“I have something of import to tell Your Serene Highness. Could you most graciously spare a moment to come to our table?
Mistral.”
Mistral wrote down the words as they were dictated, then she raised her eyes to her aunt’s face.
‘But I have nothing to say to him.’
‘Then you had best think of something,’ Emilie remarked grimly.
‘But what is there to tell him about?’ Mistral asked wildly as she watched Emilie fold the note and hand it to the waiter with instructions to take it to the Prince’s table.
‘You would do well to decide that and quickly,’ Emilie replied and her voice was like steel.
It was as if she were caught in a trap from which there was no escape, Mistral thought, and was ashamed of her own weakness in obeying Aunt Emilie.
She was frightened, it was true, but nothing coul
