Royal Surrender - chapter five

Did she believe in love at first sight?

Noe wanted to laugh at that. Or cry. Maybe both.

What she should do was run, but she couldn’t seem to get her feet to comply.

“With the Crown Prince of a very old kingdom that no doubt has plans for him?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. Airy. When she felt nothing of the kind. “Plans that almost certainly involve pedigrees and bloodlines and other such things one either has at birth or does not?” She shook her head. “I’m afraid I do not.”

“That is a pity.”

Cajetan had that same thunderstruck look about him that she knew she must, too, but he moved toward her anyway.

And the trouble was, when he did that, she couldn’t breathe.

She told herself that was why she felt so dizzy when he stood there, close enough to touch, and only gazed down at her.

“You must be hungry,” he said.

“Must I?”

“I have no idea.” He smiled then, and she thought she might melt, because it was far more deadly up close, that smile. She had no idea how she was meant to hold up in the face of it. “Isn’t that what people say? Welcome, now please eat or drink something.”

“Social conventions vary from place to place,” she said, hardly aware of the words coming out of her mouth. “But hospitality is always welcome, of course.”

Besides, she thought, a little food might not only settle her but give her something to do with all this nervous energy.

“You probably have staff for that,” she said when he didn’t move, but only stayed where he was, looking at her as if he expected to see galaxies all over her face.

Cajetan smiled. “I have staff for everything. But I am as capable of eating as any commoner, Noe, I assure you.”

And he was leading her deeper into his suite before she had time to process the fact that he had just… told a joke.

Or had nodded toward one, anyway.

She trailed after him, aware of the lavish nature of this place. The art on the walls that she would not have been surprised to see in museums. The deeply affluent quiet of it all. The flowers in sophisticated vases. The collections of small, carefully selected objects that graced the surfaces of things but never overwhelmed them. It was palatial—though not, she mused, for a person who had his own palace. Perhaps this was the equivalent of a shoddy old hostel for a man like Cajetan.

For some reason, that made her want to laugh, and she was in a lighter frame of mind when he stopped in a kind of dining room, where food had been laid out for them.

Great quantities of food.

“This could feed a great many more people than just us,” she said, blinking at it all. Platters and plates, warming dishes and cake tiers. “Are you expecting a crowd?”

Cajetan gazed at the feast, then at her, and there was something almost rueful in his gaze, then.

“I had no idea what you would like,” he confessed. “So I ordered everything.”