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Her feet slowed because they had no choice. London traffic blocked her way and the coffee shop she wanted was on the other side of the road.
And why was she running anyway? Experience had taught her that there was nowhere to go that would stop the pain from jogging alongside. More slowly she crossed the road, dodging between the stationary taxis that were banked up at the junction.
Coffee. That was all she wanted right now. Coffee and a moment to gather herself together. She smiled grimly. Just enough time to place the mask firmly back in place.
Seb let out his breath in one slow, steady stream, resisting the temptation to swear long and hard, as he watched Marianne walk away.
That could have gone better. It had been a long, long time since anyone had made him look, or feel, quite so foolish. How many sentences had he managed to complete at the end there? Two? Maybe three?
For a man who was famed for his ability to say the right thing in any social situation, that was unprecedented. As unprecedented as it was for anyone to speak to him without the due deference his position demanded. Thank heaven the foyer was deserted of everyone but his own people.
Seb looked over his shoulder at his two bodyguards. ‘How much of that did you hear?’
He saw Karl’s lips twitch. In any other man the expression would have counted as impassive, but in Karl it was laughter.
Seb ran an exasperated hand through his closely cropped dark hair. ‘Try and forget it,’ he said, walking past them and further into the narrow reception area.
It was an unnecessary instruction. Karl and Georg would never divulge anything about his personal life—not to the Press, not even to other members of their team. He’d do better to direct that selfsame instruction at himself—try and forget it. Concentrate on what had brought him here.
But forget her?
He pulled a wry smile. Now, that was easier said than done. If merely reading the name Marianne Chambers in print had pulled him up short, it was nothing compared to how it had felt to actually see her.
Until that moment he hadn’t truly believed Professor Blackwell’s protégée would turn out to be the language student he’d met in France—but she’d been instantly recognisable. Casually dressed in blue jeans and white T-shirt she’d reminded him so much of the eighteen-year-old he’d known. He could never have expected that.
And she’d been reading. Something had snapped inside him when he’d seen the flash of white as she’d flicked over the page. She’d always been reading. Anything and everything. Even that first time—when Nick had tried so hard to stop him going to speak to her.
It was the only excuse he’d had for approaching her. If there’d been anyone within earshot…Seb pulled a hand through his hair. God only knew what the headlines would have looked like then.
‘Your Serene Highness—’
Seb turned to see an agitated man scurrying towards him across the acres of rather dated carpet in the company of his private secretary.
‘—we’d no idea you’d arrived yet. I’d intended to have someone on watch for you and—’
‘It’s of no consequence. Mr…?’
‘Baverstock. Anthony Baverstock. I’m the manager here, Your Serene Highness.’
‘Baverstock,’ Seb repeated, extending his hand. ‘I sincerely appreciate the thought.’ He watched the pleased way Anthony Baverstock puffed out his cheeks and resigned himself to what experience had taught him would follow.
‘N-not at all, Your Serene Highness. At the Cowper Hotel we pride ourselves on our service. Professor Blackwell,’ the hotel manager continued with every indication that he would bore his friends and neighbours with his account of meeting royalty for the next thirty years, ‘is in the Balcony Room. If, Your Serene Highness, would be so good as to follow me…’
Seb let his mind wander even while his mouth said everything that his late father would have wished. How many times had that amazing man cautioned him to remember that people who met him would remember the occasion as long as they lived?
It was true, too. The letters of condolence his mother had received had been testament to that. More than several hundred had begun with ‘I met Prince Franz-Josef and he shook me by the hand…’
Even eight years and as many months into his own tenure that responsibility still sat uncomfortably with him. But training was everything—and this had been his destiny since the hour of his birth. Inescapable. Even though there’d been times when he’d have gladly passed the responsibility to someone else.
Viktoria, for example. His elder sister had always found her role in this colourful pageant easier to play. She loved the pomp and the sense of tradition. It suited her—and she was as comfortable with it as it chafed him.
The Balcony Room on the first floor was clearly labelled. A black plaque with gold lettering hung on the door. Seb stood back and allowed the hotel manager to announce portentously, ‘His Serene Highness, the Prince of Andovaria.’
Inside, the man he’d come to see was on his feet immediately. ‘Your Serene Highness…’
Seb extended his hand as he walked into the room. ‘Professor Blackwell, I’m delighted you could spare me a moment of your time. I realise this is a busy time for you.’
The older man shook his head, a twinkle of pure enthusiasm lighting the eyes behind his glasses. ‘Completely enjoyable. This conference is one of the highlights of my year.’
‘May I introduce my private secretary, Alois von Dietrich? I believe you’ve spoken.’
The professor nodded. ‘Please, come and sit down,’ he said, indicating a group of four armchairs by the window, ‘but I meant what I said yesterday. I’m retiring at the end of the month.’
Seb smiled. ‘I’m here in person to tempt you away from that decision.’
‘Don’t believe I’m not tempted,’ the professor said with a shake of his head, and his tone was so wistful that Seb was confident of success. ‘The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are my particular passion. My wife would have it it’s an unhealthy obsession.’
‘Which is exactly why I want you to come to Andovaria.’
Marianne sat down in the nearest armchair and tucked her hair behind her ears in the nervous gesture she’d had since childhood.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Professor Blackwell shook his head. ‘I’ve scarcely had a chance,’ he said, sitting opposite her, teacup in hand. ‘I spoke to one of his aides late yesterday afternoon and Prince Sebastian in person this morning.
She frowned. ‘And you’re considering it? Going to Andovaria?’
‘Who wouldn’t?’ The professor picked up the shortbread biscuit resting in his saucer. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Marianne, and you’re right. Of course you’re right. But it’s the chance of a lifetime. If the prince’s description is accurate, and there’s no reason to suppose it isn’t, there’s not been anything like it in decades.’
Marianne sat in silence, more than a little shell-shocked, while the professor drank the last of his tea.
‘Imagine for a moment what we might find there,’ he said, standing up and putting his cup and saucer back on the table.
‘You’re weeks from retiring,’ she said softly. ‘You did tell him that, didn’t you?’
‘Eliana will understand—’
‘She won’t, Peter. You and I both know that if your wife had had her way you’d be retired now.’
The professor sat down again and leant forward to take hold of her hands. ‘This is the “big” one, Marianne. I’ve waited my whole life for something like this.’
His earnest, lined face shone with the absolute certainty she’d understand, and the tragedy was, she did. Marianne understood absolutely how much he’d want this—and how completely impossible it was for him to take it.
‘Have you told him about your eyesight?’ she asked gently.
The professor let go of her hands and sat back in his seat.
She hated to do this to him, hated it particularly because he was the most wonderful, brilliant and caring man she’d ever met, but it was an impossible dream. He had to know that—deep down. ‘You can’t see well enough to do this justice and, if it’s as significant as you think it is, you ought to pass it on to another expert. I can think of upward of a dozen who are eminently qualified, half a dozen I’d be happy with.’
He shook his head. ‘We could do it together. I’ve told him I’d need to bring a colleague—’
‘I’m too junior,’ Marianne objected firmly. ‘I’ve got years of study ahead of me before I’d be ready to take on something like this.’
‘You could be my eyes. You’ve a sharp, analytical mind and we’re a great team.’ The professor stood up abruptly and brushed the crumbs off his tie. ‘Let’s not discuss it any more until after dinner tonight. There’s plenty of time before I have to give him my final decision.’
After what dinner? Her mind went into spasm and the question in her head didn’t make words as the professor adjusted his reactor light glasses and continued, ‘You and I can talk about it after we’ve seen the photographs. There is a stack of them apparently and I’ll need you there to take a look at them.’
‘Wh-what dinner?’
‘Didn’t I say?’ His assumed nonchalance would have been comical if the stakes weren’t so high. ‘Prince Sebastian has invited us to dinner at the Randall. At eight,’ he added as Marianne still hadn’t spoken.
Her mind was thinking in short bursts. Dinner with Sebastian. Tonight. At Eight.
‘Us?’
‘Of course, us.’ The professor sounded uncharacteristically tetchy. ‘I told him I’d need to discuss the offer with my colleague and he, very graciously, extended the invitation to you.’
Marianne swallowed as a new concern slid into her befuddled mind. ‘You’ve told him you’re bringing me? B-by name? He knows it’ll be me?’
The professor made a tutting sound as though he couldn’t understand why her conversation had become so unintelligible. ‘I can’t remember what I said exactly—but why should that matter? Prince Sebastian wants me, and whatever team I care to assemble. I chose you.’
At any other time his confidence in her ability would have warmed her, but…
The professor didn’t understand what he was asking—and, after ten years of keeping it a secret from him, she’d no intention of telling him now. But…
Dinner with Seb.
Who might not even know she was Professor Blackwell’s colleague?
‘We look at the photographs, we eat his food and then we take a taxi back here.’ The Professor smiled the smile of an impish child. ‘After that, we’ll talk about it.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE new dress wasn’t working.
Marianne stared at her reflection and at the soft folds of pink silk which draped around her curves to finish demurely in handkerchief points at her ankles. On the outside the transformation from serious academic to sophisticated lady-about-town was staggering, but on the inside, where it mattered, Marianne felt as if she was about to take a trip in a tumbrel.
What was she doing? There was no way she should have allowed Peter to talk her into this dinner. No way at all. Yet, even while every rational thought in her head had been prompting her to get herself back on the train home to Cambridge, she’d found herself in Harvey Nic’s, picking out a dress.
And why? She was too honest a person not to know that on some level or other it was because she wanted Seb to take one look at her and experience a profound sense of regret.
Stupid! So stupid! What part of her brain had decreed that a bright idea? She’d squandered a good chunk of her ‘kitchen fund’ on a daft dress to impress a man who only had to snap his fingers to induce model-type beauties to run from all directions.
It was far, far more likely he’d take one look at her and know she’d made all this effort to impress him. And how pitiful would that look?
Marianne turned away from the mirror and walked over to the utilitarian bedside table common to all the hotel’s rooms. She sat on the side of the bed and roughly pulled open the drawer, picking up the only thing inside it—a heart-shaped locket in white gold. Her hand closed round it and she took a steadying breath.
Heaven help her, she was going to go with Peter tonight. The decision had been made. She might as well accept that. And she was going to pretend she was fine.
More than that, she was going to pretend she’d forgotten almost everything about Seb Rodier. He’d been a minor blip in her life. Quickly recovered from…
‘Marianne?’
There was a discreet knock on the door and Marianne quickly replaced the locket, shutting the drawer and moving to pick up her co-ordinating handbag and fine wool wrap from the end of the bed.
The deep pink of the wrap picked out the darkest shade in the silk of her dress, while the bag exactly matched her wickedly expensive sandals. That they also pinched the little toe on her right foot would serve as an excellent reminder of her own stupidity.
‘You look very lovely,’ the professor said by way of greeting. ‘Not that you don’t always, but I spoke to Eliana just over half an hour ago and she was worried you wouldn’t have brought anything with you that would be suitable for dinner at the Randall. I said I was sure you’d manage something.’
Marianne gave a half-smile and wondered how it was possible that a fearsomely intelligent man like the professor, who’d been happily married for forty-one years, could believe she’d have a dress like this rolled up in her suitcase ‘just in case’.
‘I’m excited about this dinner,’ he said, completely oblivious to her mood. ‘Of course, what the prince is asking would mean I’d have to give up all of the projects I’m currently involved with.’
She reached out and pressed the lift button. ‘You’re retiring, Peter. You’re supposed to be taking the opportunity to spend more time with your grandchildren…’
The professor shot her a smile and pulled out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his dinner jacket. ‘I spoke to one of Prince Sebastian’s aides this afternoon about what’s expected of us tonight with regard to royal protocol and the like. It all seems fairly straightforward,’ he said, passing across the sheet. ‘Apparently the prince is not one to stand on too much ceremony, thank God.’
A cold sensation washed over Marianne as she unfolded the paper. This was an aspect of the evening ahead of her she hadn’t considered. If Seb thought she was going to curtsey he could go take a running jump.
‘I think I’ve got it straight in my mind,’ the professor continued, reaching out to hold the bar as the lift juddered to a stop. ‘When we first meet him we address him as ‘Your Serene Highness’, but after that we can use a simple “sir”.’
Marianne’s eyes widened slightly. Sir? Call Seb ‘sir’? How exactly did you look a man you’d slept with in the eye and call him ‘sir’? Particularly when you wanted to call him a million other things that would probably have you arrested?
The doors swung open and the professor continued, ‘Jolly good thing, too. Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to have to say “Your Serene Highness” all evening? Such a mouthful.’
Her eyes skimmed the first couple of points.
—Wait for the prince to extend his hand in greeting.
—Don’t initiate conversation, but wait for the prince to do so.
‘It must irritate the heck out of him to have people spouting his title at him every time he steps out of doors.’ The professor broke off to hail a passing black taxi. ‘Not to mention having everyone you meet bob up and down in front of you like some kind of manic toy.’
Marianne’s eyes searched for the word ‘curtsey’. ‘Sir’ she could just about cope with—particularly if she said it in a faintly mocking tone—but curtseying to him? He’d humiliated her in practically every way possible, but that would be too much to cope with. There had to be a way round it.
Hadn’t she read something somewhere about Americans not having to curtsey when they met British royalty? Something about it not being their monarch that made it an unnecessary mark of respect?
The taxi swung towards the kerb.
‘And an inclination of the head when I meet him is all that’s required. No need for a more formal bow,’ the professor continued. ‘Obviously removing any hat—’
Marianne watched as he struggled with the door before holding it open for her ‘—but, as I’m not wearing a hat, that’s not a problem.’
She gathered up the soft folds of her dress so that it wouldn’t brush along the edge of the car and climbed inside. Seb wasn’t her monarch. If he wasn’t her monarch, she didn’t need to curtsey…
Moments later the professor joined her. ‘Of course, as a woman, you give a slight curtsey. Nothing too flourishing. Keep it simple.’
Keep it simple. The words echoed in her head. There was nothing about this situation that was simple. She was in a taxi heading towards a former lover who may or may not know she was joining him for dinner tonight. A former lover, mark you, who hadn’t had the courtesy to formally end their relationship.
