Page 43 of Cursed

Her smile instantly returned to her face, though there still no one to see them. She picked up her pace as well.

“Yes . . . yes, of course. I got distracted.”

He nodded. “This is some sort of speed dating kind of thing, right? You go around and talk to all these different guys, the ones you’ve read those files on, and then . . . what, vote a set of them off the island?”

Edeena burst out a laugh, drawing the attention of some of the staffers hurrying down the corridor with them, including the hatchet-faced woman who’d been chattering at Edeena nonstop when he’d stepped into the dressing room. Which was an actual thing, to his surprise—an entire room given over simply to dress important people in advance of their introduction to the castle guests. He couldn’t imagine such a room would be all that necessary, but it’d looked like it was well-used.

“It’s rather a bit less dramatic than that,” Edeena said, and she squeezed his arm, the move so unconsciously affectionate that he felt like he’d scored a win. When she spoke again, Edeena sounded more relaxed as well. “Essentially, I meet all these charming men who’ve been kind enough to offer for my hand and subject themselves to the vetting process. Over the next few days, I meet a select few of them in their own homes a second time—though that’s optional—and then, at the grand engagement ball at the end of the week, I announce who I’d like to accept a betrothal offer from. It’s technically still up to the gentleman in question to go through the motions of claiming my hand, but they are prepared ahead of time, usually. They’ve never not come through with a suitable proposal.”

“That’d probably be a lot to spring on a guy out of the blue, yeah,” Vince said. These people were batshit, he decided. Totally and completely.

Edeena continued, oblivious to his thoughts. “It has happened, of course. Silas chose my mother out of the blue, I’ve been told, and she had to scramble for a response. She’d been so certain he was going to pick another woman.”

“Well, your mom would have had to go through this same charade otherwise, then, wouldn’t she?”

Edeena shook her head. “She wasn’t the eldest child, so no. It’s more for a succession planning issue, not to put every one of our young people through the wringer. It’s only on occasion that parents use it to truly ruin their children’s happiness.”

Despite Edeena’s light tone, Vince grimaced. He’d not met Silas, but he would tonight, and everyone who mentioned the man’s name in the palace did so with the undertone of menace. He couldn’t seem to get a straight story on what slight the elder Saleri had made to the royal family, but it had been grave. Only Silas’s clear focus on his ailing wife seemed to be cause for anyone to cut him any slack.

Now they slowed in earnest, and Vince glanced ahead, realizing they were queuing up in some sort of reception line. “What’s this?”

“You’ll be able to take me to the door, but then I walk out solo, the star attraction of the show,” Edeena said, her lips twisting in self derision. “It’ll be a miracle if I don’t fall down or turn into a chicken.”

“Tell me that is not part of the curse.”

“What? No!” Edeena chuckled again, the peal of her soft laughter drawing more glances and smiles this time, as older people he didn’t recognize filed through the door. When it came time for him to let Edeena go through, he reluctantly disengaged her from his arm.

“Do I look okay?” she whispered, and she was gazing up at him, not the attendant who was doing something to the back of her dress.

He looked down at her and for a long moment, found he couldn’t speak. He’d had the pleasure of seeing Edeena Saleri in a dozen different settings over the past few weeks, from the day she came bustling off the airplane in Charleston to the walk along the labyrinth on Pearl Island to the magical, almost impossible-to-believe night she’d spent in his arms and in his bed. Every time he saw a new side of her, he swore it was by far the most beautiful of all.

But here in Garronia, it was different. This was her home, and as crazy as these people were, they were her people, and she loved them. Dressed up like some sort of fairy tale princess, her eyes shining with a curious mixture of hope and apprehension as she gazed at him, he realized that here, once again, she had outdone herself.

“You are, by far, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, Countess Edeena Saleri,” he said quietly, gathering her limp hands with his and bringing them together to hold in front of his chest. “I’ve never seen you look more perfect than you do right now.”

Edeena’s eyes widened in sudden, stunned response, but her face was wreathed in an incandescent smile even as she was nudged by a small, older man in a fastidious tuxedo, speaking something to her in Garronois.

She started to turn, then spun back to him for the barest moment, standing up on her toes to kiss Vince softly on the lips, barely a whisper, not enough to mar her makeup despite the sudden squawk of the women who had followed along in their wake.

“Thank you!” she said urgently, her eyes shining, then she was turning again and sailing through the door.

A loud roll of applause sounded and Vince instantly stood back, aware that he wouldn’t be allowed to take up his role until the rest of the muckety-mucks were through the line, but his heart swelled with pride at the response to Edeena’s introduction to the crowd. She really was an honor to her family, and her sisters should be proud of her. Her father, too, if he was somewhere in the crowd already. Vince hoped he was. Silas needed to see his daughter through the eyes of others, not through his own myopically warped view of what she could do for him.

“You!” The slap to his arm came so unexpectedly and from such a low trajectory that Vince fell back, his arms lifting in confusion on how to defend himself against the attack. He looked down and instantly recognized the harridan from the dressing room, the one who’d cinched Edeena into her gown and proclaimed her ready, like a perfectly frosted cake.

Now she was standing in front of him with her beetle-dark eyes fixed on him malevolently, her mouth cast into a bitter grimace. “You!” she spat again.

What the hell had he done to upset the old woman?

“Yes, miss—” he attempted, but the woman batted at him again.

“You must go in there and be where she can see you at all times,” the woman said imperiously. “Go! You must go.”

“I . . . what?” Vince managed, casting around a glance for help. No one else seemed to be concerned that he was being accosted by the tiny dressmaker.

“Today of all days, the young countess must show the people in the crowd—not all of whom are who they seem—that she is a lovely, vibrant young woman who is strong enough to pull off what no Saleri has done in hundreds of years. For that,” she poked Vince again, “she needs to smile. She needs to laugh. She needs to be as beautiful and strong as she truly is. And when she looks at you, she is.”

With a strength that belied her small figure, she jerked his arm forward, pushing him into line.

“So go!” she commanded.

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