Modern Romance July 2018 Books 1-4 Collection. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ They push and push until there’s nowhere left to go.’ His face grew dark, almost savage. ‘So maybe it’s time you heard the facts about my childhood.’

      Hannah forced herself to sit down on one of the chairs, but its soft seat did little to ease her rigid posture as she folded her hands in her lap and looked at him. ‘Okay,’ she breathed.

      There was silence for a few seconds, a silence so profound that she wondered if he’d changed his mind and didn’t part of her wish he had? But then he began to speak and his voice was as cold as a winter wind whistling through the rooms of an empty house.

      ‘It was a match like so many royal marriages in this region,’ he said. ‘A traditional marriage intended to unify two great dynasties from neighbouring countries. After the birth of his sons, my father kept mistresses, but he was always discreet about them. And yes, you can widen your eyes in horror, but that was the way things were in those days, Hannah. Once more, I ask you to look no further than your own royal family to see that kings and princes have always broken the fundamental rules of relationships. The difference was that my mother refused to accept it. She didn’t want that kind of marriage. She wanted a modern romantic marriage—and that had never been on the cards.’

      ‘So what...happened?’ she questioned as a long silence followed this pronouncement.

      His mouth twisted. ‘The love she professed to feel for him became an obsession. She tried everything in her power to command his attention. She was his constant shadow. Wherever he turned, she was there. I remember she used to spend hours in front of the mirror, refining and redefining her appearance to try to become the woman she thought he wanted. Once, she even sought out one of his mistresses and attacked her—flaying her fingernails down the woman’s face. It took a lot of money to hush that up.’ He his face grew even darker as he continued. ‘And the irony was that, not only was her neediness driving my father further away, it blinded her to everything else around her. In the midst of her quest to win his heart, she neglected the needs of her young family.’

      ‘You mean you?’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, me, but especially my twin brother, Haydar. I had run away to fight in the border battles with Quzabar—I think I used the war as an excuse to escape from the toxic atmosphere within the palace.’ His voice grew bitter. ‘Now I berate myself for my cowardice.’

      ‘Cowardice?’ she echoed. ‘A teenager who was honoured for his bravery during that war? Whose body is still scarred from the aftermath?’

      ‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘Because Haydar was still here. He was the one who bore the brunt of her increasingly bizarre behaviour.’

      ‘She sounds like she was depressed.’

      ‘Of course she was depressed!’

      As his words faded away, Hannah took the opportunity to ask another question. ‘And did she ever...did she ever see a doctor?’

      ‘Yes.’ Distractedly, he began to pace around the vast room, but when he stopped and turned back to face her, a terrible look had distorted his features into a bleak mask. ‘But people can only be helped if they want to be helped, and she didn’t.’

      ‘So what happened?’ she whispered.

      He picked up a small box inlaid with jewels as if to study it, but Hannah suspected he didn’t really see it. Putting it carefully back down on the gilded table, he looked up. ‘It’s not uncommon for families to normalise bizarre behaviour and that’s exactly what we did. Everyone lived with it the best they could, and time passed. I only heard second-hand what happened next. Things had been bad. Worse than usual. She refused to leave her room, no matter what the inducement. By this stage, my father had renounced all his other women and was trying to make amends, but it was too late. Haydar went to show her a piece of wood he’d carved for her in the shape of one of the rainbow birds which fly in the palace gardens and that’s when he found her...’

      His voice had faltered, its grim tone warning Hannah that something unspeakable must have happened. ‘Kulal?’ she said softly.

      ‘She was dead.’

      Hannah saw the blanching of his olive skin and wondered if perhaps she’d asked enough questions but by now she couldn’t stop. Because didn’t she get the feeling that Kulal had spent his whole life bottling this stuff up, so that it had fermented inside him like a slow poison? Couldn’t this disclosure—no matter how painful—help liberate him from some of those locked-away demons, even if it darkened their own relationship as a result? ‘How did she die?’ she questioned clearly.

      His eyes were bleak as they met hers. They looked empty. As if all the light had left them, never to return. ‘She slashed her wrists,’ he said eventually, not pausing when he heard Hannah’s shocked cry, emotion shaking his voice so that it sounded like rock shattering. ‘Then daubed our father’s name in blood on the walls. And that was how Haydar found her.’

      A terrible silence descended on them. Hannah slapped her fingers over her trembling lips and it was minutes before she could bring herself to respond. ‘Oh, Kulal,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      ‘Of course you’re sorry,’ he iced back. ‘We were all sorry. My father went half mad with guilt, and it nearly broke my brother. It’s what made him leave Zahristan as soon as he reached eighteen. Why he renounced the throne so that I was forced to take his place as monarch, even though I am the younger twin and never wanted to rule. Why he has never returned to this country for almost seventeen years,’ he finished bitterly. ‘That’s why the information about my mother’s death is so patchy, as you defined it—because somehow, I’m still not sure how, the palace managed to hush it all up. But press coverage was also very different at that time. We had more control over the media. Now do you understand what made me the man I am, Hannah?’

      She was nodding her head. ‘Y-yes,’ she said, trying to stop her voice from trembling.

      ‘Why I have no desire for the demands of love?’ he continued, still in that same harsh tone. ‘It’s a word I equate with selfishness and ego. A word which often contradicts itself because people use it as a justification for behaviour which is in no way loving. Now, if you can accept that, then maybe we can continue as we are. If you can accept that I can never give you love and that I have no desire to be loved by you, then I am prepared to make the best of this marriage of ours.’ He paused and, briefly, his mouth softened. ‘A marriage which has been surprisingly tolerable, given its mismatched nature.’

      Hannah told herself he wasn’t trying to be insulting as she absorbed his words. ‘And if I can’t?’

      He met her eyes, all that softness having left lips which were now hard and unsmiling. ‘Then we’re in trouble.’

      Hannah thought they were in trouble now. Deep trouble. Her instinct after hearing such a terrible story would have been to have taken her husband in her arms and held him close. To have stroked the raven darkness of his hair with fingers intended to comfort, because comfort was something she was good at—she’d comforted Tamsyn time and time again when her little sister had sobbed into her neck during their neglected childhood. But Kulal mistrusted closeness. He didn’t want affection unless it involved sex—and suddenly Hannah realised that his revelation had the power to change everything. Would it make her feel ridiculously self-conscious around him? If she was extra-tender towards him in bed would he think she was developing a love for him which might one day border on the obsessive, like his mother’s? Was she going to have to walk on eggshells whenever she was in his company, terrified he would misinterpret СКАЧАТЬ