The Royal Wedding Collection

CHAPTER SIX

FOR a moment, Millie froze—her body as motionless as a stone—yet her mind raced with a speed which was frightening.

She played for time. ‘Wh-what did you say?’

He smiled, but his voice was edged with a kind of territorial anticipation. ‘I was thinking aloud, cara,’ he murmured. ‘Wondering whether even now my child begins to grow within your belly.’

She forced herself not to be swayed by the—again—poetic delivery of his words, but to concentrate instead on the implication which lay behind them.

She gave a strained smile. ‘You…you wouldn’t want me to be pregnant right now, would you?’

‘But of course!’ His eyes narrowed and he frowned.

‘Marriage is for the procreation of children. That is its primary function, in fact.’ He gave a glimmer of a smile which only partly defused the sudden sense of terror she felt. ‘Particularly in my case, cara

Millie.’

My case, she noted. Not our. But she must keep calm. She must. Obviously they weren’t going to see eye to eye on every topic, not straight away. Marriage was also about compromise, she reminded herself. And negotiation.

‘I was sort of…hoping that we might have some time together first…getting to know one another,’ she ventured. ‘Before children come along.’

He pulled her against him, loving the way that the silk of her hair clothed her chest like a mantle, beginning to stroke it almost absently. ‘Perhaps we will,’ he mused. ‘But the decision is not ours to take.’

Millie opened her eyes very wide. ‘It isn’t?’

‘Of course not! The conception of our child is outside our control! It lies in the domain of a power far greater than ourselves.’

This was the moment to tell him. The moment to announce the fact that her doctor had prescribed her six months worth of the contraceptive Pill to be going along with.

But something stopped her, and Millie wasn’t quite sure what it was.

Fear that he seemed to have everything so mapped out? Or fear that she had taken a step which instinctively she knew he would disapprove of?

If she told him, she could imagine him—perhaps after again expressing his displeasure—tossing the Pills away in a macho kind of way before making love to her again. And then what would happen? Well, you wouldn’t need to be a biologist to work that one out. She might fall pregnant. Immediately.

Millie tried to imagine what that would be like—and the thought of it filled her with horror. Everything else was so startlingly new—Mardivino, being married, getting used to being a princess. How on earth could she cope if she threw motherhood into the equation?

Perhaps she could slowly work round to it…make him see things from her point of view. That there was nothing wrong with waiting for a while…that was what most couples did.

Idly, she trickled her finger around one of the whorls of dark hair on his chest and saw him give a nod of satisfaction. ‘It would be nice to have a little time on our own first,’ she observed drowsily. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

She must learn lessons other than those of the bedroom, thought Gianferro. Did she think that they were to become one of those couples who shared everything, as was the modern trend? Who were together from dawn to dusk? He repressed a slight shudder. Even if his position had not ruled that out, it was an option he would have run a million miles from anyway. ‘That is what honeymoons are for, cara,’ he said lightly.

‘But we’re only on honeymoon for a fortnight!’ Millie protested.

He wondered if she had any idea of just how privileged she was to have a whole two weeks of his uninterrupted company. Of the planning that had gone into absenting himself from his duties as Crown Prince. Perhaps she should learn that, too.

‘My life is a very busy one, Millie.’

‘And I want to share it with you!’

Again, he bit back the urge to tell her that what she wanted was a foolish desire which would never come true. Nor ever could. To soften the blow—this would be a lesson for him, too. He was used to dictating his terms, to doing exactly as he pleased and having people fall in and accede totally to his wishes. But he recognised that to make this marriage a comfortable one he must learn to use tact and diplomacy.

‘But you will be sharing it,’ he said firmly. ‘As my wife and as the mother of my children.’

For a moment she was scared again. It was as if she had taken a leap back by half a century. If not yet barefoot then certainly pregnant as soon as possible—if Gianferro had his way.

‘Just that?’ she questioned quietly.

‘Of course not,’ he answered silkily. ‘There will be so much more to your life than that, Millie.’

She couldn’t quite stop the shaky breath of relief. ‘There will?’

‘Naturally. You will not be tied by children—because, just as in your own childhood, there will be plenty of staff to look after them.’

But Millie’s heart did not leap for joy at the thought of handing the care of her children to other people. Quite the contrary when she remembered her own experience, and especially the brief period when she had gone to the local school before being sent off to boarding school. It was there that she had realised for the first time that her life was different from other people’s.

How vividly she remembered the empty ache inside when her classmates had been met by their mothers at the school gates instead of an uncaring au pair or stony-faced nanny. And even more poignant had been the stories they used to relate—of mothers who bathed them and made cakes for them, and fathers who played with them, taught them how to swim and climb a tree. She had only ever seen her parents at bedtime, when she was all washed and in her pyjamas to say goodnight—and sometimes not even then. Did she really want that for her own children? And times had changed…even for Royal families. Wouldn’t Gianferro long to have a closeness with his offspring which had never been there for him?

‘It might be nice to be a little bit hands-on with them,’ she suggested lightly.

Gianferro kissed the tip of her nose. ‘That will not, I think, be either possible or desirable. Our children will be brought up the way of all Royal children. And besides, you will not have time.’ His dark eyes crinkled. ‘There will be many charitable institutions which will require your patronage. Do not worry, sweet Millie—there will be plenty to keep you busy.’

It was a horrible phrase. Keep you busy. It implied that she would be filling in time, instead of embracing it fully, and it was worrying, for it was not how she imagined her future to be.

‘I see,’ she said slowly.

Gianferro could hear her faint note of disapproval and he frowned. How demanding women could be! She might be young and unspoiled but, like all women, she required symbols of her position in his life. Not diamonds, in her case, but…

‘And we must not forget your horse, of course,’ he said softly, with the air of a man who had pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

Millie blinked. ‘My horse?’

The corners of his mouth edged upwards into a small smile of satisfaction which accompanied the sudden anticipatory gleam of pleasure in his black eyes. ‘I told you that you would have the finest mount money can buy, and so you shall, Millie. I had intended to keep it as a surprise, but since you are obviously dissatisfied—’

‘But I’m not—’

He cut through her protest as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Then I see no reason to keep you in suspense. During the second week of our honeymoon I intend to take you to my stables on the western side of the island—which are world-class, incidentally.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of them,’ said Millie, in a small voice.

‘And there you shall choose a horse to bring back to the Rainbow Palace with you.’ He watched her carefully, for her reaction was not the one he had been expecting. He knew how much she loved horses—so why was she not flinging her arms about his neck and thanking him? Did she not realise the honour he was according her? Why, there were top breeders who would give up everything they possessed to own one of the horses he was offering her! ‘You are not pleased with the idea, Millie?’

She heard the coolness in his voice and attempted to redress the balance. She couldn’t expect him to understand her doubts and her fears, and to express them would sound like whining defeatism. If you took the Royal part out of their situation, it helped put things in perspective. Because when it boiled down to it they were just two adults starting out on married life together—and communication was vital if the journey was to be a rich and fulfilling one. ‘No, I am pleased—I’m delighted, if you want the truth, Gianferro!’

She was going to have to tell him about the Pill. He wasn’t a Neanderthal—he was a sophisticated man of the world. And, yes, he might have a perfectly understandable desire to give Mardivino an heir—but surely he was also reasonable enough to be prepared to wait…even for a few months?

‘Gianferro—’

‘I know.’ He anticipated her next words. ‘You are worried about riding while with child, and I share your fears. I think that as soon as you become pregnant the riding will have to be curtailed until after the birth—no matter what the current thinking is! But abstinence only increases the hunger—and when you finally get back in the saddle it will be with an even greater excitement, that I can guarantee.’

He smiled, recalling his own self-imposed abstinence. The sacrifices he had made! He had not taken a lover for over a year—it had seemed morally wrong when he was actively seeking a bride. And of course once he had found one he had felt morally bound to continue, enduring the test on his sensual appetite as he waited until after the wedding. He stroked Millie’s breast and felt her shiver. The wait had been well worth it!

Millie lay there, listening to his words with a mounting feeling of disbelief and panic. He had it all worked out. No compromise, no negotiation at all. And it pained her to admit it, but she knew that it was true…there was no room for negotiation in Gianferro’s mind. He knew what he wanted and he intended to have it. And he expected her to be grateful for a couple of months of riding before she faded even more into the background of his life once he had made her pregnant!

But she was in the situation now, and it was pointless to try to rail against him on a subject which was clearly so important to him and on which he clearly would not budge. He wanted an heir and she was perfectly happy to give him one. Just not yet. What harm could it do if she waited a while? Lots of couples had to wait before a baby came. Why, they would get lots and lots of practice!

Millie felt her body respond as he continued to stroke her, the clamour of her senses smoothing down the sharp edges of panic in her mind. They would get close this way, she told herself. Closer and closer, until all the barriers fell.

She closed her eyes, and Gianferro felt a brief moment of triumph as he bent his head to kiss her. Had he not chosen her as much for her malleability as for her true innocence? She would learn that he would make the decisions—indeed was compelled to. That he knew best—for how could it be any other way, given the disparity in their individual experiences of the world?

Millie gasped as his mouth moved from lips to breast, his tongue flicking out to tease the hardening bud, and she clasped his dark head against her as pure pleasure shafted through her body.

He raised his head with a wicked smile which made her forget that he was a prince. Made her forget everything.

‘Do you like that, Millie?’ he murmured softly.

‘It’s…’ Millie swallowed, finding it overwhelming to cope with all these new feelings—both physical and emotional. Her response was forgotten as he moved his head down to her belly. And then beyond. ‘Gianferro!’ she gasped, as shock mingled with pure ecstasy.

He tasted her with pleasure, the squealing uninhibitedness of her response only adding to his own hunger, and as he felt her spasm and dissolve against his tongue he fleetingly thought how wonderful it was going to be. He would be the only man she would ever know—her skills would be honed for just him!

Afterwards, they lay silently for a while, and then Gianferro yawned. ‘We’d better think about getting ready for dinner,’ he murmured.

She snuggled against him. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Well, I am.’

‘Oh!’ She wriggled even closer to him, feeling as though she’d found paradise here in his arms and unwilling to relinquish it, even for a second. ‘Can’t we just have something in bed?’

Gently but firmly he disentangled her arms from where they lay, wrapped around his hips. ‘Unfortunately, no, cara. The chef will have gone to some trouble to prepare something special for our first night here, and we are obliged to eat it.’

Obliged. The word jumped out at her, reminding her of what Royal life was all about. Millie sighed. ‘Of course. How silly of me not to have thought of that.’

‘Indeed.’ He nodded with satisfaction. ‘And the sooner we eat it, the sooner the staff can be dismissed.’ His voice dipped into a provocative caress. ‘And the sooner we can come back to bed!’

The anticipation of that made her misgivings seem inconsequential. For a moment she felt like the old Millie—even if the memory of her was becoming more hazy by the second. Or at least she felt a bit more comfortable in the skin of the new Millie…though she was even more of a stranger. But the other Millie had been a girl, and now she was most definitely initiated into the ranks of womanhood. ‘But we’ve spent most of the afternoon in bed!’ she teased.

He relaxed as he saw her eyes shine. ‘I know,’ he agreed softly, and for one rare and blessed moment he felt completely at ease. He bent his mouth to her ear. ‘And I intend to spend many more afternoons in exactly the same place!’

As Millie dressed for dinner she deliberately squashed the thought that she was deceiving him. She was not. She was acting in their best interests, and for the future of their relationship. And hadn’t her mother told her that it was wise to always keep something back? That mystery added to a woman’s allure…

But dinner was another trial—and Millie was no stranger to lavish dinners. Opposite sat her brand-new husband—looking dark and unruffled and cool in an open-neck cream silk shirt which gave a glimpse of the tantalising arrowing of dark hair beneath. His skin was olive and gleaming and he looked completely sensual and irresistible. He had lain naked in her arms, he had been joined with her in the most intimate way that a man and woman could be—so why, looking at him now, did that seem almost impossible to imagine?

The staff who served the meal spoke very little, but when they did it was in French or Italian, and Millie had rather neglected languages at school. For a moment she thought of Lulu. Lulu was effortlessly fluent in French, and if it had been her sitting here—as originally intended—she would no doubt have had all the staff smiling sunnily at her.

‘Merci beaucoup,’ she said, when their coffee was brought, and saw her husband give a small smile as the butler left the room. ‘Oh, Gianferro—my French is terrible!’ she wailed.

‘It will improve.’

‘I shall take lessons.’

‘Indeed.’ He nodded. ‘I will find you a tutor.’

Millie hesitated. ‘I was hoping perhaps I could go to a class with other people?’

Imperious dark brows elevated. ‘Other people?’

‘You know…’ Millie shrugged her shoulders awkwardly. ‘Like a regular class, or something. You must have them in Solajoya.’

‘Of course we do. Our education system is one of the finest in the world.’ Thoughtfully he ran a long olive finger over a glass of pure crystal. ‘Though in your case it may not be appropriate.’

Millie blinked. ‘Oh?’

‘I do not hold with the idea of Royalty being accessible,’ he observed quietly.

She thought she heard a warning note in his voice. ‘You mean you want me to be…remote?’

‘That is not the word I would have chosen.’ He dropped a lump of sugar into one of the tiny gold-lined cups and stirred. When he looked up again his dark eyes were serious. ‘You will need to be one step removed from your people—a part of them and yet apart from them. As if you were standing in the next-door room. Knock down the wall which divides you, and you run the danger of the roof caving in.’

Millie nodded, her thoughts troubled once more. All these things lay ahead. Such big things. Babies who would be heirs and a crown which was destined to be hers. With this dark and intelligent man by her side, whom she yearned to know better. But would she—when he was a self-confessed champion of being…not remote…but removed? She drank some coffee. She would persist. Whittling away at the barrier with which he surrounded himself. Some things could only be accomplished over time—and at least she had that on her side.

But the getting-to-know-him-properly bit had to start some time. She looked into his face—such a dark and forbidding face—except when he was making love, of course. She shook her head slightly, still filled with that slight sense of disbelief of what they had been doing together not so long ago.

A faint smile curved Gianferro’s lips. ‘Why do you blush so, Millie?’ he questioned softly.

‘I was just thinking…’

‘Mmm?’

She heard the indulgent note in his voice—as if she was a child to be humoured. Would it sound unattractively naïve if she tried to tell him just how much of a woman he had made her feel in bed, but that now they were out of it all her glowing self-assurance seemed to have fled? Maybe it would be better to stick to basics. To start to get to know him in a way she had not previously been able to.

‘What was it like,’ she began, ‘growing up on an island?’

He curved his finger around the warm coffee cup. ‘In what respect?’ he questioned carelessly.

Was she imagining the evasive note in his voice? Millie gave him a shy smile. Forget he’s a prince, she told herself. Just ask him the kind of things you’d ask any man. But that was the trouble. She had no experience—not just of the bed bit, but all the other stuff which went to make up a relationship. In a way, the bed bit was easy—like learning to ride a horse. There were certain actions and movements you had to master—and after that it was up to you to modify and improve them.

But talking was harder. She had had none of the normal exposure to male/female interaction which most young women of her age had. No brothers, for a start, and then a single-sex school. There had been no nightclubs and precious few parties. Her life had been centred around the countryside and her horses—and that, of course, was one of the reasons he had made her his bride.

‘Well, did you go to school?’

‘My brothers and I were educated within the Palace.’

‘That must have been quite…well, quite limiting, really.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not really. You went to a boarding school, didn’t you? That’s a closed environment in itself.’

‘But at least there were lots of other girls there.’ Millie stared down at her cooling coffee and then looked up into his eyes once more. They were blacker than the inky coffee and they gave absolutely nothing away. Was that how he had been conditioned to look—as enigmatic as any Sphinx? Had he been trained to keep his feelings hidden—rigorously conditioned into not letting anyone have an inkling of his thoughts? Or was that just his own particular make-up? She smiled, sensing that she needed to soften her questioning. ‘Didn’t you sometimes long for the company of people other than your brothers?’ she asked quietly.

How little she understood! Isolation had been part and parcel of his heritage—even with his brothers. Being born the Crown Prince had made his life different from Guido’s and Nico’s. Even as a boy he had been taken aside by his father—gradually introduced to the mighty task of what lay ahead of him.

‘Oh, there was plenty of other company,’ he said easily. ‘We had friends who came to play with us when we were tiny, and then to learn to ride and swim with us.’ But the friends had been cherry-picked—the offspring of Mardivino’s aristocracy. The only times he had ever come into contact with the ordinary people of the island were when he had accompanied his father to hand out prizes, or to open a new school or library.

Millie hesitated. She wanted to know this man who was now her husband—to really know him. And she didn’t just want the answers to her questions, she wanted him to learn to confide in her. She had gone to the trouble of reading a book about Mardivino during their engagement—but the facts were just words on a page, with no real root in reality. It had all happened years and years before she had been born. She wanted to ask Gianferro a very obvious question about his childhood. Almost to get it out of the way—in case it hovered, ever-present, like a great dark cloud in the background.

‘It must have been…’ She struggled for the right word, but no word could convey the proper sympathy she felt. ‘Terrible. When your mother died.’

He hoped that the candlelight concealed the faint frown which creased his brow. Was she now going to probe? To dig at the wound caused by his mother’s death? The scar was old now, but it was deep. He had buried his grief as a way of coping at the time, and he had never resurrected it.

‘In that I was no different from any other child who loses their mother,’ he said flatly. ‘Being a prince does not protect you from pain.’

But being a prince meant that you could not show it. She suddenly understood that as clearly as if he had told her.

Millie reached her hand out to lay it on top of his. Her skin was very pale in comparison to the rich olive of his, and her wedding band was shiny bright as her fingers curved around his possessively.

But at that moment there was a knock on the door, and Gianferro couldn’t help experiencing a brief moment of relief as he withdrew his hand, welcoming this interruption to her intrusive line of questioning. Then his brows creased together in a dark frown.

‘Who is this, when I told them to leave us alone?’ he said, almost in an undertone. His frown grew deeper. ‘Come!’ he ordered, his voice stern.

It was Alesso who stood there, and Millie’s heart sank. Couldn’t he even leave them in peace on their honeymoon? But on closer inspection she saw that the handsome Italian’s face was tight with tension—an unbearable, weighty tension.

And there were no words of remonstrance from Gianferro, for he sprang immediately to his feet, his face growing pale beneath the olive skin.

‘Qu’est-ce que c’est?’ he demanded.

Something told her that this was uncharacteristic behaviour, and Millie stared at him in confusion.

But it was only when Alesso bit his lip and began to speak that the grim reality of what had happened began to dawn on her.

‘The King is dead!’

Alesso’s words were rocks that smote him like an iron fist, and Gianferro waited for a moment which seemed to go on for a lifetime. A moment for which he had spent a lifetime preparing.

‘Long live the King!’

And then Alesso dropped deeply to his knees in front of Gianferro and kissed his hand, not raising his head again until Gianferro lightly touched him on the shoulder. It was in that one single instant that the new King realised how much had changed…a lifelong friend would not be—nor could ever be—the same towards him again.

In a heartbeat, everything was different.