wasn’t buying that. That face didn’t belong to a bore.
She continued her searches and by the end of the day she had an impressive dossier containing the official version of the history of Montorino, the entire Orsino family tree going back to the Middle Ages and enough photographs to fill the family album.
One, of Alexander as a small boy holding his grandfather’s hand, looking desolate at his parents’ funeral, leapt off the page to touch her heart. She swallowed. Made a quick note that his mother and father had died in a boating accident when he was six, at which point Alexander had become heir to the throne, bypassing his aunts and his older sister since women were barred from the top job in Montorino.
They could have appealed to the Court of Human Rights—in Laura’s opinion it was their duty—but they were clearly having too much fun filling the gossip columns of Europe.
Not Alexander. The only photographs of him in the last eight years were formal, controlled images that gave nothing away. Or else they’d been taken at grand occasions where everyone was on their best behaviour, which was much the same thing.
The articles about him were no better. They read like handouts from his public relations department. This bachelor prince, who had effectively become head of state since his grandfather’s heart bypass, apparently did nothing but open hospitals, support charities and promote his country. Of course, when he said ‘his’ country, that was exactly what he meant.
It wasn’t just the architecture that was medieval. Which, along with the lack of equal opportunities for princesses, was a situation absolutely guaranteed to raise Laura’s democratic hackles.
Jay had been right about one thing. His disturbing eyes notwithstanding, this was a man who would never win her sympathy.
Which was great. As far as it went. She’d have no problem in exposing his Achilles’ heel—always assuming he had one—and she’d positively enjoy giving him a wakeup call for the twenty-first century.
It was practically her duty, for heaven’s sake.
Unfortunately, she had no idea how she was going to go about it. When she’d said that she’d never get an interview with a man like that, she hadn’t even been close. It would have made no difference if she’d been one of those rarefied journalists who regularly interviewed the crowned heads of Europe.
His Highness didn’t give interviews.
And there was no gossip. Not recent gossip. He might be a bachelor but he wasn’t a playboy. It had been years since he’d frequented casinos, squired supermodels to nightclubs, got into brawls with the paparazzi.
All that had ended the day his grandfather had had a heart attack and he’d become head of state in all but name.
On the surface, it seemed that there was no story.
Except, of course, there was always a story if you knew where to look for it. He was flesh and blood, after all. He put on his trousers one leg at a time, the same as any other man. He would have hopes, desires, dreams, just like the lowliest of his subjects. And she didn’t imagine he lived like a monk.
Those eyes didn’t belong to any monk.
The thought made her shiver a little before she pulled herself together and reminded herself that he might as well have been for all the gossip that made print.
As she’d read everything she could find, hitting a blank wall whenever she’d tried to dig beyond the surface, she’d felt a stir of indignation that anyone with such a public presence could keep his personal life so private.
Her research, far from satisfying her curiosity, had piqued it. Far from answering her questions, it had simply raised more.
It was a challenge.
What topped the ‘want’ list of the man who already had everything? What place did love have in his life? For a man so apparently driven by duty it seemed strange that he hadn’t done what was expected of him, married some suitably aristocratic woman and secured the succession.
Or hadn’t he found anyone to match his own apparent perfection?
It was, in the end, the very lack of any story that irritated her into action. Coupled with the knowledge that whoever broke through the icy façade to expose the real man would be an editorial favourite. All past mistakes forgiven.
It had to be a façade, surely? No one could be that perfect.
She’d messed up a promising career with a series of stupid blunders that had her spiralling down the ladder rather than climbing it, despite the hefty leg-up from her aunt. She had one last chance to redeem herself—she owed it to Jay to redeem herself—and that prickle of disquiet at the way his eyes had looked out of the magazine at her, seeming to taunt her with his invulnerability, suggested that this was the man to provide the story.
Nonsense, of course. He wasn’t taunting her. He was invulnerable and he knew it.
Nonsense it might be, but come evening she was standing outside his grand official London residence, staring up at tall, lighted, first-floor windows and wondering what he was doing up there.
Living up to his public relations image and working late into the night on matters of state?
Watching sport on the television, feet up, his supper on a tray after a hard day doing whatever it was that autocratic rulers did?
Best of all—career-wise—would be if he were entertaining, very discreetly, some lovely young woman.
A royal romance was always news. If she broke that story she’d be a media heroine overnight.
Not that a discreet young woman would go through the front door for everyone to see. She’d probably be driven into the mews at the rear, well away from prying eyes.
She crossed the road to check it out, her well-rehearsed ‘stray kitten’ story ready, just in case she was challenged by a security guard. As she hesitated at the entrance to the cobbled lane, wondering what on earth she thought she was doing, she heard something drop to the ground ahead of her.
A small bag.
She glanced up. Something darker was moving against the lighter stone of the building.
Not something. Someone.
Hardly the prince’s light of love, not climbing down a drainpipe. It had to be a burglar making off with state papers, or jewels. Imagination in overdrive, she took off down the lane without a thought for her own safety and launched herself at the shadowy figure as it jumped lightly to the ground, bringing the miscreant down with a flying rugby tackle.
They hit the cobbles, and Laura’s initial intention to yell for help was thwarted by the fact that she was momentarily winded. Besides, the burglar was making enough noise for both of them. Except it immediately became apparent that this wasn’t any ordinary burglar. Not if the high-pitched yell of fright was anything to go by.
This burglar was a girl, slight of figure and terribly young. And then, as her face was lit up by passing car headlights, she realised that she wasn’t any ordinary girl, either. It was a face she’d seen during her research on Prince Alexander. His niece. His sister’s youngest daughter, Princess Katerina Victoria Elizabeth.
‘Oh,
