Tempting the Bride - By Sherry Thomas Page 0,70

me.

“Once upon a time, there was a country named Pride,” I begin. “It was a proud country; everyone from the king and the queen on down to the lowest street sweeper was proud. But no one was prouder than the prince of the realm, a handsome young man by the name of Narcissus.”

“And he was so enamored of his beauty that he couldn’t stop looking at his own reflection?”

“My love,” I admonish, “how little faith you have in me. Would I bother to recount such a hackneyed story to you? Trust me: You have not heard this one.”

She shrugs indifferently. “Go on, then.”

“The most fashionable mode of travel in the country of Pride was a dirigible powered by none other than its owner’s personal pride. The prouder the person, the bigger his or her dirigible, and the higher and faster it flew. No one in all of Pride had a greater and fleeter dirigible than Prince Narcissus’s, which was, aptly enough, called Narcissus’s Pride.”

“And which will be thoroughly punctured by the end of your tale?”

I tsk. “Only ignorant foreigners would propose such a repellent deed. In Pride one would no more think of puncturing another’s dirigible than one would sell one’s mother on the town square.”

“And just how common was the practice of mother selling in Pride?”

“Nonexistent, for the people of Pride loved their mothers.”

My bride rolled her eyes. “All right. Go on.”

“A prince devised his own contest for ladies who wished to win his hand. For seven years running, the prince’s contest had been a three-day dirigible race, which he won handily each time. The entire country began to grow anxious for their prince, for he was of an age when he should settle down and beget heirs.

“Unbeknownst to the world at large, Narcissus had long been in love with a young woman of Pride named Fidelia, who owned a bookshop in the capital city. Fidelia knew Narcissus existed, of course; she even had occasional business dealings with him—Narcissus loved books, and Fidelia was the best conveyor of rare and valuable tomes in the land. But Narcissus and his fancy dirigible mattered little to Fidelia. In fact, she made fun of him to her friends, mocking the size of his dirigible, and what one man could possibly do with so much hot air at his disposal.

“Word would get back to Narcissus and he would pace the high ramparts of the palace, unable to sleep. From time to time he turned the telescopes in the astronomy tower to Fidelia’s bookshop in the city, to watch the light in her upstairs window, wishing he could be in her room with her, reading together.”

“My, for a moment I thought he meant to tie her to her bookshelves,” says my bride.

“Please, he is nowhere near as romantic as I am. Now, where am I? Ah, every three months Fidelia went on a book-buying trip to several nearby lands. The prince always watched for her return—when she came back from those trips was when she came to the palace with a crate of her best finds for Narcissus to inspect, and he awaited those meetings with a yearning only those who’d known unrequited love could understand.

“Pride was a country of largely predictable weather. They were in the middle of the dry season. Fidelia’s freight of books was loaded on drays normally used for barrels of ale, and not the covered wagons she’d have used in rainier seasons. But as the prince watched her progress on the dusty plains outside the city walls, what should he see but an unseasonable storm on the horizon, fast approaching.

“He immediately called for Narcissus’s Pride, his dirigible. But by the time he reached her drays, the storm was nearly on top of them. There would be no time to transfer her books for safekeeping inside the gondola of the dirigible.

“The prince did not hesitate. Much to Fidelia’s openmouthed shock, he pulled out his dagger and sliced into his dirigible, opening it up into an enormous water-resistant tarp to place over her books. Fidelia, recovering her composure, found large rocks to place all along the edges of the tarp, to keep it from flying away during the storm.

“They finished and ducked inside the gondola just as rain came down in torrents. ‘Why have you destroyed your beautiful dirigible?’ Fidelia at last asked. ‘They are only books.’

“‘Maybe,’ answered Narcissus. ‘But they are your books.’

“To this day people talk about how the prince won the hand of his beloved after first taking