coffee, Miss Pryce?”
“No, thank you.”
“I could call down for tea.”
She didn’t even crack a smile. “I’m fine, thank you.”
How about a valium, or shot of whiskey? Hannah thought. She wondered if everyone around here was always this formal. If so, it was going to take some serious getting used to. For them, that is. Hannah’s staff at home had always been more like an extension of the family than actual employees.
Being royalty didn’t mean she had to be a cold fish.
“Do you have a first name, Miss Pryce?”
She looked confused. “Of course.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated for an instant, as though she wasn’t quite sure why Hannah would even ask. “Elizabeth.”
“May I address you by your first name?”
Miss Pryce looked utterly confused.
Hannah sighed. Something this simple shouldn’t be so difficult. “Miss Pryce, I’m not sure how things are done here in the palace, but as my personal secretary, I can only assume we’ll be spending quite some time together.”
Miss Pryce nodded.
“In that case, it would be nice if I could address you by your first name.”
“Of course, my lady. I would be honored.”
This my lady stuff was going to get old fast. “And I don’t suppose there would be any chance you could call me Hannah?”
Miss Pryce lowered her eyes and shook her head. “That wouldn’t be proper. I would lose my job.”
She would push the issue, but Hannah could see that she was making her uncomfortable. After she and Phillip were married, at least her title would change to a less pretentious, Ma’am.
“Before we get started, I was hoping to have a word with my fiancé.” Since he left her suite last night, she had been anticipating seeing him again. She had a million questions to ask him. Things about him she was dying to know.
“He’s not here.”
“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Friday, I think.”
“Friday?” Five days?
“If the weather holds,” she added.
“Weather?”
“He and his cousin, Sir Charles, don’t care to hunt in the rain.”
Hunt? He went hunting?
She willed herself to remain calm, to ignore the deep spear of disappointment that lodged in her heart. She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and he’d left to go on a hunting trip? That would leave them barely a week to get to know one another before the wedding. Didn’t he care about her?
Calm down, Hannah. Of course he did. His actions yesterday proved his affection for her. There had to be a logical reason. A hunting trip to disguise business, maybe? Some secret trip no one could know the truth about?
There was no way he would just leave her.
Her distress must have shown, because Miss Pryce looked suddenly alarmed. “If it’s an emergency—”
“No. No emergency.” She forced a smile. The last thing she wanted was for her assistant to know how deeply her feelings had been hurt. “It can wait until he returns.” Hannah gestured to the sofa. “Shall we get started?”
Hannah sat, and Elizabeth lowered herself stiffly beside her. Apparently it was going to take time for her to relax in Hannah’s presence. Baby steps.
“So, what’s on the schedule for today?”
“You meet with the decorator at eleven o’clock, followed by a luncheon at one with the wives of the heads of state.”
“That sounds nice.” She would be sure to skim the files Elizabeth brought so she could pluck at least a few of their names from memory. “What next?”
She went on, but Hannah was only half listening. Her mind was still stuck on Phillip’s abrupt disappearance. Was it possible that he wasn’t hunting at all? That he might be with another woman? And what if it was the mystery woman who wouldn’t stop staring at her?
She dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it formed. Now she was being paranoid and silly.
She wasn’t so naive as to believe that Phillip had saved himself for her. But he’d had the decency to keep that aspect of his life quite discreet. Which told her that he was a man of integrity. And men of integrity were faithful to their significant others.
Finding suspicion with his every action would only make her life miserable.
She was sure that if he had to leave, it was for a good reason. Though Phillip was her fiancé, and would later be her husband, he was a king first and foremost. A servant to his country. That was a fact she would have to accept.
This brief absence would just make them appreciate each other that much more when he returned.
This is just a hiccup, she assured herself. Everything would work out just the way she’d planned.
Phillip stood on the steps leading to the garden, an unseasonably warm breeze ruffling the collar of his shirt, his attention on his future wife.
She sat on a blanket in the shade of a tree whose leaves had just begun to change, legs folded underneath her, hair tumbling in silky chestnut waves down her back. She wore a simple slip dress the exact shade of amber as the turning leaves.
He stepped down onto the grass and walked toward her, finding himself mesmerized by her beauty, intrigued by the intense desire to be near her. To touch her again. In profile, her features looked finely boned and elegant. Regal and confident, with a hint of softness that he found undeniably appealing.
Fine breeding stock, his mother had assured him when the pairing had been suggested and he had yet to meet Hannah, or even see a photo of her. He recalled thinking at the time that his mother could have been describing a head of cattle, not a future member of the family.
Beside her on the blanket sat a pile of binders, and one lay open across her lap. She was so engrossed in whatever it was she was reading, she didn’t hear him approach.
“Good afternoon.”
She let out a squeak of surprise and the folder tumbled from her lap onto the ground. When she looked up and saw it was him standing there, she scrambled to her feet, which he noticed were bare.
“I’m sorry,” she said and executed a slightly wobbly curtsy. “You startled me.”
As she straightened, her hair slipped across her shoulders, thick and shiny, resting in loose spirals atop the swell of her breasts. It all but begged to be touched and his fingers itched to tangle in the silky ribbons. From that day forward he would insist that she never wear it up again.
“If I startled you, perhaps I should be the one apologizing,” he said.
She clasped her hands in front of her, her lip clamped between her teeth, but behind it he could see the shadow of a smile. “You’re back sooner than I expected.”
Despite that, he would have anticipated her to be angry with him. Seeing as how he had left so abruptly. Instead, she seemed genuinely happy to see him.
It had been selfish and insensitive of him to leave her alone, but a lesson she needed to learn. It was best she understand that he had no intention of changing his habits simply because he had a wife. This was an arrangement, a business deal of sorts. The sooner she realized and accepted that, the better off they would both be.
Which did