Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

by Julia James

  She had gone white, he could see. Her hands were clenched in her lap, and her breathing was uneven. But at least she was not interrupting him. He took another swift mouthful of brandy, feeling the fiery liquid burning in his throat.

  He started speaking again.

  ‘There is no easy way out of this situation. But a way does exist. And that is what I am going to propose to you. We have a situation which urgently requires resolution. And there is a way to do so. A drastic way, but nevertheless, in the circumstances, the only way forward.’

  He could feel cold pooling in his legs, slowly turning his feet to ice. He had to say this—he had to say this now. Before he cut and ran. Ran as if all the devils in hell were after him.

  He stared blankly into the face of the woman sitting opposite him. A woman who was a complete stranger. But to whom he had to say the following words.

  ‘We get married,’ said Rico.

  She didn’t move. That was the most unnerving thing of all. She just went on sitting there, hands clenched in her lap, face white. Rico felt his guts tighten. Had he really just said what he had? Had he been that insane?

  And yet he knew it was not insanity that had made him say the words, but something much worse.

  Necessity. Because, loathe Luca as he might for what he had suggested, Rico could see the unavoidable sense of it. The impasse they were in was immovable. Ben and his adoptive mother came as a package—that was all there was to it. A package that had to be incorporated somehow—by whatever means, however drastic—into the fabric of the San Lucenzo royal family. Ben alone would have been no problem—but Ben with the woman who had raised him, whom he thought of as his mother and who was in the eyes of the law indeed that person, that was a whole lot more impossible to swallow.

  And yet she had to be swallowed. No alternative. No choice.

  And he was the one who was going to have to do it. Luca had been right, and Rico hated him for it. But it didn’t stop him being right. It would solve everything.

  A marriage of convenience—for everyone except himself!

  He felt his jaw set even tighter, and unconsciously his hands pressed against the rounded brandy glass. He wanted to take another mouthful, but knew he should not. He’d already drunk wine with dinner, to fortify himself, and although he wanted to drink himself into oblivion he knew it was impossible.

  Why wasn’t she responding? She hadn’t moved—not a muscle. A spurt of anger went through him. Did she imagine this was easy for him? Abruptly he found himself raising the brandy glass anyway, and taking a large mouthful.

  Something moved in her eyes minutely.

  Then, as if a lever had suddenly been pulled, she jerked to her feet.

  ‘You are,’ she said, and there was something wrong with her voice, ‘completely mad.’

  Rico’s eyes darkened. He might have expected this.

  ‘Not mad,’ he said repressively, ‘just facing facts. Sit down again, if you please.’

  She sat. Rico got the feeling it was not to obey him, but because her legs wouldn’t hold her upright. The bones of her face were standing out, and the blood had drained from her skin, which now looked like whey.

  ‘If you marry me,’ he began, ‘a great many problems simply disappear. We have already established that your old life has gone—there can be no doubt about that. Ben is a royal prince of the House of Ceraldi, and he must be raised as such, in the land of his patrimony. He cannot be raised in this country, and he cannot be raised by you alone. But…’He took an inhalation of breath. ‘Were you to marry me, this problem would immediately disappear. You and Ben would be absorbed into the royal family as a unit, and Ben would make the easiest transition possible to his new life. You must see that.’

  Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  Rico’s mouth pressed tightly.

  ‘I appreciate,’ he began, in that same deliberate fashion, ‘that you may find this hard to comprehend, let alone accept, but—’

  ‘It’s the most insane, tasteless thing I’ve ever heard.’ The words burst from her. ‘How can you say it? How can you even say it? You can’t sit there and say something like that—you can’t.’

  Agitation shook her visibly.

  Abruptly he held up a hand.

  ‘It is a matter of expediency, that is all.’

  She was staring at him as if he were speaking Chinese. He ploughed on.

  ‘The marriage would take place for no other purpose than to regularise my nephew’s existence. As my wife you will become a Ceraldi, with a due place in the royal family, a rank appropriate to the adoptive mother of the Reigning Prince’s grandson. You will have a suitable place in all the events of his life. The marriage itself will be a formality, nothing more. Be assured of that.’

  There was an edge in his voice, and he continued before she could interrupt him again.

  ‘You may also be assured that the marriage will only be temporary. Once Ben is settled into his new life, and once you are settled into yours, and can move within it in an appropriate manner, then the marriage will be annulled. We will need to observe the proprieties, but my father has agreed that he will sanction a short duration—little more than a year—after which the marriage will have served its purpose and can be dissolved.’

  She was still sitting there, looking as if he’d just hit her over the head with a sledgehammer. Well, that was what he had done, of course. He, at least, had the last forty-eight hours to accustom himself to what had been proposed as the way through the impasse.

  ‘I don’t believe that you are saying what I hear you to be saying,’ she said very slowly, her voice hollow. ‘You cannot be. It’s impossible.’

  Rico felt anger welling in him, and fought to subdue it.

  ‘I appreciate,’ he began again, ‘that this is difficult for you to fully take on board, but—’

  ‘Stop saying that. Stop saying I don’t understand.’ She jerked to her feet again. Her eyes were flaring with emotion. ‘What I’m saying is that it’s insane. It’s grotesque.’

  Rico’s expression froze.

  ‘Grotesque?’ The word echoed from him, as though it were in a foreign language. Hauteur filled his face. ‘In what way?’ he bit out. He got to his feet without realising it, discarding his brandy glass on a side-table as he did so.

  She was staring at him wild-eyed, her face working.

  ‘What do you mean, “In what way?”?’ she demanded. ‘In every way. It’s grotesque—absolutely grotesque—to think of me marrying you.’

  Cold anger filled Rico. To use such a word about such a matter—

  He had taken a great deal from this woman, made allowance after allowance for her circumstances, but for her to stand there and tell him that his offer was grotesque—

  ‘Would you do me the courtesy of explaining why?’ His voice was like ice.

  She stared at him. For one long moment she met his gaze, and then, as if in slow motion, he saw her face seem to fracture.

  ‘What else can it be?’ she said, in a low, vehement voice.

  His voice was stiff with tightly leashed anger. ‘I do not see why—’

  She cut across him.

  ‘Look at me.’

  She stood dead in front of him.

  ‘How can you even think of it? Look at me.’ Her voice was taut. ‘It’s grotesque to think of me…of me…marrying…marrying…you—’

  She broke off. Her head dropped.

  Rico stood looking at her. His anger had gone. Vanished. In its place…an emotion he was unused to feeling.

  Embarrassment.

  And pity.

  Then, quietly, he said, ‘We’ll find another way to sort this out.’

  Lizzy lay in bed, but she was not asleep. Beside her, on the far side of the bed, Ben’s breathing rose and fell steadily, soundlessly. Lizzy stared into the darkness. Even now, if she did not steel herself, she could feel the hot tide of all-consuming mortification flooding through
her. It had been one of those excruciating moments—like a dream in which she found herself walking down the street naked—that she would remember all her life.

  How could he have done it? How could he have actually sat there and said that to her face? How could anyone in his insane family have thought of it?

  She felt a cold sweat break out on her.

  Grotesque, she had called it, and that was the only word for it. The very idea of someone who looked like her marrying someone who looked like him—for whatever reason.

  As if someone were running a sadism course in her mind, she made herself think about it. Made herself see it as if it were real.

  Made herself see the headlines. Forced herself to.

  The Playboy Prince and the Poison Pill.

  Prince Rico and his Bride of Frankenstein.

  They’d have a field-day.

  She gazed out, wide-eyed and unseeing. Unseeing of anything except the cruel, unforgiving reflection that greeted her every day of her life.

  Then, juxtaposed beside it, the image of Prince Rico Ceraldi.

  The contrast was…grotesque.

  She shut her eyes, as if to banish the image in her head.

  All her life she’d known that she was not just unattractive, but actively repellent. It was a harsh word, but it was true. She had proof of it, day after day. She’d learnt to see it in men’s eyes—that instant dismissal and rejection.

  It was the exact opposite of the reaction Maria had got. Maria, with her tall, slim figure and her lovely face, her long golden hair.

  Lizzy hadn’t been jealous. What would have been the point? Maria had been the beautiful sister, she the plain one. It was the way it had always been.

  Maria, in her kindness, had offered to try and do something to improve her appearance, but Lizzy had never let her. It would have been too embarrassing. Even worse than looking so repellent naturally would have been trying not to, trying to do something about it—and failing.

  Because of course she would have failed.

  ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,’ her mother would say to her, her mouth pressing tightly in displeasure as she looked over her older daughter.

  So she had never tried. She had accepted herself for what she was.

  Totally without the slightest attraction to the male sex.

  And with Ben it just didn’t matter. What did a child care if its mother was ugly? For Ben, it was her love for him that counted, her devotion to him. All he needed from her was her care and her hugs. That was all.

  Ben.

  Instinctively she reached out her hand and touched his folded little body, lightly brushing his hair before taking her hand away again.

  Anguish filled her.

  I want to go home. I want to go back home, to Cornwall—I want this nightmare never to have happened. Please, please let it not have happened. Please.

  But her prayers were hopeless. The nightmare had happened, and she was caught in it. She would never be free of it.

  Heaviness crushed her.

  ‘We’ll find another way to sort this out,’ the Prince had said.

  But what other way? The Ceraldis must have been desperate to even entertain what he had come up with—a temporary marriage of convenience to turn her into a princess and therefore a suitable mother for Prince Eduardo’s grandson.

  The weight on her chest intensified.

  I’m nothing but a nuisance to them…

  Then she rallied. Tough. Tough that she was nothing but a nuisance to the San Lucenzan royal family. Tough that she was a problem that had to be solved. Tough that their precious grandson just happened to come encumbered by a stand-in mother.

  I don’t care—I don’t care about them, or what an inconvenience I am! I don’t care about anything except Ben and his happiness. Ben needs me…and that’s all that matters. And for him I’ll do anything—anything at all.

  Except marry his uncle.

  Rico stood under the shower and let the stinging needles of water pound down over his head.

  He should be feeling relieved. He should be feeling like a condemned man reprieved. But he wasn’t. An uncomfortable, writhing emotion twisted within him.

  He kept hearing that word in his mind.

  Grotesque.

  How could any woman say that about herself? Feel that about herself?

  OK, she was plain. But that was not her fault. So why did she seem to flay herself so for it?

  A cynical voice spoke in his head.

  She’s just facing up to the truth, that’s all. No man will ever want her, and she knows that. She knows just what an unlikely couple the two of you would make—the talking behind her back, the whispering, the scornful looks, the offers to comfort you for your affliction in having had to marry such a female.

  He silenced the voice. Ruthlessly.

  Instead, deliberately, he called another image to mind. The way she was with Ben. Endlessly patient, always loving and affectionate, supportive and encouraging.

  She’d brought him up well.

  More than well.

  He frowned. It must have been hard for her.

  She could have so much easier a life now. If he could just get her to see that.

  He cut the water off and stepped out of the shower.

  OK, so maybe it wasn’t ideal having Ben’s mother floating around San Lucenzo like a loose cannon. But even if she was a commoner, and an Englishwoman, so what? Something could be sorted, surely? Yes, it would make life awkward—but too bad. Wasn’t Paolo’s son worth some degree of inconvenience, some rearrangement of protocol and expectation?

  He whipped a towel around his lean, honed body, then grabbed a hand towel to roughly pat his hair dry.

  Once she and Ben were in San Lucenzo she would start to see for herself how a new life there would be possible. And he would have to make Luca and his father realise that somehow they had to set up a situation where Ben and his mother could live there.

  His mind raced on. They didn’t have to live in the palace, or the capital itself. The Ceraldis owned enough property in the principality—one of their numerous residences would prove suitable.

  A villa by the sea—they’d like that.

  He could see Ben in his mind’s eye, playing on the beach—a warmer, less windy beach than the one in Cornwall.

  I could visit him a lot then. Get to know him. Spend time with him.

  Another thought came to him as he shrugged on a bathrobe and discarded the towels.

  I’ll get something done about her—for her. With good clothes, a decent haircut, make-up—surely she’d look better?

  It would be a kindness to her.

  He headed for bed, feeling virtuous.

  And finally relieved.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE jet was starting its descent. Rico could feel the alteration in pitch.

  ‘We’re starting to go down, Ben,’ he announced.

  Ben, captivated, stared out of the porthole, at the tiny patchwork of fields and valleys and rivers spread below. He had taken the journey in his stride so far—and so, to Rico’s relief, had his mother.

  ‘Will you at least agree to a visit?’ he had asked her the next day. ‘Nothing more than that. To allow my parents and brother to meet Ben.’ His voice had changed. ‘I do not have to tell you how much they long to meet him at last. Please do not deny them that,’ he’d finished quietly. ‘It will be a very emotional moment for them.’

  She had nodded. Something seemed to have changed between them. He didn’t know what, but somehow it was easier to talk to her. She, too, and he was sure it was not just his imagination, seemed less tense, less awkward in his presence.

  Maybe, he thought sombrely, the scene that night had brought everything to a head.

  Whatever it was, he was grateful. Grateful that she had agreed to move forward, even in this circumspect way, that she finally seemed to have moved beyond the stonewalling denial that had made her so difficult to deal with.


  He had spoken to Luca that morning, telling him they were going to fly out the following day. What he hadn’t told him was that it was only for a visit, not permanently. He would tell Luca privately that there could be no question of a marriage of convenience. That the situation would have to be resolved differently, in a way that Ben’s adopted mother was comfortable with.

  Luca had not been communicative, had merely wanted to know that Ben was finally on his way and when they would be landing. He’d seemed tense, preoccupied.

  Well, it had been a stressful time, Rico acknowledged. Their father was not an easy man, and Rico had sympathy for Luca being the one to bear the brunt of it. However much of a miracle Ben’s existence was, it had come with a price tag—one that his father hated to pay. The focus of the world’s tabloid press on his family’s private affairs.

  The stewardess came forward into the cabin to request they put their seat belts on. Rico smiled reassuringly across at Ben’s mother. She seemed outwardly calm, but he wondered how real it was.

  Ben simply seemed excited.

  Ironically, thought Rico, Ben seemed a lot more excited about flying in a plane than he did about the news, broken to him tactfully and carefully the previous afternoon by his uncle and his aunt, that he was, in fact, a royal prince.

  ‘Will I have a crown?’ had been his only question, and, when a negative answer had been returned to him, had lost interest in the matter.

  His interest in royalty was revived momentarily when they transferred to the car waiting for them at the airfield. The car was flying a colourful standard from its bonnet, and Ben wanted to know why.

  ‘It’s your grandfather’s flag,’ Rico answered. ‘Because he’s the Ruler of San Lucenzo. We are going to meet him. And your grandmother and your other uncle. The one I told you about yesterday.’

  The car glided off. Ben chattered away to Rico, asking him question after question. Beside him, Lizzy sat, willing herself to stay calm.

  But it was hard.