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can’t see any purpose in us isolating ourselves in the mountains. It is our duty, I know, to produce an heir to succeed you, but we can do that just as well here.’
    Such a pragmatic and logical, unemotional approach to their union was surely something he should applaud, Max told himself. After all, it reflected everything hehad already told himself their marriage must be. Why, then, was he finding that he felt not just repelled but also in some dangerous way actively challenged as a man by Ionanthe’s attitude to the intimacy they must share?
    ‘You showed great passion this evening in your defence of your people.’
    Ionanthe stiffened. What was he hinting? Was he going to ask her to deny that she had also shown great passion for him? Her pride writhed in agony at the thought.
    ‘Their safety is my responsibility,’ she answered coldly. ‘Your sexual pleasure is not. I refuse to fake passion for the sake of a man’s ego. You may have been able to force me to marry you, but you cannot force me to desire you and nor will I do so. Having said that, however, as I have already confirmed, I am fully prepared to fulfil my duty to the crown and to the people.’
    The red mist of savage male sexual anger that rose up inside him shocked Max. He had to bring this conversation to a close before he was tempted to do something he considered beneath him, something he knew ultimately he would regret. He had never before wanted to overwhelm a woman’s resistance and arouse her to the point where she succumbed and gave herself completely and mindlessly to him out of the white-hot desire he had brought her to. But right now the images imposing themselves on his thoughts were of Ionanthe on a bed—a very large bed—on which their naked bodies were passionately entwined. Even without closing his eyes and focusing his senses he could imagine the silky softness of her hair against his own skin, its scent—her scent—heated by desire to releaseits erotic fragrance into the air, filling his nostrils. Her head would be thrown back against his arm, her eyes a passion-glazed glitter between thick dark lashes, her lips swollen from their shared kisses and eagerly parted, proclaiming her pleasure and her desire for more as she smiled invitingly up at him.
    Angrily Max dragged his thoughts back to reality. He had no business allowing his mind to create such images. They were an offence, a mental assault that he could not allow to continue and that he would not tolerate in himself.
    Even so, he could not stop himself from saying curtly, ‘You have a very clinical and detached attitude to the creation of a new life. A child deserves to be loved by those who give it life.’
    ‘The fact that I can remain clinical and detached about the process that will create the next ruler of Fortenegro does not mean that I will not love my son any more than a woman who seeks medical intervention in order to conceive does not love
her
child,’ Ionanthe retaliated sharply.
    How much longer was she going to have to wait? Lying alone in the darkness of the large bed, waiting for Max to come to her, Ionanthe tried not to feel anxious. She had promised herself that she would remain calm, that she would not repeat her foolishness of earlier in the evening, but now, with the chimes of the cathedral clock striking midnight dying into silence, it was growing harder for her to quell her over-active imagination.
    What would she do if he refused to adopt the same clinical manner she had sworn to show him and insteadkissed her as he had done in the square? Why was she asking herself such a silly question? If he did that, then of course she would not respond to him. But if he were to persist? If he were to persist then she must just continue to remain unaffected.
    How much longer would it be before he came to her? Was he delaying deliberately, in order to torment her and to break down her resistance? Did he think by leaving her here alone in their marriage bed that when