DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers. Love,

Sharon xxx

The Future King’s Bride

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

GIANFERRO had always chosen his mistresses well.

He looked for beauty and intelligence, but above all for discretion—for obvious reasons. Since the age of seventeen there had never been any shortage of willing candidates for this unofficial and unacknowledged place in his life, but that would have surprised no one. For even if you discounted the restless black eyes in the coldly handsome face, and his hard, lean body, there was not a woman alive who would not long to become a mistress to the Prince.

Especially a prince who would one day be King of Mardivino—the heavenly Mediterranean island over which his family had ruled since the thirteenth century. A prince who owned palaces and planes and fast cars, as well as a string of world-class racehorses. Untold wealth was at Gianferro’s fingertips—and who could blame women if all they wished was for him to stroke those fingertips over their bodies?

But now his quest was different, and daunting—even for him. Before him lay possibly the most important decision he would ever make. He could put off the inevitable no longer. It was not a mistress he sought, but a bride.

And his choice must be the right choice.

His two brothers were now married and had produced children of their own—and therein lay the danger. There was one way and one way only to ensure that his bloodline inherited the crown of Mardivino.

He must marry.

His heart was heavy as he glanced around the bedroom he had been given when he’d arrived yesterday. It was very different from the architecture of his own Rainbow Palace, but it was still a very beautiful room indeed. He looked around him. Yes, a very English room.

The huge windows were composed of mullions and transoms and diamond panes which caught and reflected the light from many different angles, so that it resembled an interior as airy as a birdcage. But—his mouth twisted into an ironic smile—a cage from which he was unlikely to break free.

Caius Hall, an exquisite sixteenth-century house, was home to the de Vere sisters—the elder of whom he was intending to marry. Lady Lucinda de Vere—affectionately known as Lulu—was everything that he could want in a woman. Her blood was as pure as his, and she added blonde and beautiful into the bargain.

Their families had known each other for years—both fathers had studied together at university and had stayed in touch, though meetings had inevitably become fleeting and infrequent over time. Gianferro had even spent a holiday here once, but the two girls had been young then—indeed, one had been just a baby.

And then, late last year, he had met the older daughter at a polo match. It had not been by chance—but brokered by a mutual family friend who had thought it high time he meet someone ‘suitable’. Almost without thinking, Gianferro had put his defences up, but he had been struck by Lulu’s self-assurance and her outstanding beauty.

‘I think I know you, don’t I?’ she had questioned cheekily as he bent to kiss her hand. ‘Didn’t you stay in my house once—years ago?’

‘A long time ago.’ He frowned. ‘You were in pigtails and ribbons at the time, I believe,’ he remembered.

‘Oh. How very unflattering!’

But that long-ago meeting provided a certain kind of security, a bedrock which was vital to a man in his position. She was no stranger with hidden motives; he knew her background. The match would be approved by everyone concerned.

After that they had met several times—at parties which Gianferro knew had been laid on specifically for just that purpose. Sometimes he wondered: if he snapped his fingers and demanded the moon be brought to him on a plate, would a team of astronauts be dispatched from Mardivino to try and procure it for him?

Throughout their covertly watched conversations there had been an unspoken understanding of both their needs and wants. He wanted a wife who would provide him with an heir, and she wanted to be a princess. It was the dream of many an aristocratic English girl. As easy as that.

Today, after lunch, he was going to request that their courtship become formal. And if that invisible line was crossed there would be no going back. There would be subtle machinations behind the scenes in Mardivino and England as marriage plans were brokered, as he intended they would be.

In a few short hours he would no longer be free.

Gianferro allowed himself a brief, hard smile. No longer free? Since when had freedom ever been on the agenda of his life? Crown Princes could be blessed with looks and riches and power, but the liberties which most men took for granted could never be theirs.

He glanced at his watch. Lunch was not for another hour, and he was feeling restless. He had no desire to go downstairs and engage in the necessary small talk which was so much a part and parcel of his life as a prince.

He slipped out of the room and moved with silent stealth along one of the long, echoing corridors until at last he was outside, breathing in the glorious English spring air like a man who had been drowning.

The breeze was soft and scented, and yellow and cream daffodils waved their frilly crowns. The trees were daubed with the candy-floss pinks and whites of blossom, and beneath them were planted circles of bluebells, magically blue and, like the blossom, heartbreakingly brief in their flowering.

Taking the less obvious path, Gianferro moved away from the formal gardens, his long stride taking him towards the fields and hedgerows which formed part of the huge estate.

In the distance he could hear the muffled sound of a horse’s hooves as it galloped towards him, and in that brief, yearning moment he wished himself astride his own mount—riding relentlessly along the empty Mardivinian shore until he had worn himself and his horse out.

He watched as a palomino horse streaked across the field, and his eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw that the rider was about to make it jump the hedge.

He held his breath. Too high. Too fast. Too…

Instinct made him want to cry out for the horse to stop, but instinct also prevented him, for he knew that to startle it could be more dangerous still.

But then the rider urged the mount on, and it was one of those perfect moments that sometimes you witnessed in life, never to be recaptured. With a gravity-defying movement, the horse rose in a perfect, gleaming arc. For a split-second it seemed to hover in mid-air before clearing the obstacle with only a whisper to spare, and Gianferro slowly expelled the breath he had been holding, acknowledging with reluctant admiration the rider’s bravery, and daring, and…

Stupidity!

Gianferro was himself talented enough a horseman to have considered taking it up as a career, had it not been for the accident of birth which had made him a prince, and he found himself tracing the deepened grooves of the hoof-marks towards the stables.

Perhaps he would advise the boy that there was a difference between courage and folly—and then perhaps afterwards he might ask him if he would like to ride out for him in Mardivino!

The scent of the stables was earthy, and he could hear nothing other than the snorts of a horse and the sound of a voice.

A woman’s voice—soft and bell-like—as it murmured the kind of things that women always murmured to their horses.

‘You darling thing! You clever thing!’

Gianferro froze.

Had a woman been riding the palomino?

With autocratic disregard, he strode into the tack-room and saw the slight but unmistakably feminine form of a girl—a girl!—feeding the horse a peppermint.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ he demanded.

Millie turned her head and her blood ran first hot, then cold, and then hot again.

She knew who he was, of course. Millie had often been accused of having her head in the clouds—but even she had realised that they had a prince staying with them. And that her sister Lulu was determined to marry him.

The place had been swarming with protection officers and armed guards, and she had heard her mother complaining mildly that the two girls who had been drafted in from the village to help had done very little in the way of work—the place was so filled with testosterone!

Millie had managed to get out of meeting the Prince at dinner last night, by pleading a headache—wanting to escape what she was sure would be a cringe-making occasion, while her sister paraded herself as though she was on a market stall and he the highest bidder—but now here he was, and this time there was no escaping him.

Yet he was not as she had thought he would be.

He did not look a bit like a prince, in his close-fitting trousers and a shirt which was undoubtedly silk, but casually unbuttoned at the neck to reveal a sprinkling of crisp dark hair. He was as strong and as muscular as any of the stableboys, with his hair as gleaming black as her riding boots. But blacker still were his eyes, and they were sparking out hot accusation at her.

‘Did you hear me?’ he grated. ‘I asked whether you were crazy.’

‘I heard you.’

Her voice was so low that he had to strain his ears to hear. He could see that she had been sweating—saw the way the thin shirt she wore clung to her small, high breasts—and unexpectedly a pulse leapt in his groin. There was no deference in her voice, either—didn’t she know who he was?

‘And are you? Crazy?’

Millie shrugged. She had spent a lifetime being told that she rode too fearlessly. ‘That rather depends on your point of view, I suppose.’

He saw that her eyes were large and as blue as the flowers which circled the trees, and that her skin was the clearest he had ever seen—untouched by make-up and yet lit with the natural glow of exercise and youth. He found himself wondering what colour was the hair which lay beneath the constricting hat she wore, and now his heart began to pound in a way which made his head spin.

‘You ride very well,’ he acceded, and without thinking he took another step closer.

Millie only just stopped herself from shrinking away, but his proximity was making her feel almost light-headed. Dizzy. He was as strong as the grooms, yes, but he was something more, too—something she had never before encountered. When Lulu had spoken about ‘her’ Prince she had made him sound like nothing more than a title…she certainly hadn’t mentioned that he had such a dangerous swagger about him, nor such an unashamedly masculine air, which was now making her heart crash against her ribcage. She stared into his dark eyes and tried to concentrate.

‘Thank you.’

‘Though whoever taught you to take risks like that should be shot,’ he added darkly.

Millie blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ll kill yourself if you carry on like that,’ he said flatly. ‘That jump was sheer folly.’

‘But I did it! And with room to spare!’

‘And one day you might just not.’

‘Oh, you can’t live your life thinking like that!’ said Millie airily. ‘Wrapped up in cotton wool and worrying about what might happen. Timidity isn’t living—it’s existing.’

Something about her unaffectedness made him feel almost wistful. As did the sentiment. How long since he had allowed himself the luxury of thinking that way? ‘That’s because you’re young,’ he said, almost sadly.

‘While you’re a grand old man, I suppose!’ she teased.

He laughed, and then stilled, the laughter dying on his lips, and something crept into the enclosed space of the stable—something intangible, which crackled in the air like the sound of the fresh, hot flames of a new fire bursting into life.

And as they stared at each other, another debilitating wave of weakness passed over her. Millie was brave and fearless on horseback, but now she prickled with a feeling very like fear, and the sweat cooled on her skin, making her clammy and shivery. As if she had suddenly caught a fever.

‘I’d better finish up here,’ she said awkwardly.

‘Who are you?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘One of the grooms?’

Some self-protective instinct made her unsure what to say. If he thought she was just one of the hands he would be out of here like a shot. And I will be safe, she thought. Safe from that dark, dangerous look and that unashamedly sexual aura which seemed to shimmer off his olive skin.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’

For a moment a cold, hard gleam entered his eyes—a sense of the condemned man being offered one final meal before his fate was sealed. Her lips were curved, slightly open, and he could see the moist pinkness of her mouth. He longed to kiss her as he had never kissed a woman before, nor ever would again.

And Millie saw it all played out in that one, lingering look. She was almost completely innocent of men, but she had observed enough of nature to know what passed between the sexes. She knew exactly what was going on in the mind of the Prince, and for a moment her heart went out to her sister. What if he turned out to be the kind of man who played away? Serially unfaithful—just as their own father had been?

But Lulu would handle it; she always did. She had had men eating out of her hand for years, and why should this man be any different? But this man was different—and not just because he was a prince. He was…

Millie swallowed.

He was fantasy come true—virile and strong and masculine—even she could sense that. And women would always gravitate towards him, in the way that a mare always went for the most robust of the stallions. Her feelings did a rapid turnaround, and for a moment Millie almost envied her sister.

She stared for a second at the arrogant thrust of his hips and found herself blushing—terrified that he might be able to guess what she had been thinking. ‘I…I’d better go,’ she stammered.

He laughed again, but this time the laugh was regretful, and tinged with something else which he couldn’t identify. ‘Yes, run along, little girl,’ he said softly.

‘But I’m nineteen!’ she defended, stung.

‘Better run along anyway,’ came the silky response.

She stared into the dark glitter of his eyes and did exactly what he said—rushing from the stable as if he was chasing her, out into the spring day which had been transformed by the mercurial April weather. Where before there had been bright sunshine now the clouds had suddenly split open, and rain was cascading down. But at least the droplets cooled her hectic colour and flushed cheeks as she dazedly made her way back to the Hall.

Wet through, she leaned against the wall of the kitchen-garden as she steadied her breathing. But her mouth felt as dry as summer dust, and her heart was still pounding as if it wanted to burst out of her chest.

She felt as if she was a cauldron, and he had reached inside and stirred up all her feelings, so that she was left feeling not like Millie at all, but some trembling stranger to herself.

And she still had lunch to get through.

CHAPTER TWO

‘MILLIE, you’re late!’

Above the hubbub of chatter, Millie heard the irritation in her mother’s voice. It was a voice which had been trained to rarely express emotion, but under circumstances such as these, with one daughter poised to marry into such an exalted family, it was easy to see her customary composure vanish when the other turned up unacceptably late.

Millie had tried to slip unnoticed into the Blue Room, where everyone had gathered before lunch, but the majority of the guests were thronged around the tall, imposing figure of the Prince. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her eyes looking down at the priceless Persian carpet because she did not dare to look anywhere else, terrified to look into those dangerous, dark eyes…because…

Because what? Because in the time it had taken her to wash the mud and grime and sweat from her body and to dress in something halfway suitable she had been able to think of nothing other than the shockingly handsome man who would one day become her brother-in-law? Trying not to imagine what it would have been like if he had kissed her.

‘Millie, it’s just not done to keep Royalty waiting,’ scolded her mother, and then added in an aside, ‘And couldn’t you have worn some lipstick or something, darling? You can look so pretty if you put your mind to it!’

The implication being that she didn’t look at all pretty at the moment. Well, that was a good thing. She wanted to fade away into the background. She didn’t want him looking at her that way. Making her feel those things. Making her ache. Making her wonder…

‘But I’d have been even later if I’d stopped to do that,’ Millie protested, and then a dark shadow fell over her, and she didn’t need to look up into that hard and handsome face to know whose shadow it was. She found herself having to suppress a shiver of excitement as he came to stand beside them and hoped that her mother hadn’t noticed.

‘Prince Gianferro,’ said Countess de Vere, with the biggest smile Millie had ever seen her give, ‘I’d like you to meet my younger daughter, Millicent.’

Millie risked glancing up then—it would have been sheer rudeness to do otherwise—and she found herself staring up into his face, all aristocratic cheekbones and dark, mocking eyes. Say you’ve met me, she silently beseeched him. Say that and everything will be okay.

But he didn’t. Just lifted the tips of her fingers to his lips and made the slightest pressure with his mouth, and Millie felt a whisper of longing trickle its way down her spine.

‘Contentissimo,’ he murmured. ‘Millicent.’

‘Millie,’ she corrected immediately as she dragged her hand away from the temptation of his touch and met his eyes in silent rebuke, some of her fearlessness returning to rescue her. ‘Should I curtsey?’

His mouth curved. ‘Do you want to?’

Was she imagining things, or was that a loaded question and—oh, heavens—why was she even thinking this way? He was Lulu’s, not hers—and by no stretch of the imagination could he ever be hers—even if Lulu wasn’t in the picture.

She nodded her head as she dipped into a graceful and effortless bob, hoping that the formal greeting would put proper distance between them.

‘Perfetto,’ he murmured.

‘Yes, it was an excellent curtsey, darling,’ said her mother, with a glow of slightly bemused satisfaction. ‘Now, please apologise to the Prince for your lateness!’

‘I—’

His eyes were full of devilment. ‘I expect you had something far more exciting to do?’

He was weaving her deeper into the deception, and she was wondering how he would react if she said something like, You know perfectly well what I was doing, when to her relief the lunch bell rang.

‘Lunch,’ she murmured politely.

‘Saved by the bell,’ came his mocking retort, and Millie saw her mother blink, looking even more bemused.

Probably wondering how her mouse of a daughter had managed to engage the Prince’s interest for more than a nanosecond!

There were twenty for lunch, and—as Millie had fully expected—she was seated at the very end of the table, about as far away from him as it was possible to be. And I hope you’re enjoying your lunch, she thought, because every mouthful I take is threatening to choke me!

But Gianferro was not enjoying his lunch, and course after course made an appearance. The food was sublime, the surroundings exquisite and the company exactly as it should be—except…

His eyes kept straying to the girl at the end of the table. How unlike her sister she was. Lulu was as pampered and as immaculate as a world-class model—while Millie wore a simple dress which emphasised her long-limbed and naturally slim body. Her pale blonde hair was tied back and her face was completely free of make-up, and yet she looked as fresh and as natural as a bunch of flowers.

From close at his side Lulu leaned over, and he caught a drift of her expensive French perfume. Inexplicably he found himself comparing it to the earthy scent of horses and saddlesoap.

‘You haven’t touched your wine, Gianferro!’ Lulu scolded.

He shrugged. ‘Did you not know that I never drink at lunchtime?’

‘No, I didn’t! How boring!’ Lulu pulled a face. ‘Why ever not?’

‘I need to have a clear head.’

‘Not always, surely? Isn’t it nice sometimes to be…um…’ She shot him a coquettish glance. ‘Relaxed in the afternoon?’

He knew exactly what she was suggesting, and found himself…outraged. Or maybe, he admitted with painful honesty, maybe he was just looking for an excuse to be outraged. But it was more than that. Gianferro was an expert where women were concerned, and today he had seen Lulu on her home territory—and instinct told him that she was not what he wanted.

She was beautiful, yes—and confident and alluring—but her manner had been predatory since he had first set foot in her house, and while it was a quality which was admirable in a mistress it was not what he wanted from a wife.

Now she was flicking her hair back and letting her fingertips play with her necklace—all signs of sexual attraction, which was well and good. But he had realised something else, and he knew deep down that his instinct was the right one.

She was not a virgin!

Whereas Millie…

His gaze flicked down the table and he found her eyes on him. Huge and blue, confused and troubled. And as their eyes met she bit her lip and turned away, as if she had been stung.

Once again he felt the unexpected throb of a desire so primitive that it felt like something deeper than desire.

‘Gianferro?’

He gave his most bland and diplomatic smile as he turned to the woman by his side. ‘S?’

Lulu’s eyes were shining with undisguised invitation. ‘Would you like me to show you round the estate this afternoon? I mean, properly?’ She smiled. ‘There are all kinds of hidden treasures in Caius Hall.’

Gianferro steeled himself. All his life he had controlled—had chosen the correct path to take—and yet the route he had been following had suddenly become blurred. He knew that the unspoken understanding which had existed so precariously between himself and Lulu would now never be voiced. No offer had been made and therefore there could be no rejection.

She would know, of course, and be disappointed—yes, invariably—but far better a mild disappointment at this early stage than engaging in something which he knew would never work.

He knew what he should do. Walk away today without looking back—but now he found he had chanced upon an unexpectedly clear path to take. His route no longer seemed blurred at all.

‘Shall we all move places for dessert?’ questioned Millie’s mother.

Gianferro nodded. ‘Indeed. I should like the chance to talk to both your daughters.’

It was undeniably a command, and the very last thing she wanted—or was it?—but Millie knew where her duty lay, and she took her place next to him with a fixed smile on her face, trying to ignore Lulu’s mutinous expression and wondering what on earth she was going to say to him.

Or he to her!

His smile was mocking as he bent his head to talk in a low voice. ‘So why did you lie to me, Millie? Why did you pretend to be one of the grooms?’ he accused softly.

Millie bit her lip. There was no way she could come out and explain that he had made her feel all churned-up and confused. He would think she was mad! ‘Just an impulse thing,’ she said truthfully.

He raised his dark brows. ‘And are you often given to impulse?’ he queried.

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘Are you?’

He gave the same kind of almost-wistful smile he had shown her earlier and shook his head. ‘Alas, such an indulgence does not go with the job description.’

‘Of Prince?’ she teased.

‘Crown Prince,’ he teased back.

‘But you’re a person as well as a title!’ she declared.

How beautifully passionate she was, he thought. And how hopelessly naïve. ‘The two are inextricably linked,’ he said softly.

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway,’ he said firmly, ‘it is boring to talk of such things. Tell me about you, Millie.’

‘Me?’ She blinked in astonishment.

‘Is that such a surprising thing to want to know about?’

She didn’t want to say yes. To tell him that when you had an especially beautiful older sister very few people were interested in her. But he began to ask her about her childhood, and seemed genuinely to want to hear about it, and Millie began to relax, to open up. That strange and rather fraught encounter of earlier melted away as she began to tell him about the strictures of her life at the all-girls boarding school she had attended and about the jokes they had played on the nuns. And when his dark eyes narrowed and he began to laugh Millie felt as though she had achieved something rather special.

Until she realised that the whole table had grown silent, and that everyone was looking at them—her mother in surprise and Lulu with undisguised irritation.

‘What would you like to do this afternoon, Gianferro?’ questioned her mother.

He saw Lulu raise her eyebrows at him.

‘I will tell you what I would like to do,’ he said softly. ‘I should like to go and look at your horses.’

Lulu grimaced. ‘The horses?’

‘But, yes,’ he murmured. ‘I have many fine mounts in Mardivino, and I should like to see if you have anything here to equal them.’

‘Oh, I think you’ll find that we do!’ laughed one of the men.

From the centre of the table Lulu waved a perfectly manicured hand, first towards the window and then against her shell-pink couture gown. ‘But it’s raining!’

‘I like the rain,’ he said softly.

Lulu tapped her fingernail against the polished wood. ‘Well, if you want to get soaking wet, that’s fine by me—but don’t expect me to join you!’

There was an infinitesimal silence. He could read in her eyes that she now fully expected him to capitulate, to say that he had changed his mind and would see the horses another time, but he would never do that. Never. Never would he bend his will to a woman!

‘As you wish,’ he said crisply.

His displeasure was almost tangible, and Millie saw her mother’s stricken face as her lunch party threatened to deteriorate. She licked her lips nervously. ‘I could show the Prince the horses, if you like?’

Her mother gave her a grateful smile, which only added to Millie’s growing sense of discomfort. And guilt. ‘Oh, darling—would you?’

Gianferro smiled. ‘How very kind of you, Millie. Thank you.’

The easy atmosphere had evaporated and now the tension was back. Her heart beating hard against her ribs, Millie pushed her chair back, hating him for the way he was behaving and hating herself just as much, without quite knowing why.

‘Come on, then,’ she said ungraciously, and was rewarded with a slight narrowing of his eyes.

‘But you’ll need to change!’ objected her mother.

‘Oh, I’m okay—a little bit of rain never hurt anyone,’ said Millie firmly.

Lulu gave an edgy laugh. ‘Millie won’t care if she gets soaked to the skin—she’s such a tomboy!’

It was the kind of taunt which had haunted her down the years, but Millie didn’t feel a bit like a tomboy as Gianferro followed her and the room fell silent. Inexplicably—and uncomfortably—she had never felt more of a woman in her life.

At the east entrance, she opened the door. Beyond the rain was an almost solid sheet of grey.

She turned to him. ‘You can’t honestly want to go out in that?’

‘Yes. I do.’

She grabbed a waterproof from the hook and half threw it at him before pulling on one herself. ‘Come on, then.’

Perversely, he liked the ungracious gesture, and the angry look she sparked at him as he pulled on the battered old coat, with its smell of horses and leather. He stepped outside and felt the rain in his hair and on his cheeks. It was coming down so fast that when he opened his mouth it rushed in—knocking all the breath out of him.

‘We’ll have to run!’ said Millie, but suddenly she felt a strange sense of excitement. The dull, formal lunch had become something else. He wanted to see her beloved horses, and this was where she felt at home. But it is more than just that, Millie, and you know it is. She shook her head, as if she could shake away the troublesome thoughts. ‘Come on!’

Laughing with a sudden recklessness which was alien to him, he ran behind her, dodging puddles and watching as the mud splattered droplets up her pale silk-covered legs. Tights? he wondered. Probably. She was too gauche and unworldly to pull on a pair of stockings. What was he doing here, and why was he allowing this to happen? This was craziness. Madness. He should stop it right now.

Yet all the time a feeling was growing deep inside him, a sense of the irrevocable about to happen, as though his fate was about to be sealed in a way in which he had least expected.

By the time they reached the stables Millie’s hair was plastered to her skull, and she turned to him, brushing cold droplets of rain away from her skin as if they were tears, not knowing and not caring what was the right thing to say any more.

‘Why didn’t you tell my mother we’d already met today?’

‘You know why.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do. Just as you know what is going to happen next.’

She shook her head, trying to quell the glow of excitement, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. ‘You’re talking in riddles!’

‘Why did you agree to bring me here, Millie?’ he questioned silkily.

‘Because you…because you wanted to look at the horses, didn’t you?’

In any other woman it would have been a coy question, but Gianferro knew she meant it. ‘No. You know very well what I wanted. What I want. What you want, too—if you can dare to admit it to yourself.’

Her eyes were like saucers as she saw the expression on his face and read the sensual intent there, so dark and so powerfully irresistible that she shook her head, willing it to go away even while she prayed it never would. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘No. We mustn’t!’

‘But we have to—you know we do,’ he whispered. ‘For you will die unless we do.’ And so will I.

‘Gianferro!’

He pulled her into his arms and tumbled her down beneath him onto the spiky bed of a bale of hay, pushing back a strand of hair from her rain-wet face. For one long moment he stared down at her, ignoring the bewilderment in her eyes, before blotting out the world with the heady pressure of his kiss.

For Millie it was like jumping the highest jump in the world—she’d never felt such a heady blend of excitement and fear before. She could feel the muscular strength of his body, and his hands cupping her face, his lips grazing over hers.

‘Oh!’ It was a broken plea, a request for something she wasn’t aware she wanted, and as she made it he opened her lips with the seeking brush of his tongue. She gasped as it flicked inside her mouth. Fireworks exploded inside her head and she began to ache as she gripped onto him, drowning in the sweetness of it all, her body seeming to take on a life of its own as it pushed itself against the hard sinews of his. Dimly, she was aware of the heavy flowering of her breasts, and their sweet, prickling ache made her want him closer still.

With a terse exclamation he pulled himself away from her, his breathing ragged and unsteady as he stared into the sultry protest of her slick lips.

‘Why did you stop?’ she questioned, in a honeyed voice which sounded like a stranger’s.

‘Why?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Why do you think?’ And then he read the uncertainty and the hunger in her big blue eyes and relented, his dark brows knitting together. ‘Have you ever kissed a man before, Millie?’

She stared at him. So he had guessed! ‘Not…not like that.’

The dark brows were elevated in lazy question. ‘And what way is that?’

She wanted to say With your tongue, but she couldn’t. It made it sound so anatomical. As if what had just happened had been all about experimentation, and it had not been about that at all—more a great whooshing feeling which had swept her away and made her feel like…like…

She shook her head, as if that could make the mixed-up feelings go away. ‘Nothing.’

A sense of triumph began to bubble up inside him as he acknowledged just how inexperienced she was, and he pulled her back into his arms. ‘You kiss very beautifully,’ he said softly. ‘Very hard and very passionately.’ He traced the outline of her lips with the tip of his finger and they trembled beneath his touch. ‘But there are other ways to kiss a man too, and I shall show you them all. I shall teach you well, dear Millie.’

His words seemed to bring her to her senses, and she pulled herself away from him. He did not stop her. What the hell was he suggesting? What had he lured her into, and why had she let him? Distractedly, she tugged strands of hay from her hair and cast them down on the stable floor as she stared at him.

‘You won’t do anything of the sort!’ she spat out, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘What kind of man do you think you are?’ And what kind of woman was she? ‘You’re going to marry my sister!’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said heavily. ‘I am not.’

‘You are! You are!’ she cried desperately. ‘You know you are!’

‘I cannot marry her,’ he said flatly, and he reached out and captured her chin, turning her face towards his to imprison her in the ebony spotlight of his gaze, melting her with its intensity. ‘And we both know why that is.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’M GOING to marry Gianferro.’

Lulu paused in the act of brushing her hair. ‘Are you out of your tiny?’

Millie swallowed, but the words had to be said, no matter what the reaction. ‘I’m sorry.’

The eyes which were reflected in the dressing-table mirror narrowed, and then Lulu whirled round. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Gianferro, and I…we are to be married.’

‘Tell me you’re joking.’

Millie shook her head. The right thing to say now would be, I wish I was, but that wouldn’t have been true. And she had decided that she could not shirk the truth. Lulu was going to be hurt—through no fault of her own—and it was Millie’s duty to stand there and take the flak. ‘No. I’m not joking.’

For a second Lulu’s mouth twisted, and then she said, in the same voice she used to use when she told Millie that men didn’t like girls who smelt faintly of manure, ‘Millie—you may have decided to develop a crush on that cold-hearted bastard, but it really isn’t a good idea to start living in fantasy land. If you come out with bizarre statements like that then people are bound to get to hear. And people will laugh.’

‘She means it, Lulu,’ said a voice at the door, and both sisters turned round to see their mother standing there.

‘You knew?’ questioned Millie in bewilderment.

‘Gianferro rang me this morning,’ said her mother. ‘Supposedly to ask my permission for your hand, since your father is no longer with us—though I got the distinct impression that my agreement was academic. That he intends to marry you whether I sanction it or not, and that he is not the type of man who will take no for an answer.’

Lulu was looking from one to the other, like a spectator at a tennis match, a look of puzzlement on her face. ‘But she doesn’t even know him!’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘How can she be marrying him?’ continued Lulu, in disbelief. ‘If she hasn’t seen him since that day he ruined our lunch party and broke my heart into the bargain?’

‘He didn’t break your heart, darling,’ said her mother gently. ‘You’ve been back with Ned Vaughn ever since!’

But Lulu wasn’t listening. ‘Are you going to give us some kind of explanation, Millie? You’ve only met him once!’

The Countess’s eyes were shrewd. ‘I think you’ll find she’s met him a great deal more than once—haven’t you, Millie?’

Millie nodded, biting her lip, summoning up more courage than she had ever needed in her life.

‘When?’ snapped Lulu. ‘And where?’

‘At Chichester. And Cirencester. Once in Heathcote.’

Lulu’s eyes narrowed. ‘At horse fairs?’

‘That’s right. Well, where the horse fairs were being held. We didn’t actually go to any.’

There was silence for a moment, and then Millie drew a deep breath as she met the question in her sister’s eyes. Just tell it. Tell it the way it is—because that way you might be able to believe it yourself.

‘He wanted to see me again and thought we should meet up at places that I actually had a legitimate reason to visit—that it would be the best way to avoid suspicion.’

‘Why, you sneaky little cow!’

‘Lulu!’ said their mother warningly.

‘No,’ said Millie. ‘She has every right to say it. And more.’ Her voice was even lower than usual. ‘I’m truly sorry, Lulu—I really am. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and neither did he. It just did.’

Lulu gave a high, forced laugh. ‘You little fool!’ she spat. ‘Don’t you know he’s just been spinning you a line to get you into bed? Your first lover! Don’t you realise that for a man who has everything—and has had everything—a woman’s virginity is something you can’t put a price on?’

‘We haven’t…’ Millie’s words tailed off as she registered the incredulous look on Lulu’s face. ‘Nothing has happened between us, and nothing will—at least not until after the wedding. That’s the way Gianferro wants it.’

“‘That’s the way Gianferro wants it!”’ mimicked Lulu furiously.

‘I wanted you to be the first to know, Lulu—’

‘Well, thanks! Thanks for nothing!’ Lulu’s eyes narrowed again, and this time her rage reminded Millie of the time when she had been turned down for the starring role in the school pantomime. ‘You must have told him!’

‘Told him what?’

‘That I’d been…’ Her breathing quickened. ‘Did you blab about me and Ned? Did you tell him that we’d been lovers?’

‘Of course I didn’t!’ Millie cried, appalled.

‘There’s no “of course” about it! You were obviously determined to get your hooks into him, and it seems you’ve succeeded! Or are you really expecting me to believe that he came here with me in mind and changed his mind when he saw you?’

‘I don’t know how or why it happened,’ said Millie miserably. ‘It just did.’

‘Well, may I offer you my congratulations, darling?’ came a gentle voice, and Millie jerked her head up, looking at her mother with tear-filled eyes. ‘We must be glad for your sister, Lulu,’ she added firmly.

‘You just want one of your daughters to marry into Royalty!’ said Lulu crossly. ‘You don’t care which one!’

‘Nonsense! You’ll be perfectly happy as a wealthy landowner’s wife, ordering Ned here, there and everywhere—you know you will. Gianferro would never have suited you, my darling—you’re much too independent of spirit.’

Lulu looked slightly mollified, but she wasn’t finished with her sister yet. ‘And do you really think—with your zero experience of men—that you can handle a man like Gianferro?’

Millie stared at her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘All I know is that I’ve got to try.’

The Countess pushed her gently down onto a chair. ‘Won’t you tell us how it happened, darling?’

Millie knew that she owed her family some kind of explanation—but where to begin? And how much would Gianferro be happy for her to reveal?

Already she was aware of the great gulf between her and the rest of the world—one which was widening by the second. She was to be the future King’s bride, and with that came responsibility—and distance. Gianferro was not a man like other men—she could not gossip about what he’d said to her. There could be no blushing disclosures of how he had asked her to marry him. But there again, thought Millie, with a touch of regret, it was not the kind of proposal which would go down in history as one of the most romantic. No, for Gianferro it was a purely practical arrangement. She understood that was the way it had to be.

There had been a series of meetings—carefully arranged and discreetly choreographed. Silent, purring cars had been dispatched to collect her from train stations, whisking her away to various houses—safe houses, she believed they were called—where Gianferro would be waiting for her. The armed guards and the protection officers had been kept very much in the background—like crumbs swept away before the guests arrived.

Their hosts had often been strangers to her, but she had known one of the couples fairly well. She remembered the hostess looking her up and down, unable to hide her expression of faint surprise. Yet Millie knew that those meetings would not be spoken of. Not even to her mother—not to anyone—because Gianferro would have demanded total confidentiality and because the stakes were too high. What stakes? she asked herself, but it was a question she did not dare answer, just in case she was hopelessly off the mark.

There had been small lunch parties, when she’d been gently quizzed on her attitude to politics and art—what she thought of the women’s movement. Her responses had come over as quite lukewarm—even to her own ears—and it had made Millie realise how insular her life was, how little she really thought about—other than her horses.

I am being tested, she’d thought suddenly. But for what?

Yet she had known, deep down, just what was expected of her—and exactly how to behave—for in a way hadn’t she been brought up to do exactly this?

One day she’d been chattering her way through a tour of some magnificent gardens—properly showing interest in all the trees and shrubs. She’d seen their host nodding, and Gianferro’s look of satisfaction as she recognised the bud of a rare Persian rose. She’d felt as if she was jumping through hoops.

Afterwards, it should have been a treat to be shown the magnificent Andalusian horses which were stabled there, but for the first time in her life she had found she wanted to be elsewhere, not here—no matter how magnificent the breed. Alone with the tall, brooding man who was still such a stranger to her. The man who had occupied every second of her waking hours—and the dreaming ones, too—ever since he had blazed into her life with all the force of some dark and dazzling meteor. She had shot him a glance, but his intention had been focused firmly on the horses.

His manner was so formal towards her—there had been no repeat of that wild intimacy which had taken place in the stables that rainy afternoon. She found herself aching for him to take her into his arms again, but the longer it became, the more impossible seemed the very idea that the whole thing had ever happened. As if she had merely imagined it. Her increased exposure to him had only served to emphasise how gorgeous he was—yet he seemed more remote, and Millie’s confusion grew at the same rate as her longing for him.

She had smoothed her hand over the gleaming roan flesh of a horse. ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ she questioned tentatively.

‘Not bad,’ he murmured.

‘Not bad?’ laughed their host. ‘This is the horse of Kings—and this particular mare will breed you future champions! She is yours, Gianferro!’

‘You are too generous!’ he protested.

‘Yours,’ emphasised the host softly.

‘Thank you.’ Gianferro inclined his head, acknowledging the honour, but knowing that no gift came without expectation. It had happened all his life, but now it was with increasing regularity, as the time for his accession to the throne grew ever closer. These gifts were the blocks which people used to build relationships with a future monarch, just as they were willing to make their houses over to his requirements. They wanted to feel that they were close to him, but he knew that no one could ever really be close to him. Not even his wife. For to be a king was essentially to be alone.

He glanced over at Millie and saw their host gave a small smile as he correctly interpreted Gianferro’s wishes. ‘Perhaps you would both care to see the library? Before lunch is served.’

To Millie’s relief they were left alone—completely alone—and, frustrated with this no-man’s land in which she found herself, she ran across the room into his arms, unable to stop herself.

She heard his breath quicken as he bent his head to kiss her, yet she sensed his restraint as she pressed her body closer to his. But she didn’t care. Her senses had been awoken and she was greedy for his touch. For a moment she felt as though she had hit a button straight to paradise, as his mouth moved with such sweet intimacy over hers, but when she gave a little moan of delight he disentangled her—rather like someone restraining a sweet but rather over-eager puppy.

She turned bewildered blue eyes up to him. ‘You don’t want me any more?’

Gianferro frowned and quelled the desire deep inside him. How sweetly passionate she was! He was unused to such unfeigned enthusiasm, but he recognised that it was a double-edged sword. He must remember that there was a downside to her innocence, and he was going to have to teach her to school and to temper her desire. She must learn that he would always be the initiator of intimacy—unless in the privacy of the bedroom.

‘You know I want you,’ he murmured softly. ‘But not here, and not now. Come and talk to me, Millie.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I feel out of my depth, and I don’t know what is happening to me.’

‘Don’t you?’ He took her by the shoulders and his eyes were fierce and black and burning. ‘Have you not guessed why you are here?’

Millie shook her head. ‘Not really.’

It was time. He drew a deep breath and his voice was both silken and yet commanding. ‘You know that something was forged between us that day in the stable? Something I had not expected?’

‘Nor wanted?’ she guessed painfully.

The dark eyes became hooded. She must learn that introspection was an indulgence which brought with it only pain and no solution.

‘What I want is an irrelevance—it is what I need which is at stake, and that was never in any doubt,’ he said firmly. ‘I have found what it is I am looking for.’

She felt as though she was poised on the edge of a precipice, staring down into a swirl of dark clouds, so that nothing before her was clear. But Millie’s instincts were sound—and the most astonishing one was welling up inside her, even if she didn’t quite dare to believe in it. She hesitated before she dared to voice it. ‘Which is?’

‘You,’ he said quietly. ‘I am going to marry you.’

She felt curiously flat. ‘Aren’t you suppose to ask me first?’

He gave a hard, almost brittle smile. Shouldn’t he at least allow her the small fantasy of believing that she had some choice in the matter? That she had it in her to resist him when he had his heart set on something! ‘Will you, Millie? Marry me?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Your hesitation is good,’ he observed softly. ‘For it indicates that you understand the significance of what it is I am asking you.’

Millie put her fingers to her cheeks. She could feel them flaming. ‘But m-marriage?’ she questioned shakily, her heart racing. ‘Isn’t a proposal supposed to follow—?’

‘What?’ His eyes were jet shards as he cut in, anticipating her next words. ‘You imagine that I am able to offer you what other men would? A kiss goodnight on the doorstep? Trips to the theatre, perhaps? Or supper parties to meet mutual friends?’ He took one hand from her face—her left hand—and turned it over in his, studying it thoughtfully. ‘It can never be that way for me, Millie. When someone in my position chooses a bride, none of the normal rules of courtship apply.’

‘You mean…you mean you’re above the normal rules?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply, and it was not a boast—merely a statement of fact. ‘If I meet you openly it will create a great media storm—not only here, but also in Europe—and it will compromise you. Public expectation will grow so intense that your every move will be monitored and recorded and the strain could become unbearable—I have seen it happen before. And for what purpose, Millie? When I know that you embody everything that I seek in a bride.’

‘But why?’ she questioned, still bewildered. ‘Why me?’

‘The truth?’ She nodded, dimly aware that she might not like it. ‘My requirements are simple. My bride must be pure, and she must be of aristocratic stock.’

Like one of the horses they had just seen, thought Millie, with a faint feeling of hysteria.

‘You haven’t taken lovers, and that is exactly how it should be.’ His voice dropped to a sultry caress. ‘And your first lover will surpass anything that any other man could ever offer you, that I can promise you.’ Her blush pleased him, and excited him, too.

‘But why not a Mardivinian woman?’

He shook his head. ‘That would be too complicated, and I know all the possible candidates too well. There would be no sense of freshness among the women who would be suitable—and besides, my two sisters-in-law are English. They will provide you with the company you need to prevent you from becoming homesick. And your upbringing will have equipped you perfectly for the task which lies ahead.’

‘Task?’ she echoed.

He nodded. ‘English women are brought up to be independent and resilient and resourceful—and your aristocratic background will enable you to mix with anyone, to understand how a future king will be brought up. For, as my Queen, you will bear my sons.’

Queen. The word hung in the air as if it had dropped into the conversation out of a fairytale. But this was definitely no fairytale—for if it had been then surely he would have mentioned the word that every bride-to-be the world over wanted to hear. Love. Millie stared into the proud, handsome face. She did not want words of love if he didn’t mean them—and how could he possibly mean them when they barely knew one another, not really?

‘Yet still you hesitate,’ he observed softly, and he played his final winning card as he drifted her fingertips towards his lips and brushed them against the sensual lines with slow deliberation. He felt her shiver beneath his touch. ‘Shall I tell you what is most important of all?’ he questioned silkily.

‘Y-yes,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Tell me.’

‘This connection between us. It is strong. Powerful. It cannot be ignored. You feel it, too—you cannot deny it, can you, Millie?’ His eyes were lit with triumph, but with something else, too. ‘And so do I,’ he finished on an afternote of bemusement.

‘Yes,’ she agreed boldly. ‘I feel it, too.’

The blood drumming through her veins was threatening to deafen her and she nodded mutely, shivering with increased excitement as he lowered his head to tease her with the lightest and most provocative of kisses.

‘See the way you make me feel…here.’ And Millie nearly died when he guided her hand to his loins. She felt his hot, hard heat pressing against her, and some answering flame leapt up into life inside her, making her melt and making her ache. The sensation obliterated all others—including the one painful and fleeting thought that perhaps for Gianferro that was all there was. Chemistry. Sexual chemistry. And suitability.

‘Yes,’ he whispered exultantly as he saw her eyes darken and her lips part, heard the breathless little whimper she made. ‘Without this there can be nothing between a man and a woman. For all your innocence I desire you very much—perhaps more than I have ever desired a woman before, because never before have I had to wait. It shall be my body that you know, and mine alone. I shall tutor you in the ways of love and teach you how to please me as much as I will please you. You will be Queen of Mardivino and you shall have everything your heart desires. The finest racehorses will be yours for the asking. Jewels. Baubles. All the things that women crave are within your reach, Millie.’

She wanted to tell him that those things were not important, not in the grand scheme of things. That somehow he had ensnared her with a dark and silken certainty, capturing her heart to ensure that she would never be free of him—nor ever want to be free of him. ‘Gianferro—’

‘And I shall tell you something else,’ he forged on relentlessly. ‘If you do not accept me, then you will spend the rest of your life regretting it—for you will never meet another man of my equal. All men will be shadows in comparison, mocking you and taunting you with the thought of what might have been.’

If Millie had been older she might have damned him for his arrogance—but even with her almost laughable innocence she recognised the truth behind his words. Maybe she should have asked for more time, but time seemed as rare a commodity to him as privacy. She could do nothing but stare into the dark promise of his eyes, and as she did she felt her knees threaten to give way. She clutched onto him as if he was her anchor in a stormy sea. ‘Gianferro!’ she gasped. ‘Please! Please! Won’t you just kiss me?’

He hid his smile of satisfaction, for it was then that he knew she was his.

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