“Excuse me,” a deep voice said from right behind her. It sounded a lot like Prince Apollo. But Evangeline knew better than to give into another mortifying delusion and imagine he’d find her hiding by the punch fountain.
“Evangeline…” The voice was a little louder and followed by a brush of soft leather gloves touching her bare shoulder. “Would you mind turning around? Lovely as your back is, I’d much rather see your face.”
Evangeline hazarded a cautious look over her shoulder.
Prince Apollo stood right behind her. She swore he was taller than she remembered as he looked down on her with a smile that was a little shier than the one he’d flashed the ballroom. Just a subtle tilt of lips.
“Hello again.” His voice went hoarse and soft. “You look like a dream come true.”
Something inside Evangeline melted. But after her earlier assumption, she was afraid to imagine why he might be standing there, staring at her as if he really meant what he’d just said.
A small crowd started to form around them, and no one even pretended that they weren’t watching.
Attempting to ignore them, Evangeline finished turning and managed to give the prince a steady curtsy. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Your Highness.”
“I’d hoped that after last night, you’d just call me Apollo.” He took her hand to his lips and gave her knuckles a careful, almost reverent kiss.
The touch sent soft shivers across Evangeline’s skin, but it was the look in his burning bronze eyes that stole her breath. She could feel her legs going boneless again, and her hope imagining things it shouldn’t.
She waited for him to say more, but the prince only swallowed. Several times. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He appeared to be at a loss for words. Nervous. She was making the prince who’d draped himself across a balcony last night nervous.
It gave her the burst of courage to say, “I thought you were only asking one lady to dance tonight.”
“I wouldn’t have even done that, but there’s an unfortunate law that says I had to ask at least one girl.” Another swallow, and then his voice went a little deeper. “I would have asked you, but I knew that if you were in my arms, I wouldn’t get through an entire dance before doing this.”
Apollo went down on one knee.
Evangeline abruptly forgot how to breathe.
He could not be doing what she thought he was doing. She didn’t even want to think about what she thought he was doing—not after how she’d made such a fool of herself earlier.
But all the people she was trying to ignore must have been thinking the thing that she was trying not to think. The whispers were starting up again, and the crowd around them was increasing, caging Evangeline and Apollo in a circle of ball gowns, silk doublets, and shocked faces. She could see Marisol among them, grinning widely. Evangeline didn’t spy Jacks, but she wondered what he was thinking of this. She still didn’t know what he wanted. But if Jacks was Apollo’s rival, she couldn’t have imagined Jacks had planned for this turn.
Apollo took both of her hands in his warm grip. “I want you, Evangeline Fox. I want to write ballads for you on the walls of Wolf Hall and carve your name on my heart with swords. I want you to be my wife and my princess and my queen. Marry me, Evangeline, and let me give you everything.”
He brought her hand to his lips again, and this time, when he looked down at Evangeline, it was as if the rest of the celebration didn’t exist. His eyes said a thousand exquisite words. But the word she felt most was wanted. Apollo wanted her more than anyone else in the ballroom.
No one had ever looked at Evangeline like this before—not even Luc. In fact, she couldn’t even picture Luc anymore. All she could see was the longing and the hope and the hint of fear swirling in Apollo’s expression, as if she might say no. But how could she?
For the first time in months, her heart felt full to bursting.
And so when Evangeline opened her mouth, she said exactly what most girls would say if a royal prince were to propose to them in the middle of an enchanted ballroom. “Yes.”
19
As soon as Evangeline squeaked out her yes, the trumpeters above released a brassy cheer, the entire ballroom exploded in clapping, and Apollo gallantly scooped her up into his arms.
His grin was pure joy. He might have kissed her then. His eyelids were lowering, and his mouth was descending. And—
Evangeline tried to lean into it.
She was in the midst of a fairytale, floating in the middle of an enchanted castle, held by a prince who’d just chosen her over every other girl there.