by Millie Adams
“All right, then,” he said, forcing his voice into a neutral space, not allowing the red flame of rage he felt at the very idea to take hold. “Take another lover first.”
“Why?”
“I told you, you are too innocent.”
“Eh. Innocence.” She said it like something filthy. “The way that they define innocence. Yes? This... Virginity.” She laughed. “As if a man’s anatomy is the bringer of knowledge and corruption. Men. They think far too highly of themselves. I saw my parents murdered. That is what a man stole from me. I have not been innocent for a very long time.”
Her words struck at a strange place inside of him, and he found that the real reason he wanted to turn away was not the differences between them, but that common bond.
For he did not wish to discuss that. Not ever. Did not wish to face the darkness inside of them that might just match.
He was more comfortable alone.
For the kind of man he was, it was better. It was the only way.
And he knew full well that it wasn’t entirely for her benefit that he turned away. Yes, he needed to protect her. Because there was no point, no point at all in pretending that what he was doing was to keep her safe if he became the one to cause her harm. But there were things that were better left uncovered inside of him. And protecting her came hand in hand with protecting himself. At least, in this instance it did.
She had been made victim enough. She didn’t need to be exposed to the demons, to the darkness that she seemed to have the power to unleash inside of him.
There were any number of women who didn’t call to that thing, that creature that lived down in the deepest recesses of his fractured soul. But he could feel Annick scraping at the bonds of it.
And he wouldn’t do that to either of them.
He wasn’t a good man. But he worked at not embracing the monster.
And so, he would walk away now. It was the best thing. It was the only thing.
“When is your coronation?”
“We have a week. And then we will announce our engagement.”
“Good.”
“What does that mean? Good?”
“We have a goal. We have a plan.” He looked her over. “I would thank you not to go off script again.”
“Oh,” she said. “Are my virginal fumblings too much for you to resist? I can’t think why else you would need to warn me away so.”
“It’s for your own good. Trust me.”
A small smile curved her lips. “This is the problem. I do not trust anyone.”
And he left with the distinct feeling that he had not succeeded in gaining the upper hand.
* * *
He was avoiding her. It was an irritation. Ever since their kiss in the ballroom, he had made himself scarce.
They had conducted lessons of a kind, but often they involved other people. He had brought in a body language expert; he had brought in stylists. And from that point on she had been surrounded by women who had spoken to her about being her true self and other things that seemed somewhat ridiculous to her.
None of this was actually about being her true self. It was all strange lies, a rallying cry she could not get her head around.
She did not need to be her true self.
She needed to be a woman who looked like she could be Queen.
It made a mockery of what she wanted, which was actually to know who she truly was. She wanted to understand. Wanted to be something other than a useful tool. She just couldn’t see a future where that was possible.
She had hoped. For a grim little while, she had hoped.
And that hope now felt sharp. Made her feel ill-used.
It would have been better to have no hope at all.
Still, she had succeeded in putting together a wardrobe that pleased her. The clothes that she had chosen were exactly as she had told Maximus she wanted them to be. They felt like armor.
The red dress that she would wear tonight on the eve of her coronation had long sleeves, a plunging neckline that revealed a wide V of pale skin. The fabric was stitched into clever panels that looked a bit like individual pieces of armor. It was a thick weighted fabric that held that shape even as she moved. And yet there was something incredibly feminine about it. And it made her feel strong.
She had been paraded around in soft white things for years. Her blond hair loose, as soft as everything else. Barely any makeup.
She looked in the mirror now. At the woman who would be Queen, and she was satisfied that it was a transformation.
Her hair was down, but slicked back, behind her ears and flowing down her back, a golden waterfall. Her lipstick was the same red as the dress, her eye makeup a pale bronze. She looked like she could just as easily lead troops into battle as she could dance the waltz.
And that seemed a triumph in and of itself.
At this event, she would also be introducing Maximus as her fiancé.
And she tried not to curl in on herself with embarrassment over everything that had transpired between them.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him.
It was just... She wanted him.
And the fact that he was so immune to her...
It was an interesting thing.
Being beholden to such...typical feelings. Embarrassment and jealousy over his past lovers. Insecurity about her own appeal as a woman. She had never worried about that. In fact, she had always hoped that she was not overly appealing as a woman. She didn’t want to fend men off. She didn’t want to be seen as beautiful. It was a dangerous thing. Just like her softness and her femininity was not something to enjoy.
So, feeling a different relationship to those sensations was...
It was all very strange.
As was the embarrassment.
She looked at herself in the mirror one last time and found that she could not feel embarrassed when she remembered what she looked like. Not tonight.
For tonight, she looked like everything she could hope to be. Strong, a warrior. And beautiful besides. Like something that Maximus would have to notice. Though she should not care if he did.
She lifted her chin high and walked out into the corridor. And there he was. Looking resplendent in a perfectly fitted suit. He was clean-shaven, his dark hair looking disreputable. As if someone had just run their fingers through it.
No wonder the media wrote such things about him. He always looked like he was both perfectly put together and like he had just exited a lover’s bed.
Even she took in those undertones from his appearance, and she could not recall having ever seen a person who had recently left a lover’s bed. She had certainly never left one.
“What?” he asked, lifting a brow. “You look angry.”
“I’m not.”
She frowned even deeper.
“And beautiful.”
“Well, thank you,” she said, smiling in a way that bared her teeth. “I do not know what I should have done if you, the man who has rejected my advances, did not find me beautiful. I might curl in on myself and implode into a glorious ash pile of sadness.”
“That is quite acidic, even for you.”
“Perhaps I feel acidic. But here we are, ready to make our debut to the world as a couple. So I suppose we had better look as if you’re not disgusted by my touch.”
That flame flickered in his eyes, and she felt echoing tension inside her in response.
“Who said your touch disgusted me?” he asked.
“You recoiled from me quickly enough last week, and besides, you have avoided being alone with me ever since.”
“I’m not here to prop up your self-esteem.”
“No, indeed not.”
“Which means I should not answer your provocations,” he said.
“Why should you now?” she said dar
kly. “You haven’t before.”
He took hold of her wrist and turned her to face him. “You should thank God I have not answered your provocations,” he said. “And that I have kept barriers between us.”
“Right. Because you are protecting me? From the things that I want?”
“From distractions. From harm.”
“You forget,” she whispered. “You forget what I have been through.”
“I don’t forget. It’s why I won’t do anything.”
They quit speaking after that. Instead, they walked toward the ballroom, and when they arrived at the door, he took her arm. But no sooner.
Everything that happened after that was a blur. They and their engagement were announced by her right-hand woman, her adviser. And the ripple that went through the room was undeniable.
The stir that they created was unlike anything Annick had ever experienced before, and she found it difficult to separate her response to what was happening around them and to touching him.
Mostly, she was angry. That no matter how she put this armor on, no matter how she worked to ready herself for this, no matter that it was her plan, she still felt...
She still felt like a woman who had been imprisoned for the better part of a decade. A woman who didn’t actually know enough about life to understand what she was feeling. And now she had announced her engagement to this man. Announced her intent to make him King.
There was nothing real here, no feeling. No love.
She was always an emblem, never a human.
Even in this. In her impending marriage.
She had not given thought to marriage, and then it had seemed as if a marriage to him would be a solution and not a lance of pain in her chest. Not a further bit of recognition that she was only now, and would always be, sad little Annick whose trappings mattered, never her heart.
She would have to make a speech. She was being propelled up to the podium. It was what she had known would happen. She had words prepared, but suddenly she wasn’t sure if they would come out right.
“Good evening,” she said. “I thank you all for taking the time to come here for my coronation. It is officially a new day for our country. For too long we were kept under the rule of an oppressive regime. And many of you felt as if I may have played a part in it. But over the last year, I hope that what I have done is earn your trust. And now, as I prepare to ascend the throne as Queen, I offer you this assurance. That I have chosen a King, who will rule as Kings have done here for centuries. Maximus King is just the sort of modern man you can trust as your ruler. He will be fair. I will carry out the legacy of my family, not ruling in the same way as my father, but hopefully realizing the progress that would have been made had things gone as they should have. And I will have Maximus, and his influence and strength to guide Aillette. He will bring with him the modern sensibility that many of you would like to see enacted here. While providing the traditionalists with the figurehead they wish to see. He will also bring business acumen. And we have been in discussions for how to increase industry here and strengthen the reserves of this country, and the riches of its people. It is a new dawn for us. A new day. And I am happy to ascend the throne as Queen Annick, with King Maximus by my side.”
She nodded, and the room erupted into applause. Maximus stood beside her, tall and strong, and saying nothing. And for once, it felt like her plan had worked.
It was just that inside she still felt a little bit broken. A little bit lost. Uncertain about what to do. But he was there, and he was steady. And nothing about him seemed uncertain at all. And so there was that. There was that. Which was a great blessing.
She didn’t understand herself. That she was irritated that he provided her with the strength that she had wanted him to provide her with. That the people had reacted to him with such great satisfaction. Which proved that he was what she needed all along. But she’d known that. Why should she be upset about it?
Because somewhere deep down she had hoped she would be enough, she supposed.
Because what she had begun to tell him days ago was that part of her had hoped that she could overcome her people’s doubts by being a woman who led with her heart. Who found a level of honesty with her people that those before her had not.
Because she wanted to be different, and she realized that, given the circumstances, she had to be the same.
That she could find a balance, find some progress, but she wouldn’t be able to be fully her own person, not really.
Because things were too tentative. And it was more important she looked solid than that she be loved.
And it was the source of her dissatisfaction now.
Ridiculous.
But then, she felt slightly ridiculous.
To care so deeply about this now, when she’d been handed what she needed to be protected. When he was living no more authentically than she.
He was helping her. Shouldn’t that be enough?
“Shall we dance?”
And she didn’t have a chance to respond. And truly, there was no response to make other than yes. For he was now her fiancé in public, even if he was still her adversary in private.
And there was nothing she could do about it. It was a scheme of her own making, a plan she had seen as a necessity.
You have to see it through. Your feelings don’t matter.
Her feelings never mattered.
There was no use becoming morose about it now.
He took her in his arms, and she found herself returning to that floating sensation. That strange place where she was caught between memory, dreams and reality. Suspended between all three.
And held fast only by him.
She felt unbearably fragile in that moment when she should’ve felt strong.
She was doing it. Her plan was working. And yet she felt reduced.
Yet she felt...
And she could see it, hear an old song rising up inside of her. One that she tried not to remember.
Her father’s soft voice singing as he danced her around the ballroom.
When the memories started, she could not stop them. No matter how hard she tried.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE PULLED HERSELF free of his arms. “I must excuse myself,” she said, smiling, because people were watching. The whole gilded, glittering ballroom was filled with people, like it had not been since she was a girl. And tomorrow, she would be crowned Queen. And all of it was simply too much.
She remembered this room full of her family.
And they weren’t here.
She remembered dancing now. Dancing with her father.
As she never would again.
“Excuse me,” she said again, and took as many dignified steps out of the ballroom as she could manage. Before she started to run. To flee out into the garden, praying that the night sky that enveloped her now would simply swallow her whole. Open up and pull her into the black velvet, cover her with the diamond stars. Conceal her. Conceal this weakness from her people. Even from herself.
She had thought, given a year of time away from everything, that she would be stronger. That she would be braver. That she would be prepared to cope with all of this, but instead, the changes that were being instigated around her only reminded her of everything she’d lost. She did not feel a whole year advanced from her captivity. Rather, she felt like she had been brought back to the stage when she had been taken. When her world had been shattered.
She ran down the garden path until she saw a stone bench. Then she flung herself over the bench, curling around the stone and weeping.
She never wept.
Queen Annick of Aillette could not afford to show such weakness.
And so she’d hidden it. Hidden it because what other choice did she have?
And then she felt strong, warm hands on her waist, lifting her up off the gr
ound, pulling her from the depths of her misery. And she fought. Like a hissing, spitting cat, because how dare he? She was angry. And she was upset. Devastated. And half of it was his fault. She did not deserve to be pulled out of her darkness. Rather, she wanted to pull him down into it.
And so she fought him. Until he grabbed her wrists, steadying her, pinning her against his chest. He moved her arms down, fixing them low at her back, her breasts brought up against the wall of his chest.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I hate you,” she said, seeing him suddenly as the emblem of everything that was bad. “I don’t feel strong. This was supposed to make me strong. I feel a failure. That I need you to stand beside me to keep me safe. That I am not enough. That I do not magically know everything, that I cannot stand on my own strength because it is not there. That I feel alone in a ballroom full of people, where the ghosts feel more real than those who actually stand next to me. I feel like a twelve-year-old girl who was shut away, locked in time, and yet I know I am not a girl. Because a girl would not want the things that I do. With you. I cannot even have that. I cannot lead my country without you, and I cannot stand to be with you.”
“I am an enemy of your own making, Annick,” he said, his voice rough. “Your anger with me is not my fault.”
“It is,” she hissed, wiggling against him. “You were supposed to help. You were supposed to help, and instead you’ve made me even more confused. And you make me feel all these things. Me, I do not like it.”
She could feel her grasp on her English slipping as emotion rose inside of her. “This was supposed to be a special night for me, and it is nothing. Nothing but... Nothing but a reminder. It is all wrong.”
“Do you know what this is?”
“What?”
“Grief,” he said, his voice a fractured pane of glass. “It’s grief. You’ve been locked away for so long that you never got to have it. You had to protect yourself. You had to save yourself. But all those memories that you put away are out here. And believe me, I get it.”
“Why? Because you too have grief?”
“Yes. And because I too have been running from it.”