Christmas Nights. Penny Jordan

maid she had needed to help her out of the heavy formality of her wedding gown, alone in the bedroom she would be sharing with her new husband.

      Over the handful of days that had elapsed between Max presenting her with his ultimatum and their marriage Ionanthe had told both Max and the Count that she did not want to be surrounded by ladies-in-waiting or a large staff, and it had eventually been agreed that two ladies-in-waiting would attend her on only the most formal occasions, and that she would have only one personal maid who would attend her only when she needed her.

      It was a relief to be wearing her own clothes again—even if the maid had eyed them with disdain.

      The suite of rooms she was to share with Max had surprised her. She had assumed that he would be occupying the Royal State Apartments, which she remembered from her childhood, but Max had created his own far more modern living quarters in the older part of the building—the castle itself—rather than opting to live in the seventeenth-century addition of the palace. The ‘new’ royal apartments comprised a drawing room, a dining room with a small kitchen off it, the bedroom she was now in, two bathrooms and two dressing rooms, which were entered via doors on either side of the large bed that she was trying desperately hard to ignore.

      The drawing room had large glass doors that opened out onto a private terrace, complete with an infinity swimming pool, and the view from the apartments’ windows was one of wild rugged splendour over the cliffs and out to sea.

      Unlike the rest of the palace, with its grand and formal decor and furniture, these rooms had a much more modern and relaxed air to them. In fact they were rooms in which she would have felt very much at home in other circumstances.

      She had deliberately chosen to change into a pair of jeans and a simple tee shirt, as though wearing them was somehow like wearing a badge of independence, making a statement about what she was and what she was not. And because she wanted to distance herself in every way from what had happened earlier, so that he knew it had been a momentary aberration—her response to him alien to everything she believed she stood for and something never to be repeated.

      She did not desire him. She simply desired the son he would give her. When she lay beneath him, enduring the possession of his body, it would be because of her belief that the people on this island deserved to be freed from their servitude. Not because she wanted to be there, and certainly not because she gloried in being there. There would be no repetition of that earlier kiss. She would show him no weakness or vulnerability.

      Abruptly she realised that she was pacing the floor. Why? She already knew that he would claim payment of her family’s debt to him. If he thought to draw out her torment by making her wait, because he thought she would be anxious until it was over and done with, then she would show him that he was wrong.

      She opened the glass doors and stepped out onto the terrace. The air on this side of the island smelled and felt different, somehow—sharper, stronger, more exhilarating. The sea both protected the castle and reminded those who had built it that it was a dangerous restless living force that could never be ignored. Like love itself.

      Love? What had that to do with anything?

      Everything, she told herself sombrely. Because she would love the son this marriage would bring her, and in turn would ensure that he loved his people.

      Late autumn had long ago faded into winter and now the tops of the mountains that lay inland were capped with snow as icy and remote as the heart of this marriage she had made.

      Where was he? When was he going to come to her and demand his pound of flesh? Ionanthe paced the terrace as she looked towards the bedroom she would have to share with Max.

      At least it was not the same bedchamber he had shared with her sister. Yania, the young woman who had been appointed to attend her, had told her that when she had mentioned that Max had moved out of the Royal State Apartments immediately after Eloise’s death.

      Because he couldn’t bear to sleep there alone without her?

      What did it matter to her what he felt?

      She turned round to stare out to sea.

      ‘I’m sorry. I got involved in some necessary paperwork which took longer than I had anticipated.’

      Was it the fact that she hadn’t heard him come towards her or the fact that she hadn’t expected his apology that was causing her heart to thump so unsteadily against her chest wall?

      ‘Have you eaten? Are you hungry?’

      ‘No, and no,’ Ionanthe answered him shortly, adding, ‘Look, we both know what we’re here for, so why don’t we just get it over with?’

      Max frowned. Her dismissive, almost critical manner was so different from the come-on she had given him earlier that it struck him that it must be just another ploy—and that irritated him. He’d expected anger, resentment, bitternes—those were the things he had been prepared for her to display, the things he’d promised himself he’d try to find a way to soothe for both their sakes. Fiery, ardent passion followed by icy disdain were not. She was challenging his pride, needling him into a retaliation he couldn’t subdue.

      ‘“Get it over with”?’ he repeated grimly. ‘Are you sure that’s what you really want?’

      He was referring to that… that incident on the stairs, Ionanthe knew, trying to humiliate and mock her because of her response to him then. The memory of that response was a taste as sour as the bitter aloes her nursemaid had painted on her nails as a child to stop her from biting them. Ionanthe looked down at those nails now, immaculately neat, with well-shaped cuticles, buffed to a soft natural sheen.

      Max saw Ionanthe look down at her own hand. Her nails were free of the polish with which Eloise had always painted hers, and he had a sudden urge to reach for her hand, with its slim wrist and elegant fingers, and hold it within his own in an age-old gesture of comfort. Comfort? For her or for himself? Why not for both of them? After all, they were entering the unknown and uncertain world their marriage would be together, weren’t they?

      What was wrong with him? He already knew that there could be no real intimacy between them. Far better that they kept their emotional distance from one another. After all, she had made it plain enough to him that she didn’t look for anything from their physical union other than getting it ‘over with.’

      He had moved closer to her, Ionanthe recognised. She hadn’t seen him move, but her body knew that he had. Her senses had registered it and were still registering it; her nerve-endings were going into overload as they relayed back the effect his closeness was having on them.

      ‘Yes. That is what I want,’ Ionanthe confirmed, her pride pushing her to add recklessly, ‘What else is there for me to want?’

      ‘Pleasure, perhaps?’ Max suggested.

      Pleasure. Her muscles locked against the images his mocking words had evoked, but it was too late. Those same feelings she had experienced on the steps were running riot inside her like a gang of skilled pickpockets, overturning the barriers put up to deter them and plundering the vulnerable cache they had discovered.

      ‘I don’t look for pleasure in a relationship such as ours.’ Her words were as much a denial of what she could feel within her own body as they were of what she was sure was his taunting mockery of her.

      ‘But if you were to find it there…’ Max persisted.

      ‘That’s impossible. There could never be any pleasure for me in having sex with a man I can’t respect. I wouldn’t want there to be. It would shame me to want such a man,’ she declared furiously, desperate to stop him from thinking she had actually wanted him when they had shared that kiss.

      Max felt the swift running tide of his own pride, its power and speed sucking away reason and impartiality. She was challenging him as a man—challenging his ability to arouse her and pleasure her. Telling him that she would rather lie ice-cold in his arms than permit her body to be warmed by any shared need or desire.

      Ionanthe saw the glint