Page 36 of The Beauty and the Griffin

“She’ll do amazingly,” Hortense responded in her babyish voice. “There isn’t a prettier lady in the place.” I knew she was exaggerating, yet my heart warmed. It was pleasant to feel glamorous and draw admiring attention for once in my life.

I wanted to hug them both, but remembering the proprieties, I thanked them sincerely, promised to tell them everything afterward, and hoped I could stay long enough for that to happen.

Once the maids vanished into the growing crowd, I scanned my end of the immense entry hall. I was positioned off to one side of a stunning staircase, almost in a hallway, but people began to pack close in the area and shuffle me aside. I tried to work my way to the back of the throng, but the wall of bodies was so dense that I couldn’t see any space to squeeze through.

Excitement suddenly rippled through the room, and a herald proclaimed, “His Majesty, King Siegfried III of Adelboden! Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, the Queen Mother!”

The crowd stilled in respect as more names were called. What use was there in being tall when no matter how I stretched my neck and balanced on my toes, I saw nothing worth seeing? Several women in front of me wore bunches of feathers on their heads, and the men with them were all impossibly tall and wide. Everyone strained to see the royals, so no one would give an inch. When I did finally glimpse people descending the stairs, I had no idea who was who. The men wore tuxedos, and their hair was gelled to their heads—hardly an attractive look. The women fairly dripped with jewels.

The crowd around me shifted, and I heard voices ordering a path through the throng. “Why didn’t they think of that sooner?” someone grumbled. As disgruntled people began to back away, shoving commenced. Shuffled around by other bystanders, I completely lost track of the stairway’s location.

Suddenly, everything went wrong so quickly that I could scarcely grasp what was happening. A large woman sidestepped into me. Someone else trod heavily on my foot, and when I staggered back, my heel caught on my hem. I fell with arms flailing, too startled to make a peep.

But a white-gloved hand gripped my black-gloved forearm, and another hand at my waist lifted me upright in one smooth motion. “Are you all right, miss?” a deep voice inquired in my ear.

Arabella

After a few days in the crypt, as many of us called our subterranean hideout, I had twiddled my last thumb and began to feel stir-crazy. People and events I hadn’t recalled in many decades began to haunt my dreams, and there was nowhere to run to escape them.

I was the closest thing to a big sister my cousin ever had. In retrospect, I wish I’d been more encouraging and supportive to him, but I suppose few teenaged girls appreciate being “voluntold” to watch over a little boy during every social function. Particularly not a subtle, far-too-canny-for-his-age child who managed to conceal his magic from his parents, his nannies, and everyone else connected with the palace. Except me.

I vividly remember the excitement on Niel’s face when he told me about meeting a little girl from the future in his favorite part of the palace gardens. As a know-it-all teenager, I’d told him he was too old to have imaginary girlfriends, but he insisted the girl could understand cinder-sprite language and she hadn’t run screaming from his lake-monster friend. I should have known that a lonely boy of his age would be unlikely to invent an imaginarygirlas his friend, but I was missing Kapono at the time, so call it romantic projection.

For the most part I was oblivious to the rumors that always make the rounds and multiply in a royal court. But at my twenty-first birthday ball, an old schoolmate asked me outright if I were betrothed to the Crown Prince. I laughed in her face, told everyone he was like a little brother to me, and considered the idiotic notion put to rest.

Not until his coronation ball, years later, did that popular expectation resurrect as an annoyance.

15

BEATRICE

The crowd blurred asmy rescuer helped me regain my footing, straighten, and turn. The hand at my waist shifted to grasp my forearm. I had to tip my head back to look into narrowed eyes nearly hidden by the thickest lashes I’d ever seen.

Time stopped. The crowd pressing in around us seemed to fade away. Orchestral music even swelled in the background. Everything about the moment was perfect.

Especially him.

Okay, perfect aside from the pomaded hair.

We’re talking a hard-angled jawline, and adorable creases framing his perfect smile. Broad-shouldered, rangy build. He looked younger than me, but that didn’t matter. If anything, it increased my self-confidence.

“I do hate the crush of a crowd, don’t you?” He spoke for my ears only.

I couldn’t help but return his smile. “A crush like this makes one fondly recall life’s moments of solitude,” I purred. “Although . . . perhaps one wouldn’t wish forcompletesolitude.”

His chuckle gave me brain buzz and belly butterflies. “Decidedly not!” he murmured.

Who could have guessed that I, boring Beatrice, could not only behave like a cougar but also engage in repartee while mesmerized by copper-gold eyes with hints of green?

All too soon he blinked and released my arm, his forehead scrunching as he scanned my face. “I feel as if . . . Have we . . . Have we met before?”

“I don’t believe so. I’m Miss Beatrice de Callen from Biscarosse.” To my surprise, my voice sounded as happy as I felt. I generally clammed up around handsome men, but something about this one set me at ease.

His eyes went wide. “Beatrice?” he echoed. His mouth opened and closed more than once before he spoke on a happy sigh: “Ah! Yes. Well. I am honored to meet you, Miss . . . de Callen, was it?”

I nodded.

“I am Niel Oberle.” Without meeting my gaze again, he made a slight, crisp bow. “May I have the honor of dancing with you tonight?”

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