To Dance with a Prince Read Online Free Page A

astonishing. She had mentioned, shyly, to Meredith, she might think of becoming a doctor.
    Meredith couldn’t throw away the astonishing gift Prince Kiernan was offering her girls because she felt threatened, vulnerable.
    Still, her eyes fastened on the sensuous curve of his full lower lip.
    God? Don’t do this to me.
    But she already knew she was not on the list of those who had their prayers answered.
    The prince surprised her by smiling, though it only intensified her thought, of don’t do this to me .
    â€œI’m afraid,” he said, “it’s probably you who doesn’t know how much work will be involved. I have been called the Prince of Foot Aches. And you have only a short time to turn that around? Poor girl.”
    His smile heightened her sense of danger, of something spinning out of her control. Meredith wanted, with a kind of desperation, to tell him this could not possibly work.
    Dance with him every day? Touch him, and look at him, and somehow not be sucked into all the romantic longings a close association to such a dynamic and handsome man was bound to stir up?
    But she had all her pain to keep her strong, a fortress of grief whose walls she could hide behind.
    And she thought of Erin Fisher, and the girl she herself used to be. Meredith thought about hopes and dreams, and the excited delirium of the dance troupe.
    â€œThank you, Your Highness,” she said formally. “When would you be able to begin?”
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    Prince Kiernan had jumped out of airplanes, participated in live-round military exercises, flown a helicopter.
    He had ridden highly strung ponies on polo fields and jumped horses over the big timbers of steeplechases.
    He had sailed solo in rough water, ocean kayaked and done deep-sea dives. The truth was he did not lead a life devoid of excitement and, in fact, had confronted fear often.
    What came as a rather unpleasant surprise to himwas the amount of trepidation he felt about dancing , of all things.
    He knew at least part of that trepidation was due to the fact he had made the offer to help the No Princes dance troupe on an impulse. His plan, he recalled, had been to see the Dragon-heart with his own eyes, make Prince Adrian’s excuses, and then dismiss the dance instructor.
    One thing Prince Kiernan of Chatam was not, was impulsive. He did not often veer from the plan. It was the one luxury he could not afford.
    That eighteenth summer, his year of restless energy, heady lack of restraint, and impulsive self-indulgence had taught him that for him, spontaneity was always going to have a price.
    The military had given him an outlet for all that pent-up energy and replaced impulsiveness with discipline.
    Those years after his eighteenth birthday had reinforced his knowledge that his life did not really belong to him. Every decision was weighed and measured cautiously in terms, not of his well-being, but the well-being of his small island nation. There was little room for spontaneity in a world that was highly structured and carefully planned. His schedule of appointments and royal obligations sometimes stretched years in advance. Aware he was always watched and judged, Kiernan had become a man who was calm and cool, absolutely controlled in every situation. His life was public, his demeanor was always circumspect. Unlike his cousin, he did not have the luxury of emotional outbursts when things did not go his way. Unlike his cousin, he could not pull pranks, be late, forget appointments.
    He was rigidly correct , and if his training and inborn sense of propriety did not exactly inspire warm fuzziness, it did inspire confidence. People knew they could trust him and trust his leadership. Even after Francine, the whispers of what had happened to her, people seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust him, still.
    But then his relationship with Tiffany Wells, an exception to the amount of control he exerted over his life, seemed to have damaged that trust.