of books...”
“And weevils.” She had talked incessantly about weevils and the havoc they played in early English kitchens to her last dance partner. Because they had been the subject of the last book she’d read and she hadn’t been able to think of anything else.
“Certainly don’t speak of that.”
“Suffice it to say I don’t think you have to worry about me tumbling into a romance. The only problem is... Why would he take me with him? Now that he knows the painting exists, and that it is on Isolo D’Oro, he’ll no doubt have an easy enough time figuring out where it is. And I’m sure he’ll have no trouble finding someone to impart what information they might have about it, for the right price.”
“No,” her grandmother said, “he won’t.”
“Why is that?”
“Because. Because you have the key. You’re the only one who has the key.”
Gabriella frowned. “I don’t have a key.”
“Yes, you do. The painting is hidden away in one of the old country estates that used to belong to the royal family. It is in a secret room, behind a false wall, and no one would have found it. So long as the building stands, and I have never heard rumors to the contrary, the painting would have remained there.”
“And the key?”
Her grandmother reached out, her shaking hands touching the necklace that Gabriella wore. “Close to your heart. Always.”
Gabriella looked down at the simple flower pendant that hung from the gold chain she wore around her neck. “My necklace?”
It had been a gift to her when she was a baby. A piece of the family’s crown jewels that her mother had considered beneath her. So simple, but lovely, a piece of art to Gabriella’s mind.
“Yes, your necklace. Did you ever wonder why the bottom of it had such an odd shape? Once you get into this room, you fit this into a slot on the picture frame on the back wall. It swings open and, behind it, you will find The Lost Love.”
TRULY, HIS GRANDFATHER had a lot to answer for. Alex was not the kind of man accustomed to doing the bidding of anyone but himself. And yet, here he was, cooling his heels in the antechamber of a second-rate country estate inhabited by disgraced royals.
If he were being perfectly honest—and he always was—one royal in particular who looked more like a small, indignant owl than she did a princess.
With her thick framed glasses and rather spiky demeanor it did not seem to him that Princess Gabriella was suited to much in the way of royal functions. Not that he was a very good barometer of exceptional social behavior.
Alex was many things, acceptable was the least among them.
Normally, he would not have excused himself from the room quite so quickly. Normally, he would have sat there and demanded that all the information be disseminated in his presence. Certainly, Queen Lucia was a queen. But in his estimation it was difficult to be at one’s full strength when one did not have a country to rule. In truth, the D’Oro family had not inhabited a throne in any real sense in more years than Princess Gabriella had been alive.
So while the family certainly still had money, and a modicum of power, while they retained their titles, he did not imagine he would bring the wrath of an army down on his head for refusing a direct order.
However, he had sensed then that it was an opportune moment to test the theory of catching more flies with honey than vinegar.
He did so hate having to employ charm.
He had better end up in possession of the painting. And it had better truly be his grandfather’s dying wish. Otherwise, he would be perturbed.
The door behind him clicked shut and he turned just in time to see Princess Gabriella, in her fitted sweatshirt and tight black leggings, headed toward him. She was holding her hands up beneath her breasts like a small, frightened animal, her eyes large behind her glasses.
That was what had put him in the mind of her being an owl earlier. He did not feel the need to revise that opinion. She was fascinating much in the way a small creature might be.
He felt compelled to watch her every movement, her every pause. As he would any foreign entity. So, there was nothing truly remarkable about it.
“Well, my princess,” he said. “What have you learned?”
“I know where the painting is,” she said, tucking a silken strand of dark hair behind her ear before returning her hands back to their previous, nervous position.
“Excellent. Draw me a map on a napkin and I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh. There will be no direction giving. No napkin drawing.”
“Is that so?”
She tossed her hair and for a moment he saw a glimmer of royalty beneath her rather dowdy exterior. And that was all the more fascinating. “No. I’m not giving you directions, because I have the directions. You are taking me with you.”
He laughed at the imperious, ridiculous demand. “I most certainly am not.”
She crossed her arms, the sweater bunching beneath them. “Yes, you are. You don’t know how to get there.”
“Gabriella, I am an expert at getting the information I want. Be it with money or seduction, it makes no difference to me, but I will certainly get what I need.”
Her cheeks turned a rather fetching shade of pink. He imagined it was the mention of seduction, not bribery, that did it.
“But I have the key,” she insisted. “Or rather, I know where it is. And trust me when I tell you it is not something you’ll be able to acquire on your own.”
“A key?” He didn’t believe her.
“And the...the instructions on how to use it.”
He studied her hard. She was a bookish creature. Not terribly beautiful, in his estimation. Not terribly brave, either. Intensely clever, though. Still, the lack of bravery made it unlikely that she was lying to him. The cleverness, on the other hand, was a very large question mark.
It made her unpredictable.
This was why he preferred women who were not so clever.
Life was complicated enough. When it came to interactions with the female sex he rather liked it simple, physical and brief.
He had a feeling his association with Gabriella would be none of those things and that only set his teeth on edge all the more.
“I do not believe that you have the key, or rather, have access to it that I cannot gain.”
“Okay, then. Enjoy the journey to Isolo D’Oro without me. I’m sure when you get there and find that you hold nothing in your hand but your own—”
“Well,
