‘Well?’ Rachel asked shakily as she straightened her shoulders. ‘Will I do?’
‘You look stunning.’ The compliment, delivered with such quiet sincerity, made a lump form in her throat.
Why did you push me away? She longed to ask, but didn’t dare. She wasn’t brave or strong enough to hear the answer.
‘These jewels are stunning,’ she said, nervously touching one of her earrings. ‘When Francesca showed them to me, I couldn’t believe I was meant to wear them.’
‘Who else should wear them?’ Mateo countered. ‘You are Queen.’
‘Technically, I’m not. Not for another forty-eight hours.’
‘It is as good as done. Tonight, in the eyes of the world, you are my Queen.’
Rachel shook her head slowly. ‘I feel like I’m living in a dream.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’ Mateo asked, his gaze fastened on hers.
‘No, but the thing with dreams is...you have to wake up.’
‘Maybe with this one you don’t. Maybe it will go on for ever.’
She laughed uncertainly. ‘No dream lasts for ever, Mateo.’
He acknowledged her point with a nod. ‘True.’
What, Rachel wondered, were they really talking about? She felt an undercurrent to their conversation, to the tension tautening the air between them. He extended his hand, and she took it, the feel of his warm, dry palm under hers sending little shocks along her arm. She would never stop responding to him, and yet it seemed he could turn his physical response to her off like a tap.
She pushed the thought away. She had enough insecurity to deal with already, appearing in public, knowing there would be whispers and rumours, criticisms as well as compliments. It was the nature of being a public figure, which, amazingly, she had now become.
‘Ready?’ Mateo asked softly, and she nodded.
They walked in silence from her bedroom in the palace’s east wing, along the plushly carpeted corridor to the double staircase that led down to the palace’s main entrance hall. The hall had been cleared for their entrance, save for a few security men flanking the doors to the ballroom, where a thousand guests were waiting.
Dizziness assailed Rachel and she nearly stumbled in the heels she still wasn’t used to wearing.
‘Breathe,’ Mateo murmured, his hand steady on her elbow.
‘You try breathing when you’re wearing knickers that are nearly cutting you in half,’ Rachel returned tartly, and was gratified to see his mouth quirk in a smile. No matter how Mateo did or did not feel about her physically, Rachel didn’t want to lose his friendship. As he’d said before, it was a good foundation for a marriage. She needed to remember that. She needed to remind herself of how important it was.
‘Here we go,’ Mateo said, and two white-gloved footmen opened the double doors to the ballroom. Taking a deep breath, Rachel held her head high as she sailed into the room on Mateo’s arm.
The crowd in the ballroom parted like the Red Sea as they entered under the glittering lights of a dozen chandeliers. The guests naturally formed an aisle that Mateo and Rachel walked down, hands linked and held aloft.
‘We’ll have to dance,’ Mateo murmured. ‘The first waltz. It is expected.’
‘Dance?’ Rachel whispered back as she nearly tripped on the trailing hem of her gown. ‘No one told me that! I don’t dance.’
‘It’s a simple box step. Follow my lead and you’ll be fine.’ They were almost at the end of the aisle, and panic was icing Rachel’s insides.
‘No, really,’ she said out of the side of her mouth, her gaze still straight ahead. She felt like a bad ventriloquist. ‘I. Don’t. Dance. At all. Two left feet would be a kind way of putting it.’
Why hadn’t Agathe covered this in her comportment lessons? Or had she just assumed that Rachel could dance?
She risked a glance at Mateo’s face; he wore the faint smile he’d had on since they’d entered the ballroom. He was so handsome it hurt. And she was about to humiliate herself publicly in front of a thousand people, and, really, the whole world. She was wearing a dress worthy of Beauty in Beauty and the Beast, but in this case she felt like the beast.
‘Mateo—’
‘Just follow my lead.’