The Future King's Bride Page 3

  ‘Gianferro, and I…we are to be married.’

  ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  Millie shook her head. The right thing to say now would be, I wish I was, but that wouldn’t have been true. And she had decided that she could not shirk the truth. Lulu was going to be hurt—through no fault of her own—and it was Millie’s duty to stand there and take the flak. ‘No. I’m not joking.’

  For a second Lulu’s mouth twisted, and then she said, in the same voice she used to use when she told Millie that men didn’t like girls who smelt faintly of manure, ‘Millie—you may have decided to develop a crush on that cold-hearted bastard, but it really isn’t a good idea to start living in fantasy land. If you come out with bizarre statements like that then people are bound to get to hear. And people will laugh.’

  ‘She means it, Lulu,’ said a voice at the door, and both sisters turned round to see their mother standing there.

  ‘You knew?’ questioned Millie in bewilderment.

  ‘Gianferro rang me this morning,’ said her mother. ‘Supposedly to ask my permission for your hand, since your father is no longer with us—though I got the distinct impression that my agreement was academic. That he intends to marry you whether I sanction it or not, and that he is not the type of man who will take no for an answer.’

  Lulu was looking from one to the other, like a spectator at a tennis match, a look of puzzlement on her face. ‘But she doesn’t even know him!’

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘How can she be marrying him?’ continued Lulu, in disbelief. ‘If she hasn’t seen him since that day he ruined our lunch party and broke my heart into the bargain?’

  ‘He didn’t break your heart, darling,’ said her mother gently. ‘You’ve been back with Ned Vaughn ever since!’

  But Lulu wasn’t listening. ‘Are you going to give us some kind of explanation, Millie? You’ve only met him once!’

  The Countess’s eyes were shrewd. ‘I think you’ll find she’s met him a great deal more than once—haven’t you, Millie?’

  Millie nodded, biting her lip, summoning up more courage than she had ever needed in her life.

  ‘When?’ snapped Lulu. ‘And where?’

  ‘At Chichester. And Cirencester. Once in Heathcote.’

  Lulu’s eyes narrowed. ‘At horse fairs?’

  ‘That’s right. Well, where the horse fairs were being held. We didn’t actually go to any.’

  There was silence for a moment, and then Millie drew a deep breath as she met the question in her sister’s eyes. Just tell it. Tell it the way it is—because that way you might be able to believe it yourself.

  ‘He wanted to see me again and thought we should meet up at places that I actually had a legitimate reason to visit—that it would be the best way to avoid suspicion.’

  ‘Why, you sneaky little cow!’

  ‘Lulu!’ said their mother warningly.

  ‘No,’ said Millie. ‘She has every right to say it. And more.’ Her voice was even lower than usual. ‘I’m truly sorry, Lulu—I really am. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and neither did he. It just did.’

  Lulu gave a high, forced laugh. ‘You little fool!’ she spat. ‘Don’t you know he’s just been spinning you a line to get you into bed? Your first lover! Don’t you realise that for a man who has everything—and has had everything—a woman’s virginity is something you can’t put a price on?’

  ‘We haven’t…’ Millie’s words tailed off as she registered the incredulous look on Lulu’s face. ‘Nothing has happened between us, and nothing will—at least not until after the wedding. That’s the way Gianferro wants it.’

  “‘That’s the way Gianferro wants it!”’ mimicked Lulu furiously.

  ‘I wanted you to be the first to know, Lulu—’

  ‘Well, thanks! Thanks for nothing!’ Lulu’s eyes narrowed again, and this time her rage reminded Millie of the time when she had been turned down for the starring role in the school pantomime. ‘You must have told him!’

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘That I’d been…’ Her breathing quickened. ‘Did you blab about me and Ned? Did you tell him that we’d been lovers?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’ Millie cried, appalled.

  ‘There’s no “of course” about it! You were obviously determined to get your hooks into him, and it seems you’ve succeeded! Or are you really expecting me to believe that he came here with me in mind and changed his mind when he saw you?’

  ‘I don’t know how or why it happened,’ said Millie miserably. ‘It just did.’

  ‘Well, may I offer you my congratulations, darling?’ came a gentle voice, and Millie jerked her head up, looking at her mother with tear-filled eyes. ‘We must be glad for your sister, Lulu,’ she added firmly.

  ‘You just want one of your daughters to marry into Royalty!’ said Lulu crossly. ‘You don’t care which one!’

  ‘Nonsense! You’ll be perfectly happy as a wealthy landowner’s wife, ordering Ned here, there and everywhere—you know you will. Gianferro would never have suited you, my darling—you’re much too independent of spirit.’

  Lulu looked slightly mollified, but she wasn’t finished with her sister yet. ‘And do you really think—with your zero experience of men—that you can handle a man like Gianferro?’

  Millie stared at her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘All I know is that I’ve got to try.’

  The Countess pushed her gently down onto a chair. ‘Won’t you tell us how it happened, darling?’

  Millie knew that she owed her family some kind of explanation—but where to begin? And how much would Gianferro be happy for her to reveal?

  Already she was aware of the great gulf between her and the rest of the world—one which was widening by the second. She was to be the future King’s bride, and with that came responsibility—and distance. Gianferro was not a man like other men—she could not gossip about what he’d said to her. There could be no blushing disclosures of how he had asked her to marry him. But there again, thought Millie, with a touch of regret, it was not the kind of proposal which would go down in history as one of the most romantic. No, for Gianferro it was a purely practical arrangement. She understood that was the way it had to be.

  There had been a series of meetings—carefully arranged and discreetly choreographed. Silent, purring cars had been dispatched to collect her from train stations, whisking her away to various houses—safe houses, she believed they were called—where Gianferro would be waiting for her. The armed guards and the protection officers had been kept very much in the background—like crumbs swept away before the guests arrived.

  Their hosts had often been strangers to her, but she had known one of the couples fairly well. She remembered the hostess looking her up and down, unable to hide her expression of faint surprise. Yet Millie knew that those meetings would not be spoken of. Not even to her mother—not to anyone—because Gianferro would have demanded total confidentiality and because the stakes were too high. What stakes? she asked herself, but it was a question she did not dare answer, just in case she was hopelessly off the mark.

  There had been small lunch parties, when she’d been gently quizzed on her attitude to politics and art—what she thought of the women’s movement. Her responses had come over as quite lukewarm—even to her own ears—and it had made Millie realise how insular her life was, how little she really thought about—other than her horses.

  I am being tested, she’d thought suddenly. But for what?

  Yet she had known, deep down, just what was expected of her—and exactly how to behave—for in a way hadn’t she been brought up to do exactly this?

  One day she’d been chattering her way through a tour of some magnificent gardens—properly showing interest in all the trees and shrubs. She’d seen their host nodding, and Gianferro’s look of satisfaction as she recognised the bud of a rare Persian rose. She’d felt as if she was jumping through hoops.

  Afterwards
, it should have been a treat to be shown the magnificent Andalusian horses which were stabled there, but for the first time in her life she had found she wanted to be elsewhere, not here—no matter how magnificent the breed. Alone with the tall, brooding man who was still such a stranger to her. The man who had occupied every second of her waking hours—and the dreaming ones, too—ever since he had blazed into her life with all the force of some dark and dazzling meteor. She had shot him a glance, but his intention had been focused firmly on the horses.

  His manner was so formal towards her—there had been no repeat of that wild intimacy which had taken place in the stables that rainy afternoon. She found herself aching for him to take her into his arms again, but the longer it became, the more impossible seemed the very idea that the whole thing had ever happened. As if she had merely imagined it. Her increased exposure to him had only served to emphasise how gorgeous he was—yet he seemed more remote, and Millie’s confusion grew at the same rate as her longing for him.

  She had smoothed her hand over the gleaming roan flesh of a horse. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ she questioned tentatively.

  ‘Not bad,’ he murmured.

  ‘Not bad?’ laughed their host. ‘This is the horse of Kings—and this particular mare will breed you future champions! She is yours, Gianferro!’

  ‘You are too generous!’ he protested.

  ‘Yours,’ emphasised the host softly.

  ‘Thank you.’ Gianferro inclined his head, acknowledging the honour, but knowing that no gift came without expectation. It had happened all his life, but now it was with increasing regularity, as the time for his accession to the throne grew ever closer. These gifts were the blocks which people used to build relationships with a future monarch, just as they were willing to make their houses over to his requirements. They wanted to feel that they were close to him, but he knew that no one could ever really be close to him. Not even his wife. For to be a king was essentially to be alone.

  He glanced over at Millie and saw their host gave a small smile as he correctly interpreted Gianferro’s wishes. ‘Perhaps you would both care to see the library? Before lunch is served.’

  To Millie’s relief they were left alone—completely alone—and, frustrated with this no-man’s land in which she found herself, she ran across the room into his arms, unable to stop herself.

  She heard his breath quicken as he bent his head to kiss her, yet she sensed his restraint as she pressed her body closer to his. But she didn’t care. Her senses had been awoken and she was greedy for his touch. For a moment she felt as though she had hit a button straight to paradise, as his mouth moved with such sweet intimacy over hers, but when she gave a little moan of delight he disentangled her—rather like someone restraining a sweet but rather over-eager puppy.

  She turned bewildered blue eyes up to him. ‘You don’t want me any more?’

  Gianferro frowned and quelled the desire deep inside him. How sweetly passionate she was! He was unused to such unfeigned enthusiasm, but he recognised that it was a double-edged sword. He must remember that there was a downside to her innocence, and he was going to have to teach her to school and to temper her desire. She must learn that he would always be the initiator of intimacy—unless in the privacy of the bedroom.

  ‘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—’