“That’s fine. Why don’t you think of me as— Hello, Alex.” Bennett straightened away from the woman and his smile was crooked. “Have you met Doreen? She just joined Eve’s troupe before they left the United States.”

“Yes, we met at the dinner last week. A pleasure to see you again.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” On cue, she curtsied. Bennett had a moment to think wryly that she had no trouble seeing Alexander as a prince. “Your brother, ah, Prince Bennett, offered me a tour of the palace.” She sent Bennett a glowing look.

“How delightful.” No one but Bennett would have recognized the sarcasm in the dry tone. “Perhaps you’d like to see the parlor first.” While Bennett looked on in confusion, Alexander took Doreen’s arm and led her a few steps down the hall. “It’s quite comfortable and some of the furnishings are seventeenth-century. You can amuse yourself, can’t you, while I have a word with my brother?”

“Oh, yes, Your Highness. Thank you.”

Alexander watched Doreen wander toward the mantel and the Wedgwood before he strode back to his brother.

“Very smooth,” Bennett commented. “Now why don’t you tell me why you wanted her out of the way?” At Alexander’s look, Bennett’s heart stopped. “Is something wrong? Father?”

“No.” Normally Alexander would have hastened to reassure him. At the moment he had only one focus and one purpose. “How could you bring that woman here?”

“What?” Relief became confusion and confusion amusement. Bennett’s deep, infectious laugh rolled down the ancient hallway. “Doreen? Alexander, I promise you, I don’t intend to seduce her in the portrait gallery.”

“But somewhere else, and at the first opportunity.”

Bennett stiffened. He tolerated his reputation in the press and, a fair man, was willing to accept the fact that he deserved the title Playboy Prince to a certain extent. Elder brother or not, he wouldn’t tolerate it from Alexander.

“If, when and whom I seduce remains my business, Alex. Try to remember you’ll rule Cordina, but not me. Never me.”

The fury rippled just under the surface of cool, biting words. “I don’t care if you take one of the kitchen maids in the pantry, as long as you’re discreet.”

Bennett’s innate humor didn’t surface. “Perhaps I should take that as a compliment, but I find it difficult.”

“Don’t you care anything for her feelings?” Alexander exploded. “That you’d flaunt one of your—distractions here, in her face? And that you should choose one of her own people. I’ve never known you to be cruel, Bennett. Careless, even selfish, but never cruel.”