Read Online Beauty and the Reclusive Prince by Raye Morgan - Free Book Online
Authors: Raye Morgan
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she let it go. Meanwhile, several times a day, her gaze wandered toward the hills, searching out the mist-shrouded tower of the castle, just barely visible toward evening, and she wondered what Max was doing in his lonely sanctuary. Was he out riding again? Did he ever think of her? Or had he been so glad to be rid of her, he’d erased her from his mind?
Max was on horseback, surveying the river in the twilight magic that hovered over his land, just after sunset. His sister had gone home, his cousin was about to leave for Milan, and his life was about to get back to normal. Boring, monotonous normal. Still, it was a relief.
This was his favorite time of day, and the only time he found he could come to the river without feeling unbearably sick inside. And he had to come to the river, if only as an homage to Laura. For the first few years after her death, he hadn’t been able to come here without tears flowing freely.
“I’m sorry,” he would cry into the wind, brokenhearted and in agony. “I’m so sorry.”
And he was convinced that Laura had been here then. She’d heard him. Later, he would often talk to her for hours, and she responded with a breeze, or a leaf that might sail over his head. He could hear her laughter in the river as the water bubbled over the rocks. She’d felt so close, he could almost touch her.
As the years went by the talking began to fade away, but he still came. And now, he didn’t talk anymore. He didn’tfeel her here as he had before. Maybe she’d lost interest. Maybe she’d forgotten him. Or maybe his emotions just weren’t strong enough to break through the barriers any longer. He didn’t know what it was that had silenced their conversation. He only knew it felt stilted and awkward to try to talk to her now. But he came anyway. She deserved that much, at the very least.
Tonight he was here in part out of a guilty conscience. His head had been full of the Casali girl for days and he couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts away. He needed to fill his soul with his wife’s image again.
He looked into the swirling water of the river, very near where that water had taken her from him.
“Laura,” he said aloud, passion behind every word. “I miss you so.”
He listened hard. He tried to let himself join the flow of the evening breeze. He tried to feel whatever was in the atmosphere and draw it in. But it was all a failure. She wasn’t there. Heartsick, he turned his horse and headed back home.
Isabella had tried to figure out somehow to handle the declining basil supply problem in other ways, but the harder she tried, the more the answer seemed to elude her. As far as she knew, the prince’s estate was the only site where the herb could be found. If she wasn’t allowed to enter his gates, how was she going to get the supply she needed?
She spent hours poring over the Internet, trying to find where else the herb might grow, and, when that didn’t yield fruit, trying to find a substitution. She tried a few candidates in a couple of dishes. People noticed.
“There’s something different about this Fruta di Mare ,” an old friend of the family asked right away, frowning asthough she’d found a bug in her meal. “Have you changed your recipe?”
“What are you doing that’s different?” another asked, face twisted with displeasure.
And then she overheard a pair of regular customers whispering to each other. The phrases she caught included, “This place used to be so good, it’s really gone downhill lately,” and she knew she was in big trouble.
There was no choice. She had to go back.
But how?
She was still agonizing over that a day later when a surprise visitor came through the doors of the café. The late afternoon sun made a radiating halo around him and for just a moment she was sure it was the prince himself. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She’d never felt such a lurch to her system before. The room tilted and for a beat or two she was
Max was on horseback, surveying the river in the twilight magic that hovered over his land, just after sunset. His sister had gone home, his cousin was about to leave for Milan, and his life was about to get back to normal. Boring, monotonous normal. Still, it was a relief.
This was his favorite time of day, and the only time he found he could come to the river without feeling unbearably sick inside. And he had to come to the river, if only as an homage to Laura. For the first few years after her death, he hadn’t been able to come here without tears flowing freely.
“I’m sorry,” he would cry into the wind, brokenhearted and in agony. “I’m so sorry.”
And he was convinced that Laura had been here then. She’d heard him. Later, he would often talk to her for hours, and she responded with a breeze, or a leaf that might sail over his head. He could hear her laughter in the river as the water bubbled over the rocks. She’d felt so close, he could almost touch her.
As the years went by the talking began to fade away, but he still came. And now, he didn’t talk anymore. He didn’tfeel her here as he had before. Maybe she’d lost interest. Maybe she’d forgotten him. Or maybe his emotions just weren’t strong enough to break through the barriers any longer. He didn’t know what it was that had silenced their conversation. He only knew it felt stilted and awkward to try to talk to her now. But he came anyway. She deserved that much, at the very least.
Tonight he was here in part out of a guilty conscience. His head had been full of the Casali girl for days and he couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts away. He needed to fill his soul with his wife’s image again.
He looked into the swirling water of the river, very near where that water had taken her from him.
“Laura,” he said aloud, passion behind every word. “I miss you so.”
He listened hard. He tried to let himself join the flow of the evening breeze. He tried to feel whatever was in the atmosphere and draw it in. But it was all a failure. She wasn’t there. Heartsick, he turned his horse and headed back home.
Isabella had tried to figure out somehow to handle the declining basil supply problem in other ways, but the harder she tried, the more the answer seemed to elude her. As far as she knew, the prince’s estate was the only site where the herb could be found. If she wasn’t allowed to enter his gates, how was she going to get the supply she needed?
She spent hours poring over the Internet, trying to find where else the herb might grow, and, when that didn’t yield fruit, trying to find a substitution. She tried a few candidates in a couple of dishes. People noticed.
“There’s something different about this Fruta di Mare ,” an old friend of the family asked right away, frowning asthough she’d found a bug in her meal. “Have you changed your recipe?”
“What are you doing that’s different?” another asked, face twisted with displeasure.
And then she overheard a pair of regular customers whispering to each other. The phrases she caught included, “This place used to be so good, it’s really gone downhill lately,” and she knew she was in big trouble.
There was no choice. She had to go back.
But how?
She was still agonizing over that a day later when a surprise visitor came through the doors of the café. The late afternoon sun made a radiating halo around him and for just a moment she was sure it was the prince himself. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She’d never felt such a lurch to her system before. The room tilted and for a beat or two she was
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