Chapter 3. And I Will Protect You (1)

[2019, March 4th]

It seemed it had been pouring summer rain for months. In truth, the downpour had begun only yesterday. It was only yesterday that Lady Zoey Arden’s world had come together at last. Only yesterday he looked upon her as though nothing and no one could take him from her and regardless of all the terrible things happening in the world, she could not help being happy. She was a different person. He had opened up her heart and not just for himself, but for everyone around her.

She would mend fences with her father, if only for the sake of the wedding. Her new life had given Zoey something she had never had before. Two somethings, actually. A brother and a best friend. Bart held her hand while she stumbled through every situation, good or bad, since she reached Caines. She wanted to be useful to him. Zoey knew that this marriage would finally remove the burden of the Arden claim to the throne from Bart’s shoulders.

Knowing this made Zoey all the happier that things had worked out for her and Aaron, because marriage was a sacred thing. This union had the power to change many people’s lives, but would define hers and Aaron’s.

Laughing to herself, Zoey thought that she would even contrive to be less sullen to the Duchess, who for the present must remain the Duchess, as she could not yet spare her the kindness of endearment.

Lying on her bed, getting ready to call her mother, how was she to know that her life was about to change again? As she stood over the red roses Aaron had given her yesterday, Zoey smiled her last happy smile for a while.

Bart burst in, shut the laptop and grabbed her phone.

“Hey!” she complained. “I was just about to call my mom.”

His eyes gave way to something. Something she had yet to see in them. Those ever busy, ever problem-solving eyes. Zoey didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t like it. It unsettled her.

“Pack for a few days. I have to get you out of here.”

He was stern and his tone, though always somewhat imposing, was more than that. It was urgent, maybe even desperate. She grabbed at his sleeve.

“What is it? What’s wrong Bart?”

“Now Zo!” he yelled, marching over to her window to close the curtains.

She jumped up and did as she was told. As she started packing, Duke Arden’s footsteps could be heard thundering up the stairs and marching in the hallway leading to the door of her room.

“What is this!” Duke Arden boomed.

He shoved his tablet into Zoey’s hands, livid. She looked down at the headline.

Heated Elevator Kiss Between Prince Aaron and His Intended.

She was dumbstruck, scrolling down frantically. They had been careful not to be spotted whenever they were together. This couldn’t be. Her mind was racing. How could she have been so negligent? This was sure to stir up quite a bit of trouble. No wonder her brother and father were enraged. She had embarrassed them.

And then she saw it and her heart, her brain, everything stopped and suddenly she understood. When next she knew, she felt his thumbs on her cheeks and heard the whoosh of a sigh leave his body.

“We have to go, Zo,” Bart said, more gently this time.

“Go? After causing such an uproar you would have her run off somewhere? She must issue a public apology for making such a spectacle—”

“She must do nothing,” Bart interrupted.

Bart spoke firmly, in a tone he did not usually reserve for his father.

But then, his father did not know what he thought he knew and Bart, himself being enraged, had only enough patience to be swift, as he always was.

He needed to give her time. She would want some time and she would not get it here. He hardly knew how they would spin this one, but he wanted to give his sister time.

Because he knew her. It was all over for them, and he would not let her be persuaded otherwise. Not twice. Not when he had gone against his instincts the first time and allowed himself and her to be swayed.

Zoey heard them going back and forth about what to do, but she couldn’t move. Had he really done this? On the night of their engagement?

She knew there wasn’t time for this, but all she could do was fall apart. Again and again, it hit her what he had done, and she wished she could go back to being blissfully unaware.

“We’re leaving. Forgive me, father,” Bart said in parting, having finished the packing.

“I cannot understand you. This isn’t like you at all. They are to be wed. It’s the 21st century. Certainly, it may cause some embarrassment, but the people will understand. You are being too protective.”

“If you do think so, then you must really not understand. She will be safe; this I promise you.”

Bart took Zoey’s hand and led her through the hallways she had at last become accustomed to. Down the staircase that seemed endless and past his mother, who had no doubt come to the same conclusion his father had. There was no time. He would reveal it to them later, or someone surely would, but right now, they must go.

***

[Elsewhere in Caines]

He knew the whole of it without need of confirmation. James Beaumont was such a sort of man. Though he could hardly predict how people would behave, he was not often surprised by them. With eyes so green they put forests to shame, jet black hair as soft as silk, a body that seemed made to look good in anything and a chiselled face curved and sharp in all the right places, such that it was difficult not to stare, James Beaumont was more than handsome.

It was then no wonder Duke Beaumont was well liked despite himself not liking many people and making no effort to hide his dislike.

James could afford this luxury, as corporations from around the world knocked on his door in want of doing some or other business with Copia. Famed for being a separate entity from the crown, Copia’s people wanted for nothing. What they could not make themselves, they imported. That was the extent to which Copia had allowed anything past its borders in the last five years.

Now 26, James had not long been a duke when His Grace’s mother, Lady Cassandra Beaumont, became rather adamant that he marry. To her delight, he had at last agreed.

He had at last allowed himself to be confident that he might now have Lady Emily Maine as his wife and they (even with her father needing much persuasion) had at last, after seven years of friendship, gotten engaged.

And this, he had convinced himself, was his due. This much he might expect from life. He was now titled, her family’s equal, and his rival had proposed to another woman. He thought this meant that they were in the clear. That he might at last love whomever he wanted. He was wrong.