The Ordinary Princess
Liz Fielding
Laura could see that Crown Prince Alexander of Montorino needed a holiday - from being a prince! He was so stiff and formal; he needed to lighten up and have some fun. For just a few days he would be ordinary, like her. Go shopping, go to the park, wash up - and Laura would be his guide…. Alexander found Laura to be like a breath of fresh air.She didn't stand on ceremony, and she told him what to do, not the other way around! It was the perfect partnership, one that Alexander wanted to last forever - until he discovered Laura's secret….
It was extraordinary, she thought, watching him scrape dishes, load the dishwasher.
Yesterday he had seemed as distant as the stars. This evening she was totally at ease with him. Far from being the cold, arrogant prince that his photos suggested, he was intelligent, stimulating, amusing.
“You’re not making a bad job of that,” she said.
“For a man?”
“For a prince. I don’t imagine you’ve done it before.”
“No, but it is simply a question of applying logic and order to the task.”
She exploded into a fit of giggles as he closed the dishwasher door, looked at the settings, chose one that seemed appropriate and then switched it on.
“I’m afraid the champagne has gone to your head,” he said.
“No, honestly.” It was the fact that he hadn’t put any detergent in the machine that was so funny.
Welcome to
The lives and loves of the royal, rich and famous!
We’re inviting you to the most thrilling and exclusive weddings of the year!
Meet women who have always wanted the perfect wedding…but never dreamed that they might be walking up the aisle with a millionaire, an aristocrat, or even a prince!
But whether they were born into it, are faking it or are just plain lucky—these women are about to be whisked off around the world to the playground of princes and playboys!
Are their dreams about to come true? If so, they might just find that they are truly fit for a prince….
Look out for more HIGH SOCIETY BRIDES, coming soon in Harlequin Romance
.
The Ordinary Princess
Liz Fielding
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘FIRED? What do you mean, you’ve been fired?’
‘Sacked, dismissed, given the heave-ho. Released to explore alternative employment opportunities.’
Again.
‘I know what the word means, Laura. I was querying the reason.’
‘The usual reason, Jay. I have this total inability to concentrate on the task assigned. I’m too easily distracted. In short, my former employer decided that I was more of a liability than an asset.’ And with that Laura Varndell picked up her glass of wine and raised it in an ironical toast. ‘Here’s to the end of my career which today ran into reality and sank without a trace.’ And she emptied the glass.
It seemed an appropriate moment to fling it dramatically into the fireplace to underline the end of all her dreams, but since her great-aunt’s flat lacked this useful amenity, and flinging it at a radiator didn’t quite have the same appeal, she held it out for a refill instead.
Her great-aunt Jenny—known universally as Jay—obliged and, understanding the need for food at such moments, pushed a comfortingly large dish of pistachio nuts in her direction.
It said much for Laura’s state of mind that she wasn’t tempted.
‘All right, let’s have it. What did you do this time?’
Jay said this with the unspoken suggestion that, having gone out on a limb, used her contacts—more than once—to get her young niece’s stumbling feet on the path to her chosen career, she was not particularly amused that she’d messed up.
‘Nothing,’ Laura said. That, of course, was why she’d been directed to the exit by her boss. ‘Well, when I say nothing that’s not strictly true. I did do something.’
‘Just not what you were told to do, hmm?’
‘Just what anyone with an ounce of humanity would have done in my place,’ she replied, stung by the unspoken criticism.
‘I see.’ This said with a convince-me sigh. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning.’ Jay refilled her own glass as if anticipating the need for fortification.
‘I was despatched to cover a demonstration by a senior citizens’ action group. The news editor—’
‘Trevor McCarthy? I knew him when he couldn’t spell the word “editor”,’ Jay said.
Laura had a momentary and deeply pleasing mental image of her fierce news editor as a junior reporter being chewed out by her great-aunt the way he’d chewed her out today. Before directing her to the exit. Then, ‘Yes, well, Trevor said that even I couldn’t get into trouble with a bunch of OAPs.’
‘In other words he’s still stupid. You attract trouble like a magnet. One day it’ll get you the kind of story that will go around the world.’
‘Not if I haven’t got a job.’ Then, ‘To be fair to the man—’ although why she should since he’d sacked her, she didn’t know ‘—it should have been simple enough.’
‘It’s simple enough,’ he’d said. ‘Even a child could do it.’ Implying that was about her level of competence.
‘My brief was to get some quotable quotes, take a few pictures of the oldies in revolt—his words, not mine,’ she said quickly, as her own favourite ‘oldie’ gave her a sharp glance.
‘But?’
‘I wasn’t looking for trouble,’ she said, anxious to make that point at the outset. ‘I was talking to this really sweet couple, asking them why they were out on a demo when they could have been at home with their feet up in front of the telly, a cup of tea and a toasted bun within easy reach—’
‘Being patronising must be catching. Did they hit you with their placard?’ Jay enquired dryly.
‘No! We were getting along really well, talking about the stupid preconceptions people have about the old. You’re the one who’s always banging on about the fact that you don’t hand over your ability to reason in return for your pension book.’ She grinned. ‘When you’re not back-packing through a snake-infested jungle or canoeing down some gorge or other.’
‘But?’ her aunt persisted, refusing to be side-tracked.
‘But then the old chap sort of keeled over. Collapsed at my feet. I couldn’t just ignore that, could I?’
Her aunt’s expression suggested that she was withholding judgement pending explanations. ‘What caused the collapse?’
‘Well, his wife was convinced—I was convinced—that it was a heart-attack.’
‘But it wasn’t.’
‘The doctor—and it was hours before he saw a doctor—suggested that it might have been over-excitement. But we didn’t know that and I couldn’t leave them in the middle of the street, could I?’
Her aunt’s face clouded. As a photojournalist she’d covered many war zones and undoubtedly been faced with such dilemmas on a regular basis. But she’d been a professional. Had never forgotten why she was there. She’d always got her story.
‘I imagine,’ she said, after the slightest of pauses, ‘that at this point in the narrative McCarthy asked why you didn’t just call an ambulance, summon assistance from a marshal and find someone else to interview?’
‘When you put it like that it sounds so simple.’
‘It is simple. But I guess you had to be there, hmm?’
‘It was all a bit of a muddle, to be honest, and the queue in A&E was horrendous. There’d been an accident on a building site. A wall had collapsed—’
The newsdesk had been trying to contact her about that. They’d wanted her to leave the protest march and cover the building site story, but of course she’d had to switch off her mobile phone in the hospital. She should have phoned in, told them what was happening, but she’d been too intent on staying with the story she had.
‘The old lady was so frightened. I couldn’t just leave her there. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I understand.’ Her tone suggested that she understood that her great-niece was an idiot. But a sweet idiot.
‘By the time he’d been seen by a doctor and I’d got back to the demo I’d missed a mini-riot and thirty-two senior citizens being arrested for committing a breach of the peace.’
‘But you did have a human interest story about an old man who’d collapsed from over-excitement,’ Jay pointed out.
‘Well…’ She shrugged, helplessly. ‘No, actually.’
‘No? You didn’t get some heart-wrenching tale of hardship from this pair? In return for all your help?’
Laura shrugged awkwardly. ‘Apparently their son is something big in the City. He would have been absolutely furious with them if they’d got their names in the paper.’
‘You mean he’s a pompous ass who’s embarrassed by the fact that his parents have minds of their own?’
‘Well, maybe, but you can see his point.’ She faltered beneath her aunt’s uncompromising gaze. ‘Maybe not.’
‘You are too kind for your own good, Laura.’ Then, because there was no answer to that, she asked, ‘What will you do now?’
Laura sighed. ‘I don’t know. According to Trevor, I ought to forget journalism as a career. Maybe he’s right. I haven’t exactly covered myself with glory. Apparently a bleeding heart liberal like myself should stick to something more suited to my temperament.’ She winced as she remembered his withering scorn. ‘In fact he suggested I look for full-time employment as a nanny.’
‘In other words he hasn’t forgotten the incident with that woman who left you holding her baby.’
Laura closed her eyes and banged her forehead on her knees. ‘I’m utterly useless. I’ll never make a journalist.’
Jay looked as if she might be about to say something—but thought better of it. ‘You’re just young, that’s all. And a bit soft.’
‘They weren’t amongst the adjectives Trevor used when he told me to get out and never darken his door again unless I had something he could put on his front page without turning his newspaper into a laughing stock.’
‘He said that, did he?’ Jay leaned forward and topped up her glass. ‘That doesn’t sound like the sack to me.’
‘No, I got the subtext. My great-aunt is a personal friend of the newspaper’s owner so he’s covering his back. But, let’s face it, he’s safe enough.’
‘All you need is the right story.’
‘I refer to the answer I gave earlier.’
‘Hey—’ Jay leaned forward, touched her chin, forced her to look up ‘—whatever happened to your ambition to become a great crusading journalist?’
It had been her ambition for as long as she could remember to emulate her great-aunt, see her byline on stories that moved the world. ‘Like you? It’s time for a reality check, Jay. I’m not going to make much of a difference if I get side-tracked by sweet old things who need their hands held. I should have been there today, reporting the anger of people who are sick of not being listened to. I should have been at that building site, asking questions about safety. Making sure people know what’s going on around them. I should—’
‘If you realise that, your day hasn’t been entirely wasted. Unless, of course, you plan to just give up and sit there feeling sorry for yourself?’
Laura shrugged, found a smile from somewhere. ‘Just give me a minute, okay? I’ll get over it.’
‘What you need, my girl, is a good old-fashioned scoop. The inside story on someone famous should do it.’
‘Oh, that’ll be easy.’
‘I didn’t say it would be easy. I was the one who tried to persuade you that you should forget journalism and look for a sensible job.’
Laura pulled a face. ‘My father was a mountaineer, my mother a travel writer, and you spent a fair amount of your time in the world’s trouble spots. The family genes would appear to have a sensible deficit.’
Her aunt reached out, touched her arm briefly. Laura blinked, pasted on a smile.
‘Even so, I’ll pass on an exposé of someone rich and famous, if you don’t mind. It isn’t my thing.’
‘You aren’t in a position to be choosy, Laura. The important thing right now is to get you back in favour with the boss. If you really do want to be a journalist?’
Again Laura sensed the unspoken suggestion that this might be the time to call it a day and give ‘sensible’ a try.
‘Of course I do!’ She just didn’t like some of the stuff journalists did. But Jay was right. She wasn’t in a position to be choosy, not if she wanted her job back. ‘An exposé?’ She pulled a face. ‘It would have to be someone totally unsympathetic. Someone I won’t go all gooey and protective over.’
‘That would help,’ Jay agreed, with a wry smile. Then, seriously, ‘Someone powerful. Someone who never gives interviews.’ And she picked up the gossip magazine she’d been reading when Laura arrived and offered it to her. ‘Someone like this.’
Laura glanced at the cover photograph of a man in evening dress—a dark blue ribbon bearing an impressive decoration bisecting his imposing figure—arriving at some glittering state occasion, and then looked again.
‘Who is he?’
‘His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Michael George Orsino. Crown Prince of Montorino.’
In his early to mid-thirties, the Prince had thick dark hair that no amount of cutting could quite keep from a natural inclination to curl and eyebrows that gave him a look of the devil. He was tall—he stood inches above his companions anyway—and dark. But forget handsome. A smile might have helped, but nothing would ever compensate for a nose that centuries of breeding had perfected for looking down, or the haughty arrogance of his bearing which instantly curdled her natural milk of human kindness.
‘Montorino? Isn’t that one of those fabulously rich autocratic European principalities?’ There had been a recent travel feature in one of the weekend supplements. ‘Mountains, lakes, stunning scenery, picturesque medieval buildings?’
‘That’s the place. And he’s the autocrat who’ll one day rule it. Nothing to bring out your sympathies there.’
‘No,’ she said. What she was feeling certainly wasn’t sympathy.
He was walking a red carpet laid in his honour with an assurance born of the knowledge that he would rule, as his grandfather now ruled, as his forebears had ruled for a thousand years before him. Absolutely.
As she stared at the photograph his dark eyes seemed to look right at her, challenge her, defy her to do her worst, and a prickle of disquiet, apprehension almost, flickered down her spine. She tossed the magazine away.
‘This is all pie-in-the-sky, Jay. I’d never get an interview with a man like him.’
Thank goodness.
‘No?’ she replied, all innocence. ‘Well, maybe Trevor’s right. Journalism is an overcrowded profession, after all. And a good nanny can earn a fortune.’
‘Excellency.’
‘What is it, Karl?’
‘I do not wish to alarm you, sir, but Her Royal Highness does not appear to be in the residence.’
‘Then your wish is granted, Karl. I am not alarmed. Her Royal Highness is sulking because I refused permission for her to go to a club this evening with some girls from school. She is no doubt hiding in an attempt to frighten us all. The sooner everyone stops panicking and gets about their business, the sooner she’ll reappear,’ he said dismissively, returning to the papers demanding his attention.
But his concentration had been disturbed. While it was true to say that he was not alarmed, he was concerned. At seventeen, Katerina was too young to marry, or go to clubs. But she was too grown up to send to bed with a scolding. In short she was just the right age to be nothing but trouble.
He sympathised. He’d been seventeen once, long ago. But he had accepted his responsibilities, no matter how unsought, how unwelcome, and applied himself to his duties. If she didn’t learn to accept hers, he would have no choice but to send her away from the temptations of London, return her to Montorino until she learned how a royal princess was expected to conduct herself. Something her mother had signally failed to do, but he lived in hope. As he’d hoped to give her this brief time of relative freedom. But if she wouldn’t behave…
Karl coughed discreetly, long enough in service to risk ignoring his Prince’s impatient dismissal.
‘We’ve searched from basement to attic, sir. Princess Katerina is nowhere to be found.’
‘That’s because she doesn’t want to be found, Karl,’ he said. The house was a warren, especially up in the attics. A clever teenager with a serious attack of the sulks could hide up there for a week if she felt so inclined. He had far more important matters to deal with than a girl set on irritating her elders. ‘She wouldn’t have been foolish enough to leave the building without her security officer.’ He caught Karl’s doubtful expression. ‘And even if she was, she couldn’t have got out without someone seeing her. Could she?’
There was only the merest suggestion of hesitation before the man replied, ‘No, sir.’
Laura had woken early from a disturbed sleep with Prince Alexander’s face imprinted on her brain. His dark eyes arrogantly challenging her to take him on if she dared.
She’d ignored it.
She had much better things to do than waste her time on someone who looked down his nose at the world from his lofty serenity. Since going to work wasn’t one of them, she pulled on her sweats and went for a run.
After that she took a shower, made coffee, ate the croissant she’d picked up at the bakery on the corner and scanned the newspapers in search of a job. There weren’t any.
At least nothing that she wanted to do. But then she’d set her heart on journalism and anything else would be failure.
She propped herself up on her elbows. Jay was right. She needed a story—something big enough to persuade Trevor that she wasn’t a waste of space. A follow-up on that building site story, perhaps. She booted up her laptop and logged on to the internet to do some in-depth research on the company involved.
But His Serene Highness’s image would keep intruding, as fresh as the photograph on the cover of that magazine. As challenging. Refusing to go away.
It was her aunt’s fault, of course. Insisting that she take the magazine away with her. She retrieved it from beneath her bed and carried it through to the kitchen. She’d gone to sleep drooling over the frocks at the latest show-biz wedding, studiously avoiding the colour spread of the glittering gala in aid of some charity of which he was the patron. In the light of day, she told herself, he would look a lot less dangerous.
She poured a fresh cup of coffee and stared at the photograph on the cover. He stared right back, as dangerous as ever. And the longer she looked at his implacable features, the more she wanted to disturb that aristocratic bearing. Ruffle that calm poise. Unsettle him as much as he was unsettling her.
So what was stopping her?
Her date with a cowboy builder, that was what. A real story. The internet had provided very little background; she’d have to use the newspaper library. It might be a waste of time, but it was an excuse to put job-hunting on hold.
Except that once she was in the library her mind would keep wandering back to Prince Alexander. She finally abandoned the builder and keyed Montorino into the search engine.
It didn’t help much.
While his family had provided hot gossip for the newspapers for most of the previous century, and for a while Prince Alexander had looked set to follow their example, these days he was the very model of what a modern prince should be. Diligent. Hardworking.
Boring.
Well, that was good, wasn’t it? For the people of Montorino and for her. Now she could concentrate on something important, right?
Wrong.
Boring?
She wasn’t buying that. That face didn’t belong to a bore.
She continued her searches and by the end of the day she had an impressive dossier containing the official version of the history of Montorino, the entire Orsino family tree going back to the Middle Ages and enough photographs to fill the family album.
One, of Alexander as a small boy holding his grandfather’s hand, looking desolate at his parents’ funeral, leapt off the page to touch her heart. She swallowed. Made a quick note that his mother and father had died in a boating accident when he was six, at which point Alexander had become heir to the throne, bypassing his aunts and his older sister since women were barred from the top job in Montorino.
They could have appealed to the Court of Human Rights—in Laura’s opinion it was their duty—but they were clearly having too much fun filling the gossip columns of Europe.
Not Alexander. The only photographs of him in the last eight years were formal, controlled images that gave nothing away. Or else they’d been taken at grand occasions where everyone was on their best behaviour, which was much the same thing.
The articles about him were no better. They read like handouts from his public relations department. This bachelor prince, who had effectively become head of state since his grandfather’s heart bypass, apparently did nothing but open hospitals, support charities and promote his country. Of course, when he said ‘his’ country, that was exactly what he meant.
It wasn’t just the architecture that was medieval. Which, along with the lack of equal opportunities for princesses, was a situation absolutely guaranteed to raise Laura’s democratic hackles.
Jay had been right about one thing. His disturbing eyes notwithstanding, this was a man who would never win her sympathy.
Which was great. As far as it went. She’d have no problem in exposing his Achilles’ heel—always assuming he had one—and she’d positively enjoy giving him a wakeup call for the twenty-first century.
It was practically her duty, for heaven’s sake.
Unfortunately, she had no idea how she was going to go about it. When she’d said that she’d never get an interview with a man like that, she hadn’t even been close. It would have made no difference if she’d been one of those rarefied journalists who regularly interviewed the crowned heads of Europe.
His Highness didn’t give interviews.
And there was no gossip. Not recent gossip. He might be a bachelor but he wasn’t a playboy. It had been years since he’d frequented casinos, squired supermodels to nightclubs, got into brawls with the paparazzi.
All that had ended the day his grandfather had had a heart attack and he’d become head of state in all but name.
On the surface, it seemed that there was no story.
Except, of course, there was always a story if you knew where to look for it. He was flesh and blood, after all. He put on his trousers one leg at a time, the same as any other man. He would have hopes, desires, dreams, just like the lowliest of his subjects. And she didn’t imagine he lived like a monk.
Those eyes didn’t belong to any monk.
The thought made her shiver a little before she pulled herself together and reminded herself that he might as well have been for all the gossip that made print.
As she’d read everything she could find, hitting a blank wall whenever she’d tried to dig beyond the surface, she’d felt a stir of indignation that anyone with such a public presence could keep his personal life so private.
Her research, far from satisfying her curiosity, had piqued it. Far from answering her questions, it had simply raised more.
It was a challenge.
What topped the ‘want’ list of the man who already had everything? What place did love have in his life? For a man so apparently driven by duty it seemed strange that he hadn’t done what was expected of him, married some suitably aristocratic woman and secured the succession.
Or hadn’t he found anyone to match his own apparent perfection?
It was, in the end, the very lack of any story that irritated her into action. Coupled with the knowledge that whoever broke through the icy façade to expose the real man would be an editorial favourite. All past mistakes forgiven.
It had to be a façade, surely? No one could be that perfect.
She’d messed up a promising career with a series of stupid blunders that had her spiralling down the ladder rather than climbing it, despite the hefty leg-up from her aunt. She had one last chance to redeem herself—she owed it to Jay to redeem herself—and that prickle of disquiet at the way his eyes had looked out of the magazine at her, seeming to taunt her with his invulnerability, suggested that this was the man to provide the story.
Nonsense, of course. He wasn’t taunting her. He was invulnerable and he knew it.
Nonsense it might be, but come evening she was standing outside his grand official London residence, staring up at tall, lighted, first-floor windows and wondering what he was doing up there.
Living up to his public relations image and working late into the night on matters of state?
Watching sport on the television, feet up, his supper on a tray after a hard day doing whatever it was that autocratic rulers did?
Best of all—career-wise—would be if he were entertaining, very discreetly, some lovely young woman.
A royal romance was always news. If she broke that story she’d be a media heroine overnight.
Not that a discreet young woman would go through the front door for everyone to see. She’d probably be driven into the mews at the rear, well away from prying eyes.
She crossed the road to check it out, her well-rehearsed ‘stray kitten’ story ready, just in case she was challenged by a security guard. As she hesitated at the entrance to the cobbled lane, wondering what on earth she thought she was doing, she heard something drop to the ground ahead of her.
A small bag.
She glanced up. Something darker was moving against the lighter stone of the building.
Not something. Someone.
Hardly the prince’s light of love, not climbing down a drainpipe. It had to be a burglar making off with state papers, or jewels. Imagination in overdrive, she took off down the lane without a thought for her own safety and launched herself at the shadowy figure as it jumped lightly to the ground, bringing the miscreant down with a flying rugby tackle.
They hit the cobbles, and Laura’s initial intention to yell for help was thwarted by the fact that she was momentarily winded. Besides, the burglar was making enough noise for both of them. Except it immediately became apparent that this wasn’t any ordinary burglar. Not if the high-pitched yell of fright was anything to go by.
This burglar was a girl, slight of figure and terribly young. And then, as her face was lit up by passing car headlights, she realised that she wasn’t any ordinary girl, either. It was a face she’d seen during her research on Prince Alexander. His niece. His sister’s youngest daughter, Princess Katerina Victoria Elizabeth.
‘Oh, sugar,’ she said.
The young princess, less restrained, was venting her feelings with scatological exactitude. ‘I suppose you’re Xander’s idea of a watchdog?’ she demanded, once she’d thoroughly relieved her feelings.
Xander? ‘Oh, you mean His Serene Highness. Er, well—’
‘He’ll give you the Order of Merit for this, I shouldn’t wonder. Second class.’
She stowed her curiosity as to the number of classes the Order of Merit boasted and, playing for time, went for stupid. ‘Sorry?’
‘In gratitude for breaking my ankle.’ And she moaned. ‘It’s the one guarantee that I won’t be doing this again any time soon.’
‘You’ve broken your ankle?’
‘No,’ she said, and moaned again. Louder. ‘You did that. When you flattened me.’
Stupid was right. ‘Oh, good grief. I’m so sorry, but I thought you were a burglar,’ Laura said, belatedly scrambling to her knees and taking a closer look. Princess Katerina was wearing a pair of serious boots—eighteen-hole jobs. Good support for her injured ankle, but they made an examination of the injury impossible. ‘Are you sure it’s broken?’ she asked, desperately hoping it might just be a bad sprain. ‘Which one is it?’
‘Does it matter?’ the princess demanded. Then, ‘It was the right ankle, okay? And of course I’m sure it’s broken. I felt it crack.’ She tried to sit up and cried out as she fell back.
Laura felt sick. ‘Can you get up? You need to get inside as quickly—’
‘Of course I can’t get up!’
‘If I help you up? You could lean on me—’
‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage? Look, just get some help, will you?’
The story of her life, she thought, pulling out her cellphone. ‘I’d better call an ambulance—’
‘No!’ She lifted her head. ‘Go to the house and ask for Karl. Tell him Katie sent you. And don’t tell anyone else what’s happened.’
Laura stripped off her jacket, folded it and tucked it beneath the girl’s head and shoulders. ‘I don’t like leaving you here on your own.’
‘I’ll be fine. Trust me. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘No. Look, I’m really sorry—’ The girl’s wince of pain as she lay back on the jacket brought her apologies to a premature end. ‘I’m going.’
The princess caught her hand. ‘Just bring Karl,’ she gasped, her face screwed up with pain. ‘No one else. He’s known me since I was a baby and I can persuade him to tell my uncle that I fell downstairs.’ There was a mute appeal in her eyes. ‘I’m not supposed to be out, you see.’
Somehow that didn’t come as a surprise. If her outing had been authorised she’d have left by a more orthodox route accompanied by appropriate security. However, since she had no intention of telling His Serene Highness that she’d broken his niece’s ankle, she was happy enough to reassure the girl.
‘I’ll bring him,’ she said. Then she grinned. ‘But only if you promise me you won’t tell anyone what really happened. I don’t relish the idea of being sued for assault and battery.’
‘It’s a deal.’ Princess Katerina started to laugh, then caught her breath as the pain cut in. ‘Please go.’
She didn’t want to leave the Princess, but the mews was quiet. She should be safe enough for a minute or two.
‘I’ll just be a minute, okay?’ The only answer was another groan and Laura turned and ran back down the street to the huge front door. She put her finger on the bell and kept it there until it was opened by a footman.
A footman!
‘Yes, miss?’ he enquired, looking down his nose in a manner he must have learned from the Prince.
‘May I speak to Karl?’ she asked politely. And prayed that he wouldn’t ask, Karl who? She should have asked the Princess that. It would help if she knew who, exactly, Karl was. Trevor was right. She would never make a journalist.
‘Who shall I say is calling?’ he replied.
‘It doesn’t matter who I am. Just get him, will you? It’s really urgent,’ she pressed, when the man’s appraising look—the kind that took in her general appearance and suggested she was kidding herself if she thought she was ever going to step foot over any threshold for which he was responsible—had gone on for a great deal longer than was polite. Then, crossing her fingers, she added, ‘Tell him Katie sent me.’ That did the trick. His expression did not change, but he instantly opened the door and stood back to let her inside.
‘Come in,’ he said, not so much an invitation as an order. Since she wanted nothing more than to step inside the Prince’s palatial London residence, she did as she was told. It was just as well she hadn’t been congratulating herself on her good fortune. She got no further than the porter’s room beside the front door. ‘Wait here.’
Not that she could concentrate on her surroundings. She was too worried about the Princess to absorb the finely carved mouldings, the squared black and white marble flooring, the elegant staircase that she glimpsed through the doors to the vast inner reception hall.
Okay, so she’d got that much.
But she was definitely too worried to congratulate herself that it had taken her less than twelve hours to breach the defences of this most private of royals. With a potential ally on the inside.
She’d been waiting less than thirty seconds when the door behind her opened, and she spun round prepared to spill out the disaster to some venerable old family retainer.
Instead she found herself confronted by the devil himself. The owner of the face that had been haunting her for the last twenty-four hours. The reason for her presence on the footpath opposite.
Even without the white tie and tails, the blue silk of an Order ribbon, there could be no doubt that she was in the presence of a man who knew he was born to rule. Even in what, for him, were undoubtedly casual clothes—linen chinos, an open-necked shirt, cashmere sweater—he still had an air of authority that made her wish she hadn’t listened to his niece but had gone with her first thought and called an ambulance.
‘Where is Princess Katerina?’
Well, she thought, that was royalty for you. Anyone else would have said, ‘Where is my niece?’ or ‘Where is Katie?’ But they never forgot that they were different. Never let the mask slip.
Prince Alexander hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to. He spoke with the natural authority of his rank, leaving her in no doubt that he expected her to answer him swiftly and truthfully or suffer the consequences, and at this point Laura’s sympathies were all with the Princess. She could certainly see why she’d hoped to keep her escapade from her uncle. But there was no hope of secrecy now. The footman had done what he’d seen as his duty. And the Princess needed warmth and medical attention.
‘She’s outside. I’m afraid she’s broken her ankle.’
‘I see.’ That was it. The man was ice. She’d just told him that his niece was lying hurt on the pavement and he responded with a calm that sent a chill whiffling down her spine. ‘Show me.’
The footman held the door for them and he indicated, wordlessly, that she should lead the way. It was all she could do to stop herself from backing out as, equally wordlessly, she did as she was bid with a silent apology to Katie. So much for her friend on the inside.
‘She’s down there, on the left, in the mews,’ she said as he followed her into the street.
Except, of course, she wasn’t. The cobbled lane was empty. The Princess—and her favourite jacket—had disappeared.
CHAPTER TWO
LAURA came to an abrupt halt. ‘She was here,’ she said, looking around her in confusion.
The Princess might have realised that she could move after all—tried to make herself more comfortable while she waited—but she wasn’t anywhere within a hundred yards. If she could have moved that far, surely she’d have gone home? Even if home meant trouble.
‘I left her just here,’ she insisted, pointing to the spot where they’d both crashed to the cobbles.
‘With a broken ankle?’ Prince Alexander did not sound convinced. He glanced up at the nearby drainpipe. ‘How far did she fall?’ he asked, without waiting for explanations. He evidently knew his niece very well indeed.
‘She didn’t fall,’ she began, then stopped.
She had no wish to dwell on what—or who—had caused the injury. Besides, there were more important things to worry about. Like, what had happened to the Princess? Two minutes ago she’d been lying where they were standing. Injured, unable even to attempt to hobble to the front door. Now she’d vanished into thin air.
‘I left her just here,’ she said. ‘I put my jacket under her head and—’
‘It’s not here now,’ he said, cutting short her explanation.
‘I was just going to say that!’ Then, ‘Oh!’ She turned and stared up at the Prince in total horror as the reality of what must have happened sank in. ‘She’s been kidnapped, hasn’t she? And it’s all my fault!’
‘I doubt that.’ Prince Alexander appeared totally unmoved by her dramatic declaration. Or the fate of his niece. Clearly he didn’t understand what she was telling him.
‘Yes, really!’ she insisted. It was no good. She’d have to own up. ‘Look, I saw her climbing down the drainpipe and I thought she was a burglar, so I tackled her to the ground.’ His dark brows rose imperceptibly. Actually, putting it baldly like that it did seem pretty unlikely, she realised, but after the briefest pause she pressed on with her confession. ‘That’s when she broke her ankle. As I said, my fault. I didn’t want to leave her—’
‘But she insisted?’ Then, without giving her an opportunity to reply, ‘I wasn’t actually referring to your culpability, merely to your reasoning.’
What?
‘Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Princess Katerina told me that she wasn’t supposed to be out. I get the picture, okay? You’re mad at her and she’s in trouble. But that scarcely matters under the circumstances. She’s disappeared and you have to do something. Now!’
‘I’m sorry, Miss—’ He paused, offering her an opportunity to introduce herself.
‘Varndell,’ she completed quickly. She was beginning to suspect that this was a man who wouldn’t do anything until the social niceties had been satisfied. No matter what the emergency. ‘Laura Varndell. But I really don’t think—’
‘Alexander Orsino,’ he replied, offering his hand. ‘How d’you do?’
That was it. Enough.
‘This isn’t a cocktail party!’ she declared furiously, ignoring his hand. ‘And I know who you are. All I want to know is what you’re going to do about finding your niece!’
‘Nothing while I’m standing in this alleyway,’ he informed her, his voice cool enough to freeze a whole pitcher of cocktails. ‘If you’ll come back into the house—?’
Ice? Had she thought the man was made of something as warm as ice?
‘I don’t want to go back into the house!’
What was she saying!
Hadn’t she been standing on the pavement trying to come up with some plan to get herself invited inside? Her whole career depended upon it. Possibly. But right now Princess Katerina’s disappearance took precedence.
‘I want you to call the police—or Special Branch—or the Diplomatic Protection Squad. Right now!’ she demanded, when he didn’t leap to her command.
‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ he enquired, apparently unperturbed by the crisis.
The ‘serene’ bit of his title wasn’t just for show, apparently. But this wasn’t a time for serenity. It was a time for panic.
‘Shout?’ he offered, when she didn’t help him out.
The air left her lungs with a little whoosh, deflating along with the rest of her. ‘No, sorry—of course not,’ she muttered. Then she laughed. Well, it was more of a giggle, really, but even so quite unforgivable under the circumstances. ‘I don’t appear to be thinking very clearly.’ Which had to be the understatement of the year. ‘I’m not used to this kind of thing.’
‘You’ve had a shock, Miss Varndell, one for which my niece will, in due course, apologise. In the meantime I really do think you should come inside. Take a moment to recover.’
It was hysterics, of course. The desperate urge to giggle. In some small rational part of her brain she recognised that. This man’s niece had been kidnapped and all he was concerned about was that a total stranger might have suffered a little shock.
Noblesse oblige was safe in the hands of His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Michael George Orsino.
And why would she be complaining, exactly?
She’d got her wish. The Prince was inviting her into his home and handing her a scoop on a plate. The inside story on a royal kidnapping was just what she needed to get back into Trevor McCarthy’s good books. The very least she could do was to say ‘thank you’ very nicely and let His Serene Highness take her inside so that she could do her research in comfort.
While she was recovering.
Slowly.
So that she could watch the story unfold around her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as nicely—if somewhat breathlessly—as she knew how. ‘I do seem to be feeling a little bit shaky.’
One moment it was an act, the next it was nothing but the truth as the Prince took her elbow in his palm and directed her firmly towards his front door. His manner suggested that, thoughtful though his invitation had appeared, he’d had no intention of letting her go anywhere until he’d grilled her about her involvement in his niece’s disappearance.
She swallowed.
It would make great copy, she reminded herself.
Once she’d got bail.
He paused as they reached the lights of the elegant porticoed entrance, glancing down at her, his devilish eyebrows drawn down in the slightest frown and, for just a moment, she thought those dark eyes could see right through her. Read her mind.
‘You’ve grazed your cheek, Miss Varndell,’ he said. She instinctively lifted her hand to check, but he caught her wrist, stopping her. ‘And your knuckles.’
‘It’s nothing,’ she said automatically, her expensive boarding-school having instilled the stern lesson that ladies did not make a fuss.
Fortunately, Alexander Orsino ignored her stoicism.
‘I’ll get someone to see to them,’ he said, every inch the autocrat.
He paused to speak briefly to the footman in a language that wasn’t quite Italian, or French, but a Montorinan dialect that her brain wasn’t quite up to unscrambling at such speed. It was already fully occupied.
The man bowed in acknowledgement and backed away while Prince Alexander, his hand still welded firmly to her elbow, led her towards a wide curving staircase without another word.
She should be looking around, she thought, as she attempted to keep a grip on reality. She should be taking mental notes. But she was having trouble enough just catching her breath.
The man was right. She had to be in shock. That would explain why she had the oddest feeling that she’d stepped into the set of an operetta, with its sweeping staircase, crystal chandeliers and very superior footman wearing black tails.
Add to the mix a cold-hearted prince, a peasant girl and a missing princess—there were all the ingredients for a fairy tale frivolity.
The clothes were all wrong, of course. Peasant girls wore dirndl skirts and embroidered blouses—at least in operetta—while she was wearing a pair of extremely functional cargo pants and a sweatshirt of such antiquity that whatever words had originally been splashed across her bosom had long since faded to illegibility.
Not that the Prince, with his open-necked shirt and cashmere sweater, was getting more than three out of ten for effort. Didn’t he dress for dinner, for heaven’s sake?
Where were his standards?
She dragged herself back from the beckoning arms of hysteria as he opened a door and ushered her into a book-lined room that clearly doubled as sitting room and study.
Here, the baroque evaporated and they were back in the twenty-first century. Computers, a couple of large sofas, a functional desk and enough paperwork to keep an average-sized business going for a month. But running a small country presumably entailed a vast amount of paperwork, and for just a moment she felt a twinge of sympathy for the man. No time to put his feet up with the television, or a pretty girl for this prince.
‘Brandy?’ he offered.
‘What?’ Distracted, she turned back to the Prince. ‘I think the princess’s welfare is more important right now. What are you going to do about finding her?’ she asked. But politely. She suspected that she’d already stretched her luck to breaking point.
‘Nothing. I know where she is. Please make yourself comfortable, Miss Varndell,’ he continued, indicating one of the sofas.
‘You know?’
‘More accurately, I know where she’s going. My niece wished to go to a club with some friends. I refused to give permission. She is, after all, under age.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve despatched her security officer to bring her home.’
She stared at him. ‘Are you crazy? Weren’t you listening? She had a broken ankle!’
‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’ he replied as he took her hand and placed an exquisite crystal glass in it, closing his long fingers around hers until he was certain she had it safely. Long, slender fingers, one of them bearing a heavy gold signet ring embossed with his personal coat of arms. ‘Did you see it for yourself?’
She blinked, looked up. ‘See what?’
‘Princess Katerina’s ankle?’ he prompted.
‘Oh. Well, no, she was wearing boots, but she said—’
She’d said it was broken—had groaned convincingly. Laura subsided on to the sofa as she realised that, once again, she’d been played for a fool.
‘Oh, I see. You’re suggesting that she was just pretending. Playing hurt to get rid of me while she made good her escape.’
‘I would say it’s more likely than a chance kidnapping, wouldn’t you?’
It would certainly explain why she’d insisted on being left where she was rather than attempting, with help, to make it inside, which would have been her own choice under the circumstances, no matter how painful. She took a sip of the brandy, felt the steadying warmth as it slipped down.
She’d been very convincing.
‘How can you be so sure?’ she asked.
Prince Alexander lifted one eyebrow the merest fraction of a millimetre as he poured another measure for himself.
‘Oh, I see. She’s done this before.’
‘Not Katerina. She wouldn’t have managed it twice,’ he assured her in a tone that left her in no doubt he was telling the truth.
‘So how do you—?’ And then, in a flash of intuition, she realised that the Princess was not the first member of the Royal House of Orsino to have made a break for freedom. Prince Alexander might have had something of a reputation as a young man, but he’d only been following a trail blazed by his older sister.
‘She not only looks like her mother, but has apparently inherited her laissez-faire attitude to personal behaviour,’ he admitted stiffly. ‘You have my sincerest apologies for the fright you’ve been given, Miss Varndell. My niece will make her own apologies in due course.’
Under normal circumstances two Miss Varndells were about as much as she could take before she begged to be called Laura. Outside, on the pavement, she might have begged. Inside, his formality made such a request unthinkable.
‘That’s not important. I’m just relieved that she’s not in danger.’ Then, ‘This security character—he’s not going to haul her out of the club, is he?’ She imagined how humiliated she’d feel under such circumstances. ‘It’ll only make her more resentful,’ she began. Then stopped. ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Then, with the faintest crease softening the corners of his eyes, ‘But if you’ll forgive me for saying so, it’s somewhat sexist of you to assume that her security officer is male.’
A crack in the ice? He was a lot more attractive when he smiled. Almost human.
‘Did you really think I’d send some uniformed heavy to barge in and drag her home?’ The smile deepened in response to her embarrassed flush. ‘There’s no need to answer that. I may be a monster—my niece certainly believes so—Miss Varndell, but I was once a young monster with my own problem with rules.’
‘But you’re still going to have her brought home.’
‘Certainly.’ Then, ‘You have some objection?’
‘It’s not my place to object. I just think that making a public spectacle of the girl isn’t likely to improve matters.’
‘You’re suggesting that with a proper chaperon she should be allowed to stay for a while?’
‘A chaperon? Heaven forbid! I’m sure she’d rather come home than submit to that,’ she said. Just to see how deep the crack went. ‘Poor girl.’
‘Scarcely that,’ he replied, abruptly losing the smile. Not very far, then.
‘There’s more than one way to experience poverty,’ she muttered, but not quietly enough, and his eyebrows rose with sufficient alacrity to indicate that he was unused to having his actions questioned. Especially since he clearly thought he was being incredibly relaxed about the whole matter.
‘You’re suggesting emotional impoverishment?’ he demanded.
‘I wouldn’t be that impertinent.’
‘Oh, I think you would.’
Cold, but perceptive. He didn’t wait for her to admit it, but picked up the telephone and spoke briefly into it before glancing back at her.
She’d been holding her breath, but his expression did not suggest he was about to have her bodily ejected. Yet.
‘So,’ he continued, as if there had been no interruption. ‘Enlighten me. What are you suggesting, Miss Varndell?’
Her mouth dried. Lecturing the man on the best way to raise his niece was not going to get her the prized interview. But it might get her some memorable quotes.
If she provoked him sufficiently she fancied she’d be able to name her price for the story. And Trevor McCarthy would have to stand in line.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
Well, why not? He’d asked for it, and the least she could do in return for his unwitting assistance in promoting her career was to give the Prince the benefit of her experience.
‘Young people need to test themselves against the world so that they can learn from their mistakes. Discover safe boundaries. Keeping them wrapped in cotton wool leaves them vulnerable.’ His face remained expressionless. No hint of that smile now. She swallowed nervously. ‘Later.’
‘You are speaking from personal experience?’
‘Well, I’m young,’ she hedged. Then realised that the Princess would probably think her well past it at twenty-four. ‘Well, youngish,’ she amended. ‘Young enough to remember being Katie’s age.’
Not that she’d had parents to restrict her movements. But school had been worse. You couldn’t have a row with an institution. And slamming doors was pointless. You didn’t get understanding. You just got a lecture on the subject of thoughtful behaviour, followed by a week of detention.
‘Well, thank you for your advice, but I’d rather my niece didn’t make her mistakes on my watch. She can return to Montorino to complete her education.’
‘That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? One mistake and she’s out?’
His mouth straightened into a hard line that warned her to have a care. Then, presumably because she was an outsider and could not be expected to understand this, he gave a curt bow of the head and, conceding the point, said, ‘Maybe it is harsh, but this family has provided the newsprint of Europe with more than enough scandal. I do not want a photograph of Katerina, under age and behaving badly, to appear in your newspapers,’ he said.
Her throat dried.
‘I suppose the British press is no worse than anywhere else, but they’d make the most of such a story,’ he continued.
‘Oh, yes. I see.’ He’d been speaking generally. It took a moment for her heartbeat to return to something approaching normal. ‘It’s, um, just as well there wasn’t a newspaper photographer lurking outside when she made a break for it, then.’
There was nothing in his expression to suggest that he had even noticed her sarcasm, but his upper lip was so stiff that any kind of expression would have been difficult.
‘That kind of photographer only lurks where there is likely to be something worth his time. If tonight’s escapade becomes public knowledge they’ll be stacked ten deep.’
‘It won’t become public knowledge, surely? Unless she makes a fuss when the leash is jerked.’
‘You’re suggesting that if I don’t jerk it no one will notice her?’
‘Well, she wasn’t wearing a tiara.’
‘You recognised her,’ he pointed out.
Oh, sugar. Think. Think. ‘Only because she was coming out of your official residence.’ Another raised brow queried how she knew that. ‘I’ve seen the flag,’ she said, which appeared to satisfy him. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised her if I’d seen her in the street.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘In black denim, and with a hair-do from hell, she didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a princess.’
‘Nevertheless, seventeen is a dangerous age,’ he declared with the confidence of a man who remembered just how dangerous it could be. ‘Which is why I am sending her home.’
‘It’s a dangerous age wherever you live,’ she replied. And, since she had nothing to lose, she added, ‘Or are the boys in Montorino different? A little less testosterone-driven?’ She met his cool stare, matched it, then, with measured insolence, added, ‘Sir?’
‘Not noticeably,’ he admitted after an epic pause. ‘But I can be certain that she’ll receive appropriate respect there.’
‘She’s seventeen! She doesn’t want respect. She wants to have fun—and you can’t keep her locked up in an enchanted tower for ever. Try it and she’ll escape with the first good-looking scoundrel with a head for heights—’ Too late, she remembered that his sister had done something very like that.
There was a tap on the door and, with the temperature of Prince Alexander’s expression sinking in direct proportion to the depth of the hole she was digging with her mouth, Laura seized the opportunity to shut up.
He continued to stare at her for what seemed like for ever before he finally turned away and snapped, ‘Come in.’
One of the doors opened and a young maid appeared bearing a first aid box resting on a silver tray. She dropped a curtsey in the direction of the Prince before putting the tray on the table in front of Laura. ‘Excuse,’ she said, nervously. ‘You will—? I will—?’
Laura smiled encouragingly, but the girl was too shy to respond. Instead she picked up the first aid box and, her hands shaking noticeably, tried to open it. The lid at first refused to give but when, in desperation, she gave it a sharp tug it flew open, scattering the contents over the table and floor.
There was a moment of utter stillness before, with a wail of anguish, the girl rushed from the room.
‘Why on earth do these silly girls behave as if I’m going to beat them?’ the Prince demanded.
‘I can’t imagine,’ Laura said caustically as she bent to retrieve the contents of the box. ‘You’d better send her home with Princess Katerina—’
‘Leave that!’
She glanced up.
He lifted a hand in a gesture that was at once supplication and exasperation. ‘My apologies. I did not mean to bark at you.’
He was concerned about Katerina, she realised with a belated flash of insight. Behind that rigid exterior he was just like any man worried about a reckless teenager in his care.
Recalling some of her own wilder moments, she felt her over-developed sense of empathy well up, and another dangerous surge of sympathy for him. She quashed it mercilessly. He did not need her sympathy. Jay had offered him as a target because of his very lack of sympathetic qualities.
‘I’m sure she’ll be okay,’ she said and, ignoring his command, continued to pick up the dressings.
‘Are you?’ He bent to help her, folding his long legs as he reached beneath the table. ‘It isn’t easy.’
‘Being her guardian?’ she asked, catching her breath as his shoulder brushed against hers.
‘Being young,’ he countered, concentrating on his task. ‘Being so visible. Having every mistake you make the subject of common gossip.’
He was holding a pouch containing an antiseptic wipe as if not quite sure what to do with it.
‘Shall I take that?’ she offered, holding out her hand.
Alexander Orsino looked up to discover that Laura Varndell was regarding him solemnly, her wide silvery blue eyes apparently brimming over with compassion, concern.
He had no need of her concern. No need of any assistance. He wasn’t helpless and to demonstrate the fact, in the absence of the maid, he would deal with her grazes himself.
‘Sit down,’ he said, tearing open the pouch containing an antiseptic wipe before sitting down beside her. ‘Give me your hand.’
For a moment she stared at him in disbelief, then wordlessly—which was probably a first—she did as she was told, holding out her hand for his attention. It was long, finely boned—a hand, wrist, made for the sparkle of diamonds. But it was bare of any kind of adornment other than nail polish.
He supported it, holding it gently as he dabbed at her knuckles with the antiseptic.
She was trembling almost imperceptibly, doubtless still feeling the after effects of her reckless behaviour, and he found himself wanting to tighten his grip, reassure her.
‘Tell me, Miss Varndell,’ he said, by way of distraction, ‘do you make a habit of tackling burglars?’
‘I couldn’t say. I’ve never been in that situation before. The truth is, I didn’t stop to think.’
‘Well, on this occasion I’m glad you didn’t,’ he said, glancing up and momentarily left struggling for breath as he looked straight into her huge, solemn eyes. ‘Will you promise me that next time you think you’re witnessing a crime in progress you will walk away? Call the police?’
‘If I’d done that today you wouldn’t have known that your niece had made a break for freedom,’ she pointed out.
‘Even so. Promise me.’
‘I’ll try,’ she offered, hooking a strand of pale blonde hair behind her ear to reveal a tiny gold earring in the shape of a star. ‘But only if you’ll stop calling me Miss Varndell, as if you’re addressing a public meeting. I prefer Laura.’
He preferred formality. It was a useful way of keeping his distance. Except, of course, Laura Varndell had already breached his highest defences. Few outsiders ever made it into this room.
Stalling for time, he looked for another antiseptic wipe, took his time about opening it before he turned to face her, lifting her chin with the touch of his fingers, turning her face to the light. She had silver-blue eyes, clear, almost translucent skin that was the gift of cool, northern skies, and stars in her ears. And as she lifted her head, and her flaxen hair slid back from her neck, he found himself imagining how it would look encircled by the wide collar of pearls that had once belonged to his mother.
Which was enough to bring him back to earth.
And, faintly embarrassed to be caught staring, he said, ‘It’s nothing. No real damage.’ But he touched the moist cloth to her cheek to clean away a smear of dust. ‘What did you do?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Me?’
‘You seem very knowledgeable about the dangers of restricting teenage girls. Were you reckless? At seventeen?’
‘Oh, I see.’ Her lips parted as she laughed. ‘I really don’t think I should tell you that. I’m on Princess Katerina’s side in this and I’d hate to prejudice her case.’
‘In other words, yes.’ She didn’t answer. ‘Did you escape down drainpipes?’ he persisted. ‘Go to clubs and parties your parents had forbidden?’
Her smile faded. ‘I had no parents to forbid me. They were killed when I was a child.’
He stilled. ‘I’m so sorry, Laura.’
She’d finally touched him with this common bond between them, and for a moment he wanted to say that he understood her loss, her pain—
‘It was a long time ago and really I barely knew them,’ she said quickly, before he could speak. He recognised the defence mechanism. ‘They were always away a lot, and then I was at boarding school, but in answer to your question, yes, Your Highness, I was frequently reckless—although I never climbed down a drainpipe.’ Her lovely eyes appeared to cloud momentarily. ‘I’m afraid of heights.’
‘But not much else, I’d suspect,’ he said.
‘Then you’d be wrong,’ she said, jacking the smile back into place, determinedly shaking off whatever shadow had crossed her thoughts. ‘I’m absolutely terrified at this moment.’
He regarded her quizzically. He knew she was a little shaky, had felt the almost imperceptible tremble of her hand as it lay in his, but outwardly she was calm, composed.
‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘You’re not like that silly girl, afraid of me.’ It was not a question.
‘Well, actually I am, just a bit. But only because I know you’re going to be angry with me.’
He leaned back, surprised. ‘Why would I be angry with you?’
‘Because I’m going to ask you to give Katerina another chance. Ground her, if you must,’ she rushed on. ‘She’s been foolish; of course she has. But even princesses need a day off now and then. An opportunity to be ordinary.’
‘Ordinary?’
‘You know. Girl-in-the-street ordinary.’
‘Oh, please.’
‘Has she ever been on a bus or the underground?’ she demanded. Then, as an afterthought, ‘Have you?’
Scarcely sure whether to be amused or affronted, he said, ‘I’ve never found it necessary.’
‘The chauffeur is on call twenty-four hours a day, I guess.’
‘Not the same one,’ he assured her, opting for amusement. He had a feeling it would be safer. ‘But, yes. It goes with the job. I am on call twenty-four hours a day, too. Seven days a week. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year.’
‘You never have a day off?’
‘I escape occasionally.’ He put on working clothes, went to his vineyard to work up an honest sweat. ‘But my pager is never switched off.’
‘Poor you, too, then,’ she responded. And sounded as if she meant it.
‘You make it sound as if I am deprived,’ he said, suddenly finding even his simulated amusement difficult to sustain. ‘I cannot believe, given the choice, that you would surrender a chauffeur-driven car in order to battle with the rush hour crowds on the underground.’
‘Maybe not, but you lose something, keeping the outside world at a distance. The underground may be crowded and dirty, but it’s real,’ she said. ‘Using it is a life skill. Like learning to use a public telephone—’
‘My niece has a mobile phone,’ he said, cutting off her nonsense. ‘And I can assure you she knows how to use it. It costs a small fortune—’
‘And if she lost it?’ she demanded, interrupting him. People did not interrupt him. ‘Or it was stolen? This evening, for instance, on her way to this club. If she got into difficulties would she know how to use a public call box?’
Now she was being ridiculous. ‘How difficult can it be?’
‘Nothing is difficult if you know how to do it. But suppose that first time she was frightened, confused, in a panic? Suppose it was one of those boxes that only takes a prepaid phone card and she didn’t have one?’
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