After that, there was no more conversation.
And by the time she left the dinner table, a knot had begun to form in his chest that only expanded with each passing moment. And when she left the room, it did not ease.
The sooner he had Tinley Markham married off the better.
He got up from his seat and went over to the bar that was at the far end of the massive dining room. He took out a bottle of scotch and poured himself a measure of it. He downed it in one gulp.
The sooner she was dealt with, the sooner he could get on with the business of ruling Liri.
And the sooner he would have fat cats and hedgehogs removed from his castle.
That would be a blessing indeed.
CHAPTER FOUR
COMPORTMENT LESSONS BEGAN the next day. Tinley was horrified. Why was he so hell-bent on changing her? Yes, there had been a presumption that if she was going to be Princess she would have to conform in some way. But she had assumed that her basic raw material was decent, considering she had been chosen to be the Princess of Liri at a very early age.
And anyway, that future was gone. She wasn’t supposed to be a princess. She was simply looking for a...for a husband.
She looked around the ballroom, empty except for the older woman that Alex had assigned to be her mentor.
She had been walking with a book on her head for half an hour.
But for some reason, every time she got midway through the room she would imagine Alex’s dark, disapproving gaze boring a hole through her, and she would stumble.
She really didn’t like him.
Their conversation last night had been strange. It had affected her in unexpected ways.
It had been easy to cast him as the villain in Dionysus’s death. Though the ferocity of her anger had waned over the years.
She had gotten older, and as she had borne witness to rowdy, drunken behavior in college, she had been forced to ask herself many times who needed to bear responsibility for that behavior.
And every time, she could only ever bestow the responsibility to the people engaging in the behavior.
Which meant Dionysus bore the weight of his own rash act.
He had been twenty-two years old when he’d died. He had seemed such a man to her. Now that she was the same age as he’d been when he passed it seemed...strange. Because they were on equal footing now.
And she... Well, she would not have done the things he did. She wouldn’t have drunk to excess and put herself in danger like that.
She would never have cheated.
The thought of that was like a knife twisting her chest. Not because she loved him so much. Not now. It was just...she’d excused it. A great many times, because it hadn’t suited the vision she’d had of him, of her feelings for him, to be angry about the other women.
But it had been wrong.
She couldn’t imagine Alex behaving in such a way. Never.
Alex had been in his own stratosphere to her when Dionysus had died. In his thirties already and so remote and responsible. She’d been certain then it was all age, and now she knew better.
She didn’t know why she was comparing the two of them. Dionysus had been fun. Dynamic. He’d had plans for the country in his role as Prince, and when he had spoken, it had been electric. He had been a firm favorite of the people for a variety of reasons. He had established festivals and parades. He had brought a much-needed levity to the culture.
She loved her country. She always had.
Her mother was American, and she had spent a great deal of time in the States as a girl, and had also been privileged enough to travel around the world. She felt that gave her the context to truly appreciate Liri and what was unique about it. But she could also appreciate the fact that it had an old-fashioned feel to it, that there was a sense of seriousness derived from years spent with the people in poverty, and with uncertainty surrounding them while war had raged.
There had been generations of that sort of unrest, all resolved when King Darius had been in power. But the psyche of the people was rooted in that, and those things did not change overnight.
Dionysus had seemed like the medicine the country needed.
It had seemed as if he had been born not feeling the weight of the potential crown. And it had been a good thing.
Alex himself seemed to bear the weight of a mountain on his shoulders. And he walked straight and tall all the same. But there was...a gravity to him that seemed to affect the rotation of her when she was around him.
It was disconcerting at best. But then, this entire situation was disconcerting. Because she had spent a few years feeling like she might be a normal girl. Not one who had been set on the rarest and strangest of paths as a child, only to be completely derailed from it, then spat out into the real world alone and aimless.
But she’d had a chance to rebuild herself from the ground up. In Boston, there had been no expectations, no decisions about her future made anymore.
And in the back of her mind she’d known about the stipulations in her father’s will but it had seemed so distant.
She hadn’t imagined they would be enforced.
But now she was back. A reminder that she was part of a relatively old-fashioned system, and that she was the daughter of a king’s advisor.
But what if you did walk away?
She would walk away with nothing. And she had no idea what she would do with that. What would she be able to offer...anyone? How would she take care of herself? The job that she had at a charity was fulfilling, but it didn’t make a large amount. And she had always known that she would have an arranged marriage. It was just that...
It was just that she had wanted the marriage that was arranged.
“I can see it’s going well.”
She whirled around, and the book flew off of her head. And there he was. Standing in the door, the object of her consternation.
“Very well,” she said dryly.
“Concentrating hard in your lessons?”
“Thinking about running away.”
He began to move closer to her, and her heart beat faster in response. She didn’t know why she found him so... So.
“There will be none of that,” he said.
“Why?”
“You know what happens when people run into the woods.”
But he was not teasing her. His voice was heavy.
“I’m not going to run into the woods.”
“A relief. Good to know that you do have some sense in your head.”
“I was actually beginning to wonder if I do. I could go back to America.”
“You could,” he said. “With nothing.”