‘Not now,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve got something else on my mind.’
‘What?’ Samia shook her head in disbelief. ‘Isn’t this situation serious enough for you to spare time to discuss it?’
‘It certainly is,’ he murmured, tapping his stubbled chin with a long finger.
‘So, what is this something else?’ she asked, weakening with curiosity, even though she knew she should stick to her guns.
‘You,’ he said wickedly, yanking her close.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AFTERALONGlie-in and a lazy shower, which involved more activity than the term ‘lazy’ might suggest, he told Samia to give him the chance to prove she was indeed the perfect Princess for him and for their people.
She insisted on wearing her original travel clothes, while he wore jeans to take her on the back of his Harley to the artists’ quarter in town. A tall, undistinguished building occupied most of a cobbled square, and, dismounting from the beast, they jogged up five flights of stairs until they reached the penthouse floor.
‘Wow,’ she gasped when they walked in.
‘I guess the wordpenthousehardly conjures up the reality of this place,’ he admitted. The entire top floor had been knocked into one massive room that could be used for a variety of purposes. ‘It’s an artists’ commune,’ he explained. ‘Everyone has their own space for however long they need it. They can even sleep here, if they want, and they all have the very best of sponsors in my belovednonna.’
‘Your grandmother is a patron of the arts?’
‘And an artist in her own right,’ he revealed. ‘She undertook the restoration of the ceilings in the palace with a team of fellow craftsmen. At almost seventy years old, she lay on her back on top of the scaffold, painting for months.’
‘Like Michelangelo! She must be fit—’
‘Creaking a little these days, my dear...’
‘Nonna!’Swinging around, Luca exchanged the warmest of hugs with a tiny, birdlike woman whose arms barely stretched around his waist. Her abundant grey hair was held up with a couple of paintbrushes, and she was dressed in a shapeless artist’s smock, of indeterminate colour beneath a blizzard of paint smears. Her face was old and wise, her smile wide, and her raisin-black eyes full of warmth as they fixed on Samia’s with the friendliest of greetings.
‘Luca, my naughty boy,’ she exclaimed, stepping back from the giant towering over her. ‘Why have you stayed away so long?’
‘Because, as you told me to, Nonna, I’ve been searching for a bride.’
‘As if you’d do anything I told you to,’ his grandmother scoffed. ‘But here she is,’ she added in a softer tone. Stepping back, she took a shrewd look at Samia. ‘Well, Luca, are you going to introduce us?’
‘Of course. Princess Aurelia, may I present my wife...?’
‘Samia,’ Samia broke in, bobbing a curtsey. ‘Just plain Samia.’
This comment produced a hearty guffaw from a woman who looked as if a puff of wind would blow her over. ‘A kindred spirit! I knew it at once. This isn’t one of your painted trollops, Luca, or a namby-pamby milksop, but a down-to-earth woman with sensible boots. How are you, my dear?’
It was Samia’s turn for a warm hug. Wrestling with the sharp tang of turpentine overlaid with carbolic soap, she laughed as Luca’s grandmother demanded, ‘Are you in charge of this man? Keep him on a short leash. I couldn’t bear any harm to come to him. He has my heart. Lucaismy heart.’ Returning her attention to her grandson, she adopted a stern face that wasn’t quite as successful as maybe she had intended. ‘Bad boy. Why did it take so long to come to your senses?’
‘Perfect princesses don’t grow on trees?’ Luca suggested, cocking his head to one side to bathe his grandmother in the warmth of his smile.
‘And if they did you’d probably stride past them, silly boy. I imagine Samia bumped into you? Am I right?’
They both stared at her, and then they laughed. ‘How did you know?’ Samia asked as the princess linked arms to draw her deeper into the busy space where at least half a dozen artists were working, each lost in their work.
‘Because Luca feeds off the unexpected, and I can see from the way he looks at you that he’s madly in love.’
Samia blinked. ‘You can?’
‘Of course! How can you doubt it? My grandson never does anything by halves, and the fact that he’s brought you to meet me speaks volumes.’
‘I’m just not sure that I—’
‘Can be a princess?’ Princess Aurelia supplied. ‘That’s what I thought once upon a time. You can see I’m hardly conventional. But if you care for someone—really care—you can expand your heart to encompass everything they care about, even when that means embracing an entire country and its people. The citizens of Madlena need someone like you, as they needed me in my time, to reassure them that their royal family is just as delightfully quirky as theirs. As far as I’m concerned,’ she added, smiling into Samia’s eyes, ‘I’m delighted to welcome you into our family.’
