"My clasps were round!" Nothing about me?
"Never leave the house unarmed, Miss Parker. — Could I borrow my wife from you for a few hours? It's getting late and I have things to discuss with her."
"I'm coming right away, Dominic," Gigi said, "but there's something I need to discuss with Flora too. It won't take long."
The Duke's dark eyes narrowed. "Are you plotting, pirate girl?"
"No," Gigi murmured, strangely looking at her feet. "I'll be with you shortly, Your Grace."
"Hurry up."
"Yes, Your Grace. Now, please leave us!"
He chuckled in a way only Dominic St. Yves could chuckle and left the two girls alone.
"What is it, Gigi?" Flora asked.
The blonde girl bit her lip and took Flora's hands in hers. "Flora, I…"
"Yes?"
"I…" Gigi blushed.
Flora smirked. "If it's what I think it is, then it won't come as a surprise to anybody, in fact, if it's what I think it is, and I think it really is, it's rather surprising it has taken you so long. All things considered."
"Yes, I…"
"You're expecting."
"YES! HUSH! BE QUIET!" Gigi screeched so loudly even His Royal Highness Prince Francis of Karlsburg must have heard it in his castle two miles away. She beamed at Flora. "Surrey doesn't know yet!"
"I had gathered as much."
"I wrote to my mother as soon as I was certain, but now I want to tell him! Oh, Flora, I'm scared! What will he say? Will he be happy? It'll soon start to show. If I don't tell him, he may think I've gained weight. I wouldn't want him to think I turn into a cow as I grow older."
Flora patted Gigi's arm. "Of course he will be happy and he'd find out sooner or later, you know. They do come out."
"Yes, they do, don't they? I think they do…" the beautiful young Duchess gazed at Flora with vacant eyes.
The last time Flora had seen her friend looking like that, she had just married the Duke and had been in a state of complete idiocy. Flora remembered very well how Eugenia and Dominic had been staring at one another night and day in disbelief, until the whole of Britain was sick of them.
"Run off you silly goose," Flora commanded. "And tell him!"
Gigi stood up and pulled her shoulders back. "Yes, but I will do it with grace and composure. I'm the daughter of a great commander and I am the Duchess of Surrey, I will not be intimidated by a man who—"
"Go A-WAY!"
She did.
Flora poured herself a glass of wine from the decanter on her bedside cabinet. She opened her diary and inspected her last entry. She resolved that it could not stay the way it was and went ahead to change it.
I saw the Prince (Italian: il principe - attention: it is not the same as the English word "prince". For Italians Francesco would officially be l'arciduca, which ranks higher than "principe", for the latin "princeps" only means "the first" whereas the word "dux" means "leader") tonight (Italian: stasera)… and broke his nose (Italian: il naso)
June 29th
But I did not mean to!!! I was sitting completely still when, without a warning, he sighed my name! Right next to my ear! He did it! I did not imagine it! I swear by the life of my mother and father that it truly happened!
Why did he sigh my name? Why does a man sigh a woman's name into her ear? He cannot possibly… I can't even write it. No. I probably dropped something, or my hair was coming apart and he, being casual as Princes are said to be, called me by my first name. There is nothing even remotely romantic involved.
It was his darling "Freckles" he wanted when he was bleeding all over his imperial uniform.
The uniform! Oh, it suited him marvellously…
Mamma mia, in the opera, when he stood there at the top of the staircase (Italian: la scala), he was like a mirage! His bronzed skin - which he must have acquired from swimming au naturel as the French might say - the deep blue eyes observing me with such severity… I still shudder when I think of it!
She had seen every inch of that bronzed skin whilst falling from the tree. Every inch, and some inches more… It was shocking! When she saw him at the opera, she had been thinking of nothing else. In fact, she had not been thinking of anything else ever since it had happened.
The image of him came back very clearly. Her body was instantly flooded by a delicious warmth as she wondered what it would be like to touch him, to caress him, to kiss him or to lie with him, in a lover's embrace. What would it feel like if those loins pressed against hers, if he was inside her! She had never been able to imagine it so vividly with anybody else. She had tried hard to picture it with quite a few candidates — actually with all of the men present at her current whereabouts, but before she had gotten to know them personally, of course — nevertheless, with him the images were like memories of past encounters. So plastic, so alive!