Royally Bedded, Regally Wedded

by Julia James

  Why had she let them do it? She should have known it was hopeless, useless, pointless. Hot, horrible mortification scorched through her.

  I shouldn’t have tried—I shouldn’t have tried to make myself look better. Normal. Trying and failing is even worse than just accepting what I am—ugly, ugly, ugly…

  She could hear footsteps hurrying behind her, heavy and pounding, and her name being called. She hurried faster, her heel catching in her haste, so that she had to lurch and clutch at the railing beside the pathway before trying to go on.

  But her arm was being caught, held.

  ‘Stop. What is it? What’s wrong?’

  She tensed in every muscle, trying to tear her arm away. His fingers pressed like steel into her bare flesh.

  ‘Go away.’

  The words burst from her. She couldn’t stop them. Her head whipped round.

  ‘Go away. Leave me alone. Leave me alone!’

  There was shock and bewilderment in his face.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

  ‘What do you mean, what’s wrong? Everything’s wrong. Everything,’ she gasped.

  She just stood there, frozen and immobile, tugging hopelessly away from him, while he held her, feet planted on the step above, towering over her.

  He was so close. Far too close. She tried to tug back again, but it was hopeless, useless. Just as everything was hopeless, useless.

  For a moment he said nothing—just looked at her. A look of complete incomprehension filled his face. Then, as he looked, the expression of shock and bewilderment began to change. She saw it happening, saw it and did not believe it.

  It was something in his eyes. Something that seemed slowly to be dissolving. Dissolving not just in his eyes, but dissolving her. Turning her liquid, like wax left on a surface that was very slowly heating up.

  The way her skin was heating. Flushing with a low, soft heat that seemed to be carried by the low, soft pulse of her blood that was creaming, like liquid sugar, like honey, through her veins.

  She felt his grip on her change. Not so much halting her as…holding her. Holding her in position. Holding her just where he wanted her to be. Wanted her to be because…because…

  The world had stopped moving. Everything had stopped moving. She was just there, immobile, held. And he was looking down into her face—and the expression in his eyes simply stayed the breath in her throat.

  She gazed back up at him. What had happened, she didn’t know. Reality wasn’t there any more.

  And yet it had never seemed more vivid.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, in that low, soft voice that was curling the toes of her feet, sending liquid waves down her spine in long, honeyed undulations. ‘Don’t look at me like that here, now. Because if you go on looking at me like that, I’ll—’

  ‘Mum-my! Mum-my.’

  They pulled apart, jerking away from each other. It was like surfacing from a deep, drowning sea.

  ‘He’s all right. I told him not to move.’ Rico’s voice sounded staccato, abstracted. He took a rapid, restoring breath.

  ‘Mummy. Tio Rico.’

  Ben’s insistent call came again. Lizzy could hear alarm in it.

  ‘I’m coming, Ben,’ she called up. Her voice was shaky.

  ‘Me too,’ echoed Rico. His voice was not steady either.

  He cast another look at her, then pulled his gaze away. It wasn’t safe to look at her. Not here, not now.

  Later…later he would look.

  More than look—

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a sense of exultation crashed through him.

  With light, lithe steps, he led the way up to the terrace.

  Emotion was surging through Rico. Strong, overwhelming and consuming. The universe might have turned itself upside down, but right now he didn’t care. How it had happened was irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. It had happened, and that was all that he was registering.

  Adrenaline pumped through him. More than adrenaline. Exhilaration. Something quite incredibly amazing had happened, and he didn’t want explanations—he just wanted to…to go with it.

  ‘Here we are, Ben,’ he announced as he gained the pool terrace, and he waved his hand at the little figure perched obediently on the upper level, straining his eyes downwards.

  ‘Where is Mummy?’ Ben demanded.

  ‘Here—’ said Lizzy, hurrying up the steps as fast as she could in her flimsy sandals. Her heart was racing.

  It had nothing to do with her rapid ascent.

  As she gained the terrace Ben stared at her, paying attention to her for the first time, instead of to his new fort.

  ‘Is that your new dress?’ he asked.

  She swallowed, nodded.

  He tilted his head sideways, inspecting her. Then he frowned.

  ‘You look all pretty. Like in a magazine. But you don’t look like Mummy.’ He frowned, confused and bewildered.

  Rico put an arm around his nephew’s shoulder. He knew just how Ben was feeling.

  ‘She’s the new-look Mummy. And you’re right Ben.’ His voice changed. ‘She does look pretty. In fact she looks…’ He paused, and held her eyes. ‘Breathtaking,’ he finished softly. ‘Quite, quite breathtaking.’

  For a long, endless moment, he held her eyes.

  He saw her eyes flare—uncertain briefly—and then, suddenly, it had gone again.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said quietly to her. ‘Quite true. I can’t believe…I can’t believe that all this was there, all along. Just…hidden.’ He paused, and then, in a low, clear voice, said, ‘And you are never—do you understand me?—never going to hide it again.’

  For one last, lingering moment he looked at her. Sending his message loud and clear.

  Then, abruptly, he turned his head.

  ‘Right, then, Ben. Time for tea.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHE was moving in a place that was completely dissociated from what she was doing. What she was actually doing was pouring out a cup of perfectly brewed Assam tea from a silver teapot, while Ben was industriously, if inexpertly, coiling spaghetti around his fork. The DIY fort had been cleared away for the moment, and the westering sun was bathing the terrace in rich, deep golden glow.

  The same glow was inside her, suffused through her, so that it seemed she was part of the warm golden light all around her. It dazed her, bemused her—and she gave herself to it because she couldn’t do anything else.

  As she sipped at her hot, fragrant tea her eyes slipped of their own accord to the man sitting opposite her. He lounged back, his pose so relaxed that he was like a young, lithe leopard taking its ease, taking indolent mouthfuls of espresso coffee every now and then, one arm spread out across his chair-back, one long leg casually crossed over a lean, bare thigh. He was chatting to Ben, answering the child’s questions with lazy good humour, but his eyes would flicker over her as he chatted, sending tiny little shots of electricity quivering through her.

  Her glow deepened.

  What was happening was beyond her—completely and absolutely beyond her—and she didn’t care. She didn’t want to question, or analyse, or examine or understand. She just wanted to give herself to this wonderful, dazed bemusement that had taken her over, filling her with this rich, warm glow that reached through every cell of her body.

  After Ben had eaten his tea, they played cards. A noisy, fast game that involved a lot of slapping down of cards and crows of triumph from both Ben and Rico. Yet even in the midst of the game Rico could still find time to glance at her, still feel the echoes of that incredible shock wave that had slammed through him as she’d approached him along the terrace, her transformation so incredible he could not, even now, fully believe it.

  And yet it was there in front of him, the evidence of his own eyes. A miracle.

  Her hair by itself was a miracle. The frizz had simply vanished—he hadn’t known it was possible, and yet clearly it was. Her skin was clear and glowing, her make-up bringing to life
features which he’d thought nondescript and unremarkable.

  And now his eyes kept going back to her, time and time again.

  He wanted her. He knew it, and he had no intention of denying it.

  It was impossible to do so. His body had recognised it in the first moments of seeing her walk towards him, displaying that fantastic lush figure which had so incredibly been there all along—invisible under the shapeless, baggy clothes she’d worn.

  How the hell had she kept it hidden?

  He still couldn’t get his head round it. To have such a full, lush body as that, and yet to hide it.

  Well, there was no hiding it now. None at all. Never, ever again would she ever hide herself.

  Especially not from him.

  He felt his body react again, and had to struggle to subdue it.

  He must not rush this. Dared not. She was walking a knifeedge, still in a state of shock, of disbelief about herself.

  I’ve got to take this slowly. Very slowly.

  Let her get used to it. Let her come to believe it. Take her slowly, so slowly, every step of the way.

  His eyes rested on her yet again, while Ben dealt out another round, his little voice counting the cards diligently as he set them down in three piles.

  He could see her awareness of him even as she oversaw Ben’s dealing. Saw it in the swift, covert glance, the slight tremor of her hand as she picked up her cards.

  Lizzy could see him looking at her, see it and feel it. It was tangible, like the lightest caress on her skin.

  She felt her heart skip a beat, skitter inside her…

  What’s happening—what’s happening to me?

  It was a stupid, idiotic question to ask. She knew exactly what was happening to her. And she couldn’t stop it. Could no more stop it than she could have stopped a whirlpool sucking her down.

  She was responding to the core-deep, devastating sexuality of the man she had married to keep Ben safe with her. And how could she help it?

  Ever since she had first set eyes on him, that terrible traumatic night in Cornwall, she had responded to him. She had crushed it down, embarrassed by it, knowing that she must never show the slightest sign of her response because for someone like her to do so would be…grotesque.

  It had been easy enough to do. To him, she had simply not existed as a female. Nor did she to any man, she knew. So, although her instinctive reaction to him had been embarrassing and pointless, she had also known that it really hadn’t mattered at all—it had been completely irrelevant.

  All that had mattered had been Ben.

  And these last few days, when he had visibly gone out of his way to try and make her feel more at ease with what had so traumatically happened to her, when he’d been kind, and nice, and nothing like the Playboy Prince of his reputation, it had still not mattered. More than not mattered.

  It had allowed her to start to relax around him. Start to feel at ease around him. Start to see him not as a prince, nor as a man—but as a person.

  They had talked—nothing special, nothing earth-shattering, just easy conversation. About Ben, yes, but about other things too, over meals, and on the beach, and while Ben was playing, absorbed, with his trains and all the other toys that had been delivered to the villa or which he’d discovered in the playroom.

  She wasn’t sure what they’d talked about—nothing much came to mind—but she knew was that it hadn’t been a strain, an effort.

  It had been…friendly.

  Easygoing, casual, relaxed.

  But now—now it felt as if tiny bubbles were fizzing through her veins. Effervescing inside her.

  Every time he glanced at her.

  What’s happening to me?

  But she knew. She knew.

  ‘Goodnight, darling, sleep tight.’

  Lizzy bent over to drop a kiss on Ben’s cheek. He was asleep already, she could see. On the other side of the bed, Rico reached out and ruffled his hair gently.

  He had insisted on giving Ben his bath that night.

  ‘We don’t want Mummy’s new dress getting wet, do we?’ he’d said.

  Instead, he had been the one to get wet. Lizzy could see where the damp T-shirt clung to his torso. She averted her eyes, but not before Rico had spotted her doing so.

  There was a decided glint in his eye as he spoke.

  ‘I’ll go and get myself cleaned up, then join you for dinner, OK?’

  He had given instructions to the chef for a proper dinner that night. Whatever the results of Lizzy’s makeover would prove, he intended to make the evening special for her.

  And it would be special indeed. Another wave of disbelief went over him. They had been doing so regularly, every time he looked at her.

  It was incredible, just incredible.

  He frowned momentarily.

  Had she actually looked at herself yet? Surely she must have? And yet that initial reaction, when she’d run from him, blurting that it had all been a disaster, argued that she surely could not have seen the transformation.

  He came around the foot of the bed.

  ‘You may need some kind of wrap,’ he told her. ‘The nights can still be a little chilly. Let’s see what you’ve got.’

  He opened the closet door and went in. All her new clothes hung in serried ranks, swathed in plastic protectors. He glanced at them with approval. There was a lot here, and that was good. He wanted her to have as many beautiful outfits as possible. This was just the start.

  She had followed him in, just as he’d intended.

  ‘Where would you store a wrap?’ he asked.

  But Lizzy didn’t answer him. Could not.

  The whole rear wall of the closet was a mirror, and standing in the mirror, looking back at her, was someone she had never seen before in her life.

  Rico straightened and looked first at the woman in the mirror, then at the woman staring at her.

  He let her look. Let the look of dazed incomprehension fill her face.

  Then he spoke.

  ‘It’s you. The you that you really are. The you that was hiding all this time.’

  His voice was steady, level—merely stating a fact. A fact he would no longer let her deny. Conceal.

  Her eyes were wide, huge.

  ‘It can’t be me. It can’t.’

  Her voice was faint.

  He came and stood behind her.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, all right.’

  Lightly, oh so lightly, he rested his hands on her shoulders. Her skin was like satin. He felt her tremble at his touch, but she did not move. She went on staring.

  ‘How did they do it?’ she asked faintly.

  He gave a smile. ‘They had good material to work with.’

  She lifted her hand to her hair, then dropped it wonderingly.

  ‘But my hair—all that frizz—’

  ‘They fixed it. There must be chemicals they use that change the hair somehow. After that, all they had to do was…do you up.’ His voice softened. ‘It was always there, Lizzy. Always. And now it always will be.’

  He dropped his hands away.

  He didn’t want to. He wanted to glide them down her arms, turn her around, lower his mouth to hers and…

  But he knew he must not. Not now, not here.

  Not yet.

  Instead, he stepped back.

  ‘Do you think they’d have put wraps in a drawer?’ he asked. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  Rico reached out his arm and closed his hand around the neck of the champagne bottle, drawing it up out of its bucket of ice and refilling their glasses.

  They were sitting at the table on the terrace, but it had been transformed from its daytime appearance, when it was usually covered with Ben’s toys and books. The parasol had disappeared, and a pristine white tablecloth had been draped crisply, laden down with silver and crystal. A beautiful floral arrangement graced the centre, and the flames of long candles in silver candlesticks flickered in the night air. Above, the stars glittered in the black velvet sky
. Out to sea, the lights from fisher boats glimmered in the dark. All around, cicadas kept their soft chorus, and the scent of flowers wafted softly.

  The meal had done justice to the setting. Exquisitely prepared and presented, each delicacy had been too tempting to resist. And Lizzy had not resisted—nor did she resist a second glass of the light, foaming liquid that glinted in the candlelight in its tall, elegant flute.

  ‘To you,’ said Rico, and raised his glass. ‘To the new you. The real you.’

  The staff had gone, leaving them to coffee, tiny crisp biscotti, and the rest of the champagne. It was a rare vintage, and Rico savoured it.

  It was not all that he was savouring.

  He took a mouthful, appreciating the dry biscuit of the champagne, and leant back. His eyes rested on the woman opposite.

  She had found a wrap, a soft swathe in a subtle mix of hues that blended and complemented the cinnamon of her dress. She had draped it around her shoulders, one end scooped across her throat. It did not quite conceal the rich swell of her breasts in the beautifully cut bodice.

  No, he must not let his eyes drift there. He wanted to—he badly wanted to—but he knew he must not. She could not cope with that. Not yet. He must take it slowly.

  Savour it.

  He took another mouthful of champagne, savouring that too.

  ‘To you,’ he said again. ‘To the new, beautiful Elisabetta.’

  His voice was liquid over the syllables. Then, abruptly, his brows drew together.

  ‘How did anyone think to call you Lizzy?’ He said the short form of her name disparagingly.

  Lizzy’s eyes flickered uncertainly. ‘I’ve always been Lizzy,’ she said.

  ‘And yet you were also always Elizabeth—Elisabetta.’ There was a sudden edge in Rico’s voice, which softened as he repeated the Italian form of her name. Then his brows drew together again, questioningly, frowningly. ‘Was it your sister who did it to you?’

  The edge was back in his voice.

  ‘Did what?’ Again her eyes flickered uncertainly.

  ‘Was it your sister who turned you into Lizzy?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she answered, puzzled and uncertain. ‘I’ve always been called Lizzy. Frizzy-Lizzy, because of my hair. Or Busy-Lizzy, usually.’