rests with me is almost more than my great-aunt can bear,’ he added. ‘She’s decided that the only way to keep me in line and ensure that I’m not a total disaster for the country is to marry me to Lotty.’
‘Lotty said that her grandmother was matchmaking,’ said Caro, adding, not very tactfully, ‘I’m surprised she’d approve of you, though.’
Philippe acknowledged that with a grim smile. ‘She doesn’t but, from her point of view, it’s the only solution,’ he said. ‘Once shackled to Lotty, I’ll settle down, they think. Lotty’s bound to be a good influence on me. She’s the perfect princess, after all, and there’s no doubt it would be popular in the country. Compared to what the people think, what does it matter what Lotty and I feel?’ Bitterness crept into his voice. ‘We’re royal, and we’re expected to do our duty and not complain about it.’
‘Poor Lotty! It’s so unfair the way she never gets to do what she wants to do.’
‘Quite,’ said Philippe. He was leaning forward, absently turning his unwanted mug of tea on the coffee table. ‘With a new Crown Prince in place, she thought that she would have a chance to get away and make a life of her own at last, but of course my father doesn’t have a wife, having been careless enough to let his wife run off with another man, and now Lotty’s being manoeuvred into being a consort all over again. I’m fond of Lotty, but I don’t want to marry her any more than she wants to marry me.’
‘But there must be something you can do about it,’ Caro protested. ‘I know Lotty finds it hard to resist her grandmother, but surely you can just say no?’
‘I have.’ As if irritated by his own fiddling, Philippe pushed the mug away once more and sat back. ‘But the Dowager doesn’t give up that easily. She’s always pushing Lotty and I together and leaking stories to the press.’
‘It said in Glitz that you were inseparable,’ remembered Caro and he nodded grimly.
‘That’s the Dowager’s handiwork. She adores that magazine because they’re so pro-royalty. And you’ve got to admit, it’s not a bad strategy. Start a rumour, let everyone in the country whip themselves up into wedding fever and wait for Lotty to cave under the pressure. Montlucians love Lotty, and she’ll hate feeling that she’s disappointing everyone by being selfish, as the Dowager puts it.’
Caro’s mouth turned down as she thought about it. It did seem unfair. ‘Why don’t you go back to South America?’ she suggested. ‘Surely the Dowager Blanche would give up on the idea of you and Lotty eventually.’
‘That’s the trouble. I can’t.’ Restlessly, Philippe got to his feet. He looked as if he wanted to pace, but the room wasn’t big enough for that, so he picked his way through the clutter to the bay window and stood staring unseeingly out to where the limousine waited at the kerb.
‘It hasn’t been announced yet, but my father is ill,’ he said, his back to Caro. ‘It’s cancer.’
‘Oh, no.’ Caro remembered how desperate she had felt when her own father had been dying, and wished that she had the courage to get up and lay a sympathetic hand on Philippe’s shoulder, but there was a rigid quality to his back that warned her against it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said instead.
Philippe turned back to face her. ‘His prognosis isn’t too bad, in fact, but the press are going to have a field day with the curse of the House of Montvivennes when it comes out.’ His face was carefully expressionless.
‘Montluce doesn’t have specialised facilities, so he’s going to Paris for treatment, and he’s been told to rest completely for at least six months. So I’ve been summoned back to stand in for him. Only nominally, as he and the Dowager keep saying, but they’re big on keeping up appearances. I’m taking over his commitments from the start of the month.
‘I thought about refusing at first. My father and I don’t have what you’d call a close relationship,’ he went on with an ironic look, ‘and I don’t see why they need me to shake a few hands or pin on the occasional medal. If I could have some influence on decisions that are made, it would be different, but my father has never forgiven me for not being a perfect son like my older brother. When I suggested that I have some authority, he was so angry that he actually collapsed.’
Philippe sighed. ‘I could insist, but he’s ill, and he’s my father … I don’t want to make him even sicker than he is already. In the end, I said I would do as they asked for six months, but on the understanding that I can go back to South America as soon as he’s well again. There’s no point in me hanging around with nothing to do but disappoint him that I’m not Etienne.’
So even royal families weren’t averse to laying on the emotional blackmail, thought Caro.
‘Meanwhile, you’re being thrown together with Lotty at every opportunity?’ she said.
‘Exactly.’ He rolled his shoulders as if to relieve the tension there. ‘Then, the other day, Lotty and I were on one of our carefully staged “dates” and we came up with a plan.’
‘I wondered when we were going to get to the plan,’ said Caro. She made herself take another sip of tea. Philippe was right. It was disgusting. ‘What is this great idea of Lotty’s?’
‘It’s a simple one. The problem has been that we’re both there, and both single. Of course Lotty’s grandmother is going to get ideas. But if I go back to Montluce with a girlfriend and am clearly madly in love with her, even the Dowager Blanche would have to stop pushing Lotty and I together for a while.’
Caro could see where this was going. ‘And then Lotty can pretend that it’s too awkward for her to see you with another woman and tells her grandmother she needs to go away for a while?’
‘Exactly,’ said Philippe again.
‘I suppose it could work.’ She turned the idea over in her mind. ‘Where do I come into this? Does Lotty want to come and stay here?’
‘No,’ said Philippe. ‘She wants you to be my girlfriend.’
Caro’s heart skidded to a stop, did a funny little flip and then lurched into gear again at the realisation that he was joking. ‘Right.’ She laughed.
Philippe said nothing.
Her smile faltered. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, because … you must have a girlfriend.’
‘If I had a serious girlfriend, I wouldn’t be in this mess,’ he said crisply. ‘I’m allergic to relationships. When I meet a woman, I’m clear about that, right from the start. No emotions, no expectations. It just gets messy otherwise.’
Caro sighed. ‘Commitment issues … I might have guessed! What is it with guys and relationships?’
‘What is it with women and relationships?’ Philippe countered. ‘Why do you always have to spoil things by talking about whether we have a relationship or not and, if we do, where it’s going? Why can’t we just have a good time?’
Balked of the prowling he so clearly wanted to do, Philippe stepped over to the mantelpiece, put his hands in his pockets and glowered down at his shoes as if it was their fault. ‘Six months is about as long as I can
