Page 153 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Just an­other re­minder that Gabriel in­hab­ited a dif­fer­ent world from hers.

When they walked into the sala, Quinn was sur­prised to find it al­most cozy with a low-beamed ceil­ing and mul­lioned win­dows that let in slant­ing strokes of late-day sun­light. The hum of con­ver­sa­tion paused be­fore Hélène rose from a gold vel­vet love seat with her hands held out. “Quinn, bon­soir!”

Quinn smiled at the gra­cious woman who had in­vited her into her an­ces­tral home, choos­ing not to think of her as Gabriel’s mother, who would hate her for mak­ing her son un­happy. An­other trick of her fa­ther’s when con­ning some­one.

As they air-kissed, Quinn said, “Thank you so much for invit­ing me. I’ve looked for­ward to see­ing where Gabriel grew up.”

“It is a plea­sure to have you here,” Hélène re­sponded. “Ask Gabri to give you a tour later. Per­haps you could even spend the night?”

That kicked her in the gut. “Thank you for the in­vi­ta­tion,” Quinn man­aged to say.

While Hélène or­ga­nized a drink for her, Quinn’s gaze went not to Odette Fontaine, as it should have, but to the king stand­ing by the mar­ble fire­place. That was the ef­fect Luis had, even when he was sup­posed to be re­lax­ing with his fam­ily. Tonight, he wore a deep red shirt and dark gray trousers, his gar­ments fit­ting, as al­ways, with cus­tom-tai­lored per­fec­tion. He caught Quinn’s gaze and nod­ded to her, his ex­pres­sion too con­trolled to read. She dropped a quick but re­spect­ful curtsy.

Only then did she shift her at­ten­tion to the woman seated on the same love seat Hélène had risen from.

Odette was ex­am­in­ing her with undis­guised ap­praisal. Quinn gave her a ten­ta­tive smile, as though shy of a high-pow­ered guest of the royal fam­ily, but she didn’t look away.

The French­woman looked like the many pho­tos Quinn had stud­ied. Her auburn hair was piled el­e­gantly on top of her head with a few wisps curl­ing around her oval face. Her pale skin was flaw­less, prob­a­bly from skill­ful ap­pli­ca­tion of her own makeup and the use of the Cal­e­van lily cream. She wore an am­ber silk, belted dress with long sleeves and a flow­ing an­kle-length skirt that was slit up the front to above her knees. Its draped folds framed her shapely legs and high-heeled green suede pumps. Ev­ery piece of cloth­ing screamed de­signer. No sur­prise there.

What sur­prised Quinn were the ways that Odette did not look like her pho­tos. Even seated, she ap­peared taller and broader-shoul­dered, ex­ud­ing more strength than el­e­gance. An air of watch­ful still­ness sur­rounded her like an aura. Quinn thought of a snake coiled to strike. The royal fam­ily—with the ex­cep­tion of Luis—spoke of her with such af­fec­tion that Quinn had been ex­pect­ing more warmth, at least in this set­ting.

Ev­ery­one played their parts to per­fec­tion, wel­com­ing Quinn into the group as though she were an ap­proved girl­friend. Raul hugged her, while Lorenzo shocked her by tak­ing her hand in both of his and say­ing in a low voice, “Thank you for giv­ing Gabriel’s mu­sic back to him.” Luck­ily, she didn’t have to re­spond, be­cause Hélène led her over to meet Odette.

When she was in­tro­duced, the French­woman shook hands with a faint smile curv­ing her wide mouth. “Un plaisir. A plea­sure to meet you,” she said. “I of­ten travel to New York on busi­ness. A fas­ci­nat­ing city, al­though not so his­tor­i­cal as Paris, of course.”

It was nei­ther a com­pli­ment nor quite an in­sult.

“I’m en­joy­ing the his­tory of Cal­eva. I au­dit a course at the Uni­ver­sity de San Ig­na­cio,” Quinn said.

Gabriel strolled up and slipped his arm around Quinn’s waist, gaz­ing down at her with de­vo­tion. “Quinn has adopted our coun­try with en­thu­si­asm.”

“How charm­ing,” Odette mur­mured. “What brought you here?”

“A job of­fer I couldn’t turn down,” Quinn said. “I work in IT.” That gen­er­ally shut down fur­ther ques­tions.

“You must be very good at what you do,” Odette said. “I would try to lure you away to Ar­cham­beau, but it would be hard to com­pete with this.” She swept her hand around the beau­ti­ful room with all its royal oc­cu­pants.

Quinn gazed up at Gabriel’s face with a be­sot­ted smile as she said, “Very hard to com­pete.”

“Car­iño mío,” Gabriel said, match­ing her smile.

A woman in the blue-green uni­form of royal staff came in to speak with Hélène. The duchess nod­ded and said, “Din­ner is ready. Shall we go in?”

They pro­ceeded across the en­trance hall to the din­ing room. It was more for­mal than the sala, with a vaulted ceil­ing and wood pan­el­ing painted with Cal­e­van flora and fauna. The ta­ble set­ting was ca­sual, though. Pewter can­dle­hold­ers sat atop a coarsely wo­ven cream table­cloth. The chunky teal dishes looked as though they’d come from the same lo­cal pot­tery where Quinn had bought hers.

The king sat at the head of the ta­ble as al­ways. Hélène ar­ranged the seat­ing so that Odette was seated on the king’s right and the duchess on the king’s left. Raul sat be­side Hélène, while Lorenzo was next to Odette. Quinn and Gabriel were op­po­site each other, with Quinn’s seat giv­ing her a clear view of Odette. She couldn’t de­cide if it was bet­ter or worse to sit across from Gabriel. She couldn’t avoid watch­ing the ex­pres­sions danc­ing across his strik­ing face, but at least there was no chance of their thighs or hands brush­ing.

As they set­tled at their places, Quinn was sur­prised to no­tice an un­usual ease be­tween Gabriel and his fa­ther. Gabriel even smiled at some­thing Lorenzo said in too low a voice for Quinn to catch. Gabriel saw her watch­ing and lifted his eye­brows. Quinn gave him a gen­uine, ap­prov­ing smile. What­ever had hap­pened with his dad was a good thing.

The king said a brief prayer of thanks, and the staff be­gan to pour wine and serve bowls of vichys­soise and bas­kets of crusty baguettes—the French cui­sine in honor of Odette, Quinn as­sumed.

Raul lifted his wine­glass to­ward his fa­ther and said, “Que vi­vas du­rante to­dos los días de tu vida. Salud!”

The king’s lips twitched into a sar­donic smile, and he nod­ded as ev­ery­one at the ta­ble saluted him with their glasses.

Quinn put down her wine and leaned across the ta­ble to mur­mur to Gabriel, “May you con­tinue to live all the days of your life?” she trans­lated. “Am I miss­ing some­thing in the gram­mar?”

He bent to­ward her. “It’s a fam­ily joke. At state din­ners, Tío Luis is al­ways wished a long reign in flow­ery terms. So at fam­ily gath­er­ings, we toast him in a way that sounds fancy but means noth­ing.”

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