Page 20 of A Throne for the Taking

‘Oh why do I have to feel this way? Still!’

Turning restlessly on fine linen sheets that suddenly seemed as rough as cheap polyester against her sensitised skin, Ria pummelled her pillow, desperately trying to find a comfortable spot that might help her relax. Outside, the dark of the night was filled with a heavy, oppressive warmth, the low, rumble of thunder circling against the mountains and across the valley towards the castle. The long voile curtains waved in the breeze, as restless and unsettled as her thoughts. But it wasn’t the heat outside that made her body burn but the flare of feelings deep inside.

Alexei had declared openly that he would never love her, but she had thought that he had responded to her at least as a woman. That he had wanted her as much as she did him. She had told herself that she wouldn’t ask for more. She hadn’t thought that she might have to settle for so much less.

Knowing that sleep was impossible, Ria tossed back the bedclothes, swinging her feet to the floor and reaching for the pale blue robe that lay at the foot of the bed, a match for the beautiful silk nightdress she was wearing.

When it had been delivered, along with the other new outfits she was expected to wear for her official duties, she had thought that there was perhaps a secret message in the garments. That they were meant for the time when she and Alexei would get together and finish what they had started in London and later on the plane journey here. She had waited six long nights, the pretty blue nightgown had become crumpled with wear. But not any more.

‘Six nights is long enough!’

She wasn’t going to sit here any longer like some unwanted spare part. She wasn’t thirteen any more, trained to be compliant, doing as her father said.

She didn’t even have to do as Alexei said; not unless she wanted to.

Tightening the belt of the blue robe around her waist and pushing her feet into soft white slippers, she marched towards the door and flung it open.

‘Madame?’

The instant response, in a quiet, respectful male voice, startled her. She had forgotten that Alexei had warned her of the need for security following the unrest that had resulted from the problems over the accession to the throne. Drawing herself up hastily, she directed a cool gaze at the security officer.

‘His Majesty asked to see me.’

‘Of course, madame. If you’ll just follow me...’

The problem was, Ria acknowledged to herself as he led her down long high-ceilinged corridors, that now she was committed. How would this man react if she suddenly declared that she wasn’t going to obey the summons she had claimed after all?

But they had reached their destination before she had time to think things through, her guide stopping by another huge carved wooden door, rapping lightly on it and then standing back with a swift, neat bow.

‘Yes?’

The door was yanked open and Alexei stood in the doorway, tall and devastating, more imposing than ever.

He had discarded the dinner jacket he’d had on earlier that evening but he still wore the immaculate white shirt, now pulled open at the throat with his black bow tie, tugged loose and left dangling around his neck. His hair was in ruffled disarray, as if he had been running his hands through it again and again, and he held a crystal tumbler with some clear liquid swirling about at the bottom of it.

‘Madame Duchess...’

His voice was dark with cynicism, no warmth of welcome in it.

Without thinking, Ria reverted to the formality of etiquette she had been trained in and dipped into a neat curtsey, holding the blue skirts of her robe out around her as if they were some formal ball gown.

‘You asked to see me, sir.’

I did? She could see the question in his eyes, the way the straight black brows snapped together in astonishment, but luckily his sharp jet gaze went to the man behind her and obviously caught on. He nodded and stepped back, opening the door even wider.

‘I did, duchess,’ he responded with a grave formality that was at odds with the twitch of the corners of his mouth. ‘Come in.’

It took all Ria’s control to move forward, walk past the security guard and into the room. Just at the last moment she recovered enough composure to turn and switch on a swift, controlled smile.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

Then she was inside and the door was closed behind her, leaving her alone with Alexei.

This suite was larger even than the one she had spent the last week in. Huge rooms, vast windows, decorated in shades of dark green. But now, seeing it with him standing beside her, she couldn’t help recalling the building she had seen him in in London. Here, the stiff formality of the décor, the furnishings in the dark heavy wood, made it look as if it had been decorated twenty years or more before. There were no photographs here, she noticed, recalling how those elegant but somehow cold, isolated—lonely—images had hit home the first time she had seen them. In fact there was nothing personal here, nothing of Alexei. Only the new king.

Ria managed another couple of steps into the room, then slowed, stopped, as the full force of the scene outside the door hit home.

‘Oh dear heaven...’ Even she couldn’t tell if her voice shook with laughter or embarrassment. ‘Henri. What he must have thought!’

‘And what was that?’ Alexei drawled, taking a sip of his drink.

‘That you— He must have thought that you had summoned me to your room...’

She couldn’t complete the sentence but the dark gleam in Alexei’s eyes told her that he had followed her thought processes exactly.

‘And would it have been so very terrible if I had? Why should you not be in my room? We are engaged to be married, after all. And from the stories of our romance in the press, everyone will be expecting that we are already lovers.’

The last of his drink was tossed to the back of his throat, swallowed hard. Ria watched every last inch of its progress down the lean bronzed length of his throat, almost to the point where the first evidence of crisp, dark body hair showed at the neck of his white shirt. Compulsively she found herself matching the movement, though her own gulping swallow did nothing to ease the heated dryness of her mouth.

‘That being so, they probably wondered why you haven’t been here before. So tell me—to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’

What had seemed so totally right when she had been tossing and turning in her bed, her body on fire with longing, now seemed impossible. The restless hunger hadn’t eased—if anything, standing here like this so close to the living, breathing reality of her dreams, able to see the gleam of health on the golden skin, the lustre of his black hair, smell the personal scent of his body, made it all so much worse, much more visceral and primitive. But how could she come right out and say it?

‘Perhaps I feel the way the paparazzi feel...’

His frown revealed his confusion and perhaps a touch of disbelief.

‘I want to know more than just what event I’m attending, what dress I’ll be wearing. I’m wondering just what I’m doing here—why you have me imprisoned.’

It was the first thing that came to her mind—and the worst, it seemed. Danger flared in his eyes, and the glass he held slammed down on a nearby table.

‘Not imprisoned! You are free to come and go as you please.’

‘Oh perhaps not like my father, I agree. I’m your fiancée—we’re supposed to be getting married but that’s almost as much as I know. I need to know just what I’m doing here.’

I need to know what we can do to make this work, she added in her own thoughts but totally lost the nerve to actually say the words aloud.

CHAPTER TEN

‘OH COME NOW, Ria,’ Alexei mocked. ‘You know only too well why you are here. I want you—and you want me. We have only to look at each other and we go up in flames.’

Right now she felt that that was exactly the truth. The moment of cold had vanished and now the surface of her skin seemed to be burning up. When he prowled nearer she had to clench her hands in the skirts of her nightdress and robe, keeping them prisoner and away from the dangerous impulse to reach out and touch him.

‘So much so that you haven’t even been near me!’ she scorned. ‘You’ve sent me jewels—flowers.’

‘I thought women liked flowers—and jewellery.’

Ria batted the interruption aside with a wave of her fingers then snatched her hand back again as if stung as skin met skin where it had accidentally brushed his cheek. She could feel the wave of colour rising in her cheeks as she saw the way his eyes darkened in instant response, sending her body temperature rocketing skywards.

‘And you look beautiful in that nightdress,’ he continued, unrepressed.

‘So beautiful that ever since we came back to Mecjoria you have barely spent a day in my company.’

‘Are you saying that you’ve been missing me?’ Alexei questioned with sudden softness.

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