Free Her Royal Husband by Cara Colter Page A

bridal candidates all have only the best of names and the best of pedigrees, don’t they?”
    He said nothing, confirming her ugly suspicion there was, somewhere, an approved list of young women he would be allowed to marry. It was a list she was certain she was not on, and never would be.
    “Tell me, is virginity still a prerequisite to marrying someone like you?”
    He actually choked on the scone he was eating, and she was glad she had shocked him. He looked so supremely confidant, every inch a prince. It would be easy to allow herself to be intimidated by him, or worse, swept away by him.
    “Thanks to you I don’t even qualify to be a bride to a prince, so why wouldn’t you wish me happily ever after, since you can never provide it?”
    “Things are changing in royal families,” he said stiffly, “becoming far less rigid and rule-bound.”
    “Is that right? You have an older sister, don’t you?”
    “Three,” he said warily.
    “Well, if the system is changing so much, why are you and your brother the candidates to take over thethrone? I understand, from talk in the kitchen, it will almost certainly be you. But why wouldn’t it be one of your sisters? The oldest one, perhaps? Why can’t she become the reigning monarch?”
    Whatever slight advantage she had gained by knocking him off balance, by shocking him was gone, he was looking at her with growing amusement.
    Amusement!
    “I remember you like this,” he said, smiling suddenly. “So smart. You scared all the boys away always playing devil’s advocate. Did you know that?”
    “Unfortunately, I didn’t scare away the boy whom I should have been most afraid of.”
    His smile disappeared, and again she registered the pain in his face, and instead of feeling good about it, felt terrible.
    She rushed on, searching for safe ground. Far easier to discuss politics, philosophies, than mistakes made, regrets harbored. “As for being a devil’s advocate, I find myself on an island that has an archaic political system. A patriarchal monarchy, a system that assumes and entrenches the superiority of men. I’m a devil’s advocate for mentioning it? Do you see why we can’t have a future?”
    “Actually, it only makes me think a future with you would be more interesting.”
    He said that as if he was really and truly contemplating a future with her. She could not give in to the feeling that caused within her: weakness. A feeling of wanting to melt toward him, erase the hurts of the past with their lips and their hands.
    It was a war for her soul, and she wanted to surrender? One day in and she was going to wave the white flag? She needed to be building her battlements, not crawlingover the walls! It was good that she had said she was getting married! Even if it was a lie, it was a necessary one, one that should keep Owen at a distance.
    “You and I have no future, Owen,” she said, forcing her tone to be uncompromising. “I know that. Why can’t you see it?”
    The problem was he didn’t look like he was going to give up and just wish her a nice life. His face had a stubborn cast to it.
    “I find myself asking why you’ve been brought here to Penwyck. Someone with a great deal of power has a piece of this puzzle that I don’t have.”
    Was he saying he might be given permission to marry her? She would not even allow herself to contemplate it.
    “Owen, I am not a chess piece in the royal manipulations. I have no desire to be. The sad truth is that you and I had a passionate summer that we cannot revisit. We barely knew each other then, and we barely know each other now. There is a possibility that it is only the most amazing of coincidences that I wound up here to help cook your stupid dinner.
    “You should be relieved to know I’ve decided to refrain from venting five years of rage at you by putting Ex-Lax in your portion of the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy.
    “On Sunday morning, I am going to pack my bags and I am going to take my daughter and go home