Twice Upon a Time (9 page)

‘I know! Paint me,’ he said, the idea obviously just occurring to him. ‘I want to give Mamma something special for Christmas.’

Cinda shook her head, laughing at the idea. ‘I can’t paint for a queen.’

‘Yes, you can,’ he said. ‘And then you can stay for longer. You can paint in the mornings and then we can play for the rest of the day.’

She looked at him, suddenly shy at the idea. It was an amazing offer. Did he really think she was that good, or did he just want to find a way to make her stay? Could it really be both?

‘What makes you think I’m good enough?’

‘I believe in you,’ Ludo said with a smile. ‘I believe in most people. My brother has enough cynicism for the both of us. I prefer to be positive.’

Cinda looked back at the villa up on the cliff top and saw Gus standing in the garden, watching them from a distance.

‘Let me think about it,’ she said, and she pulled Ludo into a kiss that lasted a lifetime. When they finally pulled apart, she was satisfied to see that Gus had gone.

Cinda lay in Jonas’s bed while they ate the chocolates that Basil had brought them, a gift from his wife.

‘Ludo asked me to paint his portrait,’ said Cinda, licking her fingers and examining the dried turquoise paint that was under her fingernail.

‘Really?’ asked Jonas, looking over at her. ‘And you said . . . ?’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Cinda. ‘I’m not great at painting people. You know that. He wants to give my painting to his mother for Christmas.’

‘Would you stay here?’ he asked, handing her another chocolate and popping one in his mouth.

‘I think so,’ said Cinda. ‘At least, for a few weeks.’

‘Lucky you,’ he sighed. ‘I love this world.’

‘I could do without the angry brother.’

‘He’s not so bad,’ said Jonas carefully.

Cinda turned her face to him, incredulous. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I quite like him, I just think he’s misunderstood.’ Jonas grabbed her paint-stained hand and turned her palm over, running his finger along a line.

‘Yeah, so was Henry the Eighth.’ Cinda snorted.

‘You’re a tough woman, Cinda Bloom.’ Jonas studied her palm. ‘But I can see your future.’

Cinda laughed and put the chocolate into her mouth. ‘And what does it look like?’

‘I see a crown, a throne, I see . . . ’ he looked closer. ‘I see
me
on the throne! This can’t be right.’

Cinda screamed with laughter and hit Jonas with a pillow. ‘Don’t tell me you have the hots for the Angry Prince?’

‘Who wouldn’t? He’s gorgeous. But sadly he isn’t one of my people. He likes the girls.’

‘How do you know? You never know, he might be a closet mo.’

‘He’s not gay, sweets. I can tell.’

‘How?’ teased Cinda.

‘Because I’ve seen the way he looks at you and trust me, that ain’t the look of a guy who’s into boys.’

‘Bullshit,’ laughed Cinda. ‘You’re full of it. I’m going to have a shower.’

She bounced off the bed and went back to her room. In the shower, Cinda thought through Ludo’s offer.

She could stay at the villa as long as she liked while she painted him. And she wouldn’t feel like such a freeloader. He could come and do the sittings and they could spend time together, and he would pay her, even though she insisted it wasn’t necessary.

And when she wasn’t painting him, she could paint all of Sardinia, as Ludo kept reminding her. He would give her a driver and a car, use of the royal chopper, anything she wanted.

It’s almost too good to be true
, Cinda thought as she dried herself with the plush white towel. Dressing in shorts and a purple T-shirt, she pulled on her sneakers and a baseball cap.

She grabbed her easel, sketchbook and her backpack of paints, then went downstairs, heading through the olive grove and down towards the private beach at the bottom of the property.

Ludo had pointed it out to them when they were on the ship.
There is no other way to access that stretch of beach unless you go by
boat – and even then you’d have to time it carefully with the tide. Get
it wrong and you’d be ripped to shreds on those rocks.

Cinda walked down the path, past the windswept shrubbery and towards the sand. Looking around, she saw the perfect spot looking over the idyllic beach.

She set up her easel and pulled out a sketchbook and sat on a large log of driftwood.

But she couldn’t get inspired, no matter how she long she stared at the view. She did some preliminary sketches but nothing felt quite right. She was just thinking about giving up when she heard a voice.

‘Nice day.’

She looked up to see Gus at the top of the path.

‘Isn’t it,’ she said stiffly, turning back to her sketchpad. Jonas’s comment about the way Gus looked at her made things more awkward than ever. She went back to her sketching – anything was better than not knowing where to look or what to say.

She started to move her hand over the page, finding the lines and small details of the coast and the waves breaking on the shore.

Gus was now standing behind her, looking over her shoulder.

‘You’re very good,’ he said, sounding surprised.

Cinda said nothing, concentrating on the picture.

‘I wish I could draw,’ Gus said.

Cinda tried not to roll her eyes. If she had a dollar for every person who said that to her she would have a very nice collection of sable paintbrushes by now.

Gus sat on the log next to her and stared ahead.

‘Tell me how you do it.’

Cinda paused and looked at him. He was so like Ludo it was crazy. If it weren’t for the clothes and hair, they’d be impossible to tell apart.

‘You draw what you see,’ she said. ‘Not what you think you see.’

Gus frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

Cinda turned the sketchpad over to a new page and handed it to Gus, along with a pencil that she pulled from her backpack.

‘Draw my mouth,’ she instructed.

Gus hesitated.

‘Just draw my mouth. Not the whole face, just the mouth.’

Gus stared at her mouth and then put his pencil to paper and started to draw, occasionally looking up to study her mouth again. He turned it around and showed her. ‘It’s pretty terrible, I know,’ said Gus, half-laughing to cover his embarrassment.

‘No, it’s not bad. It’s just that it’s a caricature,’ said Cinda. ‘You’ve drawn what you think a mouth looks like, which happens to be vaguely shaped like mine.’

Gus was nodding as she looked at him. She noticed a tiny freckle on his right cheekbone.

‘This time, draw what you see. And don’t draw the whole mouth, draw it line by line. Put it exactly on the paper as it appears to your eye,’ she said. ‘Don’t judge it until it’s finished. Some lines may not make sense but they’ll all come together at the end.’

Gus stared at her mouth for a long time, concentrating as he ran the pencil across the page. Cinda relaxed her mouth, letting it open just a little.

He was looking at her so intently she didn’t know where to look, so she chose a spot over his left shoulder, on the horizon. His gaze made her feel nervous, but she didn’t want him to stop looking at her. She brought her eyes back to him and watched as he looked down and sketched. When he wasn’t being an uptight prig, he was as handsome as Ludo, she realised.

Finally Gus stopped and looked down at the picture and then up at Cinda. He turned the pad around so she could see what he’d done.

She looked down and smiled. ‘There you go! That’s actually pretty great,’ she said. It was a good drawing, especially for a beginner. She studied the sketch of her mouth, knowing it revealed how Gus saw it.

‘Actually, it’s wonderful,’ she said, and she tore off the piece of paper from the pad and handed it to him. ‘You should sign it, it might be worth something when you become king,’ she teased.

Gus took the paper from her hand. He looked pleased with himself as he stood up. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the lesson.’

‘Anytime,’ said Cinda as he walked away and back up the path.

She turned back to her own sketch again, before turning over to a fresh page. Starting again, this time with inspiration, her perfect view came into being upon the page.

10

It wasn’t until Gus was at the top of the path that he realised he hadn’t spoken to Cinda about the situation with Ludo. He had followed her down to the beach to encourage her to leave but instead he had been bewitched by her talent – and her mouth. He looked at the picture again.

It really was quite amazing how she had helped him see beyond what he assumed he’d see.

When he reached the villa, he saw that Ludo and Jonas were lounging by the pool. While it annoyed him a little to see them lazing about, it didn’t annoy him as much as usual. He went inside and headed upstairs to his chambers.

He propped the piece of paper against the silver-framed photo of Perrette on his mantelpiece.
Their mouths couldn’t be more
different
, he thought as he examined them side-by-side. Cinda’s lips reminded him of pillows. Perrette’s were thinner, and always painted. When she smiled they looked like a straight line.

Stop it
, he told himself. Cinda might be sexy, but she wasn’t well bred. He heard his mother’s voice in his head. She didn’t understand the way his world turned, she never would. So why couldn’t he stop staring at her?

He had seen her and Ludo on the beach and he wondered what it would be like to be kissed they way she kissed Ludo.

Perrette approached their love life just like she approached the rest of her life – determined, strategic, something that had to be done as well as possible.

Gus worked through the rest of the morning, methodically getting through his tasks, but occasionally his eye line would travel to the sketch of that mouth.

Is she still down at the beach?

He told himself to stay focused.

Have she and Ludo slept together?

He was just reminding himself that it was none of his business when he heard his private secretary come into the room.

‘Excuse me, Your Highness? Your mail.’ He placed Gus’s correspondence on the silver tray on the desk, the envelopes wrapped in different-coloured ribbons. Red for important, green for personal and fan mail (it always struck Gus as odd that a prince would get fan mail), and blue for everything else.

The green pile was low as always. This had never really bothered him, but today he picked it up as though to weigh it in his hands.

‘Can I see Ludo’s mail collection?’ he asked suddenly.

The secretary allowed only a flicker of surprise to cross his face before walking from the room. He promptly returned with a tray. There were five piles of fan and personal mail for Ludo, and one of important. Almost the exact opposite of Gus’s mail.

‘God, he’s popular isn’t he?’ said Gus.

‘He is a very popular member of the family, yes,’ said his secretary politely, before leaving the room again.

Gus sat in thought. Was Ludo popular or was Gus unpopular? He had never really considered being liked all that important, but something about Ludo being so loved by the people of Sardinia, so wanted by everyone, unsettled him now.

Or was it the idea that Cinda wanted Ludo, and found Gus so lacking?

He knew he hadn’t made a great first impression and he wished he’d handled things better. But then what?

Pushing the thoughts from his mind, he settled back down to work. One of Gus’s main strengths was his huge reserve of willpower. He refused to move from his desk until his jobs were done – often he wouldn’t even go to the bathroom. And though he was itching to know where Cinda was, to check on what fun she and Ludo and Jonas were having, he didn’t leave his desk until his work was finished.

When he stretched and headed downstairs, he found Jonas and Ludo still by the pool, now drinking what looked suspiciously like mojitos. He could smell marijuana in the air. Seeing the remnants of two joints in a crystal ashtray, he sighed. Why did Ludo need to get high to have a good time?

‘What’s happening, my brother?’ called Ludo. His accent made the words sound stupid, but Gus didn’t feel like reminding Ludo he was a prince, not a homeboy.