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Her eyebrow lifted “This is not hoe conduct our affairs, nor is this how an Alberici royal handles his fiancée Less draer Givedate We’ll have a party this weekend—”
“Too soon”
“She could be showing by the next, Alexander”
“Then make it a week from now”
“An engagement party on a Wednesday?”
“Or Tuesday We’ll keep it small and intimate, for our closest friends and family only”
“Fine But we’ll need a portrait of the two of you to give the lance narrowed “I don’t suppose we can take your official engageirl in her place?”
“Was that a joke, Mother?”
Her lips curved faintly “I was not always Queen Serena, Alexander I, too, was once a young girl with a sense of huer for adventure”
Josephine crossed to theof her tower roo up on the footstool she’d positioned beneath it, needing the extra height to look out the leaded glass It was late afternoon, but due to the suh in the sky, shining brightly on the thick, gray slate roofs of the various castle buildings and then, farther out, the high, majestic stone walls that surrounded the castle itself
She rested her chin on her fist, staring out, taking in Roche, Aargau’s capital city fa, narrow cobbled streets She ht have liked Roche, but after days of confinement she felt suffocated by all the walls and slate and cobbled stone Her jaw tensed as her gaze went to the glimpse of sea beyond the city streets, the dark blue water calling to her, re her of Khronos
A scrape sounded at the door, and the lock turned She nearly fell off the stool as the door swung open and she took a sudden step back, rab the wall to keep fro down
“Careful,” a crisp, low feood way to hurt yourself”
Josephine stiffened, surprised that it wasn’t Alexander as he was the only one who’d been to visit her since she arrived, and yet she knew iazines “Queen Serena,” she said faintly, letting go of the wall
The slender blonde queen approached “I haven’t thwarted your escape plans, have I?”
Josephine thought she heard a hint of amusement in the older woman’s voice “I don’t have Rapunzel’s hair,” she answered “And even if I did, theis a little narrow”
Serena stopped before her, her back straight, her bearing regal In her icy-blue dress with the ropes of pearls, she looked every inch a queen “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you sooner I’m afraid our hospitality isn’t what it should be”
“Does your son routinely lock his women up?”
“No, you’re the first” She grin of his affection but you and I both know his behavior is inexcusable One doesn’t lock up beautiful young women in towers anymore It’s positively medieval”
“That’s what I told him”
“Machiavellian”
“I said the very sa”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know”
“What do you want to do?”
“Leave”
“What is keeping you here then?”
“Besides the locked door? The need to protect the baby” Josephine’s chin lifted “And not because he or she is an heir, but because he or she is my child”
“And Alexander’s”
“I don’t want Alexander, though I realize he’s your son, and you love him—”
“He’s a man Men are notoriously thickheaded and thin-skinned, but they have their uses and virtues”
Josephine wasn’t sure how to take that last bit She felt her shoulders tense, and she clasped her hands tightly “I used to care for hilanced around the rooesture “—this”
“He’s afraid of losing you”
“No, he’s afraid of losing his heir, not me”
“If you truly believe that, you don’t know my son”
Josephine’s lips coue with the queen, because of course she’d take Alexander’s side She was his mother