Chapter Eight
Tiberius stood in front of the fireplace, his arms folded across his chest, staring at his wife, who was staring back as she stood in a patch of late-afternoon sunlight looking as if she glowed from within.
She’d been remarkable today. Yes, she’d been nervous, but when she’d stepped out of the limo and had joined him on a walkabout with the crowd she’d been…amazing. Warm and open and approachable, radiating her beautiful smile.
He’d seen the signs of a few dissenters within the crowd, had heard them booing her. As he’d told her, they were only a small percentage, and even though he’d burned to do something incredibly inappropriate, such as punching them in the face, he’d controlled himself and ignored them instead.
He’d appreciated her sharing her worries with him, about how her presence might undermine what he was trying to do, but she needn’t be concerned.
While she might be an Accorsi, she was one who wasn’t known to the world’s press, and thus there was no gossip about her. No rumours. No hidden videos or toxicity that might rear its ugly head online at the worst possible time.
There was only her, beautiful in her yellow dress, her smile like the promise of summer on a cold winter day. She was honest and open, not a shred of darkness in her.
As his queen, she was perfect.
Really, he shouldn’t begrudge her this time she wanted for a discussion, since if she wanted to take an active part in ruling they would need to talk about it. But this mention of holidays…
What on earth was she talking about? Who could think of breaks or holidays when they had a country to run? A country where people had suffered and were suffering still?
A holiday implied personal whim, and Giancarlo had been very clear that kings did not indulge in personal whims. There was no rest for a king. Responsibility was a heavy weight that had to be endured.
‘I have been working for Kasimir since the day I was born,’ he said severely. ‘My mother died in the coup—you know this, yes?’
She nodded slowly. ‘I do know. I’m sorry that—’
‘It’s not your fault. She died before you were born. Renzo’s guards shot her as she was escaping with my father, and to save me he had to leave her behind.’
Her eyes darkened. ‘That’s awful.’
‘Your father didn’t offer her any medical help so she bled to death.’ He hadn’t meant for the words to sound so stark, especially when an expression that looked like pain crossed her features. But he didn’t take them back. That was what had happened—no more and certainly no less.
‘That must have been dreadful,’ she said softly.
He shrugged, ignoring the pain that sat inside him. ‘I don’t remember her, but certainly doing the best for Kasimir that I can is how I will make her and my father’s sacrifice worth it.’
She nodded slowly. ‘And then you went into exile with your father?’
‘Yes, we escaped into Italy. But I did not have a normal childhood. My responsibilities were made clear to me before I’d even started school.’
Her brow creased. ‘Did no one help you? Did no one…?’
‘What? Interfere politically with a tiny European nation? No, no one helped. And, no, my father didn’t take me on holiday anywhere. He was of the opinion that a king has no personal life. He is a servant of his people and they come before him every time.’
Her gaze flickered briefly at that, but all she said was, ‘So…what? You’ve been training to be a king all this time?’
‘Of course. Did you think I just strolled into the palace the day we met? No, my father and I had to find supporters, work to raise funds, and then get sympathisers from within Kasimir itself, because we didn’t want a civil war.’
‘So…you never had a chance just to be a boy?’
There was something soft in her eyes that felt dangerous, though he wasn’t sure why.
‘No. People were dying here. People were suffering. There was no time “just to be a boy”.’
She took a small step towards him. ‘When will it end, Tiberius? This concern? This frantic need to fix everything?’
What strange questions she was asking him. Questions she should know the answers to if she thought long enough about them.
‘It won’t ever end,’ he said. ‘People will always suffer and something will always be broken. The responsibility of a king is a burden without end.’
That soft expression on her face deepened, and it looked like concern. ‘But,’ she murmured, ‘is there any time in all of that for yourself? For joy? For happiness?’
Joy. Happiness.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling either of those emotions.
Maybe once, when he was a child, lying on his back looking at the stars, he’d felt something akin to them.
But it had been so long ago now he couldn’t remember what they felt like.
And anyway, he’d managed well enough without them so far.
Why would he need them now? Why should he have them when some of his subjects could not?
He’d always been cognisant of the fact that his life was not his own and never had been.
He was the son of a dispossessed king. His mother had given up her own life for him.
And then his father had died of cancer, five years ago, and now he had to make those deaths meaningful.
He had been saved for a reason, his father had told him from his hospital bed, just before he’d died.
And that reason was to restore the crown, help the people of Kasimir.
‘No,’ he said impatiently. ‘Why should I have either of those when many of my subjects do not? I have power, Guinevere, and I do not take that lightly. Nor can I rest on it. The work is always there and must always be done—so, no, there can be no rest from it.’
She swallowed, a flicker of what looked like anguish crossing her features.
‘Is that what our marriage will be, then?’ she asked quietly.
‘You working until midnight every night and then rising at dawn the next day? Where is there time for children in that? Where is there time for a marriage? A life?’
Something caught at his heart then, giving a small, painful tug. ‘There will be time for children,’ he said, ignoring it. ‘I will have a schedule and they’ll be looked after. We will engage the services of a nanny, naturally.’
‘But what about time as a family?’ She was searching his face as if looking for something. ‘Surely there will be time for that?’
‘Not at the expense of the work I must do for Kasimir.’ He was getting impatient now, because these conversations weren’t important right now—couldn’t she see that?
They could be had later. ‘Our family will not look like those of other people because we are a royal family,’ he added.
‘As I said, our purpose is to serve our country, not vice versa.’
‘So, what you’re saying is that there is no time for any kind of personal happiness?’ she said, an edge in her voice now. ‘No time for joy?’
‘You may have joy and happiness.’ He was holding on to his patience by a thread. ‘I am not saying you can’t have that. But you need to understand that the lives of rulers are hard ones, contrary to what most people think. It is our cross to bear and our privilege.’
A strange expression crossed her face, one that he couldn’t interpret. ‘That seems very bleak.’
‘Struggle is the anvil we temper ourselves upon,’ he said, quoting his father’s favourite line. ‘And my father gave me plenty of struggle to help prepare me for my role.’
‘He didn’t…?’ She stopped, pain in her voice.
Tiberius knew what she was asking, though.
‘No,’ he said, this time softening his tone.
‘He was never cruel. But he expected a lot from me, and I admit there were times when it was…difficult.’ He paused a moment, wanting to give her something that wasn’t as bleak, because he was sure it actually hadn’t been as terrible as all that.
‘Sometimes, as a child, I had difficulty sleeping, so I’d get up and go outside, lie down in the grass to watch the stars. It was…peaceful.’
‘That’s the only good thing you remember?’
He stared back at her. ‘Why does it matter that there were good things? My father did what he had to—which was to put his country first by training me, so my mother’s death wouldn’t be for nothing.’
She held his gaze a moment, then looked away. ‘It just sounds hard,’ she said after a moment.
‘It was hard,’ he agreed. ‘But life is not meant to be easy. You yourself know this already, Guinevere. It isn’t as if you had an ideal childhood either.’
He wasn’t sure why she seemed to find his past quite so painful, especially in comparison to the prison of hers.
‘No, I didn’t.’ She glanced down at the floor. ‘My brothers were not…kind.’
Tiberius frowned at the catch in her voice. He hadn’t wanted to press her about exactly what her brothers had done to her, but now he couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘What did they do, lioness?’
She looked wordlessly at him then, blue eyes dark.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he went on. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’
And he meant it. He found he didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary pain.
She stayed silent for a long time, and he thought that maybe she wouldn’t, but then she said, ‘It…doesn’t sound bad…
not compared to what some people have to suffer, but…
They terrified me and I think they…liked that.
They used to h-hunt me in the hallways—that’s what they called it, Hunt the Mouse—just to scare me.
And they pulled my hair, broke my toys, pushed me into walls, and once Alessio gave me a black eye. ’
Tiberius was almost stupefied by a hot rush of fury so intense he could hardly keep still. He’d not heard any rumours about Renzo’s sons, but this wasn’t a rumour. This was the truth, he could hear the ring of it in her voice.
They’d hunted her. Terrified her. And all for fun, by the sounds of it.
He’d never wanted to hurt anyone as badly as he wanted to hurt her brothers.
‘And your father?’ he forced out, his voice hoarse with fury. ‘What did he do about it?’