The gentleness of his voice had her hesitating. When a man could speak like that, what woman was safe? Slowly she withdrew her hand from his and chose one of the trim upholstered chairs. “Very well. This is to be lesson one?”

“If you like.” He sat on the edge of the desk so that there was a comfortable distance between them, and so that he could look fully into her face. “Tell me what you think of when you think of a princess.”

“Are you playing analyst?”

He crossed his ankles. “It’s a simple question. You can make the answer as simple as you like.”

She smiled and seemed to relax with it. “Prince Charming, fairy godmothers, glass slippers.” She brushed the rose petals idly against her cheek and looked beyond him to a sunbeam that shot onto the floor. “Footmen in dashing uniforms, carriages with white satin seats, pretty silver crowns, floaty dresses. Crowds of people…. Crowds of people,” she repeated, and her eyes focused on the stream of sunlight, “cheering below the window. The sun’s in your eyes so that it’s difficult to see, but you hear. You wave. There’s the smell of roses, strong. A sea of people with their voices rising up and up so that they wash over you. Lovely, sweet, demanding.” She fell silent, then dropped the rose in her lap.

Her hand had trembled; he’d seen it the instant before she’d dropped the flower. “Is that your imagination, or do you remember that?”

“I …” How could she explain? She could still smell the roses, hear the cheers, but she couldn’t remember. She could feel the way the sun made her eyes sting, but she couldn’t put herself at the window. “Impressions only,” she told him after a moment. “They come and go. They never stay.”

“Don’t push it.”

Her head whipped around. “I want—”

“I know what you want.” His voice was calm, even careless. Annoyance flashed in her eyes. It was something he knew how to deal with. He picked up the appointment book but didn’t open it. “I’ll give you an average day in the life of Her Serene Highness Gabriella de Cordina.”

“And how do you know?”

Reeve tested the weight of the book as he watched her. “It’s my job to know. You rise at seven-thirty and breakfast in your room. From eight-thirty to nine you meet with the palace manager.”

“Régisseur.” She blinked, then her brows knit. “That’s the French. He would be called régisseur, not manager.”

Reeve made no comment while she continued to frown, struggling to remember why the term was so familiar to her. “You decide on the day’s menus. If there’s no official dinner, you normally plan the main meal for midday. This was a duty you assumed when your mother died.”

“I see.” She waited for the grief. Longed for it. She felt nothing. “Go on.”

“From nine to ten-thirty you’re here in your office with your secretary, handling official correspondence. Generally, you’ll dictate to her how to answer, then sign the letters yourself once they’re in order.”