She considered. “Well, if it's my duty, I suppose I might.”

“You'll find that-what was that noise?”

“That's the royal stomach rumbling,” Dottie muttered. “You promised me something to eat and I haven't had it yet.”

“The audience is over,” Randolph declared hastily.

Everyone filed out, but Dottie noticed that each man stopped in the doorway to give her a final, doubtful look.

“They know I can't do it,” she told Randolph when they were alone.

He whirled on her. “Never, never say that,” he said fiercely. “Never speak it again, never even think it.”

“All right, all right,” she said, alarmed by the change in him.

He calmed down. “Forgive me. I didn't mean to shout at you, but this is more important than you can imagine. You must be convinced that you can do it, convinced to your depths. The essence of being a princess is to believe in yourself as a princess. Otherwise how can anyone else believe it?”

She was too tired to argue with him. She watched thankfully as two footmen wheeled in a table, already laid.

“Only for one?” she queried. “Aren't you going to stay?”

“I have urgent business to attend to. You have a full day tomorrow, so when you've eaten, go straight to bed.”

“Your Royal Highness,” she reminded him mischievously.

“Go straight to bed, Your Royal Highness.”

She climbed into the four poster as soon as she'd eaten, and found it more comfortable than she'd expected. But her thoughts were in too much turmoil for her to sleep, and after lying awake for half an hour she put on the light and began to explore the royal apartments.

The bed could have slept five. It stood on a raised dais that was reached by three steps, so that she had no choice but to look down on the rest of the world, which didn't suit Dottie's ideas at all.

She examined a bookshelf, but its contents were in German, except for a few English magazines about horse breeding. It seemed she had nothing to help her through the long night.

Then she remembered Royal Secrets. She'd glanced at the magazine just long enough for Randolph to make his point, then stuffed it into her bag, where it still lay. She pulled it out and curled up in bed for a good read.

It was clearly designed for the semiliterate, which Dottie reckoned was why Brenda read it. Text was kept to a minimum, and pictures covered each page. Many of them were of Randolph, “the dispossessed heir.” In flashy accents the magazine described his life. Thirty-two years old, raised to inherit a throne, instructed in military matters, statecraft, diplomacy, then abruptly deposed when his parents' marriage was found to be bigamous.

There were pictures of Randolph as a child, accompanied by a coolly correct looking woman who turned out to be his mother. There he was in his teens, this time with his father, the late King Egbert III, the man who'd so cruelly let him down by making a secret marriage and forgetting about it. Studying his face, easygoing, amiable, weak but lovable, Dottie felt that if she met him in life she would have liked him, even though she, like Randolph, had to suffer for his way-wardness.

More pictures: Randolph in army uniform, in white tie and tails, Randolph attending parades, in the royal box at the opera, dancing with a beautiful woman in his arms. The woman was unusually tall, Dottie observed from the dismal depths of five foot one, almost tall enough to look her partner in the eye. The caption said she was Countess Sophie Bekendorf, Prince Randolph's fiancée.

Here the magazine outdid itself, describing the love story in throbbing accents.

Who can see into the hearts of these lovers, reared to occupy a throne together, now seeing their fortunes shattered? Once a great man in his country, Randolph is now no more than an illegitimate commoner. The Bekendorfs have always raised their daughters to be queens. Will Sophie stay true to the man she loves? Will he hold her to her bargain, or be strong enough to release her?

A strange feeling came over Dottie as she realized that the cardboard cutout in this purple prose was the flesh-and-blood man she'd met in Wenford. This was “Mr. Holsson,” who'd helped her make up the bed and laughed at his own awkwardness, who'd charmed her until her head spun.

And all the time he'd known something that she didn't. He'd deceived her. She'd been hurt and angry about that, but now a glimmer of understanding, even sympathy, came to her. What had it been like for him to come and find her, bring her back to Elluria, offer her the throne that was rightfully his? He'd done it smiling, with no hint of what it must have cost him, because it was his duty. For his people he'd sacrificed himself. For their sake he would be no less ruthless in sacrificing her.

Dottie yawned and rubbed her eyes. The clock said two in the morning, and she supposed she ought at least try to sleep. But when she'd turned out the light the room was filled with moonlight, and she couldn't resist going to the window and looking out over the great park that surrounded the palace. The moon picked out the tops of the trees and bushes, and turned the lake into a sheet of silver.

Then she became aware that two figures were walking under the trees beside the lake. One was a tall man whose familiar outline made Dottie grow very still. The other was a woman almost as tall as himself. Together they glided by the water, his arm around her waist, his head bent down toward hers. Dottie watched as they stopped suddenly and turned to each other. She held her breath while there was a sliver of light between the two faces. Then they began walking again, and were soon lost in the blackness of the trees.

Dottie turned away, feeling uncomfortably as though she'd pried into something that was none of her business. After all the new impressions that had assaulted her senses that day, this was one too many.

Leaving the window open, she began to explore again. She'd briefly glimpsed the bathroom before, but now she studied it properly. It was a magnificent creation with a thick cream carpet, elegant tiles and a circular bath sunk into the floor.

“Like Cleopatra,” she murmured.

She thought of the bathroom back in Wenford that she shared with five other people, with constant squabbles. The next moment she'd run the water and plunged in. It was bliss and she enjoyed herself for half an hour before emerging to dry herself off on a towel and look around for a bathrobe to snuggle into.

She couldn't see what she wanted, but she caught a glimpse of herself in the tall mirrored doors of the bathroom wardrobe. It was almost the first time she'd seen herself like this, full-length. Both her home and the place where she now lived were too crowded for dancing around naked.

“Hmm!” she murmured, turning slowly, while trying to look over her shoulder. “Pity I'm not taller, but I suppose I'll do.”

Not finding a robe, she pulled open one of the doors to the wardrobe. Here too, there was luxury, with the same thick carpet, its own soft lighting, and enough room for her to step inside. She did so, and walked the length, but it was completely empty. She sighed, and decided to go to bed.

Then she discovered a problem…

Randolph was awoken next morning by the sound of someone pounding on the outer door of his apartment. He was sleepily aware of the murmuring of voices, then his valet hurried into the room, his face tense.

“She's gone,” he said aghast. “The princess has vanished from her room.”

“Impossible,” Randolph said testily. “What were the footmen doing?”

“Sir, there have been four footmen outside Her Royal Highness's room all night. They swear she hasn't gone out that way. Nor can she have used the concealed door, because that seems to be locked from the other side.”

Randolph knew that this was true, having secured it himself the night before. He'd done the same with the concealed door in Mike's room. He was taking no chances.

He dressed hurriedly and almost ran to the state apartments. Once there he began to be seriously worried. The only possible escape was through the window, which, alarmingly, stood wide open. It was two floors up, and although he told himself that even Dottie wouldn't be crazy enough to escape that way, an inner voice whispered that he had much to learn about her.

He became aware of a flutter among the maids. “What is it now?” he demanded.

“Sir, there's a funny noise coming from the bathroom.”

Randolph strode into the bathroom and listened. From behind one of the huge mirrored doors came the unmistakable sound of soft snoring. He pulled open the door and they all stared down at the sight of the crown princess, naked as the day she was born, fast asleep on the floor.

Dottie opened her eyes and favored everyone with her sunniest smile. Randolph instantly tore off his jacket and arranged it around her, throwing a curt dismissal over his shoulder to the interested crowd.

“Dottie,” he said, controlling himself, “why are you sleeping on the floor in the-in here? I assure you, it isn't the custom.”

“Ouch,” she said, moving her stiff limbs gingerly. “Help me up.” She reached up her hands and he took them, drawing her gently to her feet while trying not to let the jacket become dislodged. It slipped and he only managed to keep it in place by pulling her against him. To his relief everybody had now left.

“Go and put something on,” he commanded in a tight voice. “I'll join you in a minute.”

He needed that time to himself to shut out the vision of her entrancing nakedness. She was daintily made and completely perfect, slender but rounded, with cheeky uptilted breasts that he had to fight to exclude from his mind. It was even harder to ignore the fleeting sensation of her enchanting little body pressed against his own.

Only when he was sure he was in command of himself did he join her. She was dressed in her own clothes, slacks and sweater, and for an appalled moment he had the impression that they'd become transparent. He took a deep breath.

Dottie seemed not to notice anything odd in his manner. She was too delighted over the arrival of her breakfast table.

“Oh lovely! I'm dying for a cup of tea.”

“Perhaps first you will tell me what happened?” He spoke coldly, for he was under a lot of strain. “Is this some old English tradition that Elluria will have to grow used to. Will sleeping on closet floors become the fashion in society?”

“Don't be silly. Last night I had a bath and went in there looking for a bathrobe, and the door clicked shut behind me. When I tried to open it I found it had locked itself, and I couldn't get any of the others open, either. I thumped and yelled but nobody heard me. I got a bit panicky, but then I realized there was no real problem. When people came in next morning I'd yell and they'd find me. So I settled down to sleep. What's happened to the tea?”

“There isn't any. It's coffee. But you didn't yell, did you?”

“Well, I would have done if I hadn't overslept. How do I get some tea?”

“I'll give orders for it. It's lucky for us all that you snore. Otherwise we wouldn't have found you.”

“How dare you say I snore!”

“If you didn't snore you could have been there all day. I was going to send out search parties.”

“I see. Bring her back, 'dead or alive.”'

“Just alive,” he snapped. “Dead would be no practical use.”

“You're all heart,” she complained.

“Dottie, don't push me. Right now you're talking to a man who's had a bad fright, and it hasn't left me in the best of moods.”

“And you're talking to someone who's spent the night on the floor wearing only her birthday suit.”

“There's no need to go into details.” he said desperately.

“It hasn't left me feeling that everything's tickety-boo either, especially,” she came to her real grievance, “since I can't get a cup of tea. What's the point of being a princess if I can't get a cuppa? I'd be better off in Wenford.”

“Where I'm strongly tempted to send you.”

“Can't be soon enough for me.”

In the seething silence that followed Randolph pressed a bell in the wall, and when Bertha appeared he said, “Her Royal Highness prefers tea with her breakfast. Please see to it immediately.”

“Yes, sir. Should that be China tea, Indian tea-”

“Just make sure that it's strong enough to stand the spoon up in,” Randolph growled, assailed by memories of breakfast in Wenford.

Bertha curtsied and departed.

Silence.

“Well, you got that right, about the spoon. I'll make an Englishman of you yet,” Dottie said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. From the look he threw her she knew she'd failed.

“Where's Mike?” she asked. “I think we should be eating together.”