Axel had never particularly been against the idea, as such. It was more that he couldn't entirely see the point. Looking back on his life, he couldn't say he was exactly sorry to have missed out; he didn't know many people who had found what you might describe as wedded bliss. Most people, in the end, when it came down to it, ended up sneaking around, participating in the ridiculous charade of hiding their real love affairs from their husband and wife. He was glad, on the whole, that he'd been spared that particular nonsense.

Oh, he'd asked Eleanore, yes. After a while. Loneliness could get too much, sometimes, and he and Eleanore had always been such good friends. He couldn't, though, honestly say that her refusal had broken his heart. Bruised his pride, yes, but then – it was probably a blessing. It would have made neither of them happy, in the end. It never did. Look at Sofie. Marriage had not exactly brought boundless happiness to his little sister, had it?

And her. What had it given to her? Married at fourteen to a man she'd never met before... It could hardly be argued that her marriage had brought her very much in the way of either love or fortune. Wealth, yes, but she had hardly been short of that in her own life before, and power, of a sort... But she had never wanted to be a queen.

Fifteen years dead now, and every day he still thinks of her. Is that true love? He isn't sure, but it must be something of the sort. In other circumstances, in a different life, could she have been someone he could marry? But this is something he can't know, the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens, and thinking about them only serves to make his head ache.