When had this obsession of hers begun? The plan to trap her hatched? At her coming-out ball? The day she’d been told she wasn’t allowed to compete in the downhill skiing championships. That instead she was going to finishing school as if she were some poorly made-up object, requiring honing to beenough. She’d barely held it together that night, feeling small and wounded at a party she no longer wanted because it was celebrating her imprisonment and not her freedom. Until she’d looked up at the interminable roll of guests parading down the wide marble staircase into the glittering ballroom, and there had stood Rafe. Brooding over the crowd as if he’d owned it. All dark unruly hair, a fascinating contrast to his perfectly tailored tuxedo. Wild, untamed beneath the civilised veneer.
Then he’d turned prescient black eyes onto her, and everything had melted away. The pain, the crushing sense that she’d be trapped for ever. And he’d smiled, not taking his eyes from her as he’d descended that staircase in the palace ballroom.
Had he seen it then, the naked, hungry hope on her face? The wish that someone would value her for whoshewas rather than the institution she represented? Because no one had cared what she wanted...
His approaches to her after that night had been respectful, careful. With subtle flirting in the brief moments when they’d crossed paths at official functions. Then she’d turned twenty-two. And the attention that had been fleeting had become focussed. Private. The soft words and gentle touches. She’d felt beautiful,desired. Like a woman with needs and wants that might finally be satisfied.
More fool her at how deep the betrayal went. But as tempting as it was to immerse herself in the humiliation of it all, she didn’t have time to drown. Lise wiped damp palms over her black skirt, the uniform of mourning. Seventy-seven days of it remained, but she would never be free, even though the official grieving period might end.
Her family were consigned to the grave because of her.
‘You never complained about His Majesty’s summonses,’ she said, trying for magisterial. Sounding waspish instead.
‘I’m not complaining about yours.’ Rafe hesitated, then took another sip from the embossed porcelain, which seemed absurdly delicate in his strong, capable hands. His eyes lingered on the newspapers. Pictures of the horse-drawn funeral cortège. Her walking behind, head bowed. ‘Whatever business you have with me can wait. You’re allowed to grieve.’
His voice was low, seemingly kind if she could have trusted his intentions as honourable. But to grieve? She wished she could rage, scream, cry...but her recent life had been like wading through snowdrifts, blindfolded. The paralysing inertia of disbelief threatening to freeze her solid.
‘The Constitution waits for no one,’ she said.
‘You’re the first Queen in—’
‘One hundred and fifty years.’
She didn’t need reminding. Her parliament, and particularly Prime Minister Hasselbeck, did that daily. Almost from the moment her family’s crypt had been closed. Not only about her obligations, but her shortcomings...
‘The country’s waited over a century for the rarity that’s you. They can wait a while longer.’
Rare, precious, beautiful.She’d heard those tempting words slip from his lips before. Shiny sentiments that had called to her covetous soul. The one that had craved to be loved, until she was shown how tarnished the empty words truly were. She refused to listen now. They held all the value of fool’s gold when the truth was inescapable. Her country didn’t want her but had no option but to keep her.
Lise took a trembling breath and tried to rein in her emotions. Sadly, being the spare not the heir, and a female at that, meant her lessons had all been designed to turn her into a beautiful, biddable bargaining chip. No preparation at all for her current predicament. Assessment of her beauty she left to higher powers. The gossip rags extolled all kinds of physical virtues; a sporty figure, blonde hair and blue eyes...
Being a bargaining chip was a given for most female members of the aristocracy in her frustratingly backward country. Useful to forge alliances, seal deals with auspicious marriages. But biddable?
No. If she had been, her parents and brother would be alive today.
‘Time’s my enemy.’ And it had run out. A wedding had been arranged for the Crown Prince long before he’d died. The prime minister thought it expedient to keep the date and the arrangements for her own wedding. The invitees would have been much the same, anyhow. All she needed was a groom. She swallowed down the sick, dark ache. The taunting voice inside and its insidious whisper,I can’t.
She ignored it.Her duty must be done. No matter how little she wanted what must come next, she couldn’t allow her country to be plunged into uncertainty over succession. Not like this, not unplanned. For that, she needed Rafe. Because everyone who learned about the history and constitution of their small, landlocked Alpine country knew that for her to take the throne there was one, simple requirement.
For a Lauritanian queen to rule, she must have a husband.
When she had been nothing more than a pawn in whatever fresh political game they played with no chance of sitting in the seat she now occupied, Rafe was the man her father had chosen. After months of him circling, those meetings she’d at first believed were chance then kidded herself meant something far more, the truth had been revealed in that final, terrible argument with her family. When she’d beenorderedto marry him.
She’d refused. Refused to follow her family on their yearly break, where she knew intolerable pressure would be put to bear. The King, the Queen and the Crown Prince ignoring that she was a flesh-and-blood woman, not merely Lauritania’s Princess. A woman with hopes and dreams of falling in love, who’d wanted desperately to believe she’d meant something to the man in front of her.
It was her deepest shame that because of her refusal, her family had died.
Lise didn’t miss the brutal irony the universe cast her way. For now, Rafe was the only choice. Her duty. Her penance.
Rafe had to know what was coming. Yet here they were, toying with one another. She could hardly bear to ask the question of him. But she had her own plans. Her punishment for cutting off her family’s lives. Her brother would never get to marry his fiancée or rule the country he was born to. Her parents would never see grandchildren, the future for the throne they’d so craved. She was required to atone for what she’d done.
She’d marry the man her father had chosen for her.
Lise stood. So he stood. Damned protocol. She kept forgetting and ended up with people bouncing about like a jack-in-the-box. She must remember she didn’t move for people now, people moved for her. And Rafe moved so well. Nothing unnecessary about him. All long, lean muscle that his clothes only accentuated. Everything he did, calculated and perfect.Calculated...one word she must never forget. That was what she needed to become.
‘Sit, Mr De Villiers.’ He took his time doing so. Rafe obeyed no one. In a place built on protocol and stricture, he carved his own path. Which was why she’d been shocked when her father had told her the deal he’d secured, with a man who no one told what to do. Not even the King.
Lise walked to the mullioned windows, staring over the towering peaks of the Alps. Swifts wheeled and soared on the air currents, so blindingly free the jealousy twisted her heart. She wished she could join them. Catch a thermal and fly away. But she was landlocked here as everyone else.