To Dance with a Prince Read Free

and all her grace fled her as she did a clumsy curtsy.
    â€œYou can’t be Meredith Whitmore,” the prince said, clearly astounded.
    â€œI can’t?”
    Even his voice—cultured, deep, melodic, masculine—was unfairly attractive, as sensual as a touch.
    It was no wonder she was questioning her own identity!
    Meredith begged the confident, career-oriented woman she had become to push the embarrassed servant’s daughter off center stage. She begged the vulnerability that the memory of Carly’s laugh had brought to the surface to go away.
    â€œWhy can’t I be Meredith Whitmore?” Despite her effort to speak with careless confidence, she thought she sounded like a rejected actress who had been refused a coveted role.
    â€œFrom what Adrian said, I was expecting, um, a female version of Attila the Hun.”
    â€œFlattering.”
    A hint of a smile raced across the firm line of those stern lips and then was gone.
    It was definitely a smile that could break hearts. Meredith reminded herself, firmly, she hadn’t one to break!
    â€œYou did give me a hard time for standing inside my own door,” he said thoughtfully. “Adrian said, er, that you were something of a taskmaster.”
    The hesitation said it all. Meredith guessed that Prince Adrian had not worded it that politely. The fact that the two princes had discussed her—in unflattering terms—made her wish for the floor to open up redouble.
    â€œI was actually about to leave,” she said with thehaughtiness of a woman who was not the least vulnerable to him, and whose time was extremely valuable—which it was! “He’s very late.”
    â€œI’m afraid he’s not coming. He sent me with the message.”
    Meredith felt a shiver of apprehension. “Is it just for today? That Prince Adrian isn’t coming?”
    But somehow she already knew the answer. And it was her fault. She had driven him too hard. She had overstepped herself. He didn’t want to do it anymore. She had obviously been too bossy, too intense, too driven to perfection.
    A female version of Attila the Hun.
    â€œI’m sorry. He’s been injured in an accident.”
    â€œBadly?” Meredith asked. The prince, puppylike in his eagerness to please, had been hurt, and all she was thinking about was that she was being inconvenienced by his tardiness?
    â€œHe’s been in a riding accident. When I left him his knee was the approximate size and shape of a basketball.”
    Meredith marshaled herself, not wanting him to see her flinch from the blow to her plans, to her girls.
    â€œWell, as terrible as that is,” she said with all the composure she could muster, “the show must go on. I’m sure with a little resourcefulness we can rewrite the part. We aren’t called No Princes for nothing.”
    â€œNo Princes? Is that the name of your dance troupe, then?”
    â€œIt is actually more than a dance troupe.”
    â€œAll right,” he conceded. “I’m intrigued. Tell me more.”
    To her surprise, the prince looked authentically interested. Despite not wanting to be vulnerable to himin any way, Meredith took a deep breath, knowing she could not pass up this opportunity to tell someone so influential about her group.
    â€œNo Princes is an organization that targets girls from the tough neighborhoods of the inner city of Chatam. At fifteen and sixteen and seventeen a frightening number of these girls, still children really, are much too eager to leave school, and have babies, instead of getting their education.” Her story, exactly , but there was no reason to tell him that part.
    â€œWe try to give them a desire to learn, marketable skills, and a strong sense of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We hope to influence them so they do not feel they need rescuing from their circumstances by the first boy they perceive as a prince!”
    Michael Morgan had been that