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Chapter One
Bertinierre
May 1829
At the ball celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday, Crown Princess Laurentia scrutinized the leering, timid, swaggering, toe-dragging, eloquent, stuttering sea of black and white evening wear and thought she had never seen such a pitiable pool of suitors in her life.
And they were hers. All hers.
"My dear, that smile looks much like the one you don when you suffer the headache, but you are still required to launch a ship."
She didn't look at her father, as was protocol. Each of their gestures, their glances, their words had been choreographed in advance. She stood at King Jerome's right hand while he sat on the gilded, ancient, throne of Bertinierre. Both wore elegant smiles. One by one gentlemen moved forward to the foot of the dais to make their bows to the woman—or more accurately, the kingdom—they hoped to win.
Yet King Jerome spoke in a tone that carried no farther than her ears, and he sounded remarkably amused. Moreover she knew his smile was sincere.
And why not? She'd made him a promise, and he hoped that promise would lead to the fulfillment of his dearest dream.
Hers, too, she reminded herself. She was the only heir to the tiny Mediterranean kingdom of Bertinierre, and she must produce a child, preferably two, before her fruitful youth vanished.
Too bad the whole thing left her feeling like an unpollinated apple tree.
"And these are the bees." To atone for her uncharitable comment, she rewarded her lady-in-waiting's current presentation, a Mr. Andrew N. Sharparrow, with a slightly warmer smile.
He returned it, and took another bow while Weltrude lifted her smartly-groomed brows in inquiry.
Responding to the prearranged signal, Laurentia blinked twice, and the Englishman was sent on his way, allowing another to take his place.
"Perhaps when you're married you'll stop talking to yourself," said her father.
"Probably not. I enjoy intelligent conversation."
He chuckled, then smothered his mirth behind a regal cough. "You haven't given the poor lads a chance."
She chose to ignore his remark. "Besides, you talk to yourself."
Taking her gloved hand, he patted it between his palms. "I used to talk to your mother. I still do, the best way I know how."
Giving in to temptation, she looked down into his warm brown eyes and wished, not for the first time, that she could be more like him—intelligent, yet kind.
Without conceit, she knew she was intelligent, too, but her intelligence contained the sting of acerbity. She had endless patience with children and the feeble of mind, but for those who chose to waste their God-given gifts in idleness and frivolity she felt a vast disdain.
Unfortunately, that included too many of the wealthy, well-born gentlemen milling around the grand cream and gilt ballroom.
A nobleman so ancient he could have been her father's father made his bow before them, and toppled over. Weltrude, large, big-boned, and stem, caught him before his head could make contact with the step.
Jerome indicated that one of his personal guard should assist the aged suitor. "How does he dare to think I would allow my beautiful girl to go to him?"
"Not everyone thinks quite as well of my looks as you do, Papa." Certainly not Beaumont, the English Earl of Burlingame ... and her first husband. "Have you thought you might be influenced by a parent's prejudice?"
"You look exactly like your mother," King Jerome said with finality.
That, in his mind, settled the matter of her beauty. The portrait of Queen Enid and her four-year-old daughter hung in the royal gallery, Laurentia a miniature of the petite, small-boned, regal Welshwoman who had won his heart thirty years ago. But the wavy black hair, fair skin, and melting green eyes which revealed Queen Enid's true serenity were nothing but camouflage on Laurentia.
Laurentia well remembered the torture of standing for the portrait, of shouting that she wanted to run outside, not dress in scratchy lace. She remembered the bribes of candy King Jerome offered to keep her still, and the way the artist glared at her when she cried. She knew her protruding lower lip drawn into the portrait aptly represented a sulky princess.
She didn't sulk anymore—much—and she never stomped her foot, but the devil's own temper lurked not far beneath her civilized demeanor, and always she kept a firm rein on it. Always ... except for those moments when the day had been long, and people had been aggravating, and she sat alone in her chamber. Then an impassive Weltrude shut the door on Laurentia's fury.
Tonight could very well be such a night.
King Jerome spoke. "If none of the rest of them please you, Laurentia ... I suppose you can—have Francis."
Francis? He would allow her to take Francis, Comte de Radcote, her former playmate? Bertinierre's home minister, the man she had concluded she should wed-the man King Jerome himself had refused to consider? Exasperated beyond coherence, she sputtered, "But ... you said ... Then what ... then why are we doing this?"
"You know why."
Her gaze sought Francis toward the end of the line that wound, seemingly for leagues, across the glossy black-and-white checked marble floor. She located him by his height and distinguished bearing, and barely took note of the excessively handsome Sicilian duke making his bow. "Papa, Francis is a good man. He would give his life for me."
Someday My Prince. Copyright © by Christina Dodd. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from Someday My Prince by Christina Dodd
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