window, pulling back the drape to gaze down across the city. Although the lights had dimmed, the Carathians were still celebrating their ruler’s coronation with gusto. She could hear singing, and recognised the sad beauty of the folk tune. Clearly it meant something important to the people of Carathia.
A sense of aloneness chilled her. Gerd belonged here in his palace above the city, and Kelt and Hani too, and Alex, although he possessed no royal blood, fitted easily into this gathering of the world’s elite and powerful.
Rosie Matthews, unemployed, from New Zealand didn’t.
Even the moon, she realised suddenly as she stared at it, was different—back to front from the one that beamed down on the other side of the world.
‘So what?’ she said into the night air, fragrant with scents she didn’t recognise. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and at least get some rest.’
She must have slept for a few hours, because she dreamed—tangled images that had faded by the time she woke—but confronting her reflection the next morning made her inhale sharply and then apply cosmetics to banish the only too obvious signs of a restless night. Breakfast was served in her room, interrupted by a visit from Hani, who eyed her with concern.
Rosie pre-empted any query by saying firmly, ‘I was too excited to sleep much last night—just like an overwrought kid after a birthday party.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Hani said in the resigned tone of a mother who’d had to deal with just that situation. ‘But it was a great day, wasn’t it?’
‘It’s been a fabulous week,’ Rosie said in her airiest voice. ‘Like living in the Middle Ages, only with bathrooms and electricity.’
Hani laughed, but the glance she gave Rosie was shrewd. ‘You say that as though you’ll be glad to get back home.’
‘I will, but I’ll never forget Carathia.’ Or the man who now ruled it.
Hani said, ‘I’d like to go straight to New Zealand, but Kelt has a meeting with the head honchos from Alex’s firm in London, so we’re going there first.’ She gave a swift, lovely smile. ‘I’ll be interested to see how our little Rafi enjoys big cities.’
Hani was right—the sooner she got away from here the better, Rosie thought mordantly as she waved the family party off later that morning. Then she could stop being such an idiot.
Once back home she wouldn’t spend wakeful nights wondering when Gerd was going to announce his engagement to Princess Serina.
By telling herself bracingly that it was completely stupid to feel as though her life was coming to an end, she managed to give Gerd a glittering smile when they met later that morning. In her most accusing voice, she said, ‘Alex tells me you killed him while you were fencing before breakfast.’
Amused, he surveyed her. ‘For a dead man he looked remarkably energetic afterwards.’
‘He’s disgustingly fit.’ Rosie smiled, hoping it didn’t look as painful as it felt. Damn it, she’d get rid of this crush no matter what it took. ‘I didn’t know he was a fencer.’ In fact, she didn’t know much about her half brother at all.
Gerd understood, perhaps more than she liked. ‘He learned at university, I believe. He’s good. I believe you’re using today to visit the museum.’
Rosie nodded. ‘I’m looking forward to that, and afterwards I’m checking out the shopping area.’
‘Just make sure you don’t lose your guide—the central part of the city is like a rabbit warren and not many of the people speak English. If you got lost I’d probably have to mount a search party.’
His smile made Rosie’s foolish heart flip in her chest. He isn’t being personal, she told herself sternly.
He went on, ‘I’d like to show you around myself, but my day is taken up. I’m meeting my First Minister and then farewelling guests.’
Including Princess Serina? Rosie concealed the humiliating question with her friendliest smile, the one that usually caused Kelt to view her with intense suspicion. ‘Rather you than me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m going to have a lovely day.’
She did, discovering that Carathia’s national flower was actually a buttercup. New Zealand too had a mountain buttercup, and, strangely enough, it too was pristinely white.
How foolish to feel that the coincidence formed some sort of link between the two countries!
The shopping area displayed interesting boutiques and the usual big names; her guide, a pleasant woman in her thirties with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Carathia, did her best to encourage her to buy, but Rosie resisted, even the silk scarf exquisitely embroidered ‘by hand’, the shopkeeper told her, pointing out the fineness of the stitches. She held it up. ‘And it suits you; you have the same delicate colouring, the soft clarity of spring.’
‘It’s lovely,’ Rosie said on a sigh, ‘and worth every penny, but I don’t have those pennies, I’m afraid. Thank you for showing it to me, though.’
Her regret must have shown in her tone because the woman smiled and nodded and packed the beautiful, fragile thing away without demur.
Back at the palace she found a note waiting for her. Apart from his signature on birthday and Christmas cards it was the first time she’d seen Gerd’s writing; bold and full of character, it made her heart thump unnecessarily fast as she scanned the paper.
He hoped she’d had a good day, and suggested that they have dinner together at a restaurant he knew, one where they wouldn’t be hounded by photographers.
And where they wouldn’t be alone, she thought with a wry quirk of her lips. Perhaps the princess objected to him dining with another woman in the privacy of his palace apartment, even when the other woman was related by marriage.
It was probably only his excellent manners that stopped him pleading a previous appointment and avoiding her altogether.
Temptation warred viciously with common sense. Should she go or do the sensible thing and say she was too tired? In the end her weaker part won. What harm could a dinner with him do, chaperoned as they’d be by the other diners, not to mention the waiters?
She rang the bell and gave the servant her answer.
Now, what to wear?
Anticipation built rapidly inside her; just for tonight—just this once—she’d let herself enjoy Gerd’s company.
After all, there weren’t going to be any repercussions. She was adult enough to deal with the situation. She’d forget her foolish crush and treat him like…oh, like the other men she’d gone out with. She’d be friendly, interested, sparkle for him, even flirt a little. It would be perfectly safe because Gerd was going to marry either Princess Serina, or someone very like her.
Someone suitable.
And when tonight was over Rosie would never see him again. Well, not in the flesh, she thought mordantly. He had a habit of turning up in the media—arrogantly handsome royalty was always good for a headline, especially when it came to love and marriage.
Eventually
