were the progeny of kings it was commonplace for a politically expedient marriage to be arranged for you. And yet...inexplicably...Casimir’s defection after such a long courtship had gutted her. He’d made her feel small and insignificant, unwanted and alone, and, above all, not good enough. All her hard work, the endless social politics, the restraint that guided her every move, had been for what?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Arun’s royal palace was an austere one, mainly because Moriana’s forefathers had planned it that way. Stern, grey and never quite warm enough, it invited application to duty over frivolous timewasting. It chose function over beauty, no matter how much beauty she found to hang on its walls. It favoured formal cloistered gardens for tidy minds.
Her brother had taken residence in the southern wing of the palace in the gloomiest rooms of them all, and not for the first time did Moriana wonder why. Her brother’s executive secretary—an elderly courtier who’d been in service to the House of Arun since before she was born—looked up as she approached, his expression smooth and unruffled.
‘Princess, what a pleasant surprise.’
She figured her appearance was neither pleasant nor a surprise, but she let the man have his social graces. ‘Is he in?’
‘He’s taking an important call.’
‘But he is in,’ she countered and kept right on walking towards her brother’s closed door. ‘Wonderful.’
The older man sighed and pressed a button on the intercom as she swept past. He didn’t actually speak into the intercom, mind. Moriana was pretty sure he had a secret code button set up just for her—doubtless announcing that Moriana the Red was incoming.
Her brother looked up when she walked in, told whoever he had on the phone that he’d call them back, and put the phone down.
Damn but it was cold in here. It didn’t help that the spring just past had been a brutal one and summer had been slow to arrive. ‘Why is it like an ice box in here?’ she asked. ‘Have we no heating you can turn on? No warmer rooms you could rule from?’
‘Or you could wear warmer clothes,’ her brother suggested, but there was nothing wrong with her attire. Her fine wool dress was boat-necked, long-sleeved and fell to just above her knees. Stockings added another layer to her legs. She was wearing knee-high leather boots. Had she added a coat she’d be ready for a trip to the Antarctic.
‘It is a perfectly pleasant day outside,’ she countered. ‘Why do you choose the coldest rooms we have to call your own?’
‘If I had better rooms, more people would be tempted to visit me and I’d never get any work done.’ His eyes were almost black and framed by thick black lashes, just like her own. His smile was indulgent as he sat back and steepled his hands—maybe his whole I’m in charge of the universe pose worked on some, but she’d grown up with him and knew what Augustus had looked like as a six-year-old with chickenpox and as a teenager with his first hangover. She knew the sound of his laughter and the shape of his sorrows. He could wear his kingly authority in public and she would bow to him but here in private, when it was just the two of them, he was nothing more than a slightly irritating older brother. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘Have you seen this?’ She held up a thick sheet of cream-coloured vellum.
‘Depends,’ he said.
She slammed the offending letter down on the ebony desk in front of him. Letters generally didn’t slam down on anything but this one had the weight of her hand behind it. ‘Theo sent me a proposal.’
‘Okay,’ he said cautiously, still looking at her rather than the letter.
‘A marriage proposal.’
Her brother’s lips twitched.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she warned.
‘Well, it stands to reason he would,’ said Augustus. ‘You’re available, he’s under increasing pressure to produce an heir and secure the throne, and politically it’s an opportunistic match.’
‘We loathe each other. There is no earthly reason why Theo would want to spend an evening with me, let alone eternity.’
‘I have a theory about that—’
‘Don’t start.’
‘It goes something like this. He pulled your pigtail when you were children, you gave him a black eye and you’ve been fierce opponents ever since. If you actually spent some time with the man you’d discover he’s not half as bad as you think he is. He’s well-travelled, well-read, surprisingly intelligent and a consummate negotiator. All things you admire.’
‘A consummate negotiator? Are you serious? Theo’s marriage proposal is a form letter. He filled my name in at the top and his at the bottom.’
‘And he has a sense of humour,’ Augustus said.
‘Says who?’
‘Everyone except for you.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘Yes.’
Oh, it was on.
She pulled up a chair, a hard unwelcoming one because that was all there was to be had in this farce of a room. She sat. He sighed. She crossed her legs, etiquette be damned. Two seconds later she uncrossed her legs, rearranged her skirt over her knees and sat ramrod-straight as she stared him down. ‘Did you arrange this?’ Because she wouldn’t put it past him. He and their three neighbouring monarchs were close. They plotted together on a regular basis.
‘Me? No.’
‘Did Casimir?’ He of the broken matrimonial intentions and newly discovered offspring.
‘I doubt it. What with burying his father and planning a coronation, the instant fatherhood and his current wooing of the child’s mother... I’m pretty sure he has his hands full.’
Moriana drummed her fingers on his ugly wooden desk, partly because it gave her time to digest her brother’s words and partly because she knew it annoyed him. ‘Then whose mad idea was it?’
He eyed her offending fingers for a moment before casually pulling open his desk drawer and pulling out a long wooden ruler. He held it up, as if gauging its reach, before bringing the tip to rest gently in his palm. ‘Stop torturing my desk.’
‘Or you’ll beat me? Please,’ she scoffed. Nonetheless, she stopped with the drumming and brought the offending hand in front of her to examine her nails. No damage at all. Maybe she’d paint her nails black later, to match the desk and her mood. Maybe her rebellion could start small. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Whose idea was it?’
‘I’m assuming it was Theo’s.’
She looked up to find Augustus eyeing her steadily, as if he knew something she didn’t.
‘It’s not an insult, Moriana; it’s an honour. You were born and raised for the kind of position Theo’s offering. You could make a difference to his leadership and to the stability of the region.’
‘No.’ She cut him off fast. ‘You can’t guilt me into this. I am through with being the good princess who does what she’s told, the one who serves and serves and serves, without any thought to my own needs. I’m going to Cannes to party up a scandal. There will be recklessness. Orgies with dissolute film stars.’
‘When?’ Augustus did not sound alarmed.
‘Soon.’ He didn’t look alarmed either, and he should have. ‘You don’t think I’ll do it. You think I’m a humourless prude who wouldn’t know fun times if they rained down on me. Well, they’re about to. I want the passion of a lover’s touch. I want a man to look at me with lust. Dammit, for once in my life I want to do something that pleases me!’ She’d had enough. ‘All those