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The princess shook her head and folded her arms, her reticule dangling from one wrist.
Lila watched the duke disappear down the road. “Did I tell you that Mr. Swann has asked if he may call?” She hadn’t told her that because Mr. Swann had not asked if he might call. He had expressly told Lila he was to London to do some important scientific work. Or rather, that was how she had heard his long-winded explanation of why he wouldn’t be calling again. She had to give the man credit for knowing when the game was lost.
“I don’t want to receive him,” the princess murmured.
“Then shall we carry on with our plans to go to London?”
“I don’t want to go to London, either.”
At last, the perfect opening. “If I may, Highness...whatdoyou want? My every suggestion is met with resistance. I feel as if there is something or someone holding you back.”
The princess looked down at her hand, stretching her gloved fingers wide, then closing them in a fist, as if she was suffering from a rheumatoid pain.
“I’ve never had anyone turn quite so uncooperative—”
“I don’t mean to be. The problem, Lila, is that what I want, you can’t give me.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “If I don’t know what it is you want, how can I possibly?”
The princess sighed.
“For someone who prides herself on speaking her mind, you seem terribly tongue-tied at the moment.”
“All right,” the princess said with great exasperation. “What Iwantis someone who is most unsuitable for me. Someone who will not enter the race for my hand. Someone who would like to be left behind or, at the very least, alone.”
Lila feigned confusion. “Who could that possibly be? I would think every gentleman in Britain and throughout Europe would want the opportunity to vie for your hand.”
“Please,” the princess said with a withering look. “It is glaringly obvious that’s not true. I’m referring to Marley.”
“Marley?” Lila attempted to sound as confused and surprised as possible.
“Yes, Marley. Why do you look so...amused?”
“Pardon. It’s just you’ve despised him since your first meeting.”
“I know, and I have. Idid. But...but my feelings have changed. Once I spoke to him—”
“Yesterday?”
“Before yesterday,” the princess said impatiently. “Does it matter when? My feelings have changed, but his have not.”
All he might need was a healthy push. It was certainly worth exploring. Then again, Lila wanted the princess to understand that sometimes people held beliefs about themselves that were intractable. Marley, well...she wasn’t sure. “Ah,” Lila said with a bit of a shrug.
“Ah what?”
“It’s nothing—”
The princess straightened from her slouch. “Has he said something?”
“No, no...but he has suffered a great loss. He lost a wife and a child, and I think he has not yet come to terms with his grief.”
The princess’s face fell. “Who can blame him?”
Lila gave her arm a sympathetic pat. “Grief has a way of overwhelming us.”
“Do you think he was terribly in love with her?”
Lila knew for a fact that he was not terribly in love with Diana, and neither was she with him. She thought all that could be said for their union was that it was amicable. “I think...he feels her loss.”
