The Rainbow Palace looked like a flower festival, and every step of the way there was someone to meet or to greet. Another person offering their bowing congratulations. Millie could see ambition written on the faces of the men who spoke to Gianferro, and narrow-eyed assessment from the women. Who was this bride their Crown Prince had brought to Mardivino? their expressions seemed to say.
Good point, thought Millie—just who am I?
She was beginning to despair of ever getting a moment alone with him—this outrageously handsome man who was now her husband—but at last they were seated side-by-side in the Banqueting Hall, dazzled by the array of gold and crystal.
He turned to her. ‘So, Millie,’ he said softly. ‘The first hurdle has been crossed.’
She laughed. ‘I can think in terms other than horse-riding, you know!’ she hesitated. ‘You…you haven’t said whether you like my dress,’ she said shyly.
‘The dress is everything it should be.’
And? And? Say I look beautiful, even if you don’t mean it… For wasn’t every bride supposed to look beautiful on her wedding day—just from radiance and excitement alone?
He dipped his head towards hers; she could feel his breath drifting across her skin. ‘Why did you cover your face with so much make-up?’
Millie blinked, remembering Lulu’s words. ‘For the cameras, of course!’
He had chosen an innocent country girl—not some Hollywood starlet, concerned about her image above all else! His mouth flattened.
‘You don’t like it?’ ventured Millie painfully.
He shook his head, trying to dispel the tight band which was clamped a
round his head. The strain of the last few weeks had been intense, but after the wedding breakfast they would be alone at last, and then, in slow, pleasurable time, he could show her exactly what did please him.
‘Your skin is too fine too clog it up like that, cara mia,’ he observed softly. He saw her lips begin to tremble at the admonishment and he laid his hand firmly over hers, olive skin briefly obscuring the new, shiny gold of her wedding band. His voice was little more than a whispered caress. ‘Later you will scrub it off—do you understand? You will come to me bare and unadorned, stripped of all finery and artifice.’ He felt the deep throb of desire, which he had put on hold for so long that it seemed like an eternity. Carefully he took his hand away, for touch could tempt even the most steely resolution. ‘And that, cara Millie—that is how I wish to see you.’
With a tremulous smile she nodded, then accepted a goblet of champagne from one of the footmen with a gratitude which was uncharacteristic. Never had she needed the softening effect of alcohol quite so much, and she drank deeply from the cup. Her very first test as the future Queen and she had failed him!
She longed to rush out to the bathroom and wash it all off, there and then—but she would not dare to take such a liberty; new princesses did not nip off to powder their noses. In fact, from now on, her behaviour would have to be choreographed right down to the last second. The simple things which other people took for granted would be out of her reach. Even her mother had remarked drily, ‘You’d better cultivate a strong bladder, Millie.’
‘Smile for me now, Millie,’ he instructed silkily, wishing to see those dark shadows pass from her eyes. ‘And think instead what it will be like on our honeymoon.’
This was a thought which had made her alternate between giddy excitement and stomach-churning nerves in the run-up to the wedding, but now the champagne had dissolved away her misgivings, and she felt her heart well up with the need to show him how good a wife she would be to him.
She began to pleat her napkin, until she remembered that all eyes were upon them and stopped. ‘You haven’t told me yet where we’re going,’ she observed quietly.
His eyes glittered with ebony fire. ‘Traditionally, is not the honeymoon supposed to be a surprise—a gift from the groom to his bride?’
She wanted to say that, yes, of course it was—but suddenly it seemed to represent a whole lot more than that. Because of tradition Gianferro had taken charge of the wedding, and she understood that, but couldn’t he have bent tradition in a way that would not have mattered to anyone other than the two of them? To have told her their destination—or, better still, to have allowed her to help choose. She felt disconnected. Out of control. As if her life had become a huge stage and she had been given the tiniest walk-on role.
But she didn’t want to start their marriage on the wrong foot. If she wanted to change the unimportant things in the status quo then it had to be a gentle drip-drip—not like a child, instantly demanding a new toy. Gianferro was not used to living with a woman, just as she was not used to living with a man, and compromises must be made—she knew that, her mother had told her so. And he would not be familiar with compromise. Instinctively she recognised that negotiation was not part of his make-up, neither as a man or a prince. It would be up to her to lead the way. To show by example.
She wanted to say all the right things—as if her careful words could wash away that look of displeasure she had seen on his face in the Cathedral. To start together from now—a shiny new surface on which their future could be drawn. ‘Yes, of course it is!’ she said brightly. ‘I love surprises!’
Gianferro smiled, pleased with her reaction, suddenly wishing that he could take her into his arms and kiss her. Properly. But there would be time enough for that later. ‘Then I must hope that mine lives up to your expectation,’ he murmured.
His words licked at her, with dark and erotic promise, and suddenly Millie was assailed with nerves. Please let me be worthy of him, she prayed. Let me be a good lover to him.
Gianferro’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why do you frown, cara Millie?’
She pulled herself together. Now was not the time to bring up her sexual inexperience! ‘I wish my father could have been here,’ she said truthfully. ‘And yours.’
He nodded and gave her a soft smile, pushing away his untouched wine and reaching for a glass of water instead. His father had been frail for so long now that he could scarcely remember the vigorous man who had governed Mardivino with such energy—hiding well his heartbreak when his beloved wife had died. And lately he had grown more gravely ill. A dark shadow passed over his heart, but ruthlessly he banished it.
‘Ah, but they were both here in spirit,’ he answered quietly, remembering the look of relief which had spread over his father’s careworn features when he had taken Millie to meet him. ‘And my father is overjoyed that I have chosen a bride at last. This marriage has pleased him enormously.’
‘And…it pleases you, too, Gianferro?’ she questioned, emboldened by the wine.