Page 53 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“No,” Felipe roared. “Now. We take actionnow.”
There was an urgent knock, then Vinicio entered with a wild look in his eyes.
“I am deeply sorry, Your Majesty. Your Highness...” He dipped his head as he hurried toward Felipe. “A helicopter has just landed on the hospital’s pad. It’s from Sicily. The Princess appears to be boarding it with her mother.”
If the blades had sliced and diced him into pieces, Felipe could not be more torn apart. For a few seconds, his entire being was incinerated by this news. By rejection. Loss. Scalding urgency rose in his chest with commands for her to be stopped, but he steeled himself against the searing pain and cleared his throat.
“Let her go.” They were the hardest words he’d ever said, but a blinding truth arrived with them. She did not want to be married to the man he would have to become.
Vinicio hurried out to relay the message.
“You’re allowing her to leave you?” his father scoffed. He blinked once, then turned his face away as though too filled with contempt to look at his son.
“You want me to keep her here where Francois can continue attempting to kill her? He has to be stopped,” Felipe demanded. “If you don’t have the stomach to deal with him, then give me the power to do so.”
“Step down? No,” Enzo said flatly.
“Then I’ll do it my way.” A sensation had arrived in Felipe, one he didn’t know how to name. It wasn’t vengeance or scorn or anything like the ugly bitterness he’d carried all his life. It was a clear, chilly calmness. Resolve.
He wasn’t being honorable in releasing Claudine. He was setting aside his selfish desire to meld her to his side like an extension of himself. Instead, he would do what was necessary to ensure she lived a long, safe, happy life—even if it cost him his own.
Opening the door to his father’s outer office, where a handful of assistants were going about their duties, he called, “Vinicio. Tell Francois to put his affairs in order and meet me in the courtyard at dawn.”
Like in most Western countries, dueling with swords had fallen out of popularity in the kingdom once pistols were invented. Nazarine had very strict gun laws, some dating back to those early days of muskets and the like, in an effort to curb the practice, but dueling with swords had never been criminalized.
Thus, when Felipe threw down his gauntlet very publicly, promising the winner would take the throne, there was nothing to stop Francois from accepting except cowardice.
First, he tried labeling Felipe an unstable sociopath, but Felipe had only one response.
“Does that mean you forfeit?”
Francois did not. He showed up in the palace courtyard at dawn the following morning. Vinicio spoke to Francois’s assistant long enough to explain that they could settle this without a fight if Francois gave up his right to the throne and left Nazarine forever.
“I would rather die,” Francois called across the courtyard when his second relayed the terms.
“I can make that happen,” Felipe assured him.
“You forget who wears the scar from our last duel. Have you held a sword since?”
Had Francois? To the best of Felipe’s knowledge, neither of them had. Even back when they had learned to fence, the training foils had been blunt enough that a strike to an unprotected face would result in a bruise, not a cut.
Their instructor, however, had buckled to Francois’s pleas and allowed the pair ofschiavonas, antique cut-and-thrust swords, to be taken off the wall for their inspection.
A pair of guardsmen brought those same swords now, each in its leather scabbard, with the scrolled, polished steel of their basket-style hilts visible. A bright jewel glinted in each pommel.
“Stop this,” the Queen ordered as she came outside in plain breakfast dress and a knitted cardigan. “You’re making a mockery of the entire family.Felipe.” His name was a command to bend to her will.
“Look on the bright side, Mother. He might win. You’ll finally see your favorite on the throne.” He nodded at his head of security to examine both swords before Francois’s guard was given first choice of the weapons.
Queen Paloma stood taller, her hands curled into fists, but she didn’t contradict him. She didn’t say shedidn’twant Francois to take the throne. She didn’t tell Francois not to fight.
Still standing on opposite sides of the courtyard from his twin, Felipe accepted the sword that was brought to him. Its double-edged blade had been freshly sharpened and polished. He gripped the handle that was wrapped in soft leather, then drew a figure-eight with his wrist, testing the sword’s weight and balance.
“What’s this? You’re not even dressed yet,” King Enzo grumbled as he came out to the courtyard. “I was going to keep score myself. Best of five should do it.”
“This is not a game, Padre. There will be no protective gear.” Felipe moved toward the middle of the courtyard that would serve as theirpiste. “We fight until surrender. Or death, in my case, because I will not surrender.”
“We’ll see,” Francois drawled as he approached. “You seem to have surrendered your wife without much struggle.”
