I couldn’t believe that Louis had talked me into this. I had barely slept the last few says worried about getting on the damn boat and now the day was here and I felt even more anxious. I was swamped with nerves and thoughts of Adélise and the last day we spent together had plagued me. What if something were to happen to Priscilla while we were out on the water? I don’t think I could survive losing her too.

I took a deep breath and stepped up to the window in my chambers. It looked out over the lake, but I had avoided the view since losing Adélise. I had loved the water almost as much as I had loved my wife, but it had betrayed me by taking her from me. I forced myself to look through the glass to the shimmering lake. It was spring, but the mountains on the opposite side of the Lac Merveilleux were still capped with snow on their very peaks. The lake was calm today with barely a ripple and it reflected the lush forests and tall mountains like a mirror. I knew the wind would pick up as the day wore on, it was still early yet, and by the looks of it, it would be the perfect day for sailing.

I don’t know how long I stood there, but with each moment, my spirit lightened. I had missed the water, but had been convinced it was my punishment for letting my wife die. Now, without that hanging over me, I was actually looking forward to the cool, fresh spray in my face and the wind racing through my hair. I hadn’t let myself think of it until Louis had broached the subject with me, now I could think of nothing else. The anxiety that churned within me now seemed more like latent excitement rather than worry.

The regatta would be starting from the marina in town, not from the Palace docks, so I would need to get there early to look over the small dinghy that Louis and I would be racing in. It had been a really long time since I had sailed a boat that small, just thirteen foot, but I knew it would all come back to me when I got the lines in my hands.

With a bit of renewed vigour, I headed out of my chambers and practically ran into Benjamin, the head of Queen Alyssa’s security team.

“Lord Chancellor,” he said to me with a nod, “I was just coming to see you.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked, suddenly worried that there had been a security breach that could affect the Queen’s safety.

“No,” he said, “Would you ind coming with me? Lord Bingham and Lord Darkly are waiting for us in the security briefing room. I have some information about one of our guests.”

“Of course,” I said.

I followed the mostly silent man through the Palace to the security briefing room that was set up much like an American situation room that you see on the movies all the time. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in here, but over the last year there had been a few noticeable exceptions; the death of the King and Prince being one and the kidnapping of the Princess, now Queen, another.

Freddie was waiting for us when we arrived, as was Will and they both stood as we entered.

Benjamin waved me to a chair at the large conference table, “Take a seat gentlemen,” he said.

We sat and shared a look between us before turning to Benjamin who sat at the head of the table.

“Is there a concern for Alyssa’s safety?” Will asked, “Should we cancel the regatta?”

“No,” Benjamin said, “I don’t believe the safety of the Queen is in question. I am, however, worried about Priscilla.”

“Priscilla?” I asked, my eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

Benjamin nodded. “I’ve been looking into the Baron Romanov, as per your request,” he nodded to Freddie, “And I don’t like what I’ve found.”

“We know that her father entered her into a marriage contract with the Baron without her consent,” Freddie said, “We just can’t work out why.”

“It seems that at the time of the signing of the contract, from what we can ascertain, the Ambassador was in some rather difficult financial circumstances and then his debts simply disappeared.”

A stunned silence settled on us as we worked through the implications of what Benjamin had just said.

“Are you saying,” I began, “That in exchange for his debts being cleared, the Ambassador promised his daughter in marriage to the current Baron Romanov?” It couldn’t be true, could it? What kind of man did that to his daughter? His daughter that was barely a teenager and who had just lost her mother?

“We don’t have the particulars, yet,” Benjamin said, “But from the outside that is what it looks like.”

“And now the Baron is in his own financial difficulties and is holding the Ambassador to the deal,” Freddie said, “In order to get his hands on her dowry.”

“We believe so,” Benjamin said.

“So what do we do about it?” Will asked, “Priscilla seems intent on going through with the whole sordid thing. Alyssa told me that her and the girls spent the other night trying to talk her out of it, but that she was determined to honour the contract.”

“Why would she do that?” Freddie asked, mystified, “The girl is intelligent and independent, what would make her decide to shackle herself to such a man?”

“Too protect her sister and her father,” I said sadly, understanding now why Priscilla had made the decision. “If she doesn’t marry the Baron, he has threatened to marry her sister and if she refuses, he will expose the Ambassador.”

“If it became known that the Ambassador had sold his daughter, which is what this amounts to, there would be criminal charges,” Benjamin said, “In fact I feel like bringing the man up on charges anyway.”

The rest of them nodded in agreement.

Bianca flopped onto my bed while I finished dressing. She rolled over and looked at me, a dreamy look in her eyes. I groaned inwardly, knowing that look, and I was not in the mood for it. Bianca’s foolish romantic notions grated on my nerves and I was nervous enough with the race today. It really had been a long time since I was on the water and I wasn’t confident that it would all come rushing back to me. I was even less confident in Bianca’s skills. We were going to make fools of ourselves out there today and I couldn’t think of a way out of it.

“Ready to go?” I asked, trying to head off her obvious desire to gush all over me about her feelings for Dom’s brother. The last thing I wanted to think about was Dom, I had to ween myself off him or leaving him was going to be practically impossible.

“What happened to you, Priscilla?” she asked, stopping me in my tracks.

“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.

She rolled back over onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands, looking up at me.

“You used to be different,” she said, “Less…uptight.”

I snorted indelicately. “I grew up, Bianca, now let’s go.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” she said, not moving from the bed, “You used to be as dreamy-eyed over Piérre as I am over Louis and then suddenly you hated him with the heat of a thousands suns. You changed after that, you got hard and unforgiving and you and Papa fought all the time and then you left. Won’t you please tell me what happened?”

I sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, closing my eyes and taking a moment to centre myself. This conversation was a long time coming and I probably should have spoken to her about it before, but I hadn’t known how to broach the subject.

“I thought I was in love with Piérre,” I began. “As teenagers we spent a fair bit of time together. I suppose now that I think about it, it was our fathers’ way of us getting used to one another for when we were to marry. I was infatuated with him, he seemed like the perfect gentleman; he was kind to me, sweet even. But then I started to notice little inconsistencies in his behaviour. While the adults were around, he was perfectly proper, but when we were alone, he pushed the boundaries of propriety until one day he went too far.”

Bianca gasped, “He didn’t?”

I shook my head. “I managed to get away from him that time and I made sure we were never alone again, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He’d set his sights on other, more accommodating, women.” I shook my head, remembering. “I spoke to Papa about it, but he said that Piérre was just a young man and all young men were alike and that Piérre would be a good husband when he got the wild out of him.”

“What does that mean? How did you know about the other women?”

“It was in all the gossip magazines. He was a good-looking Baron and he hit the party scene pretty hard, never showing up at the same place with the same woman twice. Papa counselled me not to worry, that he was just sowing his wild oats and then there was ‘The Scandal’.”

Bianca sat up and looked at me eagerly. “What scandal?”

I took a breath and cleared my throat. “Piérre was found and photographed in bed with two women. Both women were married and they accused Piérre of drugging them and forcing them into bed. No one believed them at first, thinking that they were just trying to save face in front of the media and their husbands. Piérre denied any wrongdoing, of course, telling the world that the women had propositioned him. The story seemed to die down a bit and then a few weeks later, women started to come forward saying he had done the same thing to them.”

“What?”

I nodded. “Nobody could prove anything and Piérre vehemently denied all the accusations. He was a Baron and they were just disenchanted women or women out to make some money by accusing the Baron of wrong-doing and hoping for a monetary settlement. The case against him was dropped because the authorities couldn’t find enough evidence to prove he’d done anything wrong. But I knew. I knew that what these women were saying was true because I had seen the look in his eye that day and I knew my fate would have been the same as theirs if I hadn’t gotten away from him when I did.”

“So why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you come forward?”

“I told Papa and he demanded I stay silent. He didn’t believe me or the other women and he told me that if Piérre had done something inappropriate to me, then I must have encouraged him in some way.”

“No,” Bianca gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

I sighed sadly, “Unfortunately that was the day that I grew up. All those fairytales about handsome princes is all rubbish, real life isn’t like that at all. I thought I was in love with Piérre and he turned out to be a monster and I wanted nothing to do with him or father after that. So I told Papa that I wouldn’t marry the Baron and I left.”

“So why are you going to marry him now?” she asked, surprising me.

“How did you know?”

She waved the comment away. “How I know doesn’t matter, what matters is why you’re doing this? Why marry him?”

“Because I don’t have a choice,” I said and then stood up. “Come on, if we don’t leave now, we’ll be late.”

Bianca jumped up off the bed. “You go on ahead of me,” she said, “I’ll meet you down at the marina, I just have something I need to do first.”

“Don’t be late,” I said, relieved that I would have some time on my own to shake of the melancholy of the conversation we’d just had.

I had to find Louis and Dom too, they both needed to know. I couldn’t understand why Priscilla was choosing to go through with the wedding, not when she knew what kind of man Piérre was. It was imperative now that we stopped her from making this big giant mistake. I didn’t know how we could do it, but Louis and Dom would know and once they heard what type of man Piérre was, neither of them would let him near my sister.

I ran down the corridor and around the corner, desperate to find Louis, when I ran into a very solid form. I looked up and gasped as Piérre looked down at me, his hands gripping my arms too tightly.

“Where are you off to at such a run?” he asked and my skin crawled.

“Priscilla and I are sailing in the regatta this morning and I’m going to be late,” I blurted out.

“But you’re going the wrong way,” he said with an oily smile.

“Oh, well, um, I was going to travel to the marina with Louis,” I lied, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but his fingers only tightened.

“Where is your sister?” he asked, his voice cold and his eyes like flinty chips of ice.

“Um…ah…”

“Come on mon petit chou, it is not a hard question.”

“Priscilla has already left for the marina,” I said.

“This regatta,” he said, thoughtfully, “What event are you racing in?”

“Oh, just the exhibition race,” I said, “It’s just a small two man sailing dinghy, it’s just for fun.”

“Oh it does sound like fun,” he said, smiling down at me and giving me the shivers. “Come, I will drive you. I just need to retrieve something from my room first.”

“Oh, no, Piérre, I can’t. I promised Louis—”

“I’m sure he won’t mind if I escort you. I am a fond family friend after all”

I tried to pull away from him, but he had too strong a grip on me. I had no choice but to go with him.

“Ah, here you are.”

I looked up to see Piérre sauntering towards me on the dock. I was currently readying the small craft for our race and the last thing I needed was him distracting me.

“Go away, Piérre,” I said, “I don’t have time for you right now.”

“Is that any way to talk to your intended?”

He smiled at me with a sinister smile and tendrils of dread curled in my gut.

“Where’s Bianca?” I asked.

“She’s been held up,” he said, “I’ll be your partner in the race today.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. The last thing I wanted was to be alone with him in the middle of the lake.

“Oh come now Priscilla. We are going to have to learn to get along if we are to be married. What better opportunity than this, working together for a common goal.”

Oh, it sounded reasonable, but I didn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him and I had no intention of putting myself in a position where he could easily get the upper hand.

“That may be, my Lord, but this race was something for Bianca and I to do together, to reconnect as sisters. I’m sure you understand.”

I saw the muscle in his jaw jump and his eyes narrow. “Get in the boat, Katerina, now.”

“It’s Priscilla,” I said standing my ground, “And I won’t be going anywhere with you.”

He took a step closer to me and grabbed my arm, his voice like steel. “Get in the damn boat.”

His grip on my arm was painful, but it was the cold metal muzzle poking into my ribs that convinced me to get in the boat. I didn’t trust the crazy look in his eye and even though going out in the boat with a deranged man was not advisable, getting shot on the dock was even less so. I got into the boat.

He untied the lines and stepped aboard, pushing off as he did so. We worked together silently to get the boat in motion and headed away from the pier. There was still a little time before the race was supposed to start and I determined to use it to reacquaint myself with sailing. Piérre seemed more practised than I and I started to relax as we worked together.

When we were a fair distance from the shore, Piérre spoke, “Stop here.”

I didn’t like this, but I didn’t know what options I had. I let the tension go in the sail and the small dinghy slowed until it was gently bobbing in the waves and drifting with the current. He stepped towards me and sat on the bench opposite me, an amused expression on his face.

“I have been very patient with you,” he began, “And your stubbornness was cute for a while, but it ends now.” His features hardened and his eyes narrowed. “When we marry you will treat me with respect or you will be punished.”

“Have you forgotten the agreement we made?” I said, not letting my voice tremble and betray my fear.

“I like your spirit, Katerina, but that little performance in front of your father will not happen again. I have no intention of agreeing to those conditions and there is very little you can do about it.”

“Then I won’t marry you,” I said.

“And expose your father for the homme désespéré that he is? He will go to jail.”

I sucked in a breath. He was right and the scandal that would follow would be horrendous and could damage the Queen and her reputation.

“So, you see, you have very little to bargain with. We both know that your threats are empty, so the only choice you have going forward is to obey me, your husband.”

A sob broke from my throat as I realised that I had consigned myself to this man for the rest of my life and my little attempt to go into the relationship with some control was as flimsy as the paper it had been written on.

“Oh come now, my dear. Life with me won’t be that bad, as long as you promise to do everything that I say.”