She forced out a laugh, when she really wanted to hiss that Rafe was worth a thousand times more than anyone else in the room. They paled when compared to him.
‘There’s nothing wrong with aspiring to be better. It’s a noble endeavour,’ she said as Hasselbeck’s attention flicked over her shoulder. At the same time, the back of her neck tingled with a familiar warmth.
‘Talking about me?’
Rafe’s voice was cool and distant. Full of disdain. She looked at him, stiff and formal. Gone was the relaxed, smiling man who’d been charming dignitaries only minutes earlier.
‘We were just saying what a supportive consort you are for the Queen. It’s pleasant to see some happiness in the palace.’ Hasselbeck smiled, showing too many teeth. ‘Indeed, Lady Conrad appears to be finding fresh happiness too if rumour is correct. With the best man from your wedding... His Majesty’s friend.’
Lise reeled. Sara, with... Lance? She had no doubt he was a charmer, that much had been evident from her meeting with him in the castle. But he was a player too, by Rafe’s account. She couldn’t imagine Sara in the slightest bit interested in someone like that.
Though an expression flickered across Rafe’s face that seemed...knowing. He placed his hand on the small of her back, flexed his fingers.
‘Yes,’ Rafe said. ‘She had a desire to see England and His Grace offered her a seat on his private jet.’
Lise’s champagne flute almost slipped from her grasp. How did Rafe know when she didn’t? She downed the last of her drink then placed the glass on the tray of a server walking past.
‘How convenient for Lady Sara,’ Hasselbeck said with a sneer.
‘Most,’ Rafe replied. ‘I’m sure you’d agree everyone deserves occasional respite from the demands of duty or family expectation. Now, the hour is late. It’s time Her Majesty and I retired.’
Lise tried not to show any emotion as Rafe guided her towards the exit, her stomach clenching in the twin emotions of shock and hurt. Their formal departure was announced. She smiled at the crowd from muscle memory alone. Rafe had agreed to no more secrets between them. Yet she’d been trying to get in touch with Sara since the wedding and had heardnothing. What was going on? She felt bloodless. Frozen. As if every part of her were hewn from ice. As they left the ballroom Rafe removed his hand from her lower back and the freeze intensified.
‘What the hell was that?’ she spat.
‘Not here.’ Rafe quelled her with a frigid glance then smiled at a member of staff, who bowed as they passed.
She tried to muster the disdain that had come so naturally to the rest of her family. If he wanted indifferent, she could do that. Lise allowed the chill to seep through her veins again, obliterating all the warmth Rafe had brought to her life.
She’d asked for truths and had been fed a lie by omission. What else had been going on when she hadn’t been paying attention? She’d find out or be damned trying. As Lise walked to their rooms, she wondered whether she could believe anything Rafe said, ever again.
Rafe strode through the palace halls to their suite, jaw clenched. As they reached the entrance it was all he could do not to fling back the door and stalk inside. Instead, he allowed Lise to sweep past him in her dress of ethereal grey, dotted with crystals that glittered with every move. She’d asked,‘What the hell?’Yet after overhearing her conversation with the prime minister, he could well ask the same.
Aspiring to be better?
What had she meant by that?
Lise moved to the window staring out at the view, her gown and jewels sparkling in the lamplight. Her mother had been renowned as an icy beauty, remote and untouchable. Right now, Lise was her mother incarnate.
This was not how the evening was meant to end, in some pointless cold war. Cold was not what he looked for when it came to Lise. He tugged at his bow tie. Shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto a chair. Undid the tight top button of his shirt so that it didn’t throttle him. How she’d dazzled the ballroom, finally out of mourning black. Tonight, all eyes had been on the young Queen and all he could think was that this magnificent woman washis, in every way.
Yet she seemed to believe he was on somenoble endeavourtoimprovehimself.As if he wasn’t good enough. Rafe clenched his fists, relaxed them, and flexed his fingers. There would be an explanation, there must be. He and Lise hadn’t been apart since their first time of making love. Each night spent in bed together, a passion and hunger for each other that wouldn’t be denied. Each day working to save the country. They were building something, as he’d known they would. Something solid and untouchable. Hasselbeck and his cronies could keep their grubby intrigues away from it.
He tried shaking away the dark simmer of anger that bubbled in his gut. She turned to him, the diamonds fire against her throat. A stark contrast to her glacial gaze. He took a steadying breath, not trusting himself to say anything in this moment. Instead, he removed his cufflinks and placed them on a bureau, began rolling up his shirtsleeves.
‘When were you going to tell me about Sara?’ Lise’s voice was low and cool like the autumn chill whistling under the eaves. It was a surprise that she appeared unaware Sara had left Lauritania. Necessitating him making his own disclosures to hide Lise’s shock and stop the prime minister fishing for trouble between them.
‘There’s nothing to tell. She wanted to leave the country and needed a passport. I signed her application. She went.’
‘You signed her passport application? She’smyfriend. My brother’s fiancée...’ Something about Lise’s face crumpled, before she stiffened her spine and smoothed out her expression into frigid disdain. ‘And you decided I didn’t need to know?’
He shrugged.
‘You were grieving.’ And surely if Sara wanted Lise to find out she would have said something herself. ‘And I thought—’
‘Idemandedno secrets from you.’ Lise clenched her fists, the whole of her tight and shaking. ‘Yet you kept this from me. I had to find out from Hasselbeck, a man who’s determined to humiliate me. How could you?’
‘How couldI?’ This conversation was skidding off track in ways difficult to control. Rafe held up his hands, trying to placate her. To stop her vibrating with barely controlled fury. All the while his blood surged with the furious adrenaline of his own growing outrage. ‘You seemed to be fine friends, laughing at my attempts at...self-improvement.’