Princess in Love.

Prologue

Briggin’s Prison, Petersbourg, January 1815

She’d always known life did not follow a straight or predictable path--it was riddled with unexpected twists, turns, and steep inclines--but never had Rose Sebastian understood that fact as well as she did on the day her world turned upside down and her heart was smashed to pieces.

As the uniformed guard led her down a steep set of spiraling stone steps that seemed to go on forever into a hellishly dark dungeon in the very guts of the earth, Rose wondered if she would ever look back on these events and understand why it all happened the way it did. Would she ever let go of the regret? Would she ever be grateful for the cruel lessons that had been forced upon her?

The guard continued down a long stone corridor with torches blazing in wall sconces. The hay-strewn floor was wet beneath her feet. She had never ventured this deeply into Briggin’s Prison before. How medieval it seemed. The air was cold and damp and made her body shiver.

At last they reached the cell at the end of the corridor, and the guard lifted the bar on the heavy oaken door. It creaked open on rusty iron hinges.

“He’s in here, Your Highness. Shall I accompany you, or do you wish me to wait outside?”

Rose hesitated. Of course the guard must wait outside, for there were intimate matters to discuss with the prisoner.

The prisoner. Dear God, what if she lost her temper and struck him? Or worse, what if she took one look at him and desire still burned, despite everything he had done?

“Wait outside, please,” she firmly replied, moving toward the threshold. “Shut the door behind me and bar it. I will knock twice to signal when I am through with him.”

She handed the guard a ten-pound note—a small price to pay for his silence—then took a deep breath and steeled her nerves as she entered the prison cell.

The door slammed shut behind her, and she jumped at the sound of it—like a judge’s gavel--while her gaze fell upon the man she had come here to confront.

He was already standing in the center of the cell as if he had known it was she outside the door. She, who had once adored him. Trusted him. Desired him.

He wore the same fashionable clothing from a few short hours ago when he was arrested in the palace courtyard and dragged away for high treason and attempted murder.

For he had tried to kill her beloved brother, the king.

Her heart squeezed like a wrathful fist in her chest, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.