she still wore when she longed for something more casual, more comfortable. Her hands moved restlessly before her, plucking at the fabric of her long skirt. She could not seem to keep still. She wandered the edges of the small salon, stopping before the great windows that looked out over the ancient city, all the spires and rooftops gleaming white and blue as the sun dipped toward the western mountains. It looked indescribably foreign to her eyes, and yet some part of her thrilled to the sight, as if she was as much a part of the landscape as he was. As if it was in her blood.
“They cheered,” she said, not knowing she meant to speak, not knowing her voice would sound so insubstantial. She swallowed, and reached a hand toward the window, the glass cool beneath her reaching fingers. “When we were in the car, heading back here. Why would they do that?”
“You are their princess, now their queen,” Adel said, his even voice filling the small room, pressing against her ears, and burrowing beneath her skin. “The last of an ancient and revered bloodline, the daughter of a beloved ruler now lost to them. You were stolen away from them when you were just a girl. They celebrate your safe return to the place you belong.” He paused for a moment. “Your home.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, not knowing why she trembled, why his eyes seemed so sure, and yet managed to make her feel so raw inside. She wanted to speak—perhaps she wanted to scream—but nothing moved past her lips.
“They adore you,” he said.
“Not me.” She shook her head, swallowed. “Some idea of what I should be, perhaps, but not me.”
He heard the dark, wild panic in her voice, and moved toward her, though he had promised himself he would not touch her again. A promise he had already broken repeatedly. In the cathedral. In the car. In the endless reception. He, who held his vows to be sacred. And still, he moved behind her, setting his untouched drink on a side table and letting his hands come to rest on her shoulders.
“It becomes easier,” he murmured, close to the perfect shell of her ear, the tempting, elegant line of her neck.
“How do you stand it?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the city outside the windows, as if one of the most beautiful views in the kingdom disturbed her. “All that … expectation?”
She sounded torn. Terrified. And he wanted to soothe her. He wanted to kiss the panic from her body, make her forget herself and the demands of her station. But he could not afford that kind of misstep. Not now, when the King was buried and gone. When so much remained at stake.
“We will marry at the end of the week,” he said gruffly. “There is no time to waste.”
He felt the shock move through her body, like an electrical current.
“What is the hurry?” she asked, turning so she faced him, not seeming to notice that his hands remained on her, sliding down to hold her upper arms in his palms. “Surely what matters is that I am here. Must we force all of these changes into only a handful of days?”
Her voice caught slightly on the word changes. He hated himself for pushing her, but he had no choice. He had been bound over to his country so long ago now he no longer remembered any other way. There were far greater things than the hurt feelings of one woman to worry about, even if it was this one, and far more important things to consider than his abiding desire to comfort her. There was much more at stake than these quiet moments that he knew, somehow, he would never get back.
But he had never had any choice.
“The ceremony will be in the cathedral, as tradition demands,” he said as if he had not heard her. She frowned up at him. He found himself frowning back at her, a surge of sudden, unreasonable anger moving through him, though he knew it was not her he was angry with. “Will you fight this, too, Princess? Will we see who wins this latest battle? I should let you know that I am unlikely to be as easy on you as I have been. My patience for these games of yours wears thin.”
For a moment she looked as if he’d slapped her. Her face whitened, then blazed into color. She pressed her lips