"Don't we all…" She sighed, a wobbly smile on her lips. "Speaking of Portugal, How is Dom Luis? Somehidalgoshere weren't pleased with his refusal to assume the Spanish throne."
"I have many interests. Politics is not one of them."
"If only my husband had the same discernment." She lowered her bow. "Pity the princess could not join us."
Henrique looked at the palace's east wing. The window of Isabel's bedroom was shut. What's the point of coming to a beachside paradise if she would lock herself in stuffy meetings? He should be glad. Whenever she came near him, she caused an unwanted reaction. A rogue chemical waiting to blow up a man's carefully planned experiment. He gripped his bow and aimed. The arrow flew several inches from the target and vanished inside the oak forest.
Voices and rushed steps rose above the birds’ chirping. Canastra and his buttoned-up sycophants crossed the veranda behind the lawn. Rafaela dropped her bow and rushed to Henrique's side.
"Oh, darling, another bullseye." Flickering her eyelashes, she laughed seductively.
The husband halted, lifted his brows at Rafaela's sudden performance, and after an awkward moment, continued on his way.
As soon as he left, Rafaela returned to her bow, her cheeks stained by a crimson blotch.
She fit his type—attractive, mature, and married. But he was not interested in her romantically, and unless he misread the signs, neither was she. Since their arrival, they had developed a friendship, nothing else.
Henrique narrowed his eyes, lifting a brow. "Care to explain?"
She shrugged, and her gaze wouldn't meet his. "You will excuse me. I need to oversee… the dinner preparations. Yes, the French chef cannotpureéwithout my help." She whirled on her heels. "Don't forget the yacht party tomorrow. Bring your swimming suit."
In her haste to leave, she bumped into Dio.
Dio bowed and ogled her retreating form. "I'll tell you, there's something fishy going on here. The women are curious enough to my tastes, but the men… Can't you feel their feigned tolerance? They have all the love for foreigners you have for dirty hands."
"Nonsense. The Spaniards are a proud and independent people."
"Oh, please. They stroll around in their military finery, unsure if they are characters in a doggerel or an elegy. They give me charged looks as if afraid I could escape with their house silver or their wives, maybe both. They are always plotting, but each pretends not to know the others are also plotting because the admission would have made the plotting absurd."
Henrique snorted.
"Something is rotten in the state of Spain," Dio said, his brows furrowed. "If you cannot feel the situation boiling, then you are not applying yourself to your hero's mission—"
"Not applying myself? Hercules had it easy. Half of his jobs summed up to carting animals across Greece. I would like to see him do the same with an obstinate princess. Hercules would have broken her pretty neck."
"Isabel is sometimes, well, difficult."
Henrique raced his hand through his hair and glared at the princess' window. "That, my friend, is an understatement if you ever uttered one."
Dio tilted his head to the side, caressing his goatee. "The hero doth protest too much, methinks. Care to explain?"
Curse his outburst. Like a hyena, if Dio smelled a carcass, he could not rest until he found it.
Ignoring his friend's curiosity, Henrique pointed at the envelope sticking from Dio’s frock coat. "You've opened my correspondence again?"
Dio smiled sheepishly. "Is it not what sommeliers do?"
"Sommeliers test food and drink for poison. Nosing others' mail isn't in the job description." Henrique grabbed the letter and scanned the lines. "The Italian is pressing me to conclude the sale of the estate. But you already knew that, didn't you?" Henrique crumbled the paper.
"What will you do?" Dio fingered the bows and arrows displayed on the makeshift table.
While Henrique played the nursemaid to a prim princess, his future was at risk. "I need to convince Isabel to leave, but she is more stubborn than a mule. If she realizes I must return, she will plant her feet on the pasture just to spite me."
Dio chose a bow and tested the string.
"Don't—"
Dio had terrible luck with weapons. Before Henrique could take it from him, Dio placed it over his shoulder and aimed.
