Page 31 of A War of Crowns

Seraphina crinkled her nose at the very idea. “I havenotbeen avoiding you. I have simply been…” But the words stalled on her tongue when Lord Tiberius tilted his head to the side and arched an eyebrow at her. He always looked so terribly roguish when he did that. “Busy,” she breathed before whirling about and returning to her hunt for a map. “We are atwar, you know.”

“Yes, well, the last I checked, there is no law against you taking a break every now and then. Not even the queen need spend all her time in council meetings and fretting in the library.”

Seraphina shot Tiberius a playful glare over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be off making every young lady of the court swoon and their fathers scowl?”

The question earned a strange smile from Lord Tiberius. “Actually, that is the very matter I wished to speak to you about, Your Majesty. If you have a moment.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She froze in the very midst of rising up on tiptoe to reach the scroll case containing every map of the known seas of Avirel. “You have found a wife at last?” she whispered without even bothering to look at him. She was aware of him, though, standing directly there behind her.

Close. Entirely too close.

Lord Tiberius’s words brushed against the curve of her ear when he softly admitted, “No, not quite,” and she immediately snatched for the scroll case before sidling away from his nearness.

Her stomach churned at the implications of his words.

Seraphina had been dreading this day ever since her coronation—the day her old friend would finally come to her and ask herto find him a wife. It was in her power. As the queen, she had to approve all noble matches.

And she could compel them as well.

But how could he possibly expect her to look another woman in the eyes and command her to marry a perfect stranger? A perfect stranger who was sure to anger many a noble father and set entire Houses against the Crown?

“I can’t possibly, Tiberius,” Seraphina admitted to him, clutching the scroll case against her chest. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the man. “I don’t wish to disappoint you, but—”

Tiberius’s warm chuckle washed over her like a summer breeze. “You are already rejecting me and you haven’t even heard my proposal?”

Seraphina’s attention snapped back his way. Her eyes widened when she saw the small box in his hand. Inside, nestled against the dark velvet, sparkled a glorious opal ring surrounded by sapphires and diamonds.

Dumbly, she stared at it. “What?”

“You, Sera,” Tiberius whispered, and her silly little heart skipped a full beat. “It’syouI wish to marry.”

In the wake of those words, she quite forgot how to breathe.

Marry…her?

Her mind scrambled to make sense of this new development.Why now?she wished to ask. There was no point wasting breath voicing such a question, though. She already knew the answer, deep down.

And her heart ached with the truth of it.

Here was her one childhood dream, the single thing she had wanted as a girl—the chance to marry for love rather than duty. The chance to marryhim.

But it was only being offered now becausenowshe was queen. Now there was some gain to be had in it.

Tiberius Beaumont was, first and foremost, a businessman. For all that she had loved him once, for all that she admired him still, she recognized that about him. She knew he never made any sort of decision without having analyzed the potential profit first.

The feel of Alyx’s feathers brushing against her throat when the usuru suddenly stretched was enough to snap Seraphina out of her current daze. Still, the baron watched her, clearly waiting for her reaction.

But if he was waiting for her to swoon into his arms, he would be waiting for a good long time further.

“You wish to marryme? Now? When I must look to Elmoria’s well-being first?” Swallowing, Seraphina looked down at the scroll case in her arms.

She had work to do. Maps to study. Plans to make. She didn’t have time for this…childishnonsense.

And yet, she couldn’t stop the words from pouring out like water when she suddenly asked, “And where was this desire to marry me fourteen years ago when I”—squeezing her eyes shut, she drew in a slow breath—“when Ibeggedyou to run away with me?”

Her eyes flashed back open to find Tiberius now frowning when he softly reminded her, “You were already engaged—”

“To a five-year-old I had never met,” Seraphina snapped as all those old feelings bubbled to the surface again. It had been so long ago. She thought she had forgotten it all.

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