Because he had wanted to tell her here, in his private apartments, where he felt most at home. Not in a leased town house in London with guards hovering over them. Not on a ship. And not with his future bride nearby.
“I needed to have you alone,” he elucidated.
“You’ll not tell the woman you intend to marry?”
“No.” It was none of the princess’s concern.
“And yet you’ve told me.”
There was no other explanation for this, save one.
He held her stare. “You’re my woman.”
“And she will be your wife,” Tansy countered sharply.
It was an endless point of contention between them, the marriage he didn’t want to a woman he didn’t desire. The endless obligations and duties he faced in his life as king.
“I cannot change our circumstances, spitfire,” he said quietly.
How he wished he could.
How he wished he were marrying Tansy instead of Princess Anastasia. But he couldn’t be selfish in the future of hiskingdom. The attempts on his life in London were brutal reminders of that.
“Nor can I,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness.
Sadness he was the cause of, and he despised himself for it.
“I don’t want you to be her lady-in-waiting,” he said, moving to the other reason he had sent for her.
The reason that had given him purpose through the long days they had been apart.
Tansy’s lips tightened. “Yes, you would have me be your mistress, a position I’ve already declined.”
“Then be my lover instead,” he told her, determined to have this woman in whatever capacity he could. “Come to me when or if you wish. You’ll be free to do whatever you like.”
“And where will I sleep?” she asked, ever practical. “I’m a foreigner in a strange land. I know nothing and no one here.”
In his bed, damn it.
He couldn’t say that, however. He was trying to woo her.
“You have your choice of palace rooms,” he said instead. “And if you find palace life too stifling, there are other homes here in the capital that might be more to your liking.”
“That would make me a kept woman.”
He rose from his chair, going to her and doing the unthinkable, dropping to his knees before her. “It would make you a woman I hold in the highest regard,” he corrected solemnly.
A woman he wanted far too much. A woman he wanted so desperately that he had spent their time apart trying and failing to convince himself that they were better off without each other.
“And do you?” she asked, her eyes seeking answers he wasn’t entirely certain he could give.
But he didn’t look away. “I do.”
“Maxim,” she said his name softly, half protest, half sigh, as if the mere utterance pained her.
As if being with him pained her. And he knew the feeling all too well, because being alone with her without touching her—having her here in his private chambers—was nothing short of torture.
“Whatever you want, Tansy,” he repeated. “I’ll give you anything I can.”
