Convenient Bride for the King

  She refused his royal proposal...

  ...but will she let him unlock the passion within?

  King Theodosius must find a queen to keep his throne, but his less-than-romantic proposal letter leaves sheltered Princess Moriana cold. So Theo decides to make Moriana an offer she can’t refuse—if she’ll consider becoming his bride, he’ll heat things up by initiating his innocent queen into the pleasures of the marriage bed...

  KELLY HUNTER has always had a weakness for fairy tales, fantasy worlds and losing herself in a good book. She has two children, avoids cooking and cleaning and, despite the best efforts of her family, is no sports fan. Kelly is, however, a keen gardener and has a fondness for roses. Kelly was born in Australia and has travelled extensively. Although she enjoys living and working in different parts of the world, she still calls Australia home.

  Also by Kelly Hunter

  Claimed by a King miniseries

  Shock Heir for the Crown Prince

  Convenient Bride for the King

  Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

  Convenient Bride for the King

  Kelly Hunter

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  ISBN: 978-1-474-07187-1

  CONVENIENT BRIDE FOR THE KING

  © 2018 Kelly Hunter

  Published in Great Britain 2018

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

  By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  Contents

  Cover

  Back Cover Text

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Extract

  CHAPTER ONE

  PRINCESS MORIANA OF ARUN wasn’t an unreasonable woman. She had patience aplenty and was willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt at least once. Maybe even twice. But when she knew for a fact she was being passed around like a Christmas cracker no one wanted to pull, all bets were off.

  Her brother Augustus had said he wasn’t available to speak with her this morning. People to see, kingdom to rule.

  Nothing to do with avoiding her until she regained her equilibrium after yesterday’s spectacularly public jilting...the coward.

  So what if Casimir of Byzenmaach no longer wanted to marry her? It wasn’t as if it had ever been Casimir’s idea in the first place, and it certainly hadn’t been hers. When you were the progeny of kings it was commonplace for a politically expedient marriage to be arranged for you. And yet...inexplicably...Casimir’s defection after such a long courtship had gutted her. He’d made her feel small and insignificant, unwanted and alone, and, above all, not good enough. All her hard work, the endless social politics, the restraint that guided her every move, had been for what?

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Arun’s royal palace was an austere one, mainly because Moriana’s forefathers had planned it that way. Stern, grey and never quite warm enough, it invited application to duty over frivolous timewasting. It chose function over beauty, no matter how much beauty she found to hang on its walls. It favoured formal cloistered gardens for tidy minds.

  Her brother had taken residence in the southern wing of the palace in the gloomiest rooms of them all, and not for the first time did Moriana wonder why. Her brother’s executive secretary—an elderly courtier who’d been in service to the House of Arun since before she was born—looked up as she approached, his expression smooth and unruffled.

  ‘Princess, what a pleasant surprise.’

  She figured her appearance was neither pleasant nor a surprise, but she let the man have his social graces. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘He’s taking an important call.’

  ‘But he is in,’ she countered and kept right on walking towards her brother’s closed door. ‘Wonderful.’

  The older man sighed and pressed a button on the intercom as she swept past. He didn’t actually speak into the intercom, mind. Moriana was pretty sure he had a secret code button set up just for her—doubtless announcing that Moriana the Red was incoming.

  Her brother looked up when she walked in, told whoever he had on the phone that he’d call them back, and put the phone down.

  Damn but it was cold in here. It didn’t help that the spring just past had been a brutal one and summer had been slow to arrive. ‘Why is it like an ice box in here?’ she asked. ‘Have we no heating you can turn on? No warmer rooms you could rule from?’

  ‘Or you could wear warmer clothes,’ her brother suggested, but there was nothing wrong with her attire. Her fine wool dress was boat-necked, long-sleeved and fell to just above her knees. Stockings added another layer to her legs. She was wearing knee-high leather boots. Had she added a coat she’d be ready for a trip to the Antarctic.

  ‘It is a perfectly pleasant day outside,’ she countered. ‘Why do you choose the coldest rooms we have to call your own?’

  ‘If I had better rooms, more people would be tempted to visit me and I’d never get any work done.’ His eyes were almost black and framed by thick black lashes, just like her own. His smile was indulgent as he sat back and steepled his hands—maybe his whole I’m in charge of the universe pose worked on some, but she’d grown up with him and knew what Augustus had looked like as a six-year-old with chickenpox and as a teenager with his first hangover. She knew the sound of his laughter and the shape of his sorrows. He could wear his kingly authority in public and she would bow to him but here in private, when it was just the two of them, he was nothing more than a slightly irritating older brother. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ She held up a thick sheet of cream-coloured vellum.

  ‘Depends,’ he said.

  She slammed the offending letter down on the ebony desk in front of him. Letters generally didn’t slam down on anything but this one had the
weight of her hand behind it. ‘Theo sent me a proposal.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said cautiously, still looking at her rather than the letter.

  ‘A marriage proposal.’

  Her brother’s lips twitched.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ she warned.

  ‘Well, it stands to reason he would,’ said Augustus. ‘You’re available, he’s under increasing pressure to produce an heir and secure the throne, and politically it’s an opportunistic match.’

  ‘We loathe each other. There is no earthly reason why Theo would want to spend an evening with me, let alone eternity.’

  ‘I have a theory about that—’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘It goes something like this. He pulled your pigtail when you were children, you gave him a black eye and you’ve been fierce opponents ever since. If you actually spent some time with the man you’d discover he’s not half as bad as you think he is. He’s well-travelled, well-read, surprisingly intelligent and a consummate negotiator. All things you admire.’

  ‘A consummate negotiator? Are you serious? Theo’s marriage proposal is a form letter. He filled my name in at the top and his at the bottom.’

  ‘And he has a sense of humour,’ Augustus said.

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Everyone except for you.’

  ‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Oh, it was on.

  She pulled up a chair, a hard unwelcoming one because that was all there was to be had in this farce of a room. She sat. He sighed. She crossed her legs, etiquette be damned. Two seconds later she uncrossed her legs, rearranged her skirt over her knees and sat ramrod-straight as she stared him down. ‘Did you arrange this?’ Because she wouldn’t put it past him. He and their three neighbouring monarchs were close. They plotted together on a regular basis.

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Did Casimir?’ He of the broken matrimonial intentions and newly discovered offspring.

  ‘I doubt it. What with burying his father and planning a coronation, the instant fatherhood and his current wooing of the child’s mother... I’m pretty sure he has his hands full.’

  Moriana drummed her fingers on his ugly wooden desk, partly because it gave her time to digest her brother’s words and partly because she knew it annoyed him. ‘Then whose mad idea was it?’

  He eyed her offending fingers for a moment before casually pulling open his desk drawer and pulling out a long wooden ruler. He held it up, as if gauging its reach, before bringing the tip to rest gently in his palm. ‘Stop torturing my desk.’

  ‘Or you’ll beat me? Please,’ she scoffed. Nonetheless, she stopped with the drumming and brought the offending hand in front of her to examine her nails. No damage at all. Maybe she’d paint her nails black later, to match the desk and her mood. Maybe her rebellion could start small. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Whose idea was it?’

  ‘I’m assuming it was Theo’s.’

  She looked up to find Augustus eyeing her steadily, as if he knew something she didn’t.

  ‘It’s not an insult, Moriana; it’s an honour. You were born and raised for the kind of position Theo’s offering. You could make a difference to his leadership and to the stability of the region.’

  ‘No.’ She cut him off fast. ‘You can’t guilt me into this. I am through with being the good princess who does what she’s told, the one who serves and serves and serves, without any thought to my own needs. I’m going to Cannes to party up a scandal. There will be recklessness. Orgies with dissolute film stars.’

  ‘When?’ Augustus did not sound alarmed.

  ‘Soon.’ He didn’t look alarmed either, and he should have. ‘You don’t think I’ll do it. You think I’m a humourless prude who wouldn’t know fun times if they rained down on me. Well, they’re about to. I want the passion of a lover’s touch. I want a man to look at me with lust. Dammit, for once in my life I want to do something that pleases me!’ She’d had enough. ‘All those things I’ve been taught to place value on? My reputation, my sense of duty to king and country, my virginity? I’m getting rid of them.’

  ‘Okay, let’s not be hasty.’

  ‘Hasty?’ Princesses didn’t screech. Moriana dropped her voice an octave and gave it some gravel instead. ‘I could have had the stable boy when I was eighteen. He was beautiful, carefree and rode like a demon. At twenty-two I could have had a sheikh worth billions. He only had to look at me to make me melt. A year later I met a musician with hands I could only dream of. I would have gladly taken him to my bed but I didn’t. Would you like me to continue?’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Casimir’s not a virgin,’ she continued grimly. ‘He got a nineteen-year-old pregnant when he was twenty-three! You know what I was doing at twenty-three? Taking dancing lessons so that I could feel the touch of someone’s hand.’

  ‘I thought they were fencing lessons.’

  ‘Same thing. Maybe I wanted to feel a little prick.’ All these years she’d denied herself all manner of pleasures others took for granted. ‘I have waited. No romance, no lovers, no children for Moriana of Arun. Only duty. And for what? So that today I could wake up and be vilified in the press for being too cool, too stern and too focused on fundraising and furthering my education to have time for any man? I mean, no wonder Casimir of Byzenmaach went looking for someone else, right?’

  Augustus winced. ‘No one’s saying that.’

  ‘Have you even read today’s newspapers?’

  ‘No one here is saying that,’ he amended.

  ‘What did I do wrong, Augustus? I was promised to an indifferent boy when I was eight years old. Now I’m getting a form letter marriage proposal from a playboy king whose dislike for me is legendary. And you say I should feel honoured?’ Her voice cracked. ‘Why do you sell me off so easily? Am I really that worthless?’

  She straightened her shoulders, smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress and made sure the hem sat in a straight stern line. She hated losing her composure, hated feeling needy and greedy and hard to love. She was wired to please others. Trained to it since birth.

  But this...expecting her to fall all over herself to comply with Theo’s request... ‘Theo’s uncle is making waves again and questioning Theo’s fitness to rule. I do read the reports that come in.’ She read every last one of them. ‘I understand Liesendaach’s need for stability and a secure future and that we in Arun would rather deal with Theo than with his uncle. But I am not the solution to his need for a quickie marriage.’

  ‘Actually, you’re an excellent solution.’ Augustus was watching her carefully. ‘You’ve been looking forward to having a family for years. Theo needs an heir. You could be pregnant within a year.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Yes, she wanted children. She’d foolishly once thought she’d be married with several children by now.

  ‘You and Theo have goals that align. I’m merely stating the obvious.’

  Moriana wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at the toes of her boots. The boots were a shade darker than the purple of her dress. The pearls around her neck matched the pearls in her ears. She was a picture-perfect princess who was falling apart inside. ‘Maybe I don’t want children any more. Maybe keeping royal children safe and happy and feeling loved is an impossible task.’

  ‘Our parents seemed to manage it well enough.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She knew she should hold her tongue. She didn’t, and all her years of trying and failing to please people bubbled to the fore. ‘Do you think I feel loved? By whom?’ She choked on a laugh. ‘You, who would just as soon trade me into yet another loveless marriage in return for regional stability? Casimir, who never wanted me in the first place and was simply too gutless to say so? Theo, with his form letter marriage proposal and endless parade of mistresses? Do you really think I’ve basked in the glow of unconditional parental love and approval for the past twenty-eight years? Heaven help me, Augustus. What planet are you living o
n? Not one of you even remembers I exist unless I can do something for you.’

  She felt stupid. Stupid for putting her life on hold for a decade and never once calling into question that childhood betrothal. She could have asked for a time frame from Casimir. She could have pressed for a solid commitment. She could have said no to many things and got over trying to please people who didn’t give a damn about her. She gestured towards Theo’s offending letter. ‘He doesn’t even pretend to offer love or attraction. Not even mild affection.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes! I want to be with someone who cares for me. Why is that so hard to understand?’

  ‘Maybe he does.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Theo. Maybe he cares for you.’

  ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe that.’ Moriana looked at him in amazement. ‘You do. Oh. You must think I’m really stupid.’

  ‘It’s a theory.’

  ‘Would you like me to disprove it for you?’ Because she had years and years of dealing with Theo to call on. ‘I can count on one hand the times I’ve felt that man’s support. The first was at our mother’s funeral when he caught me as I stumbled on the steps of the church. He made me sit before I fell. He brought me water and sat with me in silence and kept his hatred of women wearing black to himself. The second and final time he was supportive of me was at a regional water summit when a drunk delegate put his hand on my backside. Theo told him he’d break it if it wasn’t removed.’

  ‘I like it,’ said her brother with a faint smile.

  ‘You would.’

  ‘He knows where you are in a room full of people,’ Augustus said next. ‘He always knows. He can describe whatever it is you’re wearing.’

  ‘So he’s observant.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘I disagree. Maybe he’s wanted me a time or two, I’ll give him that. But only for sport, and only because he couldn’t have me.’ She plucked the form letter from the desk and folded it so that the offending words were hidden. ‘No, Augustus. It’s a smart offer. Theo’s a smart man. I can see exactly what kind of political gain is in it for him. But there’s nothing in it for me. Nothing I want.’