Royally Romanced. Marie Donovan

Auntie.” She blew her a kiss and fixed her skirt. She probably needed to touch up her lipstick, too. While lush red lips were historically correct, they did require more maintenance and she had to be careful that she didn’t trip over her feet and plant a big red smacker on her pure white fabric. The things one did for fashion. Or at least her grandmother’s fashion.

      Renata hopped onto the elevated chair at her design table. Before she could uncap her cherry-red tube, the phone rang. “Peacock Wedding Designs, this is Renata.”

      “Hi, I’ve been looking at your website and I was wondering when I could come in to look at your dresses.” The New York voice was young but confident, typical of her clientele. Brides who wanted a vintage look were not shrinking violets.

      Renata flipped through the appointment calendar. “We can see you Friday.”

      “Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”

      Renata wrinkled her nose. She’d been planning to take the afternoon off for the opening of a new art exhibit at a gallery in Manhattan. Her friend Flick knew a couple of the artists.

      Her potential client hurried on. “I want my brother to come with me, and he’s flying into town tonight.”

      Business was business, and maybe Brother was paying for the dress. “No, that’s fine. What time is good?”

      “Noon?”

      “Great.” Maybe she could see the opening after all—it started at two. “And your name?”

      “Stefania di Leone.” She had a perfect Italian accent when she pronounced her name.

      “Ah, Stephanie of the Lion.” Renata laughed. “My full name is Renata Isabella Pavoni—peacock. That’s where I got the name for my salon.”

      “I think your designs are wonderful,” Stefania enthused. “I looked in the bridal mags, but everything there is too over-the-top. I don’t want a gigantic, poufy dress, or a corset-slip that looks like I forgot to put the rest of my dress on. And don’t get me started on the mermaid style. I want to be able to dance at my wedding.” She ended in a plaintive note.

      Renata penciled her name into the calendar. “I’m sure you can find something you love. Have another look at my website and jot down some styles you’d like to try on.” She gave Stefania directions to her salon in Brooklyn. Renata wished she could afford space in Manhattan, but even marginal neighborhoods there were exorbitant.

      But Stefania didn’t seem fazed. “My brother and I will see you tomorrow. Oh, I’m so excited! My first time wedding dress shopping!”

      That could be good or bad, depending on if she made up her mind quickly or liked to browse. Either way, it was an opportunity. They said their goodbyes, and Renata hung up.

      Barbara appeared in the doorway again. “Who was that, dear?”

      “A bride is coming in tomorrow at noon to look at the dresses.”

      Her aunt made a disappointed face, her penciled eyebrows drooping. Since Renata had planned to take the afternoon off, her aunt made an appointment for Uncle Sal’s annual colonoscopy. Lucky Sal.

      “I’ll be sure to keep you posted. And who knows? She may want a little more embellishment on her dress.”

      Barbara brightened. “That would be wonderful! I have lots of ideas.”

      “Great. Write them down. Or draw them.”

      She made a dismissive gesture. “Renata, you know I can’t draw worth a lick.”

      “Ask your granddaughter Teresa to draw it for you. Isn’t she a good artist?”

      “Oh, well …” Her aunt fluttered her fingers at her bosom. “I’ll have to see … my ideas probably aren’t very good.”

      “You won’t know until you try.” Her aunt was a product of her times, discouraged from attending college and encouraged to marry straight out of high school. It was about time her aunt focused on herself instead of her family. Her family would be grateful, too.

      “But I can hem that dress. I know I’m good at that.”

      “You are indeed.” Renata gave her an encouraging smile and checked on the selection of samples she had in stock. Kick-ass. Her new bride would love them.

      Unlike her aunt, she didn’t have any doubts about her abilities. Renata loved vintage clothing, but she sure didn’t have a vintage attitude.

       2

      “OUR LITTLE STEVIE’S getting married?” Giorgio’s old friend Francisco Duarte das Aguas Santas was obviously as dumbfounded as he had been. Once Giorgio’s call from the VIP lounge in Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome had reached Frank at his ranch in the Portuguese countryside, it had taken several minutes to explain the situation.

      “Yes, she’s engaged.” It was getting somewhat easier to say the words aloud. Giorgio’s grandmother had been ecstatic at the prospect of a royal wedding in Vinciguerra, especially since his own parents’ wedding had been the last one celebrated, and that had been over thirty years ago. They had been returning from an anniversary trip when they died tragically in a car accident. Giorgio hoped his sister’s nuptials would distract his grandmother from asking him when he would make some lucky woman his principessa.

      “And to some guy we’ve never met.” Frank sounded nearly as disgruntled as Giorgio had been.

      “I’m leaving in a few minutes for New York, so I’ll meet him tomorrow.”

      “Does Jack know?” Jacques de Brissard was the third member of their trio.

      The three men had met their freshman year at the university in Manhattan. Although Giorgio technically outranked Frank, a duke with a large estate in Portugal, as well as Jack, a count who owned a lavender farm in Provence, they had much in common. Their bachelor apartment had turned into a home when Stefania had come to live with them—home, something Giorgio thought he’d lost when his parents died.

      “No, I left a message for him, but he’s traveling to Southeast Asia to do medical relief for that cyclone that hit the coast.”

      Frank made a sound of dismay. “He just got back from the earthquake in Turkey and sounded exhausted. I told him he needed to take some time off to recuperate. What is he thinking?”

      “He’s a doctor, and his patients come first.” Giorgio didn’t like it any better than Frank, but Jacques had always been single-minded about his medical career.

      “He’s going to wear himself out,” Frank predicted gloomily, breaking off to shout instructions in Portuguese. Giorgio must have caught him as he was supervising the farmhands. Frank was always experimenting with new crops in addition to the olives and grapes his family’s land produced. “But what are we to do with Stefania? She’s not old enough to marry.”

      Giorgio shook his head to decline a second glass of wine from the lounge attendant, a pretty redhead. “I don’t like it, either, Frank, but she’s twenty-four. At least she’s finishing up her graduate degree first. Besides, if you think she was stubborn when she was eleven …”

      Frank snorted. “Remember when she refused to go to that fancy prep school you had all picked out for her and insisted on going to the academy of the arts? You even threatened her as her principality’s sovereign ruler and what did she do?”

      “Called the State Department and requested legal asylum on grounds of persecution.” Giorgio sighed. He had tried to forget that little incident. His grandmother had not been amused to receive indignant phone calls from various human rights and refugee organizations.

      “Amigo meu, maybe it is time to turn our girl over to this German fellow. After all, they are the orderly sort.” He laughed, and Giorgio had to join in at the idea of anyone keeping Stefania in order.