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He arched a darkly delineated brow, swallowed and placed the glass back onto the polished surface. The sound of the glass landing seemed to reanimate the frozen figures. A couple of mouths closed and a throat was cleared.

‘But Your Majesty…sir…there is no need for you to bother yourself about the irritating little details.’ Several heads nodded in earnest agreement. ‘I am sure you have more important things to attend to.’

‘What can possibly be more important for a king than the running of his kingdom?’

The expressions on the faces of the men who had been doing the running with no opposition for many years ranged from confusion to outright panic. They had all arrived at this meeting confident, given the new King’s well-catalogued reputation before he ascended the throne, that nothing would change.

If he had been a no-show it would have shocked no one. His late father’s attendance at the monthly meetings had been sporadic at best and his contribution to the debates concerning the future of his kingdom had generally been the odd yawn. He’d only occasionally nodded off, but woke up in time to put his royal signature to whatever document was put in front of him, which was all anyone seated around the table had cared about.

The late King had saved his displays of animation for when the Council agreed that there was money in the budget for his new yacht or the latest addition to his impressive car collection.

They had arrived thinking business as usual and were still in deep denial.

A man who bore no resemblance to his late father, the new King, was an impressive physical specimen, six feet four with the lean, muscular, long-limbed body of an athlete. His features were strongly sculpted and lean.

The courtiers were not alarmed by his face or body because they knew that behind those deep-set dark eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes there lurked no impressive intellect to match.

The most senior courtier, from a family that was almost as ancient as the royal Soares dynasty, had opened the proceedings and he’d gone out of his way to put the youthful monarch at his ease. The mood in the room had changed since his brand-new Majesty had made it clear that he was actually quite interested in the details.

Half an hour in, his stunned audience had been reduced to silence. Not that anyone was yet willing to contemplate the reality that, after years of pulling the strings, their strings were being pulled by the new King.

And it was the new King, not a playboy prince, who was dominating the proceedings to such a degree that they could smell the desperation in the air.

The lazy eyelids lifted to reveal dark eyes that were not at all lazy.

‘Are you not feeling well, Count Tomaz?’ Leandro asked in concern as he focused on the man seated to his right, whose protuberant eyes were darting around the room as though he was looking for an escape route.

‘Fine,’ the man mumbled. ‘Just a little…’

‘Hungover?’ the King suggested sympathetically. ‘I was given an excellent remedy for a hangover, though I’ve never actually suffered one myself.’

‘No, no, not at all. That is, thank you…’

‘Right,’ the monarch said, cutting across the man’s mumbling protests. ‘I think that about does it for today. I appreciate you guiding me through the formalities and waffle.’

It turned out it was the new King who had displayed a disturbing ability to cut through waffle with a few words that he wielded like a sharp knife. The new King who also possessed a forensic grasp of the details of any number of subjects. The man who regarded them with steely eyes bore no resemblance to the self-indulgent prince who was best known for his well-publicised affairs and falling out of nightclubs.

‘The signature…Your Majesty.’

Leandro glanced at the paper which awaited his signature and, after scanning it, lifted his eyes and allowed himself a small smile that left his sloe-dark eyes cold.

‘Oh, I really don’t think so, do you, gentlemen?’

‘A charity—’

‘I think this stretches the meaning of charity to its limits when the vast majority of the proceeds end up in the rather well-paid organisers’ pockets. A revised plan on my desk by tomorrow and also, I’d like a discussion paper on the wind farm proposal.’

‘Your father—’

Leandro raised an eloquent brow and the person who had interrupted sank lower in his seat. ‘Liked an easy life and was easy to manipulate.’ He made a cutting gesture with one long-fingered hand. ‘Let’s just take your protests as read, shall we.’ He scanned the faces around him in turn; each man finding himself the focus shrank. ‘I only want the best for this country, which surely, gentlemen, puts us on the same page.’ He flicked through the tablet in front of him, a smile curving his lips when he reached the relevant section. ‘Marriage—namely, mine.’

‘We hope we have not been presumptuous, Your Majesty.’

‘Not at all, gentlemen. I fully recognise my duty to supply an heir but, while I appreciate your contribution, I think I, or at least Franco here—’ he nodded in the direction of a silent figure who had appeared to observe the proceedings ‘—are better placed to produce a list of candidates…’

‘With all due respect to Franco, a junior aide is not really best placed, Your Majesty.’

‘Ah, but Franco is no longer a junior aide—of course, he never really was. He has been my eyes and ears inside the Palace while I have been disgracing my family name. For his invaluable efforts on my behalf, he has been made my personal secretary.’