How to Marry a Princess

“I’ll be there,” Alice promised.

With a last hug, Rhia left her to join her groom in her seat of honor at the center of the table.

Alice went to greet her parents. Her mother, looking amazing as always in beaded black Chanel, gave her a kiss and a fond, “Hello, my darling,” and didn’t say a word about her tardiness. Her mother was like that. HSH Adrienne had high expectations, but she’d never been one to nag.

In the past, Alice had crashed a motorcycle in the marketplace, run off with a sheikh for a week in Marrakech, been photographed for Vanity Fair wearing only a cleverly draped silk scarf and been arrested in Beijing for participating in a protest march. Among other things.

Until Glasgow, her mother had never done more than gently remind her that she was a princess of Montedoro and expected to behave like one. But after Glasgow, for the first time, Alice had been summoned to her mother’s office. HSH Adrienne had asked her to shut the door and then coolly informed her that she’d finally gone too far.

“Alice,” her mother had said much too sadly, too gently, “it’s one thing to be spirited and adventurous. It’s another to be an embarrassment to yourself and our family. In future I am counting on you to exercise better judgment and to avoid situations that will lead to revealing, provocative pictures of you splashed across the front pages of the Sun and the Daily Star.”

It had been awful. Just thinking about it made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

And sad, too. A bit wilted and grim.

Shake it off, she commanded herself. Let it go.

Alice looked for her place card and found it between her older sister Belle’s husband, Preston McCade, and her younger sister Genevra. Genny wore shimmering teal-blue satin and was giggling over something with another sister, the youngest, Rory, who was seated on Genny’s other side.

Damien sat at the opposite end of the table. No sign of the man who looked like Noah. Alice considered hustling down there and asking Dami...what?

Who was that man with the dark blond hair, the one you came in with?

And what if he stared at her blankly and demanded, Allie, darling, what man?

She waffled just long enough that she missed her chance. Her mother rose and greeted the guests. A hush fell over the tent. Then her father stood, as well. He picked up his champagne glass to propose the first toast.

Allie reached for her glass, raised it high and drank on cue. Then she took her seat. She greeted her sisters and Preston, whom she liked a lot. He was charming and a little shy, with a great sense of humor. He bred and trained quarter horses, so they had plenty to talk about.

There were more toasts. Alice paced herself, taking very small sips of champagne, practicing being low-key and composed for all she was worth. By the time the appetizer was served, she felt glad she hadn’t asked Dami about the broad-shouldered stranger with the dark gold hair and perfectly cut evening clothes.

It was nothing. It didn’t matter. She would have a fine evening celebrating her dearest sister’s hard-earned happiness. And no one else would know that she’d imagined she saw someone who wasn’t really there. She accepted a second glass of champagne from a passing servant and picked up a spear of prosciutto-wrapped asparagus—and then almost dropped the hors d’oeuvre in her lap when she glanced over and saw Noah.

He wore the same perfect evening attire she’d glimpsed earlier. And he sat between a stunning blonde and a gorgeous redhead several tables away, staring right at her.

Chapter Two

Noah was watching Alice when she spotted him. Her mouth dropped open. Her face went dead white.

About then it occurred to him that maybe he’d carried his innocent deception a little too far.

She pressed her lips together and looked away, turning to her younger sister on her right side, forcing a smile. He waited for her to glance his way again.

Didn’t happen.

Jennifer, the redhead seated on his left, put her hand on his thigh and asked him how he was enjoying his visit to Montedoro. He gently eased her hand away and said he was having a great time.

She hit him with a melting, eager look and said, “I’m so pleased to have met you, Noah, and I hope we can spend some time together during your stay. I would just love to show you the real Montedoro.”

Andrea, the blonde on his other side, cut in, saving him the necessity of giving Jennifer an answer. “I love all of Prince Dami’s friends,” Andrea said. “Dami and I were once, well, very close. But then he met Vesuvia.” A model and sometime actress, Vesuvia was often called simply V. “Dami is exclusive with V now,” Andrea added. None of what she’d said was news to Noah. Or to anyone else, for that matter. “They’re all over the tabloids, Dami and V,” Andrea whispered breathlessly. She was mistress of the obvious in a big, big way.

“Or at least, the prince is mostly exclusive with V,” Jennifer put in with a wicked little giggle. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I mean, they are always fighting and I notice that V’s not here tonight....”

The meal wore on. Jennifer and Andrea kept up a steady stream of teasing chatter. Noah sipped champagne and hoped that Alice might grant him a second look.

If she did, he failed to catch it.

Had he blown it with her, misjudged her completely? It was starting to look that way.

But no. It couldn’t be.

She’d assumed he was an itinerant stable hand and all he’d done was play along. He’d thought she would find the whole thing funny.

It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might be upset about it. How could he have gotten it so wrong? He’d done his research on her after all. She was bold and curious and ready for anything, the darling of the scandal sheets. He’d never imagined she would freak out when she finally saw him as he really was.

So what did he do now?

He wouldn’t give up, that was for damn sure. Not now that he’d met her, talked to her, seen her smile, looked in those eyes of hers that could be blue or gray or green, depending on the light and her shifting mood. Not now that he’d discovered she was exactly the woman he’d been looking for—and more.

Somehow he would have to make amends.

The meal finally ended. Princess Adrienne rose and congratulated the newlyweds again. She wished them a lifetime of married bliss. Then she invited the guests to enjoy the moonlit garden and to dance the night away in the palace ballroom upstairs.

Jennifer whispered an invitation in his ear. He turned to express his regrets.

When he glanced toward the dais again, Alice was gone.

* * *

Alice slipped out of the tent through the servants’ entrance behind the dais.

She’d recovered from her initial shock at the sight of Noah sitting between those two beautiful women, looking as though he belonged there. At least by the end of dinner, she’d become reasonably certain she wasn’t hallucinating. He was not a bizarre figment of her overactive imagination. The man who looked exactly like Noah the stable hand really did exist.

That meant she wasn’t losing her mind after all—a fact she found wonderfully reassuring.

But was he actually the same man she’d first met sweeping the stable floor before dawn on Wednesday morning? Was this some kind of bizarre practical joke he was playing on her? And if so, did that make him a palace groom posing as a guest at the palace? Or a jet-setter friend of her brother’s who enjoyed masquerading as the help?

She considered tracking down Dami and quizzing him about that friend of his who looked exactly like the poverty-stricken groom she’d met Wednesday.

But no. Not tonight. Damien might be able to enlighten her, but then he would have questions of his own. She just wasn’t up for answering Dami’s questions. And it didn’t matter anyway. She knew what to do: forget it. Forget him.

It was all too weird. It made no sense and she wasn’t going to think about it.

She would enjoy the rest of the evening and move on.

A familiar voice behind her said, “Allie, I haven’t seen you in ages.”

She turned to smile at a longtime friend. “Robert. How have you been?”