The Royal Wedding Collection. Robyn Donald

      Millie propped herself up on one elbow to look at him, her hair falling all over her shoulders as she studied his face. But the dazed look had disappeared, replaced by the harder, guarded and more familiar expression.

      But Millie had seen it. For a moment or two he had been—yes, vulnerable—not something you would usually associate with him. She wondered if it was the same for all men—whether they opened up just a little and allowed you to see the softer side of them. And was it only after making love?

      ‘What was that you said?’ she questioned.

      He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

      Millie pulled a face. ‘Oh, that’s not fair, Gianferro! You can’t use your fluency in other languages to exclude me.’

      ‘Can’t I?’ he challenged softly, his words light and teasing, but she recognised that he meant them. ‘Perhaps what I said was not suitable for a woman to hear.’

      This was even worse. ‘I may have been innocent,’ she protested, ‘but I’m not any more! I want to learn—and how better can I learn the secrets of the bedroom than from my husband?’ Her mouth curved into a smile. ‘I want to please you.’

      ‘But you do.’

      ‘And I want to enlarge my knowledge,’ she added firmly.

      He gave her a rueful look and pulled her into his arms. ‘I was voicing my surprise and my pleasure because it is exactly as other men say it is.’

      Millie frowned, not understanding at all.

      ‘To make love without protection,’ he elaborated. ‘To ride bareback, as I believe the Americans call it.’ He saw her colour heighten. ‘You see!’

      But Millie was shaking her head, trying to make sense of what he was saying. ‘You mean…you mean you’ve never made love to a woman without…’ She hesitated over the word—new to her, like so much else. ‘Protection before?’

      He seemed astonished that she should have asked. ‘But, no! Never!’

      ‘Because…because of the risk of disease?’ she ventured.

      ‘Of course.’ He nodded, picking up her fingers and kissing them, his breath warm and his smile full of satisfaction. ‘And there are no such risks with you, cara mia. But it is far more than that…you see, my seed carries within it the bloodline of Mardivino, and it cannot be spilled carelessly!’

      On the one hand it was a very old-fashioned and poetic way of putting it, and yet it was mechanical, too—as if she was nothing other than a very clean vessel. Millie bit her lip.

      ‘I told you you would not like it,’ he said softly as he observed her reaction.

      But it wasn’t that. It was the way his voice had grown so stern when he had mentioned his bloodline. She realised that they still hadn’t got around to discussing contraception. He must have just assumed that she would get herself sorted out before the wedding, as everyone had advised her to do.

      She snuggled up against him. ‘Don’t you think that there are a few things we ought to talk about?’

      ‘Before or after I make love to you again?’ he questioned, his voice silky with erotic promise, and Millie shivered in anticipation as she felt the hardening and tensing of his body.

      She closed her eyes as he began to touch her breasts. ‘I guess…I guess it can wait,’ she said shakily.

      This time there was a sense of urgency, but there was a question burning inside her, too, as Millie wondered if it could possibly be as good again.

      She was still a novice, but already she had learnt. Already she was comfortable with his body, and this time she was not afraid to touch him as freely as he did her. She saw his fleeting look of surprise, quickly followed by one of pleasure as their cries shuddered out in unison.

      Oh, yes, she thought happily. Just as good. She stretched luxuriously. No. Better.

      He turned to face her, a flush highlighting the aristocratic cheekbones and the hectic glitter of satisfaction in his black eyes giving no indication of the bombshell he was about to drop.

      ‘So, cara,’ he drawled softly, ‘do you think we have made you pregnant?’

       CHAPTER SIX

      FOR a moment, Millie froze—her body as motionless as a stone—yet her mind raced with a speed which was frightening.

      She played for time. ‘Wh-what did you say?’

      He smiled, but his voice was edged with a kind of territorial anticipation. ‘I was thinking aloud, cara,’ he murmured. ‘Wondering whether even now my child begins to grow within your belly.’

      She forced herself not to be swayed by the—again—poetic delivery of his words, but to concentrate instead on the implication which lay behind them.

      She gave a strained smile. ‘You…you wouldn’t want me to be pregnant right now, would you?’

      ‘But of course!’ His eyes narrowed and he frowned.

      ‘Marriage is for the procreation of children. That is its primary function, in fact.’ He gave a glimmer of a smile which only partly defused the sudden sense of terror she felt. ‘Particularly in my case, cara

      Millie.’

      My case, she noted. Not our. But she must keep calm. She must. Obviously they weren’t going to see eye to eye on every topic, not straight away. Marriage was also about compromise, she reminded herself. And negotiation.

      ‘I was sort of…hoping that we might have some time together first…getting to know one another,’ she ventured. ‘Before children come along.’

      He pulled her against him, loving the way that the silk of her hair clothed her chest like a mantle, beginning to stroke it almost absently. ‘Perhaps we will,’ he mused. ‘But the decision is not ours to take.’

      Millie opened her eyes very wide. ‘It isn’t?’

      ‘Of course not! The conception of our child is outside our control! It lies in the domain of a power far greater than ourselves.’

      This was the moment to tell him. The moment to announce the fact that her doctor had prescribed her six months worth of the contraceptive Pill to be going along with.

      But something stopped her, and Millie wasn’t quite sure what it was.

      Fear that he seemed to have everything so mapped out? Or fear that she had taken a step which instinctively she knew he would disapprove of?

      If she told him, she could imagine him—perhaps after again expressing his displeasure—tossing the Pills away in a macho kind of way before making love to her again. And then what would happen? Well, you wouldn’t need to be a biologist to work that one out. She might fall pregnant. Immediately.

      Millie tried to imagine what that would be like—and the thought of it filled her with horror. Everything else was so startlingly new—Mardivino, being married, getting used to being a princess. How on earth could she cope if she threw motherhood into the equation?

      Perhaps she could slowly work round to it…make him see things from her point of view. That there was nothing wrong with waiting for a while…that was what most couples did.

      Idly, she trickled her finger around one of the whorls of dark hair on his chest and saw him give a nod of satisfaction. ‘It would be nice to have a little time on our own first,’ she observed drowsily. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

      She must learn lessons other than those of the bedroom, thought Gianferro. Did she think that they were to become one of those couples who shared everything, as was the modern trend? Who were together from dawn to dusk? He repressed a slight