Sophie Weston - The Prince's Proposal

‘That’s hardly brigandage.’

‘They developed that later. Harried the Turks. Raided the Crusaders. Made a good thing out of kidnap and extortion for about ten centuries. Then got some great PR at the Conference of Vienna and turned themselves into professional freedom fighters.’

There was stunned silence.

Then, ‘You sound like an expert,’ he said slowly. ‘Did you major in Balkan history?’

Francesca gave a snort of laughter. ‘In a way. My father came from Montassurro. I grew up on the stories.’

Another, longer silence. She could almost feel him thinking. It was still unsettling. And, even now, when they were clearly at odds, it was still sexy. Blast!

‘Not very flattering stories by the sound of it.’

‘Well, my father is an anti-monarchist.’

‘And you’ve inherited his prejudices,’ he said as if that explained everything.

Francesca stiffened. ‘Not at all. I don’t care about monarchy one way or the other. What I can’t bear is a lot of people living in the past. Ex-kings, huh! You can’t spend your life as an ex-anything. You have to draw a line and go on.’

‘You’re very—unforgiving.’

She stared, confused. ‘Why? Because I don’t like a lot of phoney nostalgia?’

He was looking at her in that way again. She couldn’t see him properly but the reservations were coming off him in waves. As if there were two conversations going on and she was only hearing one—and the less interesting one, at that.

Oh, God, here I go again. Listening to the facts. Not hearing the meaning. What the hell is wrong with me?

‘Because you think you can draw a line under a bit of yourself and leave it behind.’ He was drawling again. ‘How old are you?’

Francesca’s eyes snapped. ‘Twenty-three. How old are you?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘Thirty-two. Going on a hundred, just at this minute.’

‘Why this minute?’

But there was no chance for him to answer. The glass door was pushed violently back. Music and revellers spilled out onto the balcony with equal disruptive force. He sidestepped them and took the opportunity to look at his watch.

‘I ought to be doing my duty in the Press room.’

‘Oh.’ She was horribly disappointed and furious about it. Rebound indeed! She curbed it and held out her hand. ‘Good luck.’

He took it. ‘Will I see you later?’

She shook her head vigorously. As much at her own unwanted fantasies as at him. ‘As soon as I’ve caught up with my prince I’m going home.’

He smiled faintly. She could hear it in his voice. ‘Exprince.’

And he held on to her hand. It was heady stuff.

‘Whatever,’ she said, distracted.

‘You like to be accurate.’

‘Yes.’ She was still oddly shaken. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘It’s obvious. Well, then, we’d better say goodbye.’

He tugged her hand, bringing her a critical step closer to him. Bent—he had a long way to bend—and brushed her cheek with his lips.

Francesca gulped. For a moment she was in a cloud of cold, pure air, surrounded by cedar and a sense of imminent danger, as if she were facing a climb that was beyond her. And then she was on a crowded balcony again on a wet London night. And the stars had gone in.

‘Er—goodbye,’ she said, more breathless than she would have liked.

He straightened. ‘Good luck yourself. I hope you get your ex-prince.’

Francesca, who never gave up on any of her self-appointed tasks, was for the first time in her life going to pass. She had no intention of doing anything more this evening than going home and trying to get her breath back. But she was not admitting that to anyone else. And, besides, there was always another day. One way or another, she would get the crown prince to one of The Buzz’s book-signings if it killed her.

‘Cast-iron certainty,’ she said, sticking her chin in the air. She was not going to lose focus because Barry de la Touche had dumped her and a tall stranger had not quite kissed her. She was not. She said as much to herself as to him, ‘I always get my man.’

‘I WANT,’ said Conrad, pleasant but very firm, ‘to know about a bookshop. It’s near the gasworks in Fulham. I’m not moving until I know the name of the woman who owns it.’ He looked as if he meant it.

The publicist had been looking for him with increasing desperation. The Press interviews were not going well. The editorial director had called one journalist a freeloader. Then he told a researcher for a daytime television programme that he didn’t expect her viewers to be able to read words of more than one syllable. It was definitely time to break out their secret weapon. Only it looked as if the secret weapon had ideas of his own.

‘I’ll find out for you,’ she promised. ‘Just please come and talk to the Press now.’

‘How will you find out?’

‘Ask. Someone in this crowd is bound to know.’

‘But I don’t know the name of the bookshop.’

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s a small world, books.’ She urged him towards the room where the Press interviews were taking place. ‘What does she look like? How old? What’s she interested in?’

‘Small. Dark. Huge brown eyes. Sometimes they go all big and misty as if you’re the most wonderful thing she’s ever looked at. Sometimes they snap. She’s twenty-three, and she’s fierce.’

‘Oh,’ said the publicity assistant, rather taken aback. ‘Well, that ought to find her. Fulham, you said?’

By the time he had played his part in the discussion of Ash on the Wind, she was back.

‘Sounds like Jazz Allen’s place. It’s called The Buzz. But Jazz is nearly six feet, black and beautiful.’

‘Not her. Look again.’ He thought. ‘She also knows a lot about Montassurro. Or thinks she does. Her father was some sort of refugee.’

One of the journalists who had slipped out in the hopes of a private exchange with the ex-prince overheard. He inserted himself between them.

‘Do you mean Peter Heller’s daughter?’

Conrad’s brows twitched together. ‘Heller?’ he said in tones of acute distaste. ‘That crook?’

The journalist grinned. ‘Can I quote you? He’s an esteemed international financier these days.’

Conrad did not smile. He was looking really disturbed.

‘Are you telling me that Peter Heller’s daughter would waste her time with a small bookshop? In the shadow of the gasworks? I don’t believe it.’

‘Not that small,’ said the journalist drily. ‘Everyone’s talking about The Buzz. They’ve got quite an internet presence already, too. It was the Heller girl who set that up, by what I hear.’

‘You mean Jazz Allen’s new partner?’ said someone else, joining them. ‘I hear she’s a phenomenon.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the journalist. ‘Everyone thought it was going to be a three-day wonder for her. Well, she’s rich enough to invest in a little business like that without caring too much if she gets her money back. But it hasn’t turned out like that.’

‘You are so right,’ agreed someone else, with feeling. ‘Francesca Heller is no sleeping partner. My reps say she challenges them all the time. Fearsome woman. But she’s certainly improved their ecology list. And Jazz thinks she’s wonderful.’

‘So does Prince Conrad, from the sound of it,’ said the journalist with a sly glance sideways.

But he did not get the response he was hoping for. The tall man looked at him in silence for a moment. The heavy-lidded eyes were quite unreadable. Then he turned away, shrugging.

‘Well, would you get the email address for me?’ he asked the publicity assistant indifferently. ‘I said I would do a talk for them some evening.’

He did not say another word on the subject of Francesca Heller all evening. Instead, to his hosts’ surprised delight, he circulated conscientiously. He even stayed until the very end of the party.

But, though he got a very good proposition from a giggling copy editor in low-cut spandex, and the editorial director offered to take him to dinner and throw ideas around about a series, there was no sign of Francesca Heller. He shook his head at both invitations.

‘No, thanks. Unless—there’s no one else left inside, is there?’

‘No. Just us,’ said the copy editor, weaving slightly. ‘You’d better come. You’ll have missed every last train. Come to the club with us and then take the milk train at dawn.’

‘I’m all partied out, thanks. I’ll get a train after breakfast.’

There was consensus that this was a waste.

Conrad’s steep eyelids drooped in the familiar bored expression.

‘Goodnight, everyone. Have a good one.’

He strolled away. He didn’t appear to move fast. But those long legs had taken him out of sight before anyone could think of an argument to call him back.

Francesca, Conrad thought.

Odd name for a girl who was half-English, half-Montassurran. Sounded Italian. Come to think of it, she looked like one of the Italian beauties you found in Renaissance paintings, all abundant hair and wide pure brow, with their enigmatic half-smiles. He had always thought they were probably too intelligent for their own good, those serene, secretive women. There was always something mysterious about them, something that said, ‘You don’t really know me at all.’

Of course, Francesca Heller had not been particularly serene this evening. But she had not come across as a second-generation Montassurran confidence trickster either. His jaw tightened.

Not that she thought of herself as Montassurran, obviously. All that nonsense she had talked about brigands! He should have challenged her on it at once. He could not think why he had not.

Hell, yes, he could. He knew exactly why. She had been looking at him with those wide, wide eyes, as if she was somehow caught up in a dream, and all he wanted to do was keep her looking at him like that forever. OK, maybe she was not serene. But the mystery was there all right. By the bucketful.

Fool, he castigated himself. Stupid fool! All she was interested in was catching a prince for one of her bookshop events. She had even admitted it. From all he could find out, she was as good at business as her father. And Peter Heller’s daughter was the last person in the world he wanted to tangle with.

Yes, that was better. He would walk a while and think of everything he knew about her father.

Conrad reminded himself that he knew a great deal about Peter Heller and his business dealings. The whole Montassurran community in London did. And they knew Heller was ruthless, acquisitive, and not at all scrupulous. Without actually doing anything criminal, Peter had exploited more than one of the Montassurran exiles who had been so ready to welcome him when he first got to London.

Remember that! Conrad thought. Thinking of Peter, the multimillionaire exploiter, would put mysterious, misty-eyed Francesca Heller in perspective.

Except that it did not. Not quite. She was under his skin, like a rose thorn.

Conrad walked hard, hardly noticing the cold night or the desultory rain. Feet pounding on the pavement, he could convince himself that she was a momentary aberration; that he did not want a woman in his life whom he would be ashamed to introduce to his grandfather and the people his grandfather thought of as his subjects; that he did not want a misty-eyed innocent in his life either, come to think of it. And then he remembered the way her chin came up when she thought he was mocking her. The way her breath caught when he touched her. And the wide, wondering eyes that seemed to look into his very soul.