When the gong rang out, signalling for everyone to take their seats, Talos looked at his watch and saw over half an hour had passed since the first guests had stepped into the Banquet Room. The time had flown by.
‘You mastered the room like a pro,’ he said in an undertone as they found their seats on what had been designated the top table.
She cast puzzled eyes on him.
‘The way you handled our welcome job,’ he explained. ‘Most people would be overwhelmed when faced with one hundred and eighty people wanting to make small talk.’
She shrugged with a bemused expression. ‘My parents were always throwing parties. I think I mastered the art of small talk before I learned how to walk.’
‘You attended their parties?’
‘I was the main party piece.’
Before he could ask what she meant another gong sounded out and a courtier bade them all into silence as Helios and Theseus strode regally into the room.
No one took a seat until Helios, the highest-ranked member of the family in attendance, had taken his.
A footman pulled Amalie’s chair out for her, while Talos gathered the base of the train of her dress so she could sit down with ease. He caught a glimpse of delicate white ankle and had to resist the urge to run his fingers over it, to feel for himself the texture of her skin.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her eyes sparkling.
‘You’re welcome.’
Taking his own seat, he opened his booklet to peruse the menu. As Helios had directed, the four-course meal had an international flavour rather than one specifically Greek or Agonite.
White wine was poured into the appropriate glasses, the starter of dressed crab with an accompanying crab timbale, crayfish and prawns was brought out by the army of serving staff, and the banquet began.
‘Is your grandfather not attending?’ Amalie whispered before taking a sip of her wine.
‘He is unwell.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ she asked with concern.
He forced a smile. ‘A touch of flu, that’s all.’
‘It must be a worry for you,’ she said, clearly seeing through his brevity.
‘My grandfather is eighty-seven and as tough as a horse,’ he deflected artfully.
She laughed. ‘My English grandfather is eighty-five and tough as a horse too. They’ll outlive the lot of us!’
How he wished that was the case, he thought, his heart turning to lead as he envisaged a life without his grandfather, a steady if often aloof presence, but someone who had always been there.
For the first time he felt the compulsion to confide, to tell the truth of his grandfather’s condition. It was there, right on the tip of his tongue. And he was the man who confided in no one. Not even his brothers.
The thought was unsettling.
Talos had learned the art of self-containment at the age of seven. The only person able to give him enough comfort to sleep when the nightmares had become too much to bear had died five years ago.
Yet for all the solace his grandmother had given him she’d never been able to give him peace. No one could give him that. He would sit stiffly in her arms, refusing to return the physical comfort she gave him. It had been a battle of wills with himself, something he could control and that no one could ever take away.
He’d been wise not to return the affection. How much greater would his pain have been if he had? He’d loved his mother with the whole of his heart. Her death had come close to destroying him.
The pain of his grandmother’s death had still hit him like one of the punches he received in the boxing ring, but it had been survivable. If he’d allowed himself to love her the way he’d loved his mother, he didn’t like to think how he would have reacted. Would the control he’d spent most of his lifetime perfecting have snapped? Would he have returned to those awful adolescent days when his fists had lashed out so many times he’d been on the verge of expulsion?
He was saved from having to respond by a young waiter asking if he would like his wine topped up.
If Amalie noticed his changed demeanour she gave no sign of it, craning her neck to follow their wine server’s progress out of the room. ‘Doesn’t that boy work at your gym?’
He was impressed that she’d recognised him. Workout gear was markedly different from the fitted black-and-white waiter’s uniform, with the purple ribbon stitched into the sides of the trousers.
‘And she’s from your gym too,’ Amalie whispered, nodding at a young girl in the far corner.
‘Most of the kids who work at the gym are working here tonight—it’s extra money for them and good experience.’
He had to admit to feeling an inordinate amount of pride, watching them performing their jobs so well. He’d fought the protocol battle a number of years ago, to allow ‘his’ kids to work at the palace whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Do you make a point of employing teenagers?’
‘It was one of the reasons I decided to build my own gym—I wanted to employ disaffected teenagers and make them feel a sense of worth in themselves. The kids who work there are free to spar and train whenever they’re off duty for no charge.’
‘These kids are allowed to box?’
‘You disapprove?’
‘It’s one thing for a fully grown adult to choose to get into a boxing ring and have his face battered, but quite another when it’s a developing teenager.’
‘Teenagers are full of hormones they have to navigate their way through. It’s a minefield for many of them.’
‘I agree, but...’
‘Agon is a wealthy island, but that doesn’t mean it’s problem-free,’ he said, wanting her to understand. ‘Our teenagers have the same problems as other Western teenagers. We give jobs and training to the ones living on the edge—the ones in danger of dropping out of society, the ones who, for whatever reason, have a problem controlling their anger. Boxing teaches them to control and channel that anger.’
Hadn’t he said something similar to her just the day before, in her cottage? Amalie wondered, thinking hard about the conversation they’d shared. The problem was her own hormones and fear had played such havoc that much of their conversation was blurred in her memory.
‘Is that why you got into boxing?’
His jaw clenched for the beat of a moment before relaxing. ‘I had anger issues. My way of coping with life was using my fists.’
‘Was that because of your parents?’ she asked carefully, aware she was treading on dangerous ground.
He jerked a nod. ‘Things came to a head when I was fourteen and punched my roommate at my English boarding school. I shattered his cheekbone. I would have been expelled if the Head of Sport hadn’t intervened.’
‘They wanted to expel you? But you’re a prince.’
His eyes met hers, a troubled look in them. ‘Expulsion was a rare event at my school—who wants to be the one to tell a member of a royal family or the president of a country that their child is to be permanently excluded? But it wasn’t a first offence—I’d been fighting my way through school since I was eight. The incident with my roommate was the final straw.’
He couldn’t read what was in her eyes, but thought he detected some kind of pity—or was it empathy?
She tilted her head, elongating