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I want all you’ve got to give, Princess. I’d forgotten just how good you feel.’
    ‘Trust me,’ Astrid murmured as her hands roamed over Karl’s shoulders. ‘You won’t ever get the chance to forget again.’
    * * *
    Astrid’s cries of appreciation could probably be heard across the border in Thorberg, and the night was only just beginning. There would be no more lengthy separations. He needed her. She needed him. If a solution had to be found, he would find it.
    It came to him in the grey light of dawn when exhaustion finally claimed Astrid and she curled up in his arms to go to sleep.
    ‘What about that fire I was going to light?’ he murmured, glancing at the fireplace.
    ‘It will never go out,’ she murmured groggily, sighing with contentment.
    ‘Amen to that,’ he murmured, brushing a kiss against the brow of a woman he adored, who was also the mother of his child and who he hoped would one day be his queen.
    If she would have him, Karl mused wryly as he stared down at the sleeping face of his gutsy woman.

EPILOGUE
    I T WAS A very modern royal wedding between the rulers of the houses of Thorberg and Hammersvik. Karl and Astrid’s two-year-old daughter made the prettiest flower girl ever. Tula’s long silky blond hair, caught back with ice-blue ribbons, was just a little ruffled, which seemed right for the daughter of an adventurer and a very modern queen, but Princess Tula behaved impeccably as she toddled along with her hand placed trustingly in that of Astrid’s childhood friend and maid of honour, Britt Skavanga.
    The bridesmaids wore long pale blue silk gowns with overskirts of floating white chiffon, while the bride wore an elegant polar-white column of silk decorated with thousands of tiny crystals. Fragrant white roses had been specially flown in from France and the red carpet was strewn with their petals. Astrid’s bouquet comprised lilies for happiness, hyacinths for steady love, ivy for fidelity, and myrtle, the emblem of a long and happy marriage. Her ring was a simple band of flawless blue-white diamonds from the newly successful Skavanga diamond mine run by Britt, now more properly known as Sheikha Sharifa al Kareshi since she had married one of the main investors behind the powerful consortium that had saved her family’s mine.
    â€˜You’re so beautiful,’ Karl whispered when Astrid reached his side, ‘and I’m so proud you’ve agreed to be my bride.’
    Karl’s warm glance was all Astrid needed to reassure her. In his official uniform Karl looked more the warrior than ever, and though this wedding ceremony, attended by over two thousand guests and presided over by four ministers in the glorious old cathedral in the centre of Hammersvik’s capital city, was magnificent, Astrid longed to be in the arms of the man she loved and for them to be alone with their daughter. They had decided to wait until Tula was born and their countries had agreed on an official mutually beneficial treaty before getting married. ‘Which gives us at least two years to get to know each other’s faults and foibles to see if we can put up with them,’ she had joked with Karl at the time.
    â€˜I know your faults and I can’t put up with them, Princess, but you’ll learn the error of your ways in time.’
    â€˜I doubt that,’ she had replied.
    With a hum, Karl had given her one of his amused looks. ‘You’re probably right, Astrid, but I’m prepared to take my chances.’
    But neither of them was prepared to take a chance when it came to allying two royal houses. They had to be absolutely sure. Astrid was certain. In the polar tent, it had been more a case of something monumental and life changing happening, but by the time Karl had delivered their baby daughter in the royal summer house on the lake—when the adorable Princess Tula of Hammersvik-Thorberg had decided she absolutely couldn’t wait to meet her