Page 32 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

She knew damn well she had almost everyone’s attention. Including Augustus’s.

* * *

He found her two hours later, after the remains of the meal had been cleared away and guests had gravitated towards the dance floor, some to dance, some to stand and mingle at the edges. He’d mingled too, for as long as his patience would allow, and then he’d slipped away through a side door and taken the back way to the balcony. She had her back to him as one of her guards opened the door so he could enter. The second guard appraised him coolly before apparently making some kind of decision and silently taking his leave and closing the balcony door behind them and plunging them into near darkness.

‘Why are you up here when you should be down there?’ she asked without even turning around.

Why indeed? ‘How did you know it was me?’

‘Ari gave us privacy. There’s only one person in this palace he’d do that for without waiting for my command.’ She turned to face him. ‘Your Majesty.’

He didn’t make the mistake of thinking Sera’s guards were under his control. According to his Head of Security, they were compliant to a point. Co-operating when they could, fitting unobtrusively into whatever protection detail was in place. Beyond that, they were hers. ‘Lucky me.’

Her shuttered glance mocked him.

‘Would you prefer I call him back in?’ she offered, dry as dust.

‘No. The evening didn’t go quite to plan, as far as you were concerned.’

‘Didn’t it?’ She sounded wholly unconcerned. ‘I thought it went well. You mingled. Ate well. Met the women you wanted to meet. I gather Katerina DeLitt is a pleasant enough conversationalist.’

‘She is.’ One of his sister’s additions to the potential brides list. A noblewoman with strong trade connections. ‘She’s titled, well-read, entertaining and perfectly pleasing to the eye. And yet no one here this evening seemed to be able to see past you.’

‘It happens.’

‘Why?’ His knew his voice sounded tight with frustration. ‘You were supposed to blend in as an employee, shatter the myth of the courtesans of old. Instead you—’

‘Instead I what?’ He really should have taken note of the sharp note in her voice. He hadn’t grown up with a temperamental sister for nothing. ‘Did I not dress appropriately and make sure the evening ran smoothly? Was I not available to troubleshoot guest issues as they arose? Did I not do what you asked of me?’

‘You drew too much attention.’

She leaned back against the balcony and crossed her arms in front of her, wholly unconcerned by the low balustrade and the significant drop to the floor below. ‘I’ve been drawing that kind of attention since childhood. They say I have too much presence, that my beauty serves to make others insecure. Some people want to tear me down before I’ve ever said a word to them. Others would own me for their own ego enhancement. I don’t blend in. I never have. My beauty will always be both celebrated and demonised, sometimes both at once, because beauty is power, and never more dangerous than in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.’ She cocked her head to one side, her face in shadows and the spotlights behind her shining out across the ballroom below. ‘You want me to craft a new persona while I live beneath your roof and I have no objection to doing so. But the response of others to power such as mine is always going to be part of it. Your response to me is always going to be part of it. So what’s it to be? Are you here to work with me? Ask me to set up another meeting for you with the pleasant enough Katerina DeLitt? Perhaps you’d also like to tell me to make a note to never invite Peter Saville and Ricardo Anguissey to the same event again lest their wives and everyone else discover that they’re in each other’s pants? Or are you here to condemn me because my mere presence makes others behave badly?’

He’d been about to do that last one. He hadn’t liked the attention his guests had bestowed on his new events co-ordinator. The predatory nature of some of it. His instinctive desire to protect her from it. He’d wanted to claim her, to own her, to tear into anyone who dared covet her. Berate her for using the same stairs dozens of his other employees had used throughout the evening.

He wanted to step away from the door and look into her face, the better to try and interpret her every thought. He wanted to see her eyes darken with desire not hurt, and then he wanted to turn her around to face the ballroom and tell her that none of the people down there mattered; only his elemental desire to claim her mattered. And then he would step up behind her, open her trousers and bring her to quivering arousal with his fingers while his mouth ravaged hers and smothered her soft gasps of completion. She’d let him.

He knew damn well she’d let him.

And the next time he saw her she’d have drawn up a new list of candidates eligible to become his Queen—women with a knack for surrendering to exhibitionism or possessiveness or whatever this was that he wanted from her.

From her, not them.

‘Is my Minister for Trade really having an affair with our Liesendaach Ambassador?’ he said instead. ‘I’ll have to tell Theo.’

‘You’re assuming he doesn’t already know.’

Augustus lowered his head and bit down a snort. She had a point. ‘In that case, I’ll ask my sister why I shouldn’t simply send Liesendaach’s diplomatic representative home and get them to send a new one.’

She smiled ever so slightly, and dropped her arms to her sides and then curled her hands around the railing behind her. ‘That would be one way of opening dialogue about the conflict of many interests, yes.’

He liked seeing her less defensive when she looked at him. ‘What else did you see?’

‘Your Transport Minister’s wife is pregnant and not coping well with the demands of his job and her first trimester sickness. One of the Cordova twins of Liesendaach will be going home this evening with your Horse Master, although I’m not sure which one. And Prince Benedict of Liesendaach enjoys winding you up more than you can possibly imagine. If he wasn’t so enamoured of his partner I’d think him desperate for your attention.’

‘Benedict enjoys cultivating other people’s low opinion of him. It prevents them from noticing how ruthlessly cunning he is until it’s too late. At which point he usually has enough dirt on them to make them beholden to him for life. Never underestimate him.’

‘I like him already,’ she murmured.

‘He collects art. I’m sure he’d like to see some of the treasures that now reside in the round room.’ Benedict would go nuts over the tapestry wheel on the floor. ‘You might want to be careful about where he wants to sit on that round sofa of yours. Because he’ll doubtless want to sit in every damn section, just to see what happens.’

She smiled and for a moment his breath caught in his throat. It didn’t matter what they’d just been talking about because that smile was one he hadn’t seen before—openly conspiratorial and at the same time unguarded. As if gossiping about guests and trusting her to deal with Benedict however she saw fit made her happy.

He looked away, trying desperately not to be one of those men who looked at her and wanted her for all the wrong reasons. Nor did he want to be among the masses who became putty in her hands with just one smile. He wanted to do right by this woman who’d been placed in his care regardless of whether he wanted her there or not. Set her up to succeed. Give her a way out of the lifestyle she’d had thrust upon her when she was seven years old.

No judgement. No slaking his desires. Just common human decency. ‘Make sure Katerina DeLitt is invited to the next palace function, along with the next set of candidates,’ he said gruffly. ‘I like her.’

And then he left.

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