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“I think we’ve seen enough,” he said. “Let’s go to lunch. I have something special planned.”
He led her downstairs, through a hall and then another, into an old wing of the palace that looked more like a castle than a palace.
“The original fortress,” Zale said as soldiers before them opened a thick wooden door studded with metal that led to a narrow stairwell.
“This was the keep, built in the late fourteenth century and enlarged and strengthened in the 1500s,” he said, taking her hand as they walked up the winding staircase, which was cool and dimly lit. “For hundreds of years kings have made new additions to the castle, and modernized existing wings, turning the fortress into something more palatial, but this part remains as it was five hundred years ago.”
They climbed at least three floors until they reached the top of the tower and Zale pushed open another door, revealing blue sky and impossibly thick stone walls.
“The castle parapet,” Zale said. “My favorite place growing up.”
They were up high, in the tallest point of the castle and it was a gorgeous day with a blue sky and not a cloud in sight. The spring air was crisp and flags snapped below them in the wind, with the breeze carrying a hint of salt from the sea.
“I can see why you like it here,” she said, joining him at the thick wall and leaning against the weathered stone warmed from the sun. “A place a boy can escape to, and where a king can think.”
“That’s exactly it.” Zale leaned on the wall, too, his shoulders flexed, his weight resting on his forearms. “Here I have quiet and space. Perspective. I find perspective is essential. Far too easy sometimes to get caught up in emotions or the stress of a situation, whether real or imagined.”
She would have never guessed he could get caught up in emotions. He seemed far too levelheaded for that. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“We’re not done yet.” He extended his hand to her. “Come. Let’s eat.”
But instead of leading her back down the stairs, they continued walking around the parapet to the other side where a round tower was in ruins, with just pieces of walls and without a roof. The stairwell had been cemented over and a new stone floor mortared into place.
In the center of the ruined tower was a small round table with two chairs. The table was covered in a pale rose linen cloth with a loose floral arrangement of roses, freesias and lilies in the middle. There were two place settings, with sterling cutlery, gold-rimmed china topped with silver covers and tall, delicate stemware adding sparkle to the table.
“Your Royal Highness,” Zale said, drawing a chair out from the round table for her. “If you’d please.”
“Thank you.”
He helped scoot her chair in, the legs scraping against the stone. “I enjoyed our picnic on the beach so much I thought we should have another meal where it was just you and me. I rather like not having staff waiting on us. It’s more relaxed.”
“And more fun,” she added, thinking that while she’d enjoyed the picnic on his island, this was the most gorgeous, romantic setting she could imagine. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure,” he answered, sitting opposite her and drawing a bottle of white wine from an impressive silver bucket where it’d been chilling. He opened the bottle and filled each of their goblets. “To you, to me, and our future together,” he said, his gaze holding hers and lifting his glass in a toast.
Her eyes burned hotter and she had to smile to keep the tears back. “To our future,” she echoed, clinking the rim of her glass to his.
He searched her eyes, looking for something, but what, she didn’t know.
“Cheers,” he said.
They clinked glasses again and then drank and Hannah had never been so grateful for the warmth of the wine as it slipped down her throat and heated her stomach. She was cold on the inside, cold and scared.
This was going to end badly. So badly.
And then to cover the almost unbearable pain, she leaned forward to smell one of the sweetly scented roses. “They smell like real roses. Thank goodness.”
He looked at her, mildly amused. “When did roses stop smelling like roses?”
“A number of years back when someone got the idea to make them more hardy and disease resistant. The flowers grew bigger but the fragrance disappeared.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t suppose there’s a section on rose horticulture in your how-to-be-a-king manual.”
“Regrettably there isn’t such a manual. I could have used one.”
“Why?”
“The first few years were hard. Every day I wished I’d spent time with my father learning about my responsibilities before he died. There’s so much he could have taught me, so much I needed to know.”
