From the moment they had walked into the room, and paused at the top of the short flight of steps that lead down the highly polished floor, all eyes had been on them. Just their appearance had triggered off a blinding fusillade of camera flashes that made her head spin and had her clutching at Alexei’s arm for support. For long minutes afterwards she was still blinking to clear away the spots in her vision and bring her gaze back into focus properly. And he was there, at her side, silently supporting her, seeming to know instinctively just when she was able to see again clearly, when she could stand on her own two feet and turn her attention to the crowds of statesmen, dignitaries and nobility who thronged the room.
That was when Alexei carefully eased his way away from her side, resting his hand on hers just once as he turned her towards another group of guests. A faint inclination of his head, the touch of his hand at the base of her spine, spoke volumes without words. For this one night, still his fiancée, officially soon to be his queen, she should mix with their guests, socialise, talk with them. And he knew she could do it. Knew he didn’t have to stay with her. Instead he headed off in the opposite direction, working the room. And the bittersweet rush of pride at the thought that he knew she wouldn’t let him down helped Ria’s feet move, warmed her smile when all the time she was feeling broken and dead inside.
She had no idea how much time had passed when they met up again. Only that he came to find her just at the point she had started to flag. When her mouth was beginning to ache with smiling, when her fund of small talk was beginning to dry up. Just when she felt she’d had enough, suddenly he was there by her side.
‘Dance with me,’ he said softly, and she turned to him, feeling as she gave him her hand and he lead her out on to the dance floor that, for her, the evening had really just truly begun.
With his arms round her, warm and strong, his strength supporting her, the scent of his skin in her nostrils, she barely felt as if her feet were on the ground any longer. She was all talked out, unable to find any words to say to him. But Alexei didn’t appear to need conversation; seemed instead, like her, to be content to remain in their own silent bubble.
She had wanted to be here so much. Had dreamed of being here in so many ways—at the Black and White Ball, at the start of a new reign for the country, with the succession secured, with Mecjoria safe. With Ivan kept from the throne and Alexei, a strong, honest, powerful ruler, in his place. Here with the man she loved.
And that was when her thoughts stumbled to a halt. Where her mind seemed to blow a fuse and she could go no further, could not get past the thought of how much she loved this man. How much she wanted to be in his arms, and stay there for ever. At this moment she felt that she wouldn’t even ask for his love in return. Just to stay with him, love him would be enough.
But already the clock was ticking towards the end of the convenient engagement Alexei had decided he no longer needed. Like Cinderella, she had until midnight before all the magic in her life disappeared and she found she was once more back in reality, all her dreams shattered around her. Already, an hour or more of the last remaining precious time she had with Alexei had passed and try as she might she couldn’t hold back a single minute of the little that was left.
‘Enjoying yourself?’
Alexei asked the question strangely stiffly, his breath warm against her ear, her cheek pressed close to his. She could only nod silently in answer, not daring to look up into his face, meet his eyes through the black silk mask. It would destroy her if she did. She would shatter into tiny pieces right here on the polished floor.
Enjoying yourself! Alexei couldn’t believe he had been stupid enough to ask the inane question. The same one that he had asked a dozen, a hundred, times already that evening. It was the sort of polite, formal small talk that he used to put people at their ease, to make them feel that he had noticed them, that he appreciated the fact that they were there. It was for the Mecjorian nobility, the foreign dignitaries, the press even.
It was not for Ria. Not for this woman who he now held in his arms for perhaps the last time and who, at the end of this evening, would walk out of his life and into her own future—totally free for the first time ever.
Because how could he not notice Ria when she looked so stunningly beautiful, when she was all his private sensual fantasies come at once? How could he not appreciate what she was, who she was, when she had been there with him, always at his side, always offering her support through the long weeks since she had come to him with the news that he was king? Because it was right.
That was why he had known tonight that he had only one way forward. That, like Ria, he had to do what was right. Right for her, even if everything that was in him ached in protest at the thought. He had forced her into the marriage that he had believed would bring him the satisfaction he craved. It had brought him all that satisfaction—and more. So much more. But to keep her in such a marriage would be like chaining up some beautiful, exotic wild creature.
She would die in captivity. And he couldn’t bear to see that happen to her. So tonight he was setting her free.
But first he would have just a few more hours to dance with her, hold her, maybe even kiss her. In spite of himself, he let his arms tighten round her, drew her soft warmth closer, inhaled the perfume of her skin against his. The bittersweet delight of it made his body burn in a hunger that he knew would have him lying awake through the night, and many more long, empty nights when this was done. He had until midnight. A few more hours to pretend that she was still his.
His! The lie cut terribly deep. The truth was that Ria had never been his. And that was why tonight had been inevitable, right from the start. But everything that was in him rebelled at the thought.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let her go.
Ria was so lost in her thoughts, in the deep sensual awareness of being held so close to Alexei that at first the flurry of interest was just like a blur at the edge of her consciousness. She heard the buzz of sound as if it was that of a swarm of bees somewhere far distant, on the horizon but coming closer, growing louder, with every second.
Uncharacteristically, Alexei’s smooth steps in the waltz stumbled slightly, hesitated, slowed. She heard him mutter a low toned, dark, fierce curse, the furious, ‘Too early. Too damn early,’ and suddenly the whole dance was stuttering to a halt as the murmur around them grew, as if that swarm of bees was coming closer, dangerously so.
‘Escalona...’
On a sense of shock she heard her own name muttered over and over again. But once or twice it came with an addition that startled her, shocked her into stillness, bringing her head up and round.