The Most Powerful Of Kings - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,43

a lighted path.

‘I can walk,’ she protested, her voice sounding husky. She could hear waves crashing against a distant shore and smell salt in the air.

‘No,’ the king said. And, since there was no loosening of his hold on her and because she was actually quite happy where she was, she didn’t fight him.

She did allow herself to look up though. The lights of the path illuminated his harsh, handsome features. They were set in hard lines, brutal as stone and just as unyielding, and she felt, for the first time, a little quiver of fear.

Whatever had happened and wherever they were, it was because of something serious.

Yet his hold was gentle, and he carried her effortlessly, and, even though there was that fear there, she kept herself relaxed.

The path wound its way through a rocky garden to a small house constructed of white stone with lots of windows. It was lit with hidden lighting, making the place glow like alabaster, warm and inviting.

So. Definitely not a prison, then. Not that she’d done anything wrong, but being transported in the dead of night was always a worry.

A woman opened the double front doors as they approached, potted olive trees standing on either side, and then they were in a pretty tiled entranceway with plain whitewashed walls.

The king said something Anna didn’t catch to the woman and then she stepped outside, shutting the doors behind her. Anna found herself carried down a short, wide hallway and through into a lounge area.

Again, the floor was tiled, the walls whitewashed. Big windows faced the darkness, while luxurious low couches and chairs carved from heavy dark wood and covered in plain white linen were arranged around them. Thick cushions in jewel tones brought colour to the room, while on the floor was a cheerful rag-rolled rug in what looked like bright silks. The king walked to the couch and gently deposited her on it, but he didn’t sit. He only stood there, looking down at her, tall and forbidding in his black evening clothes, the golden lion pin gleaming on his breast.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here,’ he said at last. ‘Anna, why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’

Anna blinked, not understanding. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You fainted in my arms. I had my own personal doctor attend you and he was able to run a number of blood tests. This included a pregnancy test to eliminate the possibility.’ The king’s face remained hard as granite. ‘It was not eliminated and is no longer a possibility. It is a reality.’

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. A cold feeling moved through her, starting at her extremities, making her fingers and toes go numb. Shock. But then, she could only be shocked if it was true, surely. And it couldn’t be true. This was all a terrible joke that he was playing on her...

But his hard expression didn’t change and his beautiful mouth looked as far from smiling as it ever had.

It’s not a joke.

The tiredness that had been dogging her, the nausea that had come and gone, making her feel so awful...

Her lips were now numb and she couldn’t feel her hands either, or her feet. ‘But we used protection,’ she said faintly.

‘Protection that apparently failed.’ His gaze was so sharp it felt as if it could cut. ‘You didn’t know?’

Anna shook her head. The possibility had never occurred to her, not once. And now... ‘I can’t be.’ Her voice sounded strange and distant. ‘My vows... Oh...’ Her heart was beating far too fast and she couldn’t breathe. All she could think about was the Reverend Mother and what she’d say, and this last, perhaps greatest mistake. There would be no place in the convent for her now...

Helpless tears filled her eyes, loss gripping her. The convent had been the only home she’d ever known, the nuns the only people who’d ever wanted her, and she’d tried so hard to be good. To be the kind of nun they wanted her to be. But there was no hope of that now.

Pull yourself together. This isn’t about you.

Anna swallowed and found she’d put a hand on her stomach, as if to protect the tiny germ of life inside her from her own thoughts. And underneath the shock and the numbness was a small thread of wonder with strands of steely determination woven through it.

She’d been abandoned as a baby; her mother hadn’t wanted her then and she hadn’t wanted her years later, either. But Anna