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“You must experience many surprises, Your Highness. Not the least of them a steady march of gentlemen admirers for you to entertain.”
Her smile was charmingly lopsided. “There you go again, assuming that because they admire me I must entertain them. The steady march of them is hardly a surprise. I expect men to admire me. It’s predictable. And boring. Unsurprising.”
“Hmm,” he said, admiring the curve of her neck. “You make all that admiration sound unpleasant.”
“It’s not unpleasant at all. I rather like it. But it’s not surprising.” She shrugged. “We are all born to a certain path.”
“Are we?”
“Je.I was born to be admired, and you were born to be sullen. And we are those things until we are surprised.” She tilted her face up to smile at him. Her features were illuminated by moonlight, and he knew she was teasing him, but he’d been miserable for so long he didn’t know how to respond. His desire was to surprise her now, to kiss her again, hold her again. He wanted to feel his blood flowing and his heat rising and his heart beating. In other words, he wanted to feel part of the living again.
“I wish I could surprise you,” she said. “I wish I—”
“Your Royal Highness, have you seen? The shadow is beginning to cover the moon.”
And here came Mr. Swann to ruin the moment, crashing into their midst to draw her attention away from Joshua and to the sky. What did she wish?What the bloody hell did she wish?
He was not surprised that someone had come along to ruin the moment.
But he was surprised that he cared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AFEWDAYSafter the supper party, Lila and Blythe stood on the drive at Iddesleigh House and watched Mr. Swann and the princess ride away, her guards trailing behind. Mr. Swann had arrived earlier with a broad smile and the gift of a horse for the princess. “I have heard it said you are an accomplished rider,” he said as he presented her with the Arabian.
“I am,” she confirmed without hesitation. She looked at the horse, then at Mr. Swann. “Thank you, Mr. Swann. Your gift is quite thoughtful...but too extravagant. I’m afraid I can’t accept—I couldn’t possibly transport the horse to St. Edys, and even if I could, he’d be swallowed up in stables with all the other palace horses.”
Mr. Swann clearly hadn’t anticipated this response and looked rather stunned. He probably thought he would be lauded up and down Devonshire for his gift. But as he was a clever man, he smoothly pivoted. “Then perhaps we might consider him a loan for your convenience whilst you are in England.”
Amelia looked at the horse again. “I rather like the roan mare I’ve been riding.”
Mr. Swann’s smile fell.
“Mr. Swann, you are so very generous,” Blythe said. “My husband and I should be delighted to stable the horse for Her Royal Highness during her stay.” She looked pointedly at Princess Amelia, but the princess was stroking the horse’s nose and murmuring to it.
An hour or so later, when the pair of them at last rode away, Blythe sighed wearily. “She doesn’t have to be unkind.”
“Was she unkind?” Lila asked. “I thought she was well within her rights to say it was too much. Who brings ahorseas a gift? A dog, a kitten, perhaps. But a horse?”
“Ithought it was charming. He obviously esteems her.”
Lila clasped her hands at her waist. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that, Blythe. It’s been my experience that the ones who try too hard are often more concerned about winning than anything else.”
Blythe looked at Lila with confusion. “Well of course he is. There is a great advantage to the winner of this particular contest, isn’t there? Why did you invite him here if that’s not your intent?”
“Because it has also been my experience that one never really knows the sort of suitor one will be until he’s met the lady.” She shrugged. She couldn’t be right about all of them. The few times she’d met Mr. Swann, she’d thought him charming. It wasn’t until the supper party that she’d realized how pretentious he was.
“I think he seems a perfect match for the princess.”
“Perhaps he is. But she has yet to indicate what she thinks of him.”
“Oh?” Blythe asked eagerly. “What has she said?”
Princess Amelia hadn’t said much, and that was the problem. “That she had no complaints about him, and she would consider him.” In fact, the princess never had any complaints about anyone but Marley. She said the duke had annoyed her by implying he was bored with the supper. But then, later that evening, while Mr. Swann was pointing out stars and constellations and the beginning of an eclipse, Lila noticed that both Princess Amelia and the Duke of Marley were nowhere to be seen. She’d wanted to kick herself for her lapse in attention—she should have had her eyes on Princess Amelia, gauging how she responded to Mr. Swann. It was her own fault—she’d been enamored of the night sky, and Mr. Swann did seem to know a lot.
That was the other problem—Mr. Swann wanted as much attention as Princess Amelia and had managed to command it.
When Princess Amelia had reappeared with Mr. Swann—and Marley trailing behind them—she smiled and told them all about a Russian astronomer who had come to the Weslorian court with a powerful telescope. “It seemed almost as if you were standing on the stars,” she said. “He named a star for me. One for my sister, too.”
