Vows to Save His Crown

‘Rachel. I am so very delighted to make your acquaintance.’

‘As I am yours,’ Rachel managed to stammer. She felt woefully and wholly inadequate.

‘I must check on a few things before we appear publicly,’ Mateo informed her. Rachel tried not to gape at him in panic. He was leaving?

‘She is in safe hands, I assure you,’ Agathe said.

‘We will appear on the balcony at two...’ Mateo gave his mother a significant look.

‘She will be ready.’ She waved at him with an elegant hand. ‘Go.’

Mateo gave Rachel a quick smile that did not reassure her at all and then strode out of the room.

‘I have called for tea,’ Agathe said once he had left, the door clicking firmly shut behind him. ‘You must be exhausted.’

‘I’m a bit tired, yes,’ Rachel said carefully. She realised she had no idea how to handle this meeting. Despite Agathe’s air of gracious friendliness, she had no idea how the woman really thought of her. According to Mateo, Agathe had drawn up a list of suitable brides, and Rachel had most certainly not been on it.

‘Come sit down,’ Agathe invited, patting the seat next to her. ‘We have little time today to get to know one another, but tomorrow I have arranged for us to have breakfast together.’

‘That’s very kind.’ Rachel perched on the edge of the loveseat while Agathe eyed her far too appraisingly. Rachel knew how she looked—how limp her ponytail, how creased her suit, how pasty her skin. She tried to smile.

‘I suppose you are surprised,’ she said finally, because as always she preferred confronting the truth rather than hiding from it. ‘I am not the expected choice for your son’s bride.’

‘You are not,’ Agathe agreed with a nod. ‘And yet I think you might be exactly right.’

That surprised Rachel, and for the first time in what felt like for ever she actually started to relax. ‘You do?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Agathe returned with a tinkling laugh. ‘Did you think I would not approve?’

‘I wondered.’

‘More than anything, I wish my son to be happy,’ Agathe said quietly. ‘And the fact that he chose you, that he knows you and calls you his friend...that is important. Far more important than having the right pedigree or something similar.’ She shrugged slim shoulders. ‘It is a modern world. We are no longer in the days of princes and kings needing to marry young women of suitable social standing, thank goodness.’

Rachel wasn’t sure how to reply. Her father had been a well-regarded academic, if a commoner, but she doubted that held much water in the world of royalty. ‘Thank you for your understanding,’ she said at last.

An attendant came in with a tea tray, and Agathe served, her movements as elegant as ever. ‘I am afraid we have only a few moments, if we wish you to be ready for the announcement.’

Rachel’s stomach cramped as she took a soothing sip of the tea. Swallowing, she said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.’

‘Nonsense,’ Agathe said briskly. ‘You just need the right tools.’

* * *

Mateo felt the weight of responsibility drop heavily onto his shoulders as he took a seat at his father’s desk. His desk now. How long would it take him to think of it like that? To think of himself as King?

Two days away had taken their toll, and now his narrowed gaze scanned the various reports that had come in during his absence. Increased unrest in the north of the country; the important economic talks on a knife edge; domestic policy careening towards a crisis. An emergency on every front, and in just three hours he and Rachel would step in front of the waiting crowds and he would announce his choice of bride.

At least he did not regret taking that decision. Although she clearly had doubts about her suitability, Mateo did not. His only concern was making sure their relationship did not veer into the overly emotional or intimate. As long as they stayed friends, they would be fine. He would make sure of it.

Mateo spent an hour going over reports before he decided to check on Rachel’s progress with the stylists he’d engaged. After a member of staff informed him of their whereabouts, he strode towards the east wing of the palace, where the guest suites were housed. From behind the first door on the corridor he heard the accented trill of the woman who dressed his mother.

‘Of course we will have to do something about those eyebrows...’ Mateo stopped outside the door, frowning. ‘And that chin...’ The despair, bordering on disgust, in the woman’s voice tightened his gut. ‘Fortunately some—how do they say in the English?—contouring will help. As for the clothes...something flowing, to hide the worst.’

The worst?

Furious now, as well as incredulous, Mateo flung open the door. Four women, matchstick-thin and officious, buzzed around Rachel, who sat in a chair in front of a mirror, looking horribly resigned. At his entrance the women turned to him, wide-eyed, mouths open.

‘What is going on here?’ Mateo demanded, his voice a low growl of barely suppressed outrage.