And Dionysus’s love of excess had in fact been his demise.
Alexius was simply...
He was simply King. And the rest was rumor, speculation, and in the case of Tinley, an inconvenience.
She held the cat clutched to her chest, and the creature left a gingery trail on her sweatshirt.
“I do hope you washed your hands before you made the pie.”
“It’s a cat friendly house.”
The cat really was enormous. It spilled from Tinley’s arms. “I suggest you find lodging for the beast. For you are returning to the palace with me.”
He would not be ferrying himself back and forth between the palace and this badger’s den she called a home. She was his project and he would have her in a convenient space.
Her eyes went round. “I will do no such thing.”
“Leave your animals?”
“Return with you!”
“You haven’t a choice, Tinley. I will see the stipulations of my father’s last wishes fulfilled, and quickly.”
She frowned. “And if I don’t?”
“I will think nothing of using force, Tinley.”
She frowned yet more deeply. “I am certain you would. All right. I will come. But my animals—”
“You cannot possibly think that you’re bringing that into the royal palace of Liri.”
“I fully think it. Your father had dogs.”
“He did. Dogs that would have...eaten that.”
“Algie is coming with me.”
“Algie,” he repeated, the word dripping with disdain.
“They’re all coming with me.”
He narrowed his gaze. “All?”
“Yes. Peregrine, Alton and Nancy.”
“Are they all cats?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He regarded her expression, which had gone mulish. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Peregrine is a ferret. Alton and Nancy are hedgehogs.”
“I live in a palace, not a menagerie.”
“I thought my happiness was important to you. I have a life. I have a charity to run. I have rescue animals.”
“I suggest you open the cages and release the animals into your garden. Hedgehogs are often quite happy in gardens. I have it on good authority they can often be heard rutting beneath windows, so it must be a happy place for them.”
Tinley’s face went beetroot. “You of all people should know that it’s dangerous out in the woods.” Her eyes clashed with his, sparks in their green depths.
And he was done sparring with an impotent creature.
“I will bring my men in to pack up your detritus.” He looked around at all of the baskets. “Do you require...everything?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do require everything. If I don’t have my yarn I won’t be able to knit.”
“God forbid. We cannot have a knitting crisis.”
“Indeed. You say that dryly, but you have no idea. Also, we should bring the pie.”
She looked around. “I’m able to work on my charity remotely.”
“It will please you to learn the castle has Wi-Fi.”
“Really? I’m somewhat surprised.”
“Why are you surprised?”
“Because nothing about you seems modern, Alex.”
Though on the outside, he remained stone, her words hit him strangely. He could not recall the last time a person had called him Alex.
His brother had done. Everyone else referred to him as Your Majesty. No one was so bold as to be quite so familiar with him. But of course, Tinley would be.
She would have heard her father refer to him as such. Alex walked to the window of the cottage and waved his hand. It was a signal for his men to come, and come they did. They descended on the small cottage and made quick work of everything in it. But by the time they had done so, he and Tinley, and a carrier that contained Algie, were bundled up in the back of the sleek black town car.
“He does not like to travel,” she said. “If he couldn’t hear my voice he would be very cross.”
“Tinley, do not mistake me, I am doing this for my own convenience. You have to marry.”
“Have to. So much have to in your world and I would have thought I’d escaped it when your brother died, but no. Here we are. Trying to get me to conform with all this protocol.”
A wealth of memory flashed between them. Every time he’d ever scolded her for breaking that protocol.
He could remember clearly the time she had come with his family on a vacation to the Amalfi Coast. And she’d worn some swimming costume that was horrendously inappropriate. One piece but plunging down to her breast bone, the cut around her legs coming up over her hips.
He’d been entranced by her body.
And it had angered him.
The press makes it their mission to get photographs of our family outings. You must be conscious of that, Tinley.
What’s wrong with this? It’s not a bikini, and this isn’t the Dark Ages! Should I make sure I’m covered from crown to ankle?
You are to be my brother’s wife. You must conduct yourself with a bit of decorum.
Then perhaps you ought to cover yourself. What will the world do if it gets a glimpse of your royal chest hair?
She’d planted her palm in the center of his chest to give him a shove and he’d caught her wrist, their eyes locking together.
And he’d nearly been lost then. He’d been able to see clearly that Tinley had no idea why their eyes made sparks when they clashed. Why the air suddenly felt thick.
But he knew.
He knew and she didn’t. And it was all the reason he’d needed to release her.
Protocol had not come into it.
“Well. It’s a shame that your protocol wasn’t functioning when you let Dionysus get lost in the woods.”
“I did not over consume alcohol on my brother’s behalf. Neither did I beseech him to try and impress the equally drunk and luxuriously curvy woman he was with.” He knew that was unkind. To bring up the woman. That betrayal had hurt Tinley then. He didn’t care. He couldn’t afford to care. And he had no patience with her accusations. “And finally, I did not direct a pack of wolves to tear him limb from limb.”
He felt something in his chest that might have been pain once. But the years had left him too hard and scarred to feel it.