‘It all looks exactly the same,’ she said brokenly. ‘Nothing changes.’
‘But you’ve changed,’ said Lulu, from behind her. ‘You’re almost unrecognisable.’
‘Am I?’ Millie turned round, her sense of surprise momentarily eclipsing the terrible pain she had felt since setting foot back in her old family home. ‘But my hair is the same and my face is the same. The clothes are more expensive, and I may have lost a little weight—but that’s about all.’
‘Maybe the profound experience of marrying and becoming a queen almost simultaneously has altered you more than you realised? Oh, Millie—don’t! Please don’t start crying again!’
But Millie couldn’t help it. She had bottled her feelings up—not wanting the servants to see her giving in to emotion—that had been one lesson which Gianferro had taught her so well. But once away from the closed environment of the Palace which had become her home the tears had begun to fall in earnest, and now they were splashing down onto her cashmere sweater, which she hugged close to her, like an animal seeking comfort.
‘I just don’t understand what the problem is.’ Lulu stared at her in confusion. ‘You didn’t bother telling him you were on the Pill—is it really such a big deal?’ she asked.
Millie bit her lip. She had thought that coming here might help put everything in perspective, but in a way it had only emphasised the gravity of what she had done. It was more than simply not telling her husband something—it was the severing of a trust which he gave to very few people.
But he suspected you, she reminded herself. He told you that himself. So he did not trust you at all.
‘I just don’t know what to do!’ she whispered.
‘Well, stop crying, for a start! Just calm down and take a deep breath.’ Lulu’s face was very fierce. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’
‘But what if it’s the end of my marriage?’ questioned Millie shakily.
Lulu’s eyes narrowed. ‘Would that bother you?’
Millie scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers. ‘Of course it would bother me!’
‘Because you like being Queen?’
‘No, you idiot—because I love him! How dare you suggest a thing like that?’
Lulu went quiet for a moment. ‘Well, thank God for that. I just had to be sure, that’s all. Sure you knew what you were fighting for.’
Millie turned her head to look at the rainwashed lawn. ‘Maybe Gianferro doesn’t want to be fought for. Maybe he’s decided that it’s over.’
‘You’re going to give in that easily? Whatever happened to the Millie who would never give up? Who got back on her horse again and again—no matter how many times she had fallen off?’
Millie listened to Lulu in silence and realised that her sister was right. That even if he had decided he didn’t want her any more, she had to give it another chance. She had to. She would fight with every fibre of her being if that was what it took.
‘I’m going to have to go back to Mardivino and sort it out,’ she said slowly. ‘Because he’s certainly showing no sign of coming to England to find me.’
Lulu raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, come on!’ she chided. ‘How can he? What? Hop on a plane and arrive here unannounced? He’s the King, Millie—and kings just don’t do that kind of thing!’
He could, Millie thought—could have done it if he had wanted to. Because he had the power at his fingertips to do almost anything he wanted. The point was that he didn’t want to—and who on earth could blame him?
She felt the cold, curling fingers of pain clamping themselves around her heart, but to stay in a state of confused ignorance would never help her heart to heal. Her marriage might be over, and the sooner she learned the truth about it, the better. And Lulu was right… Why should she give up when nothing in the world had ever been so wo
rth fighting for as this man was?
Millie had travelled on a scheduled flight, but after a week in England with no word at all from Gianferro she was feeling tired and vulnerable. She couldn’t face the thought of returning to Mardivino by the same route—with the VIP representatives fussing and hovering round her at the airport, the inevitable lurking paparazzo photographer lurking around to snatch a photo of the young Queen.
She had not anticipated how greedy the press would be for images of her—or how carefully she would need to plan her wardrobe for travelling. One hint of a loose-fitting top and it would be announced to the world that she was pregnant. Millie bit her lip. How ironic.
She phoned the Palace, but Gianferro and Alesso were not there.
Eventually Millie got through to Alesso on his cell-phone. ‘Is Gianferro there?’ she asked him quietly.
‘He is touring the new hospital.’
‘I see. Well, I want to come home…’ For a second she was aware that she no longer considered England as her home—it should have been a small victory of her newly married life, but it tasted bitterly of defeat. ‘Can you arrange for the King’s flight to be sent for me, Alesso?’