‘You looked as if you were preoccupied. I didn’t want to disturb you. I watched you riding for a while and that kept me...entertained. You are quite something on the back of a horse, Zabrina.’
Something in his tone spooked her—but not nearly as much as the thought of Roman quietly observing her, his pewter eyes glinting from within the concealment of the stable yard’s many shadows. She wondered how long he had been there for. She wondered if she would have behaved any differently if she’d known he was watching.
‘How was the Marengo?’ she said, changing the subject.
‘The Marengo was fine,’ he replied evenly. And then, ‘You didn’t tell me that your groom was planning on coming to Petrogoria, too.’
She stiffened a little. ‘That’s because I didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Well, that’s not strictly true. Not specifically. I knew one of the grooms would travel with him and Stefan has known Midas since he was a foal, so I guess it made sense that he should have been the one to make the journey. But when he got here...well.’ She shrugged, feeling the heavy weight of the jewels scratching against her skin and she wished she could just rip them from her neck and drop them to the ground. ‘It seemed silly for him to go back immediately, so I gave him permission to stay. Just to get the horse properly settled in, of course.’
‘Of course,’ echoed Roman, his words non-committal as he spun her round, thinking that she was as light as a cloud. He glanced down at the loose dark hair which spilled over her shoulders. At the dark green silk which clung to her slender frame, making her appear pristine and perfectly princess-like, especially when adorned by the priceless glitter of his gift. He contrasted that with the carefree image he had seen on horseback earlier, trotting out of the yard with a banner of a ponytail floating behind her. She had tipped back her head and laughed at something her groom had said and something dark and nebulous had invaded his soul. Something which had been eating him up ever since.
Was it jealousy?
No. He felt the slippery silk of her dress beneath his fingertips and his jaw tightened. It couldn’t be.
But just because you’d never felt something before, didn’t mean you wouldn’t be able to recognise it when you did. And if that were the case didn’t he only have himself to blame? Despite not being the sort of princess he had ever imagined himself marrying, she had persuaded him into going ahead with the union and he had allowed himself to be persuaded, because the pros had outweighed the cons. Or so he had convinced himself. Theirs was to be an unemotional business arrangement. He knew that and she knew that. She had implied that she was prepared to be ‘reasonable’ if he sought solace in the arms of another woman, as kings had done from the beginning of time, and by implication that meant he couldn’t rule out her doing the same, despite her protestations to the contrary. So why did he feel the primitive throb of dark possession when he even considered that option? Why did he want to roar out his anguish at the thought of her ever being in another man’s arms?
But his face betrayed nothing, for an implacable countenance had been drummed into him for as long as he could remember. A king must never show his feelings and, in order to guarantee that, it was preferable not to have those feelings in the first place. It had been one of the first things his father had taught him when he had woken on that bleak, black morning to find his mother gone.
It had been a useful lesson in survival.
‘Do you want me to ask him to leave?’ Zabrina was saying. ‘Is that what you want?’
He looked down, steeling himself against the forest-dark beauty of her eyes and resenting the fact that he found her so enchanting, even while inside he was quietly simmering with rage. ‘This isn’t supposed to be about what I want, Zabrina,’ he said coolly. ‘This is supposed to be your home, not a prison, and if you want your groom to stay on then that, of course, is your prerogative.’
The music came to an end and the Petrogorian Prime Minister stepped in to ask Zabrina to dance and willingly she resumed her progress around the floor with the portly leader, even though she wanted to stay with Roman and ask him...
She swallowed.
Ask him what? He was being perfectly reasonable, wasn’t he? Telling her she was free to do as she wished. Telling her Stefan could stay as long as she wanted. She didn’t imagine it would go down very well if she started quizzing him about why he was adopting that tone of voice.
What tone of voice was that?
Dark?
Disapproving?
Yes, both those things.
But if he felt that way, then surely that was his problem. If she tried to accommodate him—to gauge his mood and to modify her behaviour accordingly—wouldn’t that be setting an awful precedent, tur
ning her into the kind of woman she didn’t really like? Or respect. And it wasn’t going to be that kind of marriage, she told herself firmly. A meeting of minds and bodies, hopefully, yes, but ultimately it was a transaction. She needed to keep her independence and sense of self-worth, or else she suspected she could easily fall into a deep hole of useless yearning for someone who saw her simply as a means to an end.
She did her best to put on a credible show as a future queen that night—her mother would have been proud of her. She danced with everyone who asked but made sure she conversed with plenty of the women too, admiring their gowns and jewels and talking about various charitable endeavours. But with Roman there was no more dancing. She told herself it wasn’t deliberate and that she was imagining his cool and sudden distancing himself from her. But as the clock chimed out midnight, and she and the King left the ballroom to the tumultuous applause of their guests, Zabrina realised that she hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him again.
Servants converged on them, walking both ahead and behind as they made their stately progress towards her suite. But when they arrived outside her door, Zabrina turned to the King, licking her lips and slanting him a nervous smile. ‘I wonder, shall we have a...nightcap?’
If she had suggested that he suddenly broke into an impromptu rendition of the Petrogorian national anthem, he couldn’t have looked more—not shocked, exactly, but certainly slightly appalled. As if she had just come out with a highly irregular proposition and had somehow let herself down.
‘Unfortunately that will not be possible. I have work which I need to attend to,’ he said coolly, briefly lifting her fingers to his lips and bowing his dark head as he kissed them. ‘I will see you at breakfast tomorrow.’
The imprint of his mouth on her hand was all too brief and suddenly Silviana was ushering her inside and helping remove her necklace, before undoing all the little buttons at the back of her ball gown.
‘Shall I run you a bath before you retire, mistress?’ she ventured.