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The man she was now waiting for, because her equipment had been unpacked and set up in this room to catch the best light. She’d only brought the bare necessities to Lasserno, pencils and charcoal so she could study and sketch, learn about the Prince who would be taking up her next few months of waking thought. She’d set up what she needed on a small side table next to a chair, ready for when His Highness deigned to grace her with his lofty presence.
A sickening knot tightened in her stomach. As if she needed to run rather than be faced with a blank canvas, her empty sketchbook. Hannah ground her teeth against the rising queasiness. She usually loved the challenge of getting to know a new subject. Finding the key to a person, the one that unlocked every brushstroke she’d put down in the time it took to perfect the essence of them on a canvas. But a lot was riding on this commission. Her future. Her home. It wasn’t that she was afraid of doing a job she knew so well, afraid of the thrill of knowing a person, of finding the man Alessio hid. Not at all. It was what she stood to lose if she couldn’t fulfil it.
She checked the time on her phone. For a man who wanted his portrait painted, he really didn’t want to spend much time anywhere near her. Most people enjoyed their sessions, or so she’d been told. She did. She loved learning someone’s nuances, the privilege of being allowed to glimpse a private part of a person that many never saw. Alessio seemed to think she could paint him from memory alone. He probably believed that he was unforgettable, so one glance would be all she needed.
He might not be entirely wrong about that.
Enough. She grabbed her sketch pad and watercolour pencils. There was a pretty desk with a view from large windows, overlooking fields of grapes and olives out towards Lasserno’s capital. In a copse of ancient olives there peeked a small, domed structure. Like a chapel, or perhaps a folly, although Hannah didn’t think Alessio would allow anything so whimsical as that on the palace grounds. The whole scene shimmered with the warmth of a Mediterranean summer. She sat at the fragile-looking desk and sketched, losing herself in perfecting the cobalt blue of the sky, the ochres, umbers and greens of the landscape glowing in the sunshine.
The muffled noise of a well-oiled door handle and hinges made her turn, spring from her chair as if the seat burned her.
Alessio strode into the room, all of him pressed into hard lines with a flawlessly cut suit and pristine white shirt. A tie of carmine sat at his throat with its fat knot, looking tight enough to strangle. Except she was the one who couldn’t get any air, as if he’d sucked it all from the room. He glanced at the gleaming gold watch at his wrist then to her as she wobbled in an uncertain half-dip because she wasn’t sure of the protocol if she was going to see him multiple times a day. He flicked his hand in a dismissive kind of way.
‘No curtseying unless we are in public.’
‘We sort of are, since your secretary’s here.’ She gave Stefano a little wave. He smiled back in his own handsome kind of way, though it was nothing like the glowering magnificence of his imposing boss.
Alessio looked at her, then to Stefano, and his eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t strike me as someone who’s obtuse, Signorina Barrington.’
‘I’m not. You’re the one who sent me a volume of rules to follow.’
‘So you’re prepared.’
‘They make me nervous I’m going to get something wrong.’ Everything about this made her nervous, particularly him. It was as if all common sense and the need for self-preservation fled in his presence. ‘I’m painting your portrait, not stepping out as your significant other. Will you give your princess the same sort of list?’
‘No, because, being a princess, she’ll know the rules already.’
‘Rigidity and protocol don’t fit in well with my work. How about we throw away the rules when we’re in here?’
He raised one dark, imperious brow. Tugged at the cuffs of his shirt. Checked the time again.
‘Who am I to stop you, since it appears you already have?’ Alessio stalked towards her where she stood frozen in front of the spindly, gilded desk. She had that sensation again, that she was an insect under a magnifying glass. Alessio loomed close. He wasn’t threatening at all. It’s that he had a presence. An aura that crammed the space full, till there was no room for anything else. Especially not sensible thought.
‘What are you doing there?’ He motioned over the sketch she’d started, of the view outside.
‘In nine years I’ve barely gone a day without my art.’ There’d been only a few. The anniversaries, where sometimes the grief would steal upon her with a more vicious attack than usual. Sapping her will to do anything but curl up in bed and weep. ‘In the last week, I’ve missed three with all the planning and preparing and I needed todosomething. It helps me—’
‘Relax. I’m like it with horse-riding, yet I rarely get a chance any more.’ She froze. The freedom of the ride. Soaring over the jumps in partnership with her horse. She used to revel in that joy too, until the day it represented everything she’d lost. She hadn’t ridden since.
Alessio wasn’t looking at her unfinished artwork right now, but out of the window, his eyes distant and unfocused. That small offering of something private about himself was a gift and she doubted he realised he’d given it to her. Then the distance in his eyes faded, and they narrowed. As if he’d come back to himself, was pulling himself into reality rather than some faded memories. The whole of him stiffened, and he became the ruler of Lasserno again, rather than a simple man.
‘You’re drawing with coloured pencils? It seems beneath your reported talents.’
She let out a slow breath, the precious moment lost. ‘I use these because they’re a challenge for me. Watch.’
She dipped a brush into a small glass of water which was probably crystal and not designed for this task. Alessio didn’t seem to mind. He’d probably drunk from crystal since birth. Nothing as common as plain glass would deign to touch his perfect lips. She took the brush and swiped it gently over a part of the sketched scene. The pencil bled to paint in a wash of colour.
‘Magic,’ he said.
‘Oil paints are forgiving. These, not so much. They’re unpredictable, and it’s harder to cover up your mistakes.’
‘Like life,’ Alessio murmured, or at least that was what she thought he said as he moved closer, leaning over the picture. She was sure there was something in that fat instruction booklet about not standing too near him, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it might have said. Not with all theproximity. His height, his magnetic presence. The teasing scent of him, something masculine and fresh like the aftermath of a summer’s storm. The warmth he radiated, almost better than morning sunshine. She wanted to lean into it and bask. But she was here to do a job. Having poetic thoughts about unattainable princes was not part of it.
She stood back. Put a respectable distance between them. Likewise, he seemed to shake himself out of the fascination for her simple artwork. He straightened, adjusted his tie. Checked his watchagain.
‘I have limited time. We should start. What do you need from me?’
She needed him to stop being so...him. Instead she pointed to a chair she’d manhandled into better light. He looked at it, at the scuffed carpet where she’d half dragged it across the room. Frowned, but said nothing, instead unbuttoning his jacket and lowering himself into the armchair. Watching her as his secretary watched them both.
