But still. He couldn’t help but notice her beauty.
It didn’t mean that he would act on that notice.
“Thankfully you have some time to consider it. In the meantime, the only thing you have to worry about is preparing to be my wife. I will be making announcements to the press tonight. We will marry on the balcony in front of all citizens who wish to attend. In the meantime I will have someone sent to make you look like a queen.”
Chapter Three
IN SPITE OFthe fact that the bed was gloriously comfortable, she didn’t sleep. She still didn’t have a phone or a means of accessing the internet, so she had no idea what ripple effect Ragnar’s announcement had in the rest of the world. Or indeed, with her family. Maybe they were drawing up a treaty. Maybe it had started a war. Why would anyone tell her? It wasn’t like it was her life.
She had been stewing, also, on what he had said about her needing to support herself after the marriage ended.
She knew that. It was just that she had vague fantasies about waiting tables and living in a small cubby of an apartment while she figured all that out. She could go to Spain, Argentina, Mexico easily. Or to Canada, England or even Australia. Spain seemed the most familiar, potentially. Mexico was very far away. That held its own appeal.
It was difficult to know exactly what her dreams were. Because the biggest thing that had been hanging in front of her was her crushing lack of control over her life. If she had run away from home she would’ve been tracked down and brought back. There would have been no way for her to escape Cape Blanco. She wasn’t anonymous. No one was going to help her get money or documentation that might help her escape. Again, part of the paradox of her existence.
She was in theory a person with power. Privilege.
And yet none of it was accessible to her.
Not when she wanted it. Not when she needed it.
It was why the convent had felt so revelatory.
She had been cared for, and there had been a structure, tasks, but there had been a lot of time for her to sit and think. But of course the things that she liked to do were the kinds of things everybody likes to do. She enjoyed reading. Sitting and drawing, even though she didn’t have a talent for it.
Though really, if she could choose any sort of life, it might actually be on a farm. She could go from being a queen to being a farmer. She looked forward to telling Ragnar that was her plan. She hoped that it astonished and baffled him.
In fact she wanted nothing more.
Sparring with him was unlike anything she’d experienced before. There was something in it she couldn’t articulate. Something—
The knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, and she was about to ask who it was when the doors swept open, and in came a servant pushing a cart that was laden with pastries and a pot of coffee. And behind that servant came two women, one holding a large kit, the other pushing a rack filled with brightly colored clothes.
She had slept in her dress last night, and she was feeling wrinkled this morning, and just looking at the sumptuous fabrics hanging on the rack made her feel a strange ache she couldn’t recall feeling before. She hadn’t missed dressing up, at least not consciously. In fact, she thought that she was happy to not have to go through the farce. The clothes were always chosen for her. It was never about her. Never about what she liked.
And of course this time it wouldn’t be either.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” one of the women said. “While you take your coffee and your breakfast we will begin to show you some options for today. Then we will bring in the wedding gowns.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Obviously you will need something for this morning, but then you will need to change for the wedding.”
It wasn’t entirely clear to her why she was expected to have more than one outfit. But she didn’t complain—she couldn’t. The first few dresses were lovely, pastel and made with sumptuous fabric. The kind of thing that would have been chosen for her to wear back home, but…
“You don’t like them,” the stylist said.
“They’re beautiful,” she replied.
“Yes. Of course they are. But they don’t speak to you. If I may, I wonder if it would be better for you to look at some more saturated colors.”
“Oh. Maybe.”
She sat down in a chair. She wasn’t sure why that happened, but then she realized that she had been ushered there by a handler who was so smooth he was orchestrating her movements without her even truly considering them. Her coffee was poured, pastries served. She began to eat, and as she did, the hairstylist began to arrange tools, and started evaluating her hair.
“I would like for it to stay curly,” she said.
“Of course,” the stylist said.
