“I hope we’ll get a chance to become better acquainted once I’ve settled in,” I said.
“You’ll have to suffer my company sooner than that, I’m afraid,” she declared. “We’re scheduled to meet first thing in the morning.”
“Amelia is our Steward of Commerce,” Nathanial explained. “Her department is responsible for housing allocations and trade.”
“Then I look forward to our meeting,” I assured her. “I’m eager to start the process of integration.”
Nathanial rested a hand lightly on the small of my back. “That’s the plan.”
The gesture was as natural as it was intimate, and for just a heartbeat, I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t repulsed. I swayed closer, a subconscious violation, as if some part of my body recognized his aura. I’d never given up on Nathanial and had always known we’d find our friendship again. If I were being honest, I’d admit that fantasy had grown into something deeper than friendship over time. I’d never blamed him for his father’s sins.
The spell broke on the next heartbeat. I still did not blame Nathanial for the sins of his father. He had plenty of his own now.
The boy had grown into a King. Arrogant in his desire for power and control. Ruthless in taking anything he wanted. Any kind gesture or gracious overture was just another move in the game he played.
I shifted apart and looked around for an excuse to remove myself politely from the present company. “Oh, there’s Markus. I really must have a quick word with him. I won’t be long.”
It was close on midnight before we returned to the castle. I’d managed to avoid Nathanial for most of the evening, but there was no avoiding him now. He followed me into my bedroom.
“Don’t worry,” he drawled. “I’m not here to force myself on you.”
“You’ve done nothing but force your intentions on me.” I tugged the ribbon loose at my throat and tossed my cape onto the bed. “Why stop now?”
“Because this is one thing I won’t take before you are ready and willing to give.”
“Then you’re in for a long wait,” I said, unimpressed with the reprieve. Nathanial was drunk on his recent victories if he genuinely thought I’d ever go to his bed willingly.
“I’m a patient man.”
I spun about to find him right there, studying me with casual indifference. The usual combination of irritation and fury spiked and I fisted my hands at my sides, nails digging into my palms.
A sardonic grin cracked the hard line of his mouth, as if to say he saw straight through me and that’s what he thought of my high emotions.
“You didn’t want any of this,” he said. “I know that. But you are here now. Our people are united. We spoke about choices earlier, and now you have one to make. You can continue to fight this marriage or be a willing participant.” He ran his fingers through his hair, his head dipped as the silky lengths fell across his angular cheekbones. “This isn’t about you and me and our personal demons, Rose. This isn’t about we want, it’s about how best to serve our people.”
His words were designed to hit all the right buttons. I was pretty sure he was manipulating me, but that didn’t diminish the underlying truth.
I drew a long, slow breath, my gaze narrowing on this man who’d taken so much from me. The guarded look in his stone-grey eyes, the harsh angles of his shadowed jaw. He was harder, both inside and out, but it wasn’t always that stranger I saw when I looked. The memories slipped through, time and time again, and then his betrayal felt like an attack from an enemy within my own chest.
My demons were very personal indeed and the kind of hate I felt for him was a poison that would rot and destroy from the roots. Everyone would suffer, including the innocent people of this kingdom.
I’d never forgive Nathanial for what he’d done, but maybe I should learn to accept this was my life now. Maybe I didn’t have to hate him. Maybe I could just feel nothing for him at all.
“Okay,” I said at last. “I’ll try, but it’ll take time.”
“You have it.” His eyes creased with warmth as he slid his fingers along the line of my jaw and he leant in, so close, his breath skimmed my skin. “All the time you need.”
His mouth descended and I tensed to brace myself for another brief, fluttering touch of our lips. That’s how it started, then his hand cupped behind my head and his mouth hardened, his lips slanting possessively over mine, determined to capture my senses and stamp his desire. Some part of me responded, softened into him before I broke away in a burst of panic. My breaths felt hot and rushed, as if fighting off a sudden fever.
Nathanial stood back, thankfully giving me space. He regarded me thoughtfully, then gave a dry laugh and turned from me with a lightly murmured and somewhat bemused, “Goodnight, Rose.”
I watched him walk off, watched the door between our rooms close behind him. Only then did I blow out a disgruntled sigh. Navigating this marriage was going to be more treacherous than a battlefield.
- 12 -
A bright-eyed young man waited for me at the bottom of the stairs the following morning. He bent low at the waist and introduced himself as Jeremy Armstrong, my secretary.
“What on earth do I need a secretary for?”
“To manage your office and calendar of engagements, your grace,” he said with a small frown.
“I have an office?” I murmured, not entirely impressed. I certainly didn’t intend to spend much time in it. My gaze slid over the neatly attired man. “And I have you.”
“I know I’m young, your grace,” he said quickly, misreading the sceptical inflection in my tone. It was aimed at the job, not the man. “But I have trained under the King’s secretary for three years.”
“The King sent you to me?” My brow shot up. Apparently I was getting a secretary and Nathanial was getting a spy.
“Is that a problem?” Jeremy asked cautiously.
“Not unless you make it one,” I said. I couldn’t openly accuse him without exposing the cracks in my marriage, but I’d be keeping a sharp eye on him. “Very well, lead the way.”
Jeremy gave a conservative nod and smile and pointed us in the right direction. “Lady Hunt has already arrived for your morning meeting,” he said as we walked.
I picked up the pace. “Excellent.”
The Queen’s offices were tucked away behind the state reception hall, facing onto the winter courtyard and sheer rise of mountain that was a backdrop to the castle.
Jeremy’s frown returned as his eyes darted from the cluster of casual chairs by the window to the small desk in one corner. “I left Lady Hunt right here.”
The door to the inner chamber stood wide open and I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find our misplaced guest inside when I crossed to take a look. Amelia didn’t strike me as a lady to stay where she was put. I was surprised she hadn’t commandeered my desk. Instead, she’d seated herself by the window, her papers strewn on the low-slung table.
She glanced up with a warm smile. “I’ve rather made myself quite comfortable, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” I returned the smile, then glanced around as I walked deeper into the spacious room. The desk was solid oak, the top inlaid with red-stained leather. Wood panels lined the walls and a thick rug covered the flag-stoned floor. Sunlight flooded in from the courtyard beyond. It was stately, sparsely furnished but elegant, and a far cry from the map room in the cave.
Jeremy caught up to us, a linen bundle balanced on his outstretched arms. “Janine Marshland just delivered this. She said you were expecting it?”
“I was, indeed,” I said and sent a silent thank you to the woman. With all the excitement and festivities of last night, I hadn’t expected her to finish the capes so soon.
Jeremy deposited the bundle on my desk, then hovered in the doorway on his way out. “Should I have some refreshments brought in?”
I sent Amelia a questioning look.
“A pot of coffee would be great,” she said. “I need something t
o kick me awake after last night.” The moment we were alone, her smile turned wicked. “You and Nathanial left the party early.”
“It was close on midnight.”
“The pumpkin hour.” She draped an arm over the back of her chair, swinging more fully toward me. “The perfect hour for a bewitching.”
Her smile remained and her green eyes sparkled with amusement. I liked Amelia, but she was also Nathanial’s aunt by marriage and appointed to his inner circle. When it came to Lady Hunt, I had to guard against everything, including innocent mischief.
I wandered over and dropped into the chair across from her, my wits sharpened and my tone light. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“Nothing that Nathanial wouldn’t have taken delight in.”
A blush stained my cheeks. “We’re not having this conversation.”
“Hmm…” She tilted her head, watching me closely. “May I speak frankly?”
I leant in to brush aside some of the papers that were actually strewn over a large, inked map. “Can I stop you?”
“Probably,” she said. “You are Queen, after all.”
When I said nothing, she shifted forward in her seat. “Whatever else has gone before, don’t dismiss your husband without giving him a fair chance. Nathanial is a good man.”
I shrugged and bit my tongue on a dozen retorts my wonderful husband had earned fair and square.
Her gaze finally lowered, her attention turned to the task at hand. “This is an ordinance map of the town and surrounding farmlands,” she said. “I thought the visual would help while we discussed vacancies and available occupations.”
“Anna is my first concern,” I said. “She has a young son and is due with her second child in a couple of weeks. With her husband and father, there will be five of them and I’d like them settled in today.”
Amelia tapped a spot on the map. “We have a cotter’s cottage standing empty on one of the produce farms. It’s hard work, toiling the land, but the setting is idyllic and it’s not that far from town.”
“Anna helped tend our vegetable plot and her father was my stable master,” I said. “They’d be well-suited to a farming life. I’ll pass the idea by them and see how they feel.”
A light rap of knuckles on the door interrupted us, followed by Jeremy to serve the coffee. I’d never tasted coffee before, but the rich, smooth bouquet tingled my nostrils with familiarity. When I raised the mug to my lips and breathed in, the full-bodied aroma coated my veins with intense feelings of nostalgia, well-being and home. A memory of my mother infused me, a tangible, living thing. The silver pot on her bedside table. Her eyelashes sinking like half-moons and her contented sigh as she sipped on her morning coffee. Snuggling beneath the covers, wrinkling my nose against the overpowering smell.
We’d fled the castle so soon after her death, taken nothing of her with us. I’d never had an item of her clothes to breathe in. Never run my fingers over the cushions of her favourite armchair. Never walked into a room where a frozen fragment of her memory lingered. My father had always said such things were unimportant, irrelevant, but perhaps he was just protecting me from what I would never have.
Because this… I breathed in deep again, and tears misted my eyes. This felt important, something worth clinging onto.
“Rose?” Amelia said.
I blinked my eyes clear and took a deep sip of the coffee, gagged on the bitter taste and almost spat it out again.
Amelia laughed.
A look of alarm crossed Jeremy’s face. “Apologies, your grace.” He held a hand out for my mug. “I’ll return it to the kitchen and have them make a fresh pot. This one must have brewed too long.”
“Not to worry, thank you, Jeremy.” I lowered the mug, thoroughly disappointed at the deception. How can something that smells this good, taste so awful? “The coffee is perfect.”
He retreated with that worried frown he seemed to favour.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Amelia said. “I imagine pilfering coffee beans from the castle greenhouse wasn’t nearly as easy as raiding the outlying farms.”
I bit down on a smile at the brazen reference to my outlawish past. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.” She sipped on her coffee, watching me with a thoughtful expression.
I contemplated another try, then took a comforting sniff instead. The door opened again, this time without the knock, and Markus came in with a purposeful stride.
“Well, well,” Amelia drawled, “look what the cat dragged in.”
He stopped abruptly, eyes on her. “Dragged in by the High Chancellor, actually.”
A beat passed before Amelia turned to me. “You shouldn’t allow your servants to speak of you with such disrespect.”
I glanced from one to the other as I stood, curious at the sudden tension in the room. Had something transpired between them the night before? “Markus is not a servant.”
“Does he not serve you?” she quipped.
“That’s up to you,” I said to Markus, drawing him with me as I crossed to the desk and unwrapped the linen bundle. “I’d like to make you Captain of the Queen’s Guard.” I shook out one of the forest green capes. “What do you say?”
He cocked a brow at me. “There’s a Queen’s Guard?”
“There will be.” I waved a hand over the remaining stack of capes. “I have two more, you decide who’ll wear them.”
“Liam, once he’s mended,” Markus said decisively, as if he’d had hours to think it through. He took the cape from me and swept it around his broad shoulders. “And David. That’ll be my first order of business. I will ride to search for him. He’s probably at the caves.”
His first choice was self-explanatory. The second both pleased and baffled me. “David?”
“I heard what happened at River Grodden.” The look in his eyes darkened to a tempest. “If you hadn’t been so busy trying to save him, you might not have been taken captive.”
“That was my fault,” I said. “David shouldn’t have been there at all. You were right about that. He wasn’t ready.”
“That’s exactly why I’m taking him under my wing,” Markus said. “I’ll personally see to his training.”
“There are no wars left to fight, Markus.”
His mouth hitched. “Then why do you need a Queen’s Guard?”
“To keep you close to me, and doing what you do,” I replied honestly. “You’re a warrior, a soldier, and I doubt Nathanial or General Sunderland would welcome you back into the King’s army.”
“I should think not,” Amelia called out, inserting her opinion into our conversation. “Good men have been kicked out for far lesser crimes than treason.”
Markus’ gaze slid her way. His voice remained even, but I saw the strain harden his jaw. “By law, the power base in this kingdom has always been shared equally by the High Chancellor and the Crown. I chose a side, Amelia, I did not commit treason.”
She shrugged. “If that’s what it takes to help you sleep at night…”
“I sleep perfectly well, but then I’m more judicious with selecting my bedfellows than some others I’d care to mention,” he said pointedly.
I looked on with fascination and a growing sense of trepidation. Clearly, the history between these two went back farther than last night. They jabbed at each other like old adversaries.
Amelia yawned dramatically. “Jealousy is so utterly boring.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I do,” Amelia said. “But Nathanial does not. I’m sure he’d like to know exactly where your loyalties lie now that you’re back.”
“With the High Chancellor,” Markus returned without hesitation. “Always and only.”
For goodness sake. I placed a restraining hand on Markus’s arm, willing him to hold his tongue.
“Since the kingdom is once more united, that loyalty naturally extends to the King,” I informed Amelia, and went on before Markus said anything else
to make matters worse. “Would you excuse me for a minute? I’ll just walk Markus out.”
She waved us off with a devil-may-care smile.
I couldn’t blast his head off the moment we were outside the door. Jeremy was there, seated at his neat desk in the corner, looking at me with those wide, blue eyes.
I rattled off my list to him. Paper, ink, quill, Queen’s Seal…he finally ran out of efficiency on the soft wax. He went off to procure some and I was left alone with Markus.
“I can’t protect you from treason,” I told him.
He gave me a blank look. “Okay.”
I blew out a sigh. “Amelia is after your blood and you just gave her plenty of ammunition to carry back to Nathanial.”
“If she wanted my blood, she’d draw it herself,” he said. “She’d never go running to Nathanial about me.”
“You seem pretty sure about what she would and wouldn’t do.”
“I should be.” He shoved a hand through his hair, exhaling a long, heavy breath. “She’s my ex-fiancé.”
My brows arched sky high. “She’s your…? Wait, you don’t mean…?” I looked at him, digesting the news, reconciling my picture of Amelia with the woman Markus felt enjoyed the finer things in life too much to flee with him to the mountains. “She’s the woman you left behind?”
Markus grunted. “And apparently she’s still pissed about it.”
“Maybe with reason.” I shook my head at him. “I barely know Amelia, and even I can tell she’s fiercely loyal and passionate. She’d never choose fancy living over love.”
“I may have been economical with the truth,” he admitted. “She might have given up her creature comforts for me, but she would never give up her King. She’s a royalist to the bone.”
“Okay, I see that.”
“We all do,” Markus said, his voice hardening. “Look who she married.”
“Markus, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He shrugged. “Amelia and I both chose our loyalties over each other. That’s not love, it’s a marriage waiting to self-destruct. There’s nothing to regret.”
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