‘Much more encouraging.’
Someone tried to slide the door open. He shifted, so that he blocked their way out onto the balcony. There was a muttered apology and the door went back into place.
Of course, she couldn’t be absolutely sure, not without being able to see his expression. But it felt as if he wanted to talk to her alone. As if he was uninterested in everyone else. And was making sure that nobody gatecrashed their tête-àtête.
Oh, wow, thought Francesca.
And then caught herself. That was the woman who had just been dumped speaking, right? She was much too mature to get excited because a man backed her into a corner at a party. Even if it was on a balcony under the stars.
‘Where is this bookshop of yours?’
‘A funny little side-street near the river in Fulham. Our shop was originally a couple of Victorian cottages. Behind the gasworks. You turn left off the King’s Road travelling west…’
She gave him precise directions because that was the way she worked. Francesca was nothing if not spot-on accurate. It seemed to amuse him.
He laughed. ‘You’re not a map-maker, by any chance?’
‘I like to get things clear,’ she said, slightly shamefaced. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s very useful. I could do with you on my team sometimes. You have no idea the number of people who think that getting you to roughly the right area is good enough.’
Francesca thought of the photographs of mountains and waterfalls she had seen in the entrance area before Jazz confiscated her glasses.
‘Are you a geographer?’
‘Sort of.’
She clocked the evasion and wondered about it. Was he a rival bookseller trying to tease out her secrets? But what would be the point of that, when he knew she had only been in the field for a few months? She was hardly a candidate for industrial espionage yet. Now, if it had been Jazz—She remembered her self-appointed task.
‘Of course, when I say book-signing, I mean more than that really. We are really building a customer community at The Buzz. Evening events, readings, talks, that sort of thing. People are actually phoning us up and asking when the next one is. We might even do something like this. Oh, not the disco atmosphere. But promoting several books on related subjects. It’s a great idea!’
She was babbling. She knew it. But she didn’t know why. Sure, he was tall but then so was nearly everyone here by her standards. She did not normally find tall people intimidating.
And he wasn’t intimidating exactly. Just—well—compelling. There was a quality in his silence that made her talk, too much and too loudly. And all the time she could feel him looking at her, as if there was something going on in his mind that he was not going to tell her about.
Boy, I get perceptive when I haven’t got my glasses.
She cleared her throat and said more rationally, ‘And what are you doing here?’
She sensed that he made his mind up about something.
‘Oh, I’m one of the performing fleas,’ he drawled.
She did not think she had heard him aright. ‘What?’
‘I’m singing for my supper. Or I will be when I’m trotted out to meet the Press in a few minutes’ time.’
‘Oh, you’re a writer,’ she said, relieved.
‘That’s not how I’d put it,’ the tall man said ruefully. ‘I just got caught by a predatory photographer when I was too weak to say no.’
‘Really?’ Francesca was sceptical. She did not think this man was ever weak.
He laughed. ‘You must have seen the pictures when you came in. Ten-foot-high volcanic eruptions and a leaping wolf that makes everyone take two steps backwards.’
‘I missed the wolf,’ she admitted.
‘Just as well. Nightmare stuff.’
She couldn’t imagine him having nightmares either. She did not say so.
Instead she said curiously, ‘You sound as if you disapprove.’
‘Me? Hey, what have I got to disapprove of? I’ve written one of the things. I don’t have to endorse each and every one.’
She did not believe the disclaimer. ‘But…?’ she prompted.
‘You’re sharp, aren’t you?’ He sounded faintly put out. ‘OK, I admit it. I’m not that keen on coffee-table books. I never expected to find myself contributing to one.’
‘So why did you?’
‘Phew. Sharp and to the point.’ No doubt about it, this time he was seriously taken aback. Then he decided to be amused. She sensed it even before he said, ‘They offered me a lot of money. OK? Interrogation over?’
‘Interrogation over,’ she said. But she could not quite get rid of a feeling of disappointment. She would not have expected this man to be persuaded to do something he did not want to just because someone offered him a lot of money, somehow.
‘Now you’re the one who sounds disapproving,’ he said acutely.
Francesca shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘It’s easy to be puritanical about money when you have enough, I know.’
He looked down at her and she could almost feel that undercurrent of a commentary she could not hear.
‘That’s very broad-minded of you.’ There was an edge to his voice.
She hurried to change the subject. ‘And I’m sure your book will be a success. People lap these picture books up for presents. Especially if they’re by a blonde in a wetsuit. Or a royal prince, I suppose.’
‘Prince?’
‘Yes. That’s why I wanted to talk to Conrad Domitio. I see from their handout that they’ve managed to get him to do some Boys’ Own adventure.’
There was a long, long pause.
‘Ah. So that’s why you wanted to find him.’ He sounded more than disapproving. He sounded downright hostile.
For a moment a faint suspicion occurred to her. But she dismissed it at once. This was no prince, this tall, rangy man with his backwoodsman’s prowl and his slow drawl. Besides, all the Montassurrans she knew were small and dark like her father.
‘Well, he’s an ex-prince, to be honest. But it seems to impress some people,’ she said, thinking of the normally cool Jazz’s reaction.
‘Some people but not you.’
Francesca gave a hiccup of laughter. ‘No, not me. But then, I’m a special case.’
‘Yeah? No princes need apply?’
She laughed aloud at that. ‘I’m not a rabid anti-monarchist, if that’s what you mean. I just happen to know a bit about this particular monarchy.’
‘Really?’ The drawl was even slower than before. And profoundly sceptical.
It flicked her on the raw. She straightened smartly.
‘The Crown Prince of Montassurro,’ announced Francesca, back in precision-detail mode, ‘is pretend royalty from an obscure bit of the Balkans. Couple of mountains, couple of trout streams which they call rivers. Not so much a kingdom, more a family estate.’
There was a faint pause. She certainly had all his attention now.
At last, ‘You’re very well-informed,’ said the backwoods-man lazily.
‘I certainly am. Main crops, wine and wheat. Main occupation, brigandage.’
‘You’ve