Chapter Four #2
“Miss Penny,” Enrique replied. Without an ounce of self-consciousness, he reached down to the discarded blouse on the ground and flicked at the cat’s paws.
With a final yowl and furious tug, Geraldo was free. He held up his front paws, one then the other, inspected each for damage, shook them and leveled each of them—Enrique, Gabriela, Marcello and Miss Penny—a regal glare, before marching off to his sanctuary under the shrubs.
“Your Highness,” Miss Penny said to Enrique, her voice quavering, “I have failed you. And your son.”
“You are not the first person Marcello has managed to escape,” Enrique told her, and Gabriela noticed how deliberately tempered his tone was.
It was clear the young nanny worshipped him and that a harsh word at this moment could have destroyed her.
She was unable, however, to accept forgiveness.
“Your Highness, I can’t do it,” she said, dropping her eyes from Enrique’s, sending a bewildered gaze at Marcello. “He dislikes me. He won’t listen to anything I say. He ran away, and could have been in terrible danger. It would have been my fault if something happened.”
“Miss Penny, the thing is, nothing did happen, and we could take it as a learning experience—”
Miss Penny stunned all of them by interrupting the Prince. “You’ll have to find someone more suitable. For his sake, and yours, I resign. As of this very moment. Your Highness.”
Enrique’s mouth fell open. “Miss Penny, I really think—”
But Miss Penny was flustered beyond measure. Her cheeks red, her lip trembling, her eyes sparkling with tears, she whirled away and ran out the gate. For a moment, it hung open behind her, but then she tiptoed back and shut it with a gentle click.
“I fear she’s gone to fall on her sword,” Gabriela said wryly.
“Really?” Marcello asked, far too eagerly.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Enrique told him.
“I didn’t know Miss Penny had a sword,” Marcello said, and looked at the gate wistfully, as if he might have given her a second chance had he been armed with that knowledge.
“She doesn’t have a sword!” Enrique said.
“Guido’s little girl said she does,” Marcello said, stubbornly.
“I didn’t mean she had a sword,” Gabriela said. “I’m sorry I confused you. It’s a very grown-up expression. It means people are really sorry. Miss Penny was really sorry she lost you.”
“She didn’t lose me,” Marcello said, not the least repentant now that he’d discovered there was no sword involved. “I lost her.”
And then he looked at his bare-chested father, Gabriela in his father’s shirt, and gave a chortle of pure delight at all the unexpected turns his morning had taken.
But it wasn’t the gleeful Marcello that captured Gabriela’s attention. It was Enrique, and the light that came on in his face at the music of his son’s laughter.
Still, he said firmly, “You’ve been very naughty, Marcello.”
“I will fall on my sword,” Marcello decided.
Enrique had to bend over and scoop up Gabriela’s blouse to hide his laughter from his son. She had to bite the inside of her cheek.
He straightened and extended it to her. She could see the suppressed laughter dancing in his dark eyes, like sunlight glancing off water.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do, but it was not put her blouse back on in front of him! And so she shot a hand out from under his shirt, and grabbed her blouse with that hand, and tightened the one that clutched his shirt closed at her throat.
“You need to look after that scratch,” the Prince said gravely. “It will need antiseptic.”
It was dismissal. In her own yard! And then she noticed that the remoteness had crept back into his eyes.
For a moment, she debated the same exit as Miss Penny, including a curtsey!
But no, with as much dignity as she could manage, she said, “Cello, it was so nice to meet you.”
Marcello did not answer, so Gabriela glanced over at him.
He pretended to lift an imaginary sword from a belt at his waist. He placed it solemnly in front of him.
And then he fell dramatically on top of it. He lay there, still, and then opened one eye to gauge the reaction of his audience. Pleased with himself, he burst out laughing, hugging himself and rolling on the lawn, delighted at the unexpected hilarity in his world.
Gabriela returned her gaze to the Prince, who was taking in his son with a look that clearly said nothing about being a prince had prepared him for the rigors of parenthood, particularly the unexpected crisis of being an only parent.
Ridiculous to feel pity for him, but here he was, arguably one of the most powerful men in the world, overwhelmed by a five-year-old.
“He’s very precocious,” she said, “and very, very bright.”
“I’m in over my head,” he admitted, “Way over.”
She could feel some longing in her breathe to life, some desire to step in, to help him, to fix it all. But she could not encourage those kinds of feelings!
Just this brief encounter had shown her how vulnerable she was to every single thing about Enrique. She could not make his problems her problems.
Not that he had asked her to, she reminded herself. She had to bring this encounter, fraught with so many subtle dangers, to a close.
She debated, briefly, how to address him. Formality would be good for rebuilding some barriers between them. On the other hand, given their location, her current state of undress and his shirtlessness, it seemed as if the circumstances were somewhat less than formal.
And she certainly did not want Enrique to know how unbalanced this whole encounter had made her feel.
Some little devil inside her was prompting her to remove that remote expression from his face.
“It’s a good thing,” she said solemnly, leaning toward him, and whispering for his ears only, “that I put on panties this morning.”
She watched, with satisfaction, when his jaw dropped. Mission accomplished: nothing the least remote about that look.
And then, shoulders proudly back, she turned on her heel, to her house, and left him to deal with his son.
The victory of her exit, of having the last word, was marred, somewhat, by her father’s laughing face at the bedroom window, and her mother’s astonished one at the kitchen.
And the fact she just knew she was going to keep that shirt forever.