Читать книгу The Kalliakis Crown - Мишель Смарт, Michelle Smart - Страница 17
ОглавлениеTHE BLACK LIMOUSINE drove over a bridge and through a long archway before coming to a stop in a vast courtyard at the front of the palace.
Her heart fluttering madly beneath her ribs, Amalie stared in awe, just as she’d been gaping since she’d caught her first glimpse of it, magnificent and gleaming under the last red embers of the setting sun.
The driver opened the door for her and held out an arm, which she accepted gratefully. She had never worn heels so high. She had never felt so...elegant.
That’s what wearing the most beautiful bespoke dress in creation does for you.
Still gaping, she stared up. The palace was so vast she had to make one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns to see from one side to the next. Although vastly different in style, its romanticism rivalled France’s beautiful Baroque palaces. Its architecture was a mixture of styles she’d seen throughout Europe and North Africa, forming its own unique and deeply beautiful style that resembled a great sultan’s palace with gothic undertones.
Two dozen wide curved steps led up to a high-arched ornate entrance, where two footmen dressed in purple-and-gold livery with yellow sashes stood. She climbed the steps towards them, thinking that this was surely what Cinderella had felt like. After studiously checking her official invitation, another footman stepped forward to escort her into the palace itself.
First they entered a reception room so vast her entire cottage would fit inside it—roof and all, with room to spare—then walked through to another room where a group of footmen were being given last-minute instructions by a man who wore a red sash over his livery.
‘Am I the first to arrive?’ she asked her escort, who unfortunately spoke as much French and English as she spoke Greek—none at all.
It wasn’t just the footmen being given instructions or the lack of other guests that made her think she was the first. Scores of waiting staff were also being given a last-minute briefing, many straightening clothing and smoothing down hair. She could feel their eyes on her, and their muted curiosity over the strange woman who had clearly arrived too early.
As she was led into another room—narrower, but much longer than the first reception room—staff carrying trays of champagne were lining up along the walls, beneath a gallery of portraits. At the far end were three tall figures dressed in black, deep in conversation.
Amalie’s heart gave a funny jump, then set off at an alarming rate that increased with every step she took towards them. Her escort by her side, she concentrated on keeping her feet moving, one in front of the other.
Suddenly Talos turned his head and met her gaze, his eyes widening with such dumbstruck appreciation that her pulse couldn’t help but soar. It was a look men so often threw at her beautiful mother, but never at her. But then, Amalie had never felt beautiful before. Tonight, thanks to the hairstylist and beautician Natalia had brought along with her when she’d arrived at the cottage to dress her, she did. She felt like a princess.
And Talos...
Talos looked every inch the Prince.
Like the two men beside him, who matched him in height and colouring, he wore a black tuxedo with a purple bowtie and sash that matched the livery of the palace footmen, and black shoes that gleamed in the same manner as his eyes. For the first time since she’d met him she saw him freshly shaved.
She’d thought the rugged Talos, the man she was getting to know, was as sexy a man as she could ever meet. The princely Talos had lost none of his edge and the wolfish predatory air was still very much there. Not even the expensive dinner jacket could diminish his essential masculinity. He still looked like a man capable of throwing a woman over his huge shoulder and carrying her to a large nomad-style tent to pleasure her in a dozen different ways before she had time to draw breath.
Amalie drew in her own breath as molten heat pooled low inside her at the thought of Talos pleasuring her...
Judging from the look in his eyes, something similar was running through his mind.
He strode over to greet her, enveloping her hand in his before leaning down to kiss her on each cheek.
Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, her senses completely filled with his scent and the feel of his lips against her skin.
‘Little songbird, you are beautiful,’ he whispered into her ear, his deep, gravelly voice sending her heart beating so fast it felt as if it would jump out of her chest. ‘Let me introduce you to my brothers,’ he said while she strove valiantly for composure. ‘Helios, Theseus—this is my guest for the evening: Amalie Cartwright.’
Theseus nodded and smiled. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’
‘And you,’ she murmured in reply.
Helios extended his hand to her, his dark eyes studying her. ‘I understand you are playing our grandmother’s composition at the gala?’
Her cheeks flushing, she nodded and accepted his hand. Suddenly she realised that this was the heir to the throne she was standing before, and bent her knees in a clumsy form of curtsy.
Helios laughed, but not unkindly, before putting his hands on her shoulders and kissing her on each cheek. ‘You are my brother’s guest—please, do not stand on ceremony.’
‘I’m surprised she even tried,’ Talos drawled, slipping an arm around her waist and placing a giant hand on her hip.
Dear God, he was touching her. Even through the heavy cloqué material of her dress she could feel the weight of his touch.
‘The last time Amalie and I discussed matters of ceremony she reminded me that the French chopped all their royal family’s heads off.’
Mortified, she reflexively elbowed him in the stomach, only to elicit more deep laughter from the three Princes that was so contagious her nerves vanished and she found herself laughing along with them.
Although of similar height and colouring, the differences between the brothers were noticeable up close. Theseus, maybe an inch or two shorter than Talos, had a more wiry build and an edgy weariness about him. Helios was as tall as Talos and had a real air of irreverence about him; a man who enjoyed life and was comfortable in his skin.
An officious courtier appeared at their sides and addressed the Princes in Greek.
‘We must take our positions,’ Talos said quietly.
‘Where shall I go?’ she asked.
‘With me...to greet our guests. Tonight you will stay by my side.’
The gleam in his eyes conveyed a multitude of meanings behind his words. A shivery thrill ran through her, and when he linked his arm through hers she accepted the warmth that followed.
‘Where are your brothers’ dates?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘That is the whole purpose of the evening,’ he answered enigmatically as they stepped into a cavernous room with a medieval feel, draped with purple sashes. Long dark wood tables formed an enormous horseshoe, laid with gleaming cutlery and crystal glasses that bounced the light from the chandeliers.
She gasped, totally losing track of her interest in his brothers’ lack of dates. ‘How many people are eating?’
‘One hundred and eighty,’ Talos answered, grinning.
The Banquet Room never failed to elicit a reaction. And neither, it seemed, did Amalie ever fail to make his senses react. One look and he wanted nothing more than to whisk her away somewhere private and feast on her.
With his brothers at the main door, greeting the guests, his role was to welcome them into the Banquet Room and act as host until all the guests had arrived.
Scores of waiting staff were stationing themselves with trays of champagne in hand. Talos helped himself to a glass for them both and passed one to Amalie.
‘Drink it in one,’ he advised. ‘It will relieve the tedium of the next half hour.’
He laughed as she did as he suggested—with enthusiasm and without spilling a single drop.
He could not get over how ravishing she looked. If she hadn’t already been there as his guest he would have spent the evening pursuing her, determined to learn everything there was to know about this enchanting stranger in their midst. He would have rearranged the table settings to be seated next to her—would have done everything in his power to keep her as close to him as he could.
But he didn’t need to do any of that. For this evening this stunning woman was already his.
‘You look amazing,’ he said. ‘Natalia has outdone herself.’
Strapless, Amalie’s gown showed only the slightest hint of cleavage, cinched in at the waist before spreading out and down to her feet, forming a train at the back. It wasn’t just the shape of the dress and the way it showcased her slight form that made it so unique, but the heavy material and the colour too—black, with tiny gold sequins threaded throughout into swirling leaves, glimmering under the lights.
The dramatic effect was accentuated by a gold choker around her slender throat, and her dark hair was held in an elegant knot at the base of her neck. She wore large hooped earrings and her eyes were darkly defined, her lips the most ravishing of reds.
Her eyes, wide with obvious awe up until this point, narrowed. ‘Has Natalia dressed many of your dates?’
There was a definite hint of tartness in her tone. He eyed her contemplatively. Was that tartness a sign of jealousy?
Jealousy was an emotion he had no time for. He neither cared about his lovers’ past bedmates nor felt any pangs of regret when their time was over and they found someone new. If during their time together any sign of possessiveness reared its head, he would end the relationship there and then. Jealousy was dangerous—as dangerous as love itself—driving men and women to lose control of themselves with unimaginable consequences.
And yet hearing that tinge of jealousy filled his chest in a manner he didn’t even want to begin contemplating. Not when he couldn’t take his eyes from her...couldn’t stop his imagination running wild about what lay beneath that stunning dress.
His imagination had run riot since the day before, when she’d played for him semi-naked.
In his head he’d imagined she would wear practical underwear—not the matching lacy black numbers that set off the porcelain of her skin. As slender as he’d imagined, her womanly curves were soft, her breasts high and surprisingly full. What lay beneath those pretty knickers? he’d wondered, over and over. Had she taken the route so many women seemed to favour nowadays? Or had she left herself as nature intended...?
Halfway through her playing he’d smothered a groan, thinking it would be a damn sight better if she were fully naked, as his wild imaginings were utter torture. The expression in her eyes had only added to his torment.
For the first time in his life he’d come close to breaking a promise. He’d known that if he’d taken her into his arms she would have been his. But it hadn’t only been his promise that had kept him propped against the cottage wall. It had been the shyness he’d seen when she’d first stood before him wearing only her underwear—a shyness he’d not seen since his lusty teenage years. An innocence that made him certain Amalie had minimal experience with men.
That innocence had acted like an alarm. A warning. Alas, it had done nothing to diminish the ache, which hadn’t abated a touch, not in his groin or in his chest. All day, helping his brothers with the evening’s arrangements, his mind had been elsewhere—in the cottage, with her.
‘Natalia was my grandmother’s official dressmaker,’ he said softly. ‘She made her wedding dress and my mother’s wedding dress. She’s mostly retired now, but as a favour to me agreed to make your ball gown. I’ve never sent another woman to her.’
Dark colour stained her cheeks—almost as dark as the wide dilation of her eyes. Was that what her eyes would look like when she was in the throes of passion...?
The thought was broken when the first guests were led into the Banquet Room. Two footmen stood at the door, handing out the evening’s booklets—a guide for each guest that was adorned with purple ribbon. Each booklet contained a full guest list, the menu, wine list and a seating plan, along with a list of the music to be played throughout the evening by the Agon Orchestra. The orchestra’s role tonight should go some way towards mitigating any underlying resentment that a French orchestra would be playing at the official gala.
As his brothers had already given the official welcome, Talos’s job was to keep the guests entertained until everyone had arrived.
He would have preferred to be at the main entrance, shaking hands. He hadn’t been joking when he’d described the tedium of what was about to ensue. Almost two hundred guests filed into the Banquet Room, the majority of whom were, at the most, distant acquaintances but all of whom expected to be remembered personally and made to feel like the most important guest there.
Normally Theseus would take this role, and Talos would line up with Helios to do the official greeting. If there was one thing Talos couldn’t abide, it was small talk, having to feign interest in interminably dull people. Tonight, though, he wanted to keep Amalie at his side—not wanting her to have to deal with scores of strangers alone. Palace protocol meant only members of the royal family could make the first greeting.
To his surprise, she was a natural at small talk; moving easily between people with Talos by her side, taking an interest in who they were and what they did that wasn’t feigned, her smiles as warm for those from the higher echelons of society as for those much further down the social ladder.
If she was aware of all the appreciative gazes being thrown her way by men and women alike she did a good job of pretending not to be.
When the gong rang out, signalling for everyone to take their seats, Talos looked at his watch and saw over half an hour had passed since the first guests had stepped into the Banquet Room. The time had flown by.
‘You mastered the room like a pro,’ he said in an undertone as they found their seats on what had been designated the top table.
She cast puzzled eyes on him.
‘The way you handled our welcome job,’ he explained. ‘Most people would be overwhelmed when faced with one hundred and eighty people wanting to make small talk.’
She shrugged with a bemused expression. ‘My parents were always throwing parties. I think I mastered the art of small talk before I learned how to walk.’
‘You attended their parties?’
‘I was the main party piece.’
Before he could ask what she meant another gong sounded out and a courtier bade them all into silence as Helios and Theseus strode regally into the room.
No one took a seat until Helios, the highest-ranked member of the family in attendance, had taken his.
A footman pulled Amalie’s chair out for her, while Talos gathered the base of the train of her dress so she could sit down with ease. He caught a glimpse of delicate white ankle and had to resist the urge to run his fingers over it, to feel for himself the texture of her skin.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her eyes sparkling.
‘You’re welcome.’
Taking his own seat, he opened his booklet to peruse the menu. As Helios had directed, the four-course meal had an international flavour rather than one specifically Greek or Agonite.
White wine was poured into the appropriate glasses, the starter of dressed crab with an accompanying crab timbale, crayfish and prawns was brought out by the army of serving staff, and the banquet began.
‘Is your grandfather not attending?’ Amalie whispered before taking a sip of her wine.
‘He is unwell.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked with concern.
He forced a smile. ‘A touch of flu, that’s all.’
‘It must be a worry for you,’ she said, clearly seeing through his brevity.
‘My grandfather is eighty-seven and as tough as a horse,’ he deflected artfully.
She laughed. ‘My English grandfather is eighty-five and tough as a horse too. They’ll outlive the lot of us!’
How he wished that was the case, he thought, his heart turning to lead as he envisaged a life without his grandfather, a steady if often aloof presence, but someone who had always been there.
For the first time he felt the compulsion to confide, to tell the truth of his grandfather’s condition. It was there, right on the tip of his tongue. And he was the man who confided in no one. Not even his brothers.
The thought was unsettling.
Talos had learned the art of self-containment at the age of seven. The only person able to give him enough comfort to sleep when the nightmares had become too much to bear had died five years ago.
Yet for all the solace his grandmother had given him she’d never been able to give him peace. No one could give him that. He would sit stiffly in her arms, refusing to return the physical comfort she gave him. It had been a battle of wills with himself, something he could control and that no one could ever take away.
He’d been wise not to return the affection. How much greater would his pain have been if he had? He’d loved his mother with the whole of his heart. Her death had come close to destroying him.
The pain of his grandmother’s death had still hit him like one of the punches he received in the boxing ring, but it had been survivable. If he’d allowed himself to love her the way he’d loved his mother, he didn’t like to think how he would have reacted. Would the control he’d spent most of his lifetime perfecting have snapped? Would he have returned to those awful adolescent days when his fists had lashed out so many times he’d been on the verge of expulsion?
He was saved from having to respond by a young waiter asking if he would like his wine topped up.
If Amalie noticed his changed demeanour she gave no sign of it, craning her neck to follow their wine server’s progress out of the room. ‘Doesn’t that boy work at your gym?’
He was impressed that she’d recognised him. Workout gear was markedly different from the fitted black-and-white waiter’s uniform, with the purple ribbon stitched into the sides of the trousers.
‘And she’s from your gym too,’ Amalie whispered, nodding at a young girl in the far corner.
‘Most of the kids who work at the gym are working here tonight—it’s extra money for them and good experience.’
He had to admit to feeling an inordinate amount of pride, watching them performing their jobs so well. He’d fought the protocol battle a number of years ago, to allow ‘his’ kids to work at the palace whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Do you make a point of employing teenagers?’
‘It was one of the reasons I decided to build my own gym—I wanted to employ disaffected teenagers and make them feel a sense of worth in themselves. The kids who work there are free to spar and train whenever they’re off duty for no charge.’
‘These kids are allowed to box?’
‘You disapprove?’
‘It’s one thing for a fully grown adult to choose to get into a boxing ring and have his face battered, but quite another when it’s a developing teenager.’
‘Teenagers are full of hormones they have to navigate their way through. It’s a minefield for many of them.’
‘I agree, but...’
‘Agon is a wealthy island, but that doesn’t mean it’s problem-free,’ he said, wanting her to understand. ‘Our teenagers have the same problems as other Western teenagers. We give jobs and training to the ones living on the edge—the ones in danger of dropping out of society, the ones who, for whatever reason, have a problem controlling their anger. Boxing teaches them to control and channel that anger.’
Hadn’t he said something similar to her just the day before, in her cottage? Amalie wondered, thinking hard about the conversation they’d shared. The problem was her own hormones and fear had played such havoc that much of their conversation was blurred in her memory.
‘Is that why you got into boxing?’
His jaw clenched for the beat of a moment before relaxing. ‘I had anger issues. My way of coping with life was using my fists.’
‘Was that because of your parents?’ she asked carefully, aware she was treading on dangerous ground.
He jerked a nod. ‘Things came to a head when I was fourteen and punched my roommate at my English boarding school. I shattered his cheekbone. I would have been expelled if the Head of Sport hadn’t intervened.’
‘They wanted to expel you? But you’re a prince.’
His eyes met hers, a troubled look in them. ‘Expulsion was a rare event at my school—who wants to be the one to tell a member of a royal family or the president of a country that their child is to be permanently excluded? But it wasn’t a first offence—I’d been fighting my way through school since I was eight. The incident with my roommate was the final straw.’
He couldn’t read what was in her eyes, but thought he detected some kind of pity—or was it empathy?
She tilted her head, elongating the swan of her neck. ‘How did your Head of Sport get them to change their mind?’
‘Mr Sherman said he would personally take me under his wing and asked for three months to prove he could tame my nature.’
‘He did that through boxing?’ Now she thought about it, Amalie could see the sense in it. Hadn’t the kickboxing workouts Talos had forced her into doing created a new equilibrium within her? Already she knew that when she returned to Paris she would join a gym that gave the same classes and carry on with it.
‘At my school you had to be sixteen to join the boxing team, but he persuaded them—with the consent of my grandparents—to allow me to join.’ He laughed, his face relaxing as he did so. ‘Apart from my brothers, I was the biggest boy in the school. There was a lot of power behind my punches, which was what had got me into so much trouble in the first place. Mr Sherman taught me everything we now teach the kids who use our gym—the most important being how to channel and control my anger.’
‘Did it work?’
‘I haven’t thrown a punch in anger since.’
‘That is really something.’
Self-awareness nagged at her—an acknowledgement that while Talos had handled his rage through using his fists, she’d retreated from her own fears and buried them. But while he’d confronted and tamed his demons she’d continued hiding away, building a faux life for herself that was nothing like her early childhood dreams—those early days when she’d wanted to be a virtuoso on the violin, just like her father.
She’d been five years old when she’d watched old footage of him at Carnegie Hall—the same night he’d played on stage with Talos’s grandmother—and she’d said, with all the authority of a small child, ‘When I’m growed up I’ll play there with you, Papa.’
She’d let those dreams die.
