by Penny Jordan
‘This it?’ he asked her.
Silently Carrie nodded her head, tensing as he brought it to her.
‘Five minutes,’ he warned her as she took it from him.
Suddenly, for no reason at all, her hands were trembling so much that she wasted valuable seconds trying to zip up her trousers. Why on earth was she feeling so quivery and nervous inside? Certainly not because Luc had kissed her!
‘Time’s up.’
Carrie gave a gasp as Luc yanked open the bathroom door and surveyed her in silence.
‘It’s either this or the jeans,’ Carrie warned him as she stepped past.
‘Just a minute…’
Warily Carrie watched him. An icy wash of sensation sent a sickening surge of emotion through her as he removed a leather jewellery box from his pocket.
‘You’re going to need this,’ he told her coolly.
Carrie knew what the box would reveal. After all, she could still remember the first time Luc had shown her the traditional D’Urbino betrothal ring. Then she had gasped in wide-eyed disbelief as she had stared at the huge emerald surrounded by glittering diamonds, thinking she had never seen such a beautiful and awe-inspiring ring.
Then, though, she had been a teenage girl, imagining how it must feel to have a man like Luc slide such a ring onto one’s finger, proclaiming to the world his love and commitment.
Now she saw the ring in a very different light. The coldness of the betrothal Luc was forcing on her matched the icy brilliance of the diamonds, just as the ring’s heavy weight matched the weight of oppression she felt she was under.
‘You’re trembling…’
The cool, almost mocking words stung.
‘Yes. With anger,’ she retaliated. ‘What you are doing is despicable, Luc.’
‘No. What I am doing is what I have to do, for the benefit of my people,’ Luc told her coldly. ‘But then you always were too hotheaded, too…too emotional to recognise that sometimes one has to put one’s duty above one’s own desires.’
‘It’s twelve o’clock,’ he announced, whilst Carrie was still frowning over his words.
Disturbingly the ring fitted her perfectly, but she felt acutely conscious of its presence when, five minutes later, Luc tucked her arm through his, holding her in a way that was both regal and proprietorial as he waited for the shrill fanfare of trumpets to die away on the warm air before guiding her out into the brilliance of the sunshine and the flash of the photographers’ cameras that awaited them.
Carrie heard the formal announcement being made, and shivered despite the mild temperature. The gathering crowd were cheering and clapping. Or at least some of them were.
Towards the back of the group being contained by Luc’s men, was a vociferous and angry band of young people, chanting slogans and waving banners declaring that they wanted the right to remove from the country blood money brought into it by foreigners.
In an effort to protect herself from the reality of what was happening Carrie tried to focus on what they were chanting rather than listen to the flowery speeches being made regarding her and Luc’s supposed future marital happiness.
It took another fanfare of trumpets to bring her attention back to Luc, but she still wasn’t prepared for it when he turned to her and lifted her left hand to his lips, his gaze on hers as he kissed her fingers and then slowly lowered his mouth to hers.
The crowd went wild, cheering and clapping, and the photographers’ cameras went into ecstatic overdrive—and Carrie felt as though she wanted to howl like a hurt child.
This should not be happening. It was a desecration of everything that such a moment should be. It was…
Luc had lifted his mouth from hers. He placed his hand beneath her elbow and told her quietly, ‘It is expected that we should walk amongst the people so that they can share our happiness and congratulate us in person…’
Carrie ached to make a sarcastic retort, but she could already feel Luc’s fingers digging warningly into her upper arm through the jacket of her suit.
‘Highness, I really think it would be better for you to return inside the palace,’ advised an elderly, stern-looking man whom Carrie recognised as being one of the group of men who had counselled and advised Luc during the years of his Regency. ‘Your grandfather would never have tolerated such insurgency, and I really would advise that this young rabble who persist in their ridiculous claims are punished swiftly and firmly. I recommend a ban on any kind of demonstrating in public—perhaps even a curfew. You know my views.’
‘And you, Geraldo, know mine,’ Luc returned calmly, giving a small smile to lighten the sternness of his semi-rebuke. ‘I appreciate your advice and your concern, of course, but the people have a right to express their feelings, and—’
‘If they carry on like this everything your grandfather strived to establish for our country will be destroyed. Without the guaranteed secrecy of our banking laws…’
Luc still had his fingers curled restrainingly around Carrie’s arm, and Carrie felt their grip tighten briefly in reaction to the older man’s angry outburst. But when she turned her head to look at Luc his expression was calm and unreadable.
‘I respect and revere everything that my grandfather did, Geraldo, of course. But times have changed and we need to change with them. Even our Swiss neighbours are under pressure from the EC to change their banking privacy laws. When I was in Luxembourg last month I was asked some particularly searching questions about the subject. We can discuss all this later, but for now my people wish to see my wife-to-be and to congratulate me on our coming marriage. I do not intend to disappoint them.’
For a moment Carrie thought the older man was going to renew his objections. She could see from the dull flush of colour staining his thin cheekbones that he wanted to do so, but obviously something in Luc’s expression was preventing him.
‘Very well! It is your right to make such a decision, after all. You are the ruler of S’Antander…’
‘Indeed,’ Luc agreed gently.
‘But let me at least have those rabble-rousers removed…’
Carrie saw that Luc was shaking his head.
‘Leave them be, Geraldo. They have a right to their views, after all, and to be allowed to express them.’
‘Yes, but at one of your three-monthly courts, not at a public event like this.’
Luc merely smiled and shook his head, before turning to lead Carrie into the square.
Carrie admitted that Luc’s apparent tolerance and leniency towards the demonstrators had surprised her. Was he really as open to listening to their complaints as he was implying, or was his ‘tolerance’ simply a tactical ploy?
As they walked past the guards Carrie tensed when they stiffly presented arms. It was all so overdone and unnecessary, she told herself grimly. They were drilled to perfection and dressed like toy town soldiers. But deep down inside a small part of her rebelliously recognised not just the pageantry of the display but all the centuries of history that lay behind it.
A gust of wild cheering blew towards them as they circled the sunshine-filled square, and to her consternation Carrie actually found silly, emotional tears stinging her eyes as people stretched out their hands to touch her: children, with happy, excited upturned faces, older women, small and sun-wrinkled, looking adoringly at Luc whilst their menfolk bowed their heads in silent respect.
‘May God bless you,’ Carrie heard women murmuring to her. ‘And may he give you fine sons and beautiful daughters.’
‘It is our Prince who will give her those,’ Carrie heard one man chuckling to his wife, and ridiculously she could feel her face starting to burn.
At the far end of the square, in front of the demonstrators, a line of cavalrymen sat immobile astride their immaculately groomed horses.
They had covered two sides of the square now, and were closer to them.
As an economist Carrie was reasonably familiar with the situation regarding countries which operated as tax havens for the ve
ry wealthy, and she frowned when she read some of the messages on the demonstrators’ placards. But before she could say anything there was a sudden outbreak of raucous booing from them as they approached.
‘I thought you said that your people wanted to see you married.’ She could not resist taunting Luc as the demonstrators made their feelings plain.
Carrie could see that a scuffle had broken out amongst the crowd as some of the more traditional onlookers started to object to the insults the demonstrators were directing at Luc. Some rotten fruit was thrown, falling short of its target and splattering onto the immaculate stone flags. One of the cavalry horses jiggled at its bit and started to prance restively. A small group of the demonstrators pushed their way to the front of the crowd, right behind the horses, and started to jeer noisily at Luc and Carrie.
Regally, Luc ignored them.
Carrie noticed that one of the demonstrators was carrying a small child and had put him down the better to throw something into the square. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the small boy squeeze under the cordon—and then, horrifyingly, one of the hurled missiles hit one of the horses, causing it immediately to panic and rear up at the very same time as the little boy toddled beneath its raised hooves.
Carrie automatically sucked in her breath and lifted her hand to her mouth. Like those in the crowd who could see what was happening and shared her fear she gave a shocked gasp.
Abruptly Luc released her, running swiftly towards the child and sweeping him up into his arms and safety just as the horse’s hooves came crashing down.
The crowd let out an exhalation of relief and a woman started to cry in a noisy outburst of pent-up anxiety. The child’s father, white-faced now, and suddenly shrunken, stood pressed up against the cordon as Luc walked over to him, holding the little boy.
Carrie could feel the crowd’s silence as it watched the unspoken contact between the two men. No one who had witnessed what had happened was in any doubt that Luc had saved the child’s life, and at potentially no small risk to his own.
Against her will Carrie felt a huge lump in the back of her throat. With that one gesture of rescuing the youngster and handing him over to his father Luc had demonstrated all that was best about the paternality of his role as ruler, showing himself to be just and caring and strong enough to protect those weaker than himself. This served to humble and silence his detractors.
Someone in the crowd gave a cheer, breaking the solemn stillness, and it was quickly taken up by everyone else so that within seconds the whole square was ringing with the people’s approval and admiration.
CHAPTER FOUR
CARRIE frowned as she looked round her bedroom. The bed, the chair, the chaise, and even the floor itself were covered in expensive-looking carrier bags, boxes and dress bags, whilst Benita, the young maid who had attended her earlier in the day, was standing amongst them looking both excited and bemused.
‘What on earth is happening?’ Carrie demanded. ‘What is all this stuff? Where has it come from? What is going on?’
‘It is His Serene Highness’s orders,’ Benita explained breathlessly. ‘He requested that a new wardrobe was to be sent up from Cannes for you.’
‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Carrie responded, an angry gleam in her eyes.
‘There will be much excitement amongst all the design houses.’ The maid was sighing happily. ‘They will be ecstatic to have a new princess to dress…’
And even more ecstatic at the thought of how much ‘dressing’ her was going to cost, Carrie thought grimly.
As she moved closer to the bed she could see the designer names discreetly inscribed on some of the bags.
How dared Luc behave so high-handedly—so arrogantly? If she wanted new clothes she was perfectly capable of deciding so herself, and choosing and paying for them!
Grimly she started to gather up some of the bags and carry them over to the door.
‘These are to go back to Cannes immediately,’ she told the maid crisply. At any other time the look of disappointment on the girl’s face would have amused her, but right now she was far too angry for amusement!
‘But, please, you cannot mean that. The Prince has commanded this himself.’
Carrie’s mouth compressed.
‘His Highness may command his people, and he may even command the shopkeepers in Cannes, but he does not now and never will command me. All this…everything is to go back—and right now!’ she announced forthrightly.
The maid’s face crumpled in bewilderment.
‘But tonight there is to be a grand evening on the yacht of Mr Jay Fitz Kleinburg and you have nothing to wear! All the other ladies will be in very beautiful clothes, and you will not. But you are to be the wife of His Serene Highness and it is not fitting that they should look more elegant than you.’
There was outrage as well as confusion in her voice.
‘My cousin, she is a maid at the villa owned by Gina Pallow, the American actress, and she tells me that Ms Pallow is to wear a brand-new gown created especially for her. Yes, and the other ladies will be in very fine gowns as well. Mr Jay Fitz Kleinburg—he always has many beautiful ladies on his yacht. Many, many celebrities of great beauty have now come to live in S’Antander.’
‘I have a linen dress with me. I shall wear that,’ Carrie announced unrepentantly.
With a theatrical flourish the maid stalked over to the dressing room and returned with Carrie’s dress.
‘If you mean this…’ she began disdainfully.
‘Indeed I do,’ Carrie confirmed. ‘And—’
She broke off as her bedroom door was suddenly thrust open and a tall, forbidding-looking elderly woman came in, flanked by a pair of nervous, hovering attendants.
The Dowager Countess—Maria’s grandmother! Refusing to be cowed by the severe look she was receiving, Carrie lifted her chin and met the Countess’s haughty gaze with an equally cool one of her own.
With the merest flick of an eyebrow the Countess skewered Carrie’s maid into frozen apprehension.
‘Leave,’ she commanded her coldly, then ignored her as she turned to wave her own attendants out of the room along with Carrie’s maid.
‘So—it is true!’ the Countess began without preamble. ‘You have had the effrontery to come back to S’Antander and, even worse, you have somehow persuaded Luc to agree to this farce of a betrothal. It is just as well that I decided to return from Florence earlier than I had planned. Luc is to marry Maria—’
‘Unfortunately I am afraid that he cannot—unless she proposes to commit bigamy,’ Carrie told her sweetly ‘You see, Maria is now married to my brother.’
Oh, the pleasure of seeing the Countess’s expression! Her face held shock, disbelief and fury—all of them vied for supremacy, but none of them could come anywhere near competing with the bitterness and the obvious loathing the Countess clearly felt for her, Carrie acknowledged.
‘You’re lying…’
Carrie gave a dismissive shrug.
‘If that is what you wish to believe, then of course you are free to do so. You know, I am not surprised that Maria felt unable to tell you of her plans herself. And I do believe that she feels for the first time in her life she is properly loved. All she’s ever been to you is a pawn, isn’t it? You have never loved her for herself, as my brother does, only for what you can use her for. Well, I am sorry, but it is too late. Maria is married to my brother and I am here.’
‘You do not need to tell me what you are doing here,’ the Countess claimed contemptuously. ‘You have come to inveigle your way into Luc’s bed for a second time. Well, it will not work. I cannot understand how you have managed to persuade him to announce his betrothal to you, but I promise you I mean to find out—and once I have done so…’
Carrie said nothing. Let the Countess find out for herself that, far from inveigling Luc into a betrothal, he was the one who had forced the betrothal on her!
‘I would not put it past you to have deliberately persuaded m
y poor granddaughter to become involved with your wretched brother just so that you could steal the place that rightfully belongs to her. You are not fit to hold so high a position. You do not begin to have the faintest idea of how to conduct yourself as the wife of a man of Luc’s station in life. Just look at you—the way you are dressed. Never would I have permitted Maria to wear such clothes—jeans…’
Carrie’s temper was almost at breaking point, but it was her pride that stung the most from the Countess’s contemptuous words. So the Countess did not think that she was fit to marry Luc, and she didn’t think that Carrie knew how to conduct herself for such a role, how to dress herself for the position…Well, she would soon show her just how wrong she was about that, Carrie decided furiously.
‘And what are all these?’ the Countess demanded, glaring at the confusion of bags and boxes.
‘My new clothes,’ Carrie informed her with relish. ‘Luc has bought them for me.’
The Countess’s face tightened in anger. ‘I see! You have obviously not lost any time in persuading Luc to spend money on you! How long have you been in S’Antander? One day…two…?’
Carrie had had enough.
‘It was Luc’s idea, not mine,’ she told her flatly. ‘And anyway, as you have just pointed out yourself, since I am to be his wife it is only fitting that I should be dressed accordingly.’
A sudden surge of rebellion filled Carrie, causing her to add in a theatrically dramatic tone, ‘Naturally I don’t want to let Luc down, and as his wife…’
Carrie could see how much her words were infuriating the other woman, even whilst a part of her was shocked at her own aptitude for pretence.
This unfamiliar aptitude for acting had obviously taken her over, Carrie decided, and to further infuriate the Countess she found herself pouting and tossing her head as she looked over to the bed, giving a loving, lingering look at the collection of boxes and bags she had previously rejected.
‘I just hope that Luc has remembered that I don’t have any proper jewellery. After all, when we attend this dinner tonight, on Jay’s yacht, it is important that my appearance befits my new role. I must say I can’t wait for us to be married. Our wedding is to take place at the end of the month—when the country celebrates its fifth centenary. I have heard that the crown jewels of S’Antander are exceptionally magnificent…’