Innocent Surrender: The Virgin's Proposition / The Virgin and His Majesty / Untouched Until Marriage. Robyn Donald

go fishing on Lake Isar in Mont Chamion. We had our own little hideaway there, a little rustic cabin my great-grandfather built.”

      “No castle?” he teased.

      She shook her head, smiling, but her expression softened and she got a faraway look in her eyes. “About as far from a palace as you can get and still have indoor plumbing. Grandfather had that put in,” she told him. “We loved it there—Mama, Papa and I—because we could be ourselves there. Not royal, you know?”

      He didn’t, of course. Not about the “royal” bit. But Demetrios nodded anyway because since he’d become famous he’d learned all about the need to get away.

      “It was the perfect place,” Anny went on. “Quiet. Solitary. Calm. I felt real there. Myself. My family. No distractions.”

      “Except the fish.”

      She grinned. “Except the fish.”

      “I presume you brought bait for the fish there—which is going to be something of a problem here.” He nodded at the bare hook on the end of her line.

      “Sometimes we did,” she agreed. “Sometimes, though,” she added saucily, “we used whatever was handy. Like now.” And she dug into her pocket and pulled out a tin of sardines she’d found below.

      Demetrios laughed. “If you catch a fish with that, princess, I’ll cook it.”

      She laughed, too. Then she baited her hook and cast the line over the side. It was less than half an hour later that he heard her say, “I got one!”

      It was a sea bass, Demetrios told her. Spignola. “Good eating,” he said, taking if off the hook and heading down to the galley.

      “I can cook it,” Anny protested.

      But he insisted. Once they moored the boat for the evening, she stayed on deck and kept fishing, he baked it with a bit of olive oil, lemon, tomatoes, and basil.

      “Nothing fancy. Just something I learned at my mother’s knee,” he said when he brought the plates up on deck. He’d torn up greens for a salad and had two beer bottles tucked under his arm.