by Penny Jordan
Despite the fact that the rehearsal for the wedding had been meticulous, it had not, Carrie recognised, truly prepared her for the enormity of the occasion, nor for its length.
The tiara had begun to weigh heavily on her head, and Luc looked imposingly aristocratic and austere in the magnificence of his uniform. There was, Carrie felt shakily, something almost daunting and forbidding about him, and about the weight of tradition his shoulders carried so determinedly.
Her voice trembled when she said her vows, and so did her hand when Luc slipped the wedding band onto her finger.
As an eighteen-year-old she had dreamed longingly of this occasion, fantasising about it and about Luc himself, but the reality far outweighed her youthful imaginings.
Luc’s kiss was cool and brief, causing her to search his face with an anxious, intense gaze. In the courtyard garden he had been totally a man, rather than Prince and Ruler, but today, in this cathedral, he was very much what his destiny had ruled that he should be, and Carrie couldn’t help but feel a little hurt by that.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife,’ announced the priest.
Triumphal music soared and filled the vastness of the cathedral as Luc walked Carrie back up the aisle. The ceremony had left her feeling drained and somehow vulnerable. She ached to be able to lean on Luc and feel his arms holding her, but this was not just a personal occasion and celebration; it was a public one. This morning, whilst she had been preparing for their wedding, Luc had already been in the cathedral, making a formal dedication to the state as its prince, and Carrie felt that the sombreness of that ceremony was somehow hanging over them, almost casting a shadow over them.
Telling herself that she was being over-emotional, she stood at Luc’s side as the vast doors were drawn open and the crowd saw them standing together as man and wife for the first time.
The noise of cheering and exultation made Carrie’s ears ache.
Luc had given an edict that no photographs were to be taken, since he did not want the occasion to be turned into a tabloid fest of dignity-shredding publicity.
His touch on her wrist was cool and light as she was helped into the landau by the waiting liveried footmen.
Seated opposite her, since there wasn’t room for them to sit side by side, Luc immediately turned to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. After a small self-conscious hesitation Carrie joined in and did the same. The crowd’s cheers instantly increased in volume, people started to throw flowers, and by the time the landau had reached the castle it was filled with them. In the day’s heat, the blooms were already wilting.
A small melancholic sadness touched Carrie’s sensitive emotions. She glanced at Luc, suddenly needing the reassurance of a touch, a look that would tell her that beneath the uniform and the outer imposing appearance he was still the man she loved—the man who had held her and pleasured her—but was, it seemed, the whole of his concentration was on the cheering crowd.
Already Carrie was beginning to feel drained, and there was still the huge formal wedding breakfast to be got through!
As the landau pulled up in front of the castle Carrie leaned across and murmured to Luc, ‘Thank you for getting my dad here. That meant so much to me.’
Instead of responding to her emotion, Luc was frowning. Almost curtly he told her, ‘Naturally your father had to be here. For him not to be would have given rise to comment and speculation.’
Carrie looked uncertainly at him. Why was he suddenly being so formal and distant with her? She knew that this was a formal occasion, but surely in these few precious moments of privacy he could show her some tenderness? Surely he longed as much as she did for them to be together as man and wife…as lovers?
‘Carrie!’
Standing waiting to receive their guests, Carrie stared in delighted disbelief at her brother and his wife.
As she was hugged and kissed, first by Harry and then Maria, Carrie stared at them both in bemusement.
‘We flew in with Dad,’ Harry told her happily. ‘Luc arranged everything. We didn’t say anything when you spoke to us on the phone as we wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘I hoped that Luc would meet someone who would make him happy, but I never dreamed it would be you,’ Maria chimed in, smiling as broadly as Harry. ‘No wonder he was so willing to agree when I asked him to release some of my trust fund money so that Harry and I can buy the farm. And there I had been, dreading having to approach him but knowing that I had to as he is a trustee. He never said a word about you, though. We only heard about the wedding when he telephoned your father.’
The receiving line was anxious to move on, and Harry and Maria had moved away before Carrie could make any response. She looked towards Luc, who was speaking with a very elderly and very autocratic-looking man.
‘A member of the Luxembourg ruling family,’ her father whispered informatively to her, beginning to frown as he asked, ‘Is it true that S’Antander is experiencing some political unrest, Carrie? I’ve overhead a few disturbing snippets of conversation whilst I’ve been here. I feel I’ve been hopelessly out of touch with things in Australia.’ His frown deepened. ‘I even heard someone discussing the possibility of Luc abdicating, but of course I know he would never do that. This country means everything to him. His grandfather made sure of that.’
‘There have been problems,’ Carrie admitted, and then stopped speaking as the receiving line advanced, making private conversation impossible.
Jay was the next in line, looking very American today, and far less physically like Luc than he normally did.
He gave Carrie a wink as he reached her.
‘Real old-fashioned pomp and ceremony, this,’ he whispered teasingly to her, before moving on.
At last it was over. Carrie ached to be free of her heavy gown and tiara. She and Luc had spent the last two hours circulating amongst their guests, but now it was time for them to retire to their separate suits to prepare for their honeymoon!
Benita was full of breathless excitement as she shooed Carrie’s attendants out of the bedroom and helped Carrie to change.
‘Your things have already been taken down to the harbour and put on board the yacht,’ she informed Carrie happily. ‘Oh, but you looked so beautiful. Everyone said so. You looked like a princess out of a story! Everyone will love S’Antander after today, and they will want to come here and spend their money here.’
Carrie felt too exhausted to reply. Her need to be free of the formality of the day—and its equally formal clothes—was almost a physical pain inside her. She ached for Luc and for the privacy to be with him as she wanted to be. Today, despite the fact that they had been married, he had seemed frighteningly distant from her—a withdrawn, austere stranger going through a necessary ritual.
As she shed the heavy weight of her wedding regalia Carrie also determinedly shed the unwanted weight of her sombre thoughts. Soon now she and Luc would be together as husband and wife. Today had been a public ceremony in which Luc had played a public role with which he was familiar but she was not. Tonight they would be meeting on an equal footing, as man and woman, as lovers! Her heart missed a beat and then started to race with anticipatory excitement and longing.
There were to be no formal ‘going away’ photographs either, in keeping with Luc’s requested virtual press blackout, so Carrie was free to change into a pair of white silk evening pants and a soft halter-necked chiffon top, over which she was wearing a silk evening jacket which matched her pants. The outfit was very elegant and sophisticated; it was also, Carrie admitted, very subtly sexy! The ties that fastened the halter-necked top were fastened in a bow at one side of her throat. Just thinking about Luc’s lean fingers unfastening that bow made her heart flip and her body throb, suddenly throwing off its earlier physical tiredness.
There was a brief rap on the suite door and Carrie tensed holding her breath. Was it Luc?
Her spirits dropped a little when it turned out to be merely one of Luc’s aides, who informed her politel
y that Luc wished her to know that for reasons of privacy and tradition they were to travel separately to the yacht, and that he would meet her on board.
Thanking him, Carrie told herself that it was silly of her to feel so emotionally disappointed and deprived just because she and Luc were not driving down to the marina together in the same car. They would be together soon enough now, after all—and not just for tonight, but for ever.
A discreetly dressed aide accompanied Carrie down to the marina.
The elegant cafés and restaurants along the waterfront were packed, the subtle nightscape lighting installed around the marina adding to the wealthy glow of an area that thronged with expensively designer clad women and their escorts.
That S’Antander was increasingly becoming an extremely cosmopolitan place was very evident, Carrie reflected. Everything about the town seemed lighter and somehow more open than it had done when she had spent her school holidays here. Then she could remember the marina area, with its yachts and their mysterious and forbidding owners, had been somewhere one was not encouraged to go. A sort of pall of secrecy and danger had hung over the area, which had been avoided by the majority of the local people. Now, though, according to Benita, the marina was a favoured local haunt of the state’s élite, especially its younger members, and Carrie acknowledged as the car came to a standstill opposite Jay’s yacht that S’Antander now had an enviable air of panache and stylishness.
No wonder it was being hailed as the tax haven to aspire to. But that status would be jeopardised by the current problems Luc was facing, Carrie admitted.
There was no Luc to welcome her on board the yacht, as she had secretly hoped.
Instead she was met by a member of the yacht’s international crew. He escorted Carrie down to the huge owner’s suite, where a steward was waiting to welcome her.
As he showed her round the suite’s state-of-the-art facilities Carrie smiled attentively, but secretly all she wanted was for Luc to be here with her. The suite had its own private bathroom and dressing room, of course, in addition to an elegant sitting room with a private deck area, complete with its own Jacuzzi.
No expense had been spared in making the yacht a truly sumptuous hedonist’s fantasy come to life, Carrie acknowledged after the steward had left her, having informed her that cocktails were to be served on deck, in one hour’s time, followed by a special celebration gourmet dinner prepared for the newlyweds by the chef.
Impatiently Carrie paced the floor of the private sitting room. It was over an hour since she had come on board, and as yet there was no sign of Luc. The increasingly anxious enquiries she had made of the steward had not offered her any enlightenment as to his whereabouts. She tensed as she felt movement beneath her feet. Hurrying to the side of the cabin, she looked out to see the marina and the land disappearing as the yacht quickly picked up speed, headed for the open sea.
The yacht had put to sea!
Concerned, and beginning to panic, Carrie decided that she had had enough. Pulling open the cabin door, she hurried out of the suite, along the corridor and up onto the deck, intending to make her way to the bridge and demand that the Captain tell her what was happening and where Luc was.
She was halfway along the open deck, the speed of the yacht making her move cautiously in the high-heeled mules which matched her outfit but which personally she would never have chosen as deckwear, when she suddenly saw Luc ahead of her. He had obviously just emerged from the bridge and had his back to her. Relief flooded her and she hurried excitedly towards him.
‘Luc!’ she called out happily as she got within earshot of him.
The deck area where he was standing was only dimly lit, and for a second she felt merely confused when he made no move towards her, but simply stood stiffly watching her. But as she reached for him he turned his face away from her.
‘Luc?’ she protested, putting her hand on his jacket sleeve. ‘Luc…’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ONLY it wasn’t Luc, she realised immediately. The flesh she could feel beneath her fingertips was quite definitely not Luc’s! The arm she was touching was not Luc’s and her body knew it!
The blood in her veins seemed to slow to a sluggish icy coldness and she shivered in panic and dread, her shocked brain trying to catch up with the speed of her body’s instant realisation that the man beside her was not her husband.
He was turning to look at her now, and the slow chill of her blood became an instant freeze.
‘Jay?’ she protested, her eyes widening with disbelief.
A steward came up the gangway and announced formally, ‘Chef wishes you to know that dinner will be served in half an hour, Your Serene Highness. Do you wish to have your pre-dinner drinks on deck or in the stateroom?’
His Serene Highness? Numbly Carrie waited for Jay to deny that he was any such thing, but to her shock he merely inclined his head and told the steward, in a passable imitation of Luc’s cool tone, ‘The stateroom will be fine, thank you. We shall be down in five minutes.’
Carrie would have said something immediately, but Jay reached out and gripped her arm firmly. His grasp was not painful, but the pressure conveyed his warning intent quite plainly.
Automatically Carrie responded to it, waiting until the steward had gone before bursting out, ‘Jay—what is going on? Where is Luc? And why did the steward think you were Luc?’
When he made no response a horrible sense of foreboding overwhelmed her. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she could hear Luc’s voice saying that he suspected someone was behind the activists, exploiting them for a purpose of his own. Carrie felt sick and faint with the intensity of her immediate suspicions.
Clenching her fist, she pulled away from Jay and demanded frantically, ‘What have you done to Luc? Where is he? You’d better not have hurt him! You can’t get away with this, Jay. You can’t just…just dispose of Luc and take his place, no matter now many billions of dollars you have…’
Tears were flooding her voice, saturating it with distress as she went on fiercely, ‘You could never take Luc’s place. Never…’
As Jay looked at her and she saw the grim purposefulness in his eyes she was filled with fear—not for herself, but for Luc.
‘We had better go for dinner, otherwise Chef will be mortally offended,’ Jay announced coolly.
Carrie stared at him.
‘Jay, I don’t care how offended Chef might be,’ she told him wildly. ‘I demand to know what you have done with Luc and why you are impersonating him and I want to know now. Otherwise…’
The look he gave her was pure Jay, a rueful flash of immaculate American teeth that sliced his face with a wicked grin.
‘Feisty lady,’ he told her admiringly. ‘That cousin of mine is one hell of a lucky guy. You really do love him, don’t you?’
‘What have you done with him, Jay?’ Carrie repeated, ignoring his question.
To her dismay Jay burst out laughing and shook his head.
Taking hold of her arm, he told her, ‘We’ll talk about it over dinner.’
Carrie wanted to insist that they talk right here and now, but something in Jay’s expression stopped her.
‘Would you care to see the wine list, Your Highness?’
Carrie flashed Jay a murderous look as he took the proffered list with a coolly superior air that was more reminiscent of Luc at his haughtiest than Carrie wanted to acknowledge and quickly made his choice.
In any other circumstances the mere fact that the yacht had a wine cellar to choose from would have caused Carrie to marvel, but right now the luxuries afforded by Jay’s expensive toy were of no interest to her whatsoever.
She ached to have the courage to denounce Jay, and had they been anywhere other than aboard his own personal yacht she knew that she would have done so.
Surely his captain and those who staffed the vessel for him must know he wasn’t Luc?
As though he had read her mind, she heard Jay murmur dulcetly to her, ‘Just in case you’re wonderin
g—and, being you, I’m sure that you are—all my regular crew are on a period of extended leave! Their substitutes know only that the yacht is owned by the billionaire cousin of His Serene Highness, and that it has been loaned to us for our ten-day honeymoon.’
Fear clawed and raked at Carrie’s heart, made vulnerable by her love for Luc.
‘You can’t get away with this, Jay,’ she protested. ‘You can’t just pretend to be Luc and…’
The way his eyebrows rose filled her stomach with ice.
What if it was already too late? What if he had…? Carrie licked her dry lips. No. No…she would have known…felt it if Luc was no longer alive; she was sure of that. She loved him so much it was impossible for him to have left this world without her somehow sensing it!
The steward had returned with their wine, and Carrie had to wait in a fever of frantic anxiety whilst the two men went through the ritual of pouring and tasting.
‘I have taken the liberty of pre-ordering our dinner for this very special evening,’ Jay was telling her in a faked, huskily intense voice.
The steward had moved away to the other side of the salon, and when he returned he was carrying a tray with two glasses of champagne on it.
Thanking him, Jay took one of the glasses and passed it to Carrie before taking his own.
‘A toast!’ he exclaimed theatrically. ‘To my beautiful bride.’
As the steward moved discreetly away Carrie glared at Jay.
‘I am not your bride,’ she snapped. ‘I have had enough of this…this farce, Jay. I want to know what is going on—and I want to know now,’ she told him grimly.
‘The steward will shortly be serving us our dinner,’ he told her calmly. ‘Until he has done so I have to warn you that for Luc’s sake you must behave as though I am Luc!’
Warn her! Compressing her mouth, Carrie nonetheless did as Jay had told her. She was pretty certain now that whatever was going on Luc was not, as she had first thought, in any physical danger from his cousin. But what was going on? She wanted to know and she intended to know!