Seeing the quick, ironic smile, Gilchrist, Alexander’s longtime valet, let out a small, silent breath of relief. Moodiness was something he expected and accepted from the prince. He could gauge within a heartbeat when to speak and when to remain silent. He’d never have lasted ten years otherwise. The smile meant more temperate weather was due, however briefly. Gilchrist knew enough to cash in on it.

“If I may say so, sir, you’ve not been eating well the past few weeks. If you don’t pay more attention to your diet, we’ll have to take your clothes in.”

Alexander started to brush this off as fussing until he hooked a thumb experimentally in his waistband. There was a full inch of give.

Damn the woman for making a wreck of him.

No more, he promised himself. The insanity stopped here. “I’ll see what I can do, Gilchrist, before you and my tailor lose face.”

“I’m only worrying about Your Highness’s health, not the fit of your clothes.” But, of course, he was almost as concerned about one as the other.

“Then I’ll have to promise not to give you cause to worry about either.” Preoccupied, he nodded for Gilchrist to answer the knock at his door.

“Your Highness.” Henri Blachamt had been Alexander’s personal secretary for eight years. Before that time he had served in Armand’s retinue. Even with twenty years total in service to the royal family, he remained elaborately formal.

“Bonjour, Henri. What impossible schedule have you lined up for me tomorrow?”

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness, your day tomorrow is rather full.”

He wouldn’t sit, Alexander knew, unless the prince seated himself first. Patient, Alexander settled himself on the arm of a chair. “Please sit, Henri, I’m sure that appointment book is quite heavy.”

“Thank you, sir.” After seating himself with a few of the fussy little gestures he was prone to, Henri reached in his vest pocket for small, rimless glasses. He settled them on his nose, straightened them, adjusted them, in a time-consuming ceremony Alexander would have tolerated from no one else.

His affection for the older man was very real and hadn’t dimmed since that moment twenty years before when Henri had slipped the young prince a piece of hard candy after Alexander had received a particularly grim lecture on decorum from Armand.

“You remember, of course, the dinner party at Monsieur and Madame Cabot’s this evening. There will be entertainment provided by Mademoiselle Cabot on the piano.”

“It isn’t possible to call that entertainment, Henri, but we’ll let it pass.”

“Just as you say, sir.” There might have been a glint of amusement behind the lenses, but Henri’s voice remained bland. “Council of the Crown member Trouchet will be attending, sir. I presume he will wish to discuss the matter of the proposed health-care bill.”