He should turn around, go back to his apartments, the soulless, lifeless apartments Amber had been so unimpressed by earlier, go back to bed and forget he had overheard anything. Tomorrow they could resume their slow, stately, courteous courtship and he could rely on Amber’s upbringing and sense of fairness to make up for his inability to woo her. To let her in. That was the safest option, the option that gave him the best chance at his desired outcome.
He inhaled slowly.
His desired outcome, the right outcome, was a sensible marriage where both parties knew exactly what they wanted from the union. A marriage giving him the son he needed and a consort willing and capable to put Elsornia first. Even if Amber hadn’t been his betrothed, wasn’t raised for a situation such as this, she would still be suitable. She was warm, approachable, hard-working with an innate sense of responsibility. And she was carrying his child. What else did he need? He certainly didn’t need to remember the night when her smile was full of promise, her eyes full of stars, and she made him feel like a man, not a prince. And that was an outcome best achieved by pretending he had seen and heard nothing.
But the desolate ring in her voice echoed through him. He had let her down tonight, withheld himself, just as he withheld himself from everyone, even his sisters. It was safer that way. A king was always alone; his father had taught him well. But he wasn’t King yet, just a prince, and without Amber and the child she carried maybe he never would be.
Without stopping to think, Tris reached for the door handle again and this time made a show of fumbling as he turned it, making plenty of noise as he pushed the door open. Amber turned, surprise mingling with guilt on her face as she closed her tablet. Dressed in pyjama bottoms, a soft cashmere hoodie, with her hair scraped off her face, no make-up and a liberal dusting of flour over her hair, cheeks and front she looked more like the teenager he had first met than the desirable bridesmaid or the elegant companion of the last week. The girl he owed a duty of care to, a girl he had let down.
‘Tris! What are you doing here?’
Tris thought quickly. He didn’t want Amber to feel that she was under surveillance or that she couldn’t wander wherever she wished. ‘I wanted a snack.’
‘A snack?’ One arched eyebrow indicated her disbelief. ‘Isn’t there an army of night staff ready to bring you whatever you need?’
‘A snack and a stroll,’ he amended, his urbane smile daring her to question his word. ‘I thought it might help me sleep. But the real question is, what are you doing?’
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Her words and tone were sassy, but her expression was anxious and still a little guilty. ‘I’m baking. Can’t you tell?’
Even without the flour and all the ingredients and bowls scattered around, the enticing aroma wafting from the oven would have been a gigantic clue. ‘Something gave me that impression, I’m more interested in why. You often bake at midnight?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say often, but it’s not unusual. I bake when I need to think. Like you and astronomy, I suppose.’
With an effort, Tris didn’t react to her words. He shouldn’t be surprised at her deduction. After all, not only had she seen the telescope on his balcony, but he had used the stars to seduce her. He just hadn’t realised that she’d understood that astronomy wasn’t just a hobby but a way of centring himself. A way of reminding himself that the universe was bigger than one almost-king and his small, beloved and all-consuming country.
‘What are you making?’
‘Nothing at all complicated, just a plain sponge and some shortbread. But I was thinking of making pastry or something with dough. My mind is still not settled; I need something more absorbing.’
‘A cake seems pretty complicated to me,’ Tris said and was rewarded with a genuine if pitying smile.
‘It’s just mixing things together in the right quantities in the right order, nothing complicated about that. It’s no different to making little cakes or tarts as a child.’
‘Is that what you did? Is that how you learned to bake?’
Amber looked surprised. ‘Of course, didn’t you?’
Tris picked up an egg. ‘Baking isn’t really part of a king’s curriculum.’
‘No, but you must have at least made little fairy cakes, rubbery and almost inedible but your parents had to eat them anyway?’
Tris tried to imagine his austere, remote father sampling any cooking his children brought him, but his imagination failed him. ‘The girls may have, but I doubt it. I don’t remember my mother ever setting foot in the kitchen. Of course they spent most of their time with her when she moved out of the castle and into the lakeside villa. It’s possible they baked then, but not here. We were never encouraged to hang around the kitchens here.’
‘It’s never too late to learn.’ Amber handed him a bowl and Tris automatically took it, placing the egg carefully inside. ‘What do you want to bake? I’ll show you.’
‘What, now? It’s after midnight.’
‘Why not? Have you got anything better to do?’
Tris automatically opened his mouth to say of course he had something better to do, but then he looked over at Amber, her hair beginning to fall out of its messy bun, tendrils framing her heart-shaped face, hope in her large green eyes. He’d been unable to let her in earlier, hadn’t known how to do anything but keep her at arm’s length, but maybe he could—maybe he should—try harder.
‘I guess not. Okay, I’m all yours.’
CHAPTER TEN
AMBER STARED AT TRIS, her mouth dry. She hadn’t really expected him to agree. The thought of the usually immaculate Tris in an apron, hands covered in flour, was so incongruous her mind couldn’t conjure up an image.
‘Great.’ Incongruous or not, this was an opportunity she couldn’t throw away. Wasn’t she down here, baking furiously and complaining to Harriet, because Tris was resolutely keeping her at arm’s length?
‘Great,’ Tris repeated. ‘What do I do first?’
Amber eyed Tris assessingly. He was still wearing the beautiful grey shirt and well cut tailored trousers he’d been wearing earlier. For a prince the outfit might count as casual but in an already flour-filled kitchen he was dangerously overdressed.
‘An apron might be a good start. There’re a couple hanging up over there.’
The beep of the timer interrupted her, and Amber busied herself with taking the cakes out of the oven and replacing them with the shortbread before turning to Tris.
‘Where shall we start? Cake, cookies, pies, bread—or would you like to go straight for the jugular and have a go at a soufflé?’
‘Tempting as a soufflé sounds, I think I’ll stick with something simple for now.’
‘That sounds like a good plan.’ Amber tried to ignore noticing just how close Tris was standing, tried to ignore his distinctly masculine scent, the way his proximity made the hairs on her wrists rise and her pulse beat just a little faster. ‘A simple loaf cake. There are some lemons over there; how do you feel about lemon drizzle?’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever tried lemon drizzle, but I’m willing to give it a go.’
‘You’ve never tried lemon drizzle? How is that even possible? It’s a good thing I came along.’ She paused. ‘But if I’m going to teach you to bake, I need something in return.’
‘That seems fair. Name your price.’
‘Have you never read a fairy tale? You should never just invite anyone to name their price. What if I asked for your soul, or your firstborn child...?’ Her voice trailed off, aware that his firstborn child was indeed in her possession. She rallied. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask for anything lasting. But in return for the lesson I’m going to ask you a question and you are going to promise to tell me the truth as best you can.’
Tris didn’t respond for a long moment, his smile still in place but his expression the shutter
ed one she was beginning to know all too well.
‘I did tell you to name your price, didn’t I? Okay, ask away.’
Amber fumbled for a glass of water, her throat suddenly dry. This was it, this was what she’d been wanting. The opportunity to get to know the real Tris, not the public persona he presented.
‘First things first, you need to get your ingredients together. Right, I hope you’ve got a good memory. You want two hundred and twenty-five grams of butter...’ She reeled off a long list of ingredients and first steps. ‘Got all that? I’m going to put my favourite recipe on the tablet for you to follow, but yell with any questions. Okay?’
‘Yes, chef.’ Tris gave a cheeky grin and half salute as he started to gather all the ingredients she’d specified together on the workbench next to hers and she couldn’t help but return his smile, warmed by his informality—and the ridiculousness of the starched white apron covering his shirt and trousers.
Humming to herself, Amber started to tidy up and prepare the things she needed to sandwich the cake she’d already made while supervising Tris and thinking about what to ask him. She felt like a princess in a fairy tale with only three chances to get her questions right before he disappeared in a wisp of smoke, leaving her no further forward than she was right now.
‘My mother was a doctor.’ Amber hadn’t meant to say that; she hadn’t meant to talk about herself at all. But now she’d started it felt easier than simply interrogating Tris. She needed to learn about him, but maybe he needed to learn about her as well. ‘That’s how she met my dad. He fell off his bike and she was the surgeon who operated on his knee. I don’t think marriage or kids were really on her radar at all. I remember her telling me that as a scientist she absolutely didn’t believe in love at first sight, but when she did her rounds to check on Dad after his operation she could barely concentrate on her notes. Of course, ethically, she couldn’t do anything about it, but luckily Dad felt the same way and once he was discharged he came back with a thank you card and asked her out. They got married a year later and I showed up a year after that.’
She stared down at her hands, her eyes blurring as she remembered her sweet, slightly eccentric parents. ‘Dad was in his forties, Mum almost there. I think it was a shock to both of them, becoming parents. They were both so dedicated to their jobs, but I always felt loved and wanted. That made it easier later, after they died. Anyway, my mum loved to bake. It was how she de-stressed. One of my earliest memories is being given pastry to play with at the table while she made pies. As you can imagine, my grandmother did not encourage the habit; baking is very much something that servants did. But her cook used to teach me secretly, as did my favourite doorman’s wife on the rare occasions I could sneak away. I’m not sure I could have survived that penthouse if I couldn’t bake.’
Amber couldn’t believe she had just blurted out so much. But when she looked up at Tris she saw his gaze fastened on hers, empathy warming his grey eyes. ‘Your parents sound lovely,’ he said softly, and she nodded, her heart and throat too full to speak. ‘It must have been really tough for you when they died.’
‘It was.’ Amber laid the back of her hand onto one of the sponges, relieved that it was cool enough for her to start whipping the cream. She couldn’t just stand here blethering on about a past she never really spoke to anyone about. But she also wanted honesty from Tris, and that meant being honest in return. ‘I was devastated. Even if my grandparents had been different, I would still have found the whole situation inconceivably difficult. Maybe, in a way, the sheer surrealism of what happened next shielded me from the worst of my grief. My life changed so absolutely that I think I was numb for many, many months. Moving from a small village where I was just Amber Blakeley, normal middle-class girl living a normal middle-class life, to New York, where I was Vasilisa Kireyev, Crown Princess of Belravia and heir to a vast fortune, would have been the most discombobulating thing ever, even if I hadn’t been dealing with my parents’ deaths.’
Amber swallowed and concentrated on the cream so she didn’t have to look at the pity on Tris’s face. She’d never really talked about the car accident that had stolen her parents from her. Her grandparents must have grieved in their own way, but Amber had never been encouraged to discuss her feelings or offered counselling. One of the hardest things about opening the Pandora’s box that contained her past was realising how much she still had to come to terms with the loss.
‘My grandfather died just a few months after I moved to New York and so it was just my grandmother and me. It was hard. She was hard. Leaving the house my parents bought when I was a baby, all my memories, was bad enough, but the sheltered existence she insisted on... I felt like I was imprisoned in that tower. My grandmother would never let me out unaccompanied, wouldn’t allow me to select my friends or my hobbies. I used to stand at the window and stare out at Central Park, at the joggers and the dog walkers and the kids and wish that someone would rescue me.’
Amber could feel her cheeks heating; there was no way she was letting Tris know that the first time she’d seen him she’d cast him in the role of knight in shining armour. She’d spent way too many long, lonely evenings conjuring up tales of rescue, some actually including Tris on a white horse. She busied herself ladling cream into a bowl and fetching the jam. Anything not to look at him.
‘Did you know your grandmother well? Before you went to live with her?’
Amber shook her head. ‘I’d met her twice, I think. She never came to the house and we never visited her in New York but once or twice she came to London and we met her for dinner in whichever fancy hotel she was gracing with her royal presence. My grandfather never accompanied her. Truth is, my dad barely ever mentioned the whole royal thing. He changed his name when he went to boarding school in his teens as a security measure, but liked being plain Stephen Blakeley so much he just stayed as him; he said he was really proud of his doctor title because he’d earned it with his PhD, but a royal title just meant his ancestor had been more of a thug than the next man.’ She managed a smile. ‘Anyway, I didn’t mean to bore you with the life and times of Amber Blakeley; I was clumsily trying to tell you why baking is important to me. It’s not just the creative part of it or the fact that I really, really like cake, but it’s tied into the happiest memories of my childhood.’
* * *
While Amber spoke, Tris had been busy following the instructions she had brought up for him on her tablet. It was oddly soothing combining the ingredients, seeing all the disparate parts turn into a creamy whole. Meanwhile, with practised ease, Amber was whipping cream, smoothing jam onto a cake and removing tantalisingly aromatic biscuits from the oven, her every move graceful as if she were in a well-known dance, one whose steps he could barely comprehend. He was glad of something to do with his hands and something to focus on completely as she completely un-self-pityingly laid bare the reality of her childhood. It must have been much harder for her, those long lonely teenage years, after knowing such warmth and happiness, than it had been for him, raised solely for duty and responsibility.
‘Okay, let me take a look,’ Amber said, coming to stand next to him. She smelt of vanilla and sugar and warmth. How did she have so much light and optimism after so much darkness? ‘That’s not bad at all. Now, pour it into the tin and smooth out the top and then you can pop it into the oven. A loaf cake takes about forty minutes to bake, so we’ll have to think of something else to make while we are waiting. Something quick or we’ll be here all night and I want to tidy up and hide all evidence long before the kitchen staff turn up.’
‘Or we could eat some of that amazing-looking cake instead,’ Tris suggested.
‘We could. Of course, for that I need a cup of tea. You can take the girl out of England, but you can’t stop her craving her daily cuppa.’
Five minutes later Amber had managed to find a brand of tea she was happy with and made herself a large cup, Tris opting for a glass of
wine instead. Two generous slices of the cake she’d made lay on plates before them as they perched on stools side by side. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had such an informal meal, even when it was a simple snack. Even the pizza he had painstakingly heated up earlier had been served on a table, already laid with silverware and linen.
Amber took a sip of her tea and then took an audible breath, as if trying to find the courage to speak. ‘Thank you for listening just now. I’ve never actually said any of that to anybody before. Not even to myself really. At the time it was all too much and afterwards I was just so relieved to be away. In a funny way, I should thank you for that as well. I mean I always meant to leave as soon as I’d graduated from high school, but you gave me the impetus to start living my own life the way I wanted to.’
‘And was it? The life you wanted?’
Amber forked a portion of cake, looking thoughtful as she did so. ‘It wasn’t the life I planned,’ she said at last. ‘I had wanted to study history like my dad. Maybe even become an academic like him. But actually I loved being a concierge, I loved working for Deangelo and setting up the agency was just so exciting and empowering; it felt like I was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing for me.’
Tris laid down his fork. All that had changed thanks to him. Amber was no longer in the right place for her, even if she was exactly where he needed her to be. Victory tasted bitter, no matter how delicious the cake.
But Amber didn’t look bitter; instead she leaned back on her stool and pointed her fork at him. ‘You know, this whole baking experience was meant to be a chance for me to ask you some questions and instead all I’ve done is talk about myself. That’s partly my fault, but don’t think I haven’t noticed you encouraging me to carry on. You don’t get away with it that easily, Your Royal Highness.’
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