The Royal Wedding Collection

‘You know I want you,’ he murmured softly. ‘But not here, and not now. Come and talk to me, Millie.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I feel out of my depth, and I don’t know what is happening to me.’

‘Don’t you?’ He took her by the shoulders and his eyes were fierce and black and burning. ‘Have you not guessed why you are here?’

Millie shook her head. ‘Not really.’

It was time. He drew a deep breath and his voice was both silken and yet commanding. ‘You know that something was forged between us that day in the stable? Something I had not expected?’

‘Nor wanted?’ she guessed painfully.

The dark eyes became hooded. She must learn that introspection was an indulgence which brought with it only pain and no solution.

‘What I want is an irrelevance—it is what I need which is at stake, and that was never in any doubt,’ he said firmly. ‘I have found what it is I am looking for.’

She felt as though she was poised on the edge of a precipice, staring down into a swirl of dark clouds, so that nothing before her was clear. But Millie’s instincts were sound—and the most astonishing one was welling up inside her, even if she didn’t quite dare to believe in it. She hesitated before she dared to voice it. ‘Which is?’

‘You,’ he said quietly. ‘I am going to marry you.’

She felt curiously flat. ‘Aren’t you suppose to ask me first?’

He gave a hard, almost brittle smile. Shouldn’t he at least allow her the small fantasy of believing that she had some choice in the matter? That she had it in her to resist him when he had his heart set on something! ‘Will you, Millie? Marry me?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Your hesitation is good,’ he observed softly. ‘For it indicates that you understand the significance of what it is I am asking you.’

Millie put her fingers to her cheeks. She could feel them flaming. ‘But m-marriage?’ she questioned shakily, her heart racing. ‘Isn’t a proposal supposed to follow—?’

‘What?’ His eyes were jet shards as he cut in, anticipating her next words. ‘You imagine that I am able to offer you what other men would? A kiss goodnight on the doorstep? Trips to the theatre, perhaps? Or supper parties to meet mutual friends?’ He took one hand from her face—her left hand—and turned it over in his, studying it thoughtfully. ‘It can never be that way for me, Millie. When someone in my position chooses a bride, none of the normal rules of courtship apply.’

‘You mean…you mean you’re above the normal rules?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply, and it was not a boast—merely a statement of fact. ‘If I meet you openly it will create a great media storm—not only here, but also in Europe—and it will compromise you. Public expectation will grow so intense that your every move will be monitored and recorded and the strain could become unbearable—I have seen it happen before. And for what purpose, Millie? When I know that you embody everything that I seek in a bride.’

‘But why?’ she questioned, still bewildered. ‘Why me?’

‘The truth?’ She nodded, dimly aware that she might not like it. ‘My requirements are simple. My bride must be pure, and she must be of aristocratic stock.’

Like one of the horses they had just seen, thought Millie, with a faint feeling of hysteria.

‘You haven’t taken lovers, and that is exactly how it should be.’ His voice dropped to a sultry caress. ‘And your first lover will surpass anything that any other man could ever offer you, that I can promise you.’ Her blush pleased him, and excited him, too.

‘But why not a Mardivinian woman?’

He shook his head. ‘That would be too complicated, and I know all the possible candidates too well. There would be no sense of freshness among the women who would be suitable—and besides, my two sisters-in-law are English. They will provide you with the company you need to prevent you from becoming homesick. And your upbringing will have equipped you perfectly for the task which lies ahead.’

‘Task?’ she echoed.

He nodded. ‘English women are brought up to be independent and resilient and resourceful—and your aristocratic background will enable you to mix with anyone, to understand how a future king will be brought up. For, as my Queen, you will bear my sons.’

Queen. The word hung in the air as if it had dropped into the conversation out of a fairytale. But this was definitely no fairytale—for if it had been then surely he would have mentioned the word that every bride-to-be the world over wanted to hear. Love. Millie stared into the proud, handsome face. She did not want words of love if he didn’t mean them—and how could he possibly mean them when they barely knew one another, not really?

‘Yet still you hesitate,’ he observed softly, and he played his final winning card as he drifted her fingertips towards his lips and brushed them against the sensual lines with slow deliberation. He felt her shiver beneath his touch. ‘Shall I tell you what is most important of all?’ he questioned silkily.

‘Y-yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Tell me.’

‘This connection between us. It is strong. Powerful. It cannot be ignored. You feel it, too—you cannot deny it, can you, Millie?’ His eyes were lit with triumph, but with something else, too. ‘And so do I,’ he finished on an afternote of bemusement.

‘Yes,’ she agreed boldly. ‘I feel it, too.’

The blood drumming through her veins was threatening to deafen her and she nodded mutely, shivering with increased excitement as he lowered his head to tease her with the lightest and most provocative of kisses.

‘See the way you make me feel…here.’ And Millie nearly died when he guided her hand to his loins. She felt his hot, hard heat pressing against her, and some answering flame leapt up into life inside her, making her melt and making her ache. The sensation obliterated all others—including the one painful and fleeting thought that perhaps for Gianferro that was all there was. Chemistry. Sexual chemistry. And suitability.

‘Yes,’ he whispered exultantly as he saw her eyes darken and her lips part, heard the breathless little whimper she made. ‘Without this there can be nothing between a man and a woman. For all your innocence I desire you very much—perhaps more than I have ever desired a woman before, because never before have I had to wait. It shall be my body that you know, and mine alone. I shall tutor you in the ways of love and teach you how to please me as much as I will please you. You will be Queen of Mardivino and you shall have everything your heart desires. The finest racehorses will be yours for the asking. Jewels. Baubles. All the things that women crave are within your reach, Millie.’

She wanted to tell him that those things were not important, not in the grand scheme of things. That somehow he had ensnared her with a dark and silken certainty, capturing her heart to ensure that she would never be free of him—nor ever want to be free of him. ‘Gianferro—’

‘And I shall tell you something else,’ he forged on relentlessly. ‘If you do not accept me, then you will spend the rest of your life regretting it—for you will never meet another man of my equal. All men will be shadows in comparison, mocking you and taunting you with the thought of what might have been.’

If Millie had been older she might have damned him for his arrogance—but even with her almost laughable innocence she recognised the truth behind his words. Maybe she should have asked for more time, but time seemed as rare a commodity to him as privacy. She could do nothing but stare into the dark promise of his eyes, and as she did she felt her knees threaten to give way. She clutched onto him as if he was her anchor in a stormy sea. ‘Gianferro!’ she gasped. ‘Please! Please! Won’t you just kiss me?’

He hid his smile of satisfaction, for it was then that he knew she was his.

CHAPTER FOUR

UNSEEN, Millie put the tiny contraceptive Pill into her mouth and swallowed it—then walked into the bedroom, her face as white as the wedding gown which was hanging there. She shook her head from side to side. ‘I don’t know if I can go through with it, Lulu,’ she said huskily.

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Lulu, giving the kind of brisk, no-nonsense smile which only big sisters could get away with. Especially big sisters who had only recently forgiven you for stealing their boyfriends. Her smile increased. ‘As someone else once in pretty much my position quipped—your name’s on the teatowels now, it’s much too late to back out.’

And Lulu was right—it was. Her name and Gianferro’s. Not just on teatowels either, but on tea-sets too—and splashed all over breakfast trays, and some specially minted coins—all carrying the same formal and rather rigid pose of her and Gianferro, which had been taken on the day that their engagement was announced to the world.

Bizarrely, she found herself wondering if Gianferro had ever even used a teatowel. She doubted it. Or cooked a meal for himself. Equally doubtful. Her own upbringing had been privileged, yes—but at least she and her sister had been Brownies with the local pack. She knew how to clean and how to cook, and how to produce a plate of squashy-looking cupcakes which people would buy for charity.

But not Gianferro.

With every day that passed she became more and more aware of the rarefied and very isolated world he inhabited. Getting to see him was fraught with difficulty—like trying to make an emergency appointment at the dentist. He was surrounded by aides, and one in particular—Duca Alesso Bastistella, a devastingly handsome Italian nobleman whom Lulu had confessed she could ‘fall in love with at the drop of a hat’.

Well, Millie couldn’t. Alesso was like a gatekeeper—oh, he was always smoothly charming and diplomatic, but he seemed to have almost permanent access to Gianferro, whilst denying it to everyone else.

‘We were at school together and he is my right-hand man,’ said Gianferro one day, when she questioned him on it. ‘I trust him,’ he added simply.

He made trust sound like a precious and rare commodity, and Millie wondered if it would ever be possible to befriend the powerful Alesso. Well, if she wanted to get close to her husband, she was going to have to try.

She tried not to get too down about it, but she could have counted on one hand the number of times she had been alone together with Gianferro, when he had teased her with kisses which had made her melt inside, imprinting his lips upon hers with sensual promises of the pleasures to come. Of course she understood that his father was gravely ill, and that there had to be amendments made to the Constitution because of the forthcoming wedding, but even so…

‘And anyway,’ said Lulu softly, ‘you’re off to the Cathedral in little under an hour, to make your wedding vows—so you couldn’t back out of it even if you wanted to!’

‘I know I am,’ said Millie faintly, and went to sit down. But Lulu held up her hand like a traffic policeman.

‘Be careful, or you’ll crumple your lingerie!’

‘There doesn’t seem enough of it to crumple.’

‘That’s the whole point!’ Lulu gave a foxy smile. ‘Anyway, I want to do your make-up now, so come over here and sit beside the mirror. Carefully.’

At least she had made it up with her sister. Thank heavens. But then Lulu—for all her fiery temper—had never been one to bear a grudge. Once she had accepted that the wedding was going to happen whether she liked it or not, she had accepted it with good grace. Especially when she realised that she had the chance to be a bridesmaid.

‘The only bridesmaid, I hope?’

‘Well, there will be Gianferro’s tiny niece, but you’ll be the only adult one, yes.’

Since then, Lulu had been over the moon.

‘Just think of all the people I’m going to meet!’ she had sighed.

‘But what about Ned?’ Millie had queried.

‘Ned who?’ Lulu had laughed.

For the past month, since the engagement, Millie had been living in a ‘small’ house within the Palace grounds, with Lulu and her mother on hand to chaperone her. Not that their services had been needed for that, she thought somewhat resentfully as she stared at her bare face in the mirror. Gianferro was taking restraint to the extreme—for they had barely spent a moment on their own.

But all that would change after the wedding, she thought, as Lulu began to slap some sticky moisturiser onto her cheeks. That was what honeymoons were for—proper old-fashioned honeymoons—when a couple got to know each other in all the ways that mattered.

Would she be a good wife to him? Would instinct and the books she had been poring over help guide her in the bedroom department? A nervous shiver ran down her spine, and Lulu’s hand halted in its process of dipping a damp sponge into some foundation.

‘Now what’s the matter?’

Millie bit her lip. ‘Nothing.’

‘Not worried about the sex bit, are you?’ questioned Lulu perceptively.

Millie shook her head. She couldn’t voice her fears—she just couldn’t—not to anyone, and especially not to Lulu. If she started talking about it, then she would end up feeling—not for the first time—as if her purity was the only reason Gianferro was marrying her. And besides, there were some things which should remain private.

‘Not a bit,’ she said staunchly.

Lulu smiled. ‘Pity you did all that horse-riding,’ she commented.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, isn’t there some kind of ancient ritual which demands you hang the bloodied sheet from the Palace windows?’

‘Oh, do shut up, Lulu!’ Millie closed her eyes. ‘Have you seen the papers?’

‘I thought you weren’t going to read them any more.’

‘I know I wasn’t—but there’s a certain irresistibility about it—like being told not to touch a hot plate in a restaurant—you immediately want to.’

There was nothing in the latest batch of publications which hadn’t been there from day one. She had been dubbed the ‘unaffected’ aristocrat, which she gathered was newspaper-speak for someone who didn’t know her way round a make-up bag. Or a wardrobe.

Thank heavens she had Lulu on-side—for it had been Lulu who had taken her on a grand tour of Paris’s top couturiers in a search for the Perfect Wedding Dress. The procession of garments which had been paraded in front of them had made her know what she didn’t want.

In the end Millie had bought the dress in England—all soft layers of tulle that floated like a ballerina’s petticoats, much to Lulu’s disgust.

‘It looks like a meringue!’ she had exclaimed. ‘You looked far sexier in that silk-satin sheath.’

But brides weren’t supposed to look sexy—they were supposed to look virginal and, in her case, regal. Millie knew that there were high expectations about the gown, and that it was her duty to meet them. Little girls would pore over pictures of it. They wanted a fairytale princess, and she would make sure they got one.

‘Surely that’s enough mascara?’ she ventured anxiously.

‘Can’t have enough,’ said Lulu, with one final sweep of the wand. ‘Your eyes will come out much better in the photos if you slap it on—you’ll look gorgeous.’

‘Especially to the world’s panda population,’ said Millie weakly, as she slid on the hand-made pearl-encrusted shoes and then, at last, slithered into the dress itself.

‘Oh, wow!’ said Lulu softly, as she adjusted the soft tulle veil. ‘Wow!’

Millie just stood and stared at herself in disbelief.

Was that really her?

The high collar made the most of her long neck, and the beaded sash emphasised her tiny waist. Tight white sleeves ran down into a point on her hands, and the skirt shimmered to the floor in a soft haze of filmy white.

It was just her face which took some getting used to. With the unaccustomed make-up transforming her eyes into Bambi-like dimensions, and the pale blonde hair coiled into an elaborate chignon to accommodate the heavy diamond tiara she would don after the vows, she didn’t look like Millie at all. She looked…she looked…

‘Like a princess,’ breathed Lulu.

Please let me be a good one, prayed Millie silently as a servant gave a light rap at the door. She picked up her bouquet, taking a deep breath to calm herself. The Princess bit was only part of the deal—far more important was that after today she would legally be Gianferro’s wife, and they would be together, and they would learn to grow and share within their marriage. An image of his dark-eyed face swam before her and her nervousness became brushed with the golden glimmer of excitement. Oh, but she wanted to be alone with him!

Not for the first time Millie found herself wishing that Gianferro was just a normal man, and that they were making their vows in the tiny village church near her home, where her own parents had married. That they were going back to Caius Hall afterwards for the wedding breakfast, instead of the Rainbow Palace—so vast that she felt like Alice in Wonderland every time she set foot inside it.

Yet her two English sisters-in-law seemed to have adapted well to life as princesses—and they had both been commoners, without a drop of aristocratic blood in their veins. But they had been older, she reminded herself. And experienced. And the Princes they had married had not been future Kings…

Millie could feel the palms of her hands growing clammy as the ride to Solajoya’s Cathedral passed as if in a dream. There seemed to be thousands of people out on the streets, and the flashbulbs of the photographers were so blinding and ever-present that the day seemed bathed in a bright, artificial light.

Her wedding gown and flowers had been left to her, but Gianferro had masterminded the rest of the wedding plans, and Millie had been happy for him to do so. She understood that there were certain rituals to be followed, and she understood the weighty significance of the ceremony itself. The world and Mardivino were watching, and the Cathedral was packed with Royals and dignitaries and Presidents and Prime Ministers.

She knew that there was a small knot of her own relatives and family friends close to the altar, but she could not make out a single familiar face—they all swam into one curious and seeking blur. Never in her life had she known such a sense of lonely isolation as she began to walk towards him.

Because her father was dead, there was no one to give her away. A long-lost uncle had been halfheartedly suggested, but rejected by Gianferro.

‘No,’ he had said decisively. ‘You will come to me alone.’

The aisle seemed to go on for miles, as music from massed choirs spilled out in some poignantly beautiful melody. Millie clutched her bouquet just below waist level, as she had been told to, and there, by the flower-decked altar, stood the tall, dark figure of Gianferro.

She could not see his face—all she was aware of as she grew closer was that he was in some kind of uniform, and that he looked formidably gorgeous. But a stranger to her, with his medals, and his hat with a plumed feather tucked beneath his arm.

Now she could see him, his proud and unsmiling face. She searched the dark glitter of his eyes for some sign that his bride-to-be pleased him, and a frisson of fear ran through her. For a moment her sure and steady pace faltered.

Was that…surely that was not displeasure she read in his eyes?

For a moment Gianferro could scarcely believe what he was seeing—but it was not the customary pride and elation of a man looking at the woman he was about to marry, transformed into an angel with her wedding finery.

Ah, si, she was transformed. But…

Where were the unadorned pure features which had so captivated him? Her eyes looked so sooty that their deep blue beauty was lost, and the lips he had kissed so uninhibitedly were now slicked with a dark pink shade of lipstick. She looked like a…a…

His eyes narrowed. He was going to have to speak to her about that. She must learn about his likes and dislikes, and he detested heavy make-up. Yet his face gave nothing away as she reached his side—only the tiny pulse hammering at the side of his temple gave any indication of his disquiet—and he could do nothing to control that.

The hand she gave him was cold, but then Mardivino’s Cardinal began to intone the solemn words, and all was forgotten other than the import of what he was saying.

As they emerged from the darkness into the brightness of the perfect summer’s day, he turned his head to look down at her. She must have sensed it, for her moist eyes turned up to him, like a swimmer who had spent too long under water.

‘Happy?’ he questioned, aware that cameras were upon them, that video tapes would be slowed down and analysed, his words lip-read. A world desperate to know what he was really thinking, to hear what he was really saying. Gianferro had never known real privacy, and it was a hard lesson that Millie was going to have to take on board.

She felt the squeeze of his hand, which felt like a warning, and managed a tremulous smile. ‘Very,’ she replied. But she felt light-headed—the way you did when you’d had medication just before an operation, as if she had temporarily flown out of her own body and was hovering above it, looking down.

She saw her painted doll mask of a face, and the little-girl trepidation in the heavily mascaraed eyes. And then Gianferro was guiding her towards the open carriage—her tulle veil billowing like a plume of white smoke behind her, diamonds glittering hard and bright in the tiara which crowned the elaborate confection of hair.

The Rainbow Palace looked like a flower festival, and every step of the way there was someone to meet or to greet. Another person offering their bowing congratulations. Millie could see ambition written on the faces of the men who spoke to Gianferro, and narrow-eyed assessment from the women. Who was this bride their Crown Prince had brought to Mardivino? their expressions seemed to say.

Good point, thought Millie—just who am I?

She was beginning to despair of ever getting a moment alone with him—this outrageously handsome man who was now her husband—but at last they were seated side-by-side in the Banqueting Hall, dazzled by the array of gold and crystal.

He turned to her. ‘So, Millie,’ he said softly. ‘The first hurdle has been crossed.’

She laughed. ‘I can think in terms other than horse-riding, you know!’ she hesitated. ‘You…you haven’t said whether you like my dress,’ she said shyly.

‘The dress is everything it should be.’

And? And? Say I look beautiful, even if you don’t mean it… For wasn’t every bride supposed to look beautiful on her wedding day—just from radiance and excitement alone?

He dipped his head towards hers; she could feel his breath drifting across her skin. ‘Why did you cover your face with so much make-up?’

Millie blinked, remembering Lulu’s words. ‘For the cameras, of course!’

He had chosen an innocent country girl—not some Hollywood starlet, concerned about her image above all else! His mouth flattened.

‘You don’t like it?’ ventured Millie painfully.

He shook his head, trying to dispel the tight band which was clamped around his head. The strain of the last few weeks had been intense, but after the wedding breakfast they would be alone at last, and then, in slow, pleasurable time, he could show her exactly what did please him.

‘Your skin is too fine too clog it up like that, cara

mia,’ he observed softly. He saw her lips begin to tremble at the admonishment and he laid his hand firmly over hers, olive skin briefly obscuring the new, shiny gold of her wedding band. His voice was little more than a whispered caress. ‘Later you will scrub it off—do you understand? You will come to me bare and unadorned, stripped of all finery and artifice.’ He felt the deep throb of desire, which he had put on hold for so long that it seemed like an eternity. Carefully he took his hand away, for touch could tempt even the most steely resolution. ‘And that, cara Millie—that is how I wish to see you.’

With a tremulous smile she nodded, then accepted a goblet of champagne from one of the footmen with a gratitude which was uncharacteristic. Never had she needed the softening effect of alcohol quite so much, and she drank deeply from the cup. Her very first test as the future Queen and she had failed him!

She longed to rush out to the bathroom and wash it all off, there and then—but she would not dare to take such a liberty; new princesses did not nip off to powder their noses. In fact, from now on, her behaviour would have to be choreographed right down to the last second. The simple things which other people took for granted would be out of her reach. Even her mother had remarked drily, ‘You’d better cultivate a strong bladder, Millie.’

‘Smile for me now, Millie,’ he instructed silkily, wishing to see those dark shadows pass from her eyes. ‘And think instead what it will be like on our honeymoon.’

This was a thought which had made her alternate between giddy excitement and stomach-churning nerves in the run-up to the wedding, but now the champagne had dissolved away her misgivings, and she felt her heart well up with the need to show him how good a wife she would be to him.

She began to pleat her napkin, until she remembered that all eyes were upon them and stopped. ‘You haven’t told me yet where we’re going,’ she observed quietly.

His eyes glittered with ebony fire. ‘Traditionally, is not the honeymoon supposed to be a surprise—a gift from the groom to his bride?’

She wanted to say that, yes, of course it was—but suddenly it seemed to represent a whole lot more than that. Because of tradition Gianferro had taken charge of the wedding, and she understood that, but couldn’t he have bent tradition in a way that would not have mattered to anyone other than the two of them? To have told her their destination—or, better still, to have allowed her to help choose. She felt disconnected. Out of control. As if her life had become a huge stage and she had been given the tiniest walk-on role.

But she didn’t want to start their marriage on the wrong foot. If she wanted to change the unimportant things in the status quo then it had to be a gentle drip-drip—not like a child, instantly demanding a new toy. Gianferro was not used to living with a woman, just as she was not used to living with a man, and compromises must be made—she knew that, her mother had told her so. And he would not be familiar with compromise. Instinctively she recognised that negotiation was not part of his make-up, neither as a man or a prince. It would be up to her to lead the way. To show by example.

She wanted to say all the right things—as if her careful words could wash away that look of displeasure she had seen on his face in the Cathedral. To start together from now—a shiny new surface on which their future could be drawn. ‘Yes, of course it is!’ she said brightly. ‘I love surprises!’

Gianferro smiled, pleased with her reaction, suddenly wishing that he could take her into his arms and kiss her. Properly. But there would be time enough for that later. ‘Then I must hope that mine lives up to your expectation,’ he murmured.

His words licked at her, with dark and erotic promise, and suddenly Millie was assailed with nerves. Please let me be worthy of him, she prayed. Let me be a good lover to him.

Gianferro’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you frown, cara Millie?’

She pulled herself together. Now was not the time to bring up her sexual inexperience! ‘I wish my father could have been here,’ she said truthfully. ‘And yours.’

He nodded and gave her a soft smile, pushing away his untouched wine and reaching for a glass of water instead. His father had been frail for so long now that he could scarcely remember the vigorous man who had governed Mardivino with such energy—hiding well his heartbreak when his beloved wife had died. And lately he had grown more gravely ill. A dark shadow passed over his heart, but ruthlessly he banished it.

‘Ah, but they were both here in spirit,’ he answered quietly, remembering the look of relief which had spread over his father’s careworn features when he had taken Millie to meet him. ‘And my father is overjoyed that I have chosen a bride at last. This marriage has pleased him enormously.’

‘And…it pleases you, too, Gianferro?’ she questioned, emboldened by the wine.

He smiled. She was to step into the role demanded of her, and it seemed that his instincts were correct. She was the perfect choice. ‘My destiny has been fulfilled,’ he murmured.

It wasn’t quite the answer she had been seeking, but Millie supposed that it would have to do. Quelling the butterflies in her stomach, she sat back as Gianferro’s brother stood up to make a toast to the new Princess.