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elderly spinster great-aunt.’
    Lottie glared at him. ‘I’ll have you know this dress is a bespoke design. It cost an absolute fortune. And just for the record, I don’t have a spinster great-aunt.’
    ‘That dress looks like it was designed for someone in their sixties. You’ve got great legs. Why not show them off?’
    She stalked into the polished wood and mirrored cabin of the lift, turning to face him as the doors closed with a sigh and a hiss behind him. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that? My legs are my business. They’re not anyone else’s. Just because I’m a princess doesn’t mean everyone has to know what my legs look like. I don’t want people speculating on how much cellulite I have or don’t have or whether I’m fatter or thinner than my sister. Nor do I think it’s anyone’s business what I look like in a bathing suit or what I look like when I’m eating my breakfast or dinner or having a coffee with friends. I just want to be accepted for myself.’
    The silence seemed to ring with the echo of her outburst.
    Lottie looked at the floor, studying her toes in their conservative shoes with studious intent. For as long as she could remember she had always been compared, measured, against her sister.
    Found wanting .
    It had been unbearable in her teens; every photo call had been a form of torture for her. The press comments at times were brutal, especially to a young overly sensitive girl who hadn’t yet found her social feet.
    But ever since she’d come back from Switzerland she had tried to keep her head below the paparazzi parapet. She deliberately dressed down, even dowdily on occasion. It was her way of thumbing her nose up at the fashion set who thought she wasn’t pretty or stylish enough.
    She wasn’t a beautiful blue-eyed blonde. She wasn’t an extroverted butterfly that could work a crowd to her advantage, to make everyone love her in a heartbeat, to be dazzled by her and follow wherever she led.
    She was a quiet mouse who liked to mull over things in solitude. To slip by unnoticed, to be in the background, to quietly get on with things that mattered without all the fuss and the fanfare.
    ‘Must be a tough gig playing second fiddle all the time.’
    Lottie looked up at him to find his expression was still ruminative. ‘I wouldn’t want to be playing first even if I had been born to it. Madeleine loves the fact that she’ll eventually be queen. She’s good at giving orders. I’m rubbish at it.’
    ‘I don’t know about that.’ The corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘So far you’ve been pretty good at snapping out orders to me.’
    ‘That’s different.’ Lottie stabbed at the ballroom-floor button with her index finger. ‘You don’t want my orders any more than I want to be giving them.’
    He leaned against the wall of the lift, crossing one ankle over the other in an I’ve-got-all-the-time-in-the-world pose. ‘I know what you’re up to, you know.’
    She hitched one of her shoulders in a guileless manner. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.’
    He gave one of his low deep laughs that made her insides stumble. ‘You’re going to drag me to every mind-numbing inspection or appointment you can think of until I walk off the job in boredom. But it won’t work.’
    We’ll see about that , Lottie thought as she pressed the floor to the ballroom again. ‘What’s taking this lift so long?’
    As if to spite her, the lift gave a shuddering jolt and then hissed to a halt.
    Fear scuttled up her spine like the sticky legs of a spooked spider. She stabbed at the button again. Frantically. Manically. ‘Come on! Get moving, you stupid thing!’
    ‘Looks like we’re stuck.’ He didn’t sound too worried about it. In fact, his tone contained a hefty measure of amusement.
    ‘Stuck?’ Lottie rounded on him, her heart feeling as if it was beating inside her throat instead of her chest. ‘We can’t be stuck! I have things to do.