Chapter Three
The day after his somewhat casual coronation Tiberius expected to start the morning with a meeting involving all his advisors, who would then help him with the important work of sorting out the mess Renzo Accorsi had made of Tiberius’s kingdom.
What Tiberius did not expect was to be informed that his brand-new wife and queen was missing. That somehow she’d managed to get out of the royal apartments—which had been locked—and had apparently vanished into thin air.
It put him in a foul temper—not helped by the fact that he hadn’t slept well the previous night.
He never slept all that much as it was, but last night his sleeplessness had been entirely due to his body plaguing him with inappropriate urges.
For some reason the little mouse had ignited something within him and he didn’t like it one bit.
Clearly neglecting his sexual needs had been a mistake which now had to be fixed.
The fact that he was a married man was of no consequence.
The union was purely political, and he was sure Guinevere wouldn’t have a problem with him satisfying his hunger elsewhere.
He had no intention of remaining celibate.
So what he wanted this morning was to start work, then perhaps in the evening find a willing woman to deal with his other needs—not to search the palace for a missing Accorsi.
After their marriage the afternoon before he’d spent the rest of the day and the evening sorting through a game plan for his country, then drafting a public announcement of his marriage with his press secretary, including a date for their first royal appearance.
However, there couldn’t be a royal appearance if he was missing a royal, so find her he must. If she’d somehow managed to escape the palace entirely, then time was of the essence.
Whether he liked it or not, her presence was needed. She was now a vital emblem of unity, the final piece in the strong foundation he hoped to rebuild Kasimir upon, and he wasn’t going to let her escape like the rest of her cowardly family.
Deciding to inspect the royal apartments himself, since apparently his men couldn’t keep one small woman from straying, he strode in, his temper vile.
But after a close survey of each room he realised he couldn’t fault his guards.
There did, indeed, appear to be no way for Guinevere Accorsi to have escaped, yet the fact remained that she had.
He stood for a long moment in the Queen’s empty bedroom, thinking about how she could have got out. Then it hit him—something he should have thought about before and hadn’t because he’d been too busy focusing on other things.
The secret passageways. That was the only way she could have got out of this room unseen, which must mean that there was an entrance to them in the royal apartments somewhere.
Tiberius reviewed the floor plans in his head, piecing together a map of the palace and the corridors in order to determine the most likely place for a secret entrance. Then he started methodically looking around for anything that might give away a secret door.
It didn’t take him long. A cursory examination of a huge, ornate wooden armoire revealed a kicked-in panel at the back which led into a gap in the wall behind it. He stepped into the gap and the darkness beyond without hesitation.
He wasn’t claustrophobic—which was a good thing, because the corridor was a narrow fit and pitch-black. He didn’t find the lack of light a problem either. He’d been in worse situations when he’d been in the military, after all.
A couple of minutes later he came to a branching of the corridor, but after a pause to consult his memorised plans he was pretty sure one branch led to the throne room—and surely she wouldn’t have gone there, not when it was full of cleaning staff—so he took the one leading in the opposite direction.
Soon the corridor came to a dead end, but feeling around in the dark, he soon found a lever that must open a door. He pulled it—clearly it had been in recent use, since the mechanism moved smoothly—and the wall in front of him slid aside, dim light spilling into the narrow corridor.
He stepped through the doorway and found himself in a small room—a library from the looks of things.
There were bookshelves stuffed full of books, an old couch sitting before a fireplace, magazines and a book of crossword puzzles discarded on the cushions.
A jug of wilted flowers was on the mantelpiece, along with a glittering pile of what looked like jewellery, a few crystal bottles of perfume and a silver-backed hairbrush.
He frowned, noting the signs of feminine occupation, and yet not seeing the little Accorsi anywhere. Then he noticed the curtains drawn across the window—odd, because it was morning—so he went over and pulled them aside.
A deep window seat lay behind them, and curled up on it, in a nest of blankets and pillows, was his new wife.
She was asleep, her hands tucked beneath her cheek, her curly blonde hair lying in tangles all over the cushions. The morning sun spread like liquid gold over her, bathing her in a kind of glow, and despite himself he felt his breath catch.
So. She hadn’t left after all. Likely there had been too many guards for her to escape the palace entirely, so she’d found a place to hide. Maybe she’d been waiting for a better opportunity to escape and had fallen asleep before she could.
Her sleep looked to be deep, and there were faint dark circles under her eyes. In fact, if he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was the sleep of someone exhausted.
She was wearing the same clothes as she had the day before. The same dusty white lacy dress. And even the streak of dust across one cheekbone was still there. She clearly hadn’t bothered to wash.
Why not? Had something driven her from the royal apartments? And why had she come here? Why had she curled up like a cat and gone to sleep?
He stared at her, the curiosity he’d felt the previous day pulling tight once more and deepening.
She was an Accorsi, from the same family that had put Kasimir through hell and destroyed his own family, and yet curled up on the cushions, small and pale, she had an innocence to her, a fragility that belied her family’s history.
It tugged at something long-forgotten inside him, reminding him of being very young, long before his father had told him who he was and what his destiny was to be.
When he too had been innocent, and all that had concerned him was who he was going to play with at school and whether his father would cook something he liked for dinner.
Was it peaceful, this sleep? And if it was, what would it be like to sleep so deeply that not even the presence of another person standing close could wake you?
Long years as a soldier had made him all too aware of the threat of deep sleep, and even now, after he’d left his military career, he didn’t sleep well.
There were too many things to think about, too many things to do.
Sleeping was a waste of time that he only tolerated in order to keep himself physically well. And he needed the strength to keep moving forward, to keep fighting—because the battle was constant. He couldn’t put down his burdens, his duty to his country, not even for a moment.
His mother had sacrificed too much, and if he was going to deserve the gift of life that she’d given him, then he had to keep going no matter how tired he was.
She deserved better.
Kasimir deserved better.
He had no idea how his new wife could sleep so deeply, given what her father had done, but she must feel safe, here in this little room, to give herself over to sleep like that.
He was a little jealous of that. Sometimes there were days when all he wanted to do was lay down those burdens.
To rest. To sleep as Guinevere Accorsi was sleeping, deeply and without fear.
He should wake her, not stand there staring at her, and yet he didn’t move.
Because he was becoming aware of other things.
Things he should not be aware of. Such as how the blanket was half falling off her and how her dress was pulled up, revealing one gently rounded thigh.
And the way she was lying made the neckline of her dress gape slightly, giving him a view of the soft darkness between her sweetly curved breasts.
A pretty little thing…
Almost without conscious thought, he let his hand come out to touch the dusty streak across her cheek—perhaps to wipe it away or maybe just to feel the texture of her skin. He wasn’t sure. But bare inches from her face he stopped.
His hands were soldier’s hands, scarred from missions and battles and roughened from long hours spent training, and he had the oddest thought that if his fingertips brushed her cheek he might harm her. That he might mark her pale skin like the rough point of a nail against sheer silk.
Does that matter? She is an Accorsi. You could touch her…have her. Corrupt her as her family corrupted Kasimir. That would be an apt vengeance.
His body had gone tight, his breath catching hard in his throat.
No, those weren’t thoughts worthy of a king.
He didn’t thirst for vengeance for his mother’s death, no matter how many times his father had told him he should.
He was a protector, and he protected his subjects.
And, Accorsi or not, she was one of those subjects.
Corrupting her would end up making him no better than her father and he would not do that.
He would never do that.
Besides, regardless that their marriage was only political, she was his wife and his queen, and that made her worthy of his respect.
Tiberius straightened, bringing his recalcitrant body back under ruthless control, and opened his mouth to give her a curt command to wake up.