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“Must be hell for you, then,” he commented with sympathy.
“At times,” she acknowledged.
Feeling comforted by the fact that her departure was postponed for at least two days, and just a tad guilty that her unexpected boon was due to Madeline’s misery, Amelia nodded toward the palace servant who stood unobtrusively at the ready. Words were not necessary. She’d had the same thing for breakfast for the last three years. Three slices of French toast. The man slipped away to bring it to her.
Feeling progressively more cheerful by the moment, Amelia let impulse continue to guide her. “Since we’re not going away, I’ve decided to take you sightseeing.”
He was surprised by the offer. And pleased. He’d assumed that he’d be left to his own devices until departure. This promised to be a great deal more entertaining than the book he’d brought along.
“Oh, you have, have you?”
The servant returned with her plate and placed it before her before deftly standing back. Amelia offered the older man a smile of thanks before continuing. “Yes, I have.”
“Is that a royal decree?”
She couldn’t read his expression. It was completely inscrutable. Had she been too quick to judge him so favorably? Or was he just teasing her, the way he used to? “Does it have to be?”
He thought of stretching out the moment. He liked the way her eyes widened when she seemed confused. But it wasn’t fair to her and besides, he had no business placing things on anything but a respectful footing. They weren’t children anymore.
Maybe that was just the problem, he thought. They weren’t children anymore. And he was having some definitely unchildlike feelings about her.
Tread lightly here, Carrington, he cautioned himself. This is going to be your queen, not your consort.
“No,” he answered. Then, because he’d been on more than one tour during his visits here, he added, “I’d love to see your country through the eyes of an adult.”
She gave her own interpretation to his answer. “Then you have given up dropping water balloons?”
Amelia slipped the fork between her lips. Finding the action arousing, Russell forced himself to look away. “Why do you keep bringing that up?”
Slim shoulders rose and then fell again in a careless motion. “Once burnt, twice shy …”
He didn’t bother to suppress the laugh that rose in his throat. “As I remember it, it was a few more times than once.”
That it was, she thought. “Twenty-three times to be exact.”
Mild surprise highlighted his features as he looked at her. “You kept score.”
“I did.”
His eyes met hers. He saw humor there. “Should I be worried?”
She deliberately took a few bites of her breakfast before leaning in his direction and saying, “Be afraid, Carrington. Be very afraid.”
Though neither one of them had planned it initially, they wound up spending the entire day together. Acting as his guide, Amelia took him to two museums, one devoted to art, the other to history. Though neither had ever really interested him, Russell discovered that, seen through her eyes, both had a great deal to offer. In between, she took him to one of Gastonia’s many parks for an impromptu picnic lunch.
“I’m not the picnic type,” he’d protested.
And she’d laughed as if he had said something really amusing and told him with a knowing look that yes, he was, and she was going to prove it.
So he ate the healthy-size sandwiches she’d produced out of a picnic basket while sitting on a maroon-colored blanket beneath the drooping shade of a weeping willow. If asked, he couldn’t have said what, exactly, was between the two pieces of bread. It wasn’t that it was tasteless, it was just that his attention had been completely and utterly taken by his companion.
She charmed him with her wit, with her knowledge, with her laugh … with the shape of her mouth as it pulled into a smile. Over and over again, he kept thinking that Reginald should have been there, in his place, learning to appreciate this woman who had miraculously been given to him on a platter.
And secretly he was glad that he was here instead.
Russell found himself not wanting the day to end.
And in the evening, with a myriad of stars littering the sky, they returned to the palace.
The second they came through the massive double doors, they were informed by the butler that King Roman was waiting to meet with the duke.
“I’ll come with you,” Amelia offered.
“Your Highness, he asked only for the duke,” the butler said tactfully.
Russell expected Amelia to back away. Instead, she tossed her head and said, “But he will get a princess, as well.” She looked at him. “My father will undoubtedly say something that will either concern Gastonia or me. In either case, I should know.” Slipping her arm through his, she said, “This way,” and brought him to the royal study, her father’s favorite place.
Her father often retired to the study to contemplate matters of state and to partake of his evening brandy. More often than not, she would join him for the latter. His life centered around his country and his daughter, in that order. Amelia took no offense. It was just the way things were. But if she took no offense, she also did not take a back seat.
King Roman looked far from surprised that his daughter was accompanying his royal guest. Looking up from the book he had been casually perusing, he asked, “What’s this about you creeping in like a leper, Carrington?”
“The duke doesn’t care for fanfare,” Amelia said, taking the liberty to answer for the man she’d taken sightseeing.
The king nodded. “Refreshing.” Setting aside his book, he picked up his goblet of brandy. “This aversion of yours, I trust, does not extend to the reception I have arranged in your honor.”
Russell glanced at the woman beside him. He noticed that the princess had caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Obviously, she had forgotten to tell him about that. “Reception, Your Majesty?”
“The one in the royal ballroom taking place in—” the king paused to look at the timepiece he kept in his pocket “—oh, I believe half an hour.”
Having learned long ago to have nothing rattle him, Russell inclined his head. “Then I had better go and get ready. If you will excuse me?” He bowed first to the king, then to Amelia.
She was born to this, Amelia thought. To pomp and circumstance and tradition. But it still felt strange, at times, when she stood back to analyze it, to see someone bowing to her just because whimsical fate had bestowed a title on her. It could have just as easily been someone else.
Her father turned to her. He looked pleased, she thought, and not at all upset by the note she’d left in her wake informing the king on his arrival that Carrington was already here and that she had taken charge of him. “I see you two have buried the hatchet.”
“There was never any hatchet, Father,” she corrected gently. “Not between the duke and myself.”
Roman caught the inference and looked at his daughter. “And the prince?”
“Is another story,” she concluded evasively.
“Amelia,” he began, his voice heavy with regret. “Amelia, you know that if there were any other way to secure Gastonia’s safety against her enemies, I would do it. In these modern times, there are terrorists and countries that would take us over in an instant if not for—”
“I know.” For her father’s sake, because she didn’t want him feeling guilty over something they both knew had to be, she forced a smile to her lips. “I’d better go and get ready for the reception. I’m afraid it completely slipped my mind.”
She’d seemed unusually happy when she’d entered the room just now, the king thought. He looked after his daughter’s departing figure, wondering what else might have slipped her mind today.
Chapter 4
From as far back as he could remember, Russell Southgate, III, Duke of Carrington, had been trained to keep his wits and composure about him at all times. Eventually, it had become second nature to him, like breathing. Never was it more important than during the most stressful occasions. To his late father’s never-ending pride, he was considered to be a tower of strength among his peers. While others lost their heads, Russell did not. He remained calm and clear-thinking. Being rattled was not something that he could ever recall happening to him.
So it came as a complete and utter surprise to Russell that, while assuring King Roman that no disrespect was meant by either Prince Reginald or the realm of Silvershire by His Highness not coming in person to escort his bride home, he found himself stopping midword. The rest of his sentence, as well as what had come before, had simultaneously and instantly evaporated from his tongue and his mind. Everything had been eclipsed by the vision in blue he saw entering the ballroom.
He felt warm. Disoriented. And completely captivated. Only past training had him closing his mouth before his jaw slackened and drooped.
Puzzled, his back to the entrance, King Roman stared at the young duke before him, waiting for the man to continue. Turning, the king looked to see what it was that had caught the man’s attention so completely, to the point of suddenly rendering him mute.
And then he saw her.
His daughter.
He saw the way Prince Reginald’s more-than-able-bodied representative was looking at her. While his father’s heart took pride in the fact that Amelia was a vision of loveliness that could even distract the well respected Duke of Carrington, when he viewed the moment with the eyes of the ruler of Gastonia, he was more than a little dismayed. Instincts that had allowed Roman to guide his small country from its past quaint state to what it had now become, a country devoted to both industry and the pursuit of knowledge, sent up red flags of alert and alarm.
Roman waited a moment longer. He told himself that his never-failing concern for the country’s welfare, his anxiety that all go well these next few weeks, not to mention the heavy guilt he bore as a father, were responsible for his overreaction. The duke was just taken with the sight of a beautiful woman. There was nothing more to it than that.
The king fervently hoped he was right.
Forcing a smile to his lips, he leaned slightly toward the man who, until a moment earlier, had been setting his mind at ease.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Roman acknowledged softly.
Like a man suddenly in the grip of a hypnotic trance, his eyes never wavering from their target, Russell slowly nodded his response. And then he roused himself, regaining control over all but what he had just been saying. The subject eluded him as completely as if it had never been raised.
“But that was always understood, even when the princess was a child,” he managed to murmur, hoping the king would take up this new avenue of conversation.
But the child, Russell conceded silently, did not hold a candle to the woman she had become. And even having spent almost the entire day in her presence hadn’t quite prepared him for how regal, how utterly breathtaking and captivating Princess Amelia could look.
It took effort to draw his eyes away, effort he couldn’t quite seem to muster, so he continued to look, telling himself he needed a moment longer just to absorb the vision that she was. Russell made a silent vow to Amelia that Reginald was never going to cause her any pain if he had anything to say about it.
Amelia walked into the room very slowly. Not because she wanted to draw out the moment, or because all eyes in the ballroom suddenly seemed to be turned in her direction, but because the heels of the shoes she wore were exceptionally high. Walking quickly could bring about a misstep. Or worse, cause her to fall down. That would not exactly be a royal moment, she mused, and she was fairly certain that if that did happen, a photographer would somehow magically pop out of the woodwork, immortalizing the moment for all time.
Making her way across the threshold, feeling as if she were moving in slow motion, a speed she was not on friendly terms with, she smiled warmly at everyone around her.
And then her eyes were drawn to the young man standing beside her father. Her heart whispered in her chest, undecided whether to beat quickly or freeze.
God, but he was handsome.
Gatherings parted, allowing her to pass unobstructed. She hardly noticed. Her destination was fixed. She could not seem to shake the feeling that all her steps up until this very moment had been designed to bring her to this man.
And with each step she took, her heart began to beat a little faster, like a drumroll growing in volume, in tempo. It seemed to swell within her chest. She was never more grateful than now for the upbringing which allowed her to keep her thoughts and reactions from showing on her face.
Otherwise, she thought, both she and Russell would be lost. Especially her.
Though she shouldered it well, she had never cared for duty. But in a way, duty was responsible for the moment. For bringing Russell here.
Despite the way she had to address him in public, always in the secret recesses of her mind, she thought of him not as the prince’s cohort, not as the Duke of Carrington or by any of the titles that protocol dictated. To her, he had always been, would always be, Russell.
As she drew closer to Russell and her father, she heard the orchestra begin to play. Her mouth curved as the old familiar melody unfurled its notes through the vast room. A waltz. She might have known. Her father’s favorite. The king thought she fancied them, as well. And while she liked them, she had yet to let her father know how much she enjoyed something contemporary even more.
Amelia sincerely doubted if the monarch knew that Black Eyed Peas were something other than a vegetable found on a side dish at a dinner.
Her eyes danced as she joined the two men. “I believe they’re playing our song, Carrington,” she teased and, to his credit, he neither looked confused nor tried to contradict her. “Dance with me.” Russell glanced toward the king, who inclined his head, giving his permission. Humor curved her lips as she saw the silent exchange. “I asked you to dance with me, Carrington. You can dance with my father later.”
King Roman shook his head as Russell placed a hand respectfully on her waist and took her hand in his. He watched his daughter place her other hand on the duke’s shoulder. “Always outspoken,” he said as the couple began to dance away. “From the moment she said her first word.”
“Funny,” Russell observed as their steps took them farther onto the dance floor and away from the king. “I don’t remember you being outspoken when we were children.” He liked the way laughter entered her eyes. Liked the way she didn’t take herself too seriously. Liked the way her waist felt beneath his hand. “You clean up well, Princess.”
“So do you, Carrington.” She cocked her head as if she were studying him while the music moved them about the floor. “You’re almost not ugly.”
“I do my best.”
And his best, she thought, as the music began to swell, matching the tempo within her chest, was more than enough.
Russell had had no intention of walking the princess to her chambers. He’d had every intention that they would part company within the ballroom, or perhaps just at the door as they exited. More than anyone, he was well aware that his role in the scheme of things was to be polite, to strive not to look bored even though he would rather have been in his quarters with a good book than exchanging meaningless conversation with a collection of royals who spent the evening vying for his attention.
He would have been more than content, he silently insisted to himself, to just watch Amelia from afar. Undoubtedly he’d have been safer, too.
The problem was, the princess hadn’t remained afar. She had purposely remained close to him, as if she had decided that he was her one true friend and it was his company that gave her pleasure instead of any of the others.
Toward the end of the evening, she’d almost said as much, but had stopped short before uttering the words. Her eyes had told him. That was approximately around the same time that the princess had consumed her sixth glass of very aged, very fine wine. Wine that had been expressly brought out to toast the princess’s upcoming nuptials.
He had the distinct impression that rather than commemorate it, the princess was trying to blot the moment, the thought, out.
So, toward the fourth hour, as the reception was definitely winding down, when Amelia appeared to be just a hint unsteady on her feet, he’d offered to escort her to her rooms before anyone else took note of the fact that her eyes appeared just a tad too bright. His duty, he reminded himself, was to ensure the future queen’s dignity.
When he made the suggestion about seeing her to her rooms, Amelia saw right through the excuse. “You’re trying to help me maintain my dignity,” she guessed in hushed tones, leaning her head into his. Her words ended in a small giggle he found utterly infectious and endearing.
Tact gave way to honesty. Something told him that unlike Reginald, Amelia appreciated honesty. “I’d rather not see the future Queen of Silvershire guilty of a pratfall.”
She gave him no argument. Instead, she laughed, delighted. “Ah, chivalry is not dead.”
“Only slightly wounded,” he replied as he offered her his arm. She slipped her hand through it. Luckily. Because the next moment, the simple action was instrumental in preventing her from having a misstep end embarrassingly. She flashed him a guileless smile of thanks that was completely devoid of self-consciousness.
Carefully, he guided her from the room, thinking it best not to take his leave of his host. The king was embroiled in a heated discussion he assumed the monarch wouldn’t want interrupted, and besides, he decided that perhaps it was a bit more prudent not to draw attention to the fact that he had to bring the princess upstairs because she was just this side of inebriated.
“This is very nice of you,” Amelia said as they entered the hallway. The heat and the noise of the ballroom was left behind them.
Or at least the noise, she thought. The heat that came from too many bodies too close to one another seemed to linger on even though there were just the two of them. “But then, you’re a very nice person, aren’t you Carrington?”
He wasn’t feeling all that nice right now. What he was feeling he didn’t want to begin to examine. “I try to be, Princess.”
“Not like Reginald,” she concluded knowingly. Though her path and Reginald’s had not crossed in a great many years, she kept up on the stories. And she hadn’t liked what she’d read, even when she tried to view the articles in a charitable light.
She was walking slowly, Russell thought. Was that because she was afraid of falling down? He found he practically had to crawl not to outdistance her. And her words made him uncomfortable. His own personal opinion of Reginald wasn’t very high, but he was nothing if not loyal to the crown. He couldn’t share his feelings with her, or agree with what she was saying.
“Your Highness,” he began tactfully, “I really don’t think—”
She waved her free hand at him and then swayed ever so slightly. She paused to regain her composure. “Oh, please stop with the titles, Russell. I’m Amelia, just call me Amelia.”
