Page 46 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

Poppy stopped walking and stared. ‘Ellie should be here,’ she said with a smile at Adrastos, and her heart skipped a beat, just as it always did now, whenever she looked at him. How could she go back to the way things were before? How would they interact after this?

Where usually certainty sat inside Poppy’s chest there was only doubt now, a big chasm of not knowing. She didn’t like it.

‘I’m actually quite pleased she’s not,’ he drawled.

‘Is there anything particular you would like to look at, Your Highness?’

Adrastos turned to Poppy, stared at her for so long her skin prickled all over and heat flooded her cheeks.

‘Diamonds. A choker, I think.’

‘Very good, Your Highness.’

‘Adrastos.’ Poppy shook her head. ‘I wanted to see the vault, but I can’t possibly wear—’

The man in the suit approached, holding a velvet board with a single necklace in the centre of it. A diamond choker, just as Adrastos had specified, and quite possibly one of the most beautiful things Poppy had ever seen.

‘This was a gift for Her Majesty Queen Marguerite, in the late nineteenth century. The diamonds were initially the property of Queen Elizabeth the First of England. They were refashioned into a necklace as a gift for Her Majesty. Queen Clementine has worn this necklace only once before, to a state dinner. It is a beautiful item.’

Poppy couldn’t look away from the thing. It was so much more than beautiful. Delicate, shiny, exquisite, and with the kind of history that made Poppy almost want to pass out. Imagine wearing at her throat diamonds that had once belonged to the famed Elizabethan Queen, a woman who’d known Shakespeare and was recognisable the world over?

She shook her head quickly. ‘I can’t wear it.’

‘Why not?’ Adrastos asked, reaching out and lifting the necklace without any of the awe that Poppy felt. Why should he be awed? To Adrastos, this was all normal. It had not been his birthright, and yet he’d assumed that role with the same effortlessness he brought to everything. He couldn’t understand how, to Poppy, this was just a step too far. Their game of make-believe was getting harder to understand, the rules no longer clear, the parameters shifting so wildly.

‘You know why not,’ she whispered meaningfully, glaring at him.

‘Please, give us a moment.’ he murmured towards the palace jeweller, who bowed and left immediately.

‘Adrastos, I wanted to see the vault, but not because I thought I would actually wear anything from here. These things are beautiful, but it’s not my place to wear them.’

‘Why not?’

‘You seriously can’t see the problem in this?’

‘No.’

‘If I wear that—’ she gestured to the necklace, then couldn’t resist reaching out to touch it ‘—someone is going to recognise it as one of the palace jewels. An article will run about me wearing it. People will believe that we are way more serious than we’re pretending to be. And this is all just pretend,’ she said, needing desperately to remind herself of that. ‘If I wear that, your parents, your sister, are going to see it and they might think, they’ll hope...’

‘Yes, they’ll hope,’ he agreed, but with obvious irritation. ‘It’s just a necklace.’

‘You know better than that. These jewels are all about symbolism, and the symbolism of me wearing one tonight would be too much. We’re lying to everyone,’ she said with a catch in her throat. ‘I don’t want to make this worse than it already is.’

He frowned, but evidently thought better of arguing. ‘It’s your decision,’ he said, quietly.

A short while later, as they made their way to the grand foyer that provided the entrance to the ballroom where the banquet would be held, Poppy hesitated. She felt as though it were almost impossible to breathe, as though she could hardly speak, but she knew she needed to say something. Uneasiness was creeping into her veins, a darkness she couldn’t explain but knew she somehow needed to.

‘Adrastos, listen, about tonight.’ She stopped walking, reaching for his wrist to hold him back with her. There would be people in the foyer. They had only a few steps to go before they were absorbed by the evening. ‘I think we should be careful, with how we behave.’

‘Meaning?’

She gnawed on her lower lip. ‘In six days, I’m leaving the country. We’ve done what we set out to do. Your parents don’t think we had some reckless one-night stand. They’re not mad at us. But I don’t want to give them false hope. I don’t want them to think we actually have a future.’ Her voice wobbled a little. Damn it, her emotions were all over the place. She forced a smile. ‘It just makes sense.’

‘Would you like me to stand over on the other side of the room? To ignore you all night?’

Was he annoyed? She couldn’t tell. He sounded calm enough but there was a flicker of something in his voice that confused Poppy. ‘Not exactly, no. But you shouldn’t...’

‘Shouldn’t what?’ he asked, eyes skimming her face, and Poppy drew a blank. Shouldn’t look at her as if he wanted to peel the dress from her body? Shouldn’t ask her to dance? Shouldn’t stand with her and talk until she smiled, or laughed?

---