He cursed himself. That ship’s gun should have drowned him.
The trumpets at the ballroom doors blared, and Janez hastily wiped the grim thoughts from his mind as he turned to watch with a small smile and a respectful air. The great wooden doors swung open, and the announcer boomed the news—His Majesty King Sigurd had graced them with his presence. When the crowd parted, Janez would get his first glimpse of the woman he was to marry.
King Sigurd was an old man—the pure whiteness of his beard, and the great volume of his gut, testified to that—but his wife, a pretty little queen on his arm, was younger by a full thirty years or more. They made a perfectly mismatched couple, the great white bear and the lithe dark lady, yet their smiles and the easy rest of her hand upon his arm seemed so genuine that Janez envied them at once and fought to keep it from his face. Behind them trailed three young ladies, fans aloft, and Janez at once set about watching them.
“My dear Queen,” Sigurd boomed in a voice that could have shaken icebergs from the land and unleashed them upon the sea. “A splendid show, quite splendid. And ah, Prince Janez. A pleasure to meet you at long last, Your Highness.”
He extended a hand, quite unlike the custom of Janez’s people, and Janez smiled through having his fingers crushed.
“And you, King Sigurd. I trust your travel was easy. I must defer all praise for the show to my mother, I’m afraid, and extend my apologies for my absence the last few days. Your Highness,” he added, bowing to kiss Queen Elena’s gloved hand.
“Kept busy with the war effort, no doubt!” King Sigurd boomed. The easy chuckle that rolled out of him caused the crowd to close, and a gentle hubbub to strike up around them. The orchestra began to play lightly. “My ambassadors tell me you are a naval man.”
“I am.”
“Excellent. Can’t be abiding these shy fellows who never leave their libraries,” Sigurd rumbled. Janez murmured an agreement. “Please, pass my compliments to your brother.”
“Of course. He extends his own to you and looks forward to your company at the Summer Palace when the weather eases.”
Rumbles of wouldn’t that be nice followed, under a thin veil of bartering— Sigurd would only do such a thing, Janez knew quite well, if an engagement was reached out of tonight.
“May I introduce my daughters,” Sigurd continued, and for all his turgid obesity, love of warfare, and affection for perhaps inappropriately young brides, his chest swelled with a perfectly genuine affection. He beamed like a jolly baker when he swept his arm aside and beckoned the three young ladies to his side. “Brigitte, Alessandra, and Carolina.”
Janez bowed, already studying. They curtsied, doing quite the same.
In physical appearance, they were much alike. Short, curvaceous, much taken from their mother in their curled hair and dark skin. They seemed as polished as he felt—but Sigurd was famously soft on his offspring, and it wasn’t difficult to see past the fans and perfectly fixed smiles to the women beneath.
The oldest, Brigitte, was utterly disinterested, perhaps to the point of having another in the wings that her father knew nothing about. She stared back at Janez with a frown over a closed fan, a challenge in that stormy gaze. She promised a fight if he tried to take her hand; she promised anger and misery on both sides, and perhaps even the will and power to ensure no alliance would be found there. Janez dismissed her mentally at once—she either was repulsed by his presence, or infatuated by another’s, and he’d no desire to tie himself to one who actively didn’t want him.
Next stood Alessandra, perhaps the prettiest by a slim margin—and Janez knew that look the moment it caught his eye. She bit her lip and smiled. Dropping her eyes, she curtsied so low that her dress threatened to slip entirely. She, too, shut her fan, yet dragged it through the circle of finger and thumb in a manner entirely provocative. Had Janez been the same man, cut loose and emotionally free as the wind—as he’d been when he’d offered himself as the tool through which to gain Sigurd’s help—he’d have ended the matter then and there, and flirted back with abandon. But she wanted something thrilling. She was excited by the entire affair—either she wanted a man for the night or a man for every night hence. Either way, Janez knew it spelled danger. She’d either want others, too, and rumour would spread like wildfire in mere months, or she’d want him alone, and place Held in harm’s way to secure him.
But Carolina, the youngest, was no absolution. She regarded him shyly, barely meeting his eyes and withdrawing her hand from his kiss as soon as was permissible, and then hid behind her open fan. She couldn’t have been more than a few years younger than he, yet she shrank like a little child still believing boys to be mucky creatures best avoided. Like her sisters, she was a very beautiful woman, catching the eye of all the men in the room—yet, unlike them, she appeared to wish to sink through the floor and vanish entirely.
Janez mentally sighed. He’d let her be. The choice, it seemed, was clear.
Alessandra helped it along, too. After only a minute or two more of conversation, she passed off her fan to her older sister and dropped a hint so clear it was almost indecent.
“A princess does like to dance—would you indulge me, Janez?”
The bold use of his name caused Janez to automatically agree, unsure of what to make of her. A hopeless romantic, or the excitement and danger of a loaded gun? He set his glass aside, took her delicate hand in his own, and indulged.
She was a fine dancer, energetic and graceful, and very beautiful when a fine flush rose from her breast, darkening her skin even further. He led her through three dances before releasing her waist, only to find her fingers tightening on his other hand, and her eyes glancing towards the great doors to the ballroom.
“I have always wanted to see the gardens,” she said. “Father says the Winter Palace is famed for its gardens.”
It was famed for the great glass greenhouses within them, not for their beauty, but Janez bowed and offered his arm.
“My lady may get cold,” he warned. “The gardens run down to the lakes by the mountains, and are cool after sunset.”
“I’m sure another dance would warm me,” came the sunny reply, and he led her down the stone steps without a murmur, again not sure of her motive. Oh, skin-to-skin, he was sure. But in what manner?
As the lights fell away, she turned upon him in the shadows of the fountains and kissed him boldly upon the mouth. Her hands were tiny at his waist, her body firmly against the front of his in a manner not at all that of a princess, or some demure innocent. She kissed with intent. Not a year ago, he’d have met it with his own eagerness.
Not a year ago, he’d have thanked his lucky stars to be palmed off to such a vivacious bride.
But this was not last year. Gently, he took her by the shoulders and held her at a little length.
“You do not want me, Your Highness?”
“I would not dream of—”
“I would dream,” she interrupted and bit her lip. “I am no stranger to what men like, and you are far more handsome than I dared to hope. I would keep you satisfied.”
He frowned.
“I am not a beast to be tamed.”
“Not ever?” she asked. “Brigitte is so sour, and Carolina is a little girl and wants nothing of marriage and sex.”
He’d never before heard a highborn woman say the word and blinked in mute surprise. The only feminine voice he could recall uttering it was Rosa, and even she would breathe for him to love her. Oh, men had asked for sex, men spoke far more crudely, but it sounded almost foreign from Alessandra’s pretty lips.
“Think on it?” she murmured, pressing back against him. Her hand cupped him, and he felt himself stir almost automatically. “I have the Anderssen rooms. If you were to come to me tonight, I would welcome you. All of you. Alliance and marriage, or none, should you wish neither.”
And then she was gone, slipping back up the path to the palace, leaving Janez standing dumbfounded in the gardens.
He had to be h
onest with himself—if not for Held, he might have been tempted. If he’d been untethered by the emotion that clutched at his chest whenever those pale eyes lifted to his own, he might have followed her. Might have strayed to the wrong room tonight and asked for her hand in the morning in the manner more befitting both their stations.
But Held’s whisper, that soft urge to kiss him, had infected Janez’s skin and soul, making him uneasy at the touch of Alessandra’s lips upon his own.
How was he supposed to marry her—or indeed any of them—and sire children and potentially a new dynasty for Sigurd’s kingdom, if the very touch of her lips and hand upon him left him cold?
Her words sparked in the back of his mind, and he turned to head back into the light. Carolina. She’d referred to her as a child, uninterested in such things. But the princess was twenty-five if she was a day, and quite beyond the first bloom of womanhood. How uninterested was uninterested, Janez wondered, and he decided to seek her out.
She was easy to find by her unease—Janez caught her hiding behind her fan again, an admiral’s son loudly inviting her to dine with him at his father’s estate in the spring. Janez slipped smoothly to her side with a fresh glass of wine and a polite smile. Over the heads of some dancing lords and ladies, he could see Sigurd watching as Mother murmured to him with a business-like fervour.
They awaited a decision and wished to see him make it.
But the chilly look Carolina threw him said that she utterly disagreed.
“My lady looks a little flushed,” Janez said. “Would you care to take some air?”
She glanced between him and the drunken son and pursed her lips.
“Very kind,” she said, lifting her hand. It hung loose in his own, and she slid it free the moment they left the ballroom, setting her glass aside. “I advise directing your attentions to my sisters, Prince Janez. I would protest a match until the very end.”
“Why so?”
She frowned, lifting her fan a little higher.
“I need give no reason,” she replied, a little sharply.
“Need, no, but I would prefer one.” He glanced about. “Would you join me, my lady? I would but speak with you privately.”
“Speak?” she echoed, the scepticism stark.
“Yes, my lady. Simply speak.”
“I am not some servant girl that you can—”
“I have absolutely no designs upon you,” he said. “I am no more pleased by the prospect of marriage than I suspect you are, but I also suspect you and I could help one another.”
She seemed to waver at that, glancing up and down the hall.
“It would be indecent.”
“There are many guards in the gardens. There’d be no rumour if we stayed within the reach of the palace lights.”
“You will certainly not be leading me into some dark corner.”
“No. Alessandra, perhaps.”
It slipped out before he could stop it—and quite suddenly, Carolina giggled. The sound and smile vanished as quickly as they’d come, yet he’d heard them all the same. Ah. So a humour beat beneath the breast, did it?
“All right,” she said and slipped her gloved fingers back over the hand he’d lifted for her to take. “The fountains, then? I have a soft spot for water.”
“You like the sea?”
“Greatly. Though I know nothing of naval warfare. Father says you are a lieutenant?”
“Yes. When the war is over, doubtless Alarik will make me a captain. It is the tradition.”
They discussed ranks—she knew their names, though not their importance—and the beauty of the sea crashing at the straits to the north, where their corner of the world spilled out into the great oceans of the east, over which Sigurd’s forces held dominion. When they reached the fountains, she sat with her skirts gathered under her and said, “There is no point to you and I.”
“Is there not?”
“No. I will not marry any man.”
“You are religious, my lady?”
“Not at all,” she parried, still holding the fan like a shield between them. “I have no interest in marriage, or love, or children. I only want my books for company, and that is all.”
Janez blinked at her, quite at a loss. “That sounds lonely,” he said.
Carolina snorted.
“Of course it does—to a man.” She said it scornfully. Janez fought the urge to roll his eyes. She sounded just like Sofia when Alarik had done something idiotic. “Is it so unbelievable that one can exist without losing her head—and her freedom—in exchange for a silly promise and being forgotten once she’s old and can no longer bear children?”
The bitterness was tart and angry, and Janez shrugged a little.
“As unbelievable as a man forced to marry a stranger, rather than the one he loves,” he said quietly.
She paused, then: “You love another?”
“Yes.”
“Marry her.”
“I cannot.”
“You are a man, you can do whatever—”
“I cannot,” he repeated. “I am a prince, not a man. You are condemned to a loveless marriage and motherhood. I am condemned to be bred just the same, and then die for my country on a ship in a foreign sea. I am not allowed love any more than you are.”
“But you want it.”
“Yes.”
“You have it.”
“Yes,” he repeated, safe in that knowledge. He did. And he could not let it be known to Alarik, not now his brother had proven to be just like their father.
“I take it,” Carolina said quietly, “that she is some…servant girl, or the like, that she is unsuitable to marry?”
“The like,” Janez admitted.
The fan came down slowly. Her gloved hand groped over his and squeezed his thumb.
“I am sorry. It’s a silly rule. My mother was no noblewoman, but Father loves her greatly, and she him. And she’s just as clever as other queens.”
“More so—I daren’t say it within her hearing, but my mother may be wise and wonderful, yet she is no scholar.”
They giggled guiltily together, and then Carolina patted his hand and withdrew her own.
“In the end, though, we would be required to—to have a child.”
“Yes.”
“Then—no.”
“You would not?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, but the fan didn’t rise to hide her. “I am sorry.”
Then she rose from the fountain, rearranged her skirts, and flowed back up to the palace steps, leaving Janez by the trickling water to think.
He had two options.
One wanted him, and spelled danger and misery.
The other did not, but would be as wise and wonderful a choice as anyone could want.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HELD LAY AWAKE much of the night, expecting any moment to shatter into sea foam and die.
He dared not leave the prince’s chambers, to see Janez falling in love with another. He didn’t want to see the end of the world—he wanted, when it came, for death to take him by surprise.
But oh, Held didn’t want to die.
He’d only just found this beautiful world. He’d only just shirked that terrible wrongness, and the coffin of his soul that his former form had been. He’d barely wound his mind about the terrible loss of his home, that awful truth of their supposed love for him. To have meagre moments above the sky with Janez, and now—now—
The music taunted him, far away and foreboding. The lights dancing across the darkness were like an enemy on the approach. As the hours drew out, longer and longer, and the morning never came, Held settled in Janez’s bed. Drawing the curtains around this nest of comfort and familiarity, he buried himself in the pillows to catch Janez’s scent, and die here if he could not do so in his lover’s arms.
And there he lay, wide awake and waiting.
Waiting.
Simply waiting.
After a time, the music faded away below. The pala
ce quieted at long last. And—
Boots sounded outside the doors.
Held knew the sound of him and threw back the curtains as Janez stumbled into the room. The door crashed shut too heavily. Held flung himself from the bed and into Janez’s arms. Janez made a surprised sound—he tasted of wine, and his hands were clumsy at Held’s back. But Held didn’t care for any of it.
He breathed. Janez had returned. So Held had another chance, another day, to keep him. To not let Janez marry that maid, that princess, and fall in love with his new wife. He took hold of the opportunity with determination. Tearing at Janez’s clothes, he pulled with mouth and body. They collapsed down into the bed as one. He took Janez with desperate aggression, until they curled together in an exhausted, sweat-soaked mess, and Janez’s fingers combing through Held’s hair calmed the violence.
Dizzy, Held clung. Jealousy had burned out of him in the heat of it. Here, he focused on Janez’s heartbeat under his ear. Counted his breaths.
Held closed his eyes and wanted to cry.
Instead—
When he woke, the bed curtains were still open, and watery light was streaming through the windows. The palace was silent. A great creature was circling in the grey outside. Janez was serenely asleep beneath him, head turned towards Held’s, curls tangled across the pillows in a great, golden mess.
He was beautiful.
And Held’s. If only for the night, he’d been entirely Held’s. He’d not yet been seduced by the princess he was supposed to marry. If Held could only stop the marriage, only stop it from happening—
He found himself sifting his hands through the curls, gently parting them and smoothing out the knots. As the mess began to resemble hair again, Janez stirred and more colour appeared in the cracks of his eyelids. He moved, rolled, and buried Held in body and bed, and they came together again, in a slow and tender hour that passed as slowly as the tide from the shore.
And after—
After, Held took Janez’s face in both hands and kissed him, kissed him hard and deep and demanding, and said, “I love you,” over and over again until Janez gave up trying to understand or speak over Held’s tongue, and simply submitted to the sound.
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