The Prince turned around again and saw a figure walking towards the shore.
"A figure" my foot, I know exactly who that is.
His heart pounded strongly in his chest.
Help. I'm absolutely besotted by that bloodthirsty mignon. I want her. I need her! My life will not be worth living without her! — Oh, please, I can't have been thinking that just now. I'm not THAT italian! "My life's not worth living without her". Really??? Get a grip, Francesco.
Flora Parker was wearing a light yellow dress and her dark curls were loosely held by a ribbon of the same colour.
Thank God, she's unarmed!
So far, she had not discovered him.
Carefully he slid closer. There was a landing stage leading into the water with a few rowing boats tied to it. He positioned himself behind it to watch her but he could not remain still for long. The lake's water was not exactly warm and he had to keep moving for his limbs to stay nimble.
Flora had stopped by the shore and critically scanned the water at her feet.
Francesco grinned. Not a good idea when one's face is halfway under water. The insolent liquid swashed into his mouth and he had to gulp it down to obtain his silence.
Sitting down in the grass, Flora opened a little leather bound book. From time to time she smiled as she was reading and the Prince was at once immune to the water's chills. A gentle fire spread through his veins. My life's not worth living without her!
He swam closer.
When he was only a few yards away from her, he fully immersed himself and made the last few strokes beneath the surface.
NIne
In the park of Palazzo Sforza,…
To his Holiness, the Pope:
Good old Uncle Pius, I have sent you the recipe for the salve. It should help with your gout!
Kisses, Flora!
Flora giggled as she read her most recent absurdities.
Maybe she had to start a career as a novelist. It might be more lucrative than taking the waters in Bath and more entertaining too. One simply had to look at the late Miss Austen and her successes. Flora's ideas were just as comical and as romantic. She would not write about the landed gentry, boring and well-behaved as they were, no! She would reveal the scandalous behaviour of the peers! The Darl of Smoothington's Love Affairs, the Sulk of Dreary's Dangerous Desires and the Lackscount Vickerby's Evil Crimes. Maybe The Archdukes Princely Privates…
She grunted like a maniac and was so shocked and delighted by her own frivolities that she had to bite into her diary's leather binding.
"You have a beautiful laugh. I'm saddened that you've not shown it to me before."
With a loud shriek Flora propelled herself into a standing position.
The princely private's prodigal proprietor was right at her feet. Well, that's where his spectacular pectorals were, his head was rather at the level of her shins.
Without warning, the words came pouring out of her.
"Your Royal Highness! I thought you were dead! In bed! But it is good that you are not for I have to tell you that you must believe me when I say that I have longed to ask for your forgiveness about what happened, I had not expected you to sit so close and there was all the blood and you said I was an accursed witch and I had so hoped to apologise to you but I guessed you might not ever wish to hear of me again after I had broken you nose and…" shut up, Flora, you idiot, shut up "…ruined your wonderful uniform, which I will reimburse of course, even though I believe that salt and cold water should do the job and you will be able to wear it again and I also hope you will not have me arrested and executed, I honestly did not want to do you any harm and I am most certainly no revolutionary, I would never be able to send anybody to the guillotine, although I have often wondered whether they decapitated people with their wigs on or without…" SHUT UP, FLORA, SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!!! "..and why are you here anyway, should you not be resting? It can't be any good for your injuries or for your health to swim such distances in the cold morning air? I would advise you to get out of the water and after some rest have yourself taken home by a boat, we have quite a lot of those and I am so sorry, I know I should be silent now, but whenever I am nervous my mouth just keeps going on and on and on. If I were the heroine of a novel, I would be one of those heroines who'd cause every sensible reader to ask the author why on earth the hero should be attracted to such an annoying woman. I am not usually like this, as you will remember, I hardly spoke a word at the opera and NO! PLEASE DON'T!"
The diary must have fallen to the ground and lay open on the page where Flora had tested her signature as Archduchess of Lombardy. She could only look on in horror as the Prince, with a faint smile on his face, turned his eyes to it.