A Bride for His Majesty s Pleasure

His arms felt cold and empty, and his body was racked with a physical ache that gnawed at him; all he wanted right now, Max acknowledged, was to take Ionanthe back to the castle and his bed. Her response to his kiss had ignited a need inside him that had taken him completely by surprise. And, more than that, during those intense moments a hope had come to life inside him that went against everything he had told himself he believed with regard to any marriage he might make. It should have been a salutary experience, or at the very least one which left him feeling wary and concerned about his own misjudgement, but instead what he actually felt was a feeling that was far sweeter.

Could it be that against all the odds—miraculously, almost—they shared a mutual desire for one another which could prove to be an unexpected foundation stone on which they could build a strong marriage? Max asked himself ruefully. If so…He looked at Ionanthe.

Sensing Max’s gaze focusing on her, and dreading what she suspected she would see in it if she were foolish enough to meet it, Ionanthe fought to keep her burning face, with its scarlet banners advertising her folly, to herself.

She knew perfectly well what Max would be thinking. She had experienced male sexual arrogance—if mainly second hand—often enough during the course of her work in Brussels to know full well that the average man’s reaction to a woman who responded as passionately as she had just done to Max was to assume that she must find him irresistible, must be desperate for even more sexual intimacy with him. There was no way Ionanthe wanted Max to think that about her. It offended her pride more than enough that she had to acknowledge to herself that she had responded to him, without having to endure him smirking over her vulnerability as well. She had to say something that would convince him that she had not really been affected by his kiss at all.

Ionanthe took a deep breath and said, as coolly as she could, ‘Well, now that I’ve played my part and done everything I can to convince everyone that I’ve married you willingly, including that faked display of wifely adoration, perhaps we could return to the palace?’

Ionanthe took care to wait for the silence that followed with a small frosty smile that was more a baring of her pretty white teeth than a real smile, before actually risking a look at Max.

The stony expression carved on his face should have been reassuring—as should the icy-cold tones in which he informed her, in a very distancing manner, ‘Very well. I’ll get the Captain of the Guard to escort you back.’

Instead, for some silly reason, they actually made her feel abandoned and forlorn.

So much for his stupid hopes, Max reflected grimly as he watched the Captain of the Guard escorting Ionanthe back to the hotel. At least the Captain was a middle-aged, heavily set man, and not the kind of Adonis-like youth his first wife had seemed to find so irresistible—just in case her sister should have the same proclivities. What a fool he’d been to think for even a moment that there could be something personal between them. Hell, he’d already told himself that that was the last thing he wanted. Didn’t he already have more than enough on his plate, with all the problems involved in bringing a new era to subjects w

ithout wanting to burden himself with some more? He simply could not take the risk of allowing himself to become sexually or emotionally vulnerable to Ionanthe. He knew that.

Cerebrally he might know it, but what about his body?

His body would have to learn, Max told himself grimly.

It was late in the evening—far later than he had initially envisaged having this conversation, thanks to the incident in the square—and the formal surroundings of the Grand Ministerial Chamber were hardly suited to its subject matter. But he had been determined to sign the necessary declaration that would ensure the freedom of the protestors without any delay.

Not that their earlier surroundings had been any more intimate—their first shared evening meal as a newly married couple having taken place in the equally formal and grand State Dining Room, where they had been seated at either end of a table designed to accommodate formal state dinners. With the length of a polished mahogany table that could easily seat fifty people separating them, and a silver-gilt centrepiece from the Royal Treasury between them, even if they had wanted to talk to one another it would have been impossible.

However, despite the cold hauteur with which Ionanthe had made plain exactly what her expectations of their marriage were, Max felt duty bound to have this conversation.

‘As there hasn’t been time to arrange a formal honeymoon—’ he began.

‘I don’t want one.’ Ionanthe stopped him quickly.

He had taken her sister to Italy—surely one of the most romantic honeymoon venues there could be?—but that wasn’t the reason for her immediate interruption. That owed its existence to what had happened to her out in the square, when Max had kissed her. How easily she had risked humiliating herself. She could just imagine how much it would please her new husband’s male ego if he thought that he could arouse her so easily. Men had no conscience when it came to women’s emotions and desires. She had seen that so often in Brussels. She had seen how men exploited the vulnerability of women, persuading them to give up their own moral beliefs for their own advantage. She certainly wasn’t going to put herself in that position—not when there was so much at stake for the country, for the son she hoped to have who would one day rule it.

There must be no further impulsive and unnecessary intimacies between Max and herself. It was her duty to consummate their marriage—how else could she conceive the son she was so determined to have for the people?—but she was determined not to put herself in a position where she might be sucked back into that dangerous state she had experienced earlier. A cool, calm and controlled execution of her marital and royal duty was her goal.

‘Maybe not,’ Max agreed calmly, ‘but it is expected. Therefore I plan to arrange for us to spend several days at the hunting lodge.’

Ionanthe looked at him in dismay.

The Royal Hunting Lodge was up in the mountains, and in winter doubled as a ski lodge as it was above the snow line.

‘Surely it will be inconvenient for you to be away from the centre of government?’ she protested. Not for anything was she going to admit to him that the hunting lodge’s remoteness and the fact that they would be alone there were filling her with panic.

When Max made no response she shrugged and affected a cool logic she was far from feeling, telling him, ‘I can’t see any purpose in us isolating ourselves in the mountains. It is our duty, I know, to produce an heir to succeed you, but we can do that just as well here.’

Such a pragmatic and logical, unemotional approach to their union was surely something he should applaud, Max told himself. After all, it reflected everything he had already told himself their marriage must be. Why, then, was he finding that he felt not just repelled but also in some dangerous way actively challenged as a man by Ionanthe’s attitude to the intimacy they must share?

‘You showed great passion this evening in your defence of your people.’

Ionanthe stiffened. What was he hinting? Was he going to ask her to deny that she had also shown great passion for him? Her pride writhed in agony at the thought.

‘Their safety is my responsibility,’ she answered coldly. ‘Your sexual pleasure is not. I refuse to fake passion for the sake of a man’s ego. You may have been able to force me to marry you, but you cannot force me to desire you and nor will I do so. Having said that, however, as I have already confirmed, I am fully prepared to fulfil my duty to the crown and to the people.’

The red mist of savage male sexual anger that rose up inside him shocked Max. He had to bring this conversation to a close before he was tempted to do something he considered beneath him, something he knew ultimately he would regret. He had never before wanted to overwhelm a woman’s resistance and arouse her to the point where she succumbed and gave herself completely and mindlessly to him out of the white-hot desire he had brought her to. But right now the images imposing themselves on his thoughts were of Ionanthe on a bed—a very large bed—on which their naked bodies were passionately entwined. Even without closing his eyes and focusing his senses he could imagine the silky softness of her hair against his own skin, its scent—her scent—heated by desire to release its erotic fragrance into the air, filling his nostrils. Her head would be thrown back against his arm, her eyes a passion-glazed glitter between thick dark lashes, her lips swollen from their shared kisses and eagerly parted, proclaiming her pleasure and her desire for more as she smiled invitingly up at him.

Angrily Max dragged his thoughts back to reality. He had no business allowing his mind to create such images. They were an offence, a mental assault that he could not allow to continue and that he would not tolerate in himself.