As impossible, he recognised with a plunging realisation, as seeking to have anything to do with this unknown lady-in-waiting—even if he were to abandon the whole idea of marrying the Grand Duke’s daughter. Any such liaison would be out of the question for Their Highnesses...
Frustration bit at him from every side, but still he could not tear his eyes from her. Not yet—and not when, even though she was still not looking at him, he could tell with every masculine instinct that she was acutely aware of him, responding to him as strongly as he was to her, just as she had in their initial brief encounter in the penthouse lobby.
He wanted her to look at him, but behind him he heard the Grand Duke step forward, and the blonde dropped him a slight curtsy, murmuring something in Karylyan that Leon took to be an apology for her late arrival.
The Grand Duke said something admonitory, then turned to Leon. ‘You must allow me, Dukaris,’ the Grand Duke announced in English, in his heavy, formal manner, ‘to make another introduction to you.’
He paused, and Leon could not deny himself the veiled pleasure of letting his eyes go back to the blonde, because that was the only place he wanted his gaze to go. Back to feast on her pale, fine-sculpted beauty, her slender, full-breasted form. He wanted to breathe in the elusive, haunting scent of her perfume...even if she could never be his...
She was standing very stiffly, still not looking his way, but a tell-tale pulse was beating at her throat.
Then the Grand Duke was speaking again, the formality of his style even more pronounced. ‘My elder daughter,’ he was saying now, ‘the Princess Elizsaveta.’
LEON FELT HIS expression freeze. Felt everything in him freeze. Then, like a sudden thaw across a frozen lake, he felt everything un-freeze—melt into the wash of sheer, gratifying release of every last fragment of the frustration he’d felt just a few moments ago.
He felt his features lighten—everything inside him lighten. Because everything now was just perfect.
As perfect as she is!
His eyes rested on her, his gaze brilliant.
‘Princess...’
He heard his voice husky on her title. Without conscious awareness he reached for one of her hands, saw her eyes flare as he did so, and her lips part as if she was taking in an urgent breath of air.
Then, with absolute deliberation, Leon raised her hand to his mouth and gave the slightest bow of his head. With the same absolute deliberation he let his lips brush the back of her hand, infinitely lightly. He felt it tremble in his.
He relinquished her hand, letting his glance linger on her. He heard her murmur his name—a low ‘Mr Dukaris...’ that was even fainter than her sister’s voice. But Leon could see the colour flaring out along those delicate cheekbones, and that was enough for him. And he saw the speed with which she had clasped the hand he’d just kissed, as if to stop it trembling.
Satisfaction filled him. And something much, much more than satisfaction.
He turned his head now to his guests, the Duke and Duchess. His smile flashed broadly. ‘Champagne?’ he invited.
Expansively he gestured towards the back of the box, where the requisite bottles were nestling in their ice buckets by a little table holding flutes on a silvered tray.
Champagne was exactly what was needed now. He’d never been more sure of that in his life.
Ellie was trying to hold on to the shreds of her composure—but it was impossible, just impossible! She should be used to hand-kissing—it was nothing out of the ordinary in Karylya for a female royal. Old-fashioned, perhaps, and somewhat formal as a deferential greeting. But nothing to set her fighting for composure the way she was now.
But then, never had a man as outrageously attractive as Leon Dukaris kissed her hand.
She gave a silent gulp, hoping her colour had returned to normal.
‘Princess...?’
Their host for the evening, who was paying for the champagne he was now offering her with a polite smile, who was paying for this box at the opera—she dreaded to think how expensive that was—who was paying for the astronomically expensive suite at the Viscari St James, and paying for Ellie dared not think how much more, was standing in front of her, holding a flute brimming with gently beading champagne.
She took it, murmuring her thanks and adopting an expression of extreme graciousness that would have befitted her ultra-gracious regal stepmother. It gave her the protection she urgently needed. She took a sip from the flute, hearing Leon Dukaris speak again, asking her if she was enjoying the opera. His English was accented, she noted, but not much—less so than her father’s.
There was a slight smile on his mouth—beautifully sculpted, with deep lines incised around it—and she felt another silent hollowing of her stomach. The planes of his face were strong, his nose bladed, his jaw edged. There was a toughness, a determination, underlying the relaxed slanting smile that invited her to respond to his conversational gambit.
‘Torelli is as outstanding as ever,’ she replied, echoing her stepmother’s viewpoint readily enough, ‘but the role is hardly endearing. Turandot can’t be anyone’s favourite heroine.’
She was making small talk, nothing more, and had done so a thousand times in Karylya when in princess mode.
She saw a faint frown on Leon Dukaris’s face.
‘No? But she’s a very strong woman,’ he replied. ‘Insisting on not marrying just because that’s what everyone expects her to do.’
Ellie felt her face harden. ‘Strong? She’s brutal! She has her suitors murdered and her rival tortured!’ she bit out.
His rejoinder was immediate. ‘The slave girl, Liu, could have avoided her fate any time she wanted, simply by telling Turandot the name of the unknown Prince.’ There was a sardonic note in his voice.
‘Whom Turandot would then have had killed!’ Ellie shot back. ‘Liu refuses to betray him—she loves him!’
Leon Dukaris lifted his flute to his mouth, taking a mouthful of champagne before he answered her. ‘Much good it does her—he rejects her for another woman who’s a better proposition than a mere slave girl!’
That sardonic note was more pronounced—harder. With something underlying it that for a moment Ellie wondered at. Then she realised that she suddenly had an opening to move the conversation away from a fictitious drama to the reality that she and her family were facing—a reality she must confront, for there was no other option but to do so if she were to protect Marika from an unwanted suitor.
‘Well, yes,’ she murmured, taking a sip of her champagne, pitching her voice carefully, ‘Turandot is a princess—and there are, indeed, men who would like to marry a princess...’
She let her eyes rest on Leon Dukaris, mindful of her expression, nervous after her impetuosity in making so pointed an observation. Would it draw him out—make him say something that could give her any indication at all as to whether Marika’s fears were justified or not?
Almost immediately, his expression was veiled. She saw his long lashes—ridiculously long lashes, inky dark and lush, she found herself noting with complete irrelevance—dipping down over those amazing dark eyes of his, tautening the muscles of her stomach.
‘Well, that depends...’ he replied.
And now there was no trace of any sardonic note in his voice—rather, she realised, with another pull on her heightened