He pointed upward. “It’s the latticed air vents. They allow the sea breeze to enter the corridors and rooms. Makes it more comfortable all year round.”
She took a deep breath. “And it smells beautiful, too,” she said, as they continued walking.
“The gardens were established centuries ago and well tended. Is it so very different to your own palace?”
She smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never been there, have you?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve not had the pleasure.” Not that he’d thought of it in those terms before.
She stopped by a large pot overflowing with crimson fluted flowers. She fingered the velvety petals of a blossom. “Yes, it’s very different. The harshness of the climate in my country, and the toughness of my people, is reflected in the buildings. My palace is much older and…” She hesitated as she looked around, as if groping for the correct word. Then she turned to him, bringing the blossom to her nose to inhale its fragrance. “And less decorative, you could say.” Xander guessed you could. He’d heard her palace looked like a prison. “We also can’t grow tender exotic blossoms such as these,” she continued, looking up at him with a guilty look. “But, of course, there are many other qualities about it which are magnificent.”
“Of course.” He just couldn’t think of any. And nor, it seemed, could she.
She glanced around the paintings and stopped at one. She looked at Xander. “Who’s this?”
He didn’t need to look to know. “My great grandmother. She was a beauty.”
She turned too quickly and caught him looking ather, not the portrait. His great grandmother had been a great beauty but it was Ela’s own beauty which he couldn’t help admiring. She blushed before turning quickly away again.
“I was just thinking she looked like you,” Ela said.
“Does that make her more of a beauty or less?” asked Xander, enjoying toying with this more vulnerable version of Ela.
She raised an eyebrow and a small smile played on her lips. “Fishing for compliments?” she asked.
He took a step closer. “It’s nice to think of yourself as being admired by someone you like.”
Her smile dropped but the air of vulnerability didn’t.
“You like me.” There was a sense of wonder in her voice which surprised him.
“That wasn’t even a question, was it?”
She shrugged. “I’m surprised, that’s all. After all the arguments we’ve had, after all the disagreements. I’m surprised to know you like me.”
“Then it will really surprise you to know that I’ve always liked you.”
“Then why were you so antagonistic towards me?”
“Me, antagonistic? That’s rich. You made it quite plain that you had no time for me. What was it you once called me, ‘a dilettante, arrogant playboy’?”
“Well you are. Or, at least, you were.”
His lips tweaked with amusement again. “So you don’t consider me to be so any longer.”
Confusion flickered over her beautiful face.
“What is it?” he asked, taking another step towards her.
She held out her hand to stop him. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Come so close.” She shrugged. “I can cope with you being close and not speaking, and I can cope with difficult questions if you aren’t close. But I can’t cope with both at the same time.”
The thought that he could disrupt her unflappable confidence sent his libido into overdrive. But he needed to focus, not seduce. “Then I’ll step away, because I’d really like an answer to my question.”
She pressed her palm to her chest as if trying to calm herself. He liked that, too. “What was the question?”