Chapter One #2
The fine line of her jaw hardened even though fear still lurked in her eyes. ‘I am not a mouse,’ she said. ‘And I was not spying.’
Her voice was precise and clear as glass.
‘Then what were you doing?’ He studied her intently, looking for signs of a lie, looking for weaknesses. He had a soldier’s instinct, alert to anything and everything that might be a threat, and while she might not be an obvious one, looks could be deceiving.
A woman in a flouncy, lacy dress could still cause him problems, no matter how pretty she was—and he had to admit she was very pretty.
Not that he was interested. He had been sexually abstinent for the past six months as he’d entered the final stages of his plan to reclaim the throne, because he’d wanted no distractions. His body hadn’t been happy about it, but he was a master of physical control and it would do what he wished.
Perhaps after his project for rebuilding Kasimir had got underway he’d find himself a willing woman and lose himself for a night or two. But not until then.
Everything had to wait until then.
The woman was holding herself very still, her hands clasped tightly together, and it was clear that she did not like being looked at the way he was looking at her.
Good. She wasn’t supposed to like it. If she hadn’t wanted to be looked at, she shouldn’t have been hiding in the walls.
‘Well?’ He kept his tone calm, almost gentle. ‘You will give me an answer, mouse. And that is an order, not a request.’
Her mouth firmed. ‘I was…hiding.’
‘Obviously. And who were you hiding from? My soldiers? Or…’ Tiberius stopped as a thought came to him. Now he’d taken a good look at her, he saw there was an odd familiarity to her features, as if he’d seen a face like hers before, somewhere…
Yes. He knew where. The photos his father had kept, which he’d showed to Tiberius as he was growing up. Making sure Tiberius memorised the people in them. Making sure he knew who they were and what they’d done.
‘These are your enemies,’ his father had said. ‘Your mother died because of them. Remember them. They took what is ours and it is up to you to get it back.’
Those sharp features, those blue eyes, that pale hair…
She was an Accorsi—of course she was.
A pulse of something hot and fierce lanced through him. So. Not all of them had escaped. One had stayed and here she was, standing before his reclaimed throne.
His prisoner.
His war prize.
‘Miss Accorsi,’ he said softly, watching her, seeing the flicker of shock in her eyes as he said the name, the delicate rosebud of her mouth opening. ‘It is a dangerous thing for someone with your name to be hiding in walls.’
She went even paler, almost the colour of her dusty white dress. ‘How do you know—?’
‘You’re Guinevere Accorsi, are you not?’ he interrupted, because she had to be. Renzo had had three children and there was only one girl.
Her gaze flickered, then that sharp little chin of hers lifted, as if she was trying to stare him down, no matter that he was on a throne, on a dais, and she was at his feet.
‘Y-Yes,’ she said. ‘And?’
Tiberius’s grip on the arms of his throne tightened as a thought began to take shape in his head.
He was a master strategist, all his risks calculated, his gambles fully with the odds in his favour.
Being an excellent tactician had given him the crown that was by rights truly his and, while he didn’t like surprises, when one presented itself he had no problem adapting it to suit his purposes.
If this woman was indeed Renzo’s daughter, then she could be useful to him. There were still those sympathetic to the Accorsis scattered throughout the country—supporters who would no doubt cause trouble now he was King.
He could crush those pockets of resistance, jail the supporters or exile them from the country, but…
The Accorsis had done exactly that when they’d taken power, and he was determined not to be like them.
He refused. His country didn’t need a tyrant intent on suppressing any protest. It needed to heal, and so did his people.
The divides needed to be bridged, not deepened.
Which was where the Accorsi daughter came in.
Eventually he would need a queen, and while obtaining one had been the very last thing on his mind certainly when his first priority had been claiming his throne, she was here now and his prisoner.
A Benedictus/Accorsi marriage would be the kind of union that Kasimir needed.
It would unite the divided families and factions and would categorically underline his intentions for the country going forward.
No more divisions. Only peace and healing for his people.
Guinevere Accorsi was eyeing him warily, as if he was an unknown and potentially dangerous animal—and, to be fair, she was right to view him that way.
He was dangerous.
He stared back, turning over the idea slowly in his head. Yes, she was very pretty, but she would definitely need some styling if she was to be Kasimir’s queen.
You will also need her consent to the marriage.
Of course. But he would get that. If he gave her a choice between being Queen and a prison cell, he was sure she’d choose the former rather than the latter.
Her eyes were startlingly blue against her white skin, and deep within them he could see her fear looking back at him.
Too bad. She was an Accorsi, of the same wretched lineage responsible for his mother’s death and his country’s near collapse.
The things Renzo had done as King had been appalling, and while this little mouse might not have had a hand in any of it, she was still representative of the corruption that had lived in the heart of Kasimir for far too long.
He had no sympathy for her whatsoever.
Still, there was no reason to be unduly threatening. Not when it would serve no purpose. And he wasn’t a man who did anything without purpose.
‘In that case,’ he said, after a long period of silence. ‘I have a job for you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What kind of job?’
Tiberius held her gaze. ‘Being my queen.’
* * *
Guinevere had watched Tiberius first enter the throne room from within the walls, safe in her little hiding place.
The enemy was here.
In the days leading up to his entry into Kasimir she’d overheard her father talking about him, calling him trivial, a minor annoyance that he would soon be rid of.
Ineffectual and weak, like all the Benedictus family.
One look at the Accorsi army and he’d be yelping his way back to Italy with his tail between his legs, Renzo had added.
It hadn’t happened that way. Obviously. In fact, her father and her two older brothers had been in such a rush to flee the palace no one had bothered to check on her, and so she’d been able to slip away unnoticed into the secret corridors.
She’d waited there, hiding, as her father, her brothers and the remaining guards who were still loyal had all escaped. Leaving her behind.
The relief she’d felt in that moment had been so intense she hadn’t been able to quite believe it was real—that she’d finally managed to do what she’d dreamed of doing for so many years: being free of her family.
All she’d needed to do was to slip out through the corridors—no one in her family knew of their existence—and then the palace, and then she’d lose herself in the city streets and just…disappear.
Then he’d walked in and ruined it all.
Tiberius Maximus Benedictus, the rightful King of Kasimir.
She’d watched him sit on the throne, and then watched as the golden crown was lowered onto his short, inky black hair. He wore that crown as if he was wearing cloth of gold and robes of state, not grey army fatigues.
He wasn’t exactly handsome—his face was all blunt planes and angles, and deeply carved into hard granite lines—but there was an aura about him that set him apart from other men. An aura of power, of a command so overwhelming that she’d almost felt it seeping through the walls to where she hid.
Utterly terrifying.
She should have made her escape then, while the coronation was happening, but she hadn’t.
She’d been caught, held fast despite her fear, by some kind of fascination she couldn’t adequately describe.
Perhaps it had something to do with finally seeing him, this famous enemy of her family, in the flesh and finding him to be not at all what she’d imagined.
This wasn’t the beaten dog her father had kept saying he would shoot.
This was a man in total command of himself and his men and he was frightening.
Then his head had turned and he’d stared straight at her, as if he could see through the walls to where she hid, and she’d frozen.
His eyes were a light silvery grey, pale and cold as winter snow, standing out starkly beneath his straight black brows and against his olive skin, and they were scalpel-sharp.
Being stared at so intently had made her feel as if he was cutting away pieces of her soul, leaving the small, vulnerable parts at the centre of her exposed.
It had scared her so completely that she’d been left trembling.
She’d told herself that of course he couldn’t see her, and anyway it was time to leave and make her escape.
But then, as she’d crept along the hidden corridor towards the exit, the door behind the tapestry had opened and one of his guards had seized her, dragging her before his throne.
She’d almost been sick with fear, while he’d sat there, legs spread arrogantly and that unnerving gaze of his pinning her to the spot.
Yet beneath her terror had been a thread of unfamiliar anger too—at him, for finding her before she could disappear, and at herself, for lingering when she shouldn’t have.
Hiding was what she did best—she’d been doing it for the past fifteen years—and yet when staying hidden had mattered the most, she’d failed.
Now she was here, standing before the new King, who was now demanding that she be his queen.
She could hardly process it, what with all the fear coursing through her body.