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Leo was not.
‘People!’ he exclaimed gleefully, clapping his hand together. ‘Lots and lots of people, Mama!’ And everyone laughed, so Leo laughed, and then lifted his chubby little hands to cover his eyes for a moment before pulling them away and saying, ‘Boo!’
More laughter, from Frankie too, who looked up helplessly at Matthias.
‘And I worried he might feel nervous,’ Matthias murmured from the side of his mouth.
‘Apparently we have a showman on our hands,’ she agreed, as Leo played peek-a-boo once more with the delighted crowd.
Conversation began to return to normal and, without the eyes of the world on them, Frankie looked around the terrace more thoroughly. It was then that she noticed something at first familiar and at second glance jarring.
‘My paintings are here.’ She was dumbfounded. For, hanging on the far wall of the palace, were some of her paintings. The sun was setting and it bathed them in the most beautiful natural light. She stared at the artworks with a growing sense of confusion. ‘How in the world...?’
His look gave nothing away. ‘You can no longer sell your paintings, Frankie. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But that doesn’t mean the world should be deprived of your talent.’
‘I...but you...these were supposed to be showing in New York.’
He nodded. ‘I bought the whole lot.’
‘You bought...’
‘It wouldn’t have been appropriate for the show to go ahead, with news of our engagement.’
‘But why buy them? If you’d said that, I would have called Charles and explained...’
‘And deprived him of his commission?’ He shook his head. ‘He picked you to show your work; he is obviously very good at what he does. Why shouldn’t he earn a reward for that?’
His perceptiveness and flattery pinballed inside her. ‘I had no idea...’
‘This was my intention.’
Hope flew in her chest, because the gesture was so sweet, so kind, so utterly out of left field. ‘Thank you,’ she said after several long seconds, as Liana approached. ‘I’m truly touched.’
And, as if sensing that she might be at risk of reading too much into it, he straightened. ‘It was simply the right thing to do, Frankie. Your art deserves to be seen, you cannot sell it any longer, or it would be seen that you are profiteering from your position as Queen. And this is now your country—of course the works should hang here, in Tolmirós.’
It was all so businesslike and sensible, but that didn’t completely take the shine off the gesture. Because she found it almost impossible to believe that only pragmatism and common sense had motivated it. Surely, there was a thread of something else, something more?
He praised her artwork, but her artwork was her. Every painting was a construct of her soul, a creation of her being. To like it, to appreciate it, was to appreciate her.
‘Come, deliciae, everybody here is eager to meet you. I hope you’re not tired.’
He led her towards the Prime Minister first and for the next three hours Frankie met and spoke to more people than she could ever remember.
Matthias stayed by her side the whole time, intensely watchful, an arm around her waist at all times, shooting arrows of desire deep within her, his body warm, his eyes never leaving her.
When it came time for them to exit she was exhausted, but the fluttering of hope inside her heart refused to die down.
In a week she would marry the man she’d fallen in love with, and she refused to believe there was no hope that he would, one day, love her right back. He’d put his heart on ice, and who could blame him? He’d suffered an intense loss, a total tragedy, so he’d put his heart on ice...and Frankie was determined that she would thaw it.
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU DID WELL TONIGHT.’ He watched as she strolled into their bedroom wearing a silk negligee that fell to the floor. All night he’d watched her, and he’d ignored every damned royal protocol, keeping an arm clamped vice-like around her waist because he couldn’t not touch her. The urge had surprised the hell out of him.
At first, he’d wanted to reassure her, to protect her, just as he’d said in the car. Though she’d promised him she was fine with the event, the crowds and the attention, he’d felt she was nervous. He’d felt her energy and he’d wanted to soothe her worries. Then, when they’d stepped onto the terrace and she’d begun to charm her way around his parliament, speaking in halting Tolmirón that she’d been learning since arriving in the country, he’d felt something else. Something dark and sinister and distinctly unwelcome.
Jealousy.
He hadn’t wished to share Frankie.
