Freya took one last look at the selfie her sister had just sent her. Marit was pressed up next to a man handsome in all the ways that Kjell was not: dark, lean, silver-eyed, with just enough of a glint of danger to match her wayward younger sister. But it was the smile on Marit’s face that had caught Freya’s notice. The purity of it, the unconscious joy of it, warmed the ache in Freya’s heart. She wasn’t sure what games her brother had been playing, but for her sister it had turned out happily at least. There would be time to catch up with all the dramatic events, but now was not it. All Freya needed to know was that her beloved sister had found a man who loved her as she deserved to be loved.
Putting down the phone, Freya looked at herself in her bedroom mirror, turning from to one side to the other. Hundreds of thousands of crystals sewn into champagne-coloured silk sparkled in the light, sending a shimmer rippling across the exquisite art deco pattern made with the hand-sewn beads. Thin straps caressed her shoulders, connecting to a deep V neck that stopped a little below demure and just above risqué. The corset that hugged her torso stopped at a belt around the waist before dropping into layers of tulle mixed with silk, making the beads look like rivulets of water falling to the floor and into a train that trailed behind her.
With her hair plaited and pinned back into a neat nest above her neck, she looked exactly like the royal she was. Henna had left the Prussian blue velvet box her brother had sent her on the dressing table. Freya knew what it was. She had worn it at the Officers’ Ball in Vienna, which had counted—for the most part—as her coming out or debutante ball.
Wearing the tiara now, Freya felt as if she was reaffirming her promise to her family, her country even: the promise of her duty. And that her brother had thought of it made her heart soften towards him, hoping that the boy she’d once known was still in there somewhere. She lifted the lid on the box containing the family heirloom, knowing the diamond-encrusted gold tiara matched her dress perfectly.
This was her brother’s first Vårboll and it would be nothing short of exquisite. Champagne had been brought in from the choicest vintners, caviar from sustainably sourced fisheries, and the music was being performed by the finest of Svardia’s musicians.
International royalty, global dignitaries, billionaires, tech magnates and titans of industry. They had all been invited to help Aleksander bring Svardia into the twenty-first century as a powerful player on the world’s stage. And until he found a wife, Freya would be there to help him.
She cast a last look at herself in the mirror, her pale gaze haunted by the memory of snow and heat and the man who had her heart, before turning away. Flexing her hands in the hope of shaking off some of the cold that nipped at her fingers, Freya caught the unrestrained sorrow in Henna’s gaze.
‘Henna,’ Freya gently admonished. ‘Please don’t. It’s fine.I’mfine. Really.’
Henna gave her one long considering look and nodded reluctantly. Freya had told her only the bare bones of what had happened in Dalarna, half afraid that if she spoke any more the words would open the fissure in her heart and she would break completely.
‘Let’s go,’ Freya said, marshalling her courage to become the Princess she wanted to be. She would never be perfect. She had learned that, not because Kjell had made her feel anything less, but precisely because he’d made her feel perfect in her imperfections. Now, Freya wanted to beherself. Only by accepting that would she be able to survive the fallout of her infertility. For her family to survive it.
They approached the staircase that led down into the Rilderdal Palace ballroom from the first-floor balcony that wrapped around the grand chamber, and Freya paused for a moment to take in the majesty of the sight.
Chandeliers of glass cut a thousand times over a hundred years ago hung from the domed ceiling high above them, scattering light onto the gold filagree and inlay on the mouldings and cornices and shining down on the floor below. Waiters in red fine wool jackets served flutes of champagne and canapés on silver trays, candelabras provided atmosphere beside exquisite flower displays trailing ivy and eucalyptus from fountains of white peonies.
Opulence. It was the only word that came to mind. Her gaze grazed emeralds in earlobes, diamonds on fingers, rubies on wrists and sapphires nestled in bosoms of the female guests. Gold, silver and just as many jewels graced the cufflinks of the men, enough to fill the greatest of war chests.
A war chest the like of which she could hopefully one day put to use for causes that affected not just Svardian people butallpeople. Determination schooled features that she would once have hidden behind a picture-perfect mask. She would hide herself no more.
‘Freya—’
‘It’s time for me to make mygrandentrance,’ Freya interrupted, her tone strong, and feeling it too. She had faced freezing cold water, she had faced the loss of every single thing she had ever wanted, and she was still here.
She arrived at the top of the staircase and the music faded into the background. Slowly descending into the Spring Ball, she used the confidence Kjell had helped her to find in her own strength to be the Princess that Svardia deserved—thatshedeserved.
Her brother waited for her at the bottom of the staircase with his arm out to hers in welcome. Despite their tense exchange earlier in the week, they’d quickly and easily forgiven each other and focused their attempts to ensure Svardia thrived under Aleksander’s rule.
As she was introduced and reintroduced to the most important of people, she found a rhythm that was familiar but also new. It held traces of who she had once been, but also who she would become. And while it didn’t chase away the cold that nipped at her heart, it did appease it a little.
She was just about to greet the Minister for Agriculture when she felt her brother’s arm tense beneath her hand. Looking up and finding his gaze locked over her shoulder, she turned to find the source of his agitation...and her heart stopped.
Making his way towards her in the full dress uniform of the Svardian Armén, clean-shaven, tall, powerful and determined, Kjell looked utterly magnificent. Not only did he not look out of place—he outshone every man there. Her starved gaze took him in, the crisp cream coat with gold brocade and Prussian blue sash would have been eye-catching on anyone, but Kjell wore it to devastating effect. The display of medals across his chest made her hand clench in memory of the honour he and his friend deserved. The dark trousers in fine wool showed off the powerful muscles of his thighs, their forward march towards her seemingly unending and impossible to stop.
Female heads turned in his wake, lascivious gazes on every face. Men watched with eyes full of jealousy, envy, some just as lustful. But every single person parted for him without question or direction, they simply moved for him.
Freya’s heart leapt painfully in her chest, and for the first time since leaving Dalarna her body was warmed by a flush that crested over her like a wave. For the space of a single breath her heart soared, believing that he had come to claim her so that they could be together finally. But then her brother shifted beside her and she remembered. Remembered that it couldn’t be. That, without a title, he would never be allowed to marry her. And on an exhalation a heartache so acute filled her lungs she feared she would never recover.
Intense arctic blue eyes held hers with a thousand promises and apologies, as if he’d known that this would hurt her but that he’d not been able to stay away. Her hand dropped from Aleksander’s arm and she took one step towards Kjell, then another, even though everything in her wanted torunto him.
They met in the middle of the ballroom floor, bound in silence by a spell only love could weave. He bowed to her, low and deep. Ignoring the barely hushed, curious whispers of the guests around them, Freya curtsied to him so deeply that there was no doubt to anyone watching that she saw him as her equal. No matter what rank or title he did or did not have, she would always meet him as such.
Kjell straightened to see Freya curtsy deep into the silk of her skirts. Her head bent in deference to him was a sight so humbling he felt red slashes form across his cheeks. The gentle slope of her breast encased by the jewelled corset offered him the most vulnerable part of her—and he felt as if she had known it, had offered it to him on purpose; the soldier in him roared against the fragility of her heart, but the man in him growled contentedly in appeasement.
He held his hand out to hers and when she placed her palm against his, his heart ached to realise that this was thetruehome he’d been exiled from. Eight years he’d been without her and there would be so many more years to come. But this,thishe was selfish enough to take.
The tap of the conductor’s baton called the musicians to attention and Kjell brought Freya into a hold, his palm pressing against her back, the heat of her body calming him like nothing else had ever done in all the years since he’d first met her.
Freya looked up at him, her amber eyes trusting and utterly uncaring of the surroundings. With one hand in his, she bent to pick up the skirt of her dress with the other, and his heart pounded just to see how incredible she looked, the beads on her dress not even close to the sparkling beauty of her eyes.
The music started the moment he took them into the first step of a waltz and the rest of the world disappeared. She was alive in his hands, her movements lithe and graceful, her natural poise so profoundly balancing to his erratic heart, he feared he genuinely might not survive without her. But it was her trust in him that moved him the most. Her trust so complete that he could lead her anywhere and she would follow. Her trust that even then he would never lead her away from the duty they had both sacrificed so much for. A sacrifice he would continue to make. But only if he was finally able to speak the words in his heart.