‘Popinjays?’
‘I read it somewhere,’ she snapped. ‘It’s what you are.’
‘Levout will be listening to every word.’
‘Really?’ She raised her voice.
‘Look, it was your idea that I stay here. Not mine.’
‘Don’t you dare do this to me.’
‘Dare do what?’
‘Take my concern for the children as some sort of interest in you. I don’t want you here. Your presence, however, guarantees security for Marc and Sophie and Claire. You go, then we go. But you’re right. We needn’t spend any more time together than we must. Not because I just might jump you, Maxsim de Gautier, but because I might slap your handsome, arrogant face.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said.
And once again he knew he’d said the wrong thing.
She’d never hit anyone in her life. She’d never dreamed of doing it. But now, as they stood in this gilded hallway full of ancient, over-the-top artwork, chandeliers, servants in the doorways, Levout standing open-mouthed behind them, the emotions of the last few days found irresistible expression.
As a slap it was a beauty. It was straight across his cheek. The sound of the slap was louder than the voice she was using.
She backed off and stared at him. What little vestige of color she’d had before was completely gone now.
‘Pippa…’ he said, uncertainly, and she raised her hands to her face as if her head needed support. As if it were she who’d been slapped.
‘I-I’m so sorry,’ she stammered, aghast.
‘You don’t-’
‘I’d never slap. I never would. It’s just…’
‘We’ve hauled you right out of your comfort zone.’
‘I don’t have a comfort zone,’ she whispered. ‘The farm? Taking care of the kids by myself? That’s not comfort. What I use as a comfort zone is independence. I don’t need anyone. I don’t need you. And for you to assume that just because you kissed me I’d see you as some kind of love interest…’
‘I never assumed that.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she said steadying a little. ‘And maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been a bit too attracted to you. But now…’ She shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been told and I’m not stupid, regardless of what you think. We’re here for a month while I figure out whether the kids could have a future here. You’re my…bond, if you like. My surety. I’m demanding that you stay here too. But only until I figure out whether we’re safe. If that’s tomorrow then you can take yourself back to Paris.’
He hesitated. He should finish this. But there were imperatives. ‘Pippa, the press…’
‘What about the press?’
‘They want to see you again.’
‘Not me.’
‘They want to see the children. They need a photo opportunity.’
‘Then we’ll set one up. Let Beatrice know and I’ll make sure they have clean faces.’
‘They want to meet you. Tonight if possible.’
‘No deal.’ She backed again so she was at the foot of the stairs. ‘Now is there anything else?’
‘Then Thursday. For an official portrait? We have to let the press see us.’
‘Thursday,’ she snapped. ‘Fine. I’ll sew on my button for the occasion. Make sure it’s at night ’ cos twin-set and skirt looks dumb in this heat.’
‘Dinner is served,’ the butler intoned from behind them and Max winced.
‘Can we delay it for a little?’
‘No,’ Pippa said and squared her shoulders. ‘We’re all hungry but we’re not eating together.’ She walked over to the tray the butler was carrying-three bowls of soup. She lifted one and smelled. ‘Yum. Asparagus. My favourite. I’ll take mine out on the terrace.’
‘You can’t,’ Max said blankly.
‘Watch me. Or don’t watch me. In fact I forbid you to watch me. You and Mr Levout go back to your dress-ups. This provincial’s going to eat her meal outside. That way I can burp and slurp just the way I like.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘I’m not ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘You’re the one with the sword.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
PIPPA might be in a fairy tale, but three days later she was starting to be just a bit…bored? When they were on holidays on the farm the kids played happily independently. Here she stuck with them like glue, but after three days she was wondering if it was more to protect herself than to protect the kids.
Carver still gave her the creeps, but it was Max she was avoiding. Max and his wonderful uniform. How dared a man look so sexy?
All the staff were treating him as if it were Max who was the Crown Prince.
They weren’t treating him as if he was an illegitimate outsider.
She was uneasy, puzzled, and increasingly she was restless.
‘The last two princes spent very little time at the castle,’ Beatrice told her. ‘The casinos at Monte Carlo were more their style, and our rulers encouraged them.’
‘Your rulers?’
‘We have a President and a Council. Mr Levout is on the Council. They run this country.’
‘Why haven’t we met this President?’
‘I suspect he’s desperately trying to work out how these children can be blocked from the throne. If he can, there’s no one else in direct succession and the Principality will disappear. That would leave the Levout family in control.’
‘Max doesn’t want that.’
‘And thank God for Max,’ Beatrice told her. ‘He is a wonderful prince, and he seems to be a good man.’
There it was again, the blank acceptance of an outsider as a prince.
‘Yeah, but not necessarily a nice one,’ she managed, and Beatrice regarded her with the beginning of a tiny smile.
‘I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll wait and see.’
So she waited. But by the fourth day she was openly admitting she was climbing walls.
How could she be bored in a place like this? she wondered. There was as much wonderful food as she and the children needed. There was no need to milk a hundred and twenty cows twice a day. In fact, the dairyman had refused her offer to help. ‘It wouldn’t be proper,’ he told her and he refused to budge. There were swimming pools and wonderful gardens. There were gentle people waiting on her every whim, even eager for her to have whims.
For Pippa, who’d worked hard every day of her adult life, it felt wrong. Max wasn’t used to this either, she thought, and she wondered how he was taking it. She wasn’t asking him, though. Whenever she saw him she’d head for the nearest child.
She was being a coward, she knew, but he seriously unsettled her, and life was strange enough without being…unsettled.
‘Let’s leave this relationship businesslike,’ she told him when he confronted her. ‘If there’s something you need then of course we’ll talk, but the castle staff got the wrong idea when I slapped you and there’s no way we want to encourage that.’
‘The wrong idea?That I’ve brought back with me a termagant?’
‘I don’t know what a termagant is,’ she said huffily. ‘And I’ve got far too many good manners to ask.’
She waited for him to respond. He didn’t, though. He stood and gazed at her for a long moment and then
