed the corners of his mouth. The thick, dark-brown hair with the tiniest smattering of silver at the temples. The squarish, masculine chin that sported an angel’s thumbprint. The velvety midnight-blue eyes and the come-hither look he seemed completely unaware he exuded from beneath the thick fringe of his lashes. Somehow, he looked more like George Clooney than George Clooney.
All around her, women were salivating, posing to attract his attention, applying lipstick and nudging each other. Marie-Claire’s shoulders flagged. Her sisters were right. He had no time for her. Sebastian was an experienced, sophisticated man. And she? Well, at twenty-one, she was surely an overly sheltered case of arrested development. It was hard to become an independent, worldly wise woman with bodyguards and security cameras monitoring her every move.
Wildflowers need air. Light.
Hunkering low, Sebastian peered down his club, a thoughtful expression on his boyish mug. With a nod and a last murmured confab with Marie-Claire’s father, King Philippe, he stood, pressed his tee into the grass and set his ball atop. Carefully, he positioned his feet and squinted once again down the fairway.
Oh, this was so exciting. Even the back of his head was enthralling. Sebastian was about to bring her father’s team to certain victory.
Marie-Claire strained forward, knocking Ariane off-balance.
A hush descended over the crowd.
Sebastian laced his fingers over the handle of the club and, having lined up his shot, drew back.
On the down swing the words “Go, Sebastian!” pierced the hush and too late, Marie-Claire realized that the giddy shriek had come from the depths of her own throat. She wanted to die.
People turned to stare.
King Philippe rolled his eyes.
Buck teeth poking through his smile, Eduardo shot her the thumbs-up.
Her sisters’ strangled giggles revealed their horror. Lise hissed, “You’re not supposed to yell at a golf tournament, you silly twit, have you lost your mind?”
Ears still ringing, Ariane gawped at her. “It’s no wonder he’s noticed you. You’re a loon.”
Much to his credit, Sebastian managed to execute a perfect shot, straight down the fairway, ending up a mere yard from the flag. The crowd went wild. Grins broad, King Philippe and Sebastian locked their hands overhead in a victory high-five and the paparazzi went nuts, scribbling on their pads, cameras flashing.
Through the throng, Marie-Claire felt Sebastian’s eyes search her out as he turned and, once again, winked at her. Hands to face, her cheeks scalded the cool tips of her fingers and, in spite of her mortification, she smiled.
Their gazes met and clung, as they had, from time to time, over the years.
Around them, noises and colors swirled. Reality fell away. Marie-Claire’s heart skipped several important beats and planet Earth seemed suddenly to be rotating backwards, so slowly was everything moving.
Sunlight glinted off the back of Sebastian’s head, highlighting his dark hair in a glorious crown of burnished gold. He dipped his regal chin, his deep bedroom eyes never leaving hers and he arched a brow so loaded with questions that Marie-Claire knew.
He remembered.
Now that the tournament had ended, people were headed home to get ready for the victory celebration being held at the de Bergeron Palace that evening. A great ocean of humanity flowed past the clubhouse to the parking lot and gridlock was immediate. Impatient horns sounded and threatening shouts only added to the festive feel of victory.
Sebastian LeMarc watched his caddie as the lanky, flamehaired Van Groober lad stood staring after Marie-Claire. His freckled face wore the twitter-pated look of unrequited love. Sebastian knew the feeling. He’d been watching the stunning Marie-Claire de Bergeron from afar for half a decade now. Along with most of the male population of St. Michel.
But that was going to change.
Tonight.
She was twenty-one. Fully grown and fair game. And he had a good feeling that his interest was reciprocated. At least he hoped so. She was an amazing young woman. Full of vitality and as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.
Apparently, Eduardo thought so, too.
“She’s something, huh, man?” Sebastian clapped the gangly lad on the back.
“Yes, sir. I mean no, sir! I’m not…I could never…” He tore his gaze from Marie-Claire’s retreating form and stared up at Sebastian. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Le-Marc?”
Sebastian took his golf bag from the skinny Van Groober and shouldered it with an easy move. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” He squinted off into the throng. “Yet.”
From where she stood in her suite behind the king’s state apartment, Marie-Claire could hear the muted strains of a victory party gearing up from the grand Crystal Ballroom below. She pressed her nose to a balcony window to better see the headlights swinging around the circular drive at the front of the castle to the valet parking area.
For the umpteenth time, she wondered when he would arrive. She strained to make out his sleek Peugeot through the gloaming and almost thought she saw it parked in the family’s private guest area. No doubt he was already downstairs, mingling. Though there were slated to be somewhere between twelve- and fifteen-hundred guests, for Marie-Claire, there was only one.
Sebastian LeMarc.
Light-headed with anticipation, Marie-Claire pushed the window ajar and music wafted in on the evening breeze. Every window 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, thieving family. Jaw grim with determination, Sebastian stayed just far enough behind to keep this unsavory character in view, while at the same time taking care to avoid being detected. Slowly now, he wove amongst the dense foliage. It was darker deep in the woods, growing more so as the sun’s rays began to fade.
Overhead, the sky rumbled an ominous growl, and Sebastian felt the first of several warm drops splat on his head and hands. Urging his mount forward, he peered through the branches and was instantly rewarded with a view that stole his breath away.
This was no boy, standing on an outcropping of rock, hastily shedding his clothes.
No.
This was a young woman!
Casually grazing, her horse was tethered to a tree near the water’s edge, about a dozen or so feet beneath the spot where she stood silhouetted against a fiery backdrop of fir trees. Lit from behind as she was by the sun, dusty rays fanned out in a long star pattern as she moved, giving her an almost wraithlike appearance.
