Snowbound with his forbi.., p.1
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess, page 1
Freya stared at Kjell as he disappeared into the white froth twisting and turning before her in gusts of wind that pulled at her hair and her clothes. Stuck? Here?
No!
For how long? What would she do? Where would she—
She shook her head, trying to lessen the cascade of questions falling on top of each other. She had meetings back at the palace. Oh, God. Her fingers pressed against her lips in shock.
The dull beat of fear joined her pulse as she hurried forward, her steps difficult and ungainly from where the snow hit her at her calves. Everything in her wanted to call to Kjell, but she wouldn’t. She could just make out the prints his shoes had made in the snow and had enough sense to follow them to the cabin. She was panting by the time she reached the wooden steps up to the front door, sweat awkward and slick on her back, sticking her base layers to her skin. She pushed open the door, expecting to find the cabin empty, but Kjell was standing there with his back to her.
“I can’t stay here.”
The Royals of Svardia
A family born to rule...
Welcome to the Kingdom of Svardia! Home to King Aleksander, Princess Freya and Princess Marit, Svardia sits in the heart of Scandinavia. Fresh from Aleksander’s coronation, the trio are working harder than ever...and so is the royal rumor mill! From a shock reunion to a runaway princess, is Svardia set for scandal?
Discover the secrets of Svardia in...
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess
Available now!
Marit and Aleksander’s stories
Coming soon!
Pippa Roscoe
Snowbound with His Forbidden Princess
Pippa Roscoe lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you all. Follow her on Twitter, @pipparoscoe.
Books by Pippa Roscoe
Harlequin Presents
Virgin Princess’s Marriage Debt
Demanding His Billion-Dollar Heir
Rumors Behind the Greek’s Wedding
Playing the Billionaire’s Game
Once Upon a Temptation
Taming the Big Bad Billionaire
The Diamond Inheritance
Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation
From One Night to Desert Queen
The Greek Secret She Carries
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
For my editor, Hannah, who lets me get away with more than I probably should be allowed to, and who always makes my books better.
My thanks are unending. (As is my penchant for a trilogy.) xx
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM RETURN OF THE OUTBACK BILLIONAIRE BY KELLY HUNTER
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOUR HIGHNESS? HIS MAJESTY will be with you in a few minutes.’
Princess Freya of Svardia nodded, resisting the urge to press her palm against the erratic pulse of her heart. She reminded herself that it was her brother who would take this meeting, not her father, who had—as Svardian tradition held—stepped down from the throne at the age of sixty-five, as his father had done and his father before him. The tradition ensured that whoever graced the throne was mentally and physically strong, whilst also reflective of the broadest generations of Svardia’s subjects.
The reigning King—her brother Aleksander—would mark his first year while their father and mother left on a twelve-month sabbatical, away from the country and out of contact to ensure no risk of interference or influence while both the new King and the Svardian people got used to each other.
Three months ago, Aleksander had ascended the throne. And now, hands clasped firmly behind her back, she stood outside his office and prepared to go to battle with her King.
A bird soared past the window, catching Freya’s eye and taking it over the spring green garden that extended all the way to the walls separating the palace from Svardia’s capital city of Torfarn. It was a view she’d seen a million times but never given real thought to. Now, though, it had become uniquely precious to her.
The simple beauty of the ancient trees, the subtle delicacy of the hornbeam hedges used in the sixteenth-century maze, the neatly manicured lawns and the sprawling natural park just beyond, each was a piece of evidence left by the successive generations of one of the world’s oldest royal families. Her heart pounded a single dull thud as she wondered what Aleksander, her brother, would leave behind for his future generations.
Perhaps after she stepped down from her royal title, she could get a job showing tourists around the palace. The laugh that should have followed the ironic thought got caught in her chest and she closed her eyes.
She loved doing what she did. Being who she was. The sense of history, the grandeur, the respect for tradition and the symbolism of it all. And most of all she loved having the ability to use her position and title to support the causes and people that needed it, ones that sometimes the people of Svardia and their politicians forgot. But she also knew that the responsibility of being royal was a duty that few could understand. And even now she felt a sharp sting at the cruel irony that meant she could only do her duty by not doing her duty.
The door behind her opened and two palace staff passed into the corridor, their conversation quietening and their heads bowing as they saw her. She waited, facing the door, able to see glimpses of the room her brother had taken as his office. It didn’t matter how much modern technology Aleksander filled it with, his office—just like every other room in the palace—was inescapably grand. The preservation of the baroque style that filled the Rilderdal Palace had been a matter of pride for her father and a source of embarrassment for her brother.
‘Freya? Get in here, I don’t have much time.’
‘You know,’ she said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her, ‘you really should get a secretary. You can’t just go about shouting at people from your office.’
‘Didn’t you hear? I’m King. I can do what I like.’ Freya honestly couldn’t tell whether the statement was pure arrogance or a dark notion from his new role, now that their parents were on their sabbatical. Not that it mattered. His statement hadn’t required an answer.
Once, it might have been different. When they had been younger, he’d been different. But around his seventeenth birthday Aleksander had changed. The soft warmth that she’d shared with him gone in the blink of an eye with no explanation whatsoever. And in its place? A controlled and forbidding man who was closed even to her. Now she could rarely tell what he was thinking, let alone planning. In that moment, Freya wondered at the price they had both paid for the throne.
‘Are you sure that this is what you want?’ he asked as his gaze assessed her face for a reaction. She stared blankly into irises that were so dark they were almost black. Hers were the opposite—the palest amber—and their younger sister Marit’s a perfect meld of the two, a startling hazel.
Freya could have laughed at his attempt to catch her out, so she might reveal that it was the last thing she wanted on this earth. But she’d been trained well—such a perfect princess that even in this she was the better diplomat than he.
‘Yes. My mind is made up.’
Aleksander grunted an unintelligible reply and turned to look out of the window, framed by the much-detested pink curtain. ‘What do you think Father would say?’ he asked, his tone surprisingly solicitous.
Her stomach turned. She knew what their father would say. That she was doing the right thing—the only thing that could be done. But saying that would make her brother more likely to dig his heels in, so instead she stalled. ‘We won’t know for another eight months until their return.’
‘You could contact them. If you wish?’
Freya wondered why he believed that would make any difference at all. Their parents wouldn’t thank her, instead seeing it as a concern only for the King of Svardia to handle. And if she expected emotional support, well... Freya, Aleksander and Marit each knew better than that.
‘I don’t think that he’d appreciate the break with protocol.’
‘Even for this?’ he pressed.
‘This is my problem. I’ve always known how important the line of succession is.’
‘If you give me time—’
‘Aleksander,’ she interrupted. ‘If anything were to happen to you before you have children, or to your family in the future, the line of succession falls to me and...’ She clenched her jaw, still struggling to vocalise it.
‘Ifs,’ Sander replied.
‘Ifs that happened to our father!’ Freya frantically tried to call back the emotion in her voice. Having had to take the throne after the shocking loss of his older brother, her father had always made sure she knew how important she was as the second child. And she had borne the weight and responsibility of that duty, and would have continued to do so until her dying breath. Even after discovering that she could not fulfil the full extent of that duty.
‘Marit is going to struggle.’
‘Yes,’ Freya agreed. ‘But I will help her in any way I can.’
Her brother snorted out a frustrated breath. ‘Of course you would help your replacement, no matter how much it costs you.’
‘It is my duty. And she’s our sister,’ she replied simply.
‘She’s going to have to marry. And soon. And Freya—the same rules will now apply to her. She will have to marry a noble, just as you would have had to.’
Freya could only nod. She hated that Marit had been dragged into this. Hated not only the archaic legislation that determined the man she would marry, but also hated just how much her younger sister would struggle with the constraints of her new duties. Freya had been born knowing her duty, knowing the restrictions it placed on her life. But Marit had always been the wild one, and she and Aleksander had indulged her, enjoying her freedom even if they couldn’t have it for themselves.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, the words thick and heavy on her tongue.
‘It’s not your fault. And I’m still not convinced it’s necessary.’
‘Really? It’s three months since your coronation. If the press find out about me when you are still unmarried and without—’ Both her heart and mind stumbled over the word.
Children.
It whispered and screamed in the silence between her and Aleksander. Behind her back, she clenched her fists, warding off the visceral ache that swirled in spaces that would never be filled.
‘Freya—’
She put up a hand to stop him. ‘If the press find out, Aleksander, it would be carnage.’ She could see it so clearly. The press would rip apart any dignity or privacy that she had. Across the globe, doctors, celebrities and everyday Svardians would be asked for their opinions on the failure of her body. ‘But the backlash wouldn’t just be on me, Aleksander. They would dig into your life, Marit’s... And you are already under such incredible scrutiny–’
‘Freya...’ he warned.
‘Aleksander, I believe in you. I believe in what you are trying to achieve for Svardia. But there are already whispers that you are too progressive, and too fast with your changes.’
‘And that is my duty to bear, not yours.’
‘And mine is to make sure that nothing disrupts what you are hoping to accomplish.’
‘They will tear you apart, Freya.’
‘Yes, they will,’ she replied, not naïve about the backlash that would ensue. ‘But not because of my failure as a woman. We will tell them that I have chosen to step down in order to spend time working on myself. We all know how much the press love to hate a self-involved royal. It should keep them busy for quite some time.’
And, that way, it would at least appear as if it were her choice. That way, she might be able to fool herself that she had managed to preserve her agency by controlling the narrative. That way, she might protect her dignity. Her identity.
Because to have her femininity questioned, her womanhood... Her heart shook, cowering from the threat of such a blow. She would lose herself. So, no. She couldn’t face that. Better to let them think her selfish and uncaring of the institution into which she had been born and loved with her every breath.
‘If I had children—’
‘But you don’t,’ she said simply.
‘But I will,’ he bit out through clenched teeth, as if it were something that would cost him greatly. But her curiosity over it wasn’t enough to distract her from the argument they’d been having for the last month.
‘Yes, but in how long? Two or three years’ time? No palace can keep a secret for that long. The news of my infertility will get out in the next three months, maybe? Six if we’re lucky. If I step down, my fertility won’t even be a question and we have a much greater chance of keeping it quiet for the length of time you need.’ The possibility that the media would never discover her infertility was only a distant hope for Freya.
‘You have an answer for everything.’
‘Because I have thought about it every which way.’ And Freya had. Her heart ached unbearably. She would never have willingly stepped away from her family, from her role. But if it meant securing the stability and future of her family and country, then her decision was simple.
‘Well, then I have one last duty for you to perform, Your Highness,’ he said, going to stand behind his desk, no longer her brother but her King. ‘I have a Medal of Valour that needs to be delivered to its recipient.’
Freya frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Medals are received at the investitures.’
‘The recipient refuses to attend the Investiture.’
The Medal of Valour was offered to military personnel who had demonstrated exceptional courage in the face of extreme danger. But to refuse it from your King—the Commander in Chief—was not only unheard of but would reflect badly on Aleksander, especially at his first Investiture. It would be seen as a vote of no confidence, no matter what reasons were behind the refusal, and that could be a devastating blow to Aleksander’s rule.
‘Why would they not want the medal?’
‘That is for you to find out when you take it to him.’
Him. Her brother wasn’t usually so coy with his words. She stared at him, just as able to play the royal waiting game as he.
Aleksander sighed. ‘Kjell Bergqvist.’
Fire and ice swept in waves across her skin and her heart stuttered, forcing Freya to stifle the gasp of breath her lungs cried out for.
‘No.’ The word shot from her lips unbidden.
‘This is not up for debate.’ His voice was quiet but his eyes sparked gold and his tone was implacable. ‘If you want to step down from your duties, your title and your family, then by God don’t expect me to make it easy for you.’
‘Sander—’
‘The helicopter will be here in an hour. Be on it, or not.’
Her brother was no longer looking at her, peering down at a piece of paperwork in the same manner their father always had when he couldn’t be bothered to utter a dismissal.
No choice. No choice. No choice.
‘An hour?’ she asked, hating the weakness in her voice.
‘I believe there are weather constraints,’ he replied, still not looking up.
Freya shot a glance to the window, frowning at clear blue skies.
* * *
The helicopter jerked suddenly, Freya’s stomach lifting into her throat as she battled a swift wave of nausea, but no one in the small cabin would have known it. She had spent years perfecting serenity in the mirror and she wore it like a crown. The pilot righted the helicopter, apologising into the earpiece of her headphones, and she sent him a smile of reassurance.
Usually, she loved watching the ground roll out beneath her as the helicopter sped through the air, but all she could see was shifting shades of white as they crossed from Svardian airspace into Swedish.
‘Who is this guy anyway?’ she heard the young guardsman whisper to Gunnar, the head of her royal protection detail. Freya couldn’t help it, she turned to find Gunnar’s eyes locked onto her and she felt the burn of a blush rise to her cheeks. She turned back to the window and forced her gaze back to the shifting white shapes beyond.
‘Lieutenant Colonel Bergqvist is a highly respected and valued member of the Svardia Armén,’ Freya heard Gunnar explain behind her.
Lieutenant Colonel?
She tensed to prevent her body from betraying her reaction, trying to figure out how the tall, lean student she’d once known could have become such a powerful soldier. But then, she thought, turning back to the white static outside the small window, she hadn’t actually known anything about him at all.
She gave into the hazy memory she hadn’t revisited for eight years...
