Clever John Read online

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  ENCHANTED BY

  FAIRY TALES

  One need only read the first page of one of my romance novels to realize that I have a certain affinity for fairy tales. I include a fairy tale with each of my books, as a sort of foil or complement to the main story. They’re an additional seasoning, like cinnamon in apple pie. The pie would be fine without the cinnamon, but with it, the pie becomes more.

  I have always loved fairy tales, myths, fables, and legends. Growing up I nearly memorized the family copy of Aesop’s Fables and the TV re-broadcast of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (starring a very young Lesley Ann Warren) was a highlight of first grade.

  I come from a storytelling family. My mother used to tell me stories, mostly from her own childhood, but she also told me the story of Rapunzel. I remember one day when I was about five, sitting on the steps to the basement while my mother did the laundry and told me Rapunzel—again. My mother must’ve been bored with telling the same story over and over again because she tried to alter the fairy tale and I got quite mad at her. Most children hate to have their stories changed, I think, and I was no exception. I made my poor mother tell the story again—this time the “right” way.

  Later, I had old copies of both Hans Christian Anderson’s stories—very depressing and not at all romantic—and Lamb’s version of Shakespeare’s plays, many of which have an essentially fairy tale plot (The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew.)

  And then, when I was about nine, someone gave me a copy of Howard Pyle’s The Wonder Clock. What a marvelous book! Pyle had made up his own fairy tales—including one about a giant raven—and he’d illustrated them with romantic pre-Raphaelite-like woodcuts. I loved that book!

  After a childhood reading fairy tales and myths, is it any wonder that when I began to write my own stories I included fairy tales? Fairy tales are storytelling at its most basic. They’ve been with mankind for as long as people have told stories to each other. Fairy tales speak to something intrinsic in humans—they touch our most primitive selves. How else to explain that the Cinderella story is told in nearly every society on earth? To think of fairy tales as merely stories for children is to ignore thousands of years when fairy tales were used to teach morality, to warn, and to entertain both children and adults.

  There is no room for character development in fairy tales. In fact, I’d say that in most fairy tales there aren’t any characters at all. The “characters” are really personified attributes. The golden-haired princess is “Good”, the wrinkled crone with a wart on her nose is “Evil”, and that enchanted book helping the princess is “Memory” or perhaps “Reward.” Dialogue, setting, and description are all usually very sketchy in fairy tales. What remains are stories in which the fat has been removed; underneath are bare, beautiful bones in which it’s easy to trace motif, themes, and morality—especially morality!

  It’s rather ironic that I got so cross at my mother for changing Rapunzel because now I don’t bother to tell my fairy tales the “right” way. I make them up. Which is not to say that I don’t take parts from other storytellers. That is, after all, what all storytellers do—take bits and pieces from those who came before them and shape the fragments into their own stories. For instance, some of the bits in The Raven Prince, the fairy tale in my debut book of the same name, came from the classic myth of Psyche and Eros. That myth explains how mind and emotion came to be married. The other source for The Raven Prince was of course The Wonder Clock and that story about the giant raven.

  When I wrote the fairy tale for The Raven Prince, I wanted the themes in the fairy tale to echo the themes in The Raven Prince’s main story. I liked that the hero had been changed into the shape of a rusty old raven, forcing the heroine to marry a creature she found frightening and downright repulsive—at first anyway. There’s always more beneath the surface. That theme is used over and over again in fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast: the idea that there may be beauty and even love beneath an ugly exterior. That what is at first scary and foreign can become beloved.

  Love is, of course, the center of both my fairy tales and my books. It’s the revelation that changes everything in the life of my heroes and heroines. It’s the ultimate goal and the prize for having made the right choices. Love, in my world anyway, can overcome anything.

  One of the wonderful things about romance novels is how they teach us to think outside the box. Very often the heroine makes a conscious decision to change her destiny, to not follow the path laid before her, to wander into the woods and greet the big bad wolf head-on. That’s the kind of stories I tell: the ones where the heroine overcomes her obstacles, decides her own fate, and wins her prince—whether handsome or not—in the end. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

  CLEVER JOHN

  ~ a fairy tale ~

  BY ELIZABETH HOYT

  Now once there was a king who ruled a tiny kingdom by the sea. He had no sons, but he did have three nephews, and the youngest one was called Clever John…

  The king had a palace, naturally, and beside the palace was a large and lovely garden. Every morning it was the king’s habit to stroll about his garden and inspect the fruit trees, which were his pride and joy. Imagine then, the king’s shock when one morning he came upon his favorite cherry tree and found the ground underneath littered with cherry pits…

  The king roared with royal rage and called his three nephews.

  “Whomever of you can find this nighttime thief shall be my heir!” cried the king.

  Well the nephews all looked at each other and then they each gathered weapons and settled themselves beneath the cherry tree to wait for night and the thief. But a very strange thing happened. As dusk fell in the king’s garden, all three of the nephews began to nod and soon they all slept. In the morning they woke and none of the three could remember a thing. The nephews had to confess rather sheepishly to the king that they had not caught the thief. But when Clever John ran his hand through his hair, a bright green feather fell to the ground.

  The second night the nephews resumed their guard with renewed determination. They placed thorns beneath their clothes to keep themselves awake, refused to sit, and paced about to stimulate their senses. But despite all their efforts, once again they fell asleep. And in the morning once again they had to confess their failure to the king. And this time when Clever John rose he found a yellow feather behind his ear.

  Now on the third night when dusk drew near, Clever John thought long and hard about the feathers he’d found on his person and the fact that he and his cousins could not stay awake no matter how they tried. He took a bit of candle wax from the castle and stopped up both his ears. Then he took up his position beneath the cherry tree and waited for nightfall.

  As soon as dark fell in the king’s garden, a bird’s song filled the air. Three notes and the other two nephews were nodding their heads, but Clever John had his ears stopped so he could not fall under the spell of the sweet birdsong. As soon as the king’s nephews were asleep, a wonderful bird alit on the cherry tree. Its feathers were every color of the rainbow. The bird began pecking at the king’s cherries. But up jumped Clever John and seized the bird by its delicate neck.

  Whereupon the bird turned into a lovely—and quite nude—woman

  Well, a bird that turned into a woman startled Clever John very much, but he kept his hand about her neck as he examined her. She was young and lithe, her face lovely and unlined, and her hair waved gently about her head in every color of the rainbow.

  He plucked the candle wax from his ears and said, “What manner of being are you?”

  The woman laughed merrily. “My
name is Tamara. I am daughter to the dawn and sister to the four winds. Let me go and I shall grant you three wishes.”

  Now, it’s well known that an offer of three wishes must be carefully considered, lest the wrong thing be wished for. Clever John thought on the matter for some time, while he held Tamara’s soft neck in his broad hand.

  Finally, he looked at her and asked, “Must I make my three wishes all at once?”

  She grinned, as quick as a sprite. “Not at all. You have merely to call my name and I will come to grant a wish.”

  He nodded and slowly unwrapped his hand from about her neck. “I wish for a kingdom ten times the size of my uncle’s.”

  “As you wish!” Tamara cried.

  At once they were transported to the top of a mountain. Before them were spread rich fields and a huge, sparkling lake.

  Clever John’s eyes widened. “All this is mine?”

  “Of course, my King Clever John!” Tamara danced a few delighted steps, her bright hair waving in the mountain wind. “What else do you wish?”

  But Clever John’s gaze was on the wealth before him. “I shall call you when next I need you.”

  Tamara nodded and quick as a wink turned into the rainbow bird and flew away, leaving only one bright red feather to float to the ground in her wake.

  Well, being a king was quite lovely, and for many years Clever John was happy with the arrangement. But as the years went on, it became a bit… monotonous. Every morning Clever John ate his breakfast off of plates of gold. He strolled his royal garden—ten times the size of his uncle’s—and then went riding about his kingdom. By afternoon he’d usually exhausted all there was for a king to do and was forced to take a nap.

  So it was with more interest than trepidation that he heard the news that his neighbor had invaded his kingdom.

  Clever John put on his armor and went to the top of his mountain and called, “Tamara!”

  At once the rainbow bird swooped down from the clouds and circled his head before alighting and turning into the girl Tamara.

  She clapped happily at the sight of Clever John. “How have you been, my friend?” she asked. “Do you like your kingdom? Have you swum the sparkling lake?”

  But Clever John merely frowned to the west where his neighbor was even now marching toward his castle. “I wish for an invincible army.”

  Tamara threw up her arms. “As you wish!”

  An army appeared at the base of the mountain, mounted men in armor and warriors on foot, carrying shields and swords. Quickly, Clever John ran down the mountain and led his army into battle to defend the kingdom. The shouts of men and the screams of horses were heard for miles around. When the shadows began to grow long, Clever John looked up and saw that his enemy was defeated. Only then did he notice the blue feather stuck in the links of the armor covering his right arm.

  Now Clever John’s kingdom was safe from attack. With an invincible army the people grew used to peace and prosperity. And if Clever John found his days a little dull, he amused himself by climbing to the top of his mountain and surveying all he owned and controlled. But an army has many mouths to feed, and one day Clever John found his kingdom’s coffers bare.

  It was with a light step that he went to his garden and called, “Tamara!”

  The rainbow bird swooped low from the sky and flew in happy cartwheels around Clever John’s head before alighting and turning into Tamara.

  She threw back her rainbow head and laughed merrily. “Clever John, you have gray in your hair and your strong back has begun to bend! Has it been so many years, my friend?”

  But Clever John was looking toward his castle with worry. “I wish for a chest of gold and jewels that is always full.”

  Tamara smiled a little sadly and raised her arms to the sky. “As you wish!”

  A great chest appeared before Clever John, as long as a horse and nearly as tall. When he lifted the lid he found gold coins, long strands of pearls as big as his thumb, and sparkling gems of every description. For a moment he merely stared in wonder. Then, belatedly, he remembered Tamara. He raised his head to thank her, but the girl was gone. Clever John stood alone in his garden with all the riches in the world. Only a single orange feather floated gracefully on the wind.

  Well now Clever John had everything he’d ever wished for: a large and prosperous kingdom, an invincible army to defend his lands, and a treasure chest that never could be emptied. He was awash in wealth and good fortune. Kings and princes sent their daughters, seeking a match with the powerful King Clever John. But no matter how lovely the princess, Clever John merely turned his head aside, his gaze searching the skies for the glimpse of a rainbow wing.

  The years went by and Clever John grew old. His once black hair turned snowy white, his broad shoulders stooped, and his strong hand shook. And in all those years he never again saw Tamara. Finally the day came when he knew his time on earth was drawing to a close. He sat on his grand golden throne in his wonderful castle, with his treasure chest beside him overflowing with jewels and he had eyes for none of that. Instead he examined five brightly colored feathers upon his lap.

  Clever John called for his cook and made a special order, and then he waited for the cherry pie to be brought to him in his throne room. His voice had grown weak with age, so he was only able to croak her name. “Tamara.”

  At once a beautiful rainbow bird flew through the window and alighted at his feet, turning into Tamara. She was as young and as lovely as she had been all those years ago when he’d first seen her, but she didn’t smile.

  Instead her eyes were grave when she asked, “Why have you called me?”

  Clever John watched Tamara stick her finger in the pie. “I thought of all the possible mistakes I could make in phrasing my wishes, and still I made the most fundamental one of all: I asked for the wrong thing.”

  Tamara ate a cherry thoughtfully and nodded. “Yes, but I cannot help you—you’ve used up all your wishes.”

  Clever John closed his eyes wearily. “Then might I ask for one of your feathers, sweet Tamara? A purple one? I shall go to the next world with a rainbow of feathers in my hand.”

  There was a patter of bare feet and when Clever John opened his eyes again Tamara knelt by his side. “Why do you want my purple feather?” she asked softly. “What possible use could a man who has everything he’s ever wished for have for a simple feather?”

  He reached out a hand that shook with palsy and touched her smooth cheek. “The rainbow feathers remind me of you and everything I should’ve asked for.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You,” he said. “I should’ve wished for you and only you, sweet Tamara, for I have loved you all these years and without you my wonderful riches are but bones and dust to me.”

  “Is this true?” she whispered.

  “Oh, yes, it is true,” Clever John replied sadly. “I am a foolish old man who has lost everything he might’ve had in this life.”

  But as his last words died away there was a great rushing as a powerful wind blew. Everything—the kingdom, the invincible army, and the treasure chest—disappeared, and Clever John found himself once again in his uncle’s garden. His limbs were young and strong, his hair black once again, and Tamara stood before him, her rainbow hair shining in the dawning sun.

  Impoverished, lonely, and kind, Silence Hollingbrook once desperately needed help… and trusted the wrong man.

  The notorious pirate Mickey O’Connor sees people as mere pawns to be manipulated, until a secret from his past drives him toward Silence—the woman he betrayed.

  Please turn this page for a preview of

  SCANDALOUS DESIRES

  Available in Mass Market and E-book in November 2011

  Chapter One

  Now once there was a king who ruled a tiny kingdom by the sea. He had no sons, but he did have three nephews, and the youngest one was called Clever John….

  —from Clever John

  LONDON, ENGLAND

&nbs
p; APRIL 1738

  Wolves, as Silence Hollingbrook well knew, are savage beasts, little given to pity or honor. If one must face a wolf cleverly disguised in human form, it did no good to show fear. Rather, one must throw one’s shoulders back, lift one’s chin, and stare the damned beast down.

  At least that was what Silence told herself as she eyed “Charming” Mickey O’Connor, the most notorious river pirate in London. As she watched, Mr. O’Connor did something far more alarming than any real wolf.

  He smiled at her.

  Silence swallowed.

  Mickey O’Connor lounged like the pirate king he was on a gilded throne of red velvet at one end of a lavishly corrupt room. The walls were lined with sheets of gold, the floor was a fabulous mosaic of different colored marbles, and around her, piled high, were the spoils of thieving: trunks overflowing with furs and silks, crates of tea and spices, and treasures from every corner of the globe, all of it stolen from the merchant ships that came into London’s docks. Silence stood in the midst of this illicit opulence like a petitioner.

  Once again.

  Mr. O’Connor plucked a sweetmeat from a tray offered by a small boy, holding it between long, beringed fingers as he examined her. One corner of his wide, sensuous mouth curled in amusement. “ ’Tis always a pleasure to gaze upon yer sparklin’ hazel eyes, Mrs. Hollingbrook, but I do wonder why ye’ve come to see me this lovely afternoon.”

  His mocking words strengthened Silence’s spine. “You know very well why I’m here, Mr. O’Connor.”

  The pirate lifted elegantly winged black eyebrows. “Do I, now?”

  Beside her, Harry, one of Mickey O’Connor’s guards and her escort into the throne room, shifted his weight nervously. Harry was a big man with a battered face—a man who’d obviously lived a rather rough life—yet he was just as obviously wary of Mickey O’Connor.

  “Easy now,” he muttered to her beneath his breath. “Don’t want to get ’is temper up.”