‘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.