Page 90 of The Princess Trap
“So are you,” he replied truthfully. “Magda’s doing, I assume?”
“Yep. She’s quite a useful woman. She just has terrible taste.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. At least she listened in the end.You look absolutely stunning.”
She smiled, her eyes sliding away from his. As if she were shy. But Cherry was never shy. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Thankyou. I was ready to fall apart tonight before I saw you.”
She arched a brow. “And now?”
“Now I’m incredibly hard and slightly less nervous.”
“You’re absolutely awful,” she laughed. “I can’tstandyou.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that. But you didn’t seem to mind when I—”
“Do not finish that sentence!” Her eyes danced, and her lips tugged up into a reluctant smile. “We’re in public, Ruben.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll have to save my seduction techniques for later.”
“Yes,” she said crisply. “I suppose you will.”
God, he loved this woman.
Cherry nodded politely at the Archduke of Something or Other. He was very old, his voice was very reedy, and he was speaking entirely in Danish. But she decided to pretend that he was being utterly charming and completely complimentary. She tended to assume the best of the elderly. And there was a positive to the language barrier; it allowed her mind to wander freely.
Her eyes followed.
Ruben was just a few metres away, captured in conversation with a couple who looked rather intimidatingly wealthy—diamonds everywhere. Frankly, it was a bit much. Cherry rubbed an absent thumb over the diamonds and sapphires decorating her ring finger. She never had been one for jewellery, but she thought she might wear these particular diamonds for a rather long time.
At that moment, Ruben turned his head slightly and met her eye. His serious expression flickered, something light and happy taking over. He’d caught her staring. She’d never hear the end of it. He’d be full of utter rubbish about howinfatuatedshe was. Oddly enough, she couldn’t wait for a point far in the future, past this knife-edge of an evening, when everyone was safe and happy and Ruben had nothing better to do than try his best to make her blush.
She wanted that. She wanted that formless, endless future in her mind, the one where the only certainty was his presence. The rest, she was starting to realise, didn’t really matter.
“Wow,” she said out loud. “I’m… in love.”
The Archduke nodded agreeably and said something in Danish.
“With Ruben,” she told him. “I’m in love with Ruben.”
The Archduke became very excited at the sound of Ruben’s name, and the pace of his Danish increased exponentially.
“I’m sorry,” Cherry said, grasping the old man’s hand. “It’s been lovely talking to you, but I think I need some air.” She bowed her head over his knobbly knuckles, hoping that was clear enough.
It seemed to work; he nodded back, and his Danish slowed down. She caught a single word:prinsesse.
No, she thought as she wound her way through the crowd. She was something greater than that. She was loved.
Cherry went looking for a private little room to settle in, just for a while. She needed to catch her breath, control her rampaging thoughts, perhaps order some tea. The realisation that she was in love with her fiancée had left her in need of fortification.
But she took one wrong turn, and then another, and the looming shadows of the palace, emptier than usual with all the staff focused on the ball, began to feel like a threat. Cherry walked very quickly, trying to remind herself that no-one here would hurt her. And that if they did, she had two perfectly good high-heels on her feet, whose stilettos could be shoved up a man’s nose with ease.
Or a woman’s, she thought darkly, her mind settling on Sophronia.
She was almost ready to start tearing scraps of silk from her dress and leaving a trail behind her when she heard… something. Something that sounded promisingly human-like. Cherry followed the sound, hoping to come across a search party armed with a map of the palace and a cake or two. Instead she found what appeared to be a music room, the door slightly ajar, moonlight flooding the instruments scattered within its narrow walls.
Well, narrow for a palace. Pretty decent for anywhere else.
