Now she had to move. She’d said she’d go to dinner. She was dressed and ready. But outside was a castle. A castle!

How had Cinderella coped with collywobbles?

But then there was a knock on the door and Henri was there. The elderly butler was someone she was starting to recognise, and his smiling presence was steadying and welcome.

Her own private fairy godfather?

‘I thought I’d accompany you down, miss,’ he told her, his twinkling eyes letting her know that he recognised her butterflies and that was exactly why he was here. ‘It’s easy to get lost in these corridors.’ He surveyed her clothes with approval. ‘And if I may say so, miss, you look too lovely to lose.’

Jess smiled back, knowing if she was inappropriately dressed he would have warned her, but his smile said she was fine. He held out his arm and she hesitated a little and then stepped forward to take it. Yep, he was definitely a fairy godfather and she wasn’t letting go of his arm for anything.

‘You know, they’re just people,’ he told her as they started the long trek toward the distant royal dining room. ‘They’re people in trouble. Just like you.’

That initial time Jess had seen Raoul-the one time he’d entered her bedroom-she’d thought he was stunningly good-looking. Now, as Henri opened the dining-room door, she saw he was dressed for the evening, and good-looking didn’t come close.

The cut of his jet-black suit and his blue-black silk tie clearly delineated his clothes as Italian-designed and expensive. The crisp white linen of his shirt set off his deeply tanned skin to perfection. And his smile…

Good-looking? No. He was just plain drop-dead gorgeous, she decided. Toe-curlingly gorgeous.

Henri paused at the dining-room door, smiling, waiting for Raoul to react. And he did. He rose swiftly, crossed to take her arm from Henri’s, led her to her seat and handed her into it with care.