She blushed high on her cheekbones. ‘Thank you.’
‘I thought it when we first met and I think it now. I like the way you’re so passionate about your heritage.’
‘I always have been—ever since I was a child. And as I got older I spent quite a lot of time in the palace archives.’
He could imagine her as a studious little girl and the image was endearing.
‘Tell me more about the castle.’
‘Fact number four—the south wing, where the palace is, was built not so much as a show of strength but to display the wealth of the royal family.’
‘Where wealth equals power of a different kind of strength?’
‘Exactly.’
For a moment he might kid himself that she was just a guide, parroting facts from a preset script. But there was no escaping the fact that she was a high-ranking member of the royal family, and that its wealth and power still existed today. Her role brought with it privileges, but also restrictions.
He was beginning to realise what being second in line to the throne actually meant. What it might mean to him. If he wanted to see more of her he couldn’t just call her and ask her to the movies.
He looked around him with awe. ‘The castle is indeed ancient and imposing. To think what these walls must have witnessed over the years...’
‘It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it? This is actually the oldest part of the castle. Let me show you something rather special.’
‘The entire place is special,’ he said.
‘I never take it for granted,’ she said. ‘I love my home and I love my country. It’s just that when I was in Sydney I began to wonder if that was enough.’
For a long moment they didn’t speak. He looked into her face, trying to read her expression of thoughtful sadness. ‘Is that part of your unhappiness?’ he asked.
She flushed pinker. ‘Yes. No. I really don’t know.’ She looked down at her watch again. ‘But what I do know is that we’re running out of time. Follow me.’
She stopped just before the path started to widen and put her hand reverently on the thick wall. ‘This is what remains of the most heavily barricaded area of the fortress. Fact number five: those slits were where arrows were fired from.’
‘No boiling oil dropped down from above?’ One of the computer games he’d enjoyed as a teenager had used that particular device to destroy the enemy. He’d always thought it particularly gruesome.
‘That too,’ she said, very seriously.
Not just for computer games, then.
‘And cannonballs came later.’
‘Your ancestors must have been fierce and formidable. And there were the dungeons with the torture chambers too.’
‘Exactly.’
They kept walking as the pathway followed the contour of the mountain. It opened up to a lookout comprising several high-arched windows set in a stone wall facing the lake.
‘Those arched lookouts came much later than the barricades we just saw. It’s always been a popular place.’
Finn stared in wonder at the magnificence of the view framed by the windows. It looked out on not just the vast lake but further, to the system of smaller lakes it adjoined and then the jagged snow-capped mountains reflected in their stillness. Down below, the town, with its cobbled streets, looked like a toy town. The slightest of breezes chased wisps of white cloud across the brilliant blue sky. He found it mind-blowing to think this was her home...her heritage.
‘This view is famous,’ she said. ‘And it’s a favourite for postcards. Now it’s famous in the family too, for being the place where Tristan proposed to Gemma. You mustn’t repeat that, of course,’ she said, putting a warning finger to her lips.
‘Another secret for me to keep?’ he said.
He realised that the castle and the palace were not just ancient monuments to power and tenacity, the seat of a ruling family dating back centuries, but Natalia’s home. And that there would be no place there for a boy from Sydney, no matter how wealthy he might be.
If only Natalia was who she had first appeared to be—an ordinary English girl who could choose what she wanted to do with her life. Someone with whom he could—if he so desired—contemplate a relationship of equals.
Instead he’d met a princess. A woman with loyalties and obligations to the monarchy of which she was part. And that, he suspected, would come before any personal relationship.
It would probably be wise of him to cut his ties with Montovia. Forget the contract with Tristan. Cancel his remaining meetings with the good burghers of the kingdom. Fly home and forget Princess Natalia.
Trouble was, he couldn’t forget her. He hadn’t forgotten her in the three months between meetings. Possibly he was under some kind of enchantment—he would believe anything in these mythical, medieval surroundings.
The buzzer on Natalia’s watch sounded again—a twenty-first century intrusion. She was organised and efficient—something he appreciated.
‘Does that mean the tour is over?’ he asked.
‘Just this part of it,’ she said. ‘Next on your schedule is our meeting with Franz Schmid, master chocolatier. Montovian chocolate is, as I’m sure you know, a luxury product.’
‘The platinum standard of chocolate—that’s how I hear it described. The world’s best. And that is what interests me about it as a product for import...not just for Australia, but for new markets in Asia.’
‘There are a number of chocolate producers in Montovia with whom you’ll be dealing, but Franz’s business is the largest. It is also very dear to our hearts, as when we were children and started to make official appearances with our parents the chocolate factory was our favourite. Be warned: the scent of chocolate is intoxicating—from the large pods that hold the beans to the pralines and the truffles made from the chocolate butter. And then, of course, there is the taste...’
* * *
The chocolate factory was set on the shores of the lake, some miles outside the old town. Behind the façade of a centuries-old stone farmhouse was a small modern factory devoted to the creation of superb chocolate. It was spotless, with the production team—mainly women—wearing white overalls, head-coverings and surgical masks. Although he didn’t understand Montovian, Finn could sense the buzz of excitement from the factory floor because the Royal Princess was on the premises.
The chocolatier, Franz, was as jovial as Finn would have expected from someone whose passion was something as delicious as his chocolate. Finn asked lots of questions, as the more he knew about the product the better he could sell it. He wasn’t disappointed in the chocolatier’s replies about fair trade single-origin cocoa beans, and the use of cream from cows grazing on local pastures. All were part of the story.
Finn was impressed with Natalia’s knowledge and business acumen. Had Tristan asked her to lead this meeting because he saw her as his future liaison? If so, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He could never see her as just a business contact.
When they reached the end of the tour Natalia asked if she could show Finn a project she had developed with Franz. ‘I’m hoping you can help expand the market for it,’ she explained.
Curious, he agreed.
She took him to a display of chocolate bars in distinctive pink wrapping. ‘It’s a premium milk chocolate, studded with freeze-dried Montovian raspberries,’ she said. ‘Quite irresistible.’
‘Princess Natalia designed the packaging—it’s the Princess Bar,’ said Franz.
‘All profits go towards the promotion of girls’ education,’ she said. ‘So, you see, the more we can sell around the world, the better for girls.’
Finn spoke to her in an undertone. ‘You say you haven’t got a career? I think the entrepreneurial talents you’ve applied to your fundraising proves otherwise.’
She beamed, and again he realised how happy it made him feel to see her smile.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NATALIA WASN’T SURE which she dreaded the most—the summons to her mother’s office for a queenly reprimand, or the summons to her mother’s private rooms in the Queen’s apartment for a mother-daughter chat.
Not long after she’d returned from her lunch meeting with Finn and the Chocolate Makers’ Association, she had been invited by her mother to what she’d hoped would be the second kind of meeting. As soon as she saw her mother she suspected it might evolve into one of the queenly reprimand kind.
Her Majesty, Queen Truda, patted the place next to her on a gilded and upholstered love seat. The valuable antique was placed in front of French doors that opened to a balcony and looked down to the rose garden below. The roses had finished their autumnal flush of flowers, and now just a few frostbitten blooms were hanging on to their stems.
Her mother kissed her on both cheeks. She was elegant, blonde and had had a considerable amount of subtle surgery to keep her looking ageless.
On Natalia’s twenty-fifth birthday she had suggested that Natalia was at the right age to start some preventative cosmetic work, with injectables and fillers. She had hinted that her daughter might have already left it too late to arrest wrinkles.
Natalia had politely declined. Her mother had warned her that she might regret not getting started with work on her face as soon as possible, and Natalia had gritted her teeth in an effort not to give a caustic reply.
The Queen’s eyes were the same colour blue as the eyes Natalia saw when she looked in the mirror. But no amount of cosmetic surgery could erase from them the underlying sadness of being married to a man who did not love her and of having lost her firstborn son and grandson.
Right now they were narrowed—as much as her mother was able to narrow her eyes because of her frequent muscle-freezing injections. Natalia had been expecting an interrogation since the reception the night before. She was not to be disappointed.
‘The Australian. Finn O’Neill. Tristan’s new business associate. I saw you spent quite some time alone with him last night.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Any longer and it would have been inappropriate.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ She’d learned young to agree with her mother whenever possible.
‘I saw the way you looked at him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s a very good-looking young man.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Is he the man you danced with at the wedding in Sydney?’
There was no use fibbing, or even prevaricating. Her mother would have read the bodyguard’s reports. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you want him? In your bed, I mean?’
‘What? Mother!’
‘Well?’
Again she couldn’t lie. Her mother knew her too well. ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t lie to herself any longer, either.
‘You know you can’t have him?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s not suitable as a husband and you’re not allowed to take a lover until after you’re safely married.’
Natalia gritted her teeth. ‘Why is he not suitable for a husband? Under the new law I’m not bound to marry a royal. Finn is educated, successful, wealthy,’ she said. Not to mention great company and a sensational kisser.
‘Very wealthy. And he’s squeaky clean when it comes to his finances. No criminal record either. Not so much as a parking fine.’
‘So where is your objection?’
‘I can’t see that your marriage to someone like Finn O’Neill could work. You—we—live a rarefied kind of life that people not born to it might find difficult to adapt to.’
‘Gemma and Tristan are perfectly happy.’
‘They’re the exception—and Gemma has had some teething problems. Not the least of which is giving up her life in Australia. But, without being sexist or elitist about it, it’s a rare man who is going to be happy having a wife who is far superior to him in social status.’
‘Of course that’s being sexist and elitist, Mother,’ Natalia said, unable to let the comment go. ‘Surely it would depend on the individual’s attitude?’
‘Or a princess could renounce her title and all that goes with it.’
Natalia gasped. ‘What are you saying?’
‘It’s an option—although not a desirable one.’ Her mother took both her hands in hers. ‘We are talking theoretically here, aren’t we, my darling?’
Natalia couldn’t help a heartfelt sigh. ‘Yes. Purely theoretically. There’s nothing between me and Finn.’
Her mother attempted to raise her perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘Nothing at all?’
Natalia sighed again. ‘Okay, so I kissed him at the wedding. But that’s as far as it went.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Very sure.’
‘You know there are good reasons for a Montovian princess remaining chaste before her marriage? I rather like the way that British Princess put it: she “kept herself tidy”.’
‘I know,’ Natalia said.
The words had been quoted at her before. But that British Princess had been nineteen at the time. She was twenty-seven, for heaven’s sake.
‘The cute young Duke... You’re sure you don’t want to see him again?’
‘“Young” being the operative word, Mother. He’s sweet, but he’s only just started shaving. Besides, I suspect he’s in love with his seventeen-year-old sister’s best friend and is waiting for her to come of age. And, before you suggest it, I have absolutely no interest in meeting his uncle—the hip replacement High Duke.’
‘Don’t call him that. He’s a very charming and cultivated man. Handsome too. He thinks you’re way too young for him. Besides, he’s a widower and not looking for a new wife. A discreet relationship with a mature woman closer to his age would be more appropriate.’
‘Mother! You like him!’
‘And he likes me. Who knows what might happen?’
Her mother deserved some happiness—although she was bound to her father until one of them died.
‘I’m happy for you,’ Natalia said.
The Queen’s face softened. ‘Above all, Natalia, I want you to be happy in your marriage.’
‘Happy with a palace-approved man, you mean,’ said Natalia. ‘That’s never going to work for me.’
‘I want to give you the best chance to make it work,’ said her mother. ‘There’s no divorce for the royal family, as you know.’
‘I know,’ Natalia said.
She could recite all the rules and regulations that governed their lives. So could her mother—who was trapped in a miserable marriage. Sometimes Natalia felt she should hate her father for what he had done to her lovely mother. But he and his mistress truly loved each other, and had done since they were teenagers. They should have been allowed to marry. It was one of the reasons her father had agreed to change the law.
‘I see Tristan has included you in his business meetings with the Australian. Not his wisest move. Be careful. Try not to be alone with him. Don’t encourage him.’
‘Mother!’
‘I mean it, my darling. Even if the law says you can marry him, I don’t see how it could possibly work. Your differences are too great. And you can’t have him as a lover. I don’t want to see you heartbroken.’
‘I don’t know where this talk of marriage comes from. Certainly not from me. There is nothing between me and Finn. I hardly know him.’
Her mother’s grip on her hands tightened. ‘You might say that, my darling, but I saw the way you were looking at him last night. And the way he looked at you. Nip it in the bud. That’s my advice to you as your mother and your Queen.’
* * *
An hour later Natalia sat with Finn in her favourite chocolate shop and tea room in the heart of the old town. It was ornate
and old-fashioned and hadn’t changed at all in her lifetime.
‘The three of us loved coming here as kids,’ she explained to Finn, who was opposite her at a small round table.
He looked around him at the array of premium Montovian chocolates, the displays of cakes and pastries, the splendid samovar. ‘My sister and I would have thought we were in heaven.’
‘We did too. Our parents were strict. And our nannies followed their rules to the letter. But a visit to this place was our special treat—a reward for good behaviour.’ She paused. ‘I miss my brother Carl most of all when I’m here. Carl was a chocoholic before we’d ever heard the word. He was always negotiating increases in our chocolate allowance. Never just for himself, though. Always for all three of us. He was a born leader.’
‘Tristan had big shoes to fill?’
‘Yes. And he’s filling them remarkably well. Having Gemma as support has really helped him, I think. It was such a dark time for us when we lost Carl.’
‘Did you have grief counselling to help you come to terms with his loss?’
‘You sound like a counsellor yourself when you say that.’
‘I just wondered. Sudden change... Unresolved grief... All could contribute to your unhappiness.’ His gaze on her face was intense. ‘I don’t like seeing you unhappy.’
Just sitting here with him, close enough so she could reach over and touch him, was making her feel happier than she’d felt for a long time—three months, to be precise. ‘I’m not as unhappy as I was.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Who could be unhappy sipping the best hot chocolate in the world?’ With you.
On her trip to Australia she’d found what was missing in her life. A relationship with a man who excited her. Finn.
‘Good point,’ he said.
‘Nip it in the bud,’ her mother had commanded.
Natalia had no intention of doing any such thing. She had never met a man like Finn and she intended to spend as much time as she could with him. If there was a chance to be alone with him, she would grab it. If there was a chance for her to go through with her original plan to lose her virginity to him, she would. She had a plan.
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