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 were so blinding and ever-present that the day seemed bathed in a bright, artificial light.
Her wedding gown and flowers had been left to her, but Gianferro had masterminded the rest of the wedding plans, and Millie had been happy for him to do so. She understood that there were certain rituals to be followed, and she understood the weighty significance of the ceremony itself. The world and Mardivino were watching, and the Cathedral was packed with Royals and dignitaries and Presidents and Prime Ministers.
She knew that there was a small knot of her own relatives and family friends close to the altar, but she could not make out a single familiar face—they all swam into one curious and seeking blur. Never in her life had she known such a sense of lonely isolation as she began to walk towards him.
Because her father was dead, there was no one to give her away. A long-lost uncle had been halfheartedly suggested, but rejected by Gianferro.
‘No,’ he had said decisively. ‘You will come to me alone.’
The aisle seemed to go on for miles, as music from massed choirs spilled out in some poignantly beautiful melody. Millie clutched her bouquet just below waist level, as she had been told to, and there, by the flower-decked altar, stood the tall, dark figure of Gianferro.
She could not see his face—all she was aware of as she grew closer was that he was in some kind of uniform, and that he looked formidably gorgeous. But a stranger to her, with his medals, and his hat with a plumed feather tucked beneath his arm.
Now she could see him, his proud and unsmiling face. She searched the dark glitter of his eyes for some sign that his bride-to-be pleased him, and a frisson of fear ran through her. For a moment her sure and steady pace faltered.
Was that…surely that was not displeasure she read in his eyes?
For a moment Gianferro could scarcely believe what he was seeing—but it was not the customary pride and elation of a man looking at the woman he was about to marry, transformed into an angel with her wedding finery.
Ah, si, she was transformed. But…
Where were the unadorned pure features which had so captivated him? Her eyes looked so sooty that their deep blue beauty was lost, and the lips he had kissed so uninhibitedly were now slicked with a dark pink shade of lipstick. She looked like a…a…
His eyes narrowed. He was going to have to speak to her about that. She must learn about his likes and dislikes, and he detested heavy make-up. Yet his face gave nothing away as she reached his side—only the tiny pulse hammering at the side of his temple gave any indication of his disquiet—and he could do nothing to control that.
The hand she gave him was cold, but then Mardivino’s Cardinal began to intone the solemn words, and all was forgotten other than the import of what he was saying.
As they emerged from the darkness into the brightness of the perfect summer’s day, he turned his head to look down at her. She must have sensed it, for her moist eyes turned up to him, like a swimmer who had spent too long under water.
‘Happy?’ he questioned, aware that cameras were upon them, that video tapes would be slowed down and analysed, his words lip-read. A world desperate to know what he was really thinking, to hear what he was really saying. Gianferro had never known real privacy, and it was a hard lesson that Millie was going to have to take on board.
She felt the squeeze of his hand, which felt like a warning, and managed a tremulous smile. ‘Very,’ she replied. But she felt light-headed—the way you did when you’d had medication just before an operation, as if she had temporarily flown out of her own body and was hovering above it, looking down.
She saw her painted doll mask of a face, and the little-girl trepidation in the heavily mascaraed eyes. And then Gianferro was guiding her towards the open carriage—her tulle veil billowing like a plume of white smoke behind her, diamonds glittering hard and bright in the tiara which crowned the elaborate confection of hair.
The Rainbow Palace looked like a flower festival, and every step of the way there was someone to meet or to greet. Another person offering their bowing congratulations. Millie could see ambition written on the faces of the men who spoke to Gianferro, and narrow-eyed assessment from the women. Who was this bride their Crown Prince had brought to Mardivino? their expressions seemed to say.
Good point, thought Millie—just who am I?
She was beginning to despair of ever getting a moment alone with him—this outrageously handsome man who was now her husband—but at last they were seated side-by-side in the Banqueting Hall, dazzled by the array of gold and crystal.
He turned to her. ‘So, Millie,’ he said softly. ‘The first hurdle has been crossed.’
She laughed. ‘I can think in terms other than horse-riding, you know!’ she hesitated. ‘You…you haven’t said whether you like my dress,’ she said shyly.
‘The dress is everything it should be.’
And? And? Say I look beautiful, even if you don’t mean it… For wasn’t every bride supposed to look beautiful on her wedding day—just from radiance and excitement alone?
He dipped his head towards hers; she could feel his breath drifting across her skin. ‘Why did you cover your face with so much make-up?’
Millie blinked, remembering Lulu’s words. ‘For the cameras, of course!’
He had chosen an innocent country girl—not some Hollywood starlet, concerned about her image above all else! His mouth flattened.
‘You
