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CHAPTER ONE
HANNAHSTOODINa shaft of bright sunlight at the rear of her studio. A sickening pulse beat in her chest. The dizzying smell of paint and solvent, usually a reminder of everything she loved, threatened to overpower her. She hurried to the window and threw it wide open onto the rambling tangle of a cottage garden. Gulped in the warm, summer’s air.
The hollyhocks were in bloom.
Her mother had loved the hollyhocks best of all the flowers growing here.
‘Miss Barrington?’ A bodyguard. One of three mountains of men who’d arrived minutes before. Two of whom were now stalking through the place, assessing her home for any risk. The one staying with her frowned, no doubt concerned she might be letting in an assailant to harm their employer, whose arrival was imminent. As if she could organise anything like that with the half-hour’s warning of his impending visit her agent had given.
‘The smell of paint.’ She waved her hand about like she was shooing away any offending scents. ‘It might irritate His Highness.’
The man nodded, likely satisfied she was thinking of his employer’s comfort. They probably wouldn’t care about hers, or that in this moment it was like a hand had grabbed round her throat and squeezed. She took another deep breath. The bodyguard stationed himself at the doorway separating her studio from the rest of the house and crossed his arms as though he were guardingher. Did she look as if she were about to run?
Tempting, but there was nowhere else to go.
Her country cottage, the family home. Her safe place and haven was all she had left of her parents. She looked around the bright room she’d made her studio when she’d been old enough to move out on her own. People said she was crazy to come back here, away from the city, to a place tired from nine years of tenants. But people didn’t understand. Even though there’d been a fresh lick of paint, no one had covered over the marks on the wall in the laundry where her parents had notched her height over the years. The low-ceilinged kitchen remained unrenovated, a place where they’d sat to eat their meals and laughed. The whole place sang with those memories. The happy and the devastating.
The burn of tears pricked her eyes. Now all this was at risk. Her aunt and uncle had been her guardians. Looked after her inheritance when her parents had died. Taken in the broken teenager she’d become. Sure, they’d been distant rather than cruel, never having wanted children of their own and not knowing how to deal with her. But she’d trusted them, and her uncle’s betrayal still cut deep and jagged. An investment she hadn’t wanted gone terribly wrong. Almost everything, lost. Her father would be trying to claw his way out of the grave over the way his brother had behaved towards his only niece.
Everything seemed tenuous in this moment. Nothing else had broken her. Not her parents’ death in the accident, not the loss of her horse and everything she loved. She’d clambered out of the well of grief on her own. Sure, her fingertips might have been bloody, nails torn, the scars carved into the soul of her waiting to open at any given moment. But to have to sell this, the little farm where she’d lived some of the best days of her life? That would crack her open and no king’s horses or men would ever be able to put those pieces back together again.
Perspiration pricked at the back of her head, a droplet sliding beyond the neck of her shirt, itching her skin. She moved closer to the window. Fished a hair tie from her jeans pocket, scraped her hair back and tied it up in a rough topknot.
The bodyguard looked down at her. Crossed his arms. ‘You seem nervous.’
How could she tell him that his employer’s past and her own were inextricably bound? That his employer was the last person she wanted to see, because he was a reminder of the worst day of her life? Of teenage dreams destroyed?
‘I’ve never met a prince before.’ It wasn’texactlya lie. ‘And I haven’t had time to tidy up.’
The bodyguard’s gaze roved over her in a disapproving kind of way. She looked down at her hands. Nails short and blunt. Cuticles ingrained with paint. She grabbed an old rag and wet it with solvent, rubbing at her fingers in a vain effort to clean them. Perfect princes probably wouldn’t admire commoners with filthy hands. Not that she was seeking admiration, but still. She supposed she had to keep up some kind of an appearance. After a short effort she dropped the now dirty rag on the tabletop and sniffed at her fingers, which smelled like pine.
She held them up. ‘Better?’
The bodyguard grunted.
Hannah checked her phone. Still some time. She picked out a slender paintbrush and stood back from her easel. Her art usually calmed her, a way to lose herself in colour and light. Nothing could touch her when she was in the flow of a portrait. She tried to loosen the death grip of her fingers. Dipped her brush into some paint. A swipe of Tasman blue, a touch of titanium white. She frowned. The eyes in this portrait gave her trouble. Too much sadness, not enough twinkle. She reached out her brush to add a dash of colour near the pupil, trying to ignore the tremor in her hand.
The cheery tinkle of a doorbell rang through the room. Hannah’s paintbrush slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, leaving smudges of blue paint on the old boards.
The burn of bile rose to her throat. He was early. She left the portrait and wiped her damp palms on her jeans.
‘Remember to curtsey,’ the bodyguard said.
The teeth of anger bit her then, at this man’s disdain when she was the one being imposed upon today. She’d said no to this commission when it had first been proposed months ago, before she had had any idea how bad her finances were. His employer had ignored her refusal. It was just like saying no to her uncle when presented with a speculative investment. He’d ignored her too. She gritted her teeth, hating that these people hadn’t listened to her, as if her opinion were meaningless. But even though things were bad it didn’t mean she had to grin and bear it.
Hannah stalked up to the man guarding the doorway and glared. He towered over her but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to be pushed around, by anyone. Looming bodyguardorprince.
‘I do have a concept of manners. And I understand how to behave around royalty.’
The man didn’t move, but his eyes widened a fraction as if in surprise. Good.
A murmur of voices drifted down the hall. The tap of fine leather on floorboards grew louder. She backed further into the room, tried to swallow the knot rising in her throat but her mouth was dry.
A shadow appeared in the hall behind more security. Grew and grew till it took human shape, striding through the doorway.
‘His Royal Highness, Crown Prince of Lasserno,’ the bodyguard announced.
Alessio Arcuri.
