The Future King's Bride

‘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.