The Royal Wedding Collection

She stood up and tugged down her dress, giving him a cool smile.

‘You’re right,’ she murmured. ‘I’d better dash.’

But he did not like her brittle either. He watched her walk towards the door, knowing that he must make compromises if this was to work, and yet compromise did not come easily to him. ‘Millie?’

Composing her face, she turned back to him. ‘Yes, Gianferro?’

‘I meant what I said—about time for the two of us. Let’s put dinner in the diary and let’s make it a regular date. I’ll speak to my secretary and he will speak to yours.’

To anyone else it would have sounded mad, but to Millie it was a small victory won. Time with her husband. Just him. And her. ‘How crazy that sounds.’ She giggled.

He nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Have…have a good day, darling.’

But Gianferro barely heard her. He had made his small concession and now his dark head was bent. Already he was preoccupied. He didn’t even look up as she opened the door—but then she doubted that he had even heard her leave.

CHAPTER TEN

THE small change to their schedule seemed to have a knock-on effect within the relationship itself—though at first Millie was still insecure enough to put that down to wishful thinking.

But time changed her mind for her. Their allotted time together was precious—she’d spend the whole day looking forward to it, and she suspected that Gianferro did, too. There seemed something decadent about dismissing all the servants, and the sight of the King strolling into their apartment and unbuttoning his shirt with a wicked smile seemed like the fulfilment of her wildest fantasy!

For other couples it would doubtless be a huge treat to dine off golden plates and drink rare vintage wine.

For her and Gianferro the opposite was true—it was simple food eaten with their fingers, while lolling around on the silken cushions which they dragged out onto the starlit terrace.

‘Oh, I just love this,’ said Millie dreamily one night. Her head was on her husband’s bare chest and they were lying naked on the floor, washed in the moonlight which flooded into the room. In the distance she could see the dark glitter of the sea. ‘Just love it!’ she emphasised as his hand moved to her breast.

Gianferro traced over her puckered nipple with the tip of his finger. ‘I know you do. You make that abundantly clear, cara.’

‘You’re supposed to say, So do I!’

‘Ah, but you know that to be true.’

‘Then say it!’

He gave a mock frown. ‘But if I say things you already know, then surely that would waste time. And since you tell me that we never have enough of it—then why would I want to do that?’

‘Because…oh, Gianferro!’ she gasped. ‘Wh-what are you doing now?’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’ he purred, as he touched the tip of his tongue against her skin. Her head fell back.

The moon was very bright by the time he had rolled off her, and the stars were looped in the sky like Christmas tree lights. If only you could capture a moment and put it in a bottle—then this was the one she would choose. When they were alone and at peace.

When for a few brief hours their world and all its privilege retreated. It was as close to normality as they were ever likely to come.

Millie had come to realise something else…That maybe she had been wrong about not wanting a baby.

Maybe that was what happened automatically with women—the stronger your feelings for your partner grew, so too did the urge to have his child. She no longer saw it as a trap—in fact, if she was hands-on with their baby, as she intended to be, then wouldn’t that be an even more normalising experience for the two of them to share?

She knew that Gianferro had told her Royal children should be brought up in a certain way, but his mind might now be open to change—just as it was over these evenings together. His life was rigidly defined, and Millie had come to recognise that change could only be achieved gradually and subtly—ultimately this stalling device on her part would benefit them both as a couple.

She touched her fingertips to his olive cheek, suddenly seeing all kinds of possibilities being opened up by her having a baby. Perhaps the fleetingly soft side she occasionally saw of her husband might be liberated by the birth of his own flesh and blood. She could but hope…

He whispered his lips across her hair, lazily touching her breast. ‘I wonder if you’re pregnant now,’ he mused, and his voice deepened with longing. ‘I wonder if what we have just done is the beginning of it all?’

In a way, this was nothing more than a variation on what he had said to her on their honeymoon, but the words no longer scared her. The way he said them had profoundly changed. It no longer sounded like an arrogant exercise in acquisition, but a heartfelt longing to have a child together. And his attitude had changed her attitude—of course it had.

But how did she go about telling him that she had come round to his way of thinking? That she had just needed time and space to come to terms with her new life?

‘Hmm?’ he whispered sleepily. Was it wrong to let a woman closer than he had ever done in the past? When his defences were down—did that make a man weak? ‘What do you think, cara mia?’

‘I wish I was pregnant,’ she whispered back, and that was the truth. But the pain of what she had done—or failed to do—tore at her—tore at her like a ragged knife.

He no longer mentioned consulting a doctor, and she sensed that the urgency had left him. Maybe that was a direct result of their growing closeness. But what was she going to do about it?

Leaving Gianferro dozing, Millie rose to her feet and walked through the sumptuous rooms to the bathroom, but she didn’t bother putting the main light on.

There were mirrors everywhere, and the light was surreal and silvered. Her dim reflection looked troubled. And she was troubled.

If she told him that she wanted to get pregnant now, that would mean telling him about the Pill…

The Millie of now was a different person from the innocent bride who had been daunted by her new position. It was so easy to recognise that she should have discussed contraception with her husband—but back then they had not been in a place to discuss anything. Gianferro had been so dogmatic and dominant and all-powerful, and she had had to fight for her part in his world.

Now she had made her own space there—true, it wasn’t a very big one, but at least she had a foothold, and surely it could only get better.

She unzipped her make-up bag and looked down at the foil strip with some of the little circles punched out, which lay underneath a clutch of lipsticks. She knew that she ought to tell him. But something stopped her—and it was not just the fact that she now felt ashamed of what she had done. Wouldn’t Gianferro feel a tremendous sense of hurt that she had excluded him from such a big decision—and wouldn’t that have a detrimental effect on their growing relationship?

If only she had had the courage at the time—to stand up for what she believed in. But she had been barely twenty—thrown into a strange new world and struggling to find her own feet.

She stared at herself in the mirror, aware that her face looked older and more serious. As far as she could see she had two choices. Either she went in there and told him everything, or she simply stopped taking it. Gianferro would never know and would never need to feel hurt that she hadn’t told him—and she might become pregnant straight away.

But something about doing that troubled her. Her deepening relationship with her husband would be much healthier if she was upfront and honest. If she told him and he was furious with her—well, he would be furious, and she would deserve it, but he would get over it.

The sense of knowing that this was somehow the right thing was enough to make her act decisively, and her fingers curled round the packet of Pills.

A movement distracted her, and she glanced up into the mirror, her heart leaping with something very close to fear when she saw Gianferro reflected there. He was standing in the doorway, as still and as watchful as a dark and brooding statue.

Now her heart began to race. ‘Gianferro!’ she cried. ‘You startled me!’

‘So I see.’ He reached up and snapped on the light-switch. The room was flooded with bright fluorescent light, like a stage-set. ‘What are you doing, Millie?’

But his voice didn’t sound like his voice, and his question was spoken like an actor saying a line. Asking it because he knew it must be said, but knowing the answer because he had already read the script.

‘I was just…just getting something out of my make-up bag.’

‘And what something is that?’

With a cold feeling of dread Millie realised that he knew. Her mouth felt so dry that it felt as if it was cracking inside. ‘My P-pills,’ she stumbled. She looked into his eyes and almost recoiled from the stony look she saw there. ‘You saw?’

‘Of course I saw,’ he said icily.

‘I know what it must look like,’ she said quickly, ‘but I was going to stop taking them. Tonight. I was just going to bring them into the sitting room to show you before I threw them away!’

‘What an extraordinary coincidence!’ he drawled sarcastically.

‘I know what it must sound like, but it’s true.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said coldly.

She saw the light go out in his eyes, and something inside her began to scream with pain. And panic. ‘It is. Honestly—’

‘Honestly?’ His mouth hardened into a look of utter disdain. ‘How dare you use that word?’ he raged. ‘How dare you use it to me?’

‘Gianferro—I realise how it must seem—’

‘Oh, please, Millie.’ The breath he sucked in felt as though it had been fired into his lungs by a flamethrower. He had not known that it was possible to feel such a hot sense of injustice. ‘I have had my suspicions—so please don’t heap insult onto injury by attempting some kind of false apology.’

She stared at him. ‘Your…suspicions?’ she breathed. ‘You mean you suspected?’

His eyes were like black ice. ‘Of course I suspected—what kind of fool do you take me for?’ he snapped. The kind of fool who had not wanted to frighten or to hurt her with his nebulous fears—when all the time it seemed he had been right to harbour them. Now he wanted to lash out. He wanted to hurt her back, as she had hurt him—and to salvage something of his pride, too, to show her that he was not a fool, and that she had badly underestimated him.

Oh, so very badly…

But he had let her, hadn’t he? When questions had drifted into his mind he had chosen to ignore them…because he’d wanted to believe that his young wife was pure and sweet and true. Because the alternative had been unthinkable.

He had blithely ignored all the dangers of letting a woman get close and he had misjudged her. Just because a woman was a virgin that didn’t mean that she couldn’t also be a liar and a cheat. He had forgiven her for the understandable lapse with the Italian teacher, and yet all the time there had been this far greater sin of deception waiting in the wings.

‘In some corner of my mind I have suspected for some time,’ he said furiously, but part of his rage was directed at himself. For letting her innocence blind him to what was crashingly obvious. Well, more fool you, he told himself bitterly.

Millie’s heart was breaking as she saw the look of contempt on his face—but worse than that was the fact that she had been deluding herself. She had thought that their relationship was deepening, that they were growing closer all the time. She had allowed herself to bask in the confidence that what they had between them would soon be strong enough to provide a secure base for a baby. But it seemed she had been wrong. How wrong?

She screwed up her eyes. ‘But…but how? How on earth could you know?’

‘Oh, come on, Millie! A woman who shares her husband’s desire to have a baby usually exhibits some kind of disappointment each month when it does not happen. But not you.’ His eyes gleamed coldly as the stealthy poison of betrayal began to seep in. ‘Oh, no. You used to answer my questions with the air of someone who had always known what the answer would be…because of course you damned well did! You had already made certain what the answer would be.’

Her lips trembled. ‘Won’t you please let me explain?’

‘What’s to explain? That you deceived me?’ he bit out, and he saw her flinch but didn’t care. He didn’t care. For the first time in his life he had been guilty of brushing a suspicion aside because he hadn’t wanted to believe it. And the fact that his judgement had failed him wounded his ego and his pride as much as anything else. ‘Because, no matter how much you try to dress it up, that is the truth of it,’ he bit out.

But her words rushed out anyway, tumbling over themselves in an effort to explain. To try and get him to understand—even though deep down she feared that it was too late for understanding. Oh, why had she done it—and then, having done it, left it so long? Because that was what happened sometimes. You were troubled by a nagging fear and it just seemed easier to brush it aside. Well, she was about to pay for it.

With her marriage?

‘I just felt that we were rushing into parenthood. That it was too soon to have a child between us when we didn’t really know each other as people. Gianferro—you wondered out loud on our honeymoon whether you had made me pregnant!’

‘And how you must have laughed,’ he said softly. ‘Because presumably you were already on the Pill.’

‘Yes! But I didn’t laugh—of course I didn’t. I was scared. And mixed-up, if you must know—because I had been to see my doctor and he had prescribed me the Pill as a matter of course. I understood that was what all brides-to-be did.’

‘You didn’t think of discussing it with me first?’ he demanded.

‘How could I—when the subject was so clearly off-limits? You married me because I fulfilled certain criteria, and the main one was my innocence! So you can hardly expect me to have brought up the subject of birth control with you before the wedding, can you? Even if I’d wanted to—or dared to—we were scarcely alone for a second!’

‘How about afterwards, Millie? Huh? Once we had been…intimate? Couldn’t you have told me then?’

She knew that it would muddy the waters still further to tell him that intimacy had been a long time in coming for her that only recently had she really felt they had finally reached it.

‘You frightened me with your autocratic assurance that we should have a child straight away,’ she admitted. ‘I felt as though I would shrink for ever into the shadows if I did.’

‘Oh, what is the point in all this?’ he bit out impatiently. ‘We could go round and round in circles for ever, and in the meantime I could use my time more usefully.’

‘More usefully?’ she echoed in disbelief.

He wanted to hurt her as badly as she had hurt him, and he lashed out now as only he could. Nothing so coarse as personal insults, but words dipped in the icy and distancing substance of Court protocol. ‘If you will excuse me, Millie—I have matters which require my attention.’

‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ she questioned slowly.

He gave her a look of imperial disdain and Millie almost shrank. ‘Are you trying to suggest that I’m missing the point?’ He raised his dark brows. ‘Perhaps it was less a fear of pregnancy itself which was the problem—but concern about the identity of the father.’

‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘It is possible that your tutor’s insinuations about the extent of your relationship were based on truth rather than fantasy.’

‘Now you’re just being ridiculous!’

‘You think so?’ He shook his head and raised his eyebrows in autocratic query. ‘Everything suddenly looks very different when you discover that your partner has been living a lie. Tell me, Millie—did you imagine me to be such a tyrant that I would insist on you carrying a baby if the idea was so abhorrent to you?’

‘N-no—but I didn’t think you’d understand my fears.’

‘Just your long-term deceit?’ He shook his head as he opened the door. ‘In that case, my dear—you have been a fool.’

Her head and her thoughts were spinning. Nothing seemed coherent or real any more, and the look of contempt in his black eyes told her that even if she did manage to explain how she had felt at the time he probably wouldn’t believe her. He didn’t want to believe her.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked him miserably.

‘Out.’

‘And when are you coming back?’

‘I have no idea,’ he snapped. ‘And even if I did—it is none of your business.’

‘Gianferro—please don’t do this—please don’t shut me out.’

His dark eyes were incredulous as they looked at her. ‘How do you…you…have the nerve to say that to me, Millie?’

It was like when you dropped a leaf into a fast-flowing river as a child, and the current carried it far, far away, and you didn’t know where—that was what was happening to them now. Her actions had prompted it, and he didn’t want to fight it.

She wanted to ask him—was a person not allowed to make one mistake? But that might sound like begging, and in her heart she knew that he would despise that, too. If he wasn’t going to forgive her, then she couldn’t force him—but maybe if she put some space between them it might help him to try. Give him a chance for him to see how he really felt. And a chance for her, too, to come to terms with the fact that he might not want her any more.

‘You once suggested that I might like to take a trip back to England?’ she said slowly.

‘Homesick, are you, Millie?’ he scorned softly.

His attitude swung it. She was already isolated by her position and her age—but before she had always had the support of her husband. If he now withdrew it, she would be left with nothing.

Nothing.

‘A little,’ she agreed, wanting to save face and not to finish with a blazing row which would leave a bitter memory. ‘Would that be possible?’

Her gaze was very steady as she looked at him. Was half of her praying that he would change his mind? Try to talk her out of it or come with her?

He stared at her. Outwardly she looked just as beautiful as when he had first met her—with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, and her skin which was as soft as silk-satin. But she had changed—he saw that now, as if for the first time.

She wore the air of a sexually confident woman, and he had liberated that in her. He had made her into his perfect lover, and supposedly his perfect wife as well—only now he had discovered that it had all been an elaborate sham. The girl of such simple tastes had gone for ever and he had been instrumental in making her that way. She had grown up.

And even if he could bring himself to forgive her—didn’t her actions speak about more than simply the fear of having children? In a way, hadn’t part of her been rejecting Royal life—because she had been in no position to reject it before, not until she had actually been exposed to it? And was that not her prerogative? Far better she did it when there was no child to complicate things even further?

But he was unprepared for the dark torrent of pain which swept over him. He was relieved when it passed and was replaced by the emptiness he was so familiar with. In a way he felt comfortable with that. He knew where he was with that feeling, for it had been with him all his life.

He stared at her as if he was looking at her for the first time. Or maybe the last. ‘I will speak to Alesso about arranging a flight as soon as possible,’ he said.

The anger had left his voice and been replaced with a kind of bleakness, and in a way that was much, much worse.

The last thing Millie saw before the door closed behind him were his shoulders, which had unconsciously girded themselves to face the prying eyes of the world outside, and she was left staring after him through a blur of tears, utterly heartbroken at what she had done to him.