Page 8 of Pregnant In The King's Palace

‘No.’ She scowled at nothing in particular. ‘But you let them say those things about me. You let me wear the shame, and for that I don’t forgive you.’

‘You have no idea what was said behind closed doors.’ He’d tried desperately to take the blame. Told his father that none of it was Angelique’s fault, that she shouldn’t be dismissed on account of his bad judgement, and it had made not a scrap of difference to the way she and her family had been treated. As for him, he’d been whipped until he bled and charged with four years of military service for his trouble, and it hadn’t been because he’d bedded the stable girl.

He’d been punished for defending her.

Not only had his skin split, so too had his heart when he’d realised that all Vala’s dire warnings about their father being a petty tyrant had been true. Cruelty ruled the man. Cruelty, indifference to the plight of others and a soaring sense of entitlement, the last of which Valentine knew he shared.

Angelique might not know it but she’d saved him that day. Ripped the blinkers from his eyes, caused him to examine the privileges he’d taken for granted, and ultimately set him on a path of self-discovery that led him far from his father’s cruel shadow.

Even if he did still have a way to go. ‘My father gave me two choices on the day he stepped in to put a stop to our dalliance. The first was to let you go. The second was for him to taste what you’d so willingly given me. Would you rather I’d kept you at his mercy? Because I’m telling you, Angelique, just in case you missed the memo. My father was not a pleasant man.’

All the anger that had simmered beneath his skin for years finally broke the surface. The years of being treated like a fiend by her and her family. The judgment his peers had applied to their affair, Theo’s thinly veiled criticism. The guilt he carried with him still when it came to the position he’d put her in all those years ago. The thanks he owed her that she didn’t want to hear.

The way he wanted her, still. After all those years spent trying to forget the feel of her heart thundering against his and never, ever being able to actually do so.

Anger, sharp and corrosive, was such an old, old friend.

‘Take heart from your escape from the royal court of Thallasia, Horsemaster Cordova. Thank your lucky stars I thought enough of you to let you go. You got to be free. You got to be you. It could have been so much worse.’ His heels came together in a parody of a military-parade-ground salute and he smiled bleakly and bowed his farewell. ‘You could have stayed.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M NOT GOING.’ Angelique Cordova stared at her twin sister and tried to push down the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. The charity dinner scheduled to begin in an hour would go ahead without her. She could stay right where she was in the pretty blue and bronze guest room of the living quarters Prince Benedict shared with her brother Carlos. They’d been together openly for over a year now, with both Benedict and Carlos taking up residence in Theo’s palace. They wouldn’t mind if she hid out in their apartment and it wasn’t as if she’d be missed at the ball. There were five hundred other people attending, most of them rich, many of them titled, plenty of them self-absorbed. They could pretend interest in each other while she stayed here and unwound. She turned towards her sister, willing her to understand. ‘I can’t do it.’

Luciana stared back at her, almost identical in looks but for a slightly deeper dimple when she smiled and a crooked pinkie finger courtesy of a bad break when she was a child.

‘I could say I’m ill. Exhausted from the events of the day. Which I am.’

‘Liar.’ Lucia surveyed her solemnly. ‘This is about your temperamental King of Thallasia—’

‘He’s not my King.’

‘—and the run-in you had with him earlier.’

‘How did you hear about that?’

‘Everyone’s heard about it. He breaks his engagement in the morning and by lunchtime he’s sniffing after you and dredging up the good old days when our name was mud and no one wanted anything to do with us.’

‘I hate to break it to you, but our name is still mud.’ Even their brother’s outing as Prince Benedict of Liesendaach’s live-in lover hadn’t helped. ‘We’re just well-connected mud now.’

‘Yes, we are, and I for one would like to remain so. You can’t let Valentine get to you. He’s nothing to you now. A past lover. If he approaches you, turn him down.’

‘I don’t want to be near him.’ It didn’t seem to matter how many years had passed. All he had to do was look at her, be in the same room as her, and her heart started trying to crawl out of her chest and make its way towards him. ‘I’m still affected by him. And now he’s single and looking straight at me so I can’t be around him. Lucia, please, can’t we do a sister swap? You can pretend to be me and just...insult him...until he goes away. You’re better at it than me.’

‘Only because I’ve never forgiven him for the state he left you in all those years ago, whereas you...your heart is too soft and your memory not nearly long enough. No. I know your vulnerability when it comes to the Thallasian King as well as you do, but like it or not you have to find a way to deal with him that doesn’t involve making yourself scarce every time he appears.’

‘He came to my defence today.’ She’d appreciated it more than she’d let on. ‘It was unexpected.’

Lucia looked wholly unimpressed. ‘You don’t need defending.’

‘I know. It’s just—’

‘It’s just nothing. So he’s not a complete waste of a man. Doesn’t matter. You can’t let him back into your life—he’ll use you as a rebound fling to get over his broken engagement and then marry a dutiful princess. You know this. The world at large knows this, and you are not going to play that game. You need to put on your gown and the diamond necklace and earrings that go with it and go out there tonight and be pleasantly indifferent to him should he seek you out.’

Angelique met her sister’s gaze in the mirror that ran the full length of the dressing room.

‘He’s just a man,’ her sister said softly. ‘A man who once held your heart, but you’ve taken it back and moved on. You’re here at the invitation of a king and his Queen. You had a job to do today and you did it and I heard only praise for you and our horses. So what if Valentine of Thallasia came to your defence? Too little, too late and what’s more you don’t need his patronage. Let him see you in all your strength and glory. Hell, let him want what he so carelessly threw away. Doesn’t mean he’ll get it.’

Her sister sounded so sure.

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