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realize why Her Majesty had seemed so ambivalent about her duties of late.
    “Of course,” she murmured, wishing her friend had confided in her, wishing she knew why she hadn’t. Wishing the air in the room were easier to breathe.
    She could practically feel the tension radiating from the admiral’s big body. It snaked around her, through her, as tangible as the warmth still lingering on her skin.
    “If you will wake her and break the news of this to her yourself, I’ll come back to talk with her after I’ve met with the minister of foreign affairs.” He glanced athis watch, his other obligations clearly pulling at him. “There is much she and I must discuss.”
    Gwen gave him a nod, took a step back. As she did, his edgy glance fell to where her hand protectively covered the vee of her jacket.
    Silence echoed off the ornate walls. In the taut moments before his eyes lifted to hers, his jaw had hardened enough to shatter his back teeth.
    The silence was disturbing enough. But the banked heat in his gaze was knitting her nerves into a knot when one of the double doors behind her opened.
    She turned to see Queen Marissa cautiously watching them both.

Chapter Three
    Q ueen Marissa stepped into the room. Her shawl-collared dressing robe of white Egyptian cotton was tied snugly at the waist and flowed in loose folds to the floor. Like Gwen, she hadn’t taken time with her usual chignon. She’d simply brushed her straight dark hair back from her striking and strained features. Faint shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes, attesting to her lack of rest.
    Clearly worried by their presence in her receiving room, she glanced between the mountain of tension in navy and gold braid and her surprisingly unfinished lady-in-waiting. The sight of Gwen looking less than her polished self seemed to alarm her even more than the early hour.
    “Gwen,” she insisted of her friend. “What’s going on?”
    “There’s been…”
    “A development,” Harrison supplied. “Your Majesty,” he added, because it would have been unpardonable not to.
    “A…development? Of what sort?”
    Relieved to have his attention off her, Gwen immediately handed him the newspaper. Seeming relieved by the reprieve himself, he deliberately avoided her glance as he took it and moved across the room. With his broad back to her, he dominated the feminine space as he handed the paper to the statuesque royal, who warily regarded its print.
    “We’ve had a security leak,” Harrison said, dutifully overlooking the fact that his queen was in her bathrobe as she stared at the morning headlines. The woman was unquestioningly beautiful and quite formidable in her own right. But unlike Gwen there was nothing about her that provoked him in anyway. She was simply his queen. The woman behind him was…temptation.
    “The public now knows that His Majesty is ill,” he continued, too focused on his task to question the admission. “There has been no change in his condition overnight. He rested comfortably,” he advised her, since the king’s condition was of paramount importance to them all, “and his status remains the same.”
    With a nod of his dark head, he indicated the paper that held the queen transfixed. “As to what we must do about that,” he proceeded, “Colonel Prescott is with Prince Broderick advising him now of the change in his…role…shall we say.” He wasn’t about to go into the bit of shuffle and switch they’d been playing. Not with Lady Gwendolyn listening. “Sir Selwyn will oversee his carefully worded statement about how he is here to represent the Crown in a ceremonial capacity.
    “The public will need a statement from you, too,” he went on to advise her, taking her silence for consideration. “The royal press secretary will issue a statement within the half hour, confirming the king’s condition. He will also clarify that due to the king’s incapacitation, without an appointed heir, the power of the monarchy passes to