LITMIR.BIZ

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fiddling, Philippe pushed the mug away once more and sat back. ‘But the Dowager doesn’t give up that easily. She’s always pushing Lotty and I together and leaking stories to the press.’

      ‘It said in Glitz that you were inseparable,’ remembered Caro and he nodded grimly.

      ‘That’s the Dowager’s handiwork. She adores that magazine because they’re so pro-royalty. And you’ve got to admit, it’s not a bad strategy. Start a rumour, let everyone in the country whip themselves up into wedding fever and wait for Lotty to cave under the pressure. Montlucians love Lotty, and she’ll hate feeling that she’s disappointing everyone by being selfish, as the Dowager puts it.’

      Caro’s mouth turned down as she thought about it. It did seem unfair. ‘Why don’t you go back to South America?’ she suggested. ‘Surely the Dowager Blanche would give up on the idea of you and Lotty eventually.’

      ‘That’s the trouble. I can’t.’ Restlessly, Philippe got to his feet. He looked as if he wanted to pace, but the room wasn’t big enough for that, so he picked his way through the clutter to the bay window and stood staring unseeingly out to where the limousine waited at the kerb.

      ‘It hasn’t been announced yet, but my father is ill,’ he said, his back to Caro. ‘It’s cancer.’

      ‘Oh, no.’ Caro remembered how desperate she had felt when her own father had been dying, and wished that she had the courage to get up and lay a sympathetic hand on Philippe’s shoulder, but there was a rigid quality to his back that warned her against it. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said instead.

      Philippe turned back to face her. ‘His prognosis isn’t too bad, in fact, but the press are going to have a field day with the curse of the House of Montvivennes when it comes out.’ His face was carefully expressionless.

      ‘Montluce doesn’t have specialised facilities, so he’s going to Paris for treatment, and he’s been told to rest completely for at least six months. So I’ve been summoned back to stand in for him. Only nominally, as he and the Dowager keep saying, but they’re big on keeping up appearances. I’m taking over his commitments from the start of the month.

      ‘I thought about refusing at first. My father and I don’t have what you’d call a close relationship,’ he went on with an ironic look, ‘and I don’t see why they need me to shake a few hands or pin on the occasional medal. If I could have some influence on decisions that are made, it would be different, but my father has never forgiven me for not being a perfect son like my older brother. When I suggested that I have some authority, he was so angry that he actually collapsed.’

      Philippe sighed. ‘I could insist, but he’s ill, and he’s my father … I don’t want to make him even sicker than he is already. In the end, I said I would do as they asked for six months, but on the understanding that I can go back to South America as soon as he’s well again. There’s no point in me hanging around with nothing to do but disappoint him that I’m not Etienne.’

      So even royal families weren’t averse to laying on the emotional blackmail, thought Caro.

      ‘Meanwhile, you’re being thrown together with Lotty at every opportunity?’ she said.

      ‘Exactly.’ He rolled his shoulders as if to relieve the tension there. ‘Then, the other day, Lotty and I were on one of our carefully staged “dates” and we came up with a plan.’

      ‘I wondered when we were going to get to the plan,’ said Caro. She made herself take another sip of tea. Philippe was right. It was disgusting. ‘What is this great idea of Lotty’s?’

      ‘It’s a simple one. The problem has been that we’re both there, and both single. Of course Lotty’s grandmother is going to get ideas. But if I go back to Montluce with a girlfriend and am clearly madly in love with her, even the Dowager Blanche would have to stop pushing Lotty and I together for a while.’

      Caro could see where this was going. ‘And then Lotty can pretend that it’s too awkward for her to see you with another woman and tells her grandmother she needs to go away for a while?’

      ‘Exactly,’ said Philippe again.

      ‘I suppose it could work.’ She turned the idea over in her mind. ‘Where do I come into this? Does Lotty want to come and stay here?’

      ‘No,’ said Philippe. ‘She wants you to be my girlfriend.’

      Caro’s heart skidded to a stop, did a funny little flip and then lurched into gear again at the realisation that he was joking. ‘Right.’ She laughed.

      Philippe said nothing.

      Her smile faltered. ‘You can’t be serious?’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Well, because … you must have a girlfriend.’

      ‘If I had a serious girlfriend, I wouldn’t be in this mess,’ he said crisply. ‘I’m allergic to relationships. When I meet a woman, I’m clear about that, right from the start. No emotions, no expectations. It just gets messy otherwise.’

      Caro sighed. ‘Commitment issues … I might have guessed! What is it with guys and relationships?’

      ‘What is it with women and relationships?’ Philippe countered. ‘Why do you always have to spoil things by talking about whether we have a relationship or not and, if we do, where it’s going? Why can’t we just have a good time?’

      Balked of the prowling he so clearly wanted to do, Philippe stepped over to the mantelpiece, put his hands in his pockets and glowered down at his shoes as if it was their fault. ‘Six months is about as long as I can stand being in Montluce,’ he said. ‘It’s a suffocating place. Formal, stuffy, and so small there’s never any chance to get away.’

      He lifted his eyes to Caro’s. They ought to be dark brown, she thought inconsequentially, not that clear, light grey that was so startling against his dark skin that it sent a tiny shock through her every time she looked into them.

      ‘I’ll be leaving the moment my father is better, and I don’t want to complicate matters by getting involved with a woman if there’s the slightest risk that she’ll start taking things seriously. On the other hand, if she gets so much as a whiff that I’m not in fact serious, the Dowager Blanche will have Lotty back in a flash. For me, that would be a pain, as I’d have to go back to fighting off all the matchmaking attempts, but it would be far, far worse for Lotty. She’d lose the first chance she’s ever had to do something for herself. And that’s why you’d be perfect,’ he said to Caro.

      ‘You’re Lotty’s friend,’ he said. ‘I could pretend to be in love with you without worrying that you’d get the wrong idea, because you’d know the score from the start. I’m not going to fall in love with you and you don’t want to get involved with me.’

      ‘Well, that’s certainly true,’ said Caro, ruffled nonetheless by the brutal truth. I’m not going to fall in love with you.

      ‘But you could pretend to love me, couldn’t you?’

      ‘I’m not sure I’m that good an actress,’ said Caro tartly.

      ‘Not even for Lotty?’

      Caro chewed her lip, thinking of her friend. Lotty was so sweet-natured, so stoical, so good at pleasing everyone but herself. Trapped in a gilded cage of duty and responsibility. From the outside, it was a life of luxury and privilege, but Caro knew how desperately her friend longed to be like everyone else, to be ordinary. Lotty couldn’t pop down to the shops for a pint of milk. She couldn’t go out and get giggly over a bottle of wine. She could never look less than perfect, never be grumpy, never act on impulse, never relax.

      She could never have fun without wondering if someone was going to take her picture and splash it all over the tabloids.

      I’m getting desperate, Lotty had said in her email.

      ‘No

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