Nina Bruhns - Capturing the Crown Bundle

Or would King Roman place pressure on his old friend and have Weston take Amelia as his wife? That was a possibility he hadn’t even thought of until this moment. Weston had been without a queen these thirty years. The thought of having a beautiful young bride might be very appealing. It would go a long way to healing the wounds he now felt.

And where would Amelia weigh in on all this? Would she dutifully go along with whatever her father decided to do, for the “good of the kingdom?” Or would she ask her father to change his mind? To withdraw his negotiations? Would she demand not to be the pawn that she’d told him she felt herself to be in all of this?

He’d like to believe that she would, but he couldn’t in all honesty be sure.

They had spent a wonderful night together that had seemed even better, if that were possible, than their first night had been. But that had to do with attraction, with chemistry, with emotions, none of which mattered when it came to the ultimate matters of state.

Russell shook his head. There were too many possibilities, too many uncertain elements. Too many “ifs” crowding his brain.

His good mood faded.

He held off saying anything to anyone about Lucia’s findings for two days. And two nights. Two nights in which time and life were suspended as he found a perfect haven in the bed that had once been intended for Prince Reginald and his bride. The bed that was now his and Amelia’s. He made love with her as if he was savoring a very precious, very fragile gift, never once telling Amelia that all this might be fleeting.

And then, on the morning of the third day, he couldn’t put it off any longer. Slipping out of bed quietly in order not to wake Amelia, he quickly got dressed and left to see about business.

After first checking with Lucia to see if she had come up with anything further—she hadn’t—he went to see the king. It was time Weston was apprised of the situation. Once Weston knew, the situation would be, more or less, taken out of Russell’s hands.

His first loyalty had to be with the crown, Russell told himself, not with any feelings he might have. His was not to pick and choose, but to serve. If, after everything, it turned out that it was his destiny to be king, then so be it. But that eventuality might not ever take place.

And if that wound up costing him the woman that he had come to love with all his heart, that, too, was a matter of destiny.

Bracing himself for whatever the future had in store for him, Russell knocked on the door to the king’s private quarters.

“They can’t possibly think that we’re actually responsible for this.”

The protest, uttered in disgust, came from Nikolas Donovan. He was sitting on his small balcony that overlooked the sea, having breakfast alone. Only seagulls heard his words as he threw down the newspaper. A breeze ruffled the pages that came to rest on the round glass-top table. He hardly noticed.

The article that had stirred his ire dealt with the prince’s resent death. It was the fifth in as many days. His death filled all the papers. Articles examining his life, his foibles and addictions, his lineage, abounded everywhere. Ad nauseum. Even if he’d liked the man, which he vehemently didn’t, he would have been sick of him by now.

The article that had gotten to him dealt with speculation as to whether or not the cause of the prince’s final curtain call from life was the result of an accident, or intentional. And if it was the latter, whose intention had been followed? The prince’s or someone else’s? Had the prince, the article demanded self-righteously, been the victim of some kind of plot?

If it was the latter, the article went on to say, then perhaps attention might be well drawn to the Union for Democracy.

Slate gray eyes had grown dangerously dark as Nikolas struggled with his temper. Rising, he shoved his hands into his pants and stared out at the sea.

Nikolas Donovan was the head of the Union for Democracy, an anti-monarchy organization that had been in existence only a short amount of time, about five years. But in that time, he was proud of the fact that no one had resorted to any kind of actual violence.

Unlike the monarchy, he thought darkly.

It was because Silvershire was not a democratic state that his own parents had been killed when he was a baby. Killed by the man who now sat on the throne, he’d been told by his uncle. Uncle Silas, his father’s brother, had raised him from the time he was a baby. It had been Silas who had drummed into his head, for as long as he could remember, that power belonged to the people, not to one person solely because of the accident of birth. Silas advocated a complete overthrow of the monarchy.

For his part, Nikolas was working to have a gradual change come about. If nothing else, his group wanted to get a stronger voice in the government. So that self-absorbed narcissists like the late Prince Reginald did not pose a threat to the common man.

His handsome features became almost dark as Nikolas’s thoughts turned to the late prince. He’d known Reginald personally. They were the same age and had, Reginald by privilege and he by the sweat of his brow, attended the same schools together. Their paths at Eton and Oxford had crossed on occasion. But for the most part, he was absorbed in his studies and Reginald had been too busy bedding anything that moved.

Even back then, he had been a man with a mission. That mission had been, and still was, to bring a better form of government to his country.

However, that mission hadn’t included killing the present-day crown prince, no matter how much he personally loathed and despised the man.

That the prince was dead evoked no sense of sorrow from him. Nikolas was certain that, had Reginald ascended to the throne, he would have abused his power, just as he had abused it as a young man at Oxford. There was no question in his mind that the country was definitely better off without him.

Russell, Duke of Carrington, the man who stood next in line, whose marriage to the Princess Amelia of Gastonia earlier this week had all but solidified the man’s position in the scheme of things, was a better choice from what he knew of him, but still not the ideal one. The ideal choice would have been no king at all, because Silvershire deserved to be a democracy. A democracy where the people had a say in the government that ruled them.

He would go to his grave believing that.

In the last year, he had pulled out all the stops, urging anyone who would listen to join the movement, to make it bigger, stronger. A voice to be reckoned with. Presently, it was mostly comprised of people his own age and younger. The generation that had come before, ironically, his parents generation had they lived, believed in tradition, in maintaining the status quo. But they did not have as much at stake, as much to lose, as the younger generation did.

As he did, Nikolas thought. His generation was not complacent, would not go gentle into that good night like obedient sheep. Moreover, it was his dearest, heartfelt, fervent desire to avenge the death of his parents and make King Weston step down.

And have no man of royal blood step up to take his place.

He and his organization had stirred things up when they could, making people aware that they should demand a voice, a choice. The Union for Democracy had caused disruptions whenever they could to wake people up. But killing was another matter. He would have thought that had been made abundantly clear to anyone who knew of the group.

That the rumors even hinted that he and his followers were behind the prince’s death was ridiculous. But he knew how these things spread. Knew, too, that it didn’t take much to set people off against one another.

Though he didn’t like the idea, he knew that he and his followers were going to have to be prepared for the worst.