Inara was so bright he couldn’t even look at her. He didn’t dare. She was small and delicate and exquisite in a silver confection of a gown that looked as though it had been scattered with stardust. And she, alabaster-pale, her grey eyes luminous, was the star.
He’d thought a week of avoiding her would put some distance between him and his unnervingly powerful desire, but it hadn’t. The moment he’d stepped into that room and set eyes on her, watched the bright, joyful thing ignite in her eyes when he looked at her, everything possessive, hungry and desperate had roared up inside him and demanded its due.
It should have been enough, burying himself in all those impossible, endless meetings that he loathed with a passion, the never-ending round of requests made, answers he must give, decisions he must make. The constant procession of audiences and petitions and grievances and complaints...
All those duties, the duties of a king, should have reminded him how petty were his own passions and appetites. How unimportant next to the needs of his country. Yet all he’d been able to think about was how he wanted to cancel every meeting he had to go looking for her. To go hunting for her, to catch her and drag her from the Queen’s apartments and into his bed.
But he knew himself too well and how those base desires and primitive emotions could take hold. They were all-consuming. They’d once made him put the pursuit of them before his family, before his country. They were flaws.
And a king had to be flawless.
So he tried to ignore the woman on his arm, so bright and glittering, delicate and beautiful, as he guided her around the ballroom and introduced her to the important people of his court. And, because he couldn’t look at her, he didn’t see how pale she’d become under the glittering crystals of the chandelier, or notice how she kept looking at him whenever he spoke someone’s name. He told himself that he didn’t need to pay attention, because all those etiquette and protocol lessons and PR consultations would have given her everything she needed to handle this little soiree.
Nerves were expected, so he didn’t worry when she stammered, curtseyed to someone instead of shaking their hand or looked bewildered when she called the Prime Minister by someone else’s name, then appeared to forget that Aveiras even had a prime minister.
As the evening wore on, he could hear people whispering, and caught the looks of disapproval sent their way as Inara forgot yet another name, and then used the wrong title, and then stopped speaking altogether.
He told himself that it would get better for her, that this was a rite of passage she had to bear and that, once it was done, she’d find things easier, but for some reason all those things sounded like hollow justifications.
It never got easier for you.
No, but he’d been thrown in at the deep end after the accident and, faced with drowning, he’d simply learned how to swim. Inara wasn’t in the deep end and she’d had a whole week’s preparation. And she had him at her side. It wasn’t the same at all.
Except it was becoming apparent that, despite what he’d told himself, Inara was a long way from learning to swim in these particular waters.
After she made yet another mistake with a name, he finally forced himself to look at her. She was so pale and her eyes looked red and irritated. Her shoulders were tense and she held herself awkwardly, her movements stiff and unsure.
She seemed to jolt suddenly as his gaze rested on her, as if she’d just become aware of his attention, making a sharp, involuntary movement that looked almost like a flinch, and knocking some woman’s elbow and the wine glass she was holding out of her hand. The glass smashed on the marble floor, red wine splashing everywhere like blood.
The music stopped, people pausing in their conversations to look in Inara’s direction.
A terrible, awful silence fell.
She stood there in her beautiful gown, red wine staining her skirts, an expression of utter horror on her face. ‘I—I’m so sorry,’ she stammered, white as a sheet and trembling.
Cassius put out a hand to her, but she ignored him, turning without a word and running straight through the massive double doors that led to the terrace and the formal gardens beyond.
Whispers began, the wind of disapproval blowing through the ballroom, heads turning, attention focusing. Everyone looked at him and he knew they’d be gauging his response, wondering how he’d handle this unseemly display.
This is your fault. You ignored her all week, because you couldn’t handle yourself in her presence, and now look what’s happened. She wasn’t ready and you threw her to the wolves.
Yes, he’d done that. This mess was his fault. He’d ignored her because he didn’t like the way she’d made him want her, leaving her in the hands of palace employees who clearly hadn’t done a good enough job of preparing her. He should have overseen her lessons or at least checked in on her.
Well, if the court wanted to see his response to the Queen’s chaotic and abrupt departure, then he would show them.
Allowing no emotion to be displayed on his face, Cassius murmured to the aide at his elbow, then proceeded to soothe the ruffled feathers of the woman whose arm had been knocked. Palace employees rushed in to sweep up the glass, and within moments the music had resumed, conversation buzzed again and the ball went on as if nothing had happened.
Five minutes later, once attention on him had shifted, Cassius told his aide curtly that he’d be seeing to the Queen, before striding from the ballroom after her. The ball could go on without him for a while, especially as the whole reason for the ball in the first place had disappeared.
Outside, even though it was night, the discreet lighting of the formal gardens ensured that it wasn’t completely dark. Fountains played, and beneath their delicate music he could hear the sound of the sea crashing against the white cliffs below the palace.
He couldn’t see Inara anywhere, though he searched all the places in the gardens where she might have gone, the stone benches near the fountains and beside the rose beds. The pretty archway of bougainvillea. The magnolia copse.
At last he came to a pavilion of white stone that stood on the cliffs, looking out over the ocean. He gave it a cursory glance, because it didn’t look as if anyone was inside, then stopped, his gaze caught by a slight glitter.
In the shadow of one of the pillars, sitting on the stone bench with her skirts caught around her, was Inara. Her head was turned away, her gaze on the ocean throwing itself against the cliffs.
Despite it being late summer, the sea breeze was cool, so he moved over to where she sat, shrugging out of his jacket as he went so he could drape it around her pale shoulders.