CHAPTER ONE
‘HIS MAJESTYHAS arrived, Your Majesty.’
Inara looked up from the email she’d been in the middle of excitedly typing to a colleague in Helsinki and blinked at Henri, her elderly butler. ‘What? Already?’
Used to her absent-minded lapses when it came to time, the butler inclined his head. ‘Indeed, Your Majesty. He’s in the lavender sitting room.’
Inara’s heartbeat accelerated. The lavender sitting room wasn’t the tidiest room in the Queen’s Estate and she knew her husband valued order. Henri and his wife Joan kept the estate in reasonable order, but it wouldn’t be up to the King’s standards.
How awful.
Inara felt her face get hot. She shoved back her chair and stood up quickly, her heart beating even faster. Even now her palms felt sweaty and her breath was short.
It was always this way whenever he visited. Five years she’d been married, and she was still as in love with him as she’d ever been, while he still barely acknowledged her existence.
No, that was a lie. He used to visit her regularly, shielding her from the scandal that their marriage had caused, then making sure she’d been looked after as the years had gone by. ‘The Prince’s Forgotten Wife’, the press had dubbed her, which was fine. She didn’t care.
He’d protected her from her parents with his name and his power, allowing her to finish school and attend university, pursuing her interest in mathematics. Most of the time he left her alone, though he’d used to visit for dinner or sometimes lunch, a breakfast here and there, and they’d talk, discussing all manner of subjects.
She’d loved those visits. She’d had him all to herself.
Then, two years after their marriage, his entire family had been killed in an accident and he’d become King. And the visits had stopped.
Inara wiped her hands on her dress unthinkingly. ‘Oh dear, I know I left about a thousand teacups in there, and I—’
‘It’s all tidy,’ Henri interrupted in that fatherly way he had. ‘Don’t fret, Your Majesty.’
Inara gave him a grateful smile then half-raised her hand to her hair, wondering vaguely if she should do anything about it, before lowering it as Henri gave a small shake of his head.
No time to change or fuss with her appearance. The King didn’t like to be kept waiting.
Inara moved around the side of her desk and into the wide hallway that ran the length of the little manor house. She’d moved here from Katara, the capital, when Cassius had ascended the throne. The traditional holiday estate of the queens of Aveiras, it was buried deep in the countryside amongst farmland and ancient forests, and she loved it for its isolation and privacy. Here, she was away from the city and its frenetic pace that disturbed her thinking, and away from the glare of the press and the eyes of the world that always made her feel small and plain and inadequate.
Cassius had only visited her a couple of times since he’d been crowned, preferring her to come to the city whenever there were royal duties to carry out as his queen. It made her wonder why he was here now.
Her stomach twisted in a sudden attack of nerves, but she swallowed it down. She didn’t want anything to ruin her joy at seeing him.
The door to the sitting room was open, so she went right in. Her husband stood before the fireplace with his back to her, a tall, broad statue in a dark suit. His hands were clasped behind his back, the royal seal of Aveiras gleaming on the middle finger of his right hand, his plain gold wedding band gleaming on the ring finger of his left.
Even with his back to her, he dominated the room.
Inara’s chest tightened, her stomach doing its usual swoop and dive, like the starlings over the south field in the evenings.
It was always the same whenever she was in his vicinity. She got hot and jittery, and her brain wouldn’t work. She also couldn’t stop staring at him.
She tried to hide her reaction to him, because she wasn’t sixteen any more, but she suspected he knew anyway. He was an experienced, much older man and, regrettably, not stupid. However, he never mentioned it, for which she was grateful, pretending not to notice her stutters and her sweaty palms, and coolly tolerant of her lapses into vagueness.
Really, it was a blessing she only saw him occasionally.
Inara pushed her glasses up her nose, took a breath and opened her mouth to welcome him.
‘How are you, Inara?’ he asked before she could get words out. He kept his back to her, his gaze on the watercolour of a vivid lavender field that hung above the fireplace and gave the room its name.
His voice was deep and cool, flowing over her heated skin like river water on a hot summer’s day.
‘Oh...um...good.’ Distractedly, she rubbed her hands down the sides of her cotton dress. ‘I’ve been chatting with Professor Koskinen in Helsinki about a theory I’ve been working on. It’s really interesting. I’ve had look at some of the—’
‘I’m sure you have.’ He continued to examine the painting in front of him. ‘But I’m afraid I’m not here to discuss your theories.’