his eyes. The food and the fire and the brandy had made her feel sleepy and safe and part of her wished she could hold on to this moment and not have to go and face the chill of the outside world. But Conall was clearly waiting for an answer to his question and the expression on his face suggested he wasn’t a man who enjoyed being kept waiting. And deep down she knew she could do something like this in her sleep. Go to some upmarket party and be charming? Child’s play.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can do it.’
‘Good.’ He nodded as his cell phone gave a discreet little buzz and he flicked it a brief glance. ‘You’ll need to get down to my country house early on Saturday afternoon. Oh, and bring some party dresses with you.’ His eyes glittered. ‘I don’t imagine you’ll have too much trouble finding any of those in your wardrobe?’
‘No. Party dresses I have in abundance—and plenty of shoes to match.’
‘Just wear something halfway decent, will you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know damned well what I mean.’ There was a pause. ‘I don’t want you flaunting your body and looking like a tramp.’
Amber swallowed, knowing that she should be outraged by such a statement, and yet something about the way he said it made her feel all...shivery. She forced her mind back to the practical. ‘So what time will I expect the car?’
‘The car?’ he repeated blankly.
‘The car which will be collecting me,’ she said, as if she were explaining the rules of a simple card game to a five-year-old.
There was a short silence before he tipped back his dark head and laughed, but when he looked at her again his eyes weren’t amused, they were stone cold. ‘You still don’t get it, do you, Amber?’ he said. ‘You may be about to deal with a prince, but you’re going to have to stop behaving like a princess. Because you’re not. You will catch the train like any other mortal. Speak to Serena and she’ll give you details of how to find the house. Oh, and I’ve got your wages from the nightclub in my pocket. I’ll give them to you in the car. I didn’t want to hand them over in here.’ His eyes glittered. ‘It could be a gesture open to misinterpretation.’
AMBER HADN’T BEEN on a train for years. Not since that time in Rome when her mother’s lover had confessed to having a pregnant wife who had just discovered their affair and was on the warpath. It had been bad enough having to flee the city leaving behind half their possessions, but the journey had been made worse by Sophie Carter’s increasingly hysterical sobs as she’d exclaimed loudly that she would be unable to live without Marco. It had been left to her daughter to try to placate her, to the accompaniment of tutting sounds from the other people in the carriage.
Amber sat back against the hard train seat and thought about the bizarre twists and turns of life which had brought her to this bumpy carriage which was hurtling through the English countryside towards Conall’s country home. She had been corralled into working for the Irish tycoon—the most infuriating and high-handed man she’d ever met.
And the fact that there didn’t seem any credible alternative had made her examine her lifestyle in a way which had left her feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
Yesterday she’d gone to the Devlin headquarters in Kensington for a briefing which hadn’t been brief at all. Serena had spent ages telling her boring things like making sure she kept her receipts so that she could submit a travel expenses form. Amber remembered blinking at Conall’s assistant with a mixture of amusement and irritation. Receipts! She had wanted to tell the lofty blonde that she didn’t do receipts, but at that moment the great man himself had walked into the building—a distracting image dressed in all black. Cue an infuriating rocketing of Amber’s pulse and the spectacle of various female members of staff cooing around him. And cue the uncomfortable realisation that she didn’t like seeing him surrounded by all those women.
His gaze had met hers.
‘I hope you’re behaving yourself, Amber?’
‘I’m doing my best,’ she’d replied from between gritted teeth.
‘I’m just talking Amber through the expenses procedure,’ Serena had explained.
‘And I’m sure she has been nothing but completely cooperative,’ Conall had murmured in response, but there had been a definite flicker of warning in the sapphire depths of his eyes.
She’d wanted to defy him then, because defiance was her default mechanism, yet for the first time in her life she had come up against someone who would not be swayed by her. And wasn’t that in some crazy way—reassuring?
Amber stared out of the train window, realising there was only an hour to go before her journey’s end and that she had better be prepared for her meeting with the Prince. Conall had suggested she find out as much about the royal as possible and so she had downloaded as much as she could find on the Internet and had printed it out. No harm in looking at it again. She pulled out the information sheets and began to doodle little drawings around the edge of one of the pages as she reread it.
She had been unprepared for the impact of Prince ‘Luc’ and his gorgeous Mediterranean island, when his photograph had first popped up on the screen. With his olive skin, bright blue eyes and thick tumble of black hair, he was as handsome as any Hollywood actor, but his looks left her completely cold. That in itself wasn’t unusual, because she’d met enough manipulating hunks through her mother to put her off handsome men for ever. What was infuriating was that she kept unfavourably comparing the Prince to Conall—and yet Conall wasn’t what you’d call good-looking. His jaw was dark and his nose had been broken at one point. And he had a hard, cold stare, which proved distractingly at odds with the way his fingers had brushed her skin as he’d wound his scarf around her neck at his club the other night...
The train juddered to a halt at Crewhurst station and Amber climbed out onto the platform, clutching her case, which contained some of her less-revealing dresses. Blinking, she looked around her and breathed in the fresh air, the bright spring day making her feel like an animal who’d spent the winter in hibernation and was emerging into sunshine for the first time. She sniffed at the air and the scent of something sweet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out of the city and in the middle of the countryside like this. Cotton-wool clouds scudded across an eggshell-blue sky and frilly yellow daffodils waved their trumpets in the light breeze.
She had been told to take a taxi, but the rank was empty and when she asked the old man in the ticket office when one might be available, he shook his head with the expression of someone who had just been asked to provide the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.
‘Can’t say. Driver’s gone off to take his wife shopping. It isn’t far to walk,’ he added helpfully, when she told him where she was headed.
Under normal circumstances Amber would have tapped her foot impatiently and demanded that someone find her a taxi—and quickly. But there was something about the scent of spring which felt keen and raw on her senses. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this alive and a sudden feeling of adventure washed over her. Her bag wasn’t particularly heavy. She was wearing sneakers with her skinny jeans, wasn’t she? And a soft silk shirt beneath her denim jacket.
After taking directions, she set off along a sun-dappled country
