Playing the Royal Game

‘Who would one day be king,’ Alessandro said again. ‘And around and around the argument goes. You can despise him for it, but it was a lesson my father had to teach—which he did. He taught his firstborn son—perhaps he knew it was a tough lesson, for he gave my brother more rein at least till he was older. I have what it takes—I have been raised for this purpose.’

‘I’m not surprised you want more time.’ Allegra blew up her fringe. ‘Before you have to go back to—’

‘I could always fall in love.’ His voice halted her midsentence. ‘Our people know it is not a love match—Anna knows that too. Surely if I met someone and fell in love… there would be scandal, but it would blow over.’

Allegra looked to him. ‘Maybe you should try talking to Anna.’ She gestured to the table behind them, to the ladies that had been vying for time with him. ‘Maybe she’s the one…?’

That made him laugh.

‘I will not fall in love.’ He said it so assuredly. ‘I have no time for such things. But if I said that I had…’

There was a flag rising, an alarm bell ringing, but they were slow and in the distance because by the time she registered them, she had already spoken on.

‘Said that you had what?’

‘Fallen madly in love. That love had swept me off my feet, that I had become engaged.’ He indulged in a smile at the ridiculousness of the very thought. ‘Of course, in a few short weeks I would come to my senses and realise I had made a mistake, that my new fiancée and I are not suited after all, or more likely the people would strongly object. But by then it would be over between Anna and me, and my family would want me here, in London, at least for a year or two, till things had settled down.’

‘Well…’ Suddenly her throat was dry. ‘Good luck looking.’ She watched as he went to top up her glass, except the bottle was empty and he summoned the waitress but Allegra shook her head. ‘Not for me.’ She needed space, because her mind was bordering on the ridiculous. For a moment there she’d thought he was talking about her, that they were plotting together, that this might be real.

She excused herself and fled to the safety of the ladies’, told herself to calm down—except when she looked in the mirror her cheeks were flushed and her green eyes glittered in a way they never had before. Her fringe was stuck to her forehead from the rain and she blasted it under the hand dryer, then dabbed on some powder in an attempt to calm her complexion down.

Had he been suggesting that she…? Allegra halted herself there, because it was ridiculous to even entertain such a thought—yet… Who’d have thought when she stepped inside the bar, or when she had walked out of her job, that just a few hours later she’d be sharing a bottle of champagne with the Crown Prince of Santina.

She would have hid in the ladies’ for a little while longer, would have straightened out her thoughts before heading back out there, but a couple of the women Alex had been avoiding came in then and didn’t shoot her the most friendly of looks.

‘I said that I didn’t want any more champagne.’ The waitress was about to open another bottle when she returned.

‘Just leave it there unopened,’ Alessandro said to the waitress as Allegra sat down. ‘We might have something to celebrate later.’

‘Not with me you won’t,’ Allegra said.

‘We could just take it back to my—’

‘I think you’ve very much got the wrong impression of me,’ Allegra said primly, so primly she hoped he could not hazard a guess as to her suddenly wild thoughts, because she would love him to pick up that bottle, would love to dive into a taxi and be kissed all the way back to his place, to sit and drink champagne on a sheet rumpled by their lovemaking. God, but she’d had too much to drink and, mixed with this man, she was having trouble attempting rational thought. ‘Half a bottle of champagne and I’m well over my limit—and I don’t leave bars with men I’ve barely met.’

‘I was joking,’ Alex lied, for he had been hoping. ‘What about my other suggestion? Do you want to be my fiancée?’

‘Alex…’ Allegra said. ‘Why, when I didn’t even want to have a drink with you, do you think I’d even entertain—’

‘A million pounds.’

She laughed, because these things didn’t happen, and he had to be joking. When he pulled out a chequebook, she laughed even more, because it was crazy. Except when he handed it to her, his hand was completely steady and he wasn’t laughing.

‘You might not have to do anything. I will fly to Santina tomorrow and tell my family and Anna. The people will be outraged. Soon enough I’ll be told to reverse my foolish decision, to come back to London till the scandal dies down.’

‘So what are you paying me for?’

‘I can’t just invent someone—you might have to join me in Santina at some point.’ He anticipated her reaction, because as she opened her mouth he spoke over her. ‘You would have your own suite—a couple cannot be together until they are married. All you would have to do is smile and hang on to my every word.’

‘Until?’

‘Until the people dictate otherwise.’ He gave a shrug. ‘It might be days, it might be weeks.’ He looked to the cheque and so, too, did Allegra, and she thought about it—hell, she really thought about it. He wasn’t asking for her to sleep with him, just to smile and hold his hand. And what she could do with the money… She could get a flat, a job—actually, she could do what she really wanted….

‘You could finally write that book.’ It was as if he had stepped into her mind. She heard his voice as if he was inside it, but it was madness, it couldn’t work.

‘We’ll make it work,’ he answered her unvoiced words. ‘Is that a yes?’ Alex asked.

She looked back at him, thought not just of the book she could write but a link to this man, this beautiful man who had entered her life, and somehow she simply wasn’t quite ready to let go of him. ‘I think so.’

They stepped out onto the street, and she was wrong about taxis, for a luxurious car was waiting and it took them just a few streets down.

‘Shouldn’t you deposit it?’ Alex asked.

‘Okay.’ She grinned and walked into the bank and watched the eyebrow of the cashier rise a good inch. ‘Funds won’t be available till the cheque is cleared.’

‘Ring my bank and get it cleared now,’ Alex said, and she looked at the name on the cheque and did as told. There was the strangest feeling in her stomach as the cashier handed her a slip with her bank balance, a sort of great weight she hadn’t been aware she’d been carrying suddenly lifted.

‘Now, we shop.’

‘Shop?’

‘A fiancée needs a ring.’

They poured back into his car, laughed all the way along the street.

‘Shouldn’t I have royal jewels?’ God, she was tipsy.

‘You should, but…’ They were outside a very smart jewelers. ‘At least this you will be able to later sell. The acting starts here,’ he warned as he pushed a bell and the door opened. She stood there and looked at rings as the jeweler came out, and the acting did start here, because he held her hand as he spoke with jeweler, told them what he had in mind and they were whisked away, to view jewels kept well away from the window.

‘What about this?’ Alex turned to his fiancée but he had lost her attention, her eyes drawn not to the diamond ring he was holding, but to another that to Allegra was far more exquisite.

‘It’s heavenly.’ She picked it up—a brilliant emerald, so huge that it looked like a dress-up ring, but Alex shook his head.

‘Should be a diamond…’

‘Oh!’ She put it back down, remembered her place, that this was not real; she was merely playing a part. He put his head to her ear in a supposed romantic murmur. ‘Diamonds are more valuable.’

‘Perhaps.’

And he saw her longing for the ring, saw the moss of Santina in the jewel of her eyes. Perhaps an emerald would be more fitting and he hesitated for just a moment. After all, what did it matter? Soon it would be done, she would be gone, so she might as well have a ring to her liking.

He slid it on her finger.

‘We’ll size it,’ the jeweler said.

‘No need,’ Alex said. ‘It fits perfectly.’

‘I’ll give it a polish and box it,’ the jeweler said, but Alex’s hands were still holding hers, and they looked for all the world like a young couple in love, on the edge of their future, and she felt this wash of emotion for all that was not.