Chapter Three #2
However, before he could get the words out her silvery lashes fluttered and her eyes opened. She looked up at him, the deep, dark blue of her eyes holding him captive, and her mouth curved in an unexpected welcoming smile, as if he was a friend and she was delighted to see him.
His heart caught hard inside him. No one had ever looked at him the way she was looking at him right now.
His army saw a general they were loyal to, his aides a king they must obey.
It was always awe and fear and respect—never happiness.
Never delight. He hadn’t known he’d wanted that until this moment.
Then she blinked a couple of times and her eyes went wide, as if she was only now processing the fact that he was here. Abruptly she sat up, rearing back against the window seat, the smile disappearing, her face going pale with unmistakable terror.
And that caught him too—like the bite of a whip.
She was scared of him.
Are you surprised, when you forced her to marry you? She was scared of you yesterday too.
Disappointment gripped him, though he told himself he didn’t feel it.
She was right to be scared. She was an Accorsi and she should fear him.
Marrying her wasn’t quite the vengeance his father wanted, but in a small way it was to punish Renzo.
He would certainly not be happy to learn that his daughter had married his enemy.
‘Good morning, my queen,’ Tiberius said flatly.
‘Wh-What are you doing here?’ she asked in a shocked voice. ‘How did you find me?’
He folded his arms, his mood fraying. ‘It wasn’t difficult.
The door to the royal apartments was locked, and yet you’d disappeared, so I assumed you’d vanished into the secret corridors again.
’ He glared at her. ‘It seems I was correct. And now you have wasted my guards’ time and mine by vanishing without a word. ’
‘I’m sorry.’ She remained pale, eyeing him warily.
‘I didn’t want to stay in the royal apartments.
I have my own room in the palace. I did tell the guard that, but he said your orders were to put me in my parents’ rooms. I didn’t know he was going to lock me in there.
’ She lifted a hand and pushed the mass of golden curls off her face.
‘I would have told someone where I was going, but there was no one around to tell.’
‘This isn’t a hotel, Signorina Accorsi,’ he said severely. ‘You cannot pick and choose your rooms. You are the Queen and your place is in the royal apartments.’
She glanced down at her hands, now twisting in her lap the way she’d done the day before in the throne room.
It annoyed him. Did she think that he’d hurt her? That he was the type of man who would raise a fist to someone much more vulnerable than he was?
Preposterous. He was a king, not a bully, and the only people he’d ever hurt physically had been other soldiers during fighting. Never a civilian. Still less a woman.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he snapped. ‘You needn’t act like a beaten dog.’
Her shoulders hunched, as if his tone had physically hurt her—which, for reasons he couldn’t articulate, only annoyed him further.
‘I never would have thought that an Accorsi would protest at being given their due,’ he went on. ‘You should be grateful I decided to put you here and not in a prison cell.’
She shook her head, but said nothing.
He didn’t know why this incensed him. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put you in a cell right now.’
* * *
Guinevere’s heart was beating far too fast and far too hard. The muzzy, sleepy feeling she’d woken up with was long gone, washed away by an icy flood of fear.
She’d been having a lovely dream… She couldn’t remember quite what it had been about, but she knew she’d been safe, and it had been years since she’d felt that way.
But then she’d woken up to find a very tall man standing beside her window seat, glittering grey eyes looking down her.
Her first thought hadn’t been one of fear.
Only that somehow it was right he should be standing there—that in another life, or in another dream, she knew him, and while he was there nothing bad could get her. She was safe.
Then her brain had kicked into gear and she’d processed exactly who it was standing by her window seat. And the fact that she wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe at all.
A burst of adrenaline had hit her then, making her sit bolt-upright and lean back, pressing herself against the window in order to get away from him.
Tiberius. The King. And he was angry.
It was always bad when a man was angry. Always.
He wasn’t in fatigues today, nor was he wearing a crown, but he might as well have been, given the aura of power rolling off him.
He was dressed simply and all in black. Black trousers and a perfectly tailored black business shirt, no tie.
A lesser man might have looked like a monk, or even a waiter, but no monk or waiter had ever radiated such crackling electricity.
It seemed to wind around her and grip her by the throat, making her mouth go dry.
The morning sun was shining full in his face, making his grey eyes glitter like icicles, his black hair glossy as a raven’s wing, highlighting his strong nose and the shape of his mouth, the hard lines of his jaw…
She didn’t understand why she was noting all this about him, or why she was thinking that ‘handsome’ was too conventional a word for this man and didn’t quite encompass the sheer charisma of his physical presence.
She didn’t understand why she felt almost stunned by it, or why she had to look away from him just so her brain would work.
What was happening to her? Why did he have this effect on her?
She should be afraid of him—and she was—but that was starting to fade now, especially since she couldn’t stop looking at him.
It was as if he was a tiger about to take a bite out of her and all she could think about was the beauty of his fur.
You know why. You might be sheltered, but you’re not stupid.
Guinevere swallowed. She’d read all about physical attraction. It was there in her favourite books. But she’d never felt it herself. Never met a man who made her feel anything at all apart from afraid. Until now.
It made no sense. He was clearly angry with her—which he had a right to be, she supposed, since she had disappeared without telling him.
But still… She hated confrontation, especially when men got into a rage, because when they did, people got hurt.
And he was so much larger and stronger than she was…
Yet despite all that her heart was beating fast and her skin felt tight, and she wanted to keep looking at him because he was also beautiful to her.
Your husband.
There was something flat and so final in the word ‘husband’, and it made her shiver. She had no examples of what a husband was—none at all. Her father never spoke about her mother, so what he felt about her Guinevere had no idea.
‘Well?’ Tiberius demanded, his deep voice shattering her thoughts and somehow getting under her skin.
What had he said? Something about this not being a hotel and wasting his time and being a beaten dog? Oh, yes, and jail cells. And he was angry.
He came into your safe place without asking and now he’s demanding yet more things from you. How dare he?
A small thread of anger began to wind through the cold grip of fear—because, yes, how dare he come in here, demanding explanations from her? Calling her names and threatening her? This was her private space— hers .
‘I’m sorry,’ she forced out, staring at her hands and ignoring her anger.
Getting angry only made things worse. Apologies, even if you didn’t mean them, were the best thing for calming angry men. Then again, they’d never worked on her brothers—not when her very existence had made them torment her.
‘That’s all?’ The edge in his tone rubbed against the same raw place it had rubbed against the day before. ‘You’re sorry?’
She knew it was always a mistake to fight back against someone more powerful than you, and yet that small thread of anger grew hotter, brighter, and abruptly she was sick of him. Sick of his demands and sick of her own weakness at caving in to them.
A beaten dog, he’d called her, with contempt in his tone. And of course he’d be contemptuous. He was tall and strong and physically powerful. He was King.
He’d probably never lived in fear of being hurt or maybe even killed by those who were supposed to love you and protect you. He wouldn’t know what it was like to be small and fragile and utterly defenceless. He wouldn’t know what it felt like to be hunted like prey.
How dared he judge her when he knew nothing whatsoever about her? How dared he?
‘Well?’ she snapped before she could stop herself, looking up and meeting his silvery, icy gaze. ‘What else do you want? I apologised.’
He was standing there, towering over her, muscular arms folded across his broad chest. Obdurate as a mountain.
‘You have wasted my time, mouse,’ he said flatly. ‘I have a country to fix and I do not want to spend the entirety of my morning running around after an Accorsi.’
Beaten dog. Mouse. Small. Insignificant. Powerless.
If he had been either of her brothers she would have cowered, sick with fear. Yet for some reason, just like it had the day before, her anger only flickered higher, hotter, making her lift her chin in unconscious insolence.
‘Then don’t. No one asked you to run around after me.’
His eyes widened a fraction and she thought she caught a glimpse of surprise there. Clearly he hadn’t been expecting her snap back at him. Well, good. She wasn’t a beaten dog, and she was tired of being treated like one.
He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her, and maybe he’d been telling the truth, but right now she didn’t care. She didn’t have any energy left for fear.