Page 16 of From London, With Love
Alexandra looked down at her clenched fists.
Prince Ivan had barely touched her.
He hadn’t meant to offend her in any way, he had simply been attempting to… to court her. And she’d frozen like a deer sensing the hunter’s rifle locking upon her.
“I hate you,” she whispered to her long-dead husband. “And I will not allow you to haunt me now. I will forget you. I swear I will.”
She was the queen. She wouldnotrun from her duty.
But she was wise enough to admit that this one time, she might need help to do so.
* * *
A knock cameat the door of Alexandra’s antechambers.
“Come in,” she called, a flutter of nerves assaulting her. Turning, she swiftly poured two glasses of cordial, almost knocking one of them over in her haste. Damn it. This entire plan had seemed a good idea at the time, but now the moment had arrived, she couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed.
She was a woman. A queen. Married once, and then widowed. It wasn’t as though she was some lily-livered virgin who’d never encountered a man.
Yes, whispered her conscience,but this is different, and you know it is.
Sir Gideon entered, his dark eyes finding hers instantly. He was such a tall, imposing figure with his broad shoulders and well-trimmed physique. At first, she’d found him a little intimidating, for he was prone to stern looks and rarely smiled. But she’d soon grown used to his well-measured voice and the gentle way he could steer an argument without even raising his tone.
He was the sort of man who was polite to all her servants, even when he didn’t realize she was watching—and she had watched him often, from the secrecy of the chambers that had once riddled the Ivory Tower. She’d seen him placate a housemaid who’d spilled an entire bucket of mop water on his elegant shoes with a gentle smile that eased the girl’s tears, and he’d been the first to wade into a carriage accident when it occurred right in front of him, working without care for his attire or even personal injury. When it became clear the lead horse would never draw a carriage again, he’d bought it and put it out to pasture.
Kindness. It had been such a rarity in her life that she’d found herself perplexed by it at first, until she realized that was just the sort of man he was.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, noting the spilled cordial and the way she stared.
Suddenly, she couldn’t do it. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” Swishing toward the windows, she curled her fingers into a fist in her gloves. What a fool she’d been.
“Alexandra,” he chided.
“I was just…. I was thinking of this entire bloody affair,” she bit out. “There’s barely a week left of the exhibition. And Malloryn will expect an answer, and I-I don’t have one. I don’t care for any of them.”
Silence fell like a lash.
She spun around. “Say something.”
Gideon lowered his eyes. “You don’t have to choose a suitor this week. Malloryn can’t force your hand. There is time, Alexandra.”
Her name. On his lips.
Only here, in the privacy of her chambers.
She closed her eyes, lingering in the sound of her name. “If not now, then when? Nothing will change. Not this year. Not the next. I will always find some excuse.”
“If you don’t care to take a husband, then I will back you in the council meetings,” he told her firmly.
“No.” Alexandra shook her head. “You don’t understand. Malloryn makes sense. I don’t like it. I don’t want to take a husband, but he is right. I didn’t fight this entire bloody civil war just to risk instability because of my cursed feelings. I am queen. And I need to produce an heir for my country. But I… I don’t know if I can.”
Though Manderlay had kissed her, the only man who had ever bedded her had been her husband.
Gideon coughed into his hand. “Perhaps this is a conversation you should be having with your physician.”
Alexandra swallowed the lump in her throat. She had stared down every blue blood in the Echelon. She could do this. “It doesn’t stem from a physical inability. I need… help.”
“Help? Of course, Alexandra. Anything that is within my power to give.” Concern touched his voice, and she could sense him pausing behind her, always that bloody infernal foot of space between them.
