Page 59 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“You’ll ar­rive just as dessert is served.” Mikel stood. “I be­lieve Gabriel will be as in­ter­ested in speak­ing with you as you are with him. He’ll be able to ex­cuse him­self at that point in the meal.”

Quinn felt a flush of heat creep­ing into her cheeks. She lifted her chin in de­fi­ance of her em­bar­rass­ment.

Mikel’s ex­pres­sion soft­ened. “I’m pleased that Gabriel chooses to con­fide in you. You can be trusted.”

Her boss was about to walk out the door when Quinn asked, “Wait! What should I wear?”

Mikel just chuck­led and kept walk­ing.

From the guard at the back gate to the ma­jor­domo who led her along hall­ways with stone floors worn by cen­turies of foot­steps, Quinn had en­coun­tered no con­cern about her pres­ence in the royal fam­ily’s pri­vate quar­ters at the palace. Mikel had smoothed the way.

Now she waited in a cozy, book-lined den while the ma­jor­domo let the king know she was there. Quinn tugged at the bot­tom of her pale gray suit jacket to make sure it sat neatly over her hips. She had de­cided to go with all-busi­ness at­tire since she was act­ing as an of­fi­cial courier for her boss, not that she ever got this dressed up for the of­fice. Tucked into her tai­lored gray trousers, she wore a pale blue silk blouse. Out of re­spect for the king, she’d even tor­tured her feet with high-heeled black pumps. Her hair was tamed into a neat bun low at the back of her head. Her one small flash of ir­rev­er­ence was the basalt Cal­e­van dragon charm on the fine gold chain around her neck. It was a tourist’s sou­venir that she found amus­ing.

The ma­jor­domo re­turned with a slight smile. “They’re just fin­ish­ing dessert, so you may go in.”

She hes­i­tated. Was she sup­posed to wait for him to an­nounce her?

He saw her con­fu­sion and ges­tured to­ward the door­way. “It’s a ca­sual din­ner. No need for cer­e­mony.”

“Thanks.” She took a deep breath, tight­ened her hold on the leather port­fo­lio that Mikel had put la mar­quise's pa­pers in, and strode through the door as though she dropped in on royal gath­er­ings on a reg­u­lar ba­sis.

Her first im­pres­sion was that there were more peo­ple at the can­dlelit oval ta­ble than she had ex­pected for a ca­sual din­ner. Then Gabriel and Raul stood, Gabriel’s face light­ing up in a way that made her in­sides quiver. “Quinn, what an un­ex­pected plea­sure!” he said.

Mikel had told Quinn to curtsy to the king be­fore greet­ing any­one else, so she an­swered Gabriel with only a smile. Then she turned in the di­rec­tion of the head of the ta­ble where Luis sat, wear­ing a ma­roon but­ton-down shirt. “Señor,” she said, cross­ing one leg be­hind her, bend­ing her knees, and dip­ping her head slightly.

The king waved off her salu­ta­tion. “No need for that. Come in.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m here on be­half of Mikel. He asked me to de­liver these re­ports to Madame la Mar­quise.” She lifted the port­fo­lio. “He apol­o­gizes for not be­ing able to come him­self.”

“You’re the de­light­ful young woman I met at Mikel’s of­fice,” la Mar­quise de Meror­age said from her seat to the right of the king. “Do join us for dessert. The tres leches cake is ex­quis­ite.”

Mikel had made sure to in­tro­duce Quinn to la mar­quise when the sil­ver-haired no­ble­woman had come for their meet­ing ear­lier in the day.

“Yes, please stay.” Gabriel’s deep voice came from be­side her, mak­ing her jerk her gaze around to meet his gray eyes. For a mo­ment, she let her­self linger on the an­gles of his face and the gleam of can­dle­light on his dark hair. Her heart did a lit­tle stut­ter of joy at see­ing him again. Not good.

With­out wait­ing for her an­swer, he ges­tured to a server, who dashed away. “Thank you,” she re­peated be­fore she turned back to la mar­quise. “Where would you like me to put the re­ports?”

“My god­daugh­ter, Camille, will take charge of them.” La mar­quise nod­ded to­ward a young woman with long, dark blond hair who sat be­side Raul. “Camille, this is Quinn, who works for Mikel. Will you keep track of the re­ports she brought for me?”

“Mais oui, Tante Joséphine.” Camille smiled at Quinn and started to stand.

“No need to get up. I’ll bring them to you,” Quinn said, glad to move away from the head of the ta­ble and the in­tim­i­dat­ing royal aura. She glanced at the foot of the ta­ble and nearly stopped in her tracks. The man who sat there was al­most the king’s twin, which meant that he must be Gabriel’s fa­ther. And the empty chair that the server had in­serted be­tween Don Lorenzo and Gabriel was meant for her.

Shit!

“Al­low me.” Gabriel took the port­fo­lio from her un­re­sist­ing grasp as she swal­lowed hard. He put his hand on the small of Quinn’s back, the light pres­sure send­ing a rip­ple of plea­sure up her spine de­spite her nerves, and guided her to­ward the va­cant seat.

“Fa­ther, al­low me to in­tro­duce Quinn Pier­son. She has been in­valu­able in the kid­nap­ping in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” Gabriel said. “Quinn, my fa­ther, Don Lorenzo.”

Gabriel’s in­tro­duc­tion was so stiff and for­mal that she de­cided to take her cue from it. She dipped a small curtsy. “It is an honor to meet you, Señor.”

Gabriel pulled out the chair and held it for her while she sat.

Un­like the king’s, Don Lorenzo’s blue-gray eyes held no glint of hu­mor at the Amer­i­can try­ing to deal with un­fa­mil­iar pro­to­col, al­though he nod­ded with­out any sign of dis­ap­proval. “Thank you for your work on my son’s be­half.”

Funny that she had never thought of it that way. Mikel had as­signed her the task, so she thought of it as work­ing for him, not Gabriel. She glanced around to find Gabriel, but he was pass­ing the port­fo­lio to Camille with some com­ment that made the young woman smile.

A server leaned be­tween her and Don Lorenzo to set down sil­ver­ware, a small stemmed glass filled with a dark red liq­uid, and a plate hold­ing a gen­er­ous slice of cake dec­o­rated with pur­ple flow­ers. The server shook out a gold linen nap­kin and laid it on her lap.

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