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“I like beauty around me, whether it’s a Van Dyck painting or a beautiful woman in a suit so tight I could see the lace underneath.”
The way he said that, with such an air of innocence, made her laugh. “I don’t think Dr. Huntley would like that, and he seems to have laid claim to Victoria. She may move to his house, but it’s awfully small. I’ll find you something. Lexie will know where.”
He held out the plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but where do you live?”
“Just down the lane from Kingsley House. And speaking of presumptions, if you’re about to be engaged, why are you asking about me?”
“I’m not trying to lure you into anything. It’s just that I’ve never met someone outside my family who could tell Rory and me apart. People who have known us all our lives can’t tell one from the other. That you can makes me feel a bond with you. Besides, you and Aunt Jilly are the only people I know here, and I don’t think I’ll be asking her for help.”
Toby nodded. His aunt and Ken, the father of Toby’s friend Alix, had recently become a couple. They made it obvious that they didn’t need or want anyone else. It really did seem that this man knew very few people on the island, and for all that he wouldn’t be here very long, it could be lonely. “I’ll ask around,” she said, but even as she thought it, she couldn’t imagine where he could stay and be comfortable. A hotel? Who would he talk to? Maybe she could find him a place with one of the Kingsleys. But who would fit with this man with his perfect table manners? And who would resist telling that they had a prince living with them? Then what would happen? The people on the island would probably protect him—they were used to high-ranking visitors—but what if the off-islanders heard he was here? He might as well put himself in a glass cage.
“You’re looking at me very hard,” Graydon said. “I can assure you that I’m a flesh and blood human being.”
“It’s not a matter of how you see yourself but how others see you.”
“How perceptive you are.”
“I wish Jared’s aunt Addy were still alive. She’d take you into her house and under her wing and protect you. And give you lots of rum to drink.”
Graydon laughed. “That sounds perfect, but I can assure you that I need no protection. Maybe from a stray bullet now and then, but not many.”
His tone was joking, but Toby didn’t laugh. She’d heard too many stories of assassination attempts on royalty. “Do
you have a bodyguard?”
“I do at home, and I left one in Maine, but I’m here by myself.”
“But what if someone recognizes you?”
“Miss Wyndam, one of the best things about being a prince of a small, obscure country is that no one in the outside world recognizes me. I am not—thank heaven—a member of the British royal family. Their every movement is recorded and talked about and criticized, but outside our own borders we Lanconians are not that interesting.” He didn’t add that in his own country everything he did was in the headlines.
Toby, who wouldn’t have missed a second of Prince William’s wedding, suddenly had a vision of it from the other side. Where was the privacy, the romance, of such a wedding for the couple? “Will your wedding be a gala?”
“Oh, yes,” Graydon said. “We have a huge old cathedral and it will be packed with people. The entire country will have a three-day holiday.”
“You said an ‘engagement ceremony.’ What will that be like?”
He held the plate for her to take the last strawberry. “It’ll be the first of many celebrations over the year.”
“And they will all involve you?”
“Yes,” Graydon said and bent his head for a moment. “Once the engagement is announced, I’m fair game. I will go to each of the six provinces and participate in days, weeks even, of games and feasts, and I’ll laugh at all the bawdy jokes that they can come up with.”
“What about your bride?”
“Traditionally, she’s considered a maiden, so she doesn’t usually attend. She stays at home, but then Danna has her horses and she must prepare her trousseau.”
“It doesn’t seem fair that she gets to enjoy herself while you have to run around, does it?”
Graydon laughed. “I think it’s the other way around. Some would say I have the better bargain—I get to party and she doesn’t.”
“Then there’s the wedding, and after that …?”
“After that Danna and I will take on a lot of my parents’ duties. My mother doesn’t like to travel, so Danna and I will visit the United States and any other country where we hope to persuade people to buy what we produce or sell us what we need.”
“You are actually a businessman,” she said.
“I like to think of it that way, but I have to wear a lot of different uniforms and smile constantly.”
