The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит

sat with a group of children, a shimmery white bow askew about her neck. The Pomeranian had been the consummate ring bearer, prancing down the red carpet of the small church.

      Mr. Marstand, looking resplendent in the tux he’d worn when he’d walked Betsy down the aisle, was dancing with one of Aunt Agatha’s bridge partners.

      Scattered around the large room were friends and their families laughing, talking and dancing. Her gaze settled on Cole and Meg Lassiter’s son, Charlie. Meg had mentioned that last year the little boy had been involved in Mutton Busting at the Little Buckeroo Rodeo in Pinedale.

      Would Ryan want his son or daughter to be involved in rodeo activities? Betsy was curious but not concerned. She knew when the time came that she and Ryan would make that decision together.

      “If you’re worried about the love token,” Ryan said in a low tone, “I’m confident it will show up.”

      The day after he’d asked her to marry him, the medallion had gone missing. Again.

      Ryan chuckled and added, “It’ll probably show up before some big occasion, like when we find out we’re pregnant.”

      Betsy thought about the test she’d taken just that morning. Her lips curved upward.

      “I can’t believe it,” Ryan said. “There it is.”

      “Where?”

      “Stuck to the side of the cake.” His voice was filled with disbelief. “How the heck did it get there?”

      Betsy wound her arms around his neck. “You’re so smart.”

      Ryan tilted his head. “Because I predicted that it would show up and it did?”

      “Because—” she pressed a kiss against the edge of his lips “—you said it would show up when we find out we’re pregnant.”

      “When we—” He froze. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

      Betsy nodded. Her smile widened. “I did the test this morning. It was positive.”

      Ryan let out a whoop and spun her around until they were both laughing and out of breath. And as his lips closed over hers, Princess Betsy realized that life didn’t get much better than being with Prince Ryan in the Kingdom of Jackson Hole.

      * * * * *

       The Wedding Party Collection: Marrying the Prince

       The Prince She Never Knew

       Kate Hewitt

       His Bride for the Taking

       Sandra Hyatt

       A Queen for the Taking?

       Kate Hewitt

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       The Prince She Never Knew

      Kate Hewitt

      KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon romance novel on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it, too. That story was one sentence long – fortunately, they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older.

      She studied drama in college and shortly after graduation moved to New York City to pursue a career in theatre. This was derailed by something far better – meeting the man of her dreams, who happened also to be her older brother’s childhood friend. Ten days after their wedding they moved to England, where Kate worked in a variety of different jobs – drama teacher, editorial assistant, youth worker, secretary and, finally, mother.

      When her oldest daughter was one year old, Kate sold her first short story to a British magazine. Since then she has sold many stories and serials, but writing romance remains her first love – of course!

      Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit – it’s an on-going process and she’s made a lot of scarves. After living in England for six years, she now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children and, possibly one day, a dog.

      Kate loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com.

       To Maisey, Caitlin and Jennie, who first inspired me with the idea for this story! Love, K.

       CHAPTER ONE

      TODAY WAS HER wedding day. Alyse Barras gazed at her pale, pinched face in the mirror and decided that not all brides were radiant. As it happened, she looked as if she were on the way to the gallows.

      No, she amended, not the gallows; a quick and brutal end was not to be hers, but rather a long, drawn-out life sentence: a loveless marriage to a man whom she barely knew, despite their six-year engagement. Yet even so a small kernel of hope was determined to take root in her heart, to unfurl and grow in the shallowest and poorest of soils.

      Maybe he’ll learn to love me...

      Prince Leo Diomedi of Maldinia seemed unlikely to learn anything of the sort, yet still she hoped. She had to.

      ‘Miss Barras? Are you ready?’

      Alyse turned from her reflection to face one of the wedding coordinator’s assistants who stood in the doorway of the room she’d been given in the vast royal palace in Averne, Maldinia’s capital city, nestled in the foothills of the Alps.

      ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ she replied, trying to smile, but everything in her felt fragile, breakable, and the curve of her lips seemed as if it could crack her face. Split her apart.

      The assistant Marina came forward, looking her over in the assessing and proprietary way Alyse had got used to in the three days since she’d arrived in Maldinia—or, really, the six years since she’d agreed to this engagement. She was a commodity to be bought, shaped, presented. An object of great value, to be sure, but still an object.

      She’d learned to live with it, although on today of all days—her wedding day, the day most little girls dreamed about—she felt the falseness of her own role more, the sense that her life was simply something to be staged.

      Marina twitched Alyse’s veil this way and that, until she gave a nod of satisfaction. It billowed gauzily over her shoulders, a gossamer web edged with three-hundred-year-old lace.

      ‘And now the dress,’ Marina said, and flicked her fingers to indicate that Alyse should turn around.

      Alyse moved slowly in a circle as Marina examined the yards of white satin that billowed out behind her, the lace bodice that hugged her breasts and hips and had taken eight top-secret fittings over the last six months. The dress had been the source of intense media speculation, the subject of hundreds of articles in tabloids, gossip magazines, even respected newspapers, television and radio interviews, celebrity and gossip blogs and websites.

      What kind of dress would the world’s real-life Cinderella—not a very creative way of typecasting her, but it had stuck—wear to marry her very own prince, her one true love?

      Well, this. And Alyse had had no say in it at