The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

Clarissa stuck out her tongue. But the moment the door closed behind them, she let her smile and shoulders droop.

Luci hadn’t been completely joking. She felt Clarissa’s turmoil, had assumed it was cold feet. If only Luci knew how hot her feet were. She wanted Ferruccio, wanted to be with him for as long as she lived with a ferocity that terrified her. Like he’d once said, she couldn’t imagine a fall from this height.

She inhaled a steadying breath, neared the mirror.

She saw the difference in her that Luci had spoken of. The last of her naïveté and unawareness had been erased. There were no longer a girl’s fears and uncertainties and suspicions in her eyes, but the openness of possibilities that limitless passion bestowed. The brand of a powerful male’s possession showed in the intensity of her glance, the hunger in her lips. There was also a far deeper dread etched in her expression.

She did look different. She looked like a woman who had finally felt the range of emotions a woman could feel. A woman lost in love and fearing that love might remain lost to her forever.

She dropped her gaze to the necklace that lay heavy around her throat and chest, the centerpiece of the set Ferruccio had sent her, one of his wedding gifts.

In his note, he said he’d commissioned its creation for her from the top goldsmiths in Castaldini, who’d collaborated day and night to produce it in the past days.

The intricate design was a triumph of craftsmanship, a true resurrection of the ancient tradition of working in pure gold. The incredible luster, color and beauty of twenty-four carat gold made the piece even more incredible. She wondered how he’d gotten them to design it so that it would match the crown she’d wear, yet still have an individual look. And perfectly match her eyes.

Its foliate garlands were decorated with five hexagonal amethysts set within circular wreaths, alternating with pear-shaped scrolls. Everything was set with diamonds. According to the hefty certificate that had accompanied the set, the necklace alone had thirteen diamonds weighing seventy-five carats, sixty-nine smaller diamonds weighing fifty carats and numerous smaller rose-cut diamonds weighing twenty carats. The other pieces were earrings, a bracelet and a ring.

She couldn’t even estimate how much they had cost. But a relative had once bragged that her five-carat diamond ring cost two hundred thousand U.S. dollars, so what she was wearing would probably plug Castaldini’s financial deficit.

But cost was no issue to Ferruccio. What moved her was the thought he’d put into choosing the design, that he’d known how perfectly it would enhance her eyes and complexion and hair.

She had to believe that a man who’d given her that much pleasure, in so many ways, wouldn’t end up destroying her.

And then, she wasn’t a helpless bystander. Ferruccio had said her mother’s expectations and actions had been at the root of her problems, that her attitude and surrender to her bitterness had exacerbated them. But Clarissa wasn’t her mother. And she would love him as he deserved to be loved. He wanted her now—one day she might make him love her, too.

With that resolution bolstering her, she walked to the door, opened it. Her bridal party spilled in.

She laughed. “Oh, Luci! You really made them think I’d tear off my wedding gown, pull on black spandex and escape from the balcony using knotted sheets, didn’t you?”

“The new you?” Luci snickered as she tidied Clarissa’s veil. “I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“Ladies, how about you get a move on?” Phoebe groaned. “If you keep me on my feet much longer, I’ll have to watch both the coronation and the wedding from a TV in some maternity ward!”

“It’s going to be a long day, Phoebe,” Clarissa scolded, alarmed. “Quit being pigheaded and sit in the wheelchair!”

Grumbling that she wished them all to be in her condition soon, Phoebe complied.

Everyone laughed and rushed toward the throne room.

With every step, Clarissa felt that she was rushing toward her future. A future that for the first time she could visualize.

Lightheartedness and optimism suddenly flooded her.

She broke into a run.

Everyone burst out in excitement and ran after her.

The throne room was in fact a cathedral-size chamber that was a triumph of architecture. Its gigantic structure and one-hundred-foot-high domed ceiling seemed to have been built without pillars. The design married Moorish, Gothic and Baroque influences in perfect symbiosis and it boasted an extensive array of original Renaissance artwork by masters of the caliber of Raphael.

Clarissa thought the grandeur of the place was nothing, compared to that of the man who would today become its ruler.

She walked the twenty feet of her train ahead of her bridal procession, no bouquet in hand. She’d sent Ferruccio a note saying there wouldn’t be one, and not to bother decreeing it. She wanted her hands free. He’d sent one back saying so did he.

She walked down the aisle among the hundreds of people congregated to witness the coronation, mostly nobles and members of the extensive D’Agostino royal family. She had to sit at the front row. After the king was crowned, it was Castaldinian custom that his queen be summoned to sit beside him on the throne.

For long years, while her mother lived, her seat had remained empty. It had been removed altogether when she died five years ago. It had been a year after Clarissa had finished college. But with Ferruccio in the picture then, and her escaping regularly back to the States on the pretext of starting postgraduate studies, she’d always wondered if her absence, both real and emotional, had been what had finally driven her mother over the edge.

She shook herself as she reached the front row. Today belonged to the present, to the future. No more dwelling on the past.

Her party hurried to sit down as trumpets blared again, heralding Ferruccio’s arrival. From the corner of her eye she saw Leandro rushing over to scoop Phoebe from the wheelchair, taking her to the back of the pews where she could stretch out.

Then everything disappeared. Only he was left. Ferruccio.

The man she loved, had loved since she’d first seen him.

He entered the chamber from its northern end, walked in long, powerful strides toward the platform housing the thrones.

She’d seen the traditional black-with-gold-trim coronation costume, with its Roman-Moorish design and embroidery, its crimson sash and hanging sword in dozens of paintings on dozens of kings, her father among them. On Ferruccio it was different.

The clothes didn’t make the man, after all. In his case, it was the other way around. If he’d looked like a god before, he now looked like a superhero god.