I got up early and had a quiet breakfast. Just toast and tea.
I’m so nervous and terrified of what will happen when a room full of people see me naked. I’m shaved and buffed and plucked everywhere I need to be, powdered too. I styled my hair in loose, dark waves down my back with front pieces pinned behind my ears to frame my face with the crown. My makeup is a little more dramatic than normal. Almost like I’m using it as a shield to hide myself away from everyone who’s about to invade my privacy under the excuse of ensuring the bloodline.
I’ve also decided that I’m mad. How dare they degrade me this way. And yet there’s not one thing I can do about it other than get dressed and walk out thisdoor.
I pull on white lace panties and then step into the beautiful white brocade gown that ties at my shoulders. It looks like a wedding dress. I feel like a virginal sacrifice.
That’s exactly what I was, wasn’t I?
I’ll cry if I let myself, so I stuff the sorrows down and keep going. I open the aged velvet case and slide the massive diamond chandelier earrings through my ears, then loop the tennis necklace made of huge, linked diamond solitaires around my neck. I slide my new sash over my shoulder and pin my participation awards to my dress before tying my velvet cloak around my neck. I slide my feet into a pair of Manolo Blahnik’s and prepare to walk out the door. Not to run away from this once again—I can’t risk someone else’s life—I’m walking toward whatever trauma comes next from this marriage, this kingdom.
Leo is waiting for me outside my suite, and he silently nods to me as I step out into the hall, falling in step behind me as I make my way down the corridor to the private entrance of this wing.
Rhys is waiting for me just beyond the doors.
Outside is a golden carriage, led by several horses, driven by men in old fashioned uniforms. Even Rhys’s clothes look like we’ve stepped back in time. He’s wearing breeches over tall white socks and fancy shoes adorned with large buckles. A white shirt is tucked neatly in at his waist. Over that he wears a purplevelvet cloak, much like mine, embroidered with a lot of formal regalia.
“Hello, hen,” he says, his voice deep and solemn.
“Hello, my King,” I reply and dip into a curtsey.
He frowns, but today everything changes. He will be king and I will play my part for the machine. I love him but I cannot forget the roles we both must play.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Did I forget something?” I ask, checking my earrings and shoes. “I think I put on everything you left out for me, is something in the wrong place?”
“That’s no’ what I mean, and you know it,” he rumbles.
“Oh, well, that.”
“Aye,” he echoes. “‘That.’”
“Um… Yeah, I’m fine,” I answer.
He watches me and I want to fidget under his glare. “I do no’ think you are.”
“Listen”—I try to get him to focus and move on—“we have to do this; there is no getting out of it. So we’re going to do it as quickly as possible and get it over with, okay? Then I’m going to stuff down this memory into a tiny little box in the recesses of my brain and shove that box way,waydown, chaining it up never to be seen or heard from again.”
“I don’t think I like you referring to making love to me as a bad memory you never want to remember,” he says softly.
“This is not making love—that is something we doin private,” I explain. “This is a public act, that I’m not necessarily a fan of, to ensure the continuation of your bloodline. For all intents and purposes here, I’m a broodmare and I don’t like thinking of myself that way. So when we get to that part, I need you to think of every sexy thing you can to get off as fast as possible.”
“You think I canno’ make it good for you?” he asks, stepping closer to me. Automatically, I take a step back. “That I can’t make you come?”
“I know you can,” I answer. “But I don’t want you to. I don’t want anyone to see me like that.”
“I wish I could hide you away, hen,” he says. “There’s something in me that needs to keep you safe and protected, but this life does no’ align with that primal goal. But I do need to make it good for you, to claim you in front of everyone, and anyone that I have to, so that they know that you are mine and I am yours. That’s the very best that I can promise you today. So, the question is, is that enough for you?”
I want to scream and shout at the swift denial of what I want and at the same time, I want to preen and glow at the idea that he wants the world to know that he’s mine and he needs to care for me. I hate the dichotomy I cannot rationalize in my brain, so I answer the only way I can.
“I guess it’ll have to be.”
“Aye,” he says and something flashes in his eyes that tells me that wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. I love him and I’m committed to him and this life, butpublic sex isn’t something that turns me on, not in any way that I want. “Let’s go then.”
He walks out the door and climbs into the carriage; I follow behind him like I’m supposed to, and one of the drivers holds out a hand to help me climb into the carriage. Unlike our wedding day, I sit facing Rhys instead of by his side. It feels like we’re adversaries and no longer a united team. I hate it.
He’s deep in his thoughts as we ride down the hillside toward the abbey. Every time we’re here, it feels like something both great and awful is about to happen, all at the same time. How can there be so much joy and excitement surrounding my impending doom?