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‘I never thought it was in your best interests to live at the palace. It’s not a great lifestyle for anyone,’ he muttered. ‘Look closer. Who else is watching you?’

Her gut clenched when she saw it. ‘Francesco.’

‘For the last couple of years you’ve always been seated next to him at the state banquets—you’d not noticed?’

‘No. I guess… I mean I just thought it was routine. I never asked.’ She glanced at Alex’s tight expression. ‘You think—?’

‘You never got bad vibes from him?’

‘No more than usual.’ She lowered her feet to the ground. ‘I just always talked art with him. He has a collection.’

‘Looks like he wants to add you to it.’

Tilly stared at the photos with increasing horror. She truly was little more than a puppet, the strings of her life being pulled by someone else. ‘It was easy to talk about art with him, actually. He’s knowledgeable, likes a lot of the same artists as my father.’ She registered Alex’s raised brows. ‘He was an art history teacher.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ He studied her face. ‘Hence your appreciation of—’

‘Old paintings, right.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t see Dad often, but when we were together he’d always take me to galleries or museums. We’d wander around them and talk about the works for hours—we were at home in them, we had the best times there…’

So long ago. Her fondest childhood memories.

‘I’m sorry you lost him,’ Alex said eventually.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t get more time with him.’ Her anger trickled out. ‘Mum left him when I was young and blocked me from seeing him much. When I was nine he got really drunk one night and apparently fell from the dock into the river. Mum told me that he’d slipped, but I…’ She drew a difficult breath. ‘I think he was very sensitive and very hurt.’

‘She used access to you as a weapon.’

‘People who love each other shouldn’t be deprived of time together. I just didn’t get the time with him.’ It broke her heart. ‘Ironically Elisa was then stuck with me—the child who’d failed to patch her first marriage, who hindered her from meeting someone else until she used her widowhood to form a common bond with the King.’ She was so hurt by her mother, so angry for all Elisa had taken from her. ‘I would have been better off if she’d left me with him. He might still be here if she hadn’t taken me away. She didn’t even want me, not really.’

‘Tilly, I’m sorry.’

She wiped her face. ‘It’s okay.’

‘No.’ He put a heavy hand on her knee, stilling it from jiggling. ‘Tilly.’

She exhaled. ‘You know what it’s like to lose a parent.’

‘At least we had time to prepare. I was eleven when she was first diagnosed and she fought it for more than a decade.’

‘But it would have been to see her decline, to suffer…’

He glanced across the water. ‘She spent most of her time at her lighthouse.’

‘Not the palace?’

He shook his head. ‘Erik was with her.’

‘What about you? Didn’t you get to be with her much?’

‘Not as much as I would have liked. I was learning how to be King.’

‘What did that involve?’

‘Education,’ he said grimly.

‘You mean boarding school?’

He paused. ‘Eventually, yes. Then away for university.’