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There’d been a man seated by the library door. With his deeply tanned skin and bald head he’d seemed rather intimidating, but then he’d smiled, said his name was Rais, and asked if she’d come to meet her guest.
Amazed that someone thought her important enough to meet the visitor, she’d forgotten to be nervous and nodded.
‘Well, then,’ he’d said, opening the door for her, ‘you’d better go in.’
The room had been flooded with sunlight. Dust motes from ancient books danced in the beams that hit the floor. It had taken a moment for her eyes to adjust, to see the tall figure standing in the shadows beyond the window.
He’d been dressed in a black suit and tie. A neatly folded handkerchief had peeked from his breast pocket. A man’s attire, though he’d really been still a boy. His dark hair, cut short at the sides, had been luxuriant on top and tumbled over his forehead. Thick ebony brows had sat above deep-set eyes of a startling pale grey. His long straight nose and chiselled cheekbones had lent him an aristocratic air.
He had been the handsome young prince from any of her favourite fairy tales come stunningly to life, and quite simply the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Right there, Lily had lost her heart.
She’d drawn nearer and greeted him.
As he’d swung towards her his expression had shocked her and, being so young, and unused to company, she’d said the first thing that came to mind. ‘Why are you so sad?’
The teenager, wrestling with a raw grief he’d hardly been able to comprehend, had replied just as honestly. ‘Because my brother died.’
The moment the words had left his mouth he’d been overcome. She’d instinctively wanted to help this boy, and had gone to clasp his hand in her own. She had remembered the one thing that her own stepbrother loved, and had used it to try to divert him.
‘Do you like horses?’
The Prince, too distressed to speak, had given a nod.
‘Nate has three. We could go and see them if you’d like?’
He hadn’t known how brave she was being even to mention them. They terrified her. Her father had died when he’d been thrown from his horse.
‘Yes,’ he’d said. His grip had tightened on her hand as if clutching a lifeline. ‘I’d like that a lot...’
Lily sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
No, that bewildered boy was nothing like the man he’d become. He was not even like the man who, six years later, had been so kind to her at her mother’s funeral—who’d found her sobbing in a cloakroom, pulled her close and allowed her to weep all over him.
The man now was harder, colder. More remote.
So how—when she recognised that, and when life had taught her to rely only on herself—had she let that moment in the hallway blur the edges? Imagined being in his arms again while he fended off the world and all its pain for her.
The man had a kingdom to rule, and an entire people to protect. What time would he have for the likes of her?
Through the window, she saw the sky was almost dark. She’d slept all day. She’d been more exhausted than she’d realised. Not only last night, but the preceding weeks had taken their toll.
In the sitting room a servant was moving about. As promised, the Queen had sent someone to help their new guest.
A bath had been drawn, and when Lily emerged fresh clothing had been laid out. The embroidered linen tunic and slim trousers were comfortable and cool, even matching Stella’s sandals. Her damp hair was dried and styled to fall in burnished curls down her back.
‘His Highness asked that you be brought to him once you had risen,’ the servant said.
Bathed and dressed, ready to be taken to the Prince?
Lily’s heart thumped with an entirely inappropriate anticipation as she was led through airy corridors and quadrangles open to the skies where the verdant green of clipped box softened stark slate pools.
They’d left the Family Wing and entered the Royal Court—a large complex with all the private offices, public reception rooms and staff areas required for a modern working royal family. Staff hurried past, intent on their evening duties. They bowed to Lily, politely concealing their curiosity. Mostly.
Several times she caught looks that lingered longer than necessary. Perhaps their prince bringing home ‘an actual girl’ was a surprise to the palace staff, too. They couldn’t know that it was the intervention of his mother that had brought her here...that her son had intended she be secreted away from public view and from him.
She refused to feel a moment’s disappointment about that.
Up ahead stood a pair of imposing doors, flanked by two of the palace security team. Across the threshold waited Rais and a sumptuous salon. Stately gilt-edged sofas and chairs were arranged around the perimeter. A vast Persian rug covered the floor. And on the walls hung a series of elaborately framed mirrors.
