Kathryn Jensen – The Royal and The Runaway Bride (страница 1)
AROUND CHI-TOWN
Will the Connellys ever cease to amaze?
As Chicagoans primped for the society event of the season, blushing bride Alexandra Connelly wasn’t dreaming of her walk down the aisle; she was apparently planning her escape route. On the eve of her near-million-dollar nuptials, the heiress was nowhere to be seen, stranding a flock of white doves and standing up a few hundred guests. Not even scion Grant Connelly knew where the bride-not-to-be had gone.
Paparazzi claim she’s now licking her wounds across the Atlantic in brother Daniel’s kingdom of Altaria, where the azure seas and cloudless skies are warming her frozen heart. Rumor has it that the immensely eligible Prince Phillip of Silverdorn is doing his share of heating up the runaway heiress. The two have been spotted in numerous tête-à-têtes around the picturesque island. Is Phillip catching Alexandra on the rebound, or making his own play?
Meanwhile, back on the home front, Grant Connelly is again making news, having hired two private investigators to look into the dealings at his corporation. Seems the Connellys are up to their eyeballs in mysteries on both sides of the Atlantic….
Dear Reader,
What could be more satisfying than the sinful yet guilt-free pleasure of enjoying six new passionate, powerful and provocative Silhouette Desire romances this month?
Get started with In Blackhawk’s Bed, July’s MAN OF THE MONTH and the latest title in the SECRETS! miniseries by Barbara McCauley. The Royal & the Runaway Bride by Kathryn Jensen—in which the heroine masquerades as a horse trainer and becomes a princess—is the seventh exciting installment in DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS, about an American family that discovers its royal roots.
A single mom melts the steely defenses of a brooding ranch hand in Cowboy’s Special Woman by Sara Orwig, while a detective with a secret falls for an innocent beauty in The Secret Millionaire by Ryanne Corey. A CEO persuades a mail-room employee to be his temporary wife in the debut novel Cinderella & the Playboy by Laura Wright, praised by New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber as “a wonderful new voice in Silhouette Desire.” And in Zane: The Wild One by Bronwyn Jameson, the mayor’s daughter turns up the heat on the small town’s bad boy made good.
So pamper the romantic in you by reading all six of these great new love stories from Silhouette Desire!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
The Royal & The Runaway Bride
Kathryn Jensen
KATHRYN JENSEN
has written many novels for young readers as well as for adults. She speed walks, works out with weights and enjoys ballroom dancing for exercise, stress reduction and pleasure. Her children are now grown. She lives in Maryland with her writing companion—Sunny, a lovable terrier-mix adopted from a shelter.
Having worked as a hospital switchboard operator, department store sales associate, bank clerk and elementary school teacher, she now splits her days between writing her own books and teaching fiction writing at two local colleges and through a correspondence course. She enjoys helping new writers get a start and speaks “at the drop of a hat” at writers’ conferences, libraries and schools across the country.
MEET THE CONNELLYS
Meet the Connellys of Chicago—wealthy, powerful and rocked by scandal, betrayal…and passion!
Who’s Who in
THE ROYAL & THE RUNAWAY BRIDE
Phillip, Prince of Silverdorn—Lately his inherited title brings him nothing but trouble—female trouble. It’s enough to make the virile royal totally swear off women—almost, anyway….
Alexandra Connelly—After running away on the eve of her wedding, she’ll take no vow except to remain single and celibate…. Single, anyway…
Gregor Paulus—The palace aide’s manners are impeccable, but what about his motives?
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
One
It wasn’t that he disliked royal functions. Phillip Kinrowan had grown up in aristocratic circles, attended his first ball before he’d been able to walk, ridden his first Grand Prix champion jumper at Monaco before he turned six and owned an estate by the time he cleared the hurdles of puberty. It was just that he hated advertising his title because of the attention it got him. Attention that more often than not resulted in trouble. Female trouble.
He was reminded of those dangers as he stepped forward to be announced by the page before the ballroom crowd of beautiful people in formal attire. “The kingdom of Altaria welcomes His Highness, Phillip Kinrowan, prince of Silverdorn!” The page’s voice rang out in Italian first, then in French and finally in English, in deference to the American in whose honor the celebration was being held.
Phillip winced but kept his facial expression neutral as he descended the grand curving staircase to the gleaming marble floor. Already he was bored. The same faces greeted him at nearly every function. Only the Americans were new to him, as they were to everyone else in his elite social circle. But it was protocol to honor a new king, regardless of where he was raised.
Chicago. Phillip hardly knew where the place was. Somewhere in the middle of the United States, he seemed to recall. On a big lake? No matter. Among Daniel Connelly’s family, odds were Phillip might find someone of interest to talk to. His glance drifted down the receiving line, finding no one to spark his curiosity until close to the end.
A young woman, her raven hair trimmed almost boyishly short, stood awkwardly behind the guests of honor. She wore an elegant gown that matched the color of her eyes—vivid green. Among the domino black-and-white attire of the rest of the room, she stood out like a gemstone. But what really seized his attention was the way her eyes shifted restlessly around the vast, chandeliered room, not even bothering to hide her impatience with the pomp and circumstance. A kindred spirit!
Phillip stepped out of the line of guests waiting to pay their respects and moved to one side of the room where he could watch her better. She looked so out of place. Who was she? As he watched, she nudged the woman in front of her, whispered something in her ear then hiked up her billowy skirts in both fists and hightailed it for the doors leading to the garden. In a flash she was gone, but he was chuckling to himself at the parting image of chunky brown leather boots, laces dangling loose, revealed beneath layers of satin and chiffon. A little rebel. How charming!
Glancing quickly around the room to make sure no one was paying any attention to her, or him, Phillip followed the young woman. Something drew him toward her, something as natural as gravity and just as impossible to resist yet far more difficult to understand.
A stone balcony off the rear of the palace dropped away in wide steps to a formal garden, baking under Mediterranean heat even as the July sun set that evening. Sculpted shrubs formed arches, a maze and screens for the rose garden, interspersed with statues collected by the royal family over generations. Phillip wondered if the American clan was accustomed to such grandeur, then remembered the gossip that the Connellys were one of the wealthiest families in their own country. He caught a glimpse of emerald fabric whipping around a corner of hedgerow that separated the stables and yard from the prettily manicured greenery.
“Hey, you there, wait up!” he called, breaking into a run.
But if she heard, his shout had no effect. When he emerged from the shrubs to stand at the edge of the exercise yard, there was no sign of the less-than-daintily shod damsel in what had appeared to be Doc Martens. He caught the eye of a stable boy who was leading a chestnut mare across the yard.
“Did you see a young woman in a ball gown come this way?” Phillip asked in Italian.
The boy shook his head and kept going.
A low whinny and snort caught Phillip’s attention, and he whipped around, moving toward the sound like a cat stalking its prey. Ducking into the dark interior of the stable at the third doorway, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden lack of light, then looked down the long aisle strewn with sweet-smelling straw. She stood on the lowest rail of a stall, reaching over to stroke the nose of a pure white horse. Her attention was so fixed on the animal, she didn’t react to his approach.
“Does the stable master know you’re messing about with one of his most valued mounts?” he asked.
She jumped and snapped her hand back but recovered quickly, tipping her nose into the air. Her green eyes flashed defiantly at him. “Of course. He asked me to look in on him.”
“He did, did he?” Phillip grinned, even more curious about her now. From a distance, she’d been intriguing. Up close she was dazzling, with a delicious hint of recklessness. “And why would he do that?”
“Because I’m…I’m a trainer. He asked me to work with—” Her gaze shifted almost imperceptibly to the bronze plaque on the stall’s half door. “—with King’s Passion.”