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* * *

Elsie had assumed he was joking, but it turned out he wasn’t.

The string quartet were actually quite good, which meant the silence as they entered wasn’t too painfully obvious. Hell turned out to be a room with dark antique furniture and chandeliers. It was hardly cosy—the only redeeming feature was a blazing open fire. It was the only warmth in the atmosphere as she walked in beside Leandro.

There were about three dozen people. The youngest man there looked about ten years older than Leandro, though the women, who appeared to wear a uniform of elegant shift dresses in shades ranging from navy to black, seemed for the most part younger. There were a lot of pearls.

Leandro bent low to murmur in her ear, ‘Well, this would make a funeral look garish.’ He snatched a glass from one of the circling waiters and whispered a warning about the finger food. ‘I cut the hospitality budget. I suspect this is revenge.’

Her full-throated laugh made the heads that hadn’t already turned do so; most eyes were on her. Elsie fought the urge to curtsy or do a cartwheel, a little smile playing about her lips as she visualised the scandalised expressions if she carried through with either.

Instead, she pinned on her most brilliant smile and moved away from Leandro’s side, feeling about as confident as a fledgling taking its first flight, but none of her doubts or nerves showed in her don’t-mess-with-me hundred-watt smile.

Watching Elsie while he made desultory conversation with a woman with strings of pearls around her short fat neck and a high-pitched grating voice, Leandro held himself in check, but stood ready to spring into action if she needed assistance.

She wouldn’t. That much became quickly obvious. At the centre of so much ill-will, she simply glowed, allowing her direct gaze to disconcert, and adding a seductive, almost comical sway to her hips as she moved through the dull crowd like a bright bird of paradise among drab chickens.

He felt a tightness in his chest and realised with a stab of shock that it was pride. And why not? She held herself like a queen; she had come here to prove a point and, my God, she had.

She appeared to have achieved the impossible. Though Leandro viewed her apparent conquest of Count Tomaz with some cynicism when the man laughed and joked almost like a human as he offered her some of the food which, despite his comment, was quite acceptable

* * *

Half an hour in, she sidled up to him.

‘I’m fed up with being gawked at and I’ve had too much to drink,’ she confided in warning. ‘I’m about to get loud and indiscreet.’

‘Loud… I’d pay to see it—we definitely must stay to the bitter end.’

‘You’re joking,’ She scanned his face. ‘Aren’t you?’

He laughed, taking pity on her, and nodded. ‘Fine, we will make good our escape.’

‘How?’ she asked, looking around the room. Good manners had been drilled into her from the cradle. ‘What reason will we give?’ she fretted.

‘We don’t need to give a reason.’ Leandro, who hadn’t received the same lesson, retorted. ‘They are lucky we turned up at all.’

‘And they think I need lessons in etiquette.’

‘The great thing about being the King is I can be as rude as I like and people say thank you, except you.’

‘Maybe that is my role, to keep you grounded?’ she teased.

‘Your role?’ She watched the muscles around his jaw tighten as his smile faded. ‘The last couple of weeks are not typical, Elsie.’

‘You mean that you don’t always work twenty hours out of twenty-four?’

His heavy eyelids half lowered as Franco’s words the previous day came back to mock him.

‘If I had a beautiful woman waiting for me, I wouldn’t be inventing crises that needed my personal attention.’

Franco, as usual, saw more than was comfortable. He knew that it would pass, this need to be around Elsie, to hear her voice, her laugh, but while it lasted, it was tough.

‘I mean that once we are married you won’t be tied to this place, or me.’

He watched the flicker of hurt in her eyes and felt a bastard, but it did confirm his suspicions. Elsie was getting too fond of him and better a little hurt now than breaking her heart later. He was not his father—he cared, just not enough to keep out of her bed.

She swallowed. ‘I get the message,’ she said quietly, her pride kicking in… It was embarrassing to think he felt the need to warn her off.