Charmed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 6

  Table of Contents

  Also by Jennifer Chance in the Gowns & Crowns series

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Coming Soon: Chosen

  About Jennifer Chance

  Charmed

  Gowns & Crowns, Book 6

  Jennifer Chance

  Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Chance

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-24-0

  Cover design by Liz Bemis, Bemis Promotions

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase/Download only authorized editions.

  Also by Jennifer Chance in the Gowns & Crowns series

  ~ The First Family ~

  Courted

  Captured

  Claimed

  Crowned

  ~ The Saleri Sisters ~

  Cursed

  Charmed

  Chosen

  (Coming in Summer, 2017)

  For the Daydream Believers

  Chapter One

  Caroline Saleri peered at the monster standing at the front of the lecture hall, looming over the small bespectacled man who cringed next to him. Professor Simon Blake couldn’t look more like a fairytale Beast if he tried.

  He was tall, rangy and startlingly handsome, but dressed as if he was willing to do anything he could to minimize his good looks. His too-big jacket and threadbare khakis hung on his frame, and his hair was long and haphazardly cut, its dark, mahogany locks dropping almost to his shoulders. He was perhaps thirty years old, his bright eyes, tousled hair and sun bronzed face giving him the air of a seafaring rogue…while his grim expression dared anyone to cross him.

  Caroline pursed her lips, trying not to giggle, then consulted her printout again. She’d been thinking about attending classes at the College of Charleston, but that would take approvals and paperwork, and she wasn’t sure how long she’d be remaining in South Carolina. As usual, her schedule depended on other people.

  Still, she’d decided she could at least check out the local universities. No sooner had she clicked on this one’s website than she’d seen that the chairman of the anthropology department was giving a lecture—and on such a curious subject, too. Royal Superstitions. It sounded fascinating, and if the crowd was any indication, she wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  Unfortunately, her sister didn’t agree.

  “I can’t believe you dragged me here,” Marguerite groaned beside her, putting twenty-five years of disdain into her aggrieved sigh. “Seriously, a college lecture? When we could be at any nightclub in Charleston, actually doing something fun?”

  “This is fun,” Caroline slanted her sister a glance. “You didn’t have to come.”

  “Like I was going to stay cooped up in that big old house with cousin Prudence while you escaped for the evening. No thanks.” Marguerite shifted in her chair. “But even the Marxes are standing out in the hall chatting rather than getting sucked into this boredom. That should tell you something.”

  Caroline glanced to one of several doorways into the lecture hall, and sure enough, their husband-and-wife bodyguard team was lurking in the archway, not committing to entering the room, but keeping a watchful eye over everything.

  She frowned. “They didn’t have to come either. It’s ridiculous that we’re still being assigned bodyguards.”

  “Especially since we never do anything fun,” Marguerite agreed, never one to stray too long from her point. “Seriously, royal superstitions? We should be the ones up there giving this talk.”

  “Not anymore,” Caroline said firmly. They’d left the Saleri curse home in the seaside kingdom of Garronia where it belonged, now that their older sister Edeena had officially vanquished it. Edeena and her not-so-royal Prince were currently planning their wedding back home, leaving Caroline and Marguerite to return to Sea Haven for however long it took to finally get the family vacation home ready for sale. That excuse for their journey to the US remained somewhat of a misdirection, of course: both sisters were more than happy to be done with Garronia’s courts and royal politics for a while. They’d definitely earned a break, especially with having labored their whole lives under the family curse.

  The lights dimmed slightly as the short man scurried forward, while Dr. Blake himself scowled out at the crowd. Well, not really scowled. Caroline suspected his glower was simply the way his face was permanently set.

  “Thank you so much for joining us this evening,” the shorter man began, his voice high and strained. “We are delighted to launch the lecture series tonight highlighting the College of Charleston’s most illustrious academics with our very own Dr. Simon Blake, doctor of anthropology, sociology and linguistics. Dr. Blake has only recently returned to chair the department of anthropology after an extended research sabbatical, and we’re very happy to have him home.”

  There was a polite round of applause as the small man explained that questions were welcomed and encouraged at any time during the talk, and for everyone to please return next week for the second lecture in the series, featuring a physics professor discussing Discoveries in Dark Matter. Then, at an imperious glare from Blake, the man scuttled from the stage, seeming frankly more relieved than honored. What kind of professor was Blake that merely introducing him incited such apprehension?

  He didn’t give her much time to consider the question.

  “Superstitions,” Dr. Blake intoned, the word so rich and sonorous that Caroline found herself straightening in her chair. “Widely held, unjustified beliefs, frequently crediting supernatural causes to mundane events, or cause-and-effect links that have no basis in rational experience. They abound in every society, among the rich and poor, the uneducated and the scholarly elite. Such beliefs are particularly intriguing among those who style themselves as royal...”

  Caroline lost whatever he said next as she watched the man move—his strides were graceful for all his pent-up energy, his gestures expansive. He drew the eye and once again, she found him almost unreasonably attractive, though he wasn’t conventionally handsome by any means. He was too sharp-edged, too restless. And there was such intensity to the way he spoke. His voice seemed on the verge of anger though everyone in the room—including her—sat rapt with attention.

  Granted, maybe her attention wasn’t precisely on the man’s words, but nevertheless.

  She settled more deeply into her seat, soaking up the atmosphere—the people, the amphitheater-like room, even Blake in all his
tweedy passion. She’d adored attending college back in Garronia. When she was immersed within the hallowed walls of academia, it seemed like the entire world was open to her. From behind the pages of an upturned book, she could imagine a future without any restrictions, and there was no one to stop her.

  Outside university walls, life wasn’t so simple.

  Dr. Blake’s voice broke through her reverie. “While most societies have some measure of non-fact-based beliefs that have been codified over their existence, by far the most elaborate superstitions, curses, and ritual-laden customs can be found in those societies governed by absolute monarchies. We’re used to such monarchies in the distant era of the past, but they exist today as well. And therein we can find the richest ground of study for these strange and often facile beliefs.”

  Blake waved his hand and the screen behind him filled with a map of the world, where several countries were highlighted. Beside Caroline, Marguerite leaned forward.

  “No freaking way,” she muttered.

  Caroline’s gaze narrowed on the screen as well. One of the nations highlighted was a tiny dot on the map between Greece and Turkey, but the arrow pointing to it was shaded a vivid blue, one of the darker shades of arrows, which ranged from a pale sky to deep indigo.

  Before she could stop herself, Caroline’s hand shot up. Some sixth sense made her modify her tone slightly, affecting a muddy accent somewhere between Belgian and Dutch. “What’s the significance of the colored markers?” she called out as Blake pivoted in her direction.

  He hesitated only briefly as his gaze focused on her, his expression perplexed. But not in a positive way, Caroline decided immediately. In a way that made her feel like she was intruding on his carefully prepared script.

  Annoyance shot through her and she lifted her chin. The little man had said questions were welcome, and well—this was hers. She wasn’t backing down from it.

  “A good question,” Blake said gruffly. “And one I’d planned to address presently, but I’m glad the subject is so compelling.” He gestured to the screen as the crowd dutifully chuckled. “The arrows indicate a sampling of absolute monarchies remaining today, and the color indicates the country’s tendency toward superstition. The darker the arrow—the greater the tendency.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline’s tone was clipped, but Blake’s gaze only seemed to intensify.

  “For example,” he drawled, and for the first time, a distinctive South Carolina inflection dripped over his suddenly pointed words, like honey on a knife. “One of the countries indicated on this screen is a part of several international trade and military alliances, a vocal advocate of religious freedom and human rights, and is considered an equal partner on the international technology and industry stage for all its small size…and yet at the very highest reaches of the noble ranks, its populace is held in thrall by an intricate web of baseless beliefs. Including, for example, one family requiring its daughters to marry into royalty, or face the onus of forever being—quite legitimately, they believe—cursed.”

  Caroline went rigid.

  “No, he didn’t,” Marguerite gasped.

  But he had. The pompous ass with his sharp-eyed scowl and condescending voice most assuredly had just trotted out the Saleri family’s most onerous trial for the amusement of total strangers.

  The woman in the back of the room rose her hand again, and Simon silently berated himself. When would he learn to leave well enough alone? He’d noticed her when he’d been scanning the room earlier—she’d entered from the far right near the top of the hour, accompanied by a second young female whose walk and mannerisms were in sync enough that the two had to be sisters. They weren’t local, weren’t even American, as was proven evident by the first woman’s accent. She was attractive, he supposed, with a long fall of brown hair spilling over her shoulders, in a hairstyle far less flamboyant than her sister’s. She was slender and tall, and she moved with grace more than athleticism. Her face was olive-toned, high cheek-boned, finely featured. From the inflection with which she delivered her original question, she hailed from western Europe, but he couldn’t decide precisely where.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately, if he ever wanted to get his talk back on track again—he sensed she was about to give him more linguistic data to work with.

  “Yes?” he asked, not trying to hide his annoyance with the interruption. Usually that tone was enough to silence his students when he needed to get out a block of information, before they jumped to conclusions or distractions. But she was undeterred.

  “What, in your estimation, is the reasoning behind the creation of such superstitions?” she asked.

  The question took him off guard, not least because it played perfectly into the next section of his talk. Nevertheless, the woman was forcing him to speak out of turn, and he hated that. He wasn’t a born teacher, but a researcher at heart, a student of people far more than a leader or guide.

  In fact, even standing up here giving this talk was against his truest nature. For as long as he could remember, he’d found more solace in books and maps and daydreams, than in interacting with others. He’d come by his tendency toward gruff reclusiveness honestly enough, he supposed, but it certainly didn’t help him when he was supposed to engage with an actual audience.

  An audience who was now waiting for an answer, he realized with a jolt.

  “Typically, I would point to a lack of education,” he said summarily. “In the cases where superstitions have lasted over several generations, their origins are often shrouded in the beliefs of a people more concerned with subsistence and survival than the pursuit of well-considered rational thought.”

  “So you’re saying they’re idiots?” The question didn’t accompany a raised hand this time, and the crowd around the woman burst into startled laughter. Simon frowned. It wasn’t his place to entertain, nor to intentionally belittle any other society, as misguided as their beliefs may be.

  “Not at all,” he replied, and then, he couldn’t help it—his deeply ingrained scorn for anything that wasn’t entirely rational crept through. “I’m saying that in this particular family’s case, a desire, a deeply held wish, transformed over time into a codified requirement. The fact that it’s lasted into present day is…well, problematic, but understandable in an exceptionally insular environment.”

  There. That was about as polite as he could manage. To his great relief, the woman seemed to accept his response, probably also acknowledging that any family who could live its lives hostage to some kind of misguided belief promulgated by its ancestors needed serious therapy. But this curse was unequivocally a true example. Though he’d only learned the details of it recently, it had formed the basis for this talk, and the final focal point for the book he’d been struggling to organize since he’d returned from the far east earlier this summer.

  Superstitions were a commercial topic, as evidenced by the crowd here tonight. However, presenting all the data he’d amassed over the past year on highly stratified royal societies and the passions that drove them had the potential to be politically explosive, and he didn’t want his careful research to become a lightning rod. He wanted to inform and engage, and for that, rational discourse and careful observations were the order of the day. First one had to break down even the most bizarre and fantastic of superstitions into their very logical origin stories. Then one could understand the ramifications of those superstitions over time.

  Yes. As he watched the woman in the back of the room carefully, tensing for her next question, Simon felt the rightness of his decision process. By entering the discussion of societal behavior at such a seemingly whimsical point, he would disarm and interest his listeners… then hopefully spur them to dispassionate, sensible engagement.

  Fortunately, the woman in the back settled back in her seat, her arm mercifully staying down. Another person on the far end of the hall raised his hand, however, and inwardly Simon groaned. There were always two kinds of talks, he knew. Those that went according to pl
an and those that became Q&A sessions almost from the beginning.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry if you’ll be answering this later, but—once a superstition gets implanted in a group’s mind, like that horribly misogynistic, royalty-obsessed, cis-fixated family you mentioned—is it ever truly possible for it to be overcome? Can leopards change their spots?” The question was asked by a young man in the third row, his horn-rimmed glasses, earnest face and carefully coiffed hair signaling him as a first-year graduate student. The boy wasn’t one of Simon’s students, was he? The school year had barely begun, and he hadn’t had time to start placing faces with names.

  Simon briefly studied the student before answering. In truth, the boy was barely more than five years younger than he was, yet he’d asked the question with a mashup of so many politically correct buzzwords that Simon was sure he hadn’t actually begun any of his fieldwork outside the hallowed halls of academia. Travel had a way of simplifying the language one used.

  Regardless, it was a reasonable question, and again part of what Simon wanted to share this evening. He warmed to the topic as he quickly and efficiently re-ordered the presentation in his own mind. He’d have to finesse the Power Point deck, but not by much. It was more for a prop and to keep him honest than something he required, no matter how many people were meticulously writing down notes.

  The talk was definitely a free-for-all now, and he’d work with that. He had the woman in the back of the room to thank for derailing him, though, and unconsciously he glanced back up toward her—and hesitated.

  She was gone.

  Simon’s gaze shot to the back of the room—she wasn’t there either—before he refocused on the questioner. The crowd was leaning forward now. He could sense their interest heightened, their curiosity piqued. They were his.

  Well, not all of them were, clearly.

  Somewhere out in the hallway, a young woman from western Europe and her sister were striding out into the balmy South Carolina evening, apparently so wrapped up in their own preconceived notions about what constituted reality versus the fairy tale beliefs of royal families, that they refused to hear out an academic discourse on the subject.