A Ring to Secure His Crown

by Kim Lawrence

  The disembodied question drew a sharp laugh from her. All right? So now he was concerned after throwing her into an emotional tsunami, after making her question things that she had never questioned? He had made her want what she could not have ever.

  Suddenly the fight drained out of her, as she realised she would never be happy, or at least content, until she let go of that tiny grain of irrational hope that the marriage wouldn’t really happen, that there would be a last-minute reprieve.

  She just had to accept it and not fight, not want more.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m going in. Luis is expecting me to join him.’

  ‘I’ll see you in.’

  He was closer.

  ‘So suddenly you’re the perfect gentleman,’ she mocked unsteadily.

  Sebastian’s eyes had adjusted to the light and her face was a pale blur, her body less distinct. The compulsion to reach for her in the darkness was so strong the effort of fighting it made him quiver like someone with a fever. ‘I deserved that, but you deserved a better proposal.’

  ‘Not everyone has your way with words. I suspect the only proposals you have any working knowledge of are of the indecent variety.’

  ‘I may not know much about duty, but you have now agreed to marry my brother so you are totally out of bounds. Even to a total sleaze like me, so you can stop looking at me like that.’

  ‘You don’t know how I’m looking at you.’

  ‘I know those big hungry eyes. Just go inside while you still can.’

  She shivered, a thrill of excitement shimmering through her body at the message in his dark voice. ‘What happens if I don’t go inside?’

  ‘You are killing me, you know that, don’t you?’

  She felt a tide of hot shame wash over her. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Me too.’ He heard the swish of her dress as she turned and ran away in the darkness. ‘See you at the church, cara,’ he called softly after her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SEBASTIAN ARRIVED AT the cathedral early. The place was empty but for a group putting the final touches to the flower arrangements that filled the massive space with the overpowering fragrance of orange blossoms.

  He hated the pervasive smell but it was better than the alternative—being outside for the orgy of meet-and-greet, hand-wringing, air-kissing formality to be endured when the guests ranged from obscure European royalty to heads of state and the elite of Europe.

  For one day the eyes of the world were focused on Vela Main, though not ones in helicopters. The capital had been designated a no-fly zone for the duration. The security was so extreme that he was surprised the sun got to shine without a permit. This was a day that might have looked to have been miraculously thrown together in two weeks, but in reality it had been planned in the minutest of details for the past five years. The only thing they’d needed was a date for the wedding machine to swing into action. There was a contingency plan for everything, including the possibility that the bride might have put on a hundred pounds or was six months pregnant.

  The only point of friction was the presence of the television cameras. Just how much did they want to share with the world’s media? How much of an air of mystery did they want to retain? In the end a compromise had been reached—it had been decided the cameras would not be allowed to film the service itself. A small blessing considering they would film everything else.

  His head lifted from his contemplation of the floor and his private reflections on the general awfulness of weddings, and this one in particular, when a side door closed behind the last of the florists.

  Was it the silence or the atmosphere? He had no idea, but suddenly there was no hiding place for the thoughts that he had been running from. The ones he had refused to acknowledge.

  Suddenly the thing he was running from was right there, an inescapable fact, the reason he had moved heaven and earth not to be here today, had actually invited his father’s wrath. The fact of the matter was that he could barely look at his brother without wanting to knock him down. He was jealous.

  Sebastian believed all things to be transitory but that didn’t alter the fact that he wanted Sabrina. It actually went beyond wanting; it was a yearning! Hell, he had less control than he’d had as a hormonal teenager!

  Was there some perversity in his DNA that made him want the things he could not have? And then, when forced to recognise it, going out of his way to prove to himself and the world that he didn’t want it?

  It was a lot less painful than being told you couldn’t have something.

  His wry smile was tinged with sadness as his father’s voice drifted into his head, not just the words but the intonation preserved perfectly in his memory from years ago. He’d just turned fifteen and his brother seventeen...

  ‘Sebastian, you will not go to the briefing next week with your brother.’

  He could recall the kick-in-the-gut feeling; he had been hoping for a paternal pat on the back.

  ‘He will ask you and you will say no. Do you understand?’

  Sebastian hadn’t understood. Luis had begged him to go with him in the first place, after the first weekly briefing he’d attended had, as he’d gloomily told his younger brother, been a nightmare. It had gone on for hours, been so boring that Luis had almost fallen asleep, but he hadn’t been able to because the senior palace officials had kept asking him what he thought.

  Luis had thought it a massive waste of time.

  Sebastian had loyally tagged along, expecting the worst, and it was true that some of the discussions had gone over Sebastian’s head, but the complexities discussed had not intimidated him, and he had been a lot less reticent than Luis when asked for an opinion.

  His father had come into the room halfway through and sat as a silent observer. Hadn’t he seen how well he’d done?

  ‘These meetings are for your brother. They’re part of his training. One day he will be King, our people will look to him. He needs to stand on his own feet. Do you think he did that today?’

  ‘No, Father. Actually I’d prefer to play cricket anyway. Poor Luis, I expect he’d prefer that as well.’ He’d made himself believe it because lying to himself was better than envying his brother.

  Well, he hadn’t been playing cricket for the last two weeks, but he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into enjoying the pleasures his brother could not. He had made a point of being photographed falling out of exclusive night spots in several time zones.

  The media had loved it: headlines spoke of his debauchery; there had been two kiss-and-tell stories that he had been asked to confirm or deny. The truth was, neither of the enterprising ladies in question had made it as far as his bed, and neither had any of the other women snapped falling out of nightclubs and climbing into the back of limos with him.

  Sebastian had slept solo, despite the seething sexual frustration that dominated his every waking moment.

  The more he tried not to think of Sabrina, the more she dominated his thoughts. Her face, her lips, her body. Under normal circumstances the solution would have been simple, but, as taking her to bed was not an option, instead he focused on her faults, calling her dedication to duty an inclination towards martyrdom, her innocent air artificial, her stubbornness infuriating. But the exercise simply made him more aware of his own faults—the difference being his were real.

  She was a person ruled by duty and he was a person ruled by selfishness.

  It would have made life a lot easier if he could have seen what Luis appeared to when he looked at Sabrina. The problem was he didn’t see what Luis saw—in fact his brother’s blindness was another source of frustration. The man had been handed a gift and he acted as if he were some sort of victim. There was a black irony—his brother did not appear to really want her, while he... He shook his head. It really didn’t matter what he wanted; the bottom line was h
e couldn’t have it.

  ‘Sir?’ So deep in his own thoughts, Sebastian hadn’t heard the door open.

  He turned his head and saw one of his brother’s newer aides standing there. He read nothing into the man’s worried frown. For all he knew impending doom might be the man’s natural expression.

  ‘Your brother asked that I should deliver this to you by hand.’

  Sebastian looked at the handwritten envelope the man was holding out to him.

  ‘Thank you.’ A note from Luis? When he would be here soon? He glanced at his watch and realised that his brother should be here now.

  Refusing to acknowledge the stirrings of unease in the pit of his stomach, Sebastian slid a finger under the seal and withdrew the single piece of paper.

  By the time you read this I will be married. It is better that you don’t know where I am.

  Sebastian’s eyes moved rapidly over the handwritten lines, his emotions shifting from disbelief to shock to fury.

  White under his tan, a pulse beating like a sledgehammer in his temple, he got halfway through the rest of the letter before a growl escaped the confines of his throat. He screwed the paper up and tossed it away and stood there, eyes closed, his breath dragging in and out. Only respect for where he was keeping the litany of curses inside his head as he clawed his way back to some sort of control.

  His brother had skipped town!

  Sebastian’s gaze went to the altar, where moments before he had imagined his brother kneeling beside a veiled Sabrina.

  He felt a stab of guilt. He had wanted it not to happen and now it wasn’t, but the cost of his wishes coming true was Sabrina’s humiliation.

  Sabrina! Did she know? Had his brother sent her a handwritten note too? He was suddenly ready to punch his brother, except Luis was somewhere else, with the love of his life, leaving the rest of them to pick up the pieces.

  He bent to pick up the rejected missive, uncreased the paper before he read it again, skimming over the initial sentences.

  Better that he didn’t know? Better for you, thought Sebastian, because if I did know I would follow you and throttle you, brother!

  He skimmed over the next section, which basically praised and defended the woman his brother had eloped with.

  Gretchen is a marvellous woman—you’d love her—but people will tell you things about her. She’s had a hard life...the drugs were her escape from abuse. She has never tried to hide anything from me.

  Pity, Sebastian thought, directing his silent response to his absent brother, you cannot say the same! But of course there had been clues. It no longer seemed incomprehensible that Luis had seemed determined to find fault with Sabrina when clearly she was everything a man could wish for.

  His brother, his dutiful brother, had been clinging to his forbidden love. Ironic really, he’d been guilty as hell for having feelings he wasn’t allowed for his brother’s bride while his brother had been pining for another woman. Presumably more than pining.

  I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but in the end it was simple. I can’t live without her. By now Dad will have received my letter of official abdication. He’ll need you.

  I’ve told him, Seb, that I’m not his biological son. I hope that will make it easier for him. For both of you.

  I know you never understood how I’d begun to forgive him for the way he treated Mother, but I didn’t forgive him. I forgave myself for not being able to protect her—you never did.

  Abdication. The word jumped out at him from the page as Sebastian felt a totally unexpected stab of sympathy for his parent. His father was going to be devastated. Luis had always been the real son, the one he had put all his hopes for the future in.

  Everything I do is an act, it always has been, and I can’t do it any more. I would have made a terrible king, it always should have been you, and now it is.

  You can stop pretending that you can’t do everything better than me. I’ve been pretending. But so have you, Seb.

  Sebastian’s chest heaved even after he had read the words. He hardly took in the full implication of his brother’s letter, not realising even now that his own life was about to change for ever. Instead what struck him was the omission in the note.

  Sebastian turned the page over, unable to believe that his brother had not spared a single sentiment of regret about Sabrina, the woman he had left very publicly standing at the altar.

  * * *

  ‘Highness.’

  Sebastian turned to find one of his father’s private secretaries standing in the place that had moments earlier been occupied by his brother’s staffer.

  ‘Your father wishes to speak to you.’

  Sebastian got to his feet. ‘He knows?’

  The man tipped his head.

  ‘And how is he?’

  ‘He is most...distressed.’

  * * *

  The last occasion he had been summoned to his father’s offices Sebastian had been left to cool his heels in an outer office for half an hour. On this occasion the doors to his father’s rooms were open and he was shown straight in.

  Sebastian struggled to contain his shock. King Ricard had always worn his sixty years comfortably, and, other than the thickening around his middle and the grey showing in his neatly trimmed beard, he looked much as he had done twenty years ago, but he seemed to have aged visibly since the previous evening.

  ‘Luis—’

  ‘I no longer have a son called Luis, and you have no brother.’ The King brought his fist down on the desk, glared at his younger son then turned away but not before Sebastian, who had initially stiffened at the autocratic decree, had seen the sheen of tears in his father’s eyes.

  Hell, the old man had lost his favourite son and the legacy he wanted to leave in one fell swoop! He wanted to be remembered by history as the King who had reunified the island, and he could see that dream slipping away.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  His attempt at sympathy was greeted with a pithy retort. ‘A bit late in the day to show concern for my well-being. But how I am feeling is not important. The future of our line, my legacy, the reunification is what is important. You and he, you connived...you knew he was not my son. I suppose you both thought it was a revenge for your mother. I know you both blamed me...that woman... I loved her!’

  The last anguished words seemed ripped from him, leaving a shocked silence in their wake.

  Sebastian had thought that this day couldn’t hold more shocks and now this?

  ‘Yet, you made her miserable.’ Luis was right: of all the things their father had done, that was the one that Sebastian had never been able to forgive. As for forgiving himself, how could he? Why should he? He had watched his mother die, slowly, by inches and had been helpless to stop what was happening. He should have been stronger.

  ‘Do you think I was happy? She never loved me. I knew that. I was willing to turn a blind eye to the affair and then it was out and I... None of this is important now. What is important is saving our plans. Reunification is the only thing that matters. We must think ahead—delay would be disastrous.’

  ‘The Summervilles—have they been told?’

  ‘The Duke is furious, and I don’t blame him.’

  ‘How is Sabrina?’

  His father’s heavy brows knitted. ‘Who?’

  His jaw clenched. ‘The bride.’

  ‘Oh, well, upset, I assume. I doubt if she knew about this woman so it must have come as a shock.’

  The implication took a few moments to sink in. ‘But you did?’

  An expression of irritation flicked across the older man’s face. ‘Do you think I do not always have eyes on you both?’ he sneered. ‘I know you did not actually have an affair with that married woman last year, though you seemed content to allow the world to think the worst o
f you,’ he observed drily.

  Sebastian gave an impatient shrug; none of this was news to him. ‘This isn’t having your spies report back on my love life so you can stay ahead of the game. You knew that Luis was in love with someone else and still you pushed him into marriage.’

  The condemnation made no impact on the King. ‘I knew he’d had an affair with a woman with an unsavoury past. I asked him to stop. I knew he had slipped,’ he admitted. ‘He actually wanted to tell the... Sabrina, but we talked him off the ledge.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Around two years.’

  Sebastian sat down in a chair. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘Unlike you, he was discreet.’

  Sebastian’s head lifted. ‘So it’s all right so long as no one finds out? You pushed him into marriage. Did it never strike you as unfair to—?’

  His father flashed him a look from under lowered brows. ‘He promised me it was over and I believed him.’

  Sebastian’s anger vanished as his father swayed, the pallor of his face acquiring a grey tinge that sent a slug of fear through Sebastian. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ The older man sank into a chair, shrugging off his son’s helping hand irritably. ‘I am not about to hand over my crown any time soon.’

  ‘I don’t want your crown.’

  The King gave a laugh that ended with a wheeze. ‘Are you so sure about that? You were always the one that people looked to. Your brother... No, you have no brother. I have no son...the bastard is gone!’ He broke off, gasping as his lips turned bluish.

  ‘I’m going to call a doctor.’ Before he could raise his voice to call for the help that would undoubtedly be stationed outside the door, his father grabbed Sebastian’s arm to get his attention. The fact that his hand was shaking shocked Sebastian in some way more than every other shock the day had delivered.

  ‘No, just get me the bottle out of that drawer.’

  Sebastian opened the drawer. ‘This?’

  His father nodded. ‘One under my tongue.’ After a moment he nodded. ‘That’s better.’