A Royal Wedding(120)

“Denise?” He frowned, then his brow cleared. “Oh, Denise.” He glanced at her quickly, his eyes sharpening. “What do you know about Denise?”

“I found this book.” She held it out to him. “It looks like she dedicated it to you.”

“Ah.” He smiled, then quickly erased it.

“Did you love her?”

He rose slowly, turning away and looking out into the sky. “I thought I loved her. She was very beautiful. I was very young.” Turning back, he met her gaze candidly. “We were both young, and we were thrown together, and we did what young people do.” He hesitated, then shook his head ruefully. “Okay, here’s what happened. Her father was the lake house butler. A summer romance. It was over by the time the leaves turned.”

She stared at him, but what she saw was the entire story playing out in her head.

Summer magic.

“Did you want to marry her?”

“Marry her? Why would I want to marry her?”

“Ah, yes. She was the butler’s daughter.” Julienne made a significant face.

But he laughed at her. “Julienne, you’re too old to live in a dream world. Face facts. We didn’t make the world the way it is and we can’t do much to change it. We are royal. We have to follow a certain path in life. Live with it.”

She felt her lower lip coming out in rebellion. “No.”

He shook his head, not sure what she meant. “What do you mean, no?”

She flashed him a look. “I think you know what I mean. I won’t do it.”

So she was talking about the Alphonso thing again. He gritted his teeth in annoyance. “The hell you won’t.”

She glared at him, then flounced off to sulk in the kitchen. And while she was there she whipped up a pan of delectable pastries such as he had never had before. He ate a few, then ate a few more, and had to admit she had the knack. But he still wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing it aloud.

“Tell me what happened with the butler’s daughter,” she coaxed, once he was full of pastry and groaning with pleasure.

He looked at her and shook his head. “Okay, Julienne. Here goes. I was crazy about her that summer. She was gorgeous, with thick red hair and a wide red mouth that just begged to be kissed.”

Julienne turned away, biting her lip and hating this. Too much information. But she had to know.

“We pledged to meet in the fall in Cairns,” he said. “I was going to university there. She was going to dental assistant school. I got to town early and raced over to find her apartment, hoping to surprise her. And there she was, in bed with some skinny grad student.” He shrugged. “The end. She betrayed me and I never saw her again.”

“She betrayed you?” She had a flash of intuition. Was this one of the seeds of his cynicism about love, about marriage? Could be.

He grimaced. “Well, it was hardly fair to even call it that. Looking back, I saw that she realized sooner than I did that it was never going to work. Only pain and unhappiness could result. It was time to move on, and she did just that.”

Suddenly he realized that she’d come up next to him and was lacing her fingers with his.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes huge and dark with sadness. “I’m so sorry your heart was broken.”

He meant to laugh at her, to tell her how naive she was being, but something in those big brown eyes wouldn’t let him. Instead, he just smiled and let her comfort him.

Looking at her, he was reminded of the feeling he sometimes had as his work-weary gaze settled on a rolling green lawn. A calm serenity seemed to gather around her like a haze, and then her face would turn his way, her eyes sparkling with mischief, and he would think of her as a spray of colorful wild flowers dancing in a spring breeze instead. It just made him happy to look at her.

What a contrast she was to the life he’d been living, with all its boredom, cynicism, and backbiting treachery—the sort of thing he had to deal with every day. It had been exciting at first. He’d reached an important level of power early in his life and he’d used it. Now he didn’t feel so powerful anymore. The excitement was gone. All that was left was the endless responsibility.

And she thought she was caught in a trap.

A half an hour later, they were out on the lake in the rowboat, drifting happily in the noonday sun.

“So, were you ever engaged?” she asked him out of the blue.