Convenient Bride for the King

by Kelly Hunter

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘For the better, I hope.’

  ‘Definitely for the better.’ Aury smiled and it was small but genuine. ‘So, this foreign palace for a week was adequate but ultimately unsatisfying.’ She waved her hand dismissively at the chandeliers and the light streaming in through gauze-curtained windows. ‘We can do far better than this. Perhaps somewhere with more sunshine and fewer kings.’

  ‘I think perhaps the south of France.’ Moriana could get behind that. ‘Sun, fun and healing.’

  ‘Please let there also be retail therapy,’ added Aury.

  ‘There can be. I’ll sell a painting.’

  ‘We could go there directly.’ Aury never complained of rapid changes in plans; she embraced them. ‘It would take one phone call to get the villa up and running.’

  ‘Do it.’ Maybe there could even be hedonism and debauchery and falling in love all over again with someone new.

  Doubtful, but still... Better than thinking she was going there to mourn the loss of a future that would have been a perfect fit.

  Had Theo loved her.

  ‘Pack light for us both and have Sam send the rest back to Arun.’ There was no point staying where she wasn’t wanted. ‘We leave at half nine.’ Long enough to pen thank you notes for the staff who had attended her so well during her stay. Long enough to draw up a plan for exhibiting those heritage gowns and to hand it over to Letitia, who might see it done.

  ‘Good plan,’ said Aury. ‘Consider it done. Would you like me to call Arun and let them know?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t want to talk to anyone.’ She couldn’t deal with speaking to either Augustus or her father right now. She had no strength left for flippant defences or breezy reassurances. ‘If Augustus wants to talk, he can call Theo. Tell them I’m busy seducing the unwary and I’ll call once we get to France and I have a spare moment.’

  ‘You do realise your brother will have a fit when he learns the engagement is off?’ Aury warned.

  ‘His choice.’ Moriana tried to shrug off her guilt at disappointing her family and almost succeeded. ‘I tried to fit in here and didn’t succeed. I hurt, I bleed, I make mistakes and love unwisely. No one’s perfect and I’m through with trying to be. I’m me. And they can take me or leave me.’

  * * *

  Theo handed Moriana into the helicopter and tried not to let his terror show. This past week had been more intense than he ever could have imagined. Laughter and luxury, anguish and self-loathing, argument and unbearable intimacy—he’d been bombarded by emotion, and he still hadn’t told Moriana how much she meant to him.

  Oh, he’d shown it in a thousand wordless ways but Moriana didn’t speak the language he’d perfected back when there was no one to talk to and no one he could trust and the only way to show favour was by deed. He could have trusted Benedict, had he known then what he knew now, but he hadn’t, and that was a stain on his conscience that was destined to spread. He trusted Moriana more than he’d ever trusted anyone, and he loved her beyond measure, but he couldn’t find the words, and here he was putting her into a helicopter similar to the one that had taken his family and all he could think was Never again. He couldn’t go through that again.

  They’d travelled from palace to palace by helicopter to get here but that was different. He’d been going with her then. He wasn’t the one on the ground about to look skyward.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  She either hadn’t heard him above the noise of the rotor blades or she didn’t understand. He leaned closer, caught her arm and figured he must look like a madman. ‘Go by car, by train, by damn horse—anything but this. My family died like this and my uncle arranged it. Don’t leave in a helicopter. I can’t stand it. I can’t lose you too.’

  He saw her eyes, dark and startled. And then she was out of the helicopter and tilting forward as she strode towards the castle, turning when within safe distance to draw a line across her throat for anyone watching. This flight wasn’t happening, cut the engine, stand down, at ease.

  He’d never felt less at ease.

  He strode from the courtyard, Moriana silent at his side, keeping pace with him but only just. They passed Sam, who stood at the doorway but she chose not to make eye contact and neither did any of his security detail. Good call. What could he tell them that they didn’t already know? The Princess wasn’t leaving as arranged.

  He kept his silence as they walked to his rooms. Moriana kept her confusion to herself, faltering only when they were away from prying ears and eyes and he’d shut the door behind them.

  When he turned back around she stood by the fireplace, hands clasped in front of her and her stance so regal and assured that he knew she was quailing inside.

  ‘What was that?’

  That was him, trying to make things right with her, only it was entirely possible that he needed to do some more explaining. ‘I didn’t want you to go. Not like that.’

  ‘Your office organised that flight. You authorised it.’ Her voice held a hint of disbelief.

  ‘I know. I changed my mind. I had a flashback to the day my family died and... I may have lost faith in helicopter travel. A little.’

  There was no objection from her there.

  ‘Your uncle did what?’ she asked tentatively.

  Theo pocketed his hands and nodded. It was now or never, and never wasn’t an option with this woman. ‘The day my family died I was meant to be on that helicopter too. The trip had been planned as a family outing, but I was wilder then and not always inclined to obey my parents. Benedict had turned up and talked me into going to the races with him. Fortune had favoured me—that’s what they said. I had a bad case of survivor guilt—that’s what Benedict said. It wasn’t until years later that the information came to light that the helicopter had been tampered with and my uncle was behind it. He wanted the throne. He’d have kept it if not for me.’

  ‘And do you think this helicopter has been tampered with too?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’ He’d been standing there, watching her leave, and fear had snaked into him and squeezed. ‘But all of a sudden I couldn’t stand to watch you leave in one. My uncle’s gone. Benedict’s gone. I’ve only just claimed you and you were leaving too. I couldn’t let you.’

  He wanted her to talk now, to gently guide him, to be his muse but she stayed silent.

  ‘I always assumed that Benedict had known of his father’s plans and had...saved me...or something. I realised yesterday that Benedict knew nothing. He just wanted someone to go to the races with. When Benedict realised what his father had done, and that I’d thought him complicit, he disavowed us both. Who could blame him? But it made me realise that I should have trusted him. I could have talked to him more, not kept everything to myself. That’s not a mistake I want to make with you. I trust you. I need you to know what I think of you.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said warily, looking for all the world as if she expected him to list a dozen faults in minute detail, but that wasn’t where he was going with this at all.

  ‘You think I don’t know how to love you but I do,’ he began. ‘You don’t know whether I enjoyed this past week or not but it’s the best week I’ve ever had, and as for the sex...the sex is incandescent. I don’t get lost in it the way I used to but that’s only because there’s never a moment when I can’t see you and feel you and want you. That connection to you means everything to me. I want you at my side more than ever and I’ve wanted that since I was fourteen years old.’ He took a deep breath and ploughed on. ‘I love you and never want to lose you the way I’ve lost so many others, and sometimes that’s going to mean that I haul you off a helicopter for no good reason other than I’m scared.’

  ‘You love me?’

  ‘So much. And I would spend my life trying to make you happy and proud of me, and maybe sometimes you’d have to poke and prod before I let you
into my thoughts, but I’d do it. For you I’d do it. For us. And I know I’ve never asked properly, but I’m asking it of you now. Please will you marry me?’

  She ventured forward, tentatively at first, but by the time she reached for his tie and wound it around her fist and reeled him in she was smiling. ‘I’m going to hold you to the sharing part, and the loving part. And the having fun. And there should definitely be more lessons. Yes, I’ll marry you,’ she said, and kissed him and it felt like coming home.

  ‘I’ll drive you to Arun later,’ he promised. ‘Or we’ll both go by helicopter. Okay?’

  ‘I’m a little busy here.’ Unbuttoning his shirt, yes. Why wasn’t he helping with that? ‘We should travel to Arun tomorrow.’

  ‘We should.’ She’d discovered his belt buckle and his rapidly rising appreciation.

  ‘I have a form letter to write today,’ she continued as she took him in hand. ‘I, Moriana, the almost Perfect, take you, Theo, the mostly Magnificent—this is where you write your name—to have and to hold and never let go. Know that when you place your trust in me I will never let you down or give you cause to doubt my allegiance. You’re mine and I’m yours and with you at my side I feel invincible.’ She smiled and he was powerless to stop himself pressing his lips to that generous curve. ‘That should worry you.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ he murmured, with a kiss for the dimple at the corner of that smile.

  ‘I’ll make you proud.’

  ‘You always do.’ She didn’t know her own worth but he had a lifetime in which to convince her of it. ‘You make me strong.’

  ‘You’ve always been that.’

  ‘Not always.’ Sometimes he’d been lost. ‘I’ve never been surer of anyone. I’ve never been more prepared to make a spectacle of myself in pursuit of you. I love you.’

  She lifted her hand to his cheek and brought her forehead to his. ‘I love you too.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MORIANA LOOKED IN the gilt-edged mirror and a royal bride stared back at her. The gown glowed with a faint ivory sheen, the bodice and waist crafted to fit and the skirt flaring gently to flow like water when she walked. Her tiara glittered with centuries-old Arunian diamonds and her veil was currently pushed back to show her face. Today was the day and although Letitia fussed and Aury sighed, Moriana had never missed her mother more.

  It was four weeks to the day since Theo had buried his uncle, with full State Honours. Three weeks and six days since Theo and Benedict had settled their differences by getting royally drunk after the funeral and facing off against each other in the palace vegetable garden, wielding antique swords and shields that neither of them could lift and wearing helmets that rendered them blinder than they already were.

  They’d been aided in their reconciliation efforts by their capable and significantly less inebriated seconds, namely one Princess Moriana of Arun, who stood for the King, and commoner Enrique Cordova, who stood for Prince Benedict. Moriana liked Enrique—he balanced Benedict’s acerbic wit and volatile disposition with dry good humour and unshakeable calm.

  Theo had knighted Enrique just prior to the duel, although to what Order was anyone’s guess. No one remembered the finer points.

  What Moriana did remember was Benedict and Theo stretched out on the ground staring at the sky and ragged words dredged from somewhere deep within both of them.

  Words like, ‘I still love him, even though I hate him for what he did.’

  Words like, ‘You could stay on. You and your Knight.’

  By morning Theo had a best man and Benedict had his cousin back. In the past weeks they’d reconnected and Liesendaach had loudly rejoiced that the rift that had come between the two cousins these past years had been mended.

  Long live antique swords, alcohol and forgiveness.

  If Theo had Benedict at his side today, Moriana had Aury—who would not stop nervously double-guessing the stylists and dressers until forced to desist by the ever-wise Letitia. The older woman took control, and by the time they were ready to leave for the cathedral both bride and bridesmaid looked their absolute best.

  The spectacle that greeted them as they stepped from the palace and headed for the closed bridal carriage made the breath catch in her throat. She’d grown used to having a mounted guard these past three weeks as she’d journeyed from Arun’s palace to Liesendaach’s. She and three hundred of Arun’s finest black warhorses had been met at the border of the two countries by three hundred of Liesendaach’s matching greys—and then all six hundred mounted guards had accompanied her the rest of the way, with the big greys leading the way and the black steeds protecting the rear.

  A circus had nothing on the last three weeks of travel. On the jousting and melee demonstrations the horsemen put on each evening for the gathering crowds. On the way Theo often turned up at the end of the day and rode with her for the last hour so that when they stopped he could help her from her horse and lavish her with a meal provided by a local hotelier or innkeeper.

  Today, though, the mounted guards had opted for a different formation. The six steeds pulling the carriage were all black, but the rest of the guards had formed in groups of four. Grey, black, black, grey—two countries entwined and stronger for it.

  She had all of this and at the end of the day she would have a man who worshipped her body and kept her warm and looked at her as if she hung the moon.

  It was two hours to the cathedral, with the horses moving at a fast walk. They’d debated taking a car instead but Moriana had insisted that tradition be upheld. They had water in the carriage and biscuits that would leave no stain if dropped on clothes. They had a computer and could watch the procession on the news, and wasn’t that a surreal experience? Watching an aerial view of the crowds lining the streets, and the horses and her father and brother at the head of the guard coming into view, being talked about in glowing terms, and then seeing the carriage come into view and knowing she was in the carriage.

  She watched as various guests made their way into the cathedral. Watched as Theo and Benedict arrived by Bentley and smiled and joked as they strode up the steps, only for the cathedral to then swallow them too.

  The press were being more than kind to Moriana today—it seemed she could do no wrong. From her choice of wedding gown, courtesy of the coffers of Liesendaach’s costume collection, to the clear happiness of King Theodosius—every wedding choice she’d made had been celebrated and embraced.

  The old Moriana would have revelled in the honeymoon period with the press. The new Moriana had been too damn happy to give it more than a passing thought.

  And then it was time to touch up her make-up and bring the veil down over her face, and to take her bouquet of white roses from their storage place and let Aury alight before her to pave the way for Moriana’s appearance.

  With her father on one side and her brother on the other, she stepped out of the carriage and into first her father’s arms and then her brother’s.

  ‘Do you feel loved yet?’ Augustus asked drily, because as far as he was concerned the past three weeks had been one long, loving, expensive farewell. ‘Or would you like even more adulation?’

  ‘You can tell me I’d make our mother proud of me today and that you’re going to miss me like crazy,’ she suggested, and blinked back sudden tears when her ultra-reserved brother did exactly that.

  The veil brushed her face as Aury made last-minute adjustments to its fall. Finally the flowers, veil, the train of her gown, everything was perfect as Moriana started up the stairs on her father’s arm. They stopped at the cathedral doors and waited for the signal to continue.

  * * *

  Moriana had practised for this moment. In the flesh and in her head, more times than she could count. But nothing had prepared her for the roar of the crowd and the butterflies in her heart as the bishop appeared and beckoned them inside.

  ‘Are you
ready?’ asked her father quietly.

  ‘I love him.’

  ‘Then you’re ready.’

  She didn’t remember how she walked up that aisle, only that the choir sounded like angels and the ceiling soared and light shone down on everyone from behind stained glass windows and not for a moment did she falter. Theo was waiting for her, Theo was there, in full black military uniform, weighed down with military braid, medals and insignias. He was every inch the royal figurehead, and then he turned to her and smiled and it was wicked and ever so slightly sweet, and there was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

  She remembered very little of kneeling and taking her vows. She did remember the ring sliding onto her finger and sliding a similar ring onto Theo’s finger and she definitely remembered the lifting of her veil and the wonder in Theo’s eyes as he kissed her.

  ‘You’re mine now.’ His hands trembled in hers and she was grateful for that tiny show of frailty, just for her. It matched her own.

  ‘I really am. For the rest of our lives.’

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered as they turned to face the congregation and beyond. ‘And I’m yours.’

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed CONVENIENT BRIDE FOR THE KING, you’re sure to enjoy the first part of Kelly Hunter’s CLAIMED BY A KING quartet!

  SHOCK HEIR FOR THE CROWN PRINCE

  Available now!

  And, while you wait for the next instalment of CLAIMED BY A KING, why not explore these other stories by Kelly Hunter?

  THE SPY WHO TAMED ME

  FLIRTING WITH INTENT

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from BOUND TO THE SICILIAN’S BED by Sharon Kendrick.

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