keep track of me and be sure I wasn’t getting into mischief. When you went to meetings I would be there with my laptop, typing away. Then we could go to lunch, maybe at a five star restaurant, and.”
“No.” He was watching her. How could he help it? And it was hard to keep the affectionate amusement he felt toward her transparent act from showing in his face.
She frowned at him, tapping her foot in frustration. “I think I’d make a much better secretary than I do a princess,” she pointed out. “You should want to encourage me to follow where my talents lie.”
“Your secretarial talents seem to tend toward early lunch in nice restaurants,” he noted wryly.
“I mentioned typing, didn’t I?”
“You mentioned it. But I’ve never seen any evidence of skill in that direction.”
“Maybe you should have read some of my letters,” she pointed out triumphantly.
He had to laugh. She had him there. But he sobered quickly, looking at her and shaking his head. “You don’t even know what is involved in being a princess,” he said. “You don’t have a clue. I’m just beginning to realize that no one has ever shown you what being royal is all about.”
She looked at him archly. “Wasn’t that your job?”
He sat back and stared at her, realizing the truth of her accusation. “Maybe. Yes, maybe so.”
She resumed walking about the room, though she was aware of his gaze following her everywhere she went.
“So far I haven’t seen a lot of advantage to being a princess,” she said over her shoulder. “There are a lot of rules to follow. Everyone seems to have an opinion on how you should behave at any given moment, and I never seem to be doing it right.”
“So what’s the plan, Julienne?” he asked her. “If you do manage to escape my evil clutches and get across the border, where will you go? What will you do?”
She turned to look at him. “I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” she said earnestly. “It would be so much better if you would just understand and take my side and … and maybe we could fix things so I wouldn’t have to run.”
She stared into his eyes and he stared back.
“It won’t work,” he said at last. “Everything we’ve fought for these last ten years would be destroyed. It just won’t work.”
She stood before him with her hands out, palms up, as though offering him something from her soul but not sure how to give it to him. She didn’t speak, but her eyes were pleading with him to find a way. Some way out.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRINCE ANDRE heard something at his door. He’d only been asleep for ten minutes or so and he was wide awake again in an instant. He went up on one elbow.
“Andre?”
It was Julienne, who should be asleep in the next room and not here, waking him. His first impulse was to tell her to go back to bed. Midnight meetings were way too dangerous to play around with. But maybe something was wrong. He had to find out.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Can I come in?”
He sighed. He should turn her down. He should tell her they would talk about whatever was going on with her in the morning. But he knew he wasn’t going to do that. He couldn’t.
“Yes, come on in. It’s not locked.”
The door opened and there she stood, her lovely form silhouetted by the living room light that made her nightgown disappear and left only a perfect view of her soft curves. His mouth went dry. Closing his eyes, he muttered an oath, and when that didn’t help he added a small, intense prayer.
But she came in anyway.
“Andre, I can’t sleep. This may be the last time we’re together like this. And I have to know something.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice strained and grainy. “Shoot.”
He was sitting up in the bed, his bare torso gleaming in the moonlight. She slid down to sit on the edge of the bed—so close—too close. He bit his lower lip, hard. Maybe pure pain would save him.
“We used to be friends,” she was saying softly. “I used to count on you for … a lot of things. Including emotional support.”
“I … yes,” he said lamely.
“You were so important to me. After my parents died it seemed like you were all I had in the world.”
He could hear the emotion in her voice and knew he had to do something to comfort her. He took her