The Most Powerful Of Kings - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,35

hadn’t fallen magically in love with him. In fact, right now, she didn’t even like him.

She tried to do what he’d told her, which was to forget all about what had happened between them and concentrate on Ione instead. But she found that at odd times she’d suddenly find herself remembering his hands on her skin, or the way he’d felt inside her; the pleasure that had bloomed throughout her entire body; the look in his blue eyes and the way her chest had tightened in wonder; the strange sadness that had gripped her as she’d thought about him being a mountain and having no one.

And something whispered to her that there was a reason she’d been so angry with him and so offended in the aftermath. A reason she hadn’t protested at his cold dismissal.

It was because she was disappointed—worse, she was hurt. And even worse than that, she knew she had no reason to be. He’d been clear about what the sex would be between them. It was she who hadn’t understood how it would affect her.

You were wrong. You are a fragile flower.

But she didn’t want to think about that, so she didn’t. Instead, she pursued her determination to help Ione. Adonis—the king—had sent word that her evening reports on Ione’s progress would now be given to one of his aides rather than to himself, and he refused all requests for an audience as he was very busy at present.

It was enough to make her think that he was avoiding her, though she couldn’t imagine why. Had it been that the passion between them had touched something in him, too? And now he couldn’t be around her? But then, why would that be?

Whatever he was doing, it irritated her. So she went to Prince Xerxes instead, laying out her reasons for wanting to take Ione into Itheus without her usual contingent of soldiers.

Xerxes was—unlike his brother—understanding. He was also charming and so ridiculously handsome that he made Anna feel a little like a starstruck teenager. It turned out he had the same fears that Ione wasn’t getting the attention she deserved either—he’d become a father six months earlier himself—and promised he’d take the matter to his brother personally.

He must have been far more persuasive than Anna because the next day Anna was granted permission to take Ione into the city with a contingent of two of the palace’s most elite soldiers in plain clothes.

The day was beautiful, warm, and sunny, and Anna held fast to the little girl’s hand as Ione charged around Itheus’s narrow cobbled streets, loudly telling Anna about this thing or that thing. That’s the church where Uncle Xerxes married Aunt Calista. That’s where Papa married Mama.

That caused a small pang of grief in Anna’s heart. Ione didn’t seem to mind talking about her mother. And after they visited the shop that was renowned throughout Axios, even throughout Europe, for its ice cream, and came outside into the bustling streets, licking melting ice cream from the crisp waffle cones, Anna asked another couple of questions about her.

Ione said very matter-of-factly that something had been wrong with Mama’s heart and so she’d died when Ione was still a baby. Was that a playground? Could they go over and play in it?

That the little girl couldn’t remember her mother made Anna’s heart ache in sympathy. The princess was so very alone. Her father was cold, kept his daughter at a distance, and so she was left to an army of people who looked after her and cared for her. But they wouldn’t love her as a mother would. They wouldn’t want to get to know her, chat to her, treat her as though she was an ordinary, albeit very special, little girl, and not the heir to the throne.

Resolve settled down through Anna as she wiped the ice cream from Ione’s face then let her go and play in the playground. The Reverend Mother had been right to send her to Axios, regardless of whether the old lady thought she was sending Anna to the king or not. Anna wasn’t here for him. She was here for this lonely, motherless girl. And she was uniquely qualified to understand Ione, because she’d been a lonely, motherless girl herself. The nuns had given her a home and they’d given her love, but it wasn’t a mother’s love. It wasn’t warm or personal. It was distant and stern and vaguely disapproving.

Like the king.

Anna watched Ione squealing with laughter as