Bowing to the inevitable, Genevieve nodded and fell into step as they traversed linked circles of lavender bushes. “Papa, I’ve just come from a meeting with the Royal Auditor assigned to me.”
“Oh, I’ve got one, too,” Mathilde piped up. “A lovely woman. She breeds dachshunds when she isn’t buried in spreadsheets.”
A plethora of words sprang to mind to describe Lord Theo Holst: annoying, impudent, forceful, self-inflated sense of his own importance, rude. “Lovely” did not make the cut.
To Genevieve’s immense frustration, one more word sprang to mind: handsome.
Mouth-wateringly handsome, with thick hair the color of her horse’s saddle. Eyes whose brown, close up, were softened by glints of gold. Slashes of sharp cheekbone that pointed down to a surprisingly full mouth.
And the muscles she’d felt through his thin summer trousers…well, if he’d been anyone else? Genevieve might’ve indulged in a quick flight of fancy about those long, strong thighs. Wondered if they were strong enough to support holding a woman up, say, against a wall for at least ten minutes. The heat that had poured off of him when he touched her face—
Annoying.
His handsomeness was annoying because it was a distraction from his overall loathsomeness. Genevieve plucked at her blouse. Goodness, it was warm out here under the July sun. “Don’t we all have an auditor assigned?”
“No.” Finally, the king spoke. “The Parliament was allowed to arbitrarily choose two members of the immediate royal family and two lesser members. I believe the Undersecretary of the Treasury pulled your name out of a hat.”
“Well, that seems thoroughly official.”
A hat? There were websites that could randomize any amount of numbers, and this hell had been inflicted upon her thanks to an old-fashioned hat?
Clearly, the Undersecretary of the Treasury needed a smartphone.
“Does your auditor have a fun hobby?” Mathilde asked. She was the people person of the group. She could find a way to make a rubber band open up about its feelings. “I find it humanizes these officials who come poking about into your private business if we chat about their lives first.”
“I’m not sure, Auntie. If I had to guess, I’d say that Lord Theo collects insects. He seems the type to want to stab things through the heart with a pin and then line them up in order in a drawer.”
“Genevieve,” the older woman half spoke, half gasped. “You can’t say that sort of thing, even in jest. What if somebody heard you?”
There weren’t any gardeners around, not in the heat of the day. Bodyguards were stationed at the four entrances to the gardens but nowhere close enough to overhear. It was so like her gran to worry more about perception than honest feelings being shared.
And she honestly thought that Theo might pull the wings off of butterflies in his spare time.
Okay, not honestly, but there wasn’t time to think of a properly horrifying and boring and insulting hobby that did fit him.
“Papa, this man has made completely unjust demands. Demands, not requests. He had the temerity to make demands of a royal. He has no sense of his station and absolutely no sense of what is required to do my job. I’d like you to tell him to reconsider his entire approach.”
The king didn’t even look her way. His gaze stayed fixed on the path. One that had not changed in his lifetime and he had to have memorized after almost sixty years. “I can’t get involved. There can’t be any sense that I’m influencing these auditors.”
That was the way of things with a constitutional monarchy. The royal family represented the people but never, ever weighed in on politics. They didn’t even attempt to influence their subjects. Still, there was a simple work-around.
“Then get me a different auditor. One more well acquainted with the House of Villani and the cost of our responsibilities.”
“My dear, I didn’t choose him. I read the briefing report on him, of course. Had to be sure he was good enough to handle my little girl.” The king patted her hand, and the fondness in his voice made her imagine for a moment that he was perfectly fine. “Lord Holst doesn’t report to the palace but to the prime minister. My hands are tied.”
Her father was missing the point.
While Lord Theo bothered Genevieve on almost every level, she had a thick skin. When international media and journalists stalked your every move for your entire life? You learned quickly whose opinion mattered and how to distinguish them from the millions who didn’t.
This request wasn’t personal. It wasn’t because he’d pissed her off or set her teeth on edge or even—as much as Genny hated to admit it—that her knees had gotten embarrassingly weak at his touch.
No, she was pleading with her father to intercede for the reason that was at the core of almost every decision and choice she made.
For the good of king and country.
It was how she’d been raised. It was what she believed.
Genevieve tugged at her father’s arm to stop the slow procession. “This man’s demands make a mockery of me and the crown I represent. Your crown, Papa. It’s as if he’s looking at us through a funhouse mirror. Everything is distorted in his eyes.”
He frowned down at her. Not in frustration, but with his eyes clouded in…confusion? “As I understand it, you have two months to make adjustments. To clear his vision, as it were.”
“You’re the perfect person to do so, Genevieve,” Aunt Mathilde gushed. She snapped off a sprig of lavender and wafted it in a circle before poking it behind Genny’s ear. “Sweet and charming. The picture-perfect princess. He won’t be able to resist you.”
Genny’s stomach knotted. They didn’t get it. They hadn’t really listened to her. Not the first time that had happened, either.
The problem with bending over backward to follow the rules, to exceed expectations, to not make waves? Everyone expected it of her. Expected her to not have a problem, to not cause a fuss. To not need anything.
Except that now she did.
A few months ago, her father would have taken her into his office and talked through it. He would’ve seen in her face, picked up from her voice how worried she was for the trouble Lord Theo could cause, the black mark he could inflict upon the monarchy with his decision.
This shadow version of her father didn’t pay attention. To anything. And that was a far bigger problem than any auditor’s report.
“Genevieve, need I remind you what a critical time this is for us and the country?” Great. Gran launching into a lecture. Typical, and typically not helpful. “We’re being watched even more closely as the country decides how to vote on the European Union. We must be above reproach.”
Just like every other day in the life of a royal…
Aunt Mathilde whisked off her hat to fan herself with its wide brim. “Go along with whatever this Lord Theo asks. After all, he’s Moncriano nobility—one of us. How bad can he be?”
Genevieve feared the answer to that would be worse than any of them anticipated.
…
Simon slid a pint glass across the table. “I got you the perfect beer.”
“Doubtful.” Theo eyed what he guessed to be a porter from the deep walnut tint. “You’re from England. You think the perfect beer is room temperature.”
“I didn’t see you turning down the beer from my foot locker back in boarding school.”
“It wasn’t as if I had better options, mate.” They’d been twelve. Shut up in a repurposed castle of a boarding school in the middle of Yorkshire. Simon had made them grilled cheese sandwiches with his iron, too. Something else that Theo’s tastes had happily outgrown.
“Our new best friend the bartender informs me that this is from the Villani brewery. It tapped its first keg in 1457, so it must be good. They’ve had plenty of time to get it right.”
“No. No way.” He shoved it back at S
imon. “I don’t want anything that puts money in the pockets of the crown.”
“Sure you do. Want to know why?” Simon was grinning so hard he could barely get the words out. “You get to piss it out later. If that isn’t a metaphor for your afternoon with the princess, I don’t know what is.”
It was stupid. Juvenile.
It was exactly what Theo needed to force him out of his funk.
He laughed as Simon slapped the table and damn near chortled. Raising his glass to his friend, he said, “See? That’s why I tell people that you’re far smarter than you look.”
“I’ll take that back-handed compliment. Why? Because it’s better than none at all. And because you’re going to help me get all the women tonight.” Simon then raised his mug. “To besting the princess.”
“Damn straight I’ll drink to that.” They clinked. A bit of the foamy head sloshed over the sides. They both downed half of it in a long chug. It was a porter and a damned fine one. But to Theo, it mostly tasted of sweet satisfaction.
Theo knew he’d won only the first of many skirmishes. He intended, however, to win all of them. Because in the end, the only victory that mattered was the war.
Wait… He shifted his gaze from the soccer playing on the television behind the bar to Simon, still grinning like a loon. “How am I helping you get women tonight? I thought this was my celebration. That puts you in automatic wingman status.”
“You’re nobility. Local nobility. That’s got to have major cache. I figure if we move to the bar and I start calling you Lord Theo, the ladies will swarm both of us.”
Absofuckinglutely not. “No.”
Simon eyeballed the half-full room. And he lingered on a trio of women in the overstuffed leather chairs grouped around the fireplace. “You’re right. I undersold it. Not swarm. They’ll stampede us.”
He was undoubtedly correct.
It didn’t change Theo’s mind, however. “No. I’m not using my title to get you action.”
“I can’t think of a more noble use for it.” Simon gave such a huge wink that it stretched one side of his mouth up.
Theo stretched out his legs beneath the table. “Then I’d be no better than the princess or the royal family. My title’s not a gift. It’s a weight around my neck. A reminder that all the people living in our corner of the kingdom look to us to provide good jobs, housing, transportation. Luckily, my sister’s the firstborn, so she’s stuck with the worst of it.”
“Christ, we aren’t still in feudal times. I figured the title was just an honorific.”
“Some are. Not my family’s. Father is the Duke and therefore is responsible for all the people in the duchy. They are our paying tenants. Our success is tied to theirs.”
“That’s bloody serious stuff.”
“Indeed.” Now that he was back in Moncriano, Theo had plans to shore up the family estate and everyone living in the borders of their duchy. If his father let him… “That’s why it pisses me off to see the princess waste her kingdom’s money on fripperies.”
“You deserve to be pissed. Just promise me that you’ll never use that word again.” Simon swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Sounds like you’ve been reading too much Dickens. Fripperies? Does that even translate into your language?”
“Not…precisely. But it fits.” Man, if he could, he’d sentence Genevieve to a Dickensian diet of gruel for a week. Just to give her perspective. “The princess is a spendthrift. I have a chance to change that. To keep our country from being revealed as an embarrassment to all of Europe.”
Propping an elbow on the table, Simon leaned in like he was divulging a deep secret. “Well, not everyone in Europe cares about budgets as much as a couple of numbers wonks like you and me do.”
Smugly, Theo said, “I can make them care. If I put it in context.”
That was a chore he planned to offload onto Simon. Compiling comparative budgetary statistics that would shame the royal family into compliance. But he had a few already up his sleeve. “She hired a chef to fly in from Paris to cook dinner for one night for the king. Hotel, supplies, airfare, his fee—all told? It cost as much as six months of a car payment for the average citizen.”
Simon’s eyes bugged out. “That’s…well, that’s going to make me finish the rest of this beer in one swallow.”
It was exactly the reaction he’d hoped for. “Go for it.”
While Simon chugged, Theo glanced back over at the television. It was wedged between ancient-looking wooden rafters.
The atmosphere in the pub was mostly “old,” with what looked like centuries of soot leaving a wide, black trail up the stone chimney. High-backed wooden booths lined the walls, with a few tall tables clustered right in front of the tiny step he figured acted as a stage on the weekends for live music.
It was so far from the slick bars he’d frequented in New York. No chrome and steel accents. No pulsing electronica shaking the ceiling. He and Simon were the only patrons in ties, let alone suits, despite being in the heart of the capital.
He loved America. But God, it was good to be home. Theo hadn’t known if he’d ever get to make his first trip to a Moncriano pub. Doing it with Simon, who’d been his first friend in his British exile, felt fitting.
Simon waved a hand in front of him. “Are you looking at that blonde in the white shirt?”
“What? No.”
“Uh, why not? She’s given us the eye twice already, and her drink looks ready to be refilled. As your wingman, I call that easy pickings. What better way to celebrate?”
She did have a nice smile. Kissing a pretty woman was a surefire way to turn around a rough day.
But images of the princess kept chasing through his head. The way those flounces had shifted over her breast every time she breathed. The silk of her hair. How she’d surprised him multiple times by not reacting how he expected.
It was intriguing. Intriguing was better than easy any day of the week.
Not that he’d go there.
Kissing the enemy? The woman he’d carefully nursed a grudge against his whole life, the way you tended a spark on kindling into a bonfire?
No way.
Theo drummed his fingers against the glass. “I can’t stop thinking about the princess,” he said abruptly.
“Because she’s spoiled and annoying and ruined your life? Yes, yes, I’ve heard that a million times from you. And those were just in the first year we shared a room. Don’t be a bore.”
Theo lunged to his feet, almost knocking over the wooden stool. “Damn it to hell, I didn’t win the battle.”
Simon also jumped up, but mocking him comically and pumping his fist in the air. “You did. That woman walked out of your office with her tail tucked between her very pretty legs.”
“No.” Shit, he’d overlooked the obvious. Theo crumpled the cocktail napkin. “I thought I had the high ground by refusing her summons.”
“You did. Can we please move on to something—or someone else?” He waggled his eyebrows and pointed across the room. “Like that brunette at the bar with the braid halfway down her back?”
“I did…until that power play she pulled off by showing up at my office. That gave her the edge. It was unforeseeable. I rallied, but she’d already outflanked me with that maneuver. At best, it was a draw.”
Simon grabbed both their glasses. “Win or lose, I’m buying you another pint. Does it truly matter?”
Does it—Christ on a three-humped camel. Were the oceans wet? Would he and Simon both sell their future first-borns to attend the final game of the World Cup? “Oh, yes. It matters. Believe me, she knows it matters, too.”
“Why do I feel like you’re about to escalate this way out of proportion?” His friend started toward the bar.
In a low voice, Theo ground out, “I can’t let it stand, Simon.”
Shoulders dr
ooping forward, Simon stopped in his tracks. When he turned around, his usual affable demeanor was gone. “I need you to level with me.”
“Of course.”
“Do you want to embarrass—or even punish—the princess? Or simply change her ways for the betterment of the country? Because right now, I can’t honestly tell.”
Slowly, Theo sank back onto the stool. It was less a question than an accusation. “The people of this country come first. Always. That’s behind my frustration with the royals. Adjusting her spending to not waste her subjects’ money is the number one goal.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.” Theo meant it down to his bones.
He knew he’d been born into privilege. Being shuttled off to live in other countries didn’t diminish that. It absolutely didn’t diminish his inherent responsibility to the people of his family’s estate.
The House of Villani had the same responsibility to the entire kingdom.
Simon gave him a long, searching look. “Why don’t you think on it while I get our second round? Because I came here to help you with a job, not exact vengeance.”
“Agreed.”
But if the two should intertwine…well, that’d just be a win/win situation, wouldn’t it?
He wouldn’t drag Simon into the personal side of things. It wouldn’t be right.
He would, however, come up with a plan to turn the tables and ambush the princess. As soon as possible.
Chapter Four
Every once in a rare while, Genny let herself indulge in what her sister called “princess perks.”
Not worrying about the entire bottle of champagne she tossed back after being dumped because her security detail drove her back to the palace in a limo? Awesome—and safety conscious.
Having fashion houses send couture clothes directly to the palace to try on so she wouldn’t have to battle the crowds? Well, that never got old.
Ruling the Princess Page 4
