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The King appeared and ignored Beatrice, so she returned the favour.
‘Dante, you are escorting the countess into dinner. You can’t escort your wife.’
Dante smiled at his father. ‘Actually, I can.’ He held out his arm to Beatrice, who, after a pause, took it, and they went to join the other guests who were pairing off to process into the state banquet hall.
‘If looks could kill.’ She had enjoyed the expression on her father-in-law’s face, but she enjoyed even more the feeling that she and Dante were on the same team.
‘They don’t.’
‘Don’t?’
‘Kill. I have conducted pretty extensive research into the subject. There have been occasional reports of minor injuries but absolutely no fatalities.’
Beatrice’s gurgle of laughter drew several glances and several comments on what an attractive couple the future King and Queen made.
‘Thanks for having my back.’
He looked down into her beautiful face and felt shame break loose inside him. She shouldn’t be thanking him; it should have been something that she took for granted…but why would she? He had never had her back when it had counted.
He watched as she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, and felt the shame mingled now with pride. When had he ever acknowledged the courage she had shown?
She had wanted to blend in but she never would, he realised with a rush of pride, because she was better than them. Better than him, he decided, not immediately identifying the tightening in his chest as protective tenderness.
He didn’t want her to blend in!
‘I’m here if you need me.’
Under dark brows drawn into a straight line above his hawkish nose, she struggled to read his expression but made the obvious assumption he was worried she was going to fall apart. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to fall apart.’
It seemed to Beatrice that the present King had decided to deal with her presence by directing every comment he made to a point six inches above her head. For some reason Beatrice found it very funny.
Absence had not made the King any less angry than she remembered. Her glance drifted from father to son, where Dante sat with his head bent attentively to catch what the person on his left was saying.
Despite her experience of a toxic stepfather, she had known what a proper father should be like. How could Dante know when all he had was his own father, who was a distant, cold figure, to go by?
What sort of father would Dante make?
It was a question she had asked herself the first time around, and it had bothered her because she simply couldn’t see him that way. But now? Her eyes flickered wide as she realised how surprisingly easy it was to see him in that role. Had he changed, or was it the way she saw him, thought of him, that had altered?
What did they say? Expect the worst and hope for the best? Actually, against all expectations, this evening was not so bad, as her experience of official engagements went.
A fact in large part due to the conversation she’d struck up with one of the guests of honour, who protocol decreed had been seated to her right.
The ambassador’s wife, an elegant young thirty-something Frenchwoman, who Beatrice soon discovered was a new parent and self-confessedly besotted.
‘Sorry, I must be boring you. We have very little conversation between night feeds, teething and the general brilliance of our son,’ she admitted, glancing fondly to where her husband was holding a stilted conversation with the Queen.
‘I’m not bored.’ Beatrice grinned and lowered her voice. ‘But if you get onto the best vintage this decade to lay down for an investment… I might doze off,’ she admitted with a twinkle as she glanced to the retired general seated on her left, who was giving all his attention to his glass of red.
It was refreshing to be around someone who was so obviously happy. Maybe it would rub off, she thought wistfully. ‘Did you have Alain here?’ she asked. The opening of the new maternity wing of the hospital had been one of her last official duties, frustrating as usual because her expressed wish to speak to some staff and patients without the photographers had been vetoed. ‘Or did you go back home?’
‘Oh, I didn’t give birth. I can’t actually have children. We adopted.’
At the opposite end of the table Dante was conscious that several people had begun to eavesdrop on the young women’s conversation, though they themselves seemed unaware of the fact. It was as if people were shocked that nobody had told the women that this event was business, not pleasure.
‘Really? My parents adopted too.’
As Beatrice’s voice floated across the table, he was aware of his mother looking tenser by the moment.
