The Choosing [Hari: The Princes of Nilan'dane 1] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove) by Violet Joicey-Cowen

Author:Violet Joicey-Cowen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 2014-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Nerowis

My return from the palace took a few days. The weather had been good and I saw no need to hurry home. I felt relieved that Korin had not picked me at The Choosing. As much as I liked him, and as well as I thought we could have dealt with a life together, he was not Rougen.

Rougen might not have been the most classically handsome of men, but to me he had been the most beautiful man in the world. He had stood about a hand, or four inches, taller than me. His face tanned and his body strong, from all the time he spent outside tending to my father’s estate. As strong as he had been, he was always gentle with me. Rougen was the man I loved. His father had been my father’s Estate Steward. Rougen had been working alongside his father to help him with the duties which came with being in charge of such a large estate and so that he would eventually be able to take over when the time came.

But he was not mine anymore, and he would never assume the Estate Steward position. He was dead. He, and both of our fathers, had died in a carriage accident nearly a year ago.

My older brother had inherited the estate and taken over the running of it after the accident. He bitched about the annoyance of having to find and hire a new steward when it was all I could do to carry on breathing after losing the man I loved.

The familiar emptiness was creeping back into me again. I could not let it take over once more. I may have lost him, but I had not lost my own life. He would not have wanted me to be lost in despair forever, so I had to carry on and try to live without him.

It would have been possible to do the journey home from the palace in one day if I had set out early enough and ridden without stopping, but I had no desire to arrive home that quickly. My brother would not be pleased with my “failure,” as I knew he would see my lack of a royal husband. So I took my time on the journey, not wanting to face him just yet.

I hadn’t asked for a wakeup call, so it was the warmth of the sun on my face, filtering through the gap in the curtains, which woke me. It had been the same for the other three mornings of my journey and today had to be the last. I could not spin the trip out any further because I was only a couple of hours from home.

Though the quality of the bed and bed linen was not nearly as good as it was in my room at home, I woke refreshed and far more rested than I had ever felt there. I rose and padded over to the door to my room. Unlocking the door, I stuck

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