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only reason she had married him was the people of Fortenegro, for the son who would one day rule benignly over them. For that she was prepared to undergo and endure whatever was necessary. She pulled away from him, plunging into the crowd, determined to show him her independence.
    ‘Ionanthe! No!’ Max protested, cursing under his breath as she was swallowed up by the crowd, and forcing his way through it after her.
    People were pressing in on her, the crowd was carrying her along with it, almost causing her to lose her balance. Fear stabbed through Ionanthe as she realised how vulnerable she was in her heavy clothes.
    An elderly man grabbed hold of her arm, warningher, ‘You had better do better by our Prince than that whore of a sister of yours. She shamed us all when she shamed him.’
    Spittle flecked his lips, and his eyes were wild with anger as he shook her arm painfully. The people surrounding her who had been smiling before were now starting to frown, their mood changing. She looked round for the guards but couldn’t see any of them. She was alone in a crowd which was quickly becoming hostile to her.
    She hadn’t thought it was in her nature to panic, but she was beginning to do so now.
    Then Ionanthe felt another hand on her arm, in a touch that extraordinarily her body somehow recognised. And a familiar voice was saying firmly, ‘Princess Ionanthe has already paid the debt owed by her family to the people of Fortenegro. Her presence here today as my bride and your Princess is proof of that.’
    He was at her side now, his presence calming the crowd and forcing the old man to release her, as the crowd began to murmur their agreement to his words.
    Calmly but determinedly Max was guiding her back through the crowd. A male voice called out to him from the crowd.
    ‘Make sure you get us a fine future prince on her as soon as maybe, Your Highness.’ The sentiment was quickly taken up by others, who threw in their own words of bawdy advice to the new bridegroom. Ionanthe fought to stop her face from burning with angry humiliated colour. Torn between unwanted relief that she had been rescued and discomfort about what was being said,Ionanthe took refuge in silence as they made their way back towards the palace.
    They had almost reached the main entrance when once again Max told hold of her arm. This time she fought against her body’s treacherous reaction, clamping down on the sensation that shot through her veins and stiffening herself against it. The comments she had been subjected to had brought home to her the reality of what she had done; they clung inside her head, rubbing as abrasively against her mind as burrs would have rubbed against her skin.
    ‘Isn’t it enough for you to have forced me into marrying you? Must you force me to obey your will physically as well?’ she challenged him bitterly.
    Max felt the forceful surge of his own anger swelling through him to meet her biting contempt, shocking him with its intensity as he fought to subdue it.
    Not once during the months he had been married to Eloise had she ever come anywhere near arousing him emotionally in the way that Ionanthe could, despite the fact that he had known her only a matter of days. She seemed to delight in pushing him—punishing him for their current situation, no doubt, he reminded himself as his anger subsided. It was completely out of character for him to let anyone get under his skin enough to make him react emotionally to them when his response should be purely cerebral.
    ‘Far from wishing to force you to do anything, I merely wanted to suggest that we use the side entrance to the palace. That way we will attract less attention.’
    He had a point, Ionanthe admitted grudgingly, butshe wasn’t going to say so. Instead she started to walk towards the door set in one of the original castle turrets, both of them slipping through the shadows the building now threw across the square, hidden from the view of the people crowding the