The Queen's Nine-Month Scandal. Эбби Грин

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I WILL LEAVE you now to rest, Your Majesty.’

      ‘Thank you, Pierre.’ Queen Analia of Azoria hoped the relief she felt wasn’t obvious.

      Her grand vizier bowed and left the room. Analia was dragging in a breath when suddenly a knock sounded and a different door to her suite opened to reveal her lady-in-waiting. She quickly pasted a smile on her face.

      ‘Do you need anything else, Your Highness?’

      Analia curbed the spiking of irritation, which had nothing to do with her staff. She shook her head and wished that just for once someone would address her as Analia. ‘No thank you, Cecily. That’ll be all for this evening.’

      ‘Very well. I’ll see you in the morning.’

      ‘Good night. And thank you for today.’

      The young woman left, shutting the door quietly behind her. Now Analia did drag in a big breath while kicking off her shoes. She went to both doors and turned the locks, pathetically grateful for even this small gesture of privacy between her and her demanding world. A world that had been demanding her attention since she’d been crowned Queen at the unfeasibly young age of nine, following the tragic deaths of her parents.

      Now twenty-two, Analia sometimes felt double her age, presiding over matters of government and shouldering a massive responsibility for the people of her small island principality, which lay off the southern coast of Italy in the Ionian Sea.

      She sighed deeply and undid the top button of her silk shirt and padded over to the open french windows of her Venetian hotel suite which looked out over the Grand Canal. She curled her hands around the stone balcony railing and drank in the majestic view, willing herself to relax.

      Dusk was drawing the ancient city into a lavender-hued embrace, tingeing everything with a dreamy quality. The rigours of the past two days spent on a trade mission to Venice faded against this timeless backdrop. Her country had once been ruled by Italy, and Analia was taking advantage of these indelible links while on her mission to bring her country properly into the twenty-first century.

      She sighed again, unable to shake a growing feeling of...emptiness. Usually she pushed these feelings aside, telling herself that she simply didn’t have the luxury to wallow. Too many people depended on her. But here, now, Analia couldn’t seem to stop them. She hated to admit it, but she felt lonely.

      As she looked across the canal she saw lights winking in crumbling palazzos and wondered about the lives going on inside. Were they families gathering for dinner? A speedboat sped along the canal leaving a surge of white spray in its wake. In the back of the boat Analia saw a man with his arms around a woman, their faces close together. This was a city made for lovers.

      An incredible poignancy filled her. She’d never experience that. She was destined to rule and to marry someone who would be a suitable consort. She was due to announce her engagement to a German prince within months, signalling the end of one era and the start of another. Producing heirs for Azoria.

      The man she was due to marry was perfectly nice. Suitable. The right lineage. Analia knew he would make a good husband, for he was kind. But she was not attracted to him and she would not love him. She knew that. And to yearn for love now was a futile dream.

      Still, the thought of Prince Wilhelm becoming her first lover made something wither inside her. Her mouth flattened into a thin line to think of her infamous nickname. The Virgin Queen. Thanks to a well-known archaic requirement of her constitution, and the fact that she’d had little or no privacy since she was a baby, everyone knew she was a virgin and had to stay pure until her marriage. It was ridiculous but until Analia got married, she wouldn’t actually be able to change the constitution to reflect more modern values.

      With a spurt of anger she wondered, Was nothing to be sacred, just for me? Ever? Once she married, her life would become even less private than it already was.

      Analia turned back into the room feeling restless and a little wild. She saw a black strapless evening gown hanging up. It had been put out for a masquerade ball she’d been invited to that evening—until her chief advisors had decided that the event wouldn’t really be appropriate. Analia spied the gilt-edged invitation on a table and went over to pick it up.