The Royal Wedding Collection

CHAPTER SEVEN

MILLIE felt as if someone had just picked her up and thrown her into a wind tunnel which led to a place of mystery.

Alesso bowed before her, lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips.

‘My Queen,’ he said brokenly, and Millie sat motionless, as if turned to stone, looking at Gianferro in desperation. How on earth did she respond? But she might as well have been the shadow cast by one of the candles for all the notice he took of her. It wasn’t just that he didn’t seem to see her—it was almost as though she wasn’t there. She felt invisible.

But she pushed her feelings of bewilderment aside and tried to put herself in Gianferro’s place. She must not expect guidance nor trouble him for it, certainly not right now. His father had just died, and he had inherited the Kingdom. The role for which he had been preparing all his life was finally his.

She looked into his face. It was hard and cold, and something about the new bleakness in his eyes almost frightened her. What on earth did she do?

She was no stranger to bereavement—her own father had died five years ago, and although they had not been close, Millie still remembered the sensation of having had something fundamental torn away from her. And Gianferro had lost his mother, too. To be an orphan was profoundly affecting, even if it happened when you were an adult yourself.

But Millie was now his wife, his help and his emotional support, and she must reach out to him.

She moved over to him and lifted her hand to touch the rigid mask of his face.

‘Gianferro,’ she whispered. ‘I am so sorry. So very, very sorry.’

His eyes flickered towards her, her words startling him out of his sombre reverie. He hoped to God that she wasn’t about to start crying. It was not her place to cry—she had barely known the King, and it was important for her to recognise that her role now was to lead. That the people would be looking to her for guidance and she must not crumble or fail.

‘Thank you,’ he clipped out. ‘But the important thing is for the King’s work to continue. He has had a long and productive life. There will be sorrow, yes, but we must also celebrate his achievements.’ He nodded his head formally. ‘You must be a figurehead of comfort to your people,’ he said softly.

But not to you, thought Millie, as a great pang wrenched at her heart. Not to you.

‘And now we must go back to Solajoya,’ he said flatly, and Millie nodded like some obedient, mute servant.

After that everything seemed to happen with an alarming and blurred speed, and with the kind of efficiency which made her think it must have been planned. But of course it would have been. There were always provisions in place to deal with the death of a monarch, even if that monarch were young—and Gianferro’s father had been very old indeed.

It was Alesso, not Gianferro, who instructed Millie to wear black, for the new King was busy talking on the phone. Normally, a bride would not have taken black clothes with her on honeymoon, but the instructions she had been given prior to the wedding all made sense now. Gianferro had told her that Royals always travelled with mourning clothes and so she had duly packed some, never thinking in a million years that she might actually need to wear them.

The car ride back to Solajoya was fast and urgent, only slowing down to an almost walking pace when they reached the outskirts of the capital. And Millie had to stifle a gasp—for it was like a city transformed from the one she remembered.

All the flowers and flags and the air of joy which had resonated in the air after their wedding had disappeared. Everything seemed so sombre…so sad. People were openly weeping and the buildings were draped in black.

A line of pale-faced dignitaries was awaiting them as they swept into the Palace forecourt, and Gianferro turned to her as the car came to a halt. He had been preoccupied and silent during the journey. She had longed to say something which would comfort him, but she had not been able to find the words—and something inside her had told her that he would not wish to hear them even if she could. She sensed that he was glad to have his position and authority to hide behind. Perhaps for Gianferro it was lucky that expressed emotions would be inappropriate right now.

She reached out a tentative hand towards his, but he didn’t even seem to notice, and so she let it fall back onto her lap and stared out of the window instead, her mind muddled and troubled. Her future as Princess had been daunting enough, but as Queen? It didn’t bear thinking about.

His voice was low and flat. ‘After we have been greeted you will go to our suite,’ he instructed. ‘I will come to you as soon as I can.’

‘When?’ she whispered.

‘Millie, I do not know. You must be patient.’

And that was that. In a daze, Millie followed behind him as dignitary after dignitary bowed—first to him and then to her.

Once in the suite, she pulled the black hat from her head and looked around the unfamiliar surroundings with a sense of panic.

Now what did she do? She felt as though she had been marooned on a luxurious but inaccessible island, with no one to talk to or confide in. No one to weep with—except that she felt bad about that, too, because there were no tears to shed. She felt sad, yes—but she had only met Gianferro’s father once. She hadn’t known him at all—and wouldn’t it be hypocritical to try to conjure up tears simply because it was expected of her?

Her two sisters-in-law called on her, both dropping deep curtseys before her.

‘Please don’t feel you have to do that,’ begged Millie.

‘But we do,’ said the taller of them, in a clipped, matter-of-fact voice which was distorted with grief. ‘It is simply courtesy, Your Majesty.’

Millie heard the term of address with a sense of mounting disbelief. She had not yet had a chance to get used to it, and it seemed so strange to hear it coming from the lips of two women who were, in effect, her peers.

Ella and Lucy were both English, and both genuinely upset at the King’s death. Millie felt like a fraud as she watched Lucy’s face crumple with sorrow.

‘I feel so bad for Guido!’ Lucy wailed. ‘He’s beating himself up about having stayed away from Mardivino for so many years!’

‘Nico’s doing exactly the same,’ said Ella gloomily. ‘He says that if he hadn’t given his father so much worry about his dangerous sports over the years, then he might still be alive.’

‘But the King was an old man,’ said Millie softly. ‘And he had been sick for a long time.’

They both stared at her.

‘But their mother died when they were little,’ said Lucy, swallowing down a gulp. ‘And the King was all they had.’

Millie could have kicked herself. She had been trying to offer comfort, that was all—and now she had probably come across as cold and uncaring. Or—even worse—perhaps they thought she was rejoicing in her new role.

She could see the curiosity in their eyes as they looked at her—and was aware that her lofty new status had put distance between them without her ever having had a chance to get to know them properly.

She drew a deep breath. She didn’t want them to think her heartless. Or snooty.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was sorry about. Her inability to cry? The distance she was afraid she might have created between herself and the two women who were in the perfect position to be her friends? Or the fact that maybe she should accept that no one would be able to get close to her now that she was Queen?

The funeral took place in the Cathedral where she had been so recently married—but whereas that day had been Technicolored and jubilant, this day was mournful and monochrome.

Millie was exhausted by the time the last of the world leaders had left, and she could see the strain etched deeply on Gianferro’s face—he looked as if he had aged by five years. She had sat next to him during the service, but since then she hadn’t been able to get close to him. It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of him, and she was the last in line.

Eventually she went to their suite, stripped off her black suit and hat, and soaked for ages in a bath. But he didn’t return. She surveyed the froth of exquisite handmade silk negligees which had made up her trousseau, and pushed the drawer shut on them. It seemed somehow wrong to dress in pale and provocative finery when the Palace was officially in mourning.

The honeymoon was over almost before it had begun.

She must have fallen asleep, for she was woken by the sound of a light footfall in the room. She blinked open her eyes and, once they were accustomed to the dim light, saw the silhouetted figure of her husband standing by the bed.

‘Gianferro?’

‘Who else?’ His voice sounded raw, as if someone had been grating at it with a metal implement.

‘What time is it?’

‘Late. Go back to sleep, Millie.’

But she didn’t want to go back to sleep. She had been pushed away by protocol, but there was no protocol here now—not in the dim, darkened privacy of their bedroom.

She lay there, not knowing what to do.

Gianferro wriggled his shoulders to try and remove some of the tension which was making his neck ache. He had been on some kind of autopilot all day. It had been crazy since he, like so many of the courtiers, had been expected to know exactly what to do. But how could he? Some of the older dignitaries remembered the death of his mother—but he had been only a child.

Yet the day had gone smoothly—even well. There had been no hitches or glitches, no assassination threats or attempts. The massed choirs had inspired people to say that it had been a beautiful service. And now his father was buried deep in the ground and he felt…what?

He didn’t know.

Empty, he guessed. As if he had been scrubbed clean of all emotion. There had been no place for private grief—not today. Not with the eyes of the world’s press trained like hawks upon him—greedy for a slip in composure which would be taken as a sign of weakness and an inability to rule.

‘Gianferro?’

Her voice stirred over his shattered senses like a gentle breeze, but he needed to be alone with his thoughts. Wanted to be alone with them, as he had been all his life. To sort and sift them and then push them away. Of all the times to find himself with a wife there could not possibly have been a worse one. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said tightly.

But Millie had had days of being pushed away. No, she would not go to sleep! She sat bolt upright in bed and switched on the light. She heard him suck in a ragged breath. Was he shocked that she was naked? Was it also a sign of mourning for the Monarch that she should be swathed in some concealing night attire?

He had taken most of his uniform off, and was standing there in just a pair of dark tapered trousers and a crisp white shirt which he had undone at the collar. He looked as if he had stepped straight out of one of the many portraits which lined the corridors of the Palace. A man from another age. But maybe that wasn’t so fanciful—for weren’t Kings ageless and timeless?

The King is dead…long live the King.

‘Gianferro?’ she whispered, more timidly now.

How could it be that when his senses felt dead—his feelings as barren as some desert landscape—desire should leap up like some hot and pulsing and irresistible hidden well?

‘Millie,’ he said simply.

It was the most human and approachable she had ever heard him, and that one word stirred in her a response which was purely instinctive. She held her arms open to him. ‘Come here.’

She looked so clean and fresh and pure. So wholesome—glowing like some luminescent candle in the soft light which bathed her.

So he went to her, allowed her to tightly enfold him in her arms, and she smoothed at his head with soothing and rhythmical fingers, and he felt some of the unbearable tension leave him.

Millie felt as though she was poised on a knife-edge—one wrong move and he would retreat from her once more. And yet it was not sex she sought, but comfort she wanted to give to him—for at this moment he was not King. Just a man who had lost his only surviving parent and who must now take up the heavy burden of leadership.

Time lost all meaning as she cradled him the way she supposed women had cradled their men since time began. And again, relying solely on an instinct which seemed to spring bone-deep from some hidden and unknown source, she began to massage the tight knot of his shoulders.

‘That’s…that’s good,’ he said thickly.

She carried on, working at the hard muscle as if her life depended on it. And when she moved her hands to unbutton the rest of his shirt he made no attempt to stop her, just remained exactly where he was—his head still resting on her shoulder as if it was too heavy for him to lift.

She slid the stiff, starched garment from his shoulders, exposing the silken olive skin which sheathed the hard musculature of his lean body. And then she bent her head and kissed him very softly on the cheek, and a pent-up sigh escaped him.

He did lift his head then, and he looked at her—at her eyes, which were innocent and troubled and yet hungry, too. And something inside him erupted into life—something strong and dark and powerful and unrecognisable. He moved his arms around her back, crushed her breasts against his bare chest and kissed her—a kiss which was fierce and all-consuming.

Beneath the heady, hard pressure of that kiss Millie went under as if she was drowning. She wanted to tell him that it was comfort she was offering him, that they didn’t have to do this—but he did not seem to want her words. And wasn’t she secretly glad that she did not have to say them?

He tore himself away and stripped off his trousers, and he was so aroused that for a moment she felt a tremor of fear as she looked at him. But he vanquished that fear with the expert touch of his hands and replaced it with desire, stroking her until she was molten and aching.

He moved above her, his big, hard body blotting out the light. His face was shadowed, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered other than the primitive longing to have him close to her again, to have him inside her, to feel the sense of triumph when he shuddered helplessly in her arms.

She moved distractedly and caught him by the shoulders.

‘S,’ he murmured, as if in answer to an unspoken question. When he thrust into her she cried out, and he stopped, frowning down at her. ‘I am hurting you?’

Would it sound pathetic to tell him that the sensation had overwhelmed her—both mentally and physically? That he filled her so deeply that he seemed to have pierced her very heart? Or that making love at this time of loss seemed to take on such a poignant sense of significance?

But Gianferro did not like analysis at the best of times, and right now would be the worst of times to try to tell him. She shook her head. ‘N-no. No, you’re not hurting me.’

But he held back a little as he began to move again, and never had he found it so difficult to contain himself. He was a most accomplished lover, and yet now he wanted to pump his seed into her without restraint. Yet he could not, for he was also a generous lover. Instead he switched off, and concentrated solely on her pleasure—using the vast wealth of experience he had learned from so many women over the years.

Millie felt torn in two. Her body couldn’t help but respond to what he was doing to her, but his face was the dark and beautiful face of a stranger. He looked so intent…so focused. There was no love nor tenderness nor emotion on those carved features.

But you can’t have everything, Millie, her greedy body seemed to cry out to her, and then feeling took over completely and she was lost. Lost…

He saw her face dissolve into passionate release and at last he let go. It seemed as if he had been waiting all his life for this to happen. He had always been a silent lover, but now he called out—a faltering, broken cry—for it was as if he had been locked in tight bands of iron and someone had suddenly snapped them open.

The power of his orgasm seized him like a mighty wave, caught him unawares, despite the fact that he had longed for its incomparable release. It threw him into a maelstrom of sensation so intense that he gasped aloud as wave upon wave of pleasure made him wonder if he could stay conscious. For a moment he felt weak with it—this alien and unwelcome realisation that he could be lured and weakened like any other man.

He shut his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again it was to stare up at dancing diamonds of light reflected from the waterfall of the chandelier. How elusively simple life could be at times. He expelled a long, sighing breath. If only…

Millie heard him and propped herself up on her elbow, with her hair falling all over the place, flushed with pleasure and aware of the first shimmerings of sexual confidence. He had wanted to sleep and she had persuaded him not to! In his time of grief and distress she had brought him solace in the only way she knew how.

‘Gianferro?’

Her voice was like an intruder and his eyes became shuttered. When before had his steely will been bent? And why now—by her? Was it her unworldliness which had struck a chord in him—or the fact that death made you want to grab onto the life-force and embrace it, hang onto it as if you needed to be convinced in the most fundamental way of all that you were still so very much alive yourself?

But this would not do. There was much to be done and he must not be distracted. Furthermore, Millie must learn that he would not be distracted. She must bend to his will—not expect him to bend to hers. It was the only way.

‘Gianferro?’ she repeated, hating herself for the diffident note which had crept into her voice.

‘Go to sleep, Millie,’ he said, and shut his eyes again.

She had been hoping for kisses. She was not asking for words of love that he did not feel for her—just for the intimacy and closeness of being sleepy together. What had just taken place had shaken her to the core, and while she was still very new to all this, she was not stupid—it had shaken Gianferro, too, she knew it had. And yet despite the wonder and the strength of what had just happened he lay there now as if his body had been carved from stone—as distant as one of the rocks out at sea. When this moment—surely—was one when they could be as close as two people could be.

She turned onto her back and lay looking up at the ceiling, feeling suddenly very alone. Was this what her marriage was going to be like? And if so, could she bear it?

He had corrected her when she had asked if being Royal meant being remote, implying that she had misunderstood him—that he had meant to say removed.

But she didn’t believe him. For at this precise moment he was as remote as it was possible for any man to be.

She listened to the deepening of his breathing and realised he had fallen asleep.

Millie bit her lip.

For sanity’s sake—she wasn’t going to think about it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MILLIE drew a deep breath. ‘Gianferro?’

The King looked up from his desk, his mind clearing as he saw his wife hovering in the doorway of his study. How beautiful she looked today—with her pale hair wound into some complicated confection which lay at the back of her long, slender neck. She wore a simple blue dress, which emphasised her lithe and athletic build and her long legs. Legs which had last night been bare and wrapped around his naked back. He smiled with satisfaction. ‘What is it, cara mia?’

‘Do you have a moment?’ she questioned.

The faintest glimmer of a frown creased his brow. Millie, as much as anyone, knew just how tight his schedule was. ‘What’s on your mind?’

She wondered what he would say if she told him the truth—that she was feeling lonely and isolated, and that a night-time dose of passion did not compensate for those feelings. But she could not tell him. Gianferro was far too busy to be worrying about her problems—which to an outsider would probably not look like problems at all. And why would they?

To an observer, she had everything. A gorgeous husband who made love to her with such sweet abandon that sometimes she seriously thought that her body could not withstand such pleasure. She lived in a Palace and she could have whatever she pleased. The things which other women dreamed of were hers for the taking…even if, ironically, they were not what she coveted.

‘I want you to cover your exquisite body in jewels,’ Gianferro had murmured to her huskily in bed one night.

‘But I’m not into jewels!’ Millie had protested.

‘No?’ Lazily he had drifted a fingertip from neck to cleavage, and she had shivered with anticipation. ‘Then I shall have to be “into” them for you, shan’t I, Millie?’ His black eyes had glittered. ‘I shall buy you a sapphire as big as a pigeon’s egg, and it will echo your eyes and hang just above your glorious breasts and remind me of how I bury my mouth in them and suckle on their sweetness.’

When the man you loved said something like that what woman wouldn’t be putty in his hands? Suddenly the idea of a priceless necklace did appeal—but only because Gianferro would choose it. For her and only her. As if it meant something—really meant something—instead of just being a symbol of possession. An expensive bauble for his wife. A material reward for her devotion to duty as his Queen because he was unable to give her what she really craved—for him to love her. Properly. The way that she loved him.

And she did.

How could she fail to love the man who had awoken the woman in her in every way that counted and set her free? She had been living in a two-dimensional world before Gianferro had stormed in with such vibrant and pulsating life.

He had taken her and transformed her—moulded her into his Queen and his wife. At least externally he had. Inside she was aware of her own vulnerability—of a great, aching realisation that he would never return the love she felt for him.

Sometimes she looked at him in bed at night, when he was sleeping, and could scarcely believe that he was hers. Well, in so much as someone like Gianferro could be anyone’s.

He was everything a man should and could be—strong and proud and intelligent, with a sensuality which seemed to shimmer off him. The leader of the pack—and weren’t all women programmed to desire the undisputed leader? Especially as he treated her like…well, like a princess, she supposed. Except that she wasn’t. Not any more. She was now the Queen.

The Coronation had been terrifying—the glittering crown which had been placed on her head at the solemn moment had seemed almost as heavy as she was. But at least she had been expecting it—had been warned about the weight of it—and Alesso had suggested she practise walking around the apartments with it on her head.

‘It takes a little getting used to—the wearing of a crown, Your Serene Majesty.’

It had seemed more than a little bizarre to be wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a priceless heirloom on her head! Millie’s eyes had widened. ‘It weighs a ton!’ she’d exclaimed, as she had lowered it onto her blonde hair.

‘Do not tilt your head so. Yes, that is better. Now, practise sitting down on the throne, Your Majesty,’ he had instructed, and Millie had falteringly obeyed, feeling like one of those women who had to carry their crops home on top of their heads!

At least she hadn’t let anyone down on the big day—herself included. The newspapers had praised the ‘refreshing innocence’ of the new young Queen, and Millie had stared unblinkingly at the photographs.

Was that really her?

To Millie herself she seemed to resemble a startled young deer which had just heard a gunshot deep in the forest. Her eyes looked huge and her mouth unsmiling. But then she had been coached in that, too. It was a solemn occasion—heralded by the death of the old King—not a laughing matter.

Afterwards, of course, there had been celebrations in the Palace, and Millie had overheard Lulu exclaiming, ‘I can’t believe I’m sister to a queen!’ and had seen Gianferro’s brief and disapproving frown.

At least that had dissolved away the last of her residual doubts about Lulu. She could see now that her sister would not have made a good consort to Gianferro—she was far too independent.

And me? What about me? Millie had caught a reflection of herself in one of the silvered mirrors which lined the Throne Room. I am directionless and without a past, and therefore I am the perfect wife for him. The image thrown back at her was a sylph-like figure clad in pure and flowing white satin. In a way, she looked more of a bride on her Coronation day than when she had married—but she had learnt more than one lesson since then, and had toned down her make-up to barely anything.

Yes, her husband revered and respected her, and made love to her, but he was not given to words of love. Not once had he said I love you—not in any language. And Millie was beginning to suspect that was because he simply did not have the capacity for the fairytale kind of love that every woman secretly dreamed of. How could he?

He had been rigidly schooled for the isolating rigours of kingship, and his mother had been torn away from him at such a crucial stage in his development. A mother might have softened the steeliness which lay at the very core of his character—shown him that to love was not a sign of weakness.

Millie had tried from time to time to talk to him on a more intimate level, but she had seen his eyes narrow before he smoothly changed the subject. Don’t even go there, his body language seemed to say. And so she didn’t. Because what choice did she have?

Only in bed, when his appetite was sated—in that brief period of floating in sensation alone before reality snapped back in—did he ever let his guard down, and then it was only fractionally. Then he would touch his lips to her hair almost indulgently, and this would lull her into a sense of expectation which would invariably be smashed.

She wanted him to tell her about his day—to confide in her what his thoughts had been—just as if they were any normal newly-wed couple, but it was like drawing blood from a stone. They weren’t a normal couple, nor ever would be. And he didn’t seem to even want to try to be.

Gianferro was looking at her now, as she hovered uncertainly in the door of his study. It was a gaze laced with affection, it had to be said, but also with slight impatience—for his time was precious and she must never forget that.

‘Yes, Millie?’

She laced her fingers together. ‘You remember on our honeymoon I said that I wanted to learn French?’

‘Yes. Yes.’ He nodded impatiently.

‘Well, I’ve changed my mind.’ She could see his small smile of satisfaction. ‘I think it should be Italian.’

‘Really?’ he questioned coolly.

‘Well, yes. Italian is your first language.’

‘I am fluent in four,’ he said, with a touch of arrogance.

‘It’s your language of choice.’ She looked at him. ‘In bed,’ she added boldly.

His eyes narrowed for just a second before his smile became dismissive. He loved her eagerness and her joy in sex—but did she really imagine that she could come in here at will and tempt him away from affairs of state? Very deliberately he put his pen down in a gesture of closing the subject. ‘Very well. I shall speak to Alesso about selecting you a tutor.’

But something in the cold finality of his eyes made Millie rebel. She tried to imagine herself in one of the luxurious rooms of the Palace, with the finest tutor that money and privilege could provide, and realised it was just going to be more of the same. Isolation. ‘But, if you recall, I said that I would like to learn in a class with other people.’

‘And I think that, if you recall, I hinted that such a scenario would be inappropriate.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What is wrong with taking your lessons here, cara?’

Take courage, Millie—he’ll never know unless you tell him. ‘Sometimes I feel a little…lonely, here at the Palace.’ She saw his frown deepen and she hastily amended her words, not wanting him to think that she was spoilt or ungrateful. ‘Oh, I know that you’re busy—of course you are—but…’ Her words tapered off, because she wasn’t quite sure where she was going with them.

‘You are still not with child?’

Millie stared at him and the nagging little feeling of guilt she had been doing her best to quash reared its mocking head. Perhaps a baby was the answer. Maybe she should throw her Pills away and no one would ever be the wiser. ‘N-no.’

‘You wish to consult the Palace obstetrician?’

There was something so chillingly matter-of-fact about his question that hot on the heels of her wavering came rebellion, and Millie bristled. As if a baby would solve everything! As if she was little more than a brood mare! ‘I think it’s early days yet, don’t you?’ she questioned, trying to keep her voice reasonable. ‘We’ve only been married for six months.’

He quelled the oddly painful feeling of disappointment. She was right—it was early days indeed. Here was one thing he could not command. An heir would be his just as soon as nature—and fate—decreed it.

‘Yes, that is so,’ he agreed, and gave her a soft smile. ‘What about your horses?’ he questioned, for he had acquired for her two of the finest Andalusian mares that money could buy. ‘Surely they provide adequate amusement for you?’

Millie bristled even more. ‘It may have escaped your notice, but horses do not speak.’

‘Yet the grooms tell me that you communicate with them almost as if they could speak.’ His voice dipped with pride. ‘That your enthusiasm for all things equine equals the energy you put in to your charity work.’