Chapter Fourteen #2
He rolled his eyes but smiled indulgently at her silliness. She breathed a sigh of relief and began to ask him questions about her new home. Better to focus on the present rather than linger on the misery of the past.
* * *
Arriving in Thrudheim was always a happy occasion. A crowd had gathered and waved up at them as the ship anchored. Magnus left the crew to unload, conscious that for many of his people, this would be their first sight of his new bride.
Selina hadn’t seemed to realise the significance until now, because she was grumbling about the state of her hair.
Although, he thought she looked rather fetching with a chaos of curls dancing around her head.
The bonnet ribbons flapped against her skirts in the brisk wind, as she tried to readjust her hairpins.
After waiting several minutes without any improvement, he decided enough was enough. ‘Leave it,’ he commanded, and her fingers stilled.
He took the bonnet from her and handed it to her maid Liv who, to be fair, hadn’t been trained as a lady’s-maid and had no idea what to do to help.
He took Selina’s arm and tucked it under his.
‘You look…fine,’ he said, and she blushed, despite the fact he’d given such a weak compliment.
Guilt churned through his stomach as he realised how few compliments he’d paid her.
He’d not done so because he’d spent the last few days battling with his own frustrated impatience.
Sleeping in the same cabin every night had been hell.
To admit he found her attractive would be admitting his own lustful weakness.
A prince should be above base needs and emotions.
Lust was particularly dangerous. It was the same irresponsible passion that had resulted in their marriage in the first place.
But neither of those things were Selina’s fault, and he had to remember that she was entering Thrudheim much in the same way his sister would have faced her new life in Norway.
Or how Selina’s mother would have felt arriving in England.
That sounded a wretched story, and he suspected there was more to it.
Perhaps Selina had been too young at the time to realise the full tragedy of it.
He hoped so. By the sounds of it her father would have been too grief-stricken to offer his daughter much comfort.
So he needed to be kind to her, to make amends to all of them in a strange sort of way.
Usually, he enjoyed watching the whales when they came close to Thrudheim, but he’d found even greater joy in seeing Selina’s reaction to them. She’d been enthralled and delighted.
Recently, he’d become increasingly frustrated with her lack of commitment to learning about Thrudheim.
Every time he’d asked her about her reading, she’d been dismissive, and he’d never once seen her reading her book, despite him placing it in her line of sight at every opportunity.
Instead, she strolled endlessly around the deck of the ship wasting hours smiling at the sailors and driving him mad with her general wasteful use of time, when she should have been reading and preparing for her duties.
However, it was a timely reminder that everything was new to her and their marriage had been unexpected and sudden. He had to give her time to adjust to the rapid change in her circumstances.
He walked her carefully down the gangplank, the floating bridge bobbing mercilessly with each step, so that she was forced to firmly hold the guide-rope with one hand and his arm with the other. Sullen Hans wandered behind them like a miserable shadow.
‘I’m sorry, but could we slow down a little? This is far more frightening to go down than it was to go up.’
‘Of course.’ He slowed his pace and wondered about the best way to distract her from the climb down. ‘Do you see the painted houses?’
‘Ah…yes.’
‘Each colour represents a different powerful family or House of Thrudheim. Do you remember me mentioning them?’ She nodded, and he continued. ‘Only the palace is allowed to remain white.’
‘I see.’
‘The House of Solberg are the lilac houses, and as you can see there are a lot of them.’
‘Indeed!’
He continued on like that for a while, naming colours and houses, all while her frown of confusion deepened, but he’d managed to distract her long enough to get her down quickly. ‘Just a few more steps.’
‘Marvellous!’ she said, beaming, and then she added quietly, ‘Thank you for the distraction… I needed it.’
‘You are welcome,’ he said, pleased to have helped her.
The royal carriages were waiting for them at the end of the quay, and he was eager to get to them.
He was looking forward to a long hot bath, after three days at sea.
But they had the crowds to get through first. The palace guards had already lined the quay and the main thoroughfare, clearing a direct path to their carriage and the rest of carts which would take their belongings up the long, winding road to the palace.
Selina waved excitedly at the crowd as they cheered in welcome, and he had to steady her arm so that she didn’t stumble. ‘How wonderful! They’re so kind!’ she gasped.
‘Careful,’ he warned, as she refused to look at the uneven cobbles beneath her feet and almost tripped for the second time.
But Selina continued to ignore him, even breaking hold of his grip to help a young boy who had run out to offer her a handful of bruised alpine flowers. The guards had been a little unnecessarily forceful and had held back the mother, who looked sick with worry that her son had overstepped.
Selina immediately thanked the boy for his flowers and scooped him up to carry him back to his grateful mother. She thanked the woman for her son’s kind gift, and although she didn’t fully understand her words, she knew enough from Selina’s smile to be visibly relieved.
‘How lovely of them to welcome us!’ Selina declared as she hurried back to him, and he couldn’t help but smile in return. He raised his own arm and waved at the crowd, realising he’d overlooked some of his own duties.
Hans chuckled behind them, obviously amused by his brother’s uncharacteristic joviality.
A short time later they were sat inside their carriage, and Selina was peeking out of the curtained windows with a broad grin.
She lifted the alpine flowers to her nose and breathed in their scent deeply, despite the fact they were little more than weeds.
She then leaned towards the window and blew a kiss to the crowd.
The people erupted with delighted shouts of adoration, Selina blissfully unaware of their meaning. ‘Princess! Princess! Long live the princess!’ they chanted.
His people had crowned her at first sight.