His Temporary Cinderella: Ordinary Girl in a Tiara / Kiss the Bridesmaid / A Bravo Homecoming

CHAPTER SIX

INSTINCT led Caro away from the smart part of town and into the old quarter, with its crooked lanes and balconies strung with washing. Even at that hour of the morning it was warm, but the tall buildings cast the narrow streets into shadow and Caro was content to wander in the shade until she found herself on the edge of the market square, dazzled and blinking at the sudden flood of sunlight.

Settling her sunglasses on her nose, Caro took one look at the stalls selling a spectacular range of local produce and drew a long breath of appreciation. There were glossy aubergines, and artichokes and great piles of onions, stalls selling great hams and salamis or piled high with bread, or enormous wheels of cheese. Her bad mood quite forgotten, Caro drifted along, sniffing peaches, squeezing avocados, tasting tiny bits of cheese and hams that the stallholders passed over for her to try.

Her French was rusty, to say the least, but when it came to food Caro had never had any problems communicating. She pantomimed swooning with pleasure, which seemed so much more appropriate than the only words she knew: c’est très bon, which didn’t seem at all adequate. It went down well with the stallholder, anyway, who laughed and offered her a different cheese to try.

Before she knew what had happened, she was being plied with different cheeses and urged to try every one. Everyone was so friendly, Caro thought, delighted. They were all having a very jolly time. She learnt what all the fruit and vegetables were called, and the stallholders or her fellow shoppers corrected her pronunciation with much laughter and nods of encouragement. This was much more fun than sitting in the palace feeling cross about Philippe.

She would get some cheese and bread for lunch, Caro decided, and some of those tomatoes that looked so much more delicious than the perfectly uniform, perfectly red, perfectly tasteless ones they sold in the supermarkets in Ellerby. It was only then that she remembered that she hadn’t had an opportunity to change any money yet. All she had was some sterling, which was no help at all when you wanted to buy a few tomatoes.

Caro was in the middle of another pantomime to explain her predicament when the stallholder stopped laughing and stared over her shoulder. At the same time she became aware of a stir in the market behind her and she turned, curious to see what everyone was so interested in.

There, striding towards her between the stalls, was Philippe, and at the sight of him her heart slammed into her throat, blocking off her air and leaving her breathless and light-headed.

Philippe was smiling, but Caro could tell from the tightness of his jaw that he was furious. Behind those designer shades, the silver eyes would be icy. Yan was at his shoulder, expressionless as ever.

The market fell silent, watching Philippe. It was difficult to tell quite what the mood was. Wariness and surprise, Caro thought, as she disentangled her breathing and forced her heart back into place. She could relate to that. It was what she felt too. Not that she had any intention of letting Philippe know that.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, determinedly casual. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘No, that’s my question,’ snapped Philippe, who was gripped with a quite irrational rage at finding Caro safe.

Lefebvre, the First Minister, had spent the morning droning on about the increased threat from environmental activists who were protesting about some pipeline, although why he was telling him Philippe couldn’t imagine. The Dowager Blanche had no doubt already decided what would be done.

He’d found his mind drifting to Caro. He’d been short with her that morning, but it wasn’t actually her fault that he hadn’t been able to sleep. Philippe couldn’t get the image of her in those shabby pyjamas out of his mind. He’d imagined unbuttoning the pyjama top very slowly, slipping his hands beneath it to smooth over silky skin. Imagined hooking his thumbs over the waistband to slide the bottoms down over the warm curve of her hips and down those legs she insisted on hiding away.

This was ridiculous, Philippe had told himself, shifting restlessly. He liked women in silk and sheer, slithery lingerie, nightclothes that were feminine and flirty and fun. He was in a bad way when he was getting turned on by a pair of frumpy pyjamas.

The fact that he needed that damned pillow stuffed between them had left Philippe feeling edgy and irritable and he’d woken in a thoroughly bad mood.

When Lefebvre had finally left, Philippe had gone back to apologise to Caro, only to find the apartments empty. Mademoiselle Cartwright had gone out, the dolt of a butler had informed him when Philippe had established that she wasn’t in the gardens either.

‘She said that she wanted to explore the city. Mademoiselle Cartwright was charming,’ he had added.

Mademoiselle Cartwright was a damned nuisance, Philippe had corrected him, Lefebvre’s warnings running cold through his veins. What if someone had seen Caro strolling out from the palace? She would be an easy target.

Yan had made him stop and work out where Caro was most likely to be. Anywhere there was food, Philippe realised, and they had headed straight for the market. It was that or trawling through every café and restaurant in town.

And now here she was, quite safe and obviously having a wonderful time, and Philippe was perversely furious, with her and with himself, for having, for those few minutes, been so ridiculously worried.

‘I thought I told you to stay in the palace grounds?’ he said, smiling through clenched teeth. Even though they were talking in English, he couldn’t have the row he really wanted in front of all these people, which made him even crosser.

Caro looked taken aback. ‘I thought you just meant if I was taking Apollo out.’

‘What do I care about the dog? It’s you I’m worried about! I told you that there’s been unrest recently. I told you that’s why Yan goes everywhere with me, but you, you toddle off on your own without a thought for security!’

‘You also told me the situation wasn’t likely to affect me.’ Caro actually had the nerve to roll her eyes at him. ‘So let me get this right … I’m not allowed to go to the kitchens, and I’m not allowed to go outside the palace either?’

‘Welcome to my world,’ gritted Philippe, still smiling ferociously. ‘Anyone could have got to you without protection.’

‘Oh, rubbish,’ said Caro. ‘Nobody’s the slightest bit interested in me. Or at least they weren’t until you appeared. If you hadn’t come rushing down here, nobody would have had a clue I had anything to do with you at all.’

This was so patently true that Philippe could only grind his teeth and glare at her.

‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve come, actually,’ she went on breezily. ‘I wanted to buy some of this cheese, and I was trying to explain that I didn’t have any money.’ Completely ignoring Philippe, who was still trying to make her understand the reality of the security situation, she smiled at the stallholder and mimed trying the cheese. He nodded, delighted, and cut off a generous piece, which she handed to Philippe, who was trying to talk about security threats.

‘Now, try this,’ she said. ‘Tell me if that’s not the best cheese you’ve ever tasted!’

Philippe felt the flavour burst on his tongue and he was gripped by a strange heightened awareness, as if all his senses were on full alert. He could smell the bread on a nearby stall, hear the murmurs of the people watching. And then there was Caro, her face bright, head tilted slightly to one side, blue eyes fixed on his face to see what he thought of the cheese.

Cheese! That was all she cared about! She wasn’t knotted up about the night before. And he shouldn’t be either, Philippe reminded himself, irritated. How could he be knotted up about a woman who dressed the way Caro did?

Today’s outfit was evidently based on a Fifties theme. Some kind of red top and a turquoise circle skirt with appliquéd tropical fruits. Ye Gods! Only Caro could stand there covered in bananas and pineapples and look so right in them. She ought to look ridiculous, but actually she looked bright and vivid and fresh, and pretty in a quirky way that was just her own.

‘Well?’ she demanded.

Philippe swallowed the last of the cheese. If she could be relaxed, so could he.

‘Very good,’ he said, and repeated it in French for the stallholder, who puffed out his substantial chest and beamed.

‘Can we buy some? I haven’t got any cash.’

‘I haven’t either,’ he had to admit. They turned as one to look at Yan, who didn’t miss a beat, producing a wallet and handing it over to Philippe without expression while his eyes checked the crowd continuously.

‘Thanks,’ said Philippe as he flipped it open in search of cash. ‘I’ll sort it out with you later.’

Caro craned her neck to see inside the wallet. ‘Fantastic,’ she said. ‘How much have we got to spend?’

She was very close, close enough for her hair to tickle his chin, and Philippe could smell her shampoo, something fresh and tangy. Verbena, perhaps, or mint.

They bought the cheese, and then Caro insisted on dragging him onto the next stall, and then the next. She made him taste hams and olives and tarts and grapes, made him translate for her and talk to people, while Yan followed, his eyes ever vigilant.

For Philippe, it all was new. Nobody had ever told him how to behave on a walkabout—the Dowager Blanche and his father were great believers in preserving the mystique of royalty by keeping their distance—but, with Caro by his side, chatting away and laughing as they all corrected her French and made her practice saying the words correctly, it wasn’t hard to relax. People seemed surprised but genuinely delighted to see their prince among them, and he found himself warmed by their welcome as he shook hands and promised to pass on their good wishes to his father in hospital.

Montluce had always felt oppressive to Philippe before. He associated the country with rigid protocol and fusty traditions perpetuated for their own sake and not because they meant anything. The country itself was an anomaly, a tiny wedge of hills and lakes that survived largely because of its powerful banking system and the tax haven it offered to the seriously rich. Until now, the people had only ever seemed to Philippe bit part actors in the elaborate costume drama that was Montluce. For the first time, he found himself thinking about them as individuals with everyday concerns, people who shopped and cooked and looked after their families, and looked to his family to keep their country secure.

He’d never been to the market before, had never needed to, and suddenly he was in the heart of its noise and chatter, surrounded by colour and scents and tastes. And always there, in the middle of it all, Caro. Caro, alight with enthusiasm, that husky, faintly dirty laugh infecting everyone around her with the need to smile and laugh too.

‘What are you planning to do with all this stuff?’ he asked, peering into the bag of tomatoes and peppers and red onions and God only knew what else that she handed him.

‘I thought I’d make a salad for lunch.’

‘The kitchens will send up a salad if that’s what you want,’ he pointed out, exasperated, but Caro only set her chin stubbornly in the way he was coming to recognise.

‘I want to make it myself.’

By the time Philippe finally managed to drag her away from all her new friends at the market, both he and Yan were laden with bags. He hoped the Dowager Blanche didn’t get wind of the fact that he’d been seen walking through the streets with handfuls of carrier bags or he would never hear the end of it.

‘You know, it would be quicker and easier to order lunch from the kitchens,’ he said to Caro as she unloaded the bags in the kitchen.

‘That’s not the point.’ She ran the tomatoes under the tap and rummaged around for a colander. ‘I like cooking. Ah, here it is!’ She straightened triumphantly, colander in hand. ‘I worked in a delicatessen before it went bust, and I loved doing that.

‘That’s my dream, to have a deli and coffee shop of my own one day,’ she confided, her hands busy setting out anchovies and bread and peppers and garlic, while Philippe watched, half fascinated, half frustrated.

‘I thought your dream was to belong in Ellerby with the pillar of the community?’

‘George.’ Caro paused, a head of celery in her hand. ‘Funny, I haven’t thought about him at all since I’ve been here…’ She shook her head as if to clear George’s image from her mind. ‘No, not with George,’ she said, upending the last bag, ‘but with someone else, maybe. The deli would be part of that. I’d know everyone. I’d know how they took their coffee, what cheeses they liked.’

She stopped, evidently reading Philippe’s expression. ‘At least I’ve got a dream,’ she said. ‘All you want is to avoid getting sucked into a relationship in case some woman asks you to do more than stay five minutes!’

‘We don’t all have your burning desire for a rut,’ said Philippe. ‘I’ve got plenty of dreams. Freedom. Independence. Getting into a plane and flying wherever I want. Seeing you wear clothes bought in this millennium.’

Caro stuck out her tongue at him. ‘You can give up on that one,’ she said, peering at the high-tech oven. ‘I suppose there’s no use asking you how this works?’

‘I’ve never been in here before,’ he said, but he eased her out of the way and studied the dials. If he could fly a plane, he could turn on an oven, surely?

‘Brilliant!’ Caro bestowed a grateful smile on him as the grill sprang to life, and Philippe felt that strange light-headed sensation again, as if there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the air. She was very close, and his eyes rested on the sweet curve of her cheek, the intentness of her expression as she adjusted the temperature.

Caro had her sights fixed firmly on her return to England, that was clear. Well, that was fine, Philippe told himself. He had his own plans. As soon as Caro had gone, he would invite Francesca Allen to stay, he decided. Her divorce should have been finalised by then, and they could embark on a discreet affair to see him through the last stultifying months of boredom here in Montluce. Francesca was always elegantly dressed, and she knew the rules. She had a successful career and the last thing she’d want right now would be to settle down. If Philippe had read the signs right, she was looking to enjoy being single again. She’d be perfect.

The trouble was that he couldn’t quite remember what Francesca looked like. Beautiful, yes, he remembered that, but nothing specific. He didn’t know the exact curve of her mouth, the way he knew Caro’s, for instance, or the precise tilt of her lashes. He didn’t remember her scent, or the warmth of her skin, or the tiny laughter lines fanning her eyes.

‘If you’re going to stand around, you might as well help,’ said Caro, shoving a couple of ripe tomatoes into his hands. ‘Even you can manage to chop up those!’

So Philippe found himself cutting up tomatoes, and then onions and celery, while Caro moved purposefully around the kitchen.

‘How did your meeting this morning go?’ she asked him as she watched the skins of red and yellow peppers blister under the grill.

‘Pointless. Lefebvre is clearly under instruction to tell me everything but stop me from interfering in anything. Apparently, I’m to go out and “meet the people”. It’s clearly a ruse to get me out of the way so that he and the Dowager Blanche can get on with running things,’ said Philippe, pushing the chopped celery into a neat pile with his knife. ‘I’m supposed to be getting the country on the government’s side about this new gas pipeline they’re trying to put in but that’s just my token little job.’

Caro turned from the grill. ‘What pipeline?’

‘It’s taking gas from Russia down to southern Europe.’ He pulled an onion towards him and turned it in his hand, trying to work out the best way to peel it. ‘The easiest and most convenient route is through Montluce, and the government here has been in discussions with the major energy companies across Europe. We—as in my father and the Dowager Blanche—are keen for it to go ahead as it will allegedly bring in money and jobs.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘That’s what I asked Lefebvre but he was evasive and, when I pressed him, he said that my father had made the decision and did I feel it was important enough to challenge him when he was so sick. So I don’t know. People need jobs, and they need energy. On the face of it, the gas line makes sense to me.’