AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He could have gone to her, but the memory of that tortured look on her face as she’d said,‘I can’t,’stopped him. He’d rushed her. Rather than taking one step forwards he’d tried to run a marathon. He was a man renowned for his patience and strategy and he’d failed in all ways last night, overcome by the craving to make herhisin every way. All he was left with this morning was the burn of regret, when he’d spent his life after Carl’s death ensuring that he regretted nothing.
The clock chimed nine. He didn’t believe Lise was still asleep, and they couldn’t avoid what had happened the night before. He needed a reset so he could understand why she refused anything that might give her pleasure. So they could begin again.
He poured a cup of coffee for her, as she preferred. Plenty of milk. Sugar. Then walked up the stairs and knocked at the door of her room. Silence. He knocked again, then opened the door a sliver and peered inside.
The fire had died overnight, the room gripped in a morning chill. But that wasn’t what caused the shiver to run over him. It was Lise, huddled in the corner velvet couch, staring into the dead fireplace. Her shoulders bare.
‘You should be in bed. It’s freezing out there. I’ve brought you a coffee.’
He came into the room. Lise didn’t move as he rounded the couch. She wore a pink slip, her nipples tight against the silken fabric. Her skin pale and white as midwinter snowfall. How long had she been sitting here, staring into the fireplace? He glanced at the bed, the covers in disarray, twisted and knotted like his. As if she’d not slept at all.
She wrapped her arms tight around her knees, as if she was trying to protect herself against something. Rafe walked towards her. Lise’s focus remained intent on the dark, dead fireplace as if the secrets of the universe could be divined there. Her nose a little pink, her eyes swollen. Whatever gripped her, it wasn’t a conversation he could have like this. He picked up a folded rug from the arm of the chair.
‘You need something to keep you warm.’
‘No.’ He barely heard the word; it came out on a breath.
As he sat on the couch, she pressed herself further into the corner, away from him. He placed her coffee on a side table, gut twisting in concern. ‘What’s wrong, Lise?’
Her recent life had been full of too many tears. He wished there were a way to obliterate the pain that burrowed deep inside her.
‘I told you. How this marriage had to be. I told you.’
It still didn’t make sense. How could she maintain the desire to live life untouched after last night? For those brief moments spasming in ecstasy under his ministrations, she’d beenhis. Completely, enthusiastically. Yet now, she was further away from him than ever.
‘Things change. There’s no crime in passion.’
‘What if we had sex? What if I fellpregnant?’ She spat out the word as if the thought of having his child was an insult. ‘It’s what you want, isn’t it? The “heir and a spare or two”?’
He’d inured himself to most rejections over the years, but that statement still twisted like a knife under the ribs. The poisonous words crept into his consciousness. The sneer, the rejection, the laughter.‘Rafe, what we’ve had is a little bit of fun—but marry you...?’None of the women of Lauritania’s aristocracy had wanted any permanence, not with him. The commoner. No matter those families were now close to bankrupt. That he owned them, owned everything they had. They still pretended they were better than him. Why should he think she would be any different? She was more than a mere noblewoman. She was theQueen. He gritted his teeth, tamped down the twist in his gut. Those memories, those thoughts, had no place here. He’d moved past them. He had.
‘Would it be so bad if you had a baby?’ Rafe loathed his question, what it revealed of him. It was what he craved, cementing his family on the seat of his country’s power for generations to come.
A shudder ran through her. ‘I don’t want a daughter brought into the world I inhabit. I’ll never do to a girl what was forced upon me as Queen.’
He ignored the slice of rejection. She hadn’t been allowed to find her own way, that was all. And he of all people understood Lise’s need to make a place for herself, to carve her own path. Time to remind her she could.
‘You can be the catalyst for change, so you’re the last Queen this happens to. We can do it, together. Bring Lauritania into the twenty-first century.’
‘You have so much faith in me.’
‘Because I know you. You’re in your rightful place. Ruling the country is exactly where you should be. You’re wasted anywhere else.’
He edged closer to her, still with the blanket in hand. Her knuckles blanched white as her hands gripped more tightly round her bent legs.
‘I’m an impostor,’ Lise said. ‘I failed my family.’
She shivered, goosebumps peppering her skin. Lips, pale and dusky. Why sit there in the cold? They could have carried on last night. Spent it together, pleasuring each other till dawn broke and they slept from exhaustion, truly spent. They could have been warm in bed right now and yet she’d refused it. Refused comfort. It was as if she were punishing herself.
And the realisation came like dawn breaking over the mountain peaks. Lise punished herself for living.
He was a fool for not realising it before, because he understood all too well. He had a choice. To leave her paralysed with grief or to share a little of himself in the hope it would help. Give her something that granted a power few had over him. Rafe stood to stoke the fire. Collect his thoughts on a story etched into his soul.
Only his family and Lance knew how deep the pain scored. People at school had taunted his memories, but to them Carl was soon forgotten. His brother’s only use being the vehicle by which to hurt Rafe in his grief.
‘I understand why you feel like this,’ he said.
Rafe jabbed at a few bright coals still hiding in the hearth, coaxing them to life. Wishing he could do the same with Lise as easily. He added a few more logs till the fire crackled bright and warm then sat down again.
