Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

with an air of quiet but desperate determination. ‘My husband’s all talk. All stupidity. It’s this place. It’s being royal. I just wanted to say…to say…’

She took a deep breath and out it came, as if it had been welled up for years. ‘They say you’re common,’ she said. ‘I mean…ordinary. Not royal. Like me. I was a schoolteacher, and I loved my work and then I met Carlos. For a while we were happy, but then the old Prince decided he liked my husband. He used to take him gambling. Carlos got sucked into the lifestyle, and that’s where he stays. In some sort of fantasy world, where he’s more royal than Ramon. He’s done some really stupid things, most of them at the Prince’s goading. In these last months when he thought he would inherit the throne, he’s been…a little bit crazy. There’s nothing I can do, but it’s so painful to see the way he is, the way he’s acting. And then I watched you tonight. The way you looked at Ramon when you were dancing.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Jenny managed.

‘Just get away from it,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever Ramon says, don’t believe it. Just run. Oh, I shouldn’t say anything. I’m a royal wife and a royal wife just shuts up. Do you want that? To be an appendage who just shuts up? My dear, don’t do it. Just run.’ And then, as yet another potential partner came to claim Jenny’s hand, she gave a gasping sob, shot Jenny one last despairing glance and disappeared into the crowd.

Just run. That was truly excellent advice, Jenny thought, as she danced on, on autopilot. It was the best advice she’d had all night. If she knew where she was, if she knew how to get back to the boat in the dark in the middle of a strange city, that was just what she’d do.

She’d never felt so alone. She was Cinderella without her coach and it wasn’t even midnight.

But finally the clock struck twelve. Right on cue, a cluster of officials gathered round Ramon as a formal guard of honour. Trumpets blared with a final farewell salute, and the Crown Prince Ramon of Cepheus was escorted away.

He’d be led to his harem of nubile young virgins, Jenny decided, fighting back an almost hysterical desire to laugh. Or cry. Or both. She was so weary she wanted to sink and, as if the thought had been said aloud, a footman was at her side, courteously solicitous.

‘Ma’am, I’m to ask if you’d like to stay on to continue dancing, or would you like to be escorted back to your chambers?’

‘I’d like to be escorted back to the yacht.’

‘That’s not possible, ma’am,’ he said. ‘The Prince’s orders are that you stay in the palace.’ And then, as she opened her mouth to argue, he added flatly, ‘There’s no transport to the docks tonight. I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to stay.’

So that, it seemed, was that. She was escorted back to the palace. She lay in her ridiculously ostentatious bedchamber, in her ridiculously ostentatious bed, and she tried for sleep.

How was a girl to sleep after a night like this?

She couldn’t. Her crimson ball-gown was draped on a hanger in the massive walk-in wardrobe. The diamond necklet still lay on her dresser. Her Cinderella slippers were on the floor beside her bed.

At least she’d kept both of them on, she thought ruefully. It hadn’t quite been a fairy tale.

Only it had been a fairy tale. Gianetta Bertin-Jenny to her friends-had attended a royal ball. She’d been led out onto the dance floor with a prince so handsome he made her knees turn to jelly. For those few wonderful moments she’d let herself be swept away into a magic future where practicalities disappeared and there was only Ramon; only her love.

And then his aunt had told her that she was totally unsuitable to be a royal wife but she could possibly be his mistress. Only not here. How romantic.

And then someone called Perpetua had warned her against royalty, like the voice of doom in some Gothic novel. Do not trust him, gentle maiden.

How ridiculous.

And, as if in response to her unanswerable question, someone knocked on the door.

Who’d knock on her bedroom door at three in the morning?

‘Who is it?’ she quavered, and her heart seemed to stop until there was a response.

‘I can’t get my boots off,’ a beloved voice complained from the other side of the door. ‘I was hoping someone might hang on while I pull.’

‘I… I believe my contract was all about muffins and sails,’ she managed, trying to make her voice not squeak, trying to kick-start her heart again while warnings and sensible decisions went right out of the window. Ramon.

‘I know I have no right to ask.’ There was suddenly seriousness behind Ramon’s words. ‘I know this isn’t sensible, I know I shouldn’t be here, but Jenny, if tonight is all there is then I’m sure, if we read the contract carefully, there might be something about boots. Something that’d give us an excuse for…well, something about helping me for this night only.’

‘Don’t you have a valet?’ she whispered and then wondered how he’d hear her through the door. But it was as if he was already in the room with her.

‘Valets scare the daylights out of me,’ he said. ‘They’re better dressed than I am. Please, Jenny love, will you help me off with my boots?’

‘I don’t think I’m brave enough.’

‘You helped a trapped whale. Surely you can help a trapped prince. For this night only.’

‘Ramon…’

‘Open the door, Gianetta,’ he said in a different voice, a voice that had her flinging back her bedcovers and flying to the door and tugging it open. Despite what Sofia had said, despite Perpetua’s grim warnings, this was Ramon. Her Ramon.

And there he was. He wasn’t smiling. He was just…him.

He opened his arms and she walked right in.

For a long moment she simply stood, held against him, feeling the strength of his heartbeat, feeling his arms around her. He was still in his princely uniform. There were medals digging into her cheek but she wasn’t complaining. His heart was beating right under those medals, and who cared about a bit of metal anyway?

Who cared what two royal women had said to her? Who cared that this was impossible?

They had this night.

He kissed the top of her head and he held her tight and she felt protected and loved-and desperate to haul him into the room right there and then.

But there was a footman at the top of the stairs. Just standing, staring woodenly ahead. He was wigged, powdered, almost a dummy. But he was real.

It was hard to seize a prince and haul him into her lair when a footman was on guard.

‘Um…we have an audience,’ she whispered at last.

He kissed her hair again and said gravely, ‘Do you care?’

‘If we walk into my room and shut the door we won’t have an audience,’ she tried.

‘Ah, but the story will out,’ he said gravely.

‘So it should if you go creeping into strange women’s bedrooms in the small hours. I should yell the house down.’

She was trying to sound indignant. She was trying to pull back so she could be at arm’s length, so she could see his face. She wasn’t trying hard enough. She sounded happy-and there was no way she was pulling back from this man.

‘You could if you wanted and you’d have help,’ he said gravely. ‘The footman’s on guard duty. In case the Huns invade-or strange women don’t want strange men doing this creeping thing you describe. But if the woman was to welcome this strange man, then we don’t need an audience. Gianetta, are you hungry?’

Hungry. The thought was so out of left field that she blinked.

‘Hungry?’

‘I’m starving. I was hoping you might come down to the kitchen with me.’

‘After I’ve pulled your boots off?’

‘Yup.’

‘You want me to be your servant?’

‘No,’ he said, lightness giving way instantly to a gravity she found disconcerting. ‘For this night, I want you to