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It had been beautiful. Everything she’d wished for on their wedding night.
For the first time in her life she’d felt cherished, but it was all a lie and at any moment Amadeo would roll off her, swing his legs off her bed and leave.
Even if she felt that she could ask him to stay, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t be able to endure the rejection that would surely come.
And then it happened. His weight shifted off her and he rolled onto his back. Her heart shrivelled, opening up the hollow that always formed in the aftermath of their couplings.
Oh, why had he made it sogood? Why had he acted as if he was making love to her when they both knew he despised her?
She tugged the sheets up over her breasts and folded her hands across her belly. It took a huge effort but she managed to drag air into her lungs, somehow breathing in a huge dose of Amadeo’s scent and the scent of their lovemaking with it.
Stop thinking of it like that. It was only sex. Tender, beautiful sex.
Hot tears stabbed the back of her eyes and she squeezed them shut to stop them leaking. He’d be gone soon.
Amadeo, still trying to catch his breath, turned his face to Elsbeth. As usual, she was lying there placidly. It never ceased to amaze him how well she played dead after they came together. It was as if she switched a part of her brain off and disengaged with him entirely. Other than her shock on their first night when he’d told her about their living arrangements—and only then because she hadn’t been expecting it—she gave the distinct impression that, his duty to procreation done, his presence in her bed was no longer required. Of course, she would never say it in words. Not the woman who’d been trained from birth to believe a wife’s duty was to obey her husband. She never objected to anything.
How much of that playing dead was a mask, like the vacuous wind-up doll she’d portrayed? And if it was a mask, what was it hiding?
He couldn’t understand why it plagued him to know what went on in the privacy of Elsbeth’s head. It wasn’t as if he actuallycaredwhat went on in there... Okay, he admitted, he did care, but only so far as he wanted to be satisfied that she wasn’t unhappy. Any man would be the same. As his father had often said, an unhappy wife led to an unhappy life. He doubted he would ever be happy to have married her but, as he constantly had to remind himself, that wasn’t her fault. Elsbeth’s life before their marriage had been less than happy. He didn’t want her misery within their marriage on his conscience, and that was the most infuriating thing because he couldn’t read her mind or expressions to know when, if ever, she was unhappy about something. She was just too good at masking her true feelings.
Strictly, by the agreed rules and precedents already set between them, he should return to his quarters now, but there was something he needed to say before he could leave.
‘What you said earlier about the nightdress and your mother... Elsbeth, I don’t know what advice she gave you before we married but I need you to believe—and I cannot stress this enough—that I am not your overlord. Your purpose in life isnotto please me. I understand life here is different to what you’re used to and that it’s taking time for you to adjust, but I meant it when I said you don’t owe me anything more than the obligations we have to each other and the monarchy. We both have a duty to present ourselves to the world in a manner that is fitting as members of the Berruti royal family...’
Something his adrenaline-fuelled, impetuous brother had spectacularly failed in when being photographed dangling from a helicopter tied to his rescued damsel in distress, his now-wife, Clara.
‘...and behave in a manner that doesn’t bring disgrace to our country, but what we do and how we behave within the privacy of the castle walls is down to personal choice, and that counts for both of us.’
That all said, Amadeo shifted over to the side of the bed and sat up. He was about to climb off the bed when Elsbeth quietly said, ‘Amadeo, until I came here I was never givena choice. Not about anything. I was raised in a palace where men have complete control over women, and my father had complete control over me. The only time my permission was needed for something affecting me was for our marriage, and that was only because Gabriel insisted on it.’
Gabriel, Alessia’s husband, the man who’d been tasked with negotiating the marriage. He’d refused to negotiate without Elsbeth’s explicit consent.
‘I didn’t know how badly I wanted to leave until the opportunity came,’ she added after a short silence. ‘I would have agreed to marry anyone to get out of that palace. It’s awful there, and things have got so much worse since Dominic took the throne. He’s a bully and a narcissist. Everything has to revolve around him, and because he’s cruel, others follow his lead and now there’s a culture of cruelty and humiliation. He gets as much of a kick out of seeing others being cruel as he does being cruel himself.’
Amadeo, absorbing all this with a violent churning in his guts, twisted round to face her. ‘How was he cruel to you?’
She shook her head. ‘He wasn’t. Not in the way he is to others. Dominic likes me. Or, should I say, he likes my silence and compliance. My father is his uncle and his closest advisor and confidant. I’m like a pet to him.’ She gave a short bitter laugh. ‘A cowering pet terrified it’s going to be the next creature to get a kick. He chose me as your wife because, of all the eligible women in the House of Fernandez, I was considered the most meek and pliable and I was a virgin. Believe me, with my father, I never had the freedom to be anythingbuta virgin. In Dominic’s eyes—and my father’s—women are either whores or Madonnas, and all men want to marry the Madonnas. He assumed that’s what you would want too, and assumed you would be grateful to be given such a highly prized asset.’
He felt sick.
But hadn’t he known much of this? Hadn’t Elsbeth’s virginity been dangled before him with the same smug aplomb as if he’d been offered a mythical unicorn?
He’d known it but it hadn’t struck him properly until now, with Elsbeth spelling it out to him.
Her chest rose and she breathed out slowly. ‘My first memory is of my father slapping my mother’s face for answering him back. I remember watching Dominic walk past Catalina and pinch her for fun. He was always hurting her. I dread to think what she would have suffered if she’d still lived in Monte Cleure when he took the throne.’ The silk sheets twisted around her body rustled gently as she turned onto her side so that her whole body faced him. There was an intensity to her stare he’d never seen before. ‘Please understand, the men haveallthe power there, and I always knew that, to survive, I needed to keep my mouth shut and obey. I’ve never been brave like my mother. She’s strong and she’s always protected me, and while I know now that many of the things she taught me are wrong for our marriage, she taught me them for the best of reasons. She had no reason to believe you would be any different to the royal men of Monte Cleure and I hardly dared hope for more either.’
Dio, his heart had expanded so much it was a struggle to open his throat to speak. ‘But you do believe it now?’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘That I’m nothing like them?’
After the longest of pauses in which his whole body became suspended in dread, she nodded. ‘I do believe it. It’s just that old habits die hard, and I’ve spent twenty-four years thinking twice about every word I say and everything I do.’
Amadeo’s relief was indescribable.
He wasn’t perfect by any means. He could be impatient. Arrogant. Manipulative. Demanding. He was too aware of his royal dignity and became aggravated when not given proper deference. He was all those things and more, but he wasn’t a bully. For sure, he’d demanded his brother and sister marry for the sake of the monarchy, but their marriages had both been a success so he’d been right to demand it of them, and he’d also done the same thing himself in marrying Elsbeth. Amadeo would never ask anyone to do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself. He wasn’t a bully and he wasn’t corrupt and he would sooner be burned at the stake than lay a finger on a woman.
She gave another laugh, this time with a more genuine, if melancholic, ring to it. ‘If Dominic or my father knew the attributes they prized the most in me were the things you hate most about me...’ She laughed again, shaking her head.
‘I don’t hate you.’ He didn’t know what he felt for her, but hate it was not. Reaching for her hand, he brought it to his lips. ‘Always remember, you have no obligation or duty to please or obey me. In the privacy of the castle walls, live how you want to live, dress how you want to dress, be free to say no to me and disagree with me and voice opinions and share your thoughts without fear of the consequences. I might not always like what you have to say but you might not always like what I have to say, and you shouldn’t be afraid to say so.’
