Loe raamatut: «The Prince's Proposal»

CHAPTER ONE

‘TODAY,’ said Francesca Heller forcefully, ‘has been the worst day of my life.’

She was still rather pale. But, being Francesca, she was already fighting back. Jazz decided that the fight needed support.

‘Sure it was. So now you show Barry de la Touche that he can’t get you down. What better way than to go out and have a good time?

Francesca looked at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t expect me to go to a party after that.’

Jazz shook her marvellous head of tiny black plaits and refused to back down.

‘Yes, I do. You’re a professional bookseller now. You go to a publisher’s party if it kills you.’

Francesca glared. Jazz was tall, black and gorgeous but Francesca had a glare that would cut steel when she put her mind to it.

Francesca was not tall. She was small and slim with ordinary brown hair and an ordinary, pleasant face. ‘Invisible in a crowd,’ said Francesca’s elegant mother with resignation, and Francesca agreed.

But they both underestimated the impact of her eyes. They were huge, wide-spaced and golden brown, fringed with long, sooty lashes. And they spoke. Whatever Francesca might say she was feeling, you could see the truth of it in those toffee-brown eyes. Even masked, as they normally were, by big-framed glasses.

Currently she was feeling put-upon. But Jazz Allen was her partner in London’s newest independent bookshop, The Buzz. Jazz knew what she was talking about.

‘You’re not serious,’ Francesca said. But without much hope.

‘Yes, I am.’

Jazz unwound her long legs from the top of the ladder from which she had been restocking ‘Crime, authors F to G,’ and slid to the ground.

‘But you were here,’ said Francesca in despair. ‘You saw.’

Jazz grinned. ‘Your father’s got a temper on him,’ she said with relish. ‘So?’

Francesca stared at her. Jazz had the reputation of being tough. But this was armour-plated.

‘Hello?’ she said. ‘We didn’t split off onto different planets this afternoon, did we? You did see my father walk in and demolish the man I thought I was going to marry?’

‘I saw your father lob a few firecrackers,’ said Jazz serenely. ‘But you were never going to marry that twerp.’

Francesca shook her head. She had not confided in Jazz but when she left home that morning she had made up her mind to accept Barry’s proposal.

She said desolately, ‘I meant to.’

They were supposed to be going out to dinner at one of their favourite restaurants this evening. Francesca had been fondly imagining the candlelit scene. She had even cast the Italian owner to bring out champagne and his concertina while all the other diners applauded. And Barry de la Touche would take her hand, hook her glasses off her nose and look straight into her eyes, in that way he had.

‘My bird,’ he would have said. And then, ‘We were meant for each other.’

But that was this morning’s fantasy. And then her father had walked in.

It had been one of Barry’s days for working in the stock room. He and Peter Heller had come face to face. Barry, as she could have foretold, was completely outgunned. Peter Heller had been a fifteen-year-old entrepreneur when he escaped from Montassurro. He had survived, and ended up a multimillionaire, by ferreting out his opponents’ weaknesses. Then going for the jugular. Barry didn’t have a chance.

Her father had produced a string of offences—petty-criminal convictions, a dubious name change, even old school reports. And pointed out that Barry had only started his heavily romantic campaign after he had researched her wealth on the net.

Francesca had not believed him. Well, not at first. But then Peter Heller had announced that he was disinheriting her and Barry’s romantic attachment dissolved. Fast. Taking with it a whole raft of Francesca’s dreams and most of her self-respect.

But no one would believe that, of course. Everyone thought Francesca was such a fighter.

Now Jazz was bracing. ‘You would have thought better of it eventually. There was nothing to Barry, after all. Just Bambi eyelashes and a good story.’

After the scene when her father had flung his accusations at Barry, Francesca could not really take issue with that. She bit her lip.

‘Why didn’t I see that?’

‘You did really,’ said Jazz comfortingly. ‘Your father may have done the research. But the demolition was strictly down to you.’

Francesca’s eloquent eyes widened and widened. She sat down rather hard.

‘Think about it,’ advised Jazz, seizing a pile of new stock and leaping nimbly up her ladder again to ‘Crime, authors H to J’.

Francesca stared blindly at a pile of giraffe-shaped bookmarks that complemented the latest toddlers’ book.

She had stood up to her father. She had linked her arm through Barry’s and defied Peter Heller for the manipulative, money-grubbing troglodyte that he was. Only Barry was having none of it.

‘My bird,’ he said tenderly. He drew the glasses off her nose and slid them into his pocket, one of his more charming little tricks, Francesca always thought. It had cost her a fortune in replacement glasses, which she now had strewn about his flat and hers. ‘I can’t do this to you.’

He kissed her forehead. It was clearly meant to be a gallant renunciation.

Peter Heller snorted. Francesca felt sick.

Without her glasses Francesca could only see a blur. ‘We’re both young. Healthy. Why do we need my father’s money? We can work,’ she said in a level voice. ‘I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I’ll stand by you. We can make it together—’

And that was the point when Barry turned on her, all charm wiped. She couldn’t see him properly. But she could feel it in the jagged movement; hear it.

‘No, we can’t.’

Peter was delighted. He snapped his fingers. ‘Aha!’

Francesca ignored him. She said to the Barry-shaped shadow lowering over her, ‘I don’t need money—’

‘But I do.’ It was a cry almost of anguish. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ve done my time wondering where the next meal is coming from. I’m never going back to that.’

Francesca said nothing.

‘Goodbye, Mr Trott,’ said Peter. That was Barry’s real name. Not de la Touche, after all.

Francesca ignored him. ‘You mean you don’t think I can afford you,’ she said to Barry. Even to herself her voice sounded odd.

‘That old bastard has just made sure of that.’

That was when she gave up. That was when she realised this was the end. And this was the worst day of her life.

She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle. ‘Yes, I suppose he has.’ She held out her hand politely, in the general direction of his voice. ‘Goodbye, Barry.’

She was less polite to her father.

And then she went off to the stock room and sought out her absolutely last pair of emergency glasses.

They were in the first-aid box. Their loose arm had been taped up with whatever had come to hand. It looked as if it had been a plaster originally, though it was difficult to tell. It had turned grey in the first-aid box and was fraying elastic bobbles by now. It kept catching on her hair, making her eyes water. That had to be what it was. Francesca, after all, never cried. As her mother always said, she was too like her father to cry.

So now Francesca blinked hard and said to the witch on the ladder, ‘What do you mean—the demolition was down to me?’

Jazz looked down at her affectionately. ‘Because you didn’t tell Barry that you are rich in your own right.’

Francesca jumped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Have you forgotten? You told me. When we were first talking about you coming into business I told you I was worried about asking anyone to invest in The Buzz who couldn’t afford to lose money. I believe in it—but I could be wrong. And anyway it will take a long time to make a reasonable return on the investment. Let alone get its money back. And you said, “My father settled a lot of money on me when I was a teenager. It’s mine. I can do what I like with it.” So I said, OK, then, let’s go for it. Don’t you remember?’

Francesca swallowed. ‘Yes. Yes, I do now. I see.’

‘So when you said Peter couldn’t disinherit you, that was the literal truth, wasn’t it? He’s already handed over your inheritance. Why didn’t you explain that to Barry?’

‘I—tried.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Jazz shrewdly. ‘You wanted to know too. Didn’t you, Franny?’

‘Know?’

‘Whether the money was important to him or not.’

Francesca flinched. But she was a woman who faced the truth, however unpleasant. Truth was important. ‘I suppose so.’

‘See? You weren’t completely taken in. You had your doubts, like the sensible woman you are.’

‘Sensible, unattractive woman,’ muttered Francesca.

‘You would never have married that idiot—’ Jazz did a double take. ‘What?’

Francesca made a clumsy gesture. ‘Every man who has ever been interested in me was either dazzled by my mother’s title or my father’s millions.’ Truth had taken hold with a vengeance. ‘When they managed to focus on me long enough to see what was really on offer they all backed off.’

Jazz was shocked, as much by the resignation in her voice as what she had actually said.

‘Nonsense,’ she said.

It was just ten seconds too late. Francesca smiled wearily.

‘You don’t know the disasters I’ve had, Jazz.’

‘Haven’t we all? It’s called growing up.’

‘By twenty-three I should have cracked that one,’ Francesca said drily. ‘No, I’ve got a bit missing when it comes to understanding people. Figures, fine. I can do sums standing on my head. Facts, great. I can remember them and I don’t muddle easily. But people! I’m hopeless and I always have been.’

Jazz could not think of anything to say.

Francesca stood up and squared her shoulders. She even managed a lopsided smile.

‘So that means I’d better concentrate on a career, right? So lead me to this damned party.’

Conrad Domitio shook his head at the hundredth canapé and thought wistfully about fresh air.

‘How long will this go on?’ he yelled at the publicity assistant.

She stepped a little closer to the tanned god in front of her. Tall, hazel-eyed, with an athlete’s frame and philosopher’s formidable brow, Conrad Domitio had everything. Even his voice was sexy. It made her shiver in spite of the competition from a heavy drumbeat. Her and every other woman at Gavron and Blake, his publishers. Probably every other woman in the room, now she came to think about it.

‘Another hour,’ she yelled back.

She knew, of course, that it would be longer than that. But Conrad Domitio was impatient with publicity. In her dealings with him she had learned to undersell the full extent of their campaign. So she was not telling him that tonight, after the party, she was under strict instructions to bring him to dinner with the girls. After all, he was not only a hero and handsome as hell, he was a prince. A prince.

The publicity department had hardly believed their luck when they found out. ‘He’s a heck of a good writer, too,’ his editor had reminded them. But they had waved that aside. They knew what was important in selling books. And Ash on the Wind was going to be their spring number-one seller. She could feel it in her bones.

‘An hour?’ Conrad looked at his watch. He could take an hour. Just. ‘OK.’

It would not be so bad if the walls were not plastered with huge photographs of him, looking like a movie star, he thought. He had never wanted to have those photographs taken. To be honest, he had not really wanted to write the book at all. But the expedition’s photographer had taken some amazing footage of the erupting volcano and even more telling photographs of the escaping crater party. Always fair, Conrad acknowledged that they deserved a book. Conrad, an inveterate diarist, had more than half of the story already written.

So he had agreed. He did not regret it. He was even quite proud of the book now that it was done. But he was unprepared for the circus that the publishers seemed to fancy.

So far they had come up with wheezes guaranteed to strike cold horror into the heart of a serious seismologist who wanted to work again. Tonight’s publicity handout, for example. It made him sound like an ego-driven control freak. That or a comic-book super-hero. Conrad shuddered inwardly and told himself that he could get through an hour of anything if he had to. And the profits from the book were going to a really good cause.

Which was why, nine months after he had led six weary men out of the dust-filled darkness of the erupting volcano, they were standing here drinking Gavron and Blake’s cabernet sauvignon surrounded by six-foot-high photographs of steaming mountains and multi-eyed grasshoppers. The lighting was halfway between a disco and a forest thunderstorm, and the music was frankly jungle drums along the river. There were tables piled with copies of glossy books, Ash on the Wind, among them, but it would take infrared binoculars to find them, as Conrad had already pointed out.

He looked at his watch again. He could just about see it in the gloom.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked the publicity assistant.

She waved a hand at the seething, chattering crowd. ‘Circulate. Circulate.’

Conrad’s mouth twitched. For a moment there, she sounded just like his grandfather, ex-King Felix of Montassurro. He did not say so. Instead he gave one of his expressive shrugs.

‘The sooner we’ve spread the word, the sooner I can get my train back to normality, I suppose,’ he said with resignation. ‘You go that way, I’ll go this.’

They turned their backs on each other and he plunged back into the cavernous lighting to do his duty.

The disco lighting shook Francesca out of her shell-shock. Well, a little.

‘I should have changed,’ she said, watching a woman in a strappy silver top flit past, waving.

Jazz grinned after the woman. ‘Party organiser,’ she diagnosed. ‘Don’t worry about it. Half the people here will have come straight from work like us. The only people in combat gear will be authors and the younger editors.’ She surveyed Francesca and made an unwelcome discovery. ‘Oh, no. Not the first-aid-box glasses.’

Francesca was defiant. ‘They’re all I could find.’

Jazz held out her hand. ‘Give them here.’

‘But I’m as blind as a bat without them. You don’t know what it’s like to be as short-sighted as I am.’

‘I’ll read the instructions to you,’ said Jazz without sympathy. ‘Try to get a drink and not bump into the furniture. That’s all you need tonight. Get a business card off anyone who sounds worth following up.’

‘But—’

‘No serious businesswoman is going to work a room like this with bandaged glasses.’ And, as Francesca muttered rebelliously, ‘You’re going all out for the career, remember?’

‘I’d still like to be able to see.’

‘No,’ said Jazz with finality. ‘You’re representing The Buzz tonight. We’re hip. We’re cool. Bandaged glasses aren’t.’

Francesca gave in and surrendered her glasses. Jazz picked up a glossy bag and handed it to her.

‘Publicity handouts and party favours. Take what you want. Lose the rest.’

Francesca was rueful. ‘I’ve got a lot to learn.’

Jazz was already flicking through the bag’s contents. ‘Chocolates,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘Keep them. Party programme. Need that. Now, what books have we? Spot the Whale. Nah. Five Thousand Years of Refuse. The definitive story of trash by Professor Somebody. That will pull the punters in. Not. Ash on the Wind. Two authors. I don’t like that. Still, they both look quite tasty. Let’s see.’

Francesca knew it was hopeless to try and read anything without her glasses. In that dark party room she was going to do quite well if she managed not to walk into something.

‘I’m going to be a hazard to shipping tonight,’ she said drily. ‘Curse all serious businesswomen and their image problems.’

But Jazz was not paying attention.

‘Hey. Look at this,’ she said excitedly. She stuffed a shiny sheet into Francesca’s hand, scanning the entrance hall avidly.

Francesca squinted at a moody black and white photograph. There seemed to be a face in there somewhere. She gave it back. ‘Sorry.’

‘He’s yummy,’ said Jazz, seizing the handout impatiently. ‘But he’s a lot more than that. Listen.’

She read the publicity blurb aloud.

“‘Conrad Domitio is one of the best seismologists of the age. But he is not a vulcanologist. When he went along on Professor Roy Blackland’s expedition to Salaman Kao it was his first venture into a volcano’s crater.”’

‘Oh, not another volcano book!’

‘Listen,’ said Jazz, rapidly skimming the handout. ‘This is the good bit.

“‘For Conrad Domitio is also known as Crown Prince Conrad of Montassurro. He is heir to his grandfather, the seventy-five-year-old ex-King Felix. Felix himself fled to London via Italy, having spent his teenage years fighting assorted invaders from the Domitios’ impregnable fortress in the mountains. Ex-King Felix has no doubts. ‘My grandson is a born leader,’ he says.

“‘To Conrad Domitio himself the answer is simple. ‘I was doing everything by the book because I was new,’ he said. ‘The others were just too used to the conditions. But I’d only just finished reading up everything about volcano eruptions. So I still remembered the Idiots’ Survival Guide.’

“‘Six men are alive today because he did. This is their story.”’

She looked up.

‘Montassurro?’ said Francesca. She pulled a face.

Jazz ignored that. ‘Body of Apollo, and he saves lives too,’ she said with relish. ‘Cool, huh?’

Francesca shrugged. ‘I should think he took charge because he expects people to jump when he says jump. They were a hard lot, the Montassurran royals.’ She did a double take. ‘How do you know what sort of body he has?’

‘I looked,’ said Jazz calmly. ‘He’s over there. Tall guy, navy shirt, buns to die for. You’re probably the only woman here who didn’t clock him the moment she got here.’

Francesca flung up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘All right. All right. I’m sorry about the glasses. What else can I say?’

‘It’s not just the way he looks,’ said Jazz throatily. She cast a languorous look across the room. ‘I want him. Get him for me.’

Francesca shook her short brown hair vigorously. ‘Get him yourself,’ she retorted. ‘What am I? A retriever?’

‘You’re the one in charge of book signings and evening talks,’ pointed out Jazz smugly. ‘And this is your subject. Go and make him an offer he can’t refuse. The man’s a dish.’

Francesca gave her a wicked grin. ‘Dishes are your department. I just do figures and boring science books. And I can’t even see the man.’

‘At least that means you’ll keep your hands off him. By the look of it, that will have rarity appeal tonight,’ said Jazz drily.

Francesca tried not to wince. ‘You want him, you do the luring,’ she said firmly.

Jazz laughed aloud and stopped smouldering in the man’s direction. ‘I wish. That man is going to be hot, hot, hot. The publishers wouldn’t be interested in a new independent like us. They’ll concentrate on the big book chains.’

‘Well, he doesn’t have to do everything exactly as his publisher says, does he?’ demanded Francesca, revolted. ‘Is he a man or a mouse?’

‘He’s a writer who wants to sell his book,’ said Jazz practically. ‘If the publisher’s PR people tell him to paint himself green and juggle babies, he’ll do it. He wouldn’t look at us. It’s hopeless.’

Francesca was not a pushy person. But she was sufficiently her father’s daughter to dislike being told anything was hopeless. And Barry had dented her ego as well as her heart.

Well, there was not much she could do about a broken heart, she thought. It would just have to heal in its own time. But all the ego needed was to go all out for something—and get it, of course. Tonight was not her night for being a good loser.

‘Oh, won’t he?’ she said militantly.

Jazz watched with well-disguised satisfaction as she plunged into the crowd in the general direction of the Crown Prince of Montassurro. Even without her glasses, there was a reasonable chance that she would connect with him, thought Jazz. Three months of working together had taught her that Francesca on a mission was nearly unstoppable. She smiled, well-pleased with her strategy.

Francesca set off on a spurt of pure adrenalin. It took barely three steps for it to wear off.

She was too small for this sort of crowd, she thought wryly. She tried to suppress the urge to keep jumping for air. It felt as if everyone was twice as tall as she was. Taller and more confident and a whole lot more knowledgeable. And all talking over the top of her head.

‘So what else is new?’ muttered Francesca, unheard. She pinned on a bright, impervious smile.

Exit adrenalin. Enter pure will power. I can do this thing. And then maybe, just maybe, this won’t be the worse day of my life after all.

She plunged into the drum-filled darkness.

It was like searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Of those that managed to hear her shouted enquiry, no one knew where Conrad Domitio was, even if they recognised the name. Most of them were having too good a time even to pretend that they were interested.

Francesca cursed all crown princes and paused to take stock.

Then, ‘Did you say Domitio?’ said a tall man behind her.

She swung round. And had to look up. And up.

It was too dark to make out much, of course, even if she had not been missing her glasses. But she had the overwhelming impression of strength. More than strength.

She blinked and said in a little confusion, ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

The man hesitated.

Francesca tried to focus her eyes. It was hopeless. But there was something about the man that made her really want to see him. Ridiculous, of course.

She shook her head and said with determined practicality, ‘Because if you do I really want to talk to him.’

The man bent towards her. ‘What?’

She caught a hint of some outdoorsy smell, cedar or wood smoke, faint as a half-forgotten memory. And as powerful. She was taken aback. When had she last noticed a stranger’s scent? It made her feel somehow feral, animal in a way she did not quite like.

He took her elbow. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can hear ourselves talk.’

He took her out onto a small balcony. The dark, seething room fell away like a suffocating cape. It was raining but an awning kept the worst of it off them. And he turned her towards him.

An impression of strength? She must have been out of her mind. This man had more than strength. He was like rock. Warm, magnetised rock. And he knocked all the breath out of her just by being there. Something inside began to vibrate, imperceptibly, in response to that magnetism.

‘Cold?’ he asked.

Francesca shook her head. She did not trust herself to speak.

His voice sent little trickles of awareness up and down her spine. It startled her. She did not usually react to complete strangers with that sort of physical response.

This is rebound time. Barry’s gone and you haven’t had time to find your feet. Don’t do anything stupid.

He pushed the glass door shut behind them. The party noise modified somewhat. The drum throb stayed. So did the abrasive guitars. But the conversation died down to a background hum.

Even without her glasses, she could make out the way he moved. It was slow, smooth as oiled machinery, almost lazy. And yet there was such purpose there. Yes, definitely an outdoors man, she decided.

And then he turned and said, ‘So why are you looking for Conrad Domitio?’

And she felt as if she had walked into a wall.

She stared up at him. Wishing she were taller. Wishing like mad that she was wearing her glasses and the dark features were more than a blur. Wishing that she could be calm. For some reason the adrenalin seemed to be back in charge again. It was making her pulses gallop crazily.

The bright, impervious smile wavered. ‘I—I want to invite him to a book signing,’ she said literally, shaken.

‘A book-signing?’ He sounded lazy.

So why didn’t he feel lazy? He felt watchful and wary. It was as if there he was, watching and criticising and formulating acute observations right here and now in his head. He was just not going to share them with anyone. It was unsettling. And very, very sexy.

If only I could see his face properly. I’m getting new glasses first thing tomorrow.

‘Er—yes.’ Francesca made valiant attempts to pull herself together. Except for a slight ringing in the ears she managed it, too. ‘I’m a bookseller.’

She realised quite suddenly that it was the first time she had said it. It felt good. She stood taller and her pulses slowed a little.

‘Rather a new bookseller. I bought into an independent bookshop a few months ago.’

‘So you’re trying to prove your mettle,’ he said thoughtfully.

That hadn’t occurred to her. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Is it fun?’ He sounded genuinely interested.

She widened her eyes at him. It did not make her see any better but at least it hid the fact that she was as blind as a bat.

‘So far.’

‘You’re very cautious.’ He was so close that she could hear the smile in his voice, in spite of the heavy rock beat in the room behind them.

A laugh was surprised out of Francesca. She grinned up at him. ‘OK. So far it’s a blast. How’s that?’

There was an odd pause. She had the impression that he had suddenly become very intent. The temptation to wrinkle up her eyes to bring him into focus was almost overwhelming. I will not squint, she told herself fiercely.

‘Much more encouraging.’

Someone tried to slide the door open. He shifted, so that he blocked their way out onto the balcony. There was a muttered apology and the door went back into place.

Of course, she couldn’t be absolutely sure, not without being able to see his expression. But it felt as if he wanted to talk to her alone. As if he was uninterested in everyone else. And was making sure that nobody gatecrashed their tête-àtête.

Oh, wow, thought Francesca.

And then caught herself. That was the woman who had just been dumped speaking, right? She was much too mature to get excited because a man backed her into a corner at a party. Even if it was on a balcony under the stars.

‘Where is this bookshop of yours?’

‘A funny little side-street near the river in Fulham. Our shop was originally a couple of Victorian cottages. Behind the gasworks. You turn left off the King’s Road travelling west…’

She gave him precise directions because that was the way she worked. Francesca was nothing if not spot-on accurate. It seemed to amuse him.

He laughed. ‘You’re not a map-maker, by any chance?’

‘I like to get things clear,’ she said, slightly shamefaced. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It’s very useful. I could do with you on my team sometimes. You have no idea the number of people who think that getting you to roughly the right area is good enough.’

Francesca thought of the photographs of mountains and waterfalls she had seen in the entrance area before Jazz confiscated her glasses.

‘Are you a geographer?’

‘Sort of.’

She clocked the evasion and wondered about it. Was he a rival bookseller trying to tease out her secrets? But what would be the point of that, when he knew she had only been in the field for a few months? She was hardly a candidate for industrial espionage yet. Now, if it had been Jazz—She remembered her self-appointed task.