Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

by Julia James

  A thought came to him—another strange, new realisation.

  I don’t have to be on my guard with her. I don’t have to keep her at a distance. Because she doesn’t want anything from me—

  A sense of release came over him, as if for the first time in his life, he felt—free.

  Lizzy sat in the shade of the blue and white striped awning and watched Ben and his uncle play waterpolo in the pool. Ben was shrieking with pleasure. Her heart warmed. He was just so happy—every day had been a delight for him.

  And for her?

  It was so strange. How could it be that, despite the huge emotional upheaval she’d gone through since that fateful evening when her world had been turned upside down and she had discovered the truth about Ben’s parentage, she could now be feeling so…carefree?

  So relaxed.

  And yet she was.

  It had seemed impossible at the outset of their panicked arrival here. The enormity of what had happened, what she had done, had been overwhelming, and yet here, in this tranquil, beautiful place—so far from the rest of the world, it seemed—she had found a peace of mind she had never thought to find.

  Her eyes went to the man playing with her son, and she felt gratitude welling through her—and wonder.

  He was being so kind to her. And not just because of Ben. He had gone out of his way to be endlessly kind and patient to her, for her own sake.

  It was a world away from his image as the Playboy Prince.

  There’s more to him than that. Much more, she thought fiercely.

  She had misjudged him, she knew, seeing only the image, not the man beneath. He was a man who had defied his father, his sovereign, to defend and protect her and Ben. A man who had unhesitatingly married himself to the very last woman in the world he’d ever have chosen for a wife for the sake of a small child.

  A child he really seemed to love.

  She felt her heart warm as she watched Rico haul himself out of the pool. His lean body glittered with diamonds in the sun as he leant down, let Ben clutch his arm with his hands, and with effortless strength lifted him clear out of the water.

  ‘Again!’ shouted Ben, and jumped back in the water.

  Rico repeated the process, swinging him high into the air with a laughing grin before lowering him gently to the paving beside the pool.

  Ben rushed up to Lizzy.

  ‘I scored five goals,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Did you? How fantastic.’ She smiled.

  ‘Why don’t you come in the water, Mummy?’

  ‘Because she needs a nice new swimming costume, Ben. And lots of new clothes, like you’ve already had. Clothes for a princess.’

  Rico had come up behind him.

  Ben tilted his head to one side. ‘Is Mummy a princess, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rico casually, padding himself dry with a towel. ‘When I married her she became a princess.’

  ‘Has she got a crown?’ Ben asked interestedly. He had a strong mental association between royalty and crowns.

  ‘She can have a tiara. For when she goes to a ball.’

  Ben’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Like Cinderella?’

  ‘Exactly like Cinderella,’ said Rico.

  His eyes went to Lizzy’s face, and then shadowed. There was a look in her eyes he did not want there, but he knew why it was.

  Lizzy looked away. If there was any role in Cinderella she was ideally cast for, it was not the heroine. It was as an ugly sister.

  It was Maria—Maria who had been Cinderella—swept off her feet by Prince Charming. But the coach had crashed.

  Rico saw her look away. Read her thought. His mouth pressed tight. It was time to get this sorted. Time to put that cruel word in the trash once and for all.

  She was comfortable with him now, he knew—and he with her. But that harsh word still remained between them like a poison. A poison that needed to be drawn.

  And there was no point delaying it any longer. It was time, more than time, to do something about it.

  It proved very easy to arrange. The shopping complex by the marina was designed to cater to the needs of those who stayed at Capo D’Angeli. And those needs included the overwhelming demand to attend to their appearance—clothes, hair, beauty treatments, manicures; whatever was required was available.

  He would book the lot, and let them loose on her.

  The following day, at breakfast, he made his announcement.

  ‘I will look after Ben today. You will be too busy.’

  Lizzy stared. ‘Busy?’ she asked. Apprehension filled her.

  Rico only smiled cryptically. ‘Very busy,’ he said.

  Within the hour, she found out just how busy.

  Lizzy had her eyes shut. Over her head, it sounded as if the army of people who had invaded her bedroom were having a heated argument. They weren’t, she knew—they were just discussing her. But in a very Italianate manner they were doing so vehemently, with many loud exclamations. She could understand why. They had been given an impossible brief—to spin straw into gold.

  Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

  Mortification filled her.

  She’d known this moment must come. Known that, however desperate the circumstances of her sudden marriage to Rico had been, they could not hide here at the villa for ever. At some point they would have to emerge. Face the world.

  The prospect appalled her.

  She could wear all the designer clothes in the world, but it would still be her underneath. Nothing could change that. Maria had looked a knock-out even in rags, because she’d had a face, a body, that was a knock-out.

  Guilt knifed through her. Guilt and grief. Oh, God, it should be Maria here, in this beautiful Italian villa, having her honeymoon with her golden prince. Looking forward blissfully to their happy-ever-after. Their own personal fairytale.

  Her hands twisted in her lap. Grief and guilt twisted together.

  And not just guilt for her sister.

  I’ve got to go through with this. I’ve got to bear it. It doesn’t matter how humiliating it is, how mortifying. I have to let them do what they can. Do the best they can.

  But it wasn’t for her. It was for the man who had married her to keep Ben safe, the man whose reward was to be saddled with a wife in a marriage that all the world would call by the only word that suited it—grotesque.

  A man like Prince Rico, the Playboy Prince, accustomed to the most beautiful women in the world falling for him—now married to a woman like her.

  She opened her eyes. The arguing stopped instantly. She looked around at the sea of faces, all watching her expectantly.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘just do the best you can.’

  Then she shut her eyes again—and kept them shut.

  ‘We need another tower,’ Ben instructed.

  Rico considered the masterwork on the terrace table. Then nodded.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’ll fit one inside this corner. How’s the painting coming along?’

  ‘Good,’ said Ben. He was industriously washing stonegrey paint across the expanse of large cardboard box that had been transformed into a fort to house an army of brightly coloured plastic knights in armour which had, to Ben’s ecstasy, been ordered off the internet to be delivered by courier the following morning. Ben’s impatience for their arrival had been such that on their return to the terrace from the beach and the pool Rico had been driven to suggest they make a fort for the knights to live in when they arrived. Its construction also helped to divert Ben from the fact he had not seen his mother all day.

  Anxiety nagged at Rico.

  Was she going to be all right? It was late afternoon already, but he knew that beauty treatments took for ever, and the fact that she had been incarcerated all day did not surprise him. But how was she coping with it all?

  Well, it couldn’t be much longer, surely?

  He reached for the scissors and began the tricky business
of cutting cardboard for the requisite tower. He needed diverting as well.

  ‘Is Mummy still trying on new clothes?’ Ben demanded

  ‘It takes ladies a long time,’ said Rico. ‘And to do their hair and things.’

  ‘It doesn’t take Mummy long,’ Ben countered. ‘She’s always very quick.’

  ‘Now that she’s got to be a princess it will need to take longer,’ Rico answered.

  Ben stared down the long terrace towards where the bedrooms opened on to it. Then, suddenly, his expression changed.

  ‘Mummy.’

  He dropped the paintbrush and pushed his chair back.

  Rico looked up.

  And froze.

  Ben was hurtling along the terrace towards her as Lizzy stepped gingerly out through the French windows from her bedroom.

  ‘Mummy—Mummy, you’ve been ages! We’re making a fort, Uncle Rico and me. For the soldiers—they are knights in armour. They’re coming tomorrow, in a special van, and they are a present for being good. And we’re making a fort for them. Come and see—come and see.’

  He seized her hand and started to pull her along. She tottered momentarily, uncertain of her balance on the sandals that, although low-heeled, seemed to consist of nothing but two minute strips of leather.

  ‘Come on, Mummy,’ Ben said, impatient at her slowness.

  But the last thing on earth she wanted was to go where he was leading her.

  Towards the terrace table, towards the man who sat there, quite, quite motionless.

  There was no expression on his face.

  Her heart started to slump heavily in her chest cavity, hollowing out a space around it. She felt sick.

  Sick with dismay.

  Oh, God—all that work, all that time, and it’s a disaster—I can see it in his face. It’s awful, awful.

  It had taken so long—hours and hours. And so much had been done to her. All over. There had been so much chattering, and agitation, and volatility, that she had just let them get on with it. The treatments had gone on and on, one after another. Spreading stuff on her body, then wiping it off again, and on her face several more times. Then she’d had her hair washed, and more stuff had been put on it, and left in, then rinsed out, and different stuff put on. And in the meantime the tweezers had come out, and nail files and buffers and varnish and hot wax, and yet more body wraps and creams. She had had to eat lunch, served in her room, with her face and hair covered in gunk and her body swathed in some kind of thin gown. And while she’d eaten yet another one of the army of people in her room had held up one garment after another, off a trio of racks that had been wheeled in—so many garments that she’d simply lost count.

  ‘Please,’ she had murmured faintly, ‘whatever you think best.’

  And finally the last of the wraps had come off, and the rollers had come out of her hair, and it had been blow-dried—though heaven knew what rollers and blow-drying would do for her hopelessly frizzy hair. Then yet another beautician had gone to work on her, with a vast amount of make-up, before, at the very last, she had been lifted to her feet and one outfit after another had been whisked on to her, commented on by all in the room, then replaced with another one and the process repeated.

  Until one had been left on her, her hair and make-up had been retouched one last time, and she had been gently but insistently guided towards the French windows.

  She had no idea what she looked like. She could see she had nail varnish on—a soft coral-apricot colour—and her hands felt smooth and soft. Her hair felt different—lighter somehow. As if it were lifting as she walked instead of hanging in a heavy clump as it normally did. As for her clothes—she could see she was wearing a cinnamoncoloured dress, with a close-fitting bodice and cap sleeves, a narrow belt around the waist and a skirt that floated like silk around her legs.

  But she hadn’t seen a reflection of herself. No one had asked her whether she wanted to see in a mirror, and she had been too cowardly to want to anyway. Deferring the evil moment.

  But now it had arrived, and she wanted to die.

  Oh, God—what had been the point of it all?

  She must look ridiculous, absurd—dressed up like this, done up to the nines. All such fine feathers could do was show just how awful she was underneath.

  Hot, hopeless embarrassment flooded through her. Why had she let them do this to her? She should have just stayed as she was—accepted what she was.

  The ugly sister. Who, even when she was dressed up for the ball in gorgeous clothes, was still the ugly sister.

  At her side, Ben was chattering away as she walked slowly, mortifyingly forward—towards the figure seated, motionless, under the parasol at the terrace table.

  Her eyes went to him, full of dread, and as she looked at him she felt her stomach give its familiar hopeless clench.

  He was wearing shorts, and a white T-shirt that strained across his torso, and he was watching her approach with absolutely no expression on his face whatsoever.

  She tore her gaze away from him as she felt the hot, horrible heat of exposure rise in her. She wanted to turn and run, to bolt back to the safety of her bedroom, hide there for ever and never come out again…

  She reached the table.

  Say something. Anything.

  She swallowed hard.

  ‘Oh, Ben—that’s a wonderful fort.’ Her voice sounded high-pitched and false. And coming from a hundred miles away.

  ‘Me and Tio Rico made it. It’s got two towers, and a bridge that lifts right up, and look, Mummy, it’s got a porcully that goes up and down. Tio Rico made it work. Look, I’ll show you, Mummy—’

  She forced herself to look as Ben tugged on the string that operated the portcullis.

  ‘That’s really good,’ she said in a strangulated voice.

  I’ve got to look at him. I must.

  It was the hardest thing in the world to do, but she did it. She turned her head so that she was looking straight at him. Looking straight at that totally expressionless face.

  ‘It’s a brilliant fort,’ she said to him weakly.

  He answered in Italian.

  ‘Non credo—’

  She swallowed, her stomach hollowing. What didn’t he believe? That so much time and effort expended on her should be so wasted?

  The sickness in her stomach churned hideously.

  Ben was still talking, and she tried to listen, but it was impossible. Something about where all his new knights would go—which ones would be inside the castle, and which would be attacking it. His little voice went in and out.

  And opposite her, still motionless, Prince Rico of San Lucenzo just looked at her, without a shred of expression on his face.

  He was in shock, he realised. Shock so profound that he was still fighting to get his brain around what his eyes were telling him.

  It wasn’t possible, what he was seeing. It just wasn’t.

  It could not be the same woman. It just couldn’t.

  It was impossible. Physically impossible.

  She absolutely, totally, completely was not the woman he had last seen.

  Dio—where had she come from? That body. That fantastic, gorgeous, lush body. An absolutely perfect bella figura. With a cinched-in waist that curved out to a pair of perfectly rounded hips, and up…he swallowed…up to a pair of breasts so ripe, so luscious, so beautifully moulded by the material swelling over them that he just wanted to…he just wanted to…

  He felt his body react. He couldn’t stop it. It was there—urgent, irrepressible, unstoppable. A complete, total insistence on letting him know just exactly what it felt about what his eyes were seeing.

  With an effort he did not know he was capable of, he forced his eyes upward. But it did him no good.

  The reaction was exactly the same.

  The rest of her went with the figure.

  It was the hair—what the hell had happened to her hair? The frizz had simply gone. As if it had never existed. In its place, tinted to a rich chestnut, was a
smooth, glossy mane that waved back from her face, pouring down over her shoulders in a luxuriant swathe.

  As for her face—

  How had he not seen it? Shock punched through him again. Delicately arched eyebrows over endlessly deep, long-lashed, luminous eyes, cheekbones that arced to a perfect nose, that descended to a mouth…

  He swallowed silently.

  A mouth that was rich, and lush, and…Dio, so inviting…

  Someone was talking. Tugging at his arm.

  ‘Tio Rico. You’re not listening. Is it time for tea now? Mummy’s come out at last and I’m hungry,’ he finished plaintively.

  Where he found the strength of mind he didn’t know. But somehow he dragged his eyes to Ben.

  ‘Yeah—sure, right. You want to eat? OK. That’s fine.’ He said some more in Italian, just as incoherent.

  What the hell was going on? Had the universe just stopped and restarted in a different dimension? A dimension where impossible things were totally normal?

  She was saying something. Her voice was more high-pitched than usual, and she was trying to sound relaxed and casual, and failing completely.

  ‘Has Ben been OK today? I’m sorry I…er…I took so long. I…er…’

  Her voice trailed off.

  He was staring at her again. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. It was impossible.

  For a moment Lizzy just went on standing there, while the expressionless face in front of her just looked blankly at her.

  Then suddenly, totally, she couldn’t cope. Just couldn’t. She felt as if a stone had been punched into her solar plexus. It was almost a physical pain. She turned on her spindly heels and plunged off. She didn’t know where. Just anywhere. Anywhere.

  She didn’t know where she was going. The terrace ended in steps, down to the swimming pool level, and she just clattered down them, almost tripping in her desperation, past the glittering azure pool, to plunge on to the narrow stepped path that wound its way down to the sea between the vegetation and the pines. Her heart was pounding, and she could feel a sick, horrible flush in her cheeks.

  She wanted to die.