Page 91 of Tabloid Princess
“It’s my favourite painting.” He turned slightly so he could look at it better. “I often used to come and sit on the bench here once the gallery shut.”
“Do you get after hours privileges most places?”
“I think they’d rather I came when it was shut than during the day when all their priceless works could get destroyed in a crush.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A crush?”
Another quirk. My heartbeat sped. “You know what I mean.”
I turned for the painting again, somehow forcing my attention away from him. Beautiful and rich, the subject was dark and depressing. Women stood either side of the canvas, their faces agony, as a young girl, her dress simple and white, a blindfold across her eyes, was lowered onto a wooden block. The executioner stood ready with his axe.
The fabric of the dresses held such detail the painting looked more like a photograph. Light and shadow played across rose coloured silk.
“It’s the execution of Lady Jane Grey,” he said.
“She’s little more than a child.”
“She was sixteen when she was considered a threat to the throne. Her and her husband were both executed because of the plots of her father.”
“Her husband?”
Oliver nodded, his forest gaze wandering across my face. “Same age as you had Daisy.”
“Why this painting though? The murder of a child is a depressing subject.”
“It reminds me that people lived and died to be where I am. Things have changed. The monarchy no longer rules the land, but we are still the head of the commonwealth. Lives have been lost in the story that has made me the next king.”
I swallowed and put my fork down on the plate. My stomach had no interest in smoked salmon, no matter how fine.
“Whatever I do there will always be an expectation on me.” I cringed under his intense gaze. “Every choice I make, I make living in the shadow of this painting. What would I be willing to go to the block for? Where is my line?”
His words sliced at me.
“This is what I said the other night. It’s why I don’t think this can work, Oliver. No matter what you say. I’d never want to be a line you have to draw.”
“Maybe it’s too late for that?”
“Don’t be silly. We don’t even know each other.”
“Maybe I know what I need to.” He sighed. “I know this isn’t the way normal first dates go…”
“But?”
His gaze when it met mine made me want to melt into a puddle.
“I think I found my line the first time you were rude to me.”
I slumped a little.
“There’s a chance I might know what I’d face the executioner’s block for now.”
“Oliver, please. Don’t.”
“I’d face it for you.”
This was insane. It was a date. Just one date.
He didn’t know a single thing about my real existence.
