‘Why has no one asked me about King Pig?’ she whispered to Marcelo when they had a brief respite from the deluge of interested people.
‘They’ve been warned not to,’ he murmured.
‘Why?’
‘Officially, because you’re too traumatised to discuss it.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘Because it will lead to other questions where you would be forced to lie and as you can’t lie, it is better to avoid it altogether.’
‘Very sensible.’ She smiled at a waiter offering a tray of canapés to them and helped herself to another tiny mouthful of something that resembled a miniature Yorkshire pudding stuffed with crab meat. It didn’t even fill her mouth and he’d moved on to another guest before she could take another one. ‘Are they going to serve any real food any time soon?’ She was getting hungrier by the minute.
‘It doesn’t appear so,’ Marcelo said in an undertone. ‘There’s a good restaurant a few streets away we can go to when it’s polite to escape.’
‘I’ll try not to faint from hunger in the meantime.’
Ice-blue eyes captured hers. Amusement gleamed in them.
A frisson raced up her spine and she quickly looked away. She needed to keep her focus and not be distracted by Marcelo’s gorgeous face and the crazy feelings looking at him evoked in her. She needed to be Princess Perfect for him.
Over the next hour that passed, though, Clara’s composure start to flag. Holding herself straight the whole time and watching every word that came out of her mouth was exhausting, and so she was delighted when Marcelo spoke into her ear. ‘Time to make our exit. Follow my lead.’
After a flurry of goodbyes and thank-yous, they left through a different door than they’d arrived.
The convoy of cars that had driven and accompanied them there were waiting for them.
‘Can we walk to the restaurant?’ she asked impulsively. If felt like she’d been cooped up all week and she had a real urge to breathe the evening air and see a bit of Ceres that wasn’t castle.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘In those shoes? Aren’t your feet hurting you yet?’
She laughed. Until six days ago, Clara hadn’t even owned a pair of high heels. ‘They’re killing me!’
‘And you still want to walk?’
‘If it’s not too much hassle.’
She detected a moment’s hesitation before he grinned and beckoned one of his guards over to relay the new instructions, and then they set off.
The Ceres capital’s streets were how Clara had always pictured Rome, all narrow and lined with high renaissance buildings.
‘How did I do?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t insult anyone by mistake or embarrass you in any way, did I?’
‘Not at all. They all thought you were charming.’
‘Charming? Me? Ha! Still, that’s good. I did try to behave like a princess.’
‘Clara...’ Marcelo shook his head. It had been an impressive effort on her part but it had pained him to see the effort she’d made, the fixed smile on her face. At times, her nails had dug into his palms but he doubted she’d even been aware of it. ‘You did great, okay? You just need to relax a little and let the real you shine.’
‘But people don’t like the real me and I want your people to like me for your sake.’
There she went, in that matter-of-fact manner that took people aback at the first meeting of her, bluntly confiding that people didn’t like her as if it were a simple fact of life.
‘Of course people like you. I like you,’ Marcelo told her, at a loss at what else he could say to refute her assertion. ‘Alessia likes you.’
‘It’s okay, I wasn’t fishing. Some people like me. Most don’t. They find me too much. Oh, look, there’s a caricaturist!’
They’d reached a piazza with a huge fountain in the centre, brimming with people eating and drinking the evening away in the plentiful restaurants and bars with outside seating. Following her gaze, Marcelo saw an artist speedily drawing a cartoonish portrait of a young woman striving to keep a straight face.