The Marriage That Made Her Queen
Autorzy
Kali Anthony
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19,2K
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CHAPTER ONE
‘YOUR MAJESTY, I’M PROFOUNDLY sorry for your loss.’
The words scraped as if fingernails scoring down a blackboard documenting Lise’s short and, up until recently, inconsequential life. She splayed her hands on the ancient mahogany desktop, strewn with newspapers all screaming headlines like, Ready to Rule? Challenging the reality that even if she wasn’t, there was no choice. As she sat behind her father’s desk in a study that had been the seat of her family’s power for six centuries, those headlines taunted her.
Imposter, they whispered.
Lise took a long, slow breath. Trying to ease the twist of fear choking her since that awful moment thirteen days earlier when the King’s private secretary, Albert, delivered the world-ending news.
‘Your Majesty, there has been a terrible accident.’
Now, she repeated the silent mantra she’d chanted daily. A reminder of who she was in those terrified times since. I am Annalise Marie Betencourt. Her Most Serene and Ethereal Majesty, Defender of the Realm.
Soon to be crowned Queen.
The youngest Lauritanian monarch in three hundred years.
Fraud.
She moved her gaze to the man sitting in the chair opposite her. One who didn’t appear as profoundly sorry as his words implied. His dark eyes glinted, almost as if he were hungry. A shiver chased down her spine and she pulled her jacket tighter against the midnight caress of desire, the remnants of which still haunted her. Once, this man had made her feel the centre of his everything. How she’d lapped up his interest like a kitten at a forbidden pail of cream. Basked in his attention, his flirtation.
It had all fed the gluttonous delusion that she had choices in life. Whispered words intoxicating as a drug, which had led her to believe that she truly meant something to him. Rafe De Villiers. Businessman. Billionaire. Devastatingly handsome with a shade of stubble grazing his angular jawline. Looking dissolute. Disreputable.
Unsuitable.
Yet how she’d hungered for those moments with him, basking in the delusion that this brilliant, charismatic man wanted her. Igniting a need burning away common sense, which in other circumstances should have warned her that those seemingly clandestine meetings they’d engaged in whenever he visited the palace couldn’t have happened by mere chance. They must have been orchestrated by her father.
‘Thank you, Mr De Villiers.’
They’d been on a first-name basis once. She’d thought she love—No. It had all been an illusion, and there was nothing to thank him for. Seeing him now, lounging opposite her dressed in a three-piece suit of elegantly rumpled grey linen as if he had not a care in the world, she was once more assaulted by the gut-wrenching truth. The one that had been forced home in that last, most catastrophic argument with her family... She meant nothing to him but a means of accessing power in a blighted deceit concocted by her father and Rafe. One where she’d been halfway fooled into believing they might marry for love.
The humiliation of it all seared like acid in her gut. One more wound to add to the growing list of them inflicted upon her over the past few weeks. It was a wonder she hadn’t bled out. Death by a thousand cruel cuts.
Yet she was still standing. Barely.
Rafe pulled up the sleeve of his suit and glanced at his watch, then settled his wolf-brown eyes on her again. She raised an eyebrow. Tried for imperious, although she wasn’t sure it worked.
‘Am I keeping you from something?’
The corner of his mouth quirked, tugging at the pout of his lower lip. Months ago, she’d been fascinated by that mouth. How she’d craved his lips on hers. Twenty-two and never been kissed. Now she’d missed the chance. Lise blinked away her moment of fancy. Those immature, naïve dreams. She could never forget he remained a schemer. Devastatingly handsome, tempting as Lucifer, but a schemer, nonetheless.
‘I have all day for you, ma’am.’ His voice was dark and sweet as treacle. So tempting once, to lose herself in every syllable he uttered. ‘I was only wondering when—’
A rap at the door interrupted him. It cracked open.
‘Ah,’ he said, raking a hand through the overlong curls of his black hair. An unruly strand fell artfully across his forehead. Everything he did appeared artful. A study in masculine magnificence. ‘Morning coffee has arrived as expected.’
She’d forgotten how well he knew the rituals of the monarch’s schedule, whilst she was still learning its dictates. Lise glanced at the carriage clock marking out the interminable hours on the King’s desk. The desk that should have been her brother’s when the time came, rather than this unnatural sequence of events.
When in his office, at half past ten precisely His Majesty had stopped for coffee. No one ever asked whether Her Majesty wanted to do the same. They assumed, the pace of change here glacial at best in an institution that had endured virtually unchanged since the thirteen hundreds.
A black-uniformed, white-gloved woman wheeled in a trolley laden with petite delicacies, a royally embossed silver coffee pot, and eggshell-fine cups. She poured Rafe’s beverage without asking how he took it. Reminding Lise that he’d spent a great deal of time here with her father, the King, making decisions about lives they’d had no right to make. Such as hers.
Rafe took a mouthful of coffee, tipped back his head, and groaned. That sound of almost carnal pleasure rippled through her, heating her coldest inner reaches.
‘I’d have sold my soul for that coffee. Hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours when I received your summons...ma’am.’
She tried not to think of what might have kept him up all night, leaving him rakishly dishevelled. In the overcharged atmosphere of gossip-filled ballrooms, rumours flitted amongst the women about his prodigious...talents. Her cheeks burned. She gritted her teeth, loathing how he still affected her.
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 be enough. 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 who she was 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 been ordered to 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.
‘I require a husband.’
‘You don’t want a husband.’ She didn’t miss the acid in his tone. When he’d tried to see her after the argument with her family, she’d refused to give him an audience, even though her father had demanded it. ‘Change the Constitution.’
She clenched her hands into fists, her nails cutting into her palms. ‘That’s been tried and failed.’
‘In 1863 and 1974. Times change.’
Not in Lauritania. Her country was conservative to the core. Even worse, her people didn’t trust her, as the headlines in those infernal newspapers attested. The child conceived as an insurance policy in case the worst happened, with no expectation that it ever would. She was the country’s consolation prize. Second best. Unwanted. As Rafe knew too well. She’d poured out those childish hurts when she’d trusted him. How cruel of him to presume she now had a choice. ‘You know why you’ve been asked here. Stop pretending otherwise.’
‘I think you need to spell it out for me. I’d never presume to know a lady’s mind, ma’am.’
The formality of him. Lise whipped around, turning her back on the view. She used to love the way he appeared to savour her name on his lips. Lise. Like water to a parched man. All lies. She got right to it. There was no prettying the truth.
‘I’m asking you to be my husband.’ The words almost choked her. Lise glimpsed the mercenary gleam in his eyes. A gleam she’d mistaken for desire, once. Her own foolish mistake.
Rafe steepled his fingers. ‘You want me?’ His voice was a low murmur, gentle as a caress. Once she’d been desperate to believe anything his alluring timbre promised. That being forced to give up the sport she loved, the freedom she sought, didn’t mean her existence was meaningless. But deep in her heart, it had been more. Her own secret craving that, in a duplicitous world surrounded by simpering imitations, this glorious man might love her.
But conceding the point was a fatal weakness, even though a whisper of heat flashed over her cheeks. She straightened her spine with all the hauteur she could muster. Later, she’d allow herself to crumble but not today and never in front of him.
‘I’m carrying out my father’s last wish.’
Rafe’s lip curled into the beginnings of what looked like a sneer. ‘A fitting tribute for a great man.’
Another shiver skittered down her spine. Or not so great if the rumours she was now hearing were to be believed. She was coming to suspect her family were only human, even though they had pretended otherwise. Sadly, she’d always been held to a higher standard by them.
‘I’m pleased you see it my way,’ she said. This was payment for what she’d done. And she would pay, for the rest of her life. But she had a few tricks up her coal-black sleeve. She might do a deal with the devil, but she wasn’t in the business of selling her soul completely. She waited for Rafe to settle back into his seat, to acquire the look of smug self-satisfaction that had become all too familiar in her life, before she pounced.
‘Have you heard of a mariage blanc, Mr De Villiers?’
Rafe swallowed down the gall rising in this throat. He’d flown through the night, cutting short a business trip to answer her summons. Sure of what it meant, what he had been waiting for. Now this. Mariage blanc. A white marriage. A marriage unconsummated.
‘Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ he said, keeping his voice deliberately bland.
‘Excellent, that’s settled.’ Lise sat down once more, her hands twisting restlessly on the desktop, looking decidedly unsettled.
‘What’s settled?’ He leaned back in his seat again, trying not to hiss the words through gritted teeth. Indolence was a look he’d perfected over the years. If he appeared not to care, no one could touch him. The aristocracy here had tried, since school, to destroy the upstart farm boy he’d been marked as. No matter that his family had a wealth of their own, although born of hard, physical work rather than lofty inheritance. When his brother, Carl, had died, they’d almost succeeded in crushing him. But he was made of stronger stuff than any of them realised.
Lise frowned. ‘Our marriage, of course.’
He sat back, nibbled on some innocuous sweet thing from the plate before him. Took another sip of his now cooling coffee. He never wished to be seen as the pretender, a choice compelled rather than freely made. That would never satisfy him. He’d spelled it out to her father, emphatically. The only way he’d marry Lise was if she said yes, without compulsion.
He gave what he hoped was his most neutral look, when all he wanted to do was bare his teeth and snarl. ‘What does a so-called white marriage have to do with that?’
Her plush lips thinned into a pale, tight line. ‘It’s what I’m offering.’
Madness. This was not how things were supposed to be.
He’d asked her father for six months to win her. Never doubting it would take him fewer to secure the hand and heart of this woman who he’d wanted to come to him willingly. So she’d believe he’d been her choice alone. He’d been disdained enough for his working-class background. He would not have anyone say the only way Lauritania’s Princess would marry him was if she was forced to do so. No. He’d wanted to show them all. Their Princess had chosen the commoner above the aristocracy.
Yet what had happened? He’d been called away on a brief business trip a couple of months into the job and her father had pounced. Trying to force Lise into the marriage. A woman who required finesse and tender care. Instead of a happy homecoming, he’d returned to a debacle. Lise, refusing to see him at the risk of calling the palace guards when he tried. The King enraged that one of his subjects would dare disobey a direct command—ignore the fact she was supposed to be his precious daughter.
And him? Everything he’d planned, his careful manoeuvres for years, in ashes.
He’d wanted to tear the smug portrait of her father from the wall, chop it to matchsticks and hurl it into the closest fire. Then, in a fit of pique on that fateful day which led them here, the King allowed the Queen and Crown Prince to travel with him in one vehicle. Probably to plan how to force Lise to accede to their command. Not to speak of palace security, capitulating to the act of foolishness. All of them grown fat and lazy on complacency. If the mundanity of a rock fall and car accident hadn’t killed her family, Rafe feared he’d have been tempted himself.
How many hours had he sat here negotiating? Asking the King to trust that he knew what he was doing. But like all the rest of them, that man could never believe a mere commoner might know better how to manage the Princess than he did. As they’d never believed Lise could ever love him. And now he was picking up the pieces.
Lise sat dwarfed behind a hideous monstrosity of a desk. Skin pale as the permanently snow-capped peaks around them. Dressed in severe black, the dark lace mantilla over her head an ill-fitting crown of grief. She should be in bright, dancing colours. Decked in all the shimmering jewels he could provide. He’d planned from the moment he’d set eyes on her. A triumph to show the blighted aristocracy here what he could achieve. Being loved by royalty. Taking one of theirs as his own. The man they’d underestimated. Dismissed. Her yes to the proposal was meant to be emphatic. Carefully orchestrated, of course, but unequivocal and full of joy on her part. The King in his infinite arrogance had destroyed it all.
‘No sex?’ He lingered on the word, and her cheeks bloomed to a fetching shade of rose. He still affected her. Good. Rafe suppressed a smile. ‘No.’
He had some cards to play here. Lise needed him, for more than one reason. Were things in the country worse than disclosed? Was that why her father had tried to force the marriage prematurely?
Did Lise know?
Her face paled even further if that were possible. Her mouth puckered as she no doubt nibbled the inside of her lower lip. A habit of hers when she worried, and she worried too much.
‘What do you mean “no”?’
‘My meaning’s plain.’
‘You can’t force me to allow you to...’ Her gaze darted about the room, never at him. Of course she was nervous of this arrangement. Lise was a woman who sought a fantasy. From the sweeping love stories she read in secret, to the pre-Raphaelite artists she preferred. Each one a homage to the romance she craved.
‘Make love to you? I’d never force a woman.’
‘There’s no love in our arrangement.’
But there could have been. He’d have ensured she loved him when the time came to ask for her hand. From commoner to prince...the aristocracy would never have underestimated him again. The wicked flame alight in his gut burned hotter at the chance lost.
‘Have sex, then. No love, merely slick, sweaty—’
‘I—I can see you’re not interested in a practical arrangement. I’m sorry for wasting your time.’ Lise’s chest heaved. The pupils of her luminous blue eyes blown wide and dark. ‘I’ll find other candidates. Alternatives have been proposed.’
Alternatives? Now who was the fool? He needed to tamp down this anger before he overplayed his hand. He could see them all, jockeying for position to become the most powerful man in the country. Those men who thought they knew better. School peers who’d tormented him at the prestigious Kings’ Academy for being of the wrong class, even though his family’s wealth crept close to theirs. Disdained his younger brother, Carl, whose only dream had been to tend the family herd on the mountain slopes. Bullied so mercilessly he’d refused to return after six months, when if he’d stayed at the school, he might still be alive today...
Even now, Rafe’s wealth propped up the institutions and lifestyle the aristocracy so loved. Every drop of fine wine they drank, much of the food they ate, had the De Villiers name attached. His empire built by his own hands through ambition, driven by personal experience and his brother’s blood. Yet none of that mattered. To them, he was still the son of a cow herder, as they’d used to mock him each lonely day at that godforsaken horror of a school. Ignore that for generations his family had made a traditional cheese with its own appellation, national protection and of world renown. That with his own business interests, he could buy them all and still be left with billions. Carl had been right. That place and those boys had taught him nothing but contempt. Then when Carl had died, they had heaped only scorn, not solace, on his grief. He would never forget.
Never.
None of his former collegians, the aristocracy here, had any idea how to save the country, which was why he’d been chosen. He’d show them all what he could achieve. The thought of any of them touching Lise raged fire in his gut. There was only ever one candidate for her.
Him.
‘I’ve never pretended to be a eunuch. Yet you’re consigning me to the life of one.’
He’d planned it. The ring, a diamond the colour of sunshine to match her golden hair. A wedding night where he’d spread her on the marital bed and show her passion she’d never dreamed of. Nowhere in this scheme was a woman who wouldn’t touch him.
‘You misunderstand. No sex...with me.’ She flushed again. Each emotion playing through the colours washing her cheeks. Her face hid nothing. A charming quality for a lover, a flawed one for a queen. She straightened her spine, tried to meet his gaze but her haunted blue eyes didn’t rest on his face. Flitting everywhere about the room, other than on him. ‘You can, of course, take a mistress. After an appropriate time.’
Was she serious? The tight set of her jaw told him she was. He swallowed down the bitter taste of her offer as if it were poison.
‘What would you consider an appropriate time?’ He gripped the arms of his uncomfortable chair till his fingers cramped. Better that than giving into his desire to break something, like the clock on the desk, which wouldn’t stop its infernal ticking. ‘Should I begin after the honeymoon?’
‘We need no honeymoon. It’s not that type of marriage.’
‘Why wait, then? You’ll be wanting a lover too. It wouldn’t be fair to deny the goose what you’re offering the gander.’
‘I am not a goose, Mr De Villiers.’ Her hands trembled; she placed her palms flat on the dark, aged desktop again. ‘You’ve said enough.’
No, none of this was enough. The absurdity enraged him. ‘I wonder. Shall we invite this...brace of lovers to the wedding?’
‘Be. Quiet.’ Her lips were tight and thin. He wasn’t inclined to listen to the tone of warning in her voice.
‘What intriguing dinner conversation we’ll all have. Though the question, Darling, could you please pass the salt? might lead to confusion. I mean, which darling? The spouse or the paramour? I can see us all grappling over condiments in our efforts to please.’
‘There will be no grappling—’
‘Not between us, no. Not even a clinch in the corner, sadly. I’m a faithful man, so I’d never cheat on my mistress with my wife. It’s against my principles. I presume you’d feel—’
‘Enough!’ Lise bolted to her feet. Chin held high. Colour florid on her cheeks. Here was the magnificent woman they’d tried to train out of her. ‘I’m overjoyed to hear how faithful you profess to be. However, there will be no scuffles over the salt and pepper. No cosy dinners for four. In my experience, kings have mistresses, so you’re welcome to your own. All I demand is that you remain discreet.’
Her father had kept a varied group of women who catered to his every whim. Rafe wondered whether she was aware that her mother’s private secretary had done far more for the Queen than answer correspondence and post letters. Coming from a family where his parents loved each other in the same blinding fashion as when they first met, he found royalty’s convenient arrangements sickening.
But love wasn’t for him, the only game he’d played and lost. Learned that the daughters of the aristocracy wanted him for one thing, to irk their parents by flaunting the commoner. He’d always been an exercise in rebellion for those women. Rich enough so as not to be an embarrassment, but never enough on his own. He’d fancied himself smitten with a count’s daughter. Till he’d proposed and she’d mocked his audacity. He’d learned then, love was for fools. It had no place in his life, leaving him open to its own brand of ridicule. He would not deign to be scorned again.
Power was a currency he understood. It was everything.
Love? It made you powerless.
‘What about you, Your Majesty?’ Propriety and protocol were the armour she wore, so he’d allow her to hide behind it for a little while longer. Time enough to start stripping her down, piece by tantalising piece, when the wedding ring was firmly on her finger.
‘I need a husband. I don’t need a lover.’
Her admission that there was no usurper lurking in the wings made the primitive creature curled inside him growl in satisfaction. Still, he played her game, for now.
‘That’s hardly fair.’
‘How generous of you to think so.’
‘I’m all for equality where pleasure’s concerned. In fact, I ensure my partner’s pleasure exceeds mine.’
Her dusky lips parted. He’d never kissed her, something he’d regretted. Perhaps he should have been more assertive in his approach. But he’d thought he’d have all the time in the world to seduce, not to conquer.
‘There’s nothing equal about a constitution which allows a king to rule in his own right whilst requiring a queen to marry.’ Her voice was soft, with a tone of defeat. He loathed the flatness of it. He wanted her to fight for what was hers. ‘But it’s what I face so I’m doing my duty.’
‘And when your duty comes to having an heir and a spare or two?’
‘You’re referring to children, not objects as the monarchy so often treats them.’ She raised her chin and stared him down with eyes as cold and brittle as first winter ice. ‘For that reason, there will be none.’
Lise’s frigid gaze threw a chill down his spine. She was brutally, bitterly serious. This was not where her hopes and dreams lay. He knew. She’d whispered her secrets to him when they’d seen each other, in carefully planned but seemingly spontaneous meetings. She’d begun to open the door to her deepest desires and now that door slammed in his face.
He stared at her, rigid in the chair opposite. Her eyes fixed on the wall over his shoulder.
‘What about succession?’
Lise took in a breath, her body shuddering. ‘The monarchy dies with me.’
Rafe reared back, the shock of her pronouncement like the frigid slap of a first winter’s gale. No. Never. He could not accept this. His children and his family’s blood should have been destined to rule the country in perpetuity.
‘Lise—’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I haven’t invited you to use my name.’
She held herself as aloof as any royal he’d ever met. He loathed that she was directing this charade towards him.
‘Since you invited marriage, I believe we’re past honorifics.’
‘Only when I say so, and you haven’t agreed to my offer.’ Her skin blanched so pale it appeared translucent. The shadows under her eyes stood out, dark and bruised. ‘There are two choices, Mr De Villiers. Yes, or no.’
No meant she would be lost to him for ever. Yes, and by a quirk of the constitution he’d be in a cold and empty marriage, but he’d be King.
King.
He could never forget those who’d sneered at him, laughed at his heritage, bullied Carl from school leaving him in harm’s way, mocked his brother even in death. Thought he was beneath them because of his business interests rather than being born into the aristocracy. He’d have power over them all. His blood ran thick and hot at the lure of that thought.
‘Yes. I’d be honoured.’
Lise’s shoulders softened for the briefest of moments before her spine filled with steel. ‘The prime minister suggests a sensible date is a month away.’
On the day the Crown Prince had been due to marry. The horror that her government could do this to her. Why did she allow it?
‘How convenient.’
‘It is.’ He couldn’t miss the hard edge of anger in her voice then. ‘Rather than wasting money and effort on planning another event. The coronation will occur immediately after.’
This country couldn’t even give her a day of her own. Proof that they had never seen her as an individual. He clenched his jaw. Perhaps he could offer her something for herself.
‘Any preference for an engagement ring?’ The yellow diamond he’d thought of had no place here. There was no sunshine in this room. She was locked in a permanent winter. ‘I was thinking Ceylonese sapphire. The same, unreachable blue of your eyes.’
She hesitated for a heartbeat then shook her head. ‘I need nothing but a signature on the marriage licence. This isn’t a time for celebration.’
‘I understand. But what do you want?’
He couldn’t mistake the glitter of tears from a woman who by their agreement was denying herself everything she’d desired.
‘A convenient marriage, nothing more.’
He nodded. Unable to say another word lest anger overtake him.
‘Thank you, Rafe.’ The words were breathy and heartfelt. As he looked at her, he saw the Princess she’d been, before her tone hardened and she became his Queen once more. ‘My private secretary will be in touch.’
‘I’ll await his call.’ He stood and bowed. The move stiff and unfamiliar.
Rafe strode out of the study, his footsteps echoing down the marbled halls. He might have agreed to marry Lise, but he refused to honour the rest. He had time now. This was a battle he would win. He’d marry, then execute a fresh plan.
A plan to win his wife.
