FINN HAWKIN ACCEPTED a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and surveyed the scene before him, his lips curving into an appreciative smile. Fairy lights and gossamer white drapes, elaborate costumes and a vast ballroom might be wasted on him, but his small nieces would want to hear about every single detail of the night. The Armarian Midsummer Ball was like every one of their favourite fairy-tales brought to life.
A masked and cloaked figure paused beside him. ‘Having fun?’
‘Laurent!’ Finn turned to greet his old friend with genuine delight. His presence here might be more business than personal, but it was good to see his host. ‘Thanks for the invite.’
‘You are more than welcome. I’m glad you could come.’
A hint of sympathy tinged the other man’s voice; Finn didn’t confide in many people, but Laurent knew how difficult the last year had been, the hard choices Finn had been faced with.
‘How are your nieces?’
‘Tired out after a week of enjoying your glorious beaches. Not that they’ll admit it. Tonight they are most put out at not coming with me to a real-life royal ball. I’ve promised to smuggle cake back to the villa. Hopefully that will mollify them.’
‘Bring them to the palace,’ Laurent offered. ‘It’ll still be chaotic tomorrow, but maybe the day after? We have puppies in the stables they can meet, and I’ll take them to the highest turret and tell them grisly stories about how my ancestors repelled would-be invaders.’
‘They’ll like that. Thanks, Laurent.’
‘And we can catch up properly. It’ll be easier when I’m not hosting several hundred people.’
‘Perils of being a prince.’
But Finn couldn’t help noticing that Laurent seemed more at ease than usual. He was usually so reserved, so rigid when in public, but this evening he was like a different man, his smile genuine and easy, his whole being infused with a lightness and joy that Finn couldn’t imagine feeling.
‘Who’s the girl?’
‘What girl?’ Laurent’s grin only widened, his eyes softening as they rested on a slim figure in yellow and silver, standing to the side of the ballroom, directing a group of waitresses.
‘The girl you haven’t been able to take your eyes off all night. When you haven’t been disappearing outside with her, that is.’
It was unlike Laurent to be openly seen with a woman—and, although his costume gave him a degree of anonymity, it wasn’t enough of a disguise to ensure complete privacy. No, if Laurent was dancing, flirting and holding intense, smouldering conversations so publicly, then his intentions must be pretty serious, and that was unexpected from a man who had seemed reconciled to a sensible marriage of convenience.
‘That’s Emilia. She’s the party planner. She put this whole ball together in less than a month.’ Laurent might have been aiming for offhand, but the pride in his voice was a dead giveaway; he was in deep.
‘She’s done a great job. The whole evening is magical.’
‘Says the man standing on the side alone. I didn’t expect you to use your plus one, Finn, but there are plenty of beautiful women here who I’m sure would love to dance with you. Would you like me to introduce you to anyone? How about the Contessa, over there?’ Laurent indicated a haughty blonde waving a fan as she ignored an eager crowd of young men.
Finn laughed. ‘She looks a little above my pay grade.’
‘Modesty doesn’t become you, Finn. You’re young, active, and you still have all your own hair and teeth. That puts you above half the men in this room, and that’s before we take into account your very successful company and the small fact that you’ve just bought your own castle. Even the Contessa would think that makes you very suitable for one dance at least.’
‘Blakeley hardly compares with a royal palace,’ Finn protested, but pride swelled through him at the thought of the ancient old building, currently being restored to make a home for his nieces and a base for his rapidly expanding business.
He hadn’t inherited the castle, he’d bought it with money he’d earned the hard way. Although he’d grown up on the Blakeley estate, nothing had been handed to him. His success was down to pure hard work and some lucky—and canny—decisions.
‘I’m happy for you,’ Laurent said softly. ‘You’ve achieved your goal. How many men can say that?’
Finn sipped his drink. Laurent was right. He was barely thirty and he’d hit every one of the goals he’d set when they were students in Paris: to found his own business, make a fortune, and live on an estate like the one he’d grown up on. Only this time he’d be the one in the big house, not the gardener’s boy, doffing his cap to his so-called betters.
‘We never stop setting goals, Laurent, we just change the goalposts. Now my nieces come first. Giving them the kind of happiness and security they need...that’s my priority.’
‘If anyone can, you can.’
They stood there in silence for a moment, watching the opulently adorned dancers waltz around the dance floor until Laurent’s gaze strayed once again to the girl in the yellow dress. Finn followed his gaze. She had moved away from the waitresses and was talking animatedly to a tall, elegant woman dressed in a demure black dress, her light brown hair elegantly coiled into a chignon.
Recognition punched him. It couldn’t be...
Or could it? Was this the girl he’d searched for in vain through the years, right here in a ballroom hundreds of miles away from the place where they’d grown up?
Last time he had seen her, her hair had been bleached platinum blonde and cut into a choppy bob which had instantly spawned a thousand imitations. She’d been a decade younger, coltish and angular, with cheekbones sharp enough to cut through butter and a knowing, slanting gaze that had pouted down from billboards and magazine covers across the globe—before she had disappeared from public view and from his life, as if she had never been.
‘Lola?’ he half whispered. And, as if she’d heard him, the woman looked up, alert, scenting danger.
He must be imagining things. Lola Beaumont was gone, disappeared into the ether. He knew that. He’d looked for her for long enough. He blinked and refocussed. He must be mistaken. The woman was clearly working at the event, and Lola was always the guest of honour, not the help. It was a passing resemblance, that was all.
He’d