Page 1 of Claiming His Virgin Princess

PROLOGUE

‘HEMIGHTBEHANDSOME, but I hate him. How could he hurt our Princess like that? She’s so nice and now he’s broken her heart and she’s miserable—’

‘Shh! She’ll be here any second,’ another girl hissed. ‘It’s almost time and she’s never late.’

Out in the corridor of the children’s ward Ilsa felt her heartbeat quicken, though she kept her expression calm and her footsteps even. She’d had a lifetime to grow used to public fixation on her personal life.

To pretend it didn’t bother her.

Because if she did, she’d go crazy.

Beside her the matron sent a swift sideways glance, cheeks reddening.

So Ilsa paused to admire a whimsical mural, giving the older woman time to compose herself. ‘This is new. It wasn’t here a month ago. It really brightens the place.’

‘Yes, it does, Your Highness. The patients love it. They listed all the things they wanted included. It’s good to see the young ones smile when they come out here.’

Ilsa nodded, taking in the painted scene complete with crystal stream, fairy bower, gnomes and animals ranging from hedgehogs to unicorns. Then she noticed, in the far corner, a perfect replica of the Altbourg royal palace she knew so well. Before it stood a familiar figure wearing a coronet on her golden hair, holding the hand of a dark-haired man in the distinctive green military uniform of neighbouring Vallort.

The likenesses of herself and King Lucien were unmistakable. Despite her tension, Ilsa’s lips twitched. Would the artist paint Lucien out now their engagement was over?

Except it wasn’t really amusement she felt but something deeper and darker.

Not because she and Lucien had ended the betrothal foisted on them by dynastic matchmakers. But because she was tired of being reminded of it everywhere she went. Tired of being defined by her broken engagement.

Not one broken engagement but two.

One fiancé dead in a freak accident and a second spurning her to claim his waitress lover instead. Everyone saw Ilsa as a figure to be pitied.

A bubble of emotion rose and she had to work to hold it in. She longed for privacy, instead of being continually confronted by the debacle of her failed wedding plans.

Except if she stayed away from public duties people would assume she was pining for her ex-fiancé.

Plus she knew from experience that work was the best antidote to such restlessness.

Besides, the children were waiting for her. Kids whose courage in the face of often severe illness put her petty concerns in the shade. They looked forward to her visits.

She turned to the matron with a smile she knew looked serene, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘Shall we?’

They entered a room where two teenage girls sat in hospital beds. The younger one, bald from her treatment, swept up a magazine and stuffed it behind her pillow.

She needn’t have bothered. The palace media team briefed Ilsa daily. If she remembered right that one led withIlsa Heartbroken as Lucien Flaunts New Loverthen went on to describe her astragic and lonely.

Sometimes she wished she didn’t have such a retentive memory.

By the time she got home Ilsa ached with tiredness.

Smiling continually and being the perfect, composed royal took a toll when you hadn’t had enough sleep.

And when paparazzi kept screaming intrusive questions from beyond the security cordons. Between the solicitous pity of the public and the hectoring barbs of the press, she felt as if she’d managed fourteen public engagements today instead of four.

She thanked the footman who opened the door to the royal family’s private wing in the palace. As soon as the door shut behind her she rolled her shoulders, took off her slingback shoes and flexed her stockinged toes.

A long soak in the bath would help unknot the kinks of tension and ease her shredded nerves.

A silent laugh escaped at the idea. Princesses didn’t have nerves. That luxury wasn’t permitted.

As she headed down the wide corridor towards her apartment, she heard voices through the open door of the King’s study. The sound of her name stopped her.

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