Lycander
THE CAR WOUND up the mountain road. Sunita stifled a gasp and Frederick felt a sudden surge of pride as he saw her reaction to Lycander’s castle.
‘Holy-moly,’ she said. ‘It’s straight out of a fairy tale. Any minute now Snow White will wave at me from a turret or I’ll see Rapunzel climb down a tower.’
Something tugged at his heart as he looked at her—something he couldn’t identify and didn’t particularly want to. Focus on facts...that was the way to go.
‘Believe it or not, this castle has been around for centuries. It started out long ago as a wooden fortress and over the years it has been renovated, added to, and here we have it.’
‘It’s hard to believe I’m going to live there.’
Equally hard to ascertain her opinion on the fact, he thought.
Sunita subsided into silence as they approached the castle and parked in an impressive paved courtyard, complete with fountains, stone lions and an immense marble sundial.
‘I’ll give you a proper tour later. For now, if it’s all right with you, I’ll show you to your rooms—I’ve asked Giselle Diaz, the housekeeper, to get a set of apartments ready. After the wedding we will move into the state apartments. I’ll show you those later—I think you may want to redecorate them.’
Slow down. No need to turn into a tour guide. Come to that, he couldn’t help but wonder at the dearth of staff there to greet them. Foreboding touched him—perhaps the no-show was connected to the emergency council meeting he was scheduled to attend right now. Convened to ‘discuss’—for that read ‘object to’—his marriage.
They reached the apartment suite that would be Sunita and Amil’s until the wedding and he scanned it quickly. Clean and polished...welcoming flowers in place. On the surface it all looked fine, but he knew it lacked the extra touches that had abounded the one time Lady Kaitlin had stayed as a Lycander guest. Back then Giselle had been there to greet them, the flowers had been more lavish, the toiletries a tad more luxurious.
Hmm...
‘I’ll leave you to settle in and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘Why don’t I come with you? My guess is that your council will want to talk to you about our marriage—let’s face them together.’
Frederick shook his head. ‘I’d rather do it alone. I brokered this marriage—it is my responsibility to explain it to my people.’
A flash of hurt showed in her eyes and then she shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
He pushed down the urge to assuage the hurt; this was his business and he would deal with it alone.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later he looked around the council chamber, which was informally referred to as the tapestry room, due to the needlepoint that lined nearly every centimetre of the walls. The lifework of a princess centuries before, who had toiled whilst her husband had dallied with a string of mistresses.
Each section illustrated a different theme, dominated by war and religion with plenty of fire and brimstone and gore... Presumably it was meant to be an apt backdrop for the discussion of council matters.
‘Order!’ called one of the council members.
Frederick looked around the table—at Marcus’s assessing expression, at the rest of the council’s combative stance. ‘You requested we meet as soon as I arrived to discuss your concerns. Please enlighten me.’
A middle-aged man rose to his feet. ‘This proposed marriage, Your Highness...we do not believe it is a good move.’
‘Marcus has kept me apprised of your concerns.’ He kept his voice even. ‘But this marriage is happening.’
‘But the people will not like it,’ interpolated another council member.
‘Sunita is an ex
cellent publicist—I believe she will win them over.’
‘How? She is a woman you barely know—a model, the mother of a baby she kept from you—but now that you are on the throne she seems happy to marry you.’
‘Shades of your mother...’
‘Who said that?’ Frederick demanded.