Page 154 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Quinn could not wrap her mind around mak­ing fun of the king, but Luis hadn’t ap­peared to mind.

Raul turned to her. “Quinn, I want to hear all about Kyran Redda. I use his mu­sic to pump me up when I work out. All Gabri could tell me about was the guy’s tech­nique on the gui­tar.” The prince threw a laugh­ing glance at his cousin.

Quinn de­scribed the rock star, the ho­tel suite, and as many of its oc­cu­pants as she could re­mem­ber. Raul put some names to her de­scrip­tions since he was fa­mil­iar with the whole band. “Since Gabri talked Kyran into com­ing here, I’m go­ing to pull rank to meet them all.” Raul gave Gabriel a side­ways look. “Of course, it’s not the same as play­ing gui­tar with Kyran Redda. Will he give you credit on the song you helped him write?”

“I as­sume he would not do so with­out ask­ing me,” Gabriel said.

“Why don’t you want credit?” Quinn asked.

“It wouldn’t help my cred­i­bil­ity as a to­caor,” Gabriel said.

“But it would boost your fame with the gen­eral pub­lic.” Raul held out his hands, palms up as though bal­anc­ing two weights. “Fame or cred­i­bil­ity?”

“It is bad enough that I’m a duke,” Gabriel said. “I do not want to be known as a writer of rock songs as well.”

“You’re a Re­nais­sance man,” Quinn said. “You can do any­thing!”

Gabriel seemed to re­mem­ber his role. “You are blinded by love, car­iño mío,” he said with an af­fec­tion­ate grin.

“You are talk­ing about the mu­sic fes­ti­val?” Odette joined their con­ver­sa­tion. “Hélène tells me you brought off quite a coup, Gabriel.”

Luis put down his soup spoon. “Gabriel is go­ing to put Cal­eva on the map of in­ter­na­tional cul­ture. Now that he has Kyran Redda signed on, I pre­dict a rush of stars beg­ging to join the ros­ter of per­form­ers.”

Gabriel’s face lit up at his un­cle’s praise. The rest of the royal fam­ily jumped on the band­wagon to dis­cuss the new project.

Odette lis­tened with­out com­ment, her gaze skim­ming around the ta­ble as the en­thu­si­asm sparkled. “Ah, but I thought it was to be a fes­ti­val of cul­ture,” she fi­nally said with a note of faint dis­dain. “This sounds more like a com­mon rave.”

Luis’s face tight­ened. “We wish to bring a broad au­di­ence to Cal­eva. Gabriel has also en­ticed one of the world’s best fla­menco gui­tarists to come.”

“Ah, yes. Gypsy mu­sic.” Odette dis­missed Marisela Alejo with a flick of her fin­gers. “I had hoped for some­thing clas­si­cal. Per­haps some bal­let.”

Shock rip­pled across Gabriel’s face at his aunt’s rude­ness, but it was Lorenzo who spoke. “We wish to look into the fu­ture,” he said, giv­ing her a look down his ducal nose that would have ter­ri­fied Quinn. “Cal­eva will be seen as a vi­brant, mod­ern arts cen­ter.”

“I’m sur­prised at you, Lorenzo,” Odette said. “You are such a lover of his­tory.”

“As Jorge San­tayana said, ‘Those who can­not re­mem­ber the past are con­demned to re­peat it,’” the Duke of Bruma quoted. “I study his­tory to un­der­stand where we made mis­takes so Luis can avoid them. I care deeply about Cal­eva’s path for­ward.”

“Such a good team you are,” Odette said, but her tone was sar­cas­tic, not ad­mir­ing.

Anger blazed in Lorenzo’s eyes.

“My pro­fes­sor says that Cal­eva punches well above its weight on the in­ter­na­tional stage,” Quinn in­ter­jected in an ef­fort to keep Gabriel’s fa­ther from ex­plod­ing.

“Thanks, in part, to the money Ar­cham­beau pours into its trea­sury,” Odette said.

Gabriel looked stunned. Odette seemed to have dis­carded her beloved-aunt per­sona. But why now?

Odette picked up her fork and knife. “These lamb chops look de­li­cious.” She bent so her nose was over her plate. “Ah, I be­lieve I de­tect a hint of co­gnac in the sauce. Merveilleux.”

Quinn and Gabriel shared a baf­fled glance.

Luis was re­gard­ing his guest with a spec­u­la­tive air, while Hélène looked like she’d been smacked in the face with a dead fish. Good man­ners pre­vailed, how­ever, as the din­ers tasted the main course.

Odette was right about the lamb chops. They melted in Quinn’s mouth, while the cream sauce made her want to groan with plea­sure. Too bad she had to split her at­ten­tion be­tween the food and the French­woman. She would rather fo­cus on the lamb.

The rest of the meal passed with­out any ug­li­ness, al­though the at­mos­phere had cooled sev­eral de­grees since Odette’s crit­i­cism of the mu­sic fes­ti­val. Hélène, in par­tic­u­lar, was merely civil to her old friend, clearly an­noyed that Odette had at­tacked the duchess’s son and his ex­cit­ing new project.

Once they fin­ished the se­lec­tion of lus­cious French pas­tries, Hélène shep­herded them back into the sala for af­ter-din­ner drinks. Quinn made her­self set­tle close be­side Gabriel on a green bro­cade sofa, feel­ing trapped in an ex­quis­ite hell by the warmth and so­lid­ity of his body.

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