The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

She smiled down at a small girl who had hurled a rather battered home-grown posy into the carriage. ‘I don’t see why. You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? Legally I’m your bride, but in reality I’m your prisoner!’

‘Don’t be so melodramatic!’ he said angrily. ‘You are free to move at liberty!’

‘Oh, really? So if I took a flight back to England tomorrow, then you’d be perfectly agreeable?’

‘In theory, there would be no objection.’

‘In theory?’ She opened her eyes very wide, aware that she was being prickly—but wasn’t that a kind of defence mechanism? She was trying to accept the situation for what it was, and not what she would like it to be.

And she was trying to stop herself from loving a man who had used her right from the very start.

He gave a hard smile. ‘But the doctor has advised you not to travel,’ he said smoothly.

‘Very conveniently for you!’ she retorted. ‘And I suppose that if the doctor had told me that I had to run round and round the Palace gardens every morning, no doubt you’d be behind it!’

‘I think you can be assured that if I were using the doctor as my mouthpiece, then I could think of more satisfying commands to give than an early-morning run,’ he murmured.

Lucy blushed, hot colour creeping all the way up her bare neck. ‘That was unnecessary!’

‘Really?’ he questioned innocently. ‘You don’t know to what I was alluding.’

No, but she had a pretty good idea. Apart from Guido’s one brief comment, during the run-up to the wedding they had not spoken of the physical side of their marriage. In the flurry of arrangements there had simply not been time nor the inclination—certainly not on Lucy’s part. Besides, it was actually quite a difficult thing to discuss.

When you were a couple having sex you didn’t discuss it—unless you were erotically describing your likes and dislikes. It was a subject which did not bear scrutiny or analysis. But they had stopped being a couple and stopped having sex a long time ago—it was only the baby which had prompted this bizarre wedding. Of course they were going to ignore it.

And when a subject was deliberately ignored and not spoken about, then it became huge inside your head. Lucy found herself tortured with memories of just how good it had been…and how much had changed. It could never be the same, could it? Not now.

She turned to the squealing crowd with a wide smile which threatened to split her face in two.

‘Are you intending to make this a proper marriage, Lucy?’ he questioned quietly.

She moved her head back to face him. Wasn’t there still some remnant of the schoolgirl idealist inside her, who did not want harsh words to mar what should have been the happiest day of her life? So that, no matter what happened in the future, she could one day say to her son—or daughter—that it had been a happy day.

What did he want? A submissive yes while they clip-clopped their way through the streets of Mardivino?

‘Now is neither the time nor the place to discuss it, Guido!’

‘As you wish, my Princess,’ he mocked.

The Rainbow Palace was festooned with flowers, and a wedding breakfast was laid out in the formal Mirrored Dining Room—on which, legend had it, one of the rooms at the Palace of Versailles had been modelled. Lucy could see her bridal image reflected back from every angle. Was that pale and doe-eyed creature in a beautiful wedding dress really her?

The Crown Prince was talking to her and, with an effort, she flashed Gianferro a huge smile.

‘You will eat something?’ he was saying.

‘I…’

Lately, her appetite had been sparrow-like, to say the least. About to refuse, she saw the look of concern on his face and nodded instead, obediently forking a sliver of some delicate, unknown fish into her mouth. She had actually lost weight. In the space of a fortnight, her wedding dress had been twice taken in by the Parisian couturier who had been flown over especially to make it for her.

‘It’s…it’s delicious,’ she said.

‘You are happy, Lucy?’

Gianferro’s unexpected question came out of the blue. How much had Guido told him? Did he believe it to be a love-match—and, if so, did she have the right to disillusion him?

Lucy knew then that no matter what was going on inside she had made a contract with Guido for the sake of the baby. And for all their sakes she must play the part of the blushingly contented bride.

She raised her glass of fruit juice. ‘I am,’ she said, feeling a pang of guilt as she looked across the table at her mother, who was giggling at something Guido was saying. She smiled, so proud of her. For a woman whose calendar highlight was the church Bring-and-Buy sale, she too seemed to be adapting remarkably well. Well, she must make her mother proud of her, too. ‘It’s a very exciting day,’ she murmured.