Shy Queen in the Royal Spotlight

‘What? No.’ He put his hand on hers and stopped her from rapidly tossing everything back into the box haphazardly. Slowly he put one item at a time into her palm so she could return them to their special place.

‘Everything around me,’ Alek said quietly. ‘This palace—my whole life—is a memorial to my family. There are portraits everywhere...everything is a reminder of who I am, where I’m from and who I must be. You don’t have that, so you keep all these. There are treasured memories in every one, right?’

She nodded, unable to speak again. Emotion kept overwhelming her and she hated it.

He picked up the white-silk-covered button from the tray and held it out for her to take. ‘I’m glad this was something you wanted to remember.’

He’d recognised it? She’d scooped it from the floor on her way out of his apartment this morning. Her fingers trembled as she took the button from her wedding dress and put it into the box.

‘I’m never going to forget last night,’ she whispered. Just as she was never going to forget anything associated with all her broken treasures. She closed the lid, amazed again at how perfect the repair was.

He watched her close the box. ‘How did it get broken?’

She traced the carved lid with the tip of her finger as he’d done that day they’d met. ‘It even used to lock. I wore the key around my neck on a ribbon, hoping they couldn’t see it under my shirt.’

‘They?’

‘My cousins.’ She shrugged. ‘They didn’t like it when I went to live with them after my parents died.’

‘They didn’t welcome you?’ He paused.

‘My aunt and uncle were sure to publicise that they’d “done the right thing” in taking me in. But they already had three children and none of them wanted me there.’

‘So they didn’t give you a nice room, or let you make their home your own.’

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘My uncle sold most of my parents’ things, but I had the box. I always kept it near me. I never left it in my room or anything because I knew not to trust them. But the ribbon was worn and one day I lost it. They teased me about never being able to open the box again because I’d lost the key—so then I knew they had it and they knew I knew. That was their fun, right? My helplessness. My desperation. There was nothing I could do and they enjoyed that power.’ She shivered. She’d hated them so much. ‘So I tried not to show them how much it mattered.’

‘I’m guessing you told them that it was “fine” for them to have it?’ He rubbed her hand. ‘That’s your fall-back, right? When you don’t want to say what’s really going on inside there.’ He pressed his fist to his heart.

She nodded sadly. ‘My cousin Joshua snatched the box off me, he said he’d open it for me, but he was mocking and mean. He tried to prise it open by force but couldn’t, so he got a knife. He broke the hinge and the lid splintered and everything fell on the ground. The three of them laughed at all my things. They said it was all just unwanted rubbish. All broken, with no value. Like me.’

Alek muttered something beneath his breath.

‘I ran away,’ she confessed sadly. ‘There was nothing else I could do, I just ran.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ He gazed at her, his dark eyes full of compassion that she couldn’t bear to see, yet couldn’t turn away from. ‘I would’ve done the same.’

She shook her head with a puff of denial. Because he wouldn’t have. He’d have fought them or something. He was so much stronger, so much more powerful than her. He’d never have let himself get stomped on the way she had. ‘I went back hours later, when it was dark and it was all still there on the ground where they’d dumped it.’

‘Hester—’

‘I knew then that I had to get away for real.’ Pain welled in her chest and she gazed down at the box. She’d never understood why they’d been so mean—what it was she’d ever done. Why it was that she’d not been welcomed.

‘Were these the cousins who attended the wedding yesterday?’

She nodded.

‘If I’d known...’ He muttered something harsh beneath his breath. ‘Why did you invite them?’

‘It would have caused more harm if I hadn’t. Imagine what they’d have said to the media then?’

‘I don’t give a damn what they’d have said.’

‘It’s fine, Alek. They can’t hurt me any more.’

He glanced at her. ‘It’s not fine, Hester. And you know that’s not true.’

‘Well...’ she smiled ruefully ‘...they can’t hurt me as much as they used to. I’m not a child. I’m not as vulnerable. I do okay now.’

‘You do more than okay.’ He blew out his tension. ‘Were these the people who tested whether your eyelashes are real by pulling them out?’

She stared at him, her heart shrivelling at the realisation that he’d seen so much. ‘How did you—?’

‘No one normal would ever think to do that. You only mentioned it because some cruel witch had actually done it.’

She stared into space, lost in another horrible memory. ‘It was girls at school,’ she mumbled. ‘Pinned me down.’

‘At school?’

His horror made her wince.

‘I got myself a scholarship to an elite boarding school. It was supposed to be my great escape—a wonderful fresh start away from the cousins.’

‘And it wasn’t?’ He clenched his jaw.

‘It was worse.’

She felt the waves of rage radiating from him and opted to minimise what she’d confessed. ‘They were just mean. I ran away from the school. I worked. I studied. I did it myself.’

‘You shouldn’t have had to.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s not okay, Hester.’

‘But I’m okay. Now. I truly am.’ And she realised with a little jolt that it was true. If she could handle getting married in front of millions of people, she could handle anything, right?

He looked into her eyes for a long moment and finally sighed. ‘My craftsman said he’d fixed the lock too,’ he said, drawing a tiny ornate key from his pocket. ‘So now you can lock it again and keep it safe.’ He held the key out to her. ‘And you could put the key on a chain this time.’

She curled her fingers around the key and pressed it to her chest. ‘This was so kind of you, Alek.’

His smile was lopsided so the dimples didn’t appear and he didn’t kiss her as she’d thought he was about to. Instead he stood.

‘We need to get going or it’ll be too dark.’

‘Of course,’ she breathed, trying to recapture control of herself, but there was a loose thread that he seemed to have tugged and still had a hold of so she couldn’t retie it. ‘I need a minute to tidy up.’

‘The staff will tidy up.’

‘I’m not leaving this mess for them.’ She sent him a scandalised look. ‘They’ll think we had a massive fight or something.’

He grinned as he scooped up an armful of pillows and put them away with surprising speed. ‘Or something.’

CHAPTER NINE

HESTER GAZED UP at the double-storeyed mansion set in the centre of green lawns and established trees. ‘I didn’t think there could be anything more beautiful than the palace or the castle, but this is—’

‘Very different from either of those places.’ Alek said.

‘Yes, it’s...’ She trailed off, unsure she wanted to elaborate; he seemed oddly distant.

Only then he wasn’t.

‘What?’ He stepped in front of her, his gaze compelling. ‘Tell me what you think.’

It was impossible to deny him anything when he stood that close.

‘It doesn’t seem like a royal residence. It’s more like a home.’ Admittedly a beautiful, luxurious home—but there was something warm and welcoming and cosy about it.

‘It was ho

me.’ Something softened in his eyes. ‘My mother designed it and my father had it built for her before I was born.’ His lips twisted in a half-smile.

‘You grew up here?’

He nodded. ‘She wanted us here as much as possible. School had to be in the city, of course, but before then and every holiday during. It was our safe place to be free.’

Hester was fascinated and honoured that he’d brought her somewhere clearly so special to him. ‘Was?’

‘My father never returned here after she died.’ He gazed across the fields before turning to walk towards the homestead. ‘Because she died here.’