Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt

Had she known that was the moment she might have been able to save herself from what was to come, she might have answered differently, he thought. But she hadn’t. Instead, she only confirmed the words he needed to hear.

He pressed away the excuses she had given him about their time together, the slow erosion that had begun against the bedrock of his need for revenge. The image she had woven between them of a young woman trapped within a gilded cage of duty as she battled the natural, sprite-like instinct within her. Of a reckless young girl, ignorant of the consequences of her actions. His determination had begun to give...to loosen its grip around his plans and his feelings for her.

But Sofia’s decisions that night had put into motion a chain of events that had led him and his mother to such pain... Had he stayed at the school, gone on to university, his mother would not have had had to work every back-breaking moment of those first five years alongside him, pouring their blood, sweat and tears into the very earth that eventually repaid them. But not without cost. His mother’s heart attack could have been prevented. The bright, determined, loving woman he knew had been transformed into a vulnerable, weakened, pallid imitation of herself. And it had only been by nearly losing everything again that he’d been able to fund her treatment. But he could have done better. He could have taken his mother away from that hardship, from that life-or-death battle, had it not been for Sofia.

It took him a moment to realise that the buzzing wasn’t just in his ears, but that of a mobile phone nestled on her dressing table.

‘Do not answer it,’ he commanded darkly. They were not done yet.

He watched her take in the number on the screen.

‘I have to.’ And for the first time after these ten years of absence he saw fear in her eyes and, speaking into the phone, she asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE HAD MADE Sofia wait while he quickly showered and changed. When she had insisted she needed to go now he had refused, firmly stating that five minutes would do no harm. And she hadn’t been able to tell him why he was wrong. Bound by secrets she bitterly resented.

She had tried to walk out, but he had caught her arm and ordered her to take a breath. A breath? Even now she felt she hadn’t inhaled once since hearing her mother’s desperate pleas on the phone. He had dogged her steps as she had tried to leave without him, leaving muttered words like ‘stubborn’ and ‘pig-headed’ in their wake.

She scanned her mind for her father’s routine. For something that would perhaps explain what could have happened to make her mother beg for her presence.

‘You need to come here. Now. Please, Sofia.’

Panic was a feral thing, eating up the small, dark, cramped space of the limousine whisking her away to the small estate where her mother and father lived. Between her fear and Theo’s brooding presence, she could barely move. It pressed in around her as she clutched the silk of the trouser suit at her thigh.

‘I’ll ask again—’

‘And I’ll say again, Theo, I cannot tell you what’s going on. I don’t even know.’ And she hated the helplessness of her words and the truth in them. As the car drew up to the entrance to her parents’ home, she commanded him to stay in the car.

And, for once, he must have seen the seriousness of the situation and listened.

Leaving him leaning against the limousine, the early morning sky barely touched by the light of the sun’s rays, Sofia raced through the halls, the bodyguard who had ridden with the driver flanking her side.

One floor down from her parents’ living quarters and she could already hear the muffled sounds of her father’s anger. Her speed picked up, nearly causing her to stumble at the top of the marble stairs. She rushed through the heavy wooden doors, partly open as if ready for her arrival.

‘Get your hands off me. Do you not know who I am?’ her father demanded, his face red with anger and frustration.

‘Of course they do, Frederick.’ Her mother’s gentle, soothing tone was doing nothing to calm her father’s fury.

The sight of her father’s frail old body being restrained by two men was almost enough to bring a cry to Sofia’s lips. The skin on his arms loose, as if he were a puppy, still yet to grow into himself. Was this growing old? Sofia wondered. Reverting to a childlike state of tantrums, and folds of paper-thin skin?

‘Sofia!’ her father cried. ‘Make them see. Make them see that they have to let me go. I need to speak to the council. The Prime Minister wants to raise the duty taxes on the...on the...’ Becoming even more frustrated with his lack of memory, he growled, pushing and pulling against the two men restraining him.

Sofia didn’t know where he was in his mind, but it wasn’t now. The Prime Minister had greater things to deal with at the moment than raising duty taxes on anything, so it must have been some years ago.

‘Papa, it’s okay. We’ll speak to him later. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and he’ll still be asleep. There’s time, Papa.’

‘No, there isn’t,’ he said, almost succeeding in throwing off one of the men. Sofia took a step back instinctively, hating the familiarity of the fear thrumming her pulse like a guitarist. Once again she rubbed at her forearm, at the place where a similar night had caused her father to accidentally fracture her arm and two ribs. She’d never forget the look of shock and confusion in her father’s eyes as he’d utterly failed to grasp what he had done. It was a terrible thing to fear her own father.

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ he demanded now, bringing her back to the present with a thump.

‘What, Papa?’

‘You’re keeping me from him. You only want the throne for yourself. You’ve been...poisoning me. Whispering evil into my courtiers’ ears. You want me gone.’

‘Papa, that’s not true,’ Sofia said, gently, knowing that any trace of concern or upset only made him worse. Everything in her cried, no. Proclaimed that she had never wanted it. ‘This country needs you. I need you.’

‘You never needed me,’ he growled. ‘Running around the castle like some pixie. Desperate to run off with that Greek boy and turn your back on us all.’