Maxence asked her, “Are you asking me about my sex life?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
AN INTERROGATION AND ONE MORE QUESTION
Maxence
The thought that Maxence was being interrogated about his bedroom habits byLady Valentina Martiniwas just too much.
For a decade, Maxence hadtriedto be celibate and adhere to his vows, but the stress would whip around him until he absolutely couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d—slip.
And she was asking if Max was going to live a life of chastitynow?
The absurdity of it tickled Maxence so much that laughter boiled in him.
Was she out of her mind? Was that what the Crown Council had come to, an examination of the heir’s sexual proclivities when they should be worrying aboutwho was committing treason?
A snort escaped him first as almost a belch, then a contorted chuckle sneaked out as he tried to repress it, and then raucous laughter wracked his entire body. Maxence’s stomach contracted with laughter as the insanity of it buffeted him.
This was impossible! It could not happen. The Crown Council, which had been established to confirm the best contender for the throne, had nearly allowed a crime syndicate to use Monaco as a base of their European criminal operations, and now they were worrying about who Max was sleeping with.
He was laughing so hard that his stomach cramped and his legs weakened, and he sat down on the dais, helplessly laughing his ass off.
Casimir and Arthur exchanged a glance over his head. Arthur squatted down and asked him, “I say there, old sod, are you quite all right?”
“She—she—oh, Lord, my dear Dree.” Max staggered to his feet and barely made it to where Dree was sitting, but then he captured her hand and kissed her knuckles soundly. “Did you hear that? She asked if I’mcelibate.”
Dree was staring at him, wide-eyed and with her lips parted. “I’m going to have to agree with the Duke of Earl there, Max. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m absolutelyfine.”
He wasn’t.
Another giggle escaped him, and Maxence threw back his head to laugh again.
Sporadic laughter rippled through the room.
It was undignified and unseemly,and Max could not stop.
Dree smiled, and then she grinned, and then she started laughing with him.
The laughter got louder as the contagion spread, each person looking at someone else who was cracking up. The first laughers had been Max’s friends who knew him the best, and Arthur, Casimir, and Alexandre were doubled over and leaning on the walls.
The chuckles and giggles and outright guffaws spread to the red velvet-covered walls.
Lady Valentina’s voice was peevish as she demanded, “Well,are you?”
Maxence tried to answer her. He forced himself to make a straight face and said, “Lady Valentina, I assure you—”
But the giggles got ahold of him again.
“I donotthink this is a laughing matter, Maxence!”
“They do!” He gestured at the nobles of Monaco crowded into the room, and the laughter rose and filled the space between the chandeliers, all the way up to the frescos painted on the gilded, arched ceiling. He asked, “Lady Valentina, what shall I do to appease you? What on Earth can I say so that everyone in this room is amply cognizant of whom I like to sleep with? Do you need references?”
“No,no,that’s not it,” Lady Valentina said, flustered and fidgeting with her purse. Lola was patting Valentina’s shoulder while repressing giggles. “I just want to make sure that you aren’t going to swan off to be a priest again instead of properly getting married and having children to pass the throne on to!”
Maxence wiped his eyes and tried to stop laughing. “Yes, God willing,yes.I’m planning to marry, if a woman will say yes to me. I can’t imagine why any one of them would, however, especially a particular one.”
