The Queen's Nine-Month Scandal by Abby Green

CHAPTER ONE
    ‘I WILL LEAVE you now to rest, Your
Majesty.’
    ‘Thank you, Pierre.’ Queen Analia of Azoria hoped the relief
she felt wasn’t obvious.
    Her grand vizier bowed and left the room. Analia was dragging
in a breath when suddenly a knock sounded and a different door to her suite
opened to reveal her lady-in-waiting. She quickly pasted a smile on her
face.
    ‘Do you need anything else, Your Highness?’
    Analia curbed the spiking of irritation, which had nothing to
do with her staff. She shook her head and wished that just for once someone
would address her as Analia. ‘No thank you, Cecily. That’ll be all for this
evening.’
    ‘Very well. I’ll see you in the morning.’
    ‘Good night. And thank you for today.’
    The young woman left, shutting the door quietly behind her. Now
Analia did drag in a big breath while kicking off her shoes. She went to both
doors and turned the locks, pathetically grateful for even this small gesture of
privacy between her and her demanding world. A world that had been demanding her
attention since she’d been crowned Queen at the unfeasibly young age of nine,
following the tragic deaths of her parents.
    Now twenty-two, Analia sometimes felt double her age, presiding
over matters of government and shouldering a massive responsibility for the
people of her small island principality, which lay off the southern coast of
Italy in the Ionian Sea.
    She sighed deeply and undid the top button of her silk shirt
and padded over to the open french windows of her Venetian hotel suite which
looked out over the Grand Canal. She curled her hands around the stone balcony
railing and drank in the majestic view, willing herself to relax.
    Dusk was drawing the ancient city into a lavender-hued embrace,
tingeing everything with a dreamy quality. The rigours of the past two days
spent on a trade mission to Venice faded against this timeless backdrop. Her
country had once been ruled by Italy, and Analia was taking advantage of these
indelible links while on her mission to bring her country properly into the
twenty-first century.
    She sighed again, unable to shake a growing feeling
of...emptiness. Usually she pushed these feelings aside, telling herself that
she simply didn’t have the luxury to wallow. Too many people depended on her.
But here, now, Analia couldn’t seem to stop them. She hated to admit it, but she
felt lonely.
    As she looked across the canal she saw lights winking in
crumbling palazzos and wondered about the lives
going on inside. Were they families gathering for dinner? A speedboat sped along
the canal leaving a surge of white spray in its wake. In the back of the boat
Analia saw a man with his arms around a woman, their faces close together. This
was a city made for lovers.
    An incredible poignancy filled her. She’d never experience
that. She was destined to rule and to marry someone who would be a suitable
consort. She was due to announce her engagement to a German prince within
months, signalling the end of one era and the start of another. Producing heirs
for Azoria.
    The man she was due to marry was perfectly nice. Suitable. The
right lineage. Analia knew he would make a good husband, for he was kind. But
she was not attracted to him and she would not love him. She knew that. And to
yearn for love now was a futile dream.
    Still, the thought of Prince Wilhelm becoming her first lover
made something wither inside her. Her mouth flattened into a thin line to think
of her infamous nickname. The Virgin Queen . Thanks
to a well-known archaic requirement of her constitution, and the fact that she’d
had little or no privacy since she was a baby, everyone knew she was a virgin
and had to stay pure until her marriage. It was ridiculous but until Analia got
married, she wouldn’t actually be able to change the constitution to reflect
more modern values.
    With a spurt of anger she wondered, Was
nothing to be sacred , just for me? Ever? Once she married, her life would become