Page 39 of Cursed

Chapter Fourteen

Edeena folded and unfolded the linen napkin on her lap for the fifty-seventh time, staring out the window at the gorgeous swath of ocean. The plane banked, bringing them back toward the mainland of Garronia, and the landscape changed to that of the rugged hills she so loved, punctuated by the jewel of the capital city, glinting under the sunlight.

Had she only been gone a couple of weeks? It seemed like it had been a lifetime since she’d herded her sisters on the plane, secretly wondering if they’d be stopped before the aircraft had even left the ground. When they’d successfully lifted off, Edeena’s worries hadn’t gone away, they’d merely shifted, eventually leading her back to exactly this moment, where she would be hauled back to her father’s presence with only the slimmest of plans on how to evade his outrageous decrees.

“You’re going to fray that thing into thread,” Vince commented beside her, and she stopped mid-fold, dropping the napkin self-consciously to her lap.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I . . .”

“Thought you’d have more time. I know.” Vince said the words without censure, but Edeena still colored at the comment. She’d been repeating a variation on that theme for most of the multiple flights they’d navigated, nearly a full day’s worth of flying. When she wasn’t fretting, Vince had convinced her to try to sleep. She’d ended up more than a few times nestled against his shoulder, but he’d never once complained, never once disturbed her rest, when she finally dropped off.

Now he looked as cool and crisp as he had the first day she’d seen him in the Charleston airport, and she felt like a frazzled mess.

As if reading her thoughts, Vince shook his head. “You’re absolutely lovely, as always,” he murmured quietly. He glanced toward the window as the plane began its descent toward Garronia’s international airport. “Who will be meeting us, Silas?”

She smiled faintly. He’d taken to calling her father by his first name rather than emphasizing the relationship between them, seeming to realize that it helped stiffen Edeena’s spine to think of her father as simply another man standing in her way instead of her flesh and blood relation—a relation who, under Garronois law, still had an unreasonable amount of power over her.

“I don’t think so. He abhors anything that takes him away from his cronies at the club or his wife. She should be due to give birth any moment now.” Her brows went up. “I wonder if that’s why he’s pushing this so hard? Maybe he’s worried that the coming of the new baby will take up his time, and he won’t have time to shepherd me into marriage with some witless noble.”

“I see your attitude about the coming social whirl hasn’t improved,” Vince said drily.

“No, it has not.” Edeena collapsed back in her seat as the captain’s voice spoke over the loudspeaker again, sharing his instructions first in English, then in Garronois. She smiled to hear her native language spoken so rapidly—something else that had been strange about living in South Carolina. Everyone had talked in a soft, unhurried fashion, as if the words needed time to ripen to their full potential before they could be spoken aloud.

“Either way, we’ll likely be met at the bottom of the stairs by a car,” Edeena said. “As nominal royalty, it’s considered more genteel for me to go through customs in a private venue versus with the rank and file.” She managed a grin in his direction. “As my security detail, you’ll be temporarily elevated above said rank and file.”

“I’m honored,” Vince returned, but his smile was easy, and his studied good nature was having the desired effect on her mood. By the time they exited the plane into the warm, welcoming sunshine, she’d almost decided she could endure anything the day threw at her.

Then she saw the limo waiting at the edge of the tarmac.

“Oh, no,” she said, stopping for a moment before Vince bumped into her.

“Crowd coming through,” he murmured and her feet started again of their own volition, while her attention remained arrested on the vehicle in the distance. They reached the bottom of the stair and Vince set down her carry-on, following her gaze.

“Who are they?”

“Well, I . . .”

A small golf cart puttered up beside them, and a man jumped out from behind the wheel, speaking in rapid Garronois. “Countess Saleri, if you and your guest will come with me?”

Vince looked at her hard when the man reached for her bag, but she nodded, and Vince obediently gave up the tote, watching darkly as she walked around the cart. “Please get in the back, Vince. I’m sorry, I didn’t expect this.”

Vince’s gaze shot from her to the driver, but he didn’t ask questions, contenting himself with slinging his big body into the back seat of the cart. The driver whisked them away toward the enormous limo, and Edeena made up her mind. She didn’t want Vince to be caught off guard, no matter how high-handed her extended relatives were.

“I’m very honored that we have been sent a car by Queen Catherine,” she said, turning to Vince. “Our bags will be picked up and transferred . . .” she glanced at the driver.

“To the castle,” he said blithely, and Edeena winced. The castle! The queen must be serious about wanting to interrogate her before Silas got his crack at it.

Vince’s voice floated forward, deadpan. “The castle,” he said mildly, in perhaps a stronger South Carolina drawl than he typically used. “How very nice.”

Edeena pursed her lips, but the small burst of laughter billowing up within her went a far distance toward elevating her mood. She and Vince were ushered into the vehicle, and she relaxed further on realizing the queen herself was not sitting in the car, waiting for them. She was known to ambush people right on the tarmac if she felt she needed to.

“Bugged?” Vince asked now, looking around the interior of the limo.

She shrugged. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be monitored the moment they entered the royal residence, but she hadn’t been going in and out of the castle since she was a tween without learning anything. There were always pockets where you could secure privacy, if you were careful. “Probably not,” she answered truthfully.

“Then what do I need to know about this Queen Catherine? She’s related to Silas?”

“Cousins, technically, through marriage, distant enough that there would have been no issue with me marrying Aristotle.” Edeena didn’t miss the subtle tensing of Vince’s jaw, and she rolled her eyes. “That was never going to happen, you should know. Neither one of us wanted it. The idea was way too close to an arranged marriage.”

---