by Liz Fielding
‘Not at all. I just thought I’d rather talk to you over a simple meal than sit and twiddle my thumbs while you cook.’
Oh, boy. Now, was that a challenge she could resist? Not in a million years.
‘Whatever made you think you’d be sitting twiddling anything, Xander? I’m going to cook a green Thai curry the way Jay taught me. And you’re going to help.’
‘Jay?’
‘My great-aunt. The one who lives upstairs. She’s travelled a lot, too. And she taught me to cook.’
‘And now you’re going to teach me?’
He spoke softly, yet there was an edge to his voice. A warning that she was fooling herself if she thought she could teach him anything.
‘You’re about to become a new man, Xander,’ she said, as she finally shook off the nervousness that had apparently paralysed her wits since she’d opened her door to him, and started to enjoy herself. ‘Better relax and enjoy it.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t seem to have much choice,’ he said, as she crossed to her favourite stall.
‘Hello, Charlie. What’s good today?’
‘Hello, duchess. You’re just in time for a bargain. Bananas half price. Lovely peaches—six for the price of four. I’m a fool to myself.’
‘I’ll believe you—hundreds wouldn’t,’ she said, laughing as she handed him her basket. ‘I’ll take six peaches. No squidgy ones from the bottom, mind. I’m going to poach them and I don’t want them disintegrating.’
‘I’m cut to the quick that you could even suggest such a thing.’
‘Is that so? Well, just make sure you don’t bleed over the fruit,’ she said, grinning as she picked up a large onion and offered it to Xander.
He took it, looked at it. Then looked at her. ‘It’s an onion,’ he offered.
Charlie, who’d known her since she was a little girl, jerked his head in Xander’s direction and grinned. ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’
‘Is there something else I should have said?’ Xander asked, bemused.
Having used this exchange to line up her shot, she pressed the clasp on her bag and took a picture. ‘You’ll take two?’ she suggested. ‘Along with some chillies, garlic and a handful of those green beans.’
‘Some? Is that one of those weird old-fashioned British measurements? Like chains and furlongs?’
‘Just ask the man, Xander. He’ll know what you mean.’
He turned to the trader. ‘I’ll take two, Charlie,’ he said. ‘And some chillies and garlic. And a handful of green beans.’
‘Would that be a big handful or a small handful?’ Charlie asked.
‘Small,’ Laura interjected, snorting with laughter.
‘And some of those strawberries,’ Xander continued, leaving the script and improvising.
‘Some?’ the trader asked, grinning. ‘Only chillies and garlic come in “some”.’
‘Make me an offer I can’t refuse, Charlie.’
They haggled good-naturedly for a minute or two before Charlie took the banknote Xander proffered and said, ‘Take your boyfriend away before he ruins me.’
‘He’s an economist, Charlie.’
‘Is that a fact?’ He gave Xander his change and the basket. ‘We could do with him running the government.’ And as he turned away to deal with another customer Xander gave her a look that said, Did I do well?
‘I didn’t expect you to pay,’ she said, not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed at how easily he handled himself in her world. If she’d hoped to make him look foolish she’d failed. ‘In fact, I didn’t think royalty carried cash.’
‘You have deprived me of my normal back-up system, Laura. Even in my ivory tower I am aware that taxi drivers, restaurants, market traders expect to be paid for their services on delivery rather than by account, at the end of the month.’
‘How does it feel?’
‘So far, so good. Ordinary could get to grow on me.’
‘You haven’t been on a bus yet.’
‘Is that what you’ve planned for tomorrow?’
Tomorrow? He really was going to do this again tomorrow? He’d said a week, but surely he hadn’t meant to spend the entire week with her? ‘I haven’t thought about tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Can we go out of London? I mean, do you have to let people know where you are? What about your security people?’
‘They tend to panic if I disappear off the face of the earth for more than a couple of hours. Right now they believe I have taken to my bed with a raging fever.’
‘It must make—’ She was going to say that it must make dating difficult. It seemed intrusive.
But no more intrusive than taking covert photographs. She was a journalist. Asking intrusive questions came with the territory.
‘It must make dating difficult,’ she said.
‘Must it?’
Then, ‘How do princes date?’
‘Like this?’ he offered. Then, while she was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that this was something as simple—or as complex—as a date, ‘Where next?’
She gathered her wits and dug an old envelope out of her pocket, suspecting that her leg was being royally pulled.
‘I need chicken, fresh basil, some of those tiny pea aubergines from the specialist stall at the other end of the market. Spices. A can of coconut milk,’ she said, consulting her list.
‘Don’t forget some clotted cream for the strawberries,’ he said.
‘You’ve ruined my plans for pudding,’ she grumbled. ‘I was going to poach the peaches in white wine.’
‘They’ll keep until tomorrow. The strawberries won’t.’
‘No. Are you absolutely wedded to the idea of clotted cream?’ She pulled a face. ‘I’ve got ice cream at home. It’s better after curry.’
‘We could spoil ourselves and have both,’ he suggested. ‘That is allowed? In the ordinary world?’
He was laughing at her. Not openly, but the telltale creases at the corners of his eyes betrayed him. How could she have ever thought him haughty? Or arrogant?
She grinned back. ‘It’s not only allowed, I believe it should be compulsory. Especially if the ice cream is vanilla praline. But I’m afraid we’re going to be sick if we try to eat all those strawberries.’
‘Not at all. The secret,’ he said, his voice softer than a summer mist, ‘as in all good things, is to take your time.’
And, just for a moment, she thought she knew exactly what he was thinking. Which had to be the purest figment of her imagination.
Her body didn’t think so, though. It purred as if stroked and, as he put his hand to her back to steer her through the slow moving traffic, the heat of it seemed to burn through the linen of her shirt, through the T-shirt she was wearing beneath it, right down to her skin.
CHAPTER SIX
ALEXANDER felt like a man let out of chains.
His life was governed by protocol, rules. He knew there was nothing he could do that would not be whispered over, discussed and dissected at length. It had become second nature to him to guard his words, conceal his thoughts and reserve his smile, particularly in the presence of young women, if he wished to avoid the sideways glances, the speculation.
Here no one knew him. No one was interested in the way he looked at Laura, beyond a certain indulgent good humour. Glad to see her happy. Which suggested she hadn’t always been so.
Anonymous, he could talk to strangers without the usual constraints, shop for the simple staples of life and carry Laura’s basket for her without eyebrows being raised.
Even the simple act of putting his hand on her back as he eased her through the crowds, the traffic, was nothing to be remarked upon, noted as exceptional, apart from a certain lightness in his own heart.
But only he knew about that.
Here, he was no one, and he could drop the mask for a while. Laura was the person everyone was happy to see. They responded to her warmth, as he had done, calling out to her as they toured the market stalls and the local shops and sh
e picked out the food that she was going to cook for them both.
Correction. They were going to cook. Together.
She was wrong about this being ordinary. For him it was far from ordinary. ‘Together’ was a word that had not featured in his vocabulary in a very long time.
‘I’ll buy wine for this feast,’ he said, as they approached a small specialist shop he’d noticed from the other side of the market.
‘No need. Not now we’ve got the strawberries,’ she said, and kept going as if that was an end of it.
He hooked his arm through hers and swung her around.
‘Hey!’ Her exclamation was cut off as she came to a halt, off balance, with her nose an inch from his chest, grabbing for his shirt-front to steady herself. As he caught her around the waist. Holding her there.
She opened her mouth as if to protest before looking up, and instead caught that beautiful bottom lip between her teeth.
Standing so close to her, her cheeks slightly flushed as she realised that she wasn’t talking to the actor who lived upstairs, or some boyfriend she could lead around by the nose, left him feeling much the same.
Speechless.
This morning he’d been at pains to explain to Katie that kissing was something to be saved for the private moments. Right now he understood exactly how she’d felt when she put her arms around that boy’s neck and kissed him for the whole world to see. Wanted the whole world to see. Just to show them how happy she was.
‘I said,’ he said, ‘that I will buy wine. Not for poaching peaches but to drink.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘No.’ He didn’t want her to apologise. He loved the fact that she didn’t think before she spoke. ‘Please. I don’t want you to be sorry. I’m having a good time. This is the perfect holiday from real life.’
‘This is real life, Xander.’
‘Not for me.’ And he detached one of her hands from his shirt, kissed the back of her fingers. ‘I could not do that in real life. At least, not in my real life.’
‘N—no,’ she managed as the flush to her cheeks deepened, the blue of her eyes almost disappearing as they darkened in response to a gesture that had been anything but courtly. And he had to make a conscious effort to take a step back, put some cool air between them before his own response became an embarrassment to both of them.
‘You agree? How refreshing,’ he said. ‘So, you chose the food; I get to choose what we drink with it. That is fair.’
‘It’s not—’ she began, in a spirited attempt to wrest back control. But her voice caught in her throat. She cleared it, began again. ‘It’s got nothing to do with fairness. It’s just old-fashioned macho pride,’ she said. ‘Food is women’s work, but wine—’ and she made quotation marks with her fingers ‘—is a “man” thing.’
‘I’m just trying to get some equality going here,’ he replied, enjoying himself. He’d forgotten what it felt like to talk so freely.
‘You’re a fine one to talk about equality when…’
‘When what?’ he insisted.
‘Nothing.’ She lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Sorry, I tend to get a bit carried away. Forget myself.’
‘It appears to be catching.’ The blush deepened. She kept her eyes firmly cast down, curtained by her lashes. He hooked his fingers beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. She caught her lower lip nervously between her teeth.
He wanted to do that.
Tug at the soft, inviting flesh. Taste it with his tongue. Taste all of her.
‘You’re wrong. This has nothing to do with masculine pride. I’m simply playing to my strengths, ma’am.’ And he kissed her cheek lightly before, reluctantly, releasing her. ‘I may not know much about vegetables, but I do have a vineyard.’
‘You do?’
‘My one indulgence.’ She’d thought he didn’t know about being ordinary. She was wrong. He knew… ‘And occasionally, if I’m fortunate, for a few weeks a year I can escape to help bring in the harvest.’
For a moment she digested this unexpected revelation. Then she said, ‘I bow to your superior knowledge about wine, Xander, but it’s traditional to drink beer with a curry,’ she said, her voice suddenly less certain, thicker, as if she was having to force the words out. Keep it normal. ‘And I have beer at home in the fridge.’
It didn’t actually help much, knowing that she was on the same wavelength. Feeling the same way.
Maybe there was something to be said, after all, for kissing in the street. Doing it in public kept things from getting out of hand.
‘You don’t have to tell me about tradition. I have a thousand years of it to live up to. And I might be new to this, but I’m pretty sure that in the ordinary world it’s still traditional that, if the woman cooks, the man brings a bottle.’
‘In this case, a bottle of beer. The spices will kill wine stone-dead.’
‘You do not give up,’ he said. She was stubborn as a mule, but he liked that. He liked that a lot. ‘Very well, I surrender to your experience. Beer it is. For the curry. But what are we to do about the strawberries? Trust me, I know about these things. For strawberries you need champagne.’
She sighed. ‘You’re not playing this by the rules, Xander,’ she said, with a more-in-sorrow-than-anger shake of her head. But she could not restrain a smile that lifted his heart even as it lifted the corners of her lovely mouth. ‘Champagne is by no means ordinary.’
‘No? And in this real world of yours it is not permitted for a man to indulge a woman he likes?’ More than likes. Desires.
And his own mouth, with a mind of its own, smiled right back at her.
For a moment she floundered, as if the thought of him actually liking her was difficult to cope with. Then she pulled herself together and said, with mock severity, ‘Very well. Just this once. Tomorrow—’
She stopped, blushing fiercely, as if suddenly conscious of going too far. Stepping out of line.
He hated that. Other people did that. He wanted her to feel she could say anything.
‘Tomorrow?’ he encouraged. ‘Have you decided what we’re going to do tomorrow?’
She hesitated, a frown buckling her smooth forehead. ‘What would you like to do, Xander?’
Spend the day with her. Doing nothing—everything. ‘This is your world, Laura. I’m entirely in your hands.’ And because the idea of surrendering himself to her was at once exhilarating and unnerving, he turned abruptly away and pushed open the door of the wine shop. ‘In all things but champagne.’
Laura, for whom a few pounds spent on a bottle of plonk was an occasional treat, watched while Xander talked knowledgeably about vintages with the owner of the shop before settling on a bottle that, even by champagne prices, was undoubtedly anything but ‘ordinary’.
Not that it was a hardship. Watching him. Listening to him. Maybe that was why she completely forgot about taking photographs. Or maybe it was just the lingering throb of her body’s response to his touch that was distracting her. Coupled with an uneasy feeling that whatever happened in the next few days, no matter how her career took off as a result of her ‘scoop’, nothing in her life would ever again be this special.
The first thing Laura saw as she walked through her front door was the red light flashing on the answering machine and her heart sank like a stone. It had to be Trevor McCarthy.
She hadn’t phoned him back after he’d sent the camera, unwilling to be grilled about what she knew, what she could deliver. But now he had a photograph of Princess Katerina leaving her flat and would be champing at the bit, eager to find out what was going on.
It could have been worse, she told herself. He could have called round in person. He already knew she had some connection with the Princess, so that wasn’t a real problem. She could tell him the truth about Katie’s visit, omitting to mention that her uncle had called, too. But her blood ran cold at the thought of him running into Xander. At the moment he was indulging her, giving her the opportunity to d
emonstrate just how useless she was so that he could be rid of her once and for all.
But if he knew that Prince Alexander of Montorino had paid her a personal visit he wouldn’t risk her messing up the story. He’d put someone else on to it; one photograph would be all that was needed. He could rely on innuendo to do the rest and sell newspapers by the million.
And she’d lose any chance of seeing Xander again.
‘I’ll take these through to the kitchen, shall I?’
‘Sorry?’
‘If you want to check your messages?’ Xander’s expression hadn’t changed much. He was still smiling. But she already knew him well enough to distinguish the real thing from the mask.
‘It’ll probably just be a double glazing salesman with no one to sell to,’ she said.
Well, she could hope, couldn’t she?
Even from the kitchen he couldn’t possibly miss the booming tones of her ex-boss demanding to know what she’d got on His Serene Highness Prince etc, etc.
‘Or the pizzeria hoping I can work tonight. Or Sean wanting to borrow my curling tongs.’ She frowned. It was a lot easier to frown than sustain that jaunty smile. ‘No, wait, he’s already got those.’
If she’d hoped that would make him laugh she’d have been disappointed.
‘Or it might be something important,’ he said, taking the champagne from the basket. ‘I’ll put this in your fridge.’
And with that he went into the kitchen and closed the door so that she could deal with her calls in privacy. Great. He couldn’t have made it plainer that he knew she didn’t want him listening in, but then her face had always been an open book. That was why people took advantage of her good nature.
If she was going to stay in this business, she’d have to do some work on her own mask, on hiding her feelings.
She took a deep breath, crossed to the machine. One message. She crossed her fingers and hit ‘play’.
It was Jay. ‘Darling, that man you did some work for recently called round while you were out. He’s wondering if you’re going to be able to do anything for him in the near future.’
She smiled in relief. Jay’s natural caution with answering machines was legendary. You never knew who might overhear your message, she said. Bless her.
