Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask. Kate Walker
her and, while they had struggled to be close after her mother died, she had always looked out for him. Anticipated that he would always be there. He couldn’t be gone. He was only twenty-four.
She shivered and felt a soft blanket settle over her shoulders. She clutched it.
Wolfe placed a glass of water on the table in front of her. ‘Do you need anything else?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’
‘So you keep saying.’
But he didn’t push it, and Ava was grateful. She watched him return to his seat. When he’d come across her in the foyer her heart had turned giddy at the sight of him. It had taken a lot of effort to remind herself that there was no point in seeing him again and even less in sleeping with him! His increasing anger at her response had thrown her a little but then he’d confirmed that, no, he didn’t want more than sex from her, and she’d known she had made the right decision.
After they arrived in Anders she would likely never see him again, and that fact made her feel instantly bereft.
Her mind linked the feeling with a time when she was fourteen and her father had continued with a state trip even though she’d been hospitalised with chicken pox. He’d monitored her condition from afar, as usual, but coming so soon after her mother’s death his behaviour had done little to alleviate her loneliness and her sense of powerlessness at being alone.
That same sense of helplessness and loneliness engulfed her now, and she pushed it back. Her father would expect her to demonstrate more fortitude than that.
More childhood memories tumbled into her mind, like dice on a two-up table. Memories of Frédéric as a boy. Of her mother.
Rather than becoming more available after her mother’s death from cervical cancer, Ava’s father had withdrawn and focused on his work, seeming not to know how to connect with her. He had been fine with Frédéric. Ava had grown more and more resentful of the disparity in the way in which he treated his children, and more and more determined to show him that his views of women were archaic and demeaning.
But nothing she did ever seemed to be good enough for him. Perhaps if she’d been more like her mother, had been able to put his needs first, they might have seen eye to eye. But Ava couldn’t. She had witnessed her mother’s sadness whenever her father chose duty over family, and it had made her want something entirely different for herself.
Now, with Frédéric gone—a thought that just wouldn’t stick in her head—she was next in line to the throne. She could only imagine how her father must be cringing over that, and she felt slightly nauseous at the prospect of having to step into the role.
Wolfe’s voice telling her to refasten her seat belt cut across her tumultuous thoughts, and she glanced outside her window and saw the Anders mountain range as they came in to land.
Imposing a rigid shut-down on her fears about being home, she blanked her mind and switched to cool indifference. From the plane doorway she could see her father’s royal guard standing alongside a line of official black cars, and she nearly turned and asked Wolfe to restart the engine and fly her some place else. Really, she felt about as strong as a daisy in a hailstorm—and she hadn’t even seen her father yet.
Sensing Wolfe directly behind her, Ava had a debilitating urge to turn and rush into his arms, have him tell her that everything would be all right. But that was weak, and Wolfe was the wrong man to lean on in this situation. She wasn’t special to him, and he wasn’t the type to sit back and go unnoticed. He was used to taking charge, and there was no way she was going to let him sideline her in front of her father. She had been handling things on her own for a long time now, and she could handle this, as well.
Images of last night, of falling asleep in his arms after their wonderful lovemaking, filtered through her mind and made her pause. Then the empty space he’d left in the bed that morning intruded and stiffened her resolve. It would be a mistake to think she could rely on James Wolfe even for a short time.
‘Thank you for the use of your plane but I can take it from here.’
‘I told you I would take you home and I will.’
His hot toffee eyes glittered down at her dangerously, and his controlled voice told her he was as determined to have his way as she was.
‘I am home.’
‘Ava—’
‘Wolfe. I’m fine. Really.’
‘You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to break apart.’
Did she? She’d have to work on that between here and the palace. Practising now, she squared her shoulders and stared him down. ‘I’m not. I thought I told you already. I am not the sensitive type.’
Wolfe arrogantly slashed his hand in the air to cut her off in a move that was reminiscent of something her father would do. ‘It’s not open for discussion.’
That was exactly what her father would say, and exactly the reason she couldn’t have Wolfe with her. That and the sudden sense that if she let him Wolfe would hurt her as Colyn never had.
‘No. It isn’t,’ she agreed tightly, hardening herself against the sheer force of his will, the sheer force of her desire for him, which appeared to be even worse now that she had experienced what passion really was.
For a moment neither one of them moved, facing off against each other like two adversaries in a gunfight.
Wolfe’s mouth tightened as he made to turn away from her. Then his fist clenched and his eyes, when he brought them back to hers, were seething with frustration. ‘You are without a doubt the most infuriatingly stubborn female I have ever met.’
His voice, for all its aggression, was as soft as silk and sent a flash of fire beneath the surface of her skin.
He was without a doubt the most beautiful, the most powerfully dangerous male she had ever met, and she was afraid she would dream about him for ever.
‘DID MATTHIEU SAY what my father wanted to see me about, Lucy?’
‘No, ma’am.’ Lucy, her new lady’s maid, returned from the wardrobe with two jackets for her to choose from.
Ava shook her head and immediately felt terrible as Lucy’s face fell. Two weeks home and she still wasn’t used to being waited on hand and foot again. She felt sorry for the young girl whose services she’d barely used.
She glanced at her reflection and smoothed her messy ponytail. She hadn’t done her hair properly in days, but her father had requested her presence and she would not let him see her as anything less than perfect.
‘You don’t like my choices, ma’am?’
‘I love your choices.’ She gave Lucy what she hoped was an appreciative smile. ‘But it’s hot. In fact, why don’t you take the afternoon off? Go and see your boyfriend.’
The girl bobbed her head deferentially and Ava sighed heavily and headed out.
She hated being home.
Hated the cold stone walls of the palace that felt more like a prison. She had barely seen her father since she’d returned, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—except she had barely seen anyone other than staff, and it had given her far too much time to dwell on her grief.
Glimpsing bright summer sunshine through the long row of Gothic windows as she moved from one hallway to the next made Ava feel bleak. It just felt wrong. The sky should be grey, not blue.
Her brother was dead. The royal duties she had always shied away from were upon her, and there was no escape.
As her father had said, the people needed hope in these black times and she was it. They looked upon