The Royal Wedding Collection. Robyn Donald

him,’ he added simply.

      He made trust sound like a precious and rare commodity, and Millie wondered if it would ever be possible to befriend the powerful Alesso. Well, if she wanted to get close to her husband, she was going to have to try.

      She tried not to get too down about it, but she could have counted on one hand the number of times she had been alone together with Gianferro, when he had teased her with kisses which had made her melt inside, imprinting his lips upon hers with sensual promises of the pleasures to come. Of course she understood that his father was gravely ill, and that there had to be amendments made to the Constitution because of the forthcoming wedding, but even so…

      ‘And anyway,’ said Lulu softly, ‘you’re off to the Cathedral in little under an hour, to make your wedding vows—so you couldn’t back out of it even if you wanted to!’

      ‘I know I am,’ said Millie faintly, and went to sit down. But Lulu held up her hand like a traffic policeman.

      ‘Be careful, or you’ll crumple your lingerie!’

      ‘There doesn’t seem enough of it to crumple.’

      ‘That’s the whole point!’ Lulu gave a foxy smile. ‘Anyway, I want to do your make-up now, so come over here and sit beside the mirror. Carefully.’

      At least she had made it up with her sister. Thank heavens. But then Lulu—for all her fiery temper—had never been one to bear a grudge. Once she had accepted that the wedding was going to happen whether she liked it or not, she had accepted it with good grace. Especially when she realised that she had the chance to be a bridesmaid.

      ‘The only bridesmaid, I hope?’

      ‘Well, there will be Gianferro’s tiny niece, but you’ll be the only adult one, yes.’

      Since then, Lulu had been over the moon.

      ‘Just think of all the people I’m going to meet!’ she had sighed.

      ‘But what about Ned?’ Millie had queried.

      ‘Ned who?’ Lulu had laughed.

      For the past month, since the engagement, Millie had been living in a ‘small’ house within the Palace grounds, with Lulu and her mother on hand to chaperone her. Not that their services had been needed for that, she thought somewhat resentfully as she stared at her bare face in the mirror. Gianferro was taking restraint to the extreme—for they had barely spent a moment on their own.

      But all that would change after the wedding, she thought, as Lulu began to slap some sticky moisturiser onto her cheeks. That was what honeymoons were for—proper old-fashioned honeymoons—when a couple got to know each other in all the ways that mattered.

      Would she be a good wife to him? Would instinct and the books she had been poring over help guide her in the bedroom department? A nervous shiver ran down her spine, and Lulu’s hand halted in its process of dipping a damp sponge into some foundation.

      ‘Now what’s the matter?’

      Millie bit her lip. ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Not worried about the sex bit, are you?’ questioned Lulu perceptively.

      Millie shook her head. She couldn’t voice her fears—she just couldn’t—not to anyone, and especially not to Lulu. If she started talking about it, then she would end up feeling—not for the first time—as if her purity was the only reason Gianferro was marrying her. And besides, there were some things which should remain private.

      ‘Not a bit,’ she said staunchly.

      Lulu smiled. ‘Pity you did all that horse-riding,’ she commented.

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘Well, isn’t there some kind of ancient ritual which demands you hang the bloodied sheet from the Palace windows?’

      ‘Oh, do shut up, Lulu!’ Millie closed her eyes. ‘Have you seen the papers?’

      ‘I thought you weren’t going to read them any more.’

      ‘I know I wasn’t—but there’s a certain irresistibility about it—like being told not to touch a hot plate in a restaurant—you immediately want to.’

      There was nothing in the latest batch of publications which hadn’t been there from day one. She had been dubbed the ‘unaffected’ aristocrat, which she gathered was newspaper-speak for someone who didn’t know her way round a make-up bag. Or a wardrobe.

      Thank heavens she had Lulu on-side—for it had been Lulu who had taken her on a grand tour of Paris’s top couturiers in a search for the Perfect Wedding Dress. The procession of garments which had been paraded in front of them had made her know what she didn’t want.

      In the end Millie had bought the dress in England—all soft layers of tulle that floated like a ballerina’s petticoats, much to Lulu’s disgust.

      ‘It looks like a meringue!’ she had exclaimed. ‘You looked far sexier in that silk-satin sheath.’

      But brides weren’t supposed to look sexy—they were supposed to look virginal and, in her case, regal. Millie knew that there were high expectations about the gown, and that it was her duty to meet them. Little girls would pore over pictures of it. They wanted a fairytale princess, and she would make sure they got one.

      ‘Surely that’s enough mascara?’ she ventured anxiously.

      ‘Can’t have enough,’ said Lulu, with one final sweep of the wand. ‘Your eyes will come out much better in the photos if you slap it on—you’ll look gorgeous.’

      ‘Especially to the world’s panda population,’ said Millie weakly, as she slid on the hand-made pearl-encrusted shoes and then, at last, slithered into the dress itself.

      ‘Oh, wow!’ said Lulu softly, as she adjusted the soft tulle veil. ‘Wow!’

      Millie just stood and stared at herself in disbelief.

      Was that really her?

      The high collar made the most of her long neck, and the beaded sash emphasised her tiny waist. Tight white sleeves ran down into a point on her hands, and the skirt shimmered to the floor in a soft haze of filmy white.

      It was just her face which took some getting used to. With the unaccustomed make-up transforming her eyes into Bambi-like dimensions, and the pale blonde hair coiled into an elaborate chignon to accommodate the heavy diamond tiara she would don after the vows, she didn’t look like Millie at all. She looked…she looked…

      ‘Like a princess,’ breathed Lulu.

      Please let me be a good one, prayed Millie silently as a servant gave a light rap at the door. She picked up her bouquet, taking a deep breath to calm herself. The Princess bit was only part of the deal—far more important was that after today she would legally be Gianferro’s wife, and they would be together, and they would learn to grow and share within their marriage. An image of his dark-eyed face swam before her and her nervousness became brushed with the golden glimmer of excitement. Oh, but she wanted to be alone with him!

      Not for the first time Millie found herself wishing that Gianferro was just a normal man, and that they were making their vows in the tiny village church near her home, where her own parents had married. That they were going back to Caius Hall afterwards for the wedding breakfast, instead of the Rainbow Palace—so vast that she felt like Alice in Wonderland every time she set foot inside it.

      Yet her two English sisters-in-law seemed to have adapted well to life as princesses—and they had both been commoners, without a drop of aristocratic blood in their veins. But they had been older, she reminded herself. And experienced. And the Princes they had married had not been future Kings…

      Millie could feel the palms of her hands growing clammy as the ride to Solajoya’s Cathedral passed as if in a dream. There seemed to be thousands of people out on the streets, and the flashbulbs of the photographers