offered a hand to shake. “Princess Louisa Josephine Elisabeth Alexander.”
“That’s quite a mouthful,” he said, but she could see by the playful grin that he was teasing her.
He took her hand, cradled it within his ridiculously large palm, lifted it to his mouth and brushed a very gentle kiss across her skin. Did the ground beneath her feet just give a vigorous jolt, or was that her heart?
“And you are …?” she asked.
“Honored to meet you, Your Highness.”
Either he had no grasp of etiquette, or he was being deliberately obtuse. “You have a name?”
His wry smile said he was teasing her again and she felt her heart flutter. “Garrett Sutherland,” he said.
Sutherland? Why did that sound so familiar? Then it hit her. She had heard her brother speak of him from time to time, a landowner with holdings so vast they nearly matched those of the royal family. Mr. Sutherland was not only one of the richest men in the country, but also the most mysterious and elusive. He never attended social gatherings, and other than an occasional business meeting, kept largely to himself.
Definitely not the kind of man who would need her money.
“Mr. Sutherland,” she said. “Your reputation precedes you. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Your Highness. As you probably know, I don’t normally attend events such as these, but when I heard the proceeds would benefit cardiac research, for your father’s sake at the very least, I knew I had to make an appearance.”
A testament to what a kind and caring man he must be, she thought. Someone she would very much like to get to know better.
His gaze left hers briefly to search the room. “I haven’t seen the King tonight. Is he well?”
“Very well, under the circumstances. He wanted to make an appearance but he has strict orders from his doctor not to appear in public.”
Louisa’s father, the King of Thomas Isle, suffered from heart disease and had spent the past nine months on a portable bypass machine designed to give his heart an opportunity to heal and eventually work on its own again. Louisa took pride in the fact that it had been her idea to hold a charity ball in his honor. Usually her family wrote off her ideas as silly and idealistic, but for the first time in her life, they seemed to take her seriously. Although, when she had asked to be given the responsibility of planning the affair, they had hired a team of professionals instead. Baby steps, she figured. One of these days they would see that she wasn’t the frail flower they made her out to be.
Across the ballroom the orchestra began playing her favorite waltz. “Would you care to dance, Mr. Sutherland?”
He arched one dark brow curiously. Most women would wait for the man to make the first move, but she wasn’t most women. Besides, this was destiny. What could be the harm in moving things along a bit?
“I would be honored, Your Highness.”
He held out his arm, and she slipped hers through it. As he led her through clusters of guests toward the dance floor, she half expected one of her overprotective siblings to cut them off at the pass, but Chris and his wife Melissa, enormously pregnant with triplets, were acting as host and hostess in their parents’ absence. Aaron was glued to the side of his new wife, Olivia, a scientist who, when she wasn’t in her lab buried in research, felt like a fish out of water.
Louisa searched out her sister Anne, surprised to find her talking to the Prime Minister’s son, Samuel Baldwin, who Louisa knew for a fact was not on Anne’s list of favorite people.
Not a single member of her family was paying attention to her. Louisa could hardly fathom that she was about to dance with a man without someone grilling him beforehand. He took her in his arms and twirled her across the floor, and they were blissfully alone—save for the hundred or so other couples dancing. But as he drew her close and gazed into her eyes, there was no one but them.
He held her scandalously close for a first dance—by royal standards anyhow—but it was like magic, the way their bodies fit and how they moved in perfect sync. The way he never stopped gazing into her eyes, as though they were a window into her soul. His were black and bottomless and as mysterious as the man. He smelled delicious, too. Spicy and clean. His hair looked so soft she wanted to run her fingers through it and she was dying to know how his lips would taste, even though she felt instinctively they would be as delicious as the rest of him.
When the song ended and a slower number began, he pulled her closer, until she was tucked firmly against the warmth of his body. Two songs turned to three, then four.
Neither spoke. Words seemed unnecessary. His eyes and the curve of his smile told her exactly what he was thinking and feeling. Only when the orchestra stopped to take a break did he reluctantly let go. He led her from the dance floor, and she was only vaguely aware that people were staring at her. At them. They probably wondered who this dark mysterious man was dancing with the Princess. Were they an item? She would bet that people could tell just by looking at them that they were destined to be together.
“Would you care to take a stroll on the patio?” she asked.
He gestured to the French doors leading out into the garden. “After you, Your Highness.”
The air had chilled with the setting sun and a cool, salty ocean breeze blew in from the bluff. With the exception of the guards positioned at either side of the garden entrance, they were alone.
“Beautiful night,” Garrett said, gazing up at the star-filled sky.
“It is,” she agreed. June had always been her favorite month, when the world was alive with color and new life. What better time to meet the man of her dreams? Her soul mate.
“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Sutherland.”
He turned to her and smiled. “What would you like to know?”
Anything. Everything. “You live on Thomas Isle?”
“Since the day I was born. I was raised just outside the village of Varie on the other side of the island.”
The village to which he referred could only be described as quaint. Definitely not where you would expect to find a family of excessive means. Not that it mattered to her where he came from. Only that he was here now, with her. “What do your parents do?”
“My father was a farmer, my mother a seamstress. They’re both retired now and living in England with my brother and his family.”
It was difficult to fathom that such a wealthy and shrewd businessman was raised with such modest means. He had obviously done quite well for himself.
“How many siblings do you have?” she asked.
“Three brothers.”
“Younger? Older?”
“I’m the eldest.”
She wished, if only for a day or two, she could know what that felt like. To not be coddled and treated like a child. To be the person everyone turned to
