Free Penelope & Prince Charming by Jennifer Ashley Page A

that had changed with one smile from Penelope’s lips.
    After a time, he heard her leave her mother’s room. “Good night, Mama,” she said firmly, and shut the door behind her.
    He grinned. The mother was weak and weeping, the daughter the pillar of strength. Penelope was strong and he liked that.
    No, he needed that.
    “Something funny, Highness?” Petri asked. The man refilled Damien’s glass of brandy, poured one for himself, and sat down facing Damien, choosing a chair less comfortable than the prince’s. Petri always reminded Damien that they came from different classes and always would.
    “I am thinking of irony, Petri.” Damien sipped the mellow brandy. “What did I expect to find here? I no longer remember.”
    “You expected a European princess with no chin, bad breath, and an irritating titter.” Petri shrugged. “Or so you said.”
    “And I found a beautiful woman with a heart of steel.” He stared moodily at his brandy. “I sound like a fool in a bad Nvengarian drama.”
    Petri grinned, his dark face creased. “I know what you need.”
    “A hearty kick with a thick boot?”
    “A dose of what bit you, sir. You want this woman.”
    Damien snorted. “That is so. What betrays me?”
    “Perhaps you should consider wearing looser trousers, Highness. At least until we’re finished here.”
    “You are exceedingly amusing, my friend.”
    “You need a bit of relief, that is all.”
    Damien shook his head. He could not imagine going to any other woman now that he’d met Penelope. The women he’d had before, even bejeweled countesses and beautiful duchesses, paled beside this English girl with golden hair and green-gold eyes.
    “I will not insult her by going to a courtesan to deflate myself. Besides, I do not think it would work.”
    “Of course not. I did not mean that. I meant her.”
    Damien had a sudden vision of Penelope beneath him on a bed, her hair loose on the pillow, her eyes heavy with passion. He would lick her swollen breasts as they rose to his mouth, take one taut peak in his teeth.
    “‘Tis tempting, Petri,” he said. “But I cannot circumvent the rituals. The prophecy depends on them.” And he would not break the prophecy, no matter what. “Besides, Sasha would kill me.”
    “When did you grow interested in following rules, Highness?” Petri asked. “And obeying Sasha’s whims? He’s gone a little mad over this prophecy, I think.”
    “He has,” Damien agreed. “But he survived my father’s dungeon by believing that magic would bring me back to him. I did return for him, and so now he is convinced that the prophecy made it happen. His entire life centers on this damned prophecy.”
    The prophecy said that Damien would marry the princess and bear a child who would be the glory of Nvengaria. Nvengaria would be united behind Damienand the princess, and the sorrows that had plagued the country under Damien’s father would be erased.
    If he sired the child before the betrothal, it would be illegitimate and not accepted as the next prince or princess, and the prophecy would be broken. He had been very close to laying Penelope down in that meadow today and taking her. He’d throbbed with need, and she’d not fought him.
    Thank goodness Sasha had shouted at them just in time. Had Sasha planned that? Or was the prophecy working, putting Sasha in the right place at the right time to prevent the child from being sired too soon?
    He was either growing as mad as Sasha, or…
    Damien had never believed in magic, but his people did. Damien had arrived home months ago, after a long and treacherous journey, to a chilly welcome. Damien’s father had been feared and hated; Nvengaria had suffered under his long reign. Grand Duke Alexander, head of the Council of Dukes, had ruled from behind the throne the year Damien’s father spent dying. He had effectively taken over, dissolving the Imperial Prince’s power.
    Alexander, a man Damien’s own age with cold blue eyes in a dark,