sunlight poured like honey into the room, leaving her dazzled and confused as she turned to her dresser.
‘Has there been any word on when the King might return, Flavia?’
‘No, Your Majesty.’
She picked up the phone. Gianferro was not answering his mobile, but then he rarely did. It was Alesso that she got through to. As usual.
‘You had a good flight, Your Majesty?’ he enquired.
‘Yes, yes,’ answered Millie impatiently. ‘Where are you?’
‘In Soloroca—it is the anniversary of the opening of the Juan Lopez Gallery, remember?’
‘Is Gianferro not there with you?’
‘Unfortunately, no. He has taken the Spanish officials sailing.’
Millie scowled at her reflection in the mirror. ‘And what time is he expected back at the Palace tonight?’
There was an almost infinitesimal pause. ‘There is a reception which is not scheduled to end until late, Your Majesty. The King gave the instruction that he may be delayed and that you are not to wait up for him.’
There were a million things she wanted to say, but she could not. Alesso knew as well as she did that the King could leave any reception at any damned time he pleased—if he did not do so, it was because he had chosen not to. His wife had been away for over a week and he wasn’t even going to bother to see her until the next day. Which told her in no uncertain terms just how much he cared.
Millie felt her heart plummet, as if someone had dropped it from the top of a very high building. She knew that so much in Royal life was never stated, that things were ‘understood’. It saved embarrassment—and presumably little could be more embarrassing than having to tell your young wife that their brief marriage was over.
But was she going to sit back and accept that?
Millie stared at herself in the mirror and her scowl became a look of fierce determination, her blue eyes glinting and her chin held high. For sure she had made a mistake—but wasn’t everybody allowed one mistake without it having such an irrevocable effect on their lives?
But she knew her husband’s Achilles’ heel—anything which threatened his strong sense of duty would be just that. He would not want his marriage to fail for the sake of his people—no matter what his personal feelings for her.
And Millie did not want her marriage to fail either—though her reasons were fundamentally different. So was she going to fight for him? To show him what he meant to her? That she loved him with a love that burned deep in her breast like an eternal flame?
Yes, she was!
The first thing she did was strip off all her travelling clothes and shower, soaping her body and her hair as if her life depended on it and then rubbing rich scented lotion into her skin afterwards, so that she was perfumed and gleaming. The faint golden colour she had acquired since living on the island made her eyes look very blue, and her hair was paler than it had been for a long time.
She chose her lingerie carefully, and a simple dress of lemon silk, and caught her hair back in a French twist—weaving into it a ribbon the colour of buttercups.
The next bit was the tricky part. She had to persuade her bodyguard to let her drive a car, unaccompanied and unannounced. She saw the furrowed lines of worry which creased his brow and sought to reassure him.
‘I don’t mean completely on my own! You can follow me,’ she told him. ‘I want to surprise my husband,’ she finished, and gave him a smile which was tinged with genuine pleading.
And of course she got her way—short of refusing the Queen’s command, what alternative did the bodyguard have? Millie rarely used the full power of her title, but this time it was vital.
If the purpose of the drive hadn’t been so crucial to her future happiness then she might even have embraced the feeling of freedom and exhilaration as the zippy little car began to ascend the mountain roads outside the capital.
This was the kind of thing she never did—it was always a big chauffeur-driven limousine with the Royal crest on the front which conveyed her to and from her Royal engagements. But this felt…
Normal.
Ordinary.
All those things Gianferro had reminded her that she no longer was, nor ever would be again.
Maybe not. But the feelings she had were the same as those experienced by ordinary people, weren’t they?
And right now the overwhelming one was fear. That it might be too late. That she had messed it up.
Licking at lips so dry they felt like parchment, Millie drove upwards. At least the way was well signposted. Gianferro had told her that the road to Soloroca had once been little more than a track, and the village itself had been rundown and desolate—but that had been before the works of the great artist Juan Lopez had been housed there, and now people came from all over the world to view them, bringing prosperity to the mountains of Mardivino.
She waited until she was on the outskirts of the village and then she telephoned Alesso.
‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘Here, Your Majesty?’
‘Just down the road, in fact.’ Millie drew a deep breath. ‘Alesso, I want the way cleared for me to come to the reception, but I do not wish Gianferro to know. I want to surprise him, so please don’t tell him.’
‘But, Your Majesty—’
‘Please, Alesso.’
There was a pause. ‘Very well, Your Majesty.’
It was a mark of how much Royal life had seeped into her unconscious that her first thought had been to clear it with her husband’s aide. For, while many would recognise her as the Queen, others might have considered her to be an impostor—there could have been an almighty fuss, and then the crucial element of surprise would have been lost.
And she wanted to see Gianferro’s first instinctive reaction to her. Oh, he was a master at keeping his face poker-straight and expressionless, but surely his eyes would give some kind of reaction. Even if there was the tiniest bit of pleasure lurking in their black depths, then surely that was enough to build on?
And if there was no pleasure? What then?
Millie quickly smoothed her hair and straightened her back. She was not going to project an outcome.
Her way might have been prepared by Alesso—for all the guards bowed as if they had been expecting her—but that did not mean there were not curious eyes in the room. Older, predatory married women, who were always in evidence around the King, were fixing her with unwelcome eyes. Millie knew that many of them were just itching to step into her shoes. To provide the King with the physical comfort a man of his appetite needed—with no questions asked and no demands made.
Did he still want his foolish young wife? Millie wondered, her eyes searching the high-domed white room whose walls were lined with the vibrant paintings of Lopez.
